Guild Wars 2

Hey there! I just read a lot of threads where people are constantly asking for advice on PvE for a elementalist. I generally pick up on classes and learn how to master them very quickly in any type of MMO. I consider myself a above average player. I’m shamed to admit that elementalist took me longer than any other class I’ve ever played to learn but once I figured it out PvE has become easy mode.

This build can work for both staff and S/D. I’m sure staff has a higher potential for AoE damage but I prefer S/D because they compliment each other so well.

I update my gear every ten levels. This is very important. It doesn’t cost much to update your gear. You can earn the silver just by simply playing your character and still have enough left over to buy the trait tomes. I focus on three primary stats in descending order: Toughness -> Vit -> Condition Damage.
I try to buy all armor that has Toughness and Vit because armor that uses condition damage and precision is not as useful. Then I rune the armor with Condition + Toughness runes like minor rune of the undead. The jewelry I try to find condition damage jewelry and rune it the opposite.
For traits I like to max out Earth while leveling then either go for Water for more survivability if needed, Arcane for awesomeness, Fire for more damage or Air for the bonus run speed. It’s entirely up to you, I just recommend maxing out earth first. I am biased towards earth because I find controlling the earth element to be the most awesome.
The slot skills are VERY important. I recommend going Arcane Shield, Lightning Flash, Armor of Earth and Ill explain why when I get to the strategy.
The elite skill really doesn’t matter. In my opinion they all suck haha. I switch them up. If I have to take down a lot of objects I usually use firey greatsword to speed things up. I use tornado for the Lols and elemental if I’m soloing a champion.

I strongly believe building tanky is the right way to go. You are probably thinking Ugh, I don’t want to play a caster to be a tank. I want to kill things fast. I assure you things die very fast. Lets get down to the strategy and pro-tips.

Strategy # 1 -> Start in earth. If you are working on a heart that involves killing something in a enemy camp start by casting Rock Barrier. If you have the right gear this will put your armor higher than most warriors. Then run around a large area and get everythings attention with Stone shards. Start small first but once you get use to it you can easily handle 10+ monsters as early as level 20. Try to pull as few archers as possible. When they are all round up start casting my favorite all time spell….. Churning Earth. As soon as its channeling cast Arcane Shield, this with your toughness will guarantee survival. When it goes off follow up with a back roll and Dust Devil or a Earthquake. A single Churning Earth has killed every group of monsters I’ve pulled except Ettin all the way until level 60, even specced as a tank. If somehow something didnt die you can either switch to fire and drop some AoE or pick them off with your auto attack while moving.
Pro Tip #1 – If you are working on a event and there are monsters charging at you or you see a large cluster of monsters in one spot start casting Churning Earth then when its about finished use Lightning Flash to teleport in the midst of the group. Lightning Flash does not stop Churning earth from channeling.
Pro Tip #2 – If you are fighting monsters that use heavy interrupts and knockbacks instead of using Arcane Shield, use armor of earth. Also use armor of earth when arcane shield is on cooldown. When you get the timing right you wont need to use either.

Strategy#2 -> Use this when inbetween Churning earth cooldowns. Start with earth and cast the armor. Pull like before with the auto attack. When they are clustered switch to fire. Drop ring of fire followed by a Phoenix INSIDE the ring of fire for might stacks. Then use Fire grab and switch to lightning. Use Lightning strike on whatever you are targeting. Its instant, may as well. Then use ride the lightning into the group and updraft to get away safely. If they are still not dead switch back to fire or to water for shatterstone. This strategy requires alot more button pushing but in my opinion its reward watching all the elements come into play.
Pro Tip# 1 -> Using a Phoenix inside Ring of Fire grants might stacks.
Pro Tip# 2 -> Strafing in a circle around your clusters enemies avoids a lot of damage.

Strategy #3 -> If you are in a camp with a lot of ranged monsters its better to single target them down. Start in fire, cast a dragon’s tooth. Then shoot a phoenix at them. Cast 1, ring of fire, fire grab. Switch to lightning and finish off. Try to bundle a lot of melee monsters up to 1 ranged guy.

A elementalist build to tank can solo a champion that isn’t a archer. I’m sure he can solo a archer champion with staff since they have several projectile destroying abilities but I try not to solo champions because its a long and arduous task. Basically just start with earth and circle strafe a champion while using your auto attack. If it looks like he might hit you cast Dust Devil. If you need breathing room you can ride the lightning away from him. This works better with + run speed but its not required once you learn how to circle strafe. Alternate between Earthquake (if it effects him) Dust Devil Arcane shield and Armor of Earth if it looks like you’re going to be hit. Lightning flash also gives you breathing room.

Good luck and I hope that helps!

Drop Lightning Flash right now.
Drop it.

Pick up Glyph of Storms.

Cast it in Earth before Churning Earth.

Press enter.

Type: /Dance

Pick up loot.

Repeat.

Nice guide/tips.. didn’t know that you could Lighting Flash into a group while casting Churning Earth..

+1

Lightning Flash is 100000x better than Glyph of storms, sorry.
It has a much faster cooldown, it breaks stun, it’s more versatile and it has no cast time.
It’s also a cantrip, so if you go the fire or water route you can get regeneration or might after using it.

Glyph of Storms is decent damage, bleeds, AND blinds while in Earth.

While being better then Lightning Flash is debatable, I use Storms over Flash.

I have my build set to give me Might, Regeneration, and Vigor when I activate Cantrips. Personally, I believe Arcane shield to be a waste of a skill slot if you’ve got your traits set in Arcana and get Final Shielding, however that’s a different topic for a different time. While we’re on the subject of cantrips though, since you like toughness and condition damage so much I’m assuming you pumped Earth trait points, if you get Earth Shield it’ll pop an earth shield at 50% HP which counts as a cantrip, which will grant you a nice power-up when it triggers due to water/fire traits. (If you have them)

Lightning flash is more of a one-time use thing of anything, and in sacrificing Glyph of Storms you sacrifice a source of solid AoE damage. When used in earth it causes blindness, which means that you’ll take a bit less damage. It’s defensive as well as offensive, and in combination with Churning Earth can cause good damage. This and what’s in my first paragraph appeal to me more because instead of using two of my skill slots on utilities I can instead get things that allow me more damage while still maintaining around the same defensive capabilities with my Earth/Arcane traits. I can also use Cleansing Fire as I switch to fire to cause a burn followed by Fire Grab for nice damage. With a Scepter I could leap back and launch a Pheonix/Dragon Tooth combo or with my Dagger I could use Ring of Fire then Burning Speed away followed by Drake’s Breath then switch back to Earth for another Earth Spike (the Dagger 2 skill’s name escapes me I’m afraid.)

For PvE I’ve been using D/D lately, it’s got great power and allows me to get off a nice amount of AoEs while giving me a lot of stacks of bleed. However S/D is still viable with the way I play, it offers longer range and a bit better support on water, but for PvE D/D seems superior offensively since most mobs will come close anyway. S/D seems more suited to PvP and bosses.

Anyway… point is, as nice as your tactics are it seems as if it isn’t worth sacrificing more damage just to ensure a Churning Earth when in most cases you’ll get it off anyway. With S/D you’ll have to switch out your attunement because once you use 4 and 5 that’s it, you only have single target attacks. However, with Glyph of Storms you get some nice AoE damage output and a nice side effect, which means when you do switch out you’ll get more damage on top of what you’d do otherwise.

It has a 60 second cooldown and like a two second cast. This is PvE. It’s fast paced. It also offers nothing from traits until you spec into glyphs which is pointless. Armor of Earth is also a cantrip and also benefits from cantrip traits if you go that route. Considering a single churning earth is enough to kill a group of monsters the extra damage isn’t really needed. Since it also has a long cast there is a good chance you will be knocked down or interrupted unless you pop arcane shield or armor of earth, which makes casting it pointless since those are for churning earth.

What mobs do you fight? It’ll usually take more than just one Churning Earth to kill the stuff in the 70+ areas, even if you’re heavily focused on Condition Damage. Armor of Earth will trigger if you have it in your Earth Traits as well, while you may not get the benefit of it or the boons immediately it’ll still be there for use, and if you really want you can open with Cleansing Fire to trigger the boons then Churning Earth. You maintain a defensive shield for later use while still getting the boon buff you wanted, with little loss since you can burn foes with things other than Cleansing Fire.

I don’t see how more damage while applying debuffs to foes is pointless, but I guess we just think differently.

Like I said in my opening post it one shots things until level 60. This is a guide for leveling and honestly if you can’t figure out how to play the class by level 60 maybe its just not for you. I find survival to be far more important than a 2 second cast 60 second cooldown mediocre damage CC spell, especially since I have enough damage to already finish off the monsters with no downtime, but that’s just me.

I never said survival isn’t important, I simply said that you can achieve similar results in survivability without sacrificing so much offensive power. 10 Earth is enough for Earth Shield to trigger at 50% HP, which is a cantrip meaning you benefit from the boons of Fire and Water traits (if you’re built that way). This removes the need to have it on your skill slot. If you’re fighting mobs that can knock you down, knock them down first with Dagger 4 then channel Churning Earth. Or if you absolutely can’t get the time you’ll have Glyph of Storms as a source of more damage since it’s a quick cast and you’ll be able to get it off easier than a Churning Earth. The blind is just a bonus.

If you want to sacrifice offensive power needlessly then that’s your deal, but the way I see it you could use the traits I mentioned earlier since most Elementalists will have enough invested in the respective traits to get the Trait Skills required. You’ll have roughly the same defense, only it’ll trigger at certain HP instead of being used up all at the start while giving you a lot more firepower to play with.

If you get interrupted on churning earth it goes on full cooldown. I do use Earth shield to trigger at 50% but not for security in casting Churning Earth. I don’t want to start channeling it when I hit 50%. The higher you get the more common enemies initiate with a daze or knockdown skill. If you pull a group and start with churning earth and they knock you down things are going to get unnecessarily messy. If you pop Earth shield immediately after beginning the channel for Churning earth there is no chance it gets interrupted. I use the 50% one as a oh-crap button. I also generally switch it out for a more damaging earth trait if things are going smoothly. If I pull a group of knockdown guys and start with Glyph of storms I’m going to get knocked down before it goes off. It does have a cast time. The entire purpose of using both arcane shield and earth shield is you never have to cast churning earth without at least one of them. Lightning flash is there for different situations. I just find glyph of storms a completely purposeless ability, but its fine. The arguments are there. People can choose for themselves.

Churning Earth’s full cooldown upon interruption is a bug, which will be fixed later on. (Most likely, from what I can tell.) Aside from that you can still knock your enemies down first if need be, that way you can get Churning Earth off. Of course, if you don’t know they knock down and you get interrupted using Glyph of Storms will serve as a good substitute, that way if your main damage gets interrupted you’re not completely SoL. Relying on one thing is asking for trouble, especially as an Elementalist.

Personally wasting my shields just to get a skill of when there are plenty of quick-cast skills (and yes, Storms may have a channel time but it’s far quicker than Churning Earth) that can be used without them. You use up everything at once to land one or two attacks then you’re left with no defensive options aside from, well.. what I’d be able to do without even having Arcane or Earth Shield on my slot keys. Sure, you’re assured a Churning Earth, but you still lose out on offensive power in most cases for little gain. Yeah, you get CH off on knockdown mobs but not all mobs knock you down, so you’ll be losing out against a wide variety of mobs.

We obviously have very different playstyles and use our skills differently, what suits one won’t suit the other.. but as long as you’re having fun I suppose it doesn’t really matter.

After second deleted elementalist (nerves =) ) I try one more char. I’ve seen topics about condition build in PvE (only effective build etc). But when I try condition build, I kill mobs so slow (even at WWW with ~1500 condition damage). And here OP says about fast killing in condition build at low-mid levels. So a question – is somewhere a video of PvE gameplay in condition build? I’ve found only old PvP movies at youtube.

Sorry no. I don’t make videos. If Churning Earth alone doesn’t kill every monster around you within 2-3 seconds then either you are doing something entirely wrong or you are just fighting way too strong of monsters.

Pro pve tip

Gather ball of mobs
Earth glyph of stroms
Stand in the middle of them and nuke down.

There is only one right way to do PvE in any game. You build just enough survivability to never die, and then go pure DPS. Unless you prefer to just play slowly and lazily which is fine if its fun to you. But AI is so predictable that there is no reason to over protect against it, just know its exact maximum potential and your skill, build to always just barely survive and then the rest goes into letting you kill them faster.