Guild Wars 2

Out of all the three characters I have played so far, it’s with the Elementalist that I tend to die the most on the first 30 levels. I tried several builds related to Staff usage and I even went and switched to a D/D approach but it still doesn’t click for me. Got any advice on how to make a solid Staff Elementalist, specifically when it comes to survivability.

Much appreciated, guys.

Use active defense skills, such as Glyph of Storms (Earth) which creates a constant AoE blind effect. You can sit in it safely and just spam other AoE’s on your position, which will massacre just about any enemy you encounter short of Elites or Champions.

Rotate through your attunements and make use of the escapes/CC in each of them too, like Burning Retreat, Gust, Churning Earth etc. Most PvE enemies use melee attacks, and they can’t hurt you if they can’t catch you.

Staff isn’t the best weapon to use for open world leveling, which I’m assuming that’s what you’re talking about (first glance I assumed fractals for some reason). I suggest D/D and make sure to utilize all attunements to stack might (fire #3 or 4 > water #3 + #4 for frost aura + arcane brilliance > earth #4 + arcane wave > air) and autoattack.

Staff is extremely powerful DPS but you don’t want to be using it when your targets are moving. It’s typically best to use staff in group play, so world bosses are pretty much all you’ll want to be using it for in open world PvE.

Is that so? Hmmm… I do like what D/D Eles go for.

Having levelled them all, yes, ele is easily the weakest and worst to level, at least solo. if staff is what you enjoy, i’d probably spec heavily into berserker stats and the fire line and use signets for the CC, with the goal being to immob mobs in your lava font and blow them up quickly. Ranged enemies are your enemy so just LOS them, focus them first, and/or make heavy use of earth #3 (reflect).

Once you get more familiar with all the CC staff Ele has you can wean yourself off the CC utilities.