Totally lost with my ele.
are you looking for close combat with bunker or decent burst damage? Are you looking for a burst mid-range build?
Bad Elementalist
All the weapons have a place.
Rotations are based on a) cooldowns. b) combo fields and finishers. c) sequences to maximze an effect in conjunction with other skills. Could be burst damage, condition damage, crowd control, speed boost, fury, whatever.
a) Generally, auto attack is our lowest dps skill and lowest effective skill. Changing attunements allows us to use higher dps skills and useful skills as they become available off of cooldown.
b) Might is the most coveted result of combo fields and finishers but there are others. The Wiki has table of all the fields and possible effects from area and projectile finishers.
This all takes time, even learning and scratch paper. Or, there are alot of ele guides that already have much of it covered. There’s a DD guide in this forum somewhere.
Give yourself some tests. Do you know how to proc Frost Armor for example. Can you think of some situtations that might be useful? Alot of these skill effects you don’t have to go out of your way to do.
I think he is just trying to level up, in which case staff is probably one the safest. Fire is good burst damage. Earth and Air are nice for kiting. Water is pretty much skippable until you start investing in traits.
PvE:
One point I’ve accepted is that the class is a lot weaker starting out than other classes. You must pretty much use hit and run tactics if you play solo. Every other class I’ve been able to either roll or tank through enemies head on. Ele is the only class that I have to worry about pulling out of a fight if I accidentally pull too many enemies.
Specifically, you are very weak against other ranged enemies. you have very few defense options against ranged enemies. Your few defensive skills that would be useful are short in duration and on relatively long cooldowns. You also aren’t able to maintain vigor for consistent dodging either. I would not recommend taking on groups of ranged enemies.
Against melee, you have the option of kiting.
Agree with most of it but:
Specifically, you are very weak against other ranged enemies. you have very few defense options against ranged enemies. Your few defensive skills that would be useful are short in duration and on relatively long cooldowns.
Staff has AoE blinds and Magnetic Aura, focus has invulnarability and 2 anti projectile skills, and daggers allow you to get close quickly so your melee defense (Shocking Aura) will work.
You also aren’t able to maintain vigor for consistent dodging either.
There’s a 10 point trait in Arcana that will give you vigor on critical hits, which in practice will give you permanent vigor.
If you can read this then it is proof that ArenaNet’s moderators just, kind and fair.
also, Zephyr’s Focus with 10 in Air will regen endurance for dodges at 100% when channeling a skill. You might be amazed at how many skills are channeled.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Channeled_skill
Leveling up, crit chance is going to be low to proc Renewing Stamina from crits to get the vigor for endurance regen.
If having trouble with ranged, the staff also has a knockdown, a chill, and an immobilize.
in Pve the Elemental is always a great companion.
(edited by Baladir.2736)
Staff has AoE blinds and Magnetic Aura, focus has invulnarability and 2 anti projectile skills, and daggers allow you to get close quickly so your melee defense (Shocking Aura) will work.
First, the class does not have an alternate weapon set for access to all different skills spread across different weapon loadouts you mentioned.
Second, staff’s ranged counters are Lightening Surge and Magnetic Aura. Magnetic Aura is 5 second duration on a 30 sec cooldown, and does not seem to work against all types of ranged attacks (ie. Air Raider’s channeled Arc Lightening) .
Lightening Surge’s blind only cancels one damage application. This makes it ok for telegraphed one shots that you could dodge anyways, but drastically less useful against channeled multi-strike attacks that can not be wholly dodged and are commonly also homing attacks.
Third, focus’ Swirling Winds is the only one I feel is a viable ranged defense skill, but using a focus sacrifices a lot of damage output and mobility, which is a problem for the class because we can’t swap to another weapon set during combat.
Lastly, getting into melee range is not the issue against ranged attacks, as our weakness is our inability to sustain our own hp long enough to finish a fight, prior to sizable investment into the traits lines. Once you get deep into Arcane and Water traits, you get a butt load of healing. But until then, you are made of tissue paper.
There’s a 10 point trait in Arcana that will give you vigor on critical hits, which in practice will give you permanent vigor.
Earliest level to get Renewing Stamina is 20, and that’s forgoing other self-healing traits that would add more reliable survivability.
I stand by my previous statement that the class is only really solo viable once you start unlocking traits. Until then, its survivability is inferior to that of other classes, and requires very fickle hit and run tactics to accomplish what other classes can just barrel through.
On a side note, anyone else concerned that the class could easily be completely negated if the devs ever just futz’d with the Arcane or Water trait lines? Are there any other classes that are so completely dependent on one or two trait lines to be viable?
(edited by Solkard.5136)