Guild Wars 2

I’ve level a Thief, Necro, Engineer, and Guardian to level 80.

However, my elementalist is level 50 and I die 10x more than I did with any other class. The class seems to die so easily but doesn’t do a ton of damage to make up for it like the Thief class. Every dynamic event I have to fight for my life if more than one enemy is involved.

I primarily use Staff sometimes switching to scepter. The only time I do a lot of damage is if I take the time to stack Might or used a conjured weapon.

I wanted to play a long ranged mage but Elementalist just isn’t fun at all. I may just quit and start a Mesmer. Does Elementalist become better at later levels or am I doing something wrong.

Welcome to the world of Ele. When you get to 80 you will have the potential for great burst – just be warned you fail to kill them and you are dead. We have terrible health and terrible armor considering our rather low damage…

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Welcome to the world of Ele. When you get to 80 you will have the potential for great burst – just be warned you fail to kill them and you are dead. We have terrible health and terrible armor considering our rather low damage...

Are you talking pve or pvp?

From the sounds of it I am guessing pve, in which case, we rock… Decent to high aoe damage, good (for pve) defensives, active play-style (which for many eles, including myself = fun) You can play as a long ranged staff ele, just learn to use the crowd controls you have to mitigate damage, and learn to heal yourself not only through the abilities, but also by blasting your water fields. Arcane Wave, and Flame Axe conjures provide easy access to blasts, in addition to those on staff itself. Additionally, might stacking is a great means of boosting your damage, and you should get used to effectively blasting your fields – this is part of what eles do.

For pvp… umm, I love the playstyle, we do great burst, but we are hands down the squishiest things out there, and in spvp if you do not enjoy the high risk-moderate reward playstyle, I recommend trying anything else out.

For wvw… no idea, I hate zerging, and find roaming to pick a fight once every 5 minutes also dull. Someone else will be able to chime in though.

Argodis.2514:

I’ve level a Thief, Necro, Engineer, and Guardian to level 80.

However, my elementalist is level 50 and I die 10x more than I did with any other class. The class seems to die so easily but doesn’t do a ton of damage to make up for it like the Thief class. Every dynamic event I have to fight for my life if more than one enemy is involved.

I primarily use Staff sometimes switching to scepter. The only time I do a lot of damage is if I take the time to stack Might or used a conjured weapon.

I wanted to play a long ranged mage but Elementalist just isn’t fun at all. I may just quit and start a Mesmer. Does Elementalist become better at later levels or am I doing something wrong.

Range is your thing? Then throw as much as you can in fire and blasting staff (Arcane) and drop dem lava fonts with staff fire 2.

x . x!
I have been leveling my second ele using the LA events since level 15. She’s 46 now and starts to deal better damage. With the scaling system, at level 15, my ele Dps is about the same as an 80 wearing pvt/cleric mix. At 46, she does about 1/2 of the damage my other zerker ele does. It means staff ele does so well in zerging events albeit being sub-80. I cannot stress enough how easy it is to level eles with the current living story.

I have accounts in both N.A. and EU. I don’t mind showing you around

I am also leveling an Elementalist right now. I love it.

I share your difficulties, but have come to realize two things.

1) Preparation is everything. Going into battle you need to prepare your surroundings and any tools you may use. (If I know I will be fighting more than one mob, I summon a lightning hammer beforehand, pop my spells on the first one or two mobs, then pick up the hammer and finish the rest, its effective and still allows me to play the full range of abilities at my disposal.) As an ele, we need to take into account all things from our surroundings to our spells, to any “what-if” variables.

2) SPELL ROTATION. This was the hardest part for me to learn. Learn when to cast, and at what time, and what to follow it up with. I came from playing an engineer for more than a year, and the one thing both of these classes teach you is to know when to use the right tool (or spell) to do the job.

Hope my input helps, and best of luck with leveling! I hope our collective knowledge assists you in your endeavor!

When you have enough trait points to pump into every +damage % trait possible to achieve a multiplicative effect and get x2 to x2.5 damage before factoring in crit damage.

Ele is PvEKing.

@Argodis
We will become “good” when the perma aggro issue the elementalist has is fixed.
Ele’s damage is the highest in the game, the HP and armour are low which wouldn’t be much of a problem if not every mob decided to attack the ele’s only. Fix the aggro issue make mobs/bosses focus on the other classes more and i’m not complaining anymore.

If you’re not enjoying the Ele now then you will never like it. At 80 in full zerker gear damage goes up a LOT, but survivability doesn’t change (gets even worse actually) because in dungeons you will get basically 1-shotted by elites/bosses. Ele’s have no built-in survival mechanics like thieves or mesmers and the lowest health + the lowest armor.

I started GW2 with an Ele before any other class. Found myself dying soooo much against multiple mobs, I just assumed the game was really hard and everyone else was having similar experiences. But then I started leveling an engineer (followed by mesmer) and thought to myself “wait…did I just get WAY better at the game? Everything is a joke to kill!”, later realizing that Ele survivability is just really REALLY bad in all aspects of the game, both PvE and PvP.

In any case, with staff you shouldn’t be dying too much simply because you should be hanging back at max range and throwing spells from far away. The moment you start getting closer to the actual fight (or let the fight come closer to you), that’s when you’ll start seeing the 1-2 shot deaths because it’s impossible to dodge everything and your health pool is tiny. Once you get used to the fact that you have to play super-carefully and avoid damage at all costs, you should die less.

The only downside i see as Ele, is the PvP being weak, PvE wise i love it, and most of the game is PvE till 80 anyways, then there is the daily PvP where i suffer a bit for a while xD

Argodis.2514:

I may just quit and start a Mesmer. Does Elementalist become better at later levels or am I doing something wrong.

If you think ele is rough to level then you’re going to hate mesmer.

Only above average players can kill good eles. Mesmer is the only class you should have trouble with. Good necros are tough too but can be done. Alot has to do with your stats as well. Learn from better players. I learned a bit from mbelch specifically stat allocation. Go watch duels from players like him. Dont get discouraged and strive for excellence

Joonks.7501:

Argodis.2514:

I may just quit and start a Mesmer. Does Elementalist become better at later levels or am I doing something wrong.

If you think ele is rough to level then you’re going to hate mesmer.

I found Mesmer a breeze to level honestly. I used a condition/toughness build and my survivability was bonkers, even more so at 80. Sometimes it took longer to kill things than most people would like, but I rarely died. I’m having the same survival problems though on the Ele I created I find myself going back to my Mesmer.

Watched a mesmer solo Mai Trin. Clones just absorbed all most of her attacks while the mesmer ran in circles spamming evades and occasionally running into do some damage.

Argodis.2514:

I’ve level a Thief, Necro, Engineer, and Guardian to level 80.

However, my elementalist is level 50 and I die 10x more than I did with any other class. The class seems to die so easily but doesn’t do a ton of damage to make up for it like the Thief class. Every dynamic event I have to fight for my life if more than one enemy is involved.

I primarily use Staff sometimes switching to scepter. The only time I do a lot of damage is if I take the time to stack Might or used a conjured weapon.

I wanted to play a long ranged mage but Elementalist just isn’t fun at all. I may just quit and start a Mesmer. Does Elementalist become better at later levels or am I doing something wrong.

Elementalists stopped being good like 1 year ago.

The ele’s damage is fine, what’s wrong is their piddly health pool and survivability in general. Why should warriors get not only the heaviest, tankiest armor along with a signet that regenerates health, huge toughness and survivability, AND one of the biggest health pools in game? 27,000+ from what I hear. Yet ele’s get a horrible health pool and horrible survivability?

Damage for a staff ele is fine. I run a build that deals a huge amount of damage. It’s the health and survivability that truly needs fixing. I tried going into water and earth many times, but even with traits that give max vitality and toughness, it still isn’t on par with other classes in the slightest bit.

For PvE, an elite earth elemental will fix all your survivability problems.

Apart from that, it’s critical to learn to kite and dodge properly, more than other professions at least. If you’re not casting Meteor Shower, you should be moving (sideways so you can still attack). Place your staff spells where the target will be, not where they were. Use yourself as bait if you need to, lure them into the target area. And finally, make use of combos. If you place an eruption, you can run into the blast area to lure the enemy there, then cast a geyser over it to heal up any damage you may have taken while you stood still there. And if you’re in water anyway, quickly follow up with an ice spike. Those 2 do massive aoe damage.

Just a few things from the top of my mind.

If you want straighforward ranged nuker, try well necro.

@OP: Ele is already good in WvW and PvE. In WvW it is one of the three most important classes actually.

It is in PvP where the class is weak.

style.6173:

@OP: Ele is already good in WvW and PvE. In WvW it is one of the three most important classes actually.

It is in PvP where the class is weak.

…If Staff support is your cup of tea maybe.
Other weapons? Nah. They are all low damage, low support.
What if you get focused? Well you are going to die.

Ele is FAR from “Good” in WvW. PvE, does it really matter? unless doing high level fractuals then the class and the build mean nothing because its so easy.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

style.6173:

@OP: Ele is already good in WvW and PvE. In WvW it is one of the three most important classes actually.

It is in PvP where the class is weak.

…If Staff support is your cup of tea maybe.
Other weapons? Nah. They are all low damage, low support.
What if you get focused? Well you are going to die.

Ele is FAR from “Good” in WvW. PvE, does it really matter? unless doing high level fractuals then the class and the build mean nothing because its so easy.

Ele is definitely far from “good” it’s great in WvW.

We have the ability to beat almost any other build out there. We struggle with P/D thieves and Terrormancer/Chillmancer necros. Two builds that counter us out of every build in the game isn’t bad in the scheme of things.

The profession becomes good when the player does. This is no longer an easy mode profession like it used to be. Many will fail and give up. Don’t be part of that group and keep improving. Don’t get stuck in one build or weapon set. Master a good amount of different builds, playstyle and weapon sets.

you fail has a elementalist if you think playing a mesmer for a long range mage is better

if you are having problems fighting vs more than 1 enemy just remember to change attunements and slow/push/stun/root other enemies, also summon elementals can help vs mobs, specially earth elemental,

if you need to run elementalist cant cowardly hide and run like thieves or mesmers, so you need to use mist form, obsidian flesh, armor of earth, etc; also remember elementalist can use healing skills with any weapon (except focus) in case you already used the healing skill

damage depends on your build, if you are considering thief has a high damage 1vs1 elementalist can easily get close or better with d/d, and i think elementalist have the highest aoe direct damage in the game, you only need to know where and when to cast your meteor shower, ice storm, churning earth, eruption or any other long cast aoe

Only problem is that all those stone skins, mist forms, ect have very lonw cooldown for something crucial, and with such low duration.

ElexOrieN.2130:

@Argodis
We will become “good” when the perma aggro issue the elementalist has is fixed.
Ele’s damage is the highest in the game, the HP and armour are low which wouldn’t be much of a problem if not every mob decided to attack the ele’s only. Fix the aggro issue make mobs/bosses focus on the other classes more and i’m not complaining anymore.

So that’s why in fractals, when I tag like 25 mobs, everyone and their mother tries to murder me dead. Luckily, I just use Burning retreat and double dodge + EarthStaff 3 and run away like a sissy. ^^

Kikidori.5916:

ElexOrieN.2130:

@Argodis
We will become “good” when the perma aggro issue the elementalist has is fixed.
Ele’s damage is the highest in the game, the HP and armour are low which wouldn’t be much of a problem if not every mob decided to attack the ele’s only. Fix the aggro issue make mobs/bosses focus on the other classes more and i’m not complaining anymore.

So that’s why in fractals, when I tag like 25 mobs, everyone and their mother tries to murder me dead. Luckily, I just use Burning retreat and double dodge + EarthStaff 3 and run away like a sissy. ^^

Don’t forget FGS!
Hardcore cowardliness.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Don’t forget FGS!
Hardcore cowardliness.

Whoever blows the most powerful 3 minute elite in the game just to run away…argh

Wintel.4873:

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Don’t forget FGS!
Hardcore cowardliness.

Whoever blows the most powerful 3 minute elite in the game just to run away…argh

Well it’s good for hitting big things or bugging it against a wall/with lightning flash, and the evade is pretty useful, as is the extreme tagging ability, but in normal situations it locks you out of pretty much everything you need to survive with low armor and health (it’s pretty much just a better fire attunement), so it isn’t all that amazing unless you really want to be somewhere else.

Lawful.5314:

Only problem is that all those stone skins, mist forms, ect have very lonw cooldown for something crucial, and with such low duration.

They’re adressing that in the upcoming balance patch. Just 2 more weeks of waiting.

Mbelch.9028:

Ele is definitely far from “good” it’s great in WvW.

We have the ability to beat almost any other build out there. We struggle with P/D thieves and Terrormancer/Chillmancer necros. Two builds that counter us out of every build in the game isn’t bad in the scheme of things.

Right. We “struggle” with most classes and most builds. I have taken 12-16,000 damage from ONE attack while having more than 1,700Toughness. This being from ONE hit that if you dont see them before they stealth you simply will not be able to prevent it in 99% situations.

Just curious, as to what you do in WvW, i mean sure we are great at Staff Zerging – well until the Meteor and Tornado tactic is removed, Then what? At most i have been hit for like 3-4k when they are not in Tornado, add to that the red ring that is getting added means its going to be even less of a threat.

I would Put Warriors, Engineers and Mesmers up there as well as they have builds that can simply wreck ele. You have Warrior that has insane regen, insane mobility and CC heaven that can just Chain stun you to do, or until you use AoE then they have to wait a few seconds before they CC you to death. You have Engineers which 99.9% of them run conditions. Good luck beating them. Mesmers have insane damage, stealth, knockbacks and great conditions as well.

Are you assuming that everyone else is an uplevel in your idea that we are “great” in WvW? As much as we can beat others, we have a greater chance that we will be beaten. We have to play extremely well to beat even the worst players on some classes (Hammer Warrior, BS Thief, Condi Engi)

ThiBash.5634:

Lawful.5314:

Only problem is that all those stone skins, mist forms, ect have very lonw cooldown for something crucial, and with such low duration.

They’re adressing that in the upcoming balance patch. Just 2 more weeks of waiting.

Won’t be enough, like 15second reduction on a few very average defensive skills (compared to other classes) suddenly won’t make us more viable.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

ThiBash.5634:

Lawful.5314:

Only problem is that all those stone skins, mist forms, ect have very lonw cooldown for something crucial, and with such low duration.

They’re adressing that in the upcoming balance patch. Just 2 more weeks of waiting.

Won’t be enough, like 15second reduction on a few very average defensive skills (compared to other classes) suddenly won’t make us more viable.

Yet you’re getting at least part of what you’re asking for, so don’t be ungrateful. Also, they have yet to share the final details. We do at least know the recharge will go down.

ThiBash.5634:

Yet you’re getting at least part of what you’re asking for, so don’t be ungrateful. Also, they have yet to share the final details. We do at least know the recharge will go down.

Minor changes that will have pretty much NO effect on combat…yeah we should be grateful, oh wait. The “Leaked” and “Fake” patch notes had some interesting changes. Sure everything still very minor the Projectile reflection on Tornado would have been nice, seeing as it doesnt buff out Toughness (which it should)

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Minor changes that will have pretty much NO effect on combat…

I’m so glad you’ve already tested their actual performance in practice just by looking at a few high level spoilers shared by the devs.

What I’m saying is the devs are aware of things, they have stated they’re looking at specifically the recharge issue you’ve mentioned in the past 40 threads or so, and they may yet surprise you with some good changes. So do us all a favor and not dismiss them out of hand just because you’re cranky.

If you die in pve it is your own fault sorry stop facetanking, you are not a guardian…

Ugruk.4069:

If you die in pve it is your own fault sorry stop facetanking, you are not a guardian…

This would work if every mob didn’t agro you when you tried to DPS.

Sunshine.4680:

Ugruk.4069:

If you die in pve it is your own fault sorry stop facetanking, you are not a guardian…

This would work if every mob didn’t agro you when you tried to DPS.

Shouldn’t matter really. If you dodge and kite well, you can easily take on multiple mobs. As a matter of fact, since pretty much everything you have is AoE, you might ast well take on as many mobs as you can hit. It’ll make things go 5 times faster.

Ugruk.4069:

If you die in pve it is your own fault sorry stop facetanking, you are not a guardian…

I swear that is word-for-word what I used to hear in WoW forums. I thought this game wasn’t supposed to have a holy trinity, i.e. no tanks?

Well to be honest you can just facetank regular mobs in normal zones.

Strang.8170:

Well to be honest you can just facetank regular mobs in normal zones.

For every 1 mob that an Ele can facebank, guardians/warriors can facetank like 3-4 lol. Bunker warriors are on a whole other level.

You know that molten furnace fractal in the weapons testing fight with all those AoE’s flying around? Yeah, I saw a warrior just stand in the middle of those and /dance while eating all the damage (seemed to barely budge his health).
Later in Mai Trin fight he just happily stood in the electric/fire AoE’s from Horrik, all while passively healing. That is insane. Like…how is that even allowed.

Those AoE attacks hit my Ele for like 30-50% of my health per tick.

Wintel.4873:

Ugruk.4069:

If you die in pve it is your own fault sorry stop facetanking, you are not a guardian…

I swear that is word-for-word what I used to hear in WoW forums. I thought this game wasn’t supposed to have a holy trinity, i.e. no tanks?

Eles stay alive by being mobile. That’s what he meant.

ThiBash.5634:

Eles stay alive by being mobile. That’s what he meant.

Mobility is our survival mechanic?

Wintel.4873:

Mobility is our survival mechanic?

Not just ours, but in general. You can facetank the flame burst from the boss in CoF1, or you can just move behind him and avoid 95% of the damage. Basic tricks like that make staying alive in PvE (and that’s what the discussion was about) trivial.

You play a light armor character and expect to facetank crap like a guardian… Go play tick-tack-toe, can’t get more simple then that for your abilities.

If you die in PVE YOU SCREWED UP period….

Ugruk.4069:

You play a light armor character and expect to facetank crap like a guardian… Go play tick-tack-toe, can’t get more simple then that for your abilities.

If you die in PVE YOU SCREWED UP period….

Well, I wouldn’t be that blunt about it. Thing is, he’s got a point. The PvE game is designed around an active playstyle. This isn’t WoW mage standing at a distance doing a rotation. This game requires actively dodging insta-kill skills and trying to move where you won’t get hit but can still attack your target. Or even luring your target into your aoes in case of staff. It’s the main reason why there’s no need for tanks and healers, and also why berserker works so well once you’ve got the hang of it.

If you think PVP/WVW ele is weak, then you have another thing coming. I’ve been facerolled before by an ele. The thing is, you just gotta learn the correct skill rotations. Once you’ve learned that, ele becomes easy pickings, and vice-versa. When you know the proper skill rotation, your ele will easily drop even warriors and guardians.

Balgus.3468:

If you think PVP/WVW ele is weak, then you have another thing coming. I’ve been facerolled before by an ele. The thing is, you just gotta learn the correct skill rotations. Once you’ve learned that, ele becomes easy pickings, and vice-versa. When you know the proper skill rotation, your ele will easily drop even warriors and guardians.

I can only say that you seem to have faced a few awful warriors and guardians if memorizing skill rotations got you kills, unless of course you’re talking about s/d fresh air burst which is really good for killing one person every 45 seconds. Everything else is more about knowing which skills do what and chaining them from there rather than going off of muscle memory. Even then, pretty much nobody that knows what they are doing as much as you do will be easy pickings for an ele.
In WvW you can zerg like a god, but I am of the opinion that zerging is only fun if you’re the commander, and everyone else just does it for the farm. Trying to roam as an ele, or any squishy really, is an uphill battle with all the thief squads around.

You can kill Warriors and Guardians, is it because ele is good? or that Ele is strong? No its mostly due to them being terrible. We have to work SO much harder to get a kill than any other class

People seriously need to stop thinking WvW as real pvp, it’s literally fighting pve heros green arrows, hitting walls and doing AoE on huge blobs of players with no gear equality