Guild Wars 2

Ok so the question is in the title. What is your typical battle sequence? I have a lvl 15 ele and have been putting all points in arcane. I feel like I stick to the fire attunement wayyyy to much and the others go unused because I don’t know how to cycle properly and what goes with what and when to cast what etc… There is just a lot of things ele’s can do and I feel like I have a poor handle on managing fights.

I usually run staff but sometimes run S/D, I like these more than daggers just because of the range limitation on daggers.

Any input is appreciated. Thanks!

Take my advice with a grain of salt because i’ve only got a level 15 ele as well lol, but here’s typically what i do with S/D

if the mob is standing still, start off with dragon tooth and cast phoenix on him as the tooth is falling. cast the #4 fire ring and back up so they go through it. i like to use earth and air a lot so i put up rock barrier and blind them using #2 and #3, then start with the off hand dagger skills(with sandstorm as cover for churning earth) or switch to air to finish them off

for what its worth, i play D/D and my ‘normal battle sequence’ on single target mobs is as follows

fire attunement
3-2-4-5
switch to earth
4-2
switch to air
5-4-3-2

by this point the target is normally dead, if not however i continue auto attacking in air, and maybe switch back to fire if the extra damage is needed

thank you to for those replies, anyone got a staff specific one as well?

For scepter/dagger fire attunement.
Dropping the Ring of fire as last skill is not really smart.

While you run in the melee range of the mobs start casting Dragon’s tooth… before it falls, surround the mobs with the Ring of fire (combo field), Dragon’s tooth lands (fire blast combo/area might), point blank instant Phoenix (fire blast/area might), Arcane wave (critical fire blast and yes, you guessed it, area might).
That usually kills everything within the ring of fire, if fighting something tougher, after this combo which takes 2 seconds to execute, you have nice 6 stacks of might prepared for the Fire grab.
The only way to improve this AoE burst combo is to activate Arcane power before you start (next 5 hits are critical)

This is my D/D pwn ’n buff line:

Air:
3-4-5

Fire:
3-2-5-4

Earth:
4-5-2

Water:
2-3-4-(5)

Laugh and repeat

With the right traits you’ll end with alot of buffs and alot of dead enemies around you.

My typical D/D rotation.

Fire:
3-2-4-5-Arcane Blast

Switch to Earth:
4-5(9 stacks of might)-2-1-1-1

Switch to Lightning:
4-5-3-2-1-1

Switch to Water:
3-4-2-1-1-1

Repeat as needed.

thank you to for those replies, anyone got a staff specific one as well?

As Staff (and Ele in general), I find myself moving less from rotations and more towards skill-pairing depending on the situation.

On Offence there’s…
Shockwave + Lava Font + Flame Burst
Static Field + Frost Field + Meteor Shower

and on Defense
Eruption + Geyser
Windborne Speed + Burning Retreat

You get the idea.

rTeapot.9134:

Ok so the question is in the title. What is your typical battle sequence? I have a lvl 15 ele and have been putting all points in arcane.

That is generally a mistake. At early levels, Power, Toughness, Vitality and Condition Damage are significantly better than any other stats. My general recommendation would be

11-20: Fire,
21-30: Earth.
31-39: Optional
40: Buy trait book which will reset your stats. Put 10 of your points into Arcane for Elemental Attunement. The remaining points are optional.

With staff, open upp with Earth and summon your lesser earth elemental if it isn’t on cd. Then go with any of the following options:

Eruption->Lava Font->Flame Burst->Arcane Wave
or
Eruption->Eruption->Lava Font->Flame Burst->Arcane Wave
or
Eruption->Meteor Shower->Flame Burst->Lava Font->Arcane Wave
or
Eruption->Frozen Ground->Lava Font->Flame Burst->Arcane Wave

Make sure you are near your Lava Font when using Arcane Wave so that you get the might stacks. Remember that Eruption doesn’t cause aggro until it deals damage. And when possible, combo Lava Font on top of Eruption for the extra might stacks.

I’m going to have to disagree with you here as well Wildclaw; he should be learning to avoid damage instead of attempting to absorb it. Water/Arcana lines have been serving me more than well enough since I started my ele, and she’s now almost level 50. Sigil of battle is more than enough might, adding your self combos only makes you stronger. Getting that fury from 5 in arcana asap is extremely beneficial to your damage, since you can simply attunement swap before a big hit to increase your crit chance even at a low level.

With d/d you can afford to be brave if you are watching the field and dodging appropriately.

Earth 5 with a lightning flash before the end into a mob, followed by earth 4 and 3. Swap to air and 4-3-5, before swapping to fire and 3-4-5-2; get as many fire spells off as you safely can before swapping to water, hitting 3-4 and dodging away from the mob. With this combo you have applied many stacks of bleed, knocked them down twice, applied stacks of burning and finished with big damage+a chill to keep them from attacking you as you retreat. Putting 10 into Water magic and having your cantrips give you regeneration/vigor will assist your dodging immensely; the duration of the boons per cantrip is generous even without boon increases.

On staff I like to open with 3, quickly followed by 4 just in front of the mob, then swap to fire for 2-5-3. Make sure your meteor shower allows for the forward movement your enemies will take, though a preemptive earth 4 will have them crippled. You can swap to water and hit 2 and 4 for extra damage/snaring as well. You can also put Air 5 in the middle of your meteor shower for stuns, since it’s effectively a snare in this situation. Eventually these combinations will become instinctive and you will switch up your usage as appropriate.

As a quick FYI, I highly recommend a sigil of energy on a staff elementalist; you will need the extra evasion and your combos will up your power more than enough to excuse not bringing a sigil of battle.

To me, attunement swapping is the core play of the elementalist, and so I advise 30 arcane in all builds. But that’s just me. I take Elemental Attunement, Vigor on crit and Evasive arcana. Take some food at increases boon duration (like chocholate omnomberry cream) and your boons stay 50% longer. And with this, one of my best heals is dodging in my own gyser, gives area healing while evading.

Now for the sequence:
Gather melee mobs, up to ten is doable, and then:

Frozen ground (get some distance)
Ice spike (vulnarbility)
Glyph of storms in earth (ten seconds AoE blind)
Eruption
Lava Font
Arcnae wave
Flame burst
=> pick up loot

There isn’t a single mob in general pve that survives this sequence, not even in Orr. Veterans will be half dead. you can pull it off in five seconds.

Ranged mobs? Well usually they stand still so place your spells under them. And use your reflection skill in earth, your blind in air.

Final advise: Get a Razer Naga or something, I hardly ever auto attack in combat so i’m always pressing buttons. The Naga lets me do that while on the move and dodging.

I’m going to disagree, 10 points in arcane is a HUGE boost for new eles, for elemntal attunements, this provides eles with consistent protection and regens through the test of their leveling experience. This is huge to surviving, I personally would go 10 water or earth next depending on your goal for a build, the armor of earth at 50% is a nice save your kitten trait, or another 10 points in arcane for final shielding which has saved my kitten more times than I can count. Water is great for condition removal on water attunement (cleansing wave).

The ideal scepter/dagger rotation would be something like:

Air: 4/2/3 in any order. The big deal is 4 — Ride The Lightning — which gets you up close and personal with the enemy.

Fire: 4, then 2, 3, and Arcane Wave in some order. 4 — Ring Of Fire — happens to hit hard and burn, but that’s not the only point; the other point is that it’s followed by three blast finishers, each of which stacks Might

Earth: 4 — Earthquake — because that’s yet another blast finisher.

Notes on specific skills include:

Fire 1 is lame, because mainly it causes burning, and your other skills cause enough burning already.

The trick to landing all three hits with Fire 3 — Phoenix — is to aim a bit behind your target. But you’d like to still land it in the Ring of Fire, so that it serves as a blast finisher.

Fire 5 is notoriously hard to hit with, but hits hard when you land it.

Earth 2 is great defense. Refresh it whenever you get a chance. Get familiar with how the 2 phases of the skill work.

Earth 3 and Air 3 are blinds worth using.

Air 2 is damage with no casting time; what’s not to like?

Earth 5 — Churning Earth — is sloooow, but I usually find it worth casting even so.

If you do the ideal sequence in one fight, or something close to it, you’ll find that in the next fight that the cooldowns don’t line up right for it. So be it. The stacks of might you start the fight with will help with your damage, direct and condition alike.

Your utilities should probably be Arcane Wave and Glyph of Lesser Elementals. The latter should usually be used in Fire, but Air isn’t bad either — at least against single targets — and gives you some Swiftness between fights.

Glyph of Storms is a good choice as your third utility; it provides awesome defense if you use it in Earth. Arcane Blast also works well for pure damage. Glyph of Elemental Power is good if you know you’re fighting a single enemy, for example in a Skill Point challenge. In Air, it keeps them Weakened; in Earth, it Cripples them (which is only important against meleers).

I’m going to disagree, 10 points in arcane is a HUGE boost for new eles, for elemntal attunements,

^this. Your first 10 points, for ANY elementalist, should be in arcane to get Elemental Attunement.
This gets you free buff whenever you swap attunements, which is ALL THE TIME. WHy wouldn’t you want to might stack for moving to fire, or the free regen for moving to water, or free protection when moving to earth, or swiftness for travel when swapping to air.
Elemental attunement is just so good, no Ele should be without, especially a new one still in the process of leveling.

Also, since you asked about staff, I’ll give a good “rotation.”

I ALWAYS start in earth and place Eruption under the target first. They won’t aggro until the blast goes off, so the long cast time does not create problems.

So, it goes like this. Eruption —> Shockwave (this will immobilize them), swap to fire quickly (gaining might) and place Lava font (because shockwave has such a large travel time, your font will be down before shockwave hits them, so they’ll be immobile in lava font for quite some time). Eruption will set off the blast finisher (giving you 3 more might) and shockwave will keep them in lava font for a couple of ticks. As soon as you drop lava font, throw ONE fireball and use Arcane blast during animatoin, and then hit flameburst (skill #3). I throw ONE fireball because of the way casting animation works, you can basically get a free cast before the lava font ticks (and aggro’s the mob) whereas flame burst (an instant cast) will aggro them right away. It’s free damage before they “wake up”. They now have 7 stacks of bleed, burning, a good chunk of HP gone (lava font ticks, eruption blast, arcane blast, and one fireball), and you’re still at 1,200 range ready to kite. You can basically stand still and autocast fireball at that point, they’ll die at your feet before they get a chance to hit you (due to bleeding/burning).

Easy Peasy….

Edited to add: Shockwave travels in a line and WILL hit multiple targets. If you’re trying to pull 3 mobs at once, try to find a starting spot that puts then in a line, target the one farthest away, and shockwave will hit/bleed ALL THREE!! Most people aren’t aware, and/or do not take advantage of this, but ALWAYS target the mob farthest from you for shockwave so it’ll pass through the ones closest to you hitting all the targets.
Again, easy peasy…

Leuca.5732:

I’m going to have to disagree with you here as well Wildclaw; he should be learning to avoid damage instead of attempting to absorb it. Water/Arcana lines have been serving me more than well enough

…

I suggested that he place points in Fire and Earth for Power and Condition Damage early on to absolutely maximize his damage while relying on avoidance to survive. (he also gets Toughness as a nice bonus)

You are the one recommending Water/Arcana that is pretty much only for survivability.

BlueprintLFE.2358:

I’m going to disagree, 10 points in arcane is a HUGE boost for new eles, for elemntal attunements, this provides eles with consistent protection and regens through the test of their leveling experience.

Elemental Attunement is great, but it simply isn’t worth giving up Power+Condition Damage early on. The breakpoint is probably around level 35, especially if you get some rare gear at that level.

^this. Your first 10 points, for ANY elementalist, should be in arcane to get Elemental Attunement.

And by doing so you are giving up the massive damage boost that you would have gotten from going Fire. 100 points of stats is a massive boost early on.

You don’t want to waste early trait points on stuff like boon duration, attunement recharge or crit damage that doesn’t scale up in power as you go down the levels.

And by doing so you are giving up the massive damage boost that you would have gotten from going Fire. 100 points of stats is a massive boost early on.

You don’t want to waste early trait points on stuff like boon duration, attunement recharge or crit damage that doesn’t scale up in power as you go down the levels.

I suppose you could think of it this way, but I just found that the buffs Elemental attunement provided to be too good to pass up (the boon duration and attunement recharge rate were just added bonuses). I especially loved the swiftness on air attunement. Coupled with windborne speed (staff skill #4) I basically had perma-swiftness for any travel throughout the world that I had to do, which at low levels greatly speeded things up for me. I also like the regen/protection on water/earth, as it was basically ALL the defensive setup I needed at low levels.

One I had 10 pts in arcane though, I did do what you suggest (that is, pump fire for added power). At low levels, 100 power is great, yes. But at low levels I also didn’t get the impression that my damage was particularly subpar (that doesn’t happen until lvl 60+).

I guess to each his own, which is probably the best advice for the OP to begin with At low levels, spec’s don’t really matter, do what YOU want to learn the class and have fun

If you put down Eruption and Lava Font a considerable distance from you, who exactly gets the Might from the combo? Mainly, it would be your pet.

As far as stats from the early traits:

1. Fire stats add a LOT to DPS.
2. Air stats are wasted at low levels (high levels too, but a little less so).
3. In most cases you’ll do more direct damage than condition damage (the Earth/Staff rotation above may be an exception). So Earth stats are decent but not awesome.
4. Water stats are pretty decent but not awesome.
5. Arcane stats add to the fun, and help you learn your class. But they’re not very useful directly at low levels.

As for Elemental Attunement — let’s say it gives you a permanent single stack of Might. At level 80, 1 Might is 2% or so to DPS. That’s like 1/4 or so the benefit of Internal Fire. Of course, Elemental Attunement has 4 benefits in all. So it’s a pretty fair trade-off.

Agree on damage avoidance. This is why I really like S/D or D/D for the formative levels of Eles. You don’t want to absorb because come the mid levels, you won’t survive it anymore

Plus this helps train up on attunement switching and field/finisher combos.

For S/D, I pretty much did for 50 levels what CurtMonash recommended:

Air Attuned
Air 4- get close
Air 2- do this while riding the lightning
Air 5- knock em all down

Switch to Fire (get the Attunement buff)
Fire 4- Ring of Fire (fire field)
Utility- Arcane Wave or Blast (finisher)
Fire 2- Dragon’s Tooth (finisher)
Fire 3- Phoenix

Switch to Earth (get the Attunement buff)
Earth 4- Earthquake (knock em down again)
Earth 5- Churning Earth

What isn’t dead is close enough that it’s your discretion whether to go to Water or back to Air if it’s ready. At later levels you can pull a bet (or both pets), you’ll be able to switch back to Fire or Air faster to rebegin the chain, and so on.

This all changes as you get higher traits and skill points for pets, shields, and so on.

You did ask about Staff, but I didn’t find that as effective for me until the 60s. That may be due to not looking into it though. So no idea how good it is at 15

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Post-your-skill-sequence-for-Ele/first#post303640

I switched to staff as soon as I found one when starting out, and I love using it. It is tough to use when soloing, so don’t be discouraged when you start getting downed a lot! It gets better after about level 40. Focus on power and vitality for your gear.

I like to run around in air attunement with the speed traits at Air 5/10 and signet of air, but it’s not very combat-effective, so you may want to put your traits and utilities elsewhere. Focus on getting the Arcane 10 Elemental Attunement trait first. Once you hit level 40, grab the Arcane 20 that increases staff spell radius and put your other 10 trait points in your favorite element or two.

Remember that you are super squishy, so you want to keep space between you and melee mobs and you want to take out ranged mobs ASAP. Also, since you have a lot of AoE you want to keep your enemies clumped together. Grab the Glyph of Lesser Eles, but switch that out for something more useful when you get the Glyph of Eles. It’s nice to have something else to pull aggro, but having 2 seemed like diminishing returns to me.

For large groups:
Summon Elemental → Fire 5, 3, 2 → Air 5, (3 if needed), 2 → Earth 3, 2, 4, 5 → Water 4, (5, 3 if needed) → Fire (4 if needed), (5 if possible), 3, 2 → Air or Earth …

Or if I feel like changing it up:
Summon Elemental → Earth 2, 4, 5, 3 → Fire (5 if possible), 3, 2, (4 if needed) → Air 5, (3 if needed), 2 → (Water 4, 5, 3 if needed) → Earth …

For 1-3 mobs:
Air 3, 5, 2 → Earth 3, 5, 2, 4 → Fire 3,2, (4 if needed), 2, 3 → repeat

Question: why Earth 3 in your Large Groups? Air5 doesn’t last very long so I generally go Earth5, 2 or 1 for the projectile or blast finisher.

And yet I see the Earth3 icon blink as a recommended action when I have an active field and switch to Earth.

Does Earth3 reflect projectiles back to ranged mobs and therefore it’s treated as a projectile finisher?

Wildclaw.6073:

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Leuca.5732:

I’m going to have to disagree with you here as well Wildclaw; he should be learning to avoid damage instead of attempting to absorb it. Water/Arcana lines have been serving me more than well enough

…

I suggested that he place points in Fire and Earth for Power and Condition Damage early on to absolutely maximize his damage while relying on avoidance to survive. (he also gets Toughness as a nice bonus)

You are the one recommending Water/Arcana that is pretty much only for survivability.

BlueprintLFE.2358:

I’m going to disagree, 10 points in arcane is a HUGE boost for new eles, for elemntal attunements, this provides eles with consistent protection and regens through the test of their leveling experience.

Elemental Attunement is great, but it simply isn’t worth giving up Power+Condition Damage early on. The breakpoint is probably around level 35, especially if you get some rare gear at that level.

^this. Your first 10 points, for ANY elementalist, should be in arcane to get Elemental Attunement.

And by doing so you are giving up the massive damage boost that you would have gotten from going Fire. 100 points of stats is a massive boost early on.

You don’t want to waste early trait points on stuff like boon duration, attunement recharge or crit damage that doesn’t scale up in power as you go down the levels.

He can stack plenty of damage with the right equipment, but equipment does not generate the survivability you want until much later in the game. The boons/element recharge he will get early on the game are more than invaluable, and the fact is that attunement swapping helps you avoid more damage by having better access to the many mobility/control skills you have. Water magic will help him absorb the damage he’s taking if he’s unable to avoid it because vitality pays off more than toughness when it comes to damage absorption for eles.

delmarqo.5038:

Question: why Earth 3 in your Large Groups? Air5 doesn’t last very long so I generally go Earth5, 2 or 1 for the projectile or blast finisher.

And yet I see the Earth3 icon blink as a recommended action when I have an active field and switch to Earth.

Does Earth3 reflect projectiles back to ranged mobs and therefore it’s treated as a projectile finisher?

Staff’s Earth 3 has a negligible casting time, so it’s easy enough to hit while going through Earth’s spells. It’s more of a precaution than anything. If there is a mob with a nasty ranged attack, then save it for that attack. Air 5,3 is a useful sequence because you can push back a nearby mob or two into the stun area.

According to the wiki, any reflected projectiles retain their original properties. If I’m interpreting that correctly, if an enemy sends a projectile finisher at you, you reflect it, and it goes through another spell’s combo field, then that field gets applied to the finisher on its way back to the enemy.

I’m still running around in low-level areas, so this technique may not work for everyone, but it’s served me well so far.

As a Staff wielder myself, I typically stick to Fire Attunement in combat. I usually open with Flame Blast (3), pound the enemy with Fireball (1) until they get close, then drop Lava Font (2) at my feet, and use Arcane Wave for a good AoE damage blast + Might. Usually the enemy is dead or nearly so by this point, so a bit of backpedalling + more Fireballs is enough to drop them, but if not, switch to Air and use Gust (3) to knock them back, drop Static Field (5) in their path to stop them chasing you, then switch to Earth and drop Eruption and Shockwave (or Arcane Blast if you have it) at their location for another nice damage packet.

Only about level 28 on my ele, and I switch back and forth between staff and dagger/dagger cause I find them both equally fun. The following is a generic rotation. I tend to mix it up a lot though depending on situations (like throwing in air for blind, stun, and push-back). Sometimes I jump to water earlier if I need some health or to slow down the fight. For larger groups I tend to throw in meteor shower more when I get the chance.

For staff, my generic rotation (2 or less) would be:
Fire 3 > fire 2 > Arcane Wave (combo) > fire 4 > swap to earth >
Earth 2 > earth 5 > earth 4 > auto-attack until eruption to stack vulnerability >
Water 4 > water 2 > heal if necessary

With S/D, in a perfect world, I like to 1st, getting several enemies surrounding me starting in Air Magic.

Switch to Earth when fighting begins, and drop Glyph of Storms for long AoE perma-blind. Then I cast Rock Barrier (sometimes before Glyph). Churning Earth is my next skill, followed by Earthquake. Then I switch to Water and use Frost Armor for protection, use Water Triden and Cleansing Wave if needed, then I go to fire and use Fire Ring>Dragon’s Tooth>Pheonix>Fire Grab. I don’t always get off that combo because they’re usually dead.

Glyph of Storms Earth Magic version is my favoritest skill.

I hadn’t looked up Glyph of Elemental Power in awhile, but since it was mentioned above I took a look.

Notes now say in the Wiki:

Effects are based on the Attunement under which the glyph was cast.
ex: Casting Glyph of Elemental Power in Fire Attunement then using your 1 skill in Water Attunement will still apply burning effect if triggered.

The effect chance is fairly high (around 50% for fire and water, and 25% for air and earth) but has a cooldown of about 5 seconds
———-

So if cast in fire, any spell has a 50% chance to inflict 3 seconds of burning for 984 damage with a 5 second cooldown, which is not a bad damage booster at all. As fast as we are triggering spells, that has to translate to about 3 seconds of burning every 7 seconds or so which would trigger about 4-5 times over 30 seconds with the first effect triggered after 2 seconds into the Glyph.

Water is Chill
Earth is Cripple
Air is Weakness

and the duration of the active glyph is 30 seconds with a 45 second cooldown. So, does that mean we can activate it 15 seconds after it expires? Have to test.
If cast in Earth, then any spell has about a 25% chance of a 5 sec Cripple, and an aoe cripple at that with our many aoe spells.

Seems no matter how well I think I know these skills, I seem to find points I missed when I go back and look at them again. Can I put the Glyph on auto-attack lol?