Guild Wars 2

I recently got my beloved ele to 80, and have been running a lot of dungeons on him. However, I’ve noticed that I tend to go down or die more than any other party member, incliding other eles. Are there any guidelines on how to better stay alive, such as traits and or gear stats?

Do not worry, that is a symptom for beginner eles. I have died a total of over 1500 times while getting my ele to 80.(Shhhhh).

Although I died a lot, I loved using dd, for the fun of it and after fixing my rotation, my skill level continually rose.

Though more on builds, water tends to be a good condition remover, something which is quite useful for about…anything. I also suggest 30 in arcane which you can use for evasive arcana, which in water can heal you in seconds by dodge rolling. I would also suggest using lots of healing armor.

However, if you wish to be useful(which is understandable) try staff and keep your distance. Constantly dodge.

Use mist form a lot, and don’t forget to keep up your elementals. Armor of Earth isn’t too shabby, nor is arcane shield. These are quite good for defense. Lightning flash is common for when you want to escape immobilize or a stun.

But have fun, if you enjoy it, you will get better.

Run staff, keep your distance. Get at least exotic armor pieces and staff. Cantrip utilities, 30 in water and in arcana, cantrip improving traits in water + the grandmaster trait that cleans conditions when granting regen, elemental attunement and evasive arcana traits, you pick the rest (10 in earth + earth’s embrace trait will work well for you). Get a superior energy sigil in your staff to boost your endurance (you’ll fill 1/2 endurance 1x, enough for a dodge, every weap swap, which for us is the same as changing attunements). PVT armor with 4 sup dolyak and 2 sup traveler’s or water runes. Change attunements a lot for boons and endurance, dodge out of trouble. This is real conservative, but gives you lots of survivability. As you get better and die less, you can start playing around with armor pieces (add in some knights or zerker), traits, runes, and sigil to add in more offense.

Use earth elemental summons. They can tank quite well.

Tips on survival – Don’t Die.

I use damage mitigation skills like Glyph of Storms (in Earth) for mass blinds and Radiation Field for mass weakness. Couple it with Elemental Attunement with frequent swapping to Earth (for Protection) and Water (for condition cleanses) should keep you quite healthy.

Still, you’ll be squishier than most as an Ele, so knowing when you need to get out of a situation is important. Stacking is all well and good, but if you’re in a stack, your heals are on cooldown, and you know that staying put will get you killed, dodge out for a second, move around to the back of the boss so you’re still close, then rejoin the stack when you’re in a better state.

Stick with mostly Berserker gear (some Cavalier pieces allowed) and keep your build as damage-heavy as possible. Ele can deal extremely high damage, put that to good use.

My first recommendation would be to go with defensive slot skills – e.g. Arcane Shield (blocks), Glyph Of Storms (earth), Lightning Flash (getting past obstacles, emergency escape), Signet Of Air (faster run speed + blind), etc. Obviously it varies from situation to situation, use whatever you think will help you survive.
Slot Ether Renewal for healing since it has an extremely short cooldown + ultimate condition cleanse. Occasionally staying alive can come down to a matter of just delaying your death till Ether Renewal comes off cooldown, not to mention conditions in PvE can hit insanely hard with long durations.

If you must trait for more survivability, nothing beats Renewing Stamina (Arcana II). 6 secs of Vigor on a 5 sec internal cooldown! As long as you’re damaging something you will have Vigor and can just dodge dodge dodge all day. Dodging is your best survival tool.

I find the Final Shielding trait very helpful.

Grim Sheep.2346:

I recently got my beloved ele to 80, and have been running a lot of dungeons on him. However, I’ve noticed that I tend to go down or die more than any other party member, incliding other eles. Are there any guidelines on how to better stay alive, such as traits and or gear stats?

Use this. You’ll never die again!

xsquared.1926:

Grim Sheep.2346:

I recently got my beloved ele to 80, and have been running a lot of dungeons on him. However, I’ve noticed that I tend to go down or die more than any other party member, incliding other eles. Are there any guidelines on how to better stay alive, such as traits and or gear stats?

Use this. You’ll never die again!

LMAO! Corrupted gays and water magic 420 just made me die. Lololol

Elementalist survivability is designed to be based on active abilities more than passive, so I like to stay offensive in stats (a little toughness to avoid cleave one-shots, but not all out toughness).

For dungeons:

1. Learn the fights. If you don’t know the attacks, you can’t act accordingly.
2. Arcane II lets you permadodge.
3. Using a focus off-hand gives you a ranged chill, stun, invulnerability, condition cleanse, blast finisher (for water fields) and missile reflect.
4. Arcane Shield is strong. Between Aegis (if you’re with a guardian), arcane shield, earth V, and your blinds, as long as you can stay out of red circles (see arcane II above), you should be able to stay alive with hardly any vitality/toughness.

I do better with the focus than a staff because of the current “stack here” meta.

On my 4th point, I meant Focus #5 not earth V.

Carpboy.7145:

xsquared.1926:

Grim Sheep.2346:

I recently got my beloved ele to 80, and have been running a lot of dungeons on him. However, I’ve noticed that I tend to go down or die more than any other party member, incliding other eles. Are there any guidelines on how to better stay alive, such as traits and or gear stats?

Use this. You’ll never die again!

LMAO! Corrupted gays and water magic 420 just made me die. Lololol

Here update.

xsquared.1926:

Carpboy.7145:

xsquared.1926:

Grim Sheep.2346:

I recently got my beloved ele to 80, and have been running a lot of dungeons on him. However, I’ve noticed that I tend to go down or die more than any other party member, incliding other eles. Are there any guidelines on how to better stay alive, such as traits and or gear stats?

Use this. You’ll never die again!

LMAO! Corrupted gays and water magic 420 just made me die. Lololol

Here update.

Lolololol dat sexy geyser placement. Also why the 10 points in exploit? I think they’d be better off in swag magic

Carpboy.7145:

xsquared.1926:

Carpboy.7145:

xsquared.1926:

Grim Sheep.2346:

I recently got my beloved ele to 80, and have been running a lot of dungeons on him. However, I’ve noticed that I tend to go down or die more than any other party member, incliding other eles. Are there any guidelines on how to better stay alive, such as traits and or gear stats?

Use this. You’ll never die again!

LMAO! Corrupted gays and water magic 420 just made me die. Lololol

Here update.

Lolololol dat sexy geyser placement. Also why the 10 points in exploit? I think they’d be better off in swag magic

Because everyone is an exploiter these days! Get with the times. Stacking, LoSing and dealing damage is all an exploit.

The best survival method is to dodge at the right time. Even as full glass cannon you can survive a lot in pve.

xsquared.1926:

Carpboy.7145:

xsquared.1926:

Carpboy.7145:

xsquared.1926:

Grim Sheep.2346:

I recently got my beloved ele to 80, and have been running a lot of dungeons on him. However, I’ve noticed that I tend to go down or die more than any other party member, incliding other eles. Are there any guidelines on how to better stay alive, such as traits and or gear stats?

Use this. You’ll never die again!

LMAO! Corrupted gays and water magic 420 just made me die. Lololol

Here update.

Lolololol dat sexy geyser placement. Also why the 10 points in exploit? I think they’d be better off in swag magic

Because everyone is an exploiter these days! Get with the times. Stacking, LoSing and dealing damage is all an exploit.

But dead DPS is no DPS? Gotta stay alive to keep all the bad exploiters up!

Don’t feel bad, a fellow guildie celebrated his 7000th death a few weeks back, we’re primarily a PvX guild with a strong focus on WvW and Broski was a staunch believer in D/D up until 2 months ago. We finally managed to convert him to a staff user.

Try Jormag on an Ele and than a geared warrior and you will see
its not you. They are MUCH harder to keep alive than most others.

I will tell you what i’ve experienced… in dungeons, or in general any PvE content its not about maxing your vit/tough/healing rather damage mitigation which is why its best to just go berserkers.

As an elementalist you should be moving around all the time, kiting even while using daggers since its skill’s have decent range.

If you stack alot in dungeons, i would suggest the trait Lava Tomb (Fire I). Like others have said the trait Renewing Stamina (Arcane II) is an essential as you will dodge red circles or channeled attacks often, even while stacked.

Personally i feel Obsidian flesh (Focus 5) is much better than mist form , especially when traited to have a lower cooldown since you can use your heals/buffs.

Finally, unless you’re using tornado for meteor shower .. the Earth elemental is great for enemy aggro.

Staff dps build,stay at 1200 range at ALL times,bring arcane shield and/or mist form
and most importantly learn to dodge.