Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing a staff Ele for the past 3 months now and have leveled my character to 80 as a staff Ele. My traits are 30 Fire/ 20 Earth / 20 Water.

My armour and weapons on the other hand are a mix of power/vit/toughness/precision/condition damage/crit damage/healing.

Was doing fine till I reached Orr. For some reason, I get the feeling that I’m not speccing correctly. For example, it took me forever to take out a lvl 80 Veteran. And if that Veteran is a ranged caster with an add, I’m usually dead.

My skills at running the Ele are average at best, I’ll readily admit.

So my questions are:
1) Is this a good trait build for a staff Ele?

2) Should I stop mixing the armour stats and just focus on Power/Vit/Toughness, to go along with my traits?

3) I’m also thinking of going D/D cause I’ve read somewhere else that this is a better solo build. I’ve tried this before, but ended up missing the ability to take out a ranged mob and a melee mob at the same time. So should I try a D/D instead?

4) I’ve also read somewhere that toughness does not really do anything much for Eles. Is this true? Personally, I find that in certain situations it gives more survivability.

Thanks.

P.S.: I only PvE. I do not PvP.

Falcon Night.4653:

So my questions are:
1) Is this a good trait build for a staff Ele?

It can be good, but I recommend you to try Arcana with the Blasting Staff and Elemental Attunement traits. You’ll probably like them, and hitting stuff will get a lot easier.

2) Should I stop mixing the armour stats and just focus on Power/Vit/Toughness, to go along with my traits?

For armor, that’s not a bad choice. Just getting your health up to 15k or so will greatly change your enjoyment of the profession.

3) I’m also thinking of going D/D cause I’ve read somewhere else that this is a better solo build. I’ve tried this before, but ended up missing the ability to take out a ranged mob and a melee mob at the same time. So should I try a D/D instead?

To be honest, there’s not much in PvE that cannot be soloed with the staff. Daggers are primarily better at 1v1 duelling in PvP. For PvE, you should be able to do pretty much anything with the staff as well.

4) I’ve also read somewhere that toughness does not really do anything much for Eles. Is this true? Personally, I find that in certain situations it gives more survivability.

For my own (rough) calculations, 40 toughness grants about 1% damage reduction. So toughness by itself will not save you. Toughness combined with vitality though, rocks.

1. As above, Blasting staff is just awesome. 20% doesn’t sound like much, but you can really really see it good.

2. Just like in pretty much every game ever, focusing on stats is better than spreading them out too thin. What stats you focus on is not particularly important(though having toughness and/or vitally in there is a good idea if you are havng trouble surviving).

3. Nah, don’t. Solo pve with staff is just fine. So is solo PvP, actually. Ultimately, use the weapon you like and not the weapon people are telling you to like.

4. Usual rule applies here as well. Vitality is better when fighting 1 mob with strong attacks, toughness gains the upper hand when fighting multiple mobs with weaker attacks. I usually run around Orr in power/precision/mfind set and power/precision/toughness set. Do just fine in both of them, but the survival difference is notice-able…sometimes(because glyph of storms on 48s cd is lovely).

I guess my advice will run parallel to the other posters. My current build is 10/10/0/30/20, though I may go back to 0/10/0/30/30 because of the last patch. I mainly stack Knight’s gear, and I’m going to throw in some Berserker’s or Valkyrie’s for my last couple exotics when I can afford it.

1. Blasting Staff is awesome. Plus reduced attunement cooldown from 20 in Arcane will let you cycle through attunements faster and let you resort to your base attack less.
2. Grab some cheap Karma armor/weapons from the WvW vendors to replace anything that’s level 75 or below. They are all Power/Toughness/Vitality, but the improved stats and armor will make a positive difference.
3. Focus on building towards more better criticals or more better condition damage. Otherwise you spread yourself too thin.
4. Grab a major/superior sigil of either battle, bloodlust, or strength (if you stack precision) – whatever you can afford and looks like will fit your playstyle. Stacks of might are your friend, so learn to attunement dance and make fire field combos to give yourself as many as possible. Similarly, invest in 2 superior runes of the water and run AC to earn tokens to buy 2 superior runes of the monk for increased boon duration, making that might stay longer.
5. Both Staff and D/D are viable for solo PvE. As you have noticed, D/D is sorely lacking in ranged ability, but is capable of downing a single enemy in just a few seconds. I carry both a staff and two daggers on me at all times and I switch out when necessary.
6. Balancing additions to toughness and vitality will increase your overall survivability most efficiently.

Thanks for the input guys. I’m going to try the a 30/10/0/10/20 build and see how it works.