Guild Wars 2

Just started an ele there,but having trouble levelling him up (seems to be a common problem)
So what weapons/skills/traits should I start off with to get him to a higher level where I can go with a build I like?

I had trouble staying alive at first, so I started dumping points in to Earth, and geared for some healing, vit and a little power. By level 25, when gear was starting to get somewhat manageable and lots were now available (variety of trinkets etc), From there, I respecced and went to water and stacked toughness through gear instead. As you level, you need less and less actual healing gear, and don’t need any toughness traits, but, you will get the feel of it as you level and base it on how much damage you’re taking on average.

I tried S/D at first because many articles on leveling the ele recommended it, but honestly, I think Scepter is terrible. You will find that your biggest attack with scepter (that goofy fiery tooth) missing so many times because of enemies moving around. You are def better off with D/D or staff, trust me. Th idea of d/d to a new ele seems like suicide because it’s such a short range, but with some toughness, vit, and the enormous amounts of healing and defensive abilities/traits you get, it’s actually a very tanky set up. Unless I am up against more than 2 enemies at a time or a champ, I don’t even bother dodging anything. lol

By level 40,if you have all toughness in your trinkets, and a couple pieces of armor, then go all power, condition, vit, you will be pretty solid. Make sure you have at least 20 points in to water for some regen abilities and condition removal, and from there, you can play around with other point distributions.

Here are my tips.

Learn to dodge – very important. A lot of people do not do this often in the beginning and having trouble staying alive.

Initial lv tips:

Whatever you pit as traits till lv 40 it will make a BIG difference especially around 20-25.
I uses 3 trait lined – air, earth and arcana. Air gives 100 precision with 10 trait points, earth gives 100 condition damage and 100 toughness.
In the beginning air will scale your critical chance very good you you might want to begin with that to have some free +50% damage and up from crits. Killing faster lowers incoming damage.

Earth is also good choice – condition damage is good but it is sustained damage and you need to kite a bit.

Arcana – elemental attunement is very useful. With it when you switch to earth you get protection so you can get some hits safely for few seconds.

Adept Traits – Air – glyph recharge -20% is quite nice as your first healing spell is glyph
Earth – armor of earth will add survivability when things get out of hand.
Arcana – elemental attunement. – A must basically. Swapping to earth provides protection so good to soak up damage.

My choices – first invest 10 points in air. Then 10 in Earth and Arcana last. Then you are lv 40 and you can unlock the second line.

Early utility skills – do not bother with healing as of yet. Ether renewal is good but you need to have skill that negates damage when you cast it to prevent interrupts when needed. Besides casting the default heal while in water gives regeneration and while in earth gives protection which is really attractive until you get more skills.

So my choices – Arcane shield. Very nice and you can activate it when channeling other spell like churning earth.
Glyph of elemental power – You can cast it while on file attunement then switch to earth to add some bleeds and chance for burning from the glyph.
Signet of fire – along will air trait early levels it gives pretty nice crit chance.
Line 2 – Glyph of lesser elemental. Adds survivability a lot. Ice and Earth elementals are very nice.

The rest of skills are your choice. A lot of skills may appear weak but you must use them in combos to synergize with other skills like – Arcane wave can be cast in fire fields to give might or in water for aoe heals. It can also be cast while chanelling so combining with Churning earth from offhand dagger is nice.

Glyph of storms casted in earth attunement gives steady AOE blind.

Skip the third line and go for the Glyph of elementals. You will return to that line later.
At some point take Tornado – used underwater for whirlpool version. In order to avoid damage with it – cast some utility skill like armor if earth if you have it. OR Arcane shield. Activate the skill and begin to strafe to one direction AND around the targets. This skill can be taken later on.

Gear – stats do not matter much until like lv 50-60. BUT take armor with stats that you do not have as traits whenever you can – e.g. Vitality, power… You will often swap gear so do not try to build gear stats too much. Avoid healing power – you cannot scale it that much to make a difference and it will impact the DPS.

Weapon stat choices – Always on the offensive! Power, condition damage, precision. You will swap gear more often than weapons.

More generic tips :

Bring all weapons all the time – two daggers, scepter, focus and staff. Swap then once in a while and of course unlocking all their skills as well as underwater skills is top priority.

My favourite – Scepter/Dagger – it has two blinds, protection, ride the lightning and updraft – all good for CC. A sample chain – fire field->Dragon tooth->Earthquake->Churning earth. Use Arcane shield while casting Churning earth for avoiding damage. If you have trouble landing dragon tooth on melee mobs run back and forward with evade For ranged targets get close before casting ring of fire (range will not matter with those mobs).

Dagger/Dagger – very enjoying but you need to be quite mobile. You are like a bouncing ball with those.

Focus- it sacrifices DPS for protection. Use it while in groups and having trouble staying alive. You can cast flame wall under the feet of targets when other engage them, you can negate projectiles, reflect them and have 4 seconds of invulnerability.
I haven’t used it much.

In any way you need to get used to crowd control. Staff provides a lot of CC to keep enemies at bay.

Do not fear to jump to foes. Use utility skills to avoid damage.

Experiment – I never stayed too long with single weapon set. Swap them, experiment with combos. If you feel you are getting hit too often, chance tactics, weapons and/or utility skills. Those can make big difference.

If you are overwhelmed just escape and reset the fight.

Use auto-attacks.. some add bleeds like Scepter earth … they help and are always available.

Sorry for the long post but I could not help it

Also If you have both Glyphs of elemental and lesser elemental you can have two elementals simultaneously. I haven’t used this in a while so I hope they did not change it.
Upgrade your gear via carma vendors throughout the world.

elementalist is like fast paced dancing – you control the fight, how much damage you take. Do not stand still

Has already been said and I agree, at least in the early to mid levels.

Scepter/Focus for ranged dps and defense.
Earth Elemental to tank and hold agro.

I only dropped the Elemental when the Elite Elemental skill became available. Still usually carry arcane shield. Condition removal is not as important for Pve but you will certainly want to load that for WvW. For that reason, my build includes condition removal.