Guild Wars 2

Hello,

first of all I’d like to state very clearly, that I dont think eles suck at PvE or anything. My problem is a l2p issue, so I’m seeking help.

I main a thief, have a guard as 1st alt and just dinged 80 on my ele. And guess what I usually spend more time downed than alive.

(Skip this part if you dont like storytelling/walls of text.)

Both on my guard and thief I have a wide variety of survival skills in their best dps build. For the thief it means running with 3 sigils or 2 sigils and Haste. One sigil is a stunbreak, one is a condi removal. On weapon skills I have pistol whip that provides evades and spamming it is the core move of a S/P build. So using it does not hurt my dps. With D/D I have death blossom for evades which is bad for a power build but you still do dmg while evading. On top of that you can drop aggro with CnD. For a 12-18% dps loss I can go 5/6/0/3/0 instead of 6/6/0/0/2 and get some extra dodges and HP in return. So even in glasscannon spec I have quite a few moves to sav myslef from dying.

On the guard, I wont even start listing survival abilities… still all available with the highest dps build or for a reasonable dps loss.

However on my ele… I’m usually expected to run with Scepter (+Dagger or Focus) and LH spec. There are a few alternative specs to run that build, but none of them comes close to thief/guard survival.

My problems:

All my utilities are a must to have: ArW, Conjure LH, Crit sigil. On top of that the healing skill (ArBr) is used to blast your firefields usually resulting in unwanted overheal, and therefore mostly being on CD when I really need healing. I may switch out that sigil for some defensive utility skill, and can replace ArW with ArSh (not a blast finisher, but at least triggers the ArLi trait. But this is the best I could come up with. But this is still somewhat weak, because the defensive abilities have long CDs. Even if I run with the spec that requires you to be in water attunement (5 (II-V) / 4 (VI-VII) / 0 / 5 (IV-VI) / 0) sucks. As you dont have the HP pool of a warrior, you’ll be 1shot even if you have that health regen from water traits. Moreover you spend quite some time wielding the LH that has only 2 defensive spells that are not too effective and have long CDs. The launch only effects one target, and the stunning circle only works if mobs try to go through it. So when corner zerging, it wont stun anything.

All in all, most of my time is spent in fire attunement or water and wielding LH. I have no utilities to help my survival, and only a few situational weapon skills with fairly high CDs. While on my other toons I have a wide variety of dodges, blocks, blinds, interrupts all in their best dps build; on my ele I hardly have anything. So how do I stay alive? Or what would be an alternative trait/unility choice for Sc+Hammer that can still stack some might? I also find it really hard to keep up my dps rotation. On my guard/thief I have a lot less complex rotation to do dps. And if I get interrupted I can restart it fairly easily. However, when it comes to the ele… there is no point in using your balst finishers if you missed your firefield for some reason. Also if you pick up LH and you get downed, you lose it. Again screwing up your rotation. I feel like the ideal dps rotation and surviving at the same time is only possible when attacking training dummies…

Obviously it is not the case as I see a lot of amazing things can be done on an ele. But I’m just so far away from that. After (almost) learning how to survive on my thief in 35+ fractals, I thought there wont be a single thing in PvE that will be harder. Well… I was wrong.

Is there a spec that can aid me through this learning process? Or should I just keep dying until i get the hang of it?

Thx for the help.

Just be more selfish lol. It sounds like you’re over committing to your team support, and leaving no room for sustainability. Just run something a little bit safer, and you’ll be a better support to your team anyways because you won’t be dropping as much.

I’m sure others have much better advice, though, because I barely PvE at all. Mostly I do sPvP and WvW roaming. XD

An Ele is only as good as their party members. And an Ele requires a lot of practice and a lot of patience. You have to understand a variety of different trait set-ups even if you’re running the same dungeon as you have to be able to determine the ability of your party members.

The optimal set-up is like you said, S/F or S/D with LH, normally traited 6/6/2/0/0 with ArBr, ArWa, LH, FGS and Signet of Fire. The idea is to use Fire 2 on a target, open your Fire 4 as it lands to produce the Might combo and then continue to blast through your combo finishers before summoning LH. At this stage you should easily have 15+ Might and perma-fury and continue to keep gaining more Might from the 3rd LH AA.

This build works absolutely fantastically if you’re in the right party. I only really find this works if I have 2-3 warriors and a guardian as most stuff goes down before they really start to pound you and the guard can help keep you alive that split second longer.

However we all know that isn’t the case 90% of the time. In pug situations or less DPS-orientated parties, I like to use 6/2/2/4/0. I use the same fire trait line (Conjurer, 10% more damage, longer fire fields + fury), the damage orientated traits in Air, Earth and 1st trait in Water, then I take Cleansing wave as my Water 2 slot for some extra condi-removal. I also tend not to use Signet of fire and use the Cleansing flame condi-remover instead for extra survival.

This build means I have a bit more health, more healing utilities through the water line and I barely seem to go down when running this. You may lose that extra precision from losing the signet and trait line but if you have a warrior with banner of disc and also some precision food then it’s not too bad once you get the added precision bonus from using LH and having fury on.

If this build still doesn’t work, I’ve recently started using the stickied D/F guide in the stickied guide (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-DPS-Elementalist-for-PvE/page/3#post3804898)

This is more recommended for your higher levelled fractals rather than your standard dungeon runs like CoF, CM, AC, etc but I suppose it would also be useful for things like CoE, HoTW, Arah, etc. This has slightly lower DPS than a LH build but it still stacks really good Might and because you’re not using a conjure wep you have access to all of the defensive utilities you didn’t have before like Earth 4 which reflects projectiles and removes conditions, Earth 5 which makes you invulnerable for a short period of time, etc etc. You can still use conjure weps like Frost Bow, LH and FGS but the build focuses much more on your damage coming from Air AA.

Be patient with your Ele, they are so rewarding once you get the grasp of it and really it comes with practice. As soon as I go into a dungeon I’m less experienced in then I have to swap all of my traits otherwise I’ll just spend most my time on the ground. If you’re really struggling swap to some Soldiers gear but keep your weapons and trinkets as Zerk and you should still do some good damage

Also don’t be afraid to sit back in Scepter Air if it’s a boss you can’t get up close to or even swap to your staff. A staff will benefit from most of your S/F traits so there’s no downside to equipping it throughout a dungeon for certain encounters.

I’m fairly sure I made an identical post to yours about 6 months ago with the same concerns but you do get through it eventually. I have a tanky warrior I use for some occasions and it is super easy compared to my ele but I’m not bringing as much to the table for my party and I don’t feel as rewarded for it at all.

Thats what I was thinking of, but I have no idea how to hurt my dps the least in the process.

Oh thx Grimezy, such a detailed answer! It will surely save me. Thx again!

I the recent guide I wrote I mention two builds designed to ease the learning process, check my signature

The guide mentioned above.. the one at dulfy.net… Great Ele guide. Good explanations and rotations. Only real difference in places between DKeyz and this one is keyz uses flame wall in the rotations and has pre-might stacking. I find Zelyhn’s much more fluid to follow. Once you have that method down its easier to add on DKeyz if you want because you better understand what you are doing.

I would argue that any ele player saying he ckittene LH build everywhere is either relying on party heavy support or just lying.

Its not L2P, you have 2 evades, no defenses (you have LH) and can be killed by any trash melee attack quite fast.

Most of them uses blind fields and tactics that avoid the necessity of even reacting.
Don t worry its not your fault.
I can play in both pug runs and speedruns and i know how really is.
Simply change build if pugging something harder than AC or COF or CoE.