Guild Wars 2

I’m still new at the game, with my work schedule right now I don’t get much time to play. I’m Lvl 16, using scepter in main hand, dagger in the offhand. For leveling as my level range, is that the best set up?

And also, what should I be putting my traits into? Right now I have 5 in Water, and 1 in Arcana, should I skip water magic for now? Any advice would be great, thanks

Generally it’s down to taste with weapons, I’ve been checking the forums since I started and when ever these topics are raised you will get a mixed response so from that I have taken that they are all viable. I haven’t had much experience with S/D though.

With trait’s I would say you are on the right path, I leveled using Earth/Water and switched Earth for Arcana around level 55 and I found it much nicer with the shorter Attunement swapping.

In regard to weapons, it is completely up to you. I went D/D pretty much from 1-80 just because I really enjoy the mobility that those skills offer, e.g. fire 3, air4, earth3. But in terms of PvE, if you happen to enjoy standing back and creating AoE fields with staff, there’s no reason why you’ll be at a disadvantage as long as you practice that play style.

In terms of traits, I think it’s worth pointing out that many of the builds you see floating around on this forum are best for endgame PvE, dungeons, and PvP, because they will often maximize survivability when fighting multiple opponents and they provide lots of stun break and condition removal options. However, at lower level PvE, you’ll find that mobs don’t use conditions or stun/daze as often as higher level mobs do, and in my experience that type of build was a waste of trait points while leveling. I went with a glass cannon build while solo leveling in PvE, mostly power and arcana. Hope that helps.

Ok perfect, thanks for the help. i’ll try out d/d again, prob get rid of water as a trait for now.

I leveled at various times with staff, s/d, and s/f. Now I think s/d is best for me. Great initial burst; bunch of things to do after the first burst.

Staff is better for group events, and not much worse when you’re solo; it also gives you permanent Swiftness really easily, which is nice. So running around with staff makes sense too.

I like D/D for PvP, Staff for WvW, and S/D for PvE.

Scepter/Dagger is amazing for PvE because it has huge AoE damage from abilities like Phoenix and Dragon’s Tooth. In PvP these abilities are very hard to land on players, but in PvE mobs are stupid and take the whole thing.

Also, in a group scenario, S/D provides really nice group buffs in the form of Might stacking. For example, the combo of: Select a group of Mobs > Ride the Lightning > Updraft > Switch to Fire > Ring of Fire > Phoenix > Dragon’s Tooth > Arcane Wave > Switch to Earth> Earthquake > Chruning Earth will result in 10 stacks of Might for you and any allies standing near you, all while doing a ridiculous amount of CC and AoE damage.

I JUST started my Ele alt and did some PvP with her tonight. I have to say that I really really enjoy the Staff. Using a power/vit/tough build for sPvP, it’s a blast. I’m still tinkering around with it and learning my skills and what combos with what, but it’s fun. I’m getting outplayed by people more experienced with their profession, but I’m also downing quite a few people and contributing a lot to team fights as well.

I’m going to do some PvE after class tomorrow and see how it goes from there, but it’s worlds apart from my Ranger as far as PvP goes. I feel that D/D is a bit too upclose and personal for me, and S/D—I dunno; I haven’t experimented much with it yet but if I remember correctly it is a bit more offensive than the Staff and less on support.

Anyway, from one new Ele to another, those are my thoughts. I’m sure I’ll be posting a thread soon asking more questions while I try out my build more, but the best advice I can give as a GW2 beta tester is just experiment and see what fits your playstyle. If you’re not having fun, you’re doing it.