Guild Wars 2

So I bought a dagger and a focus to spice up my Elementalist experience, as I’ve been running strictly staff for a while. I’m following DeKeyz guide for the build and rotations.

What I’ve noticed. I’m certainly putting big number on the board, and fast, which is awfully nice of course – I’m burning enemies down even quicker than I did with Staff. But, all of this is happening at point-blank range, which seems, uh, inadvisable for someone who goes to battle wearing pajamas. With Staff, range was my defense, and if someone decided to get up close, I would either Burning Retreat away or they’d meet Mr. Lightning Hammer and Mr. Fiery Greatsword (the latter giving me pleasant amounts of mobility combined with AoE and facepunching power). At any rate, I didn’t spend much time toe-to-toe.

With D/F, I find myself having to be in the middle of it all. Now I’ve figured out that I need to move a whole lot more than I did with staff. Auras help somewhat, and then of course there’s Earth 5 invulnerability. But it only gets you so far when 1-2 swings take off half your health. DeKeyz says that D/F is good for difficult content and has a lot of survivability, but I’m just not seeing where it comes from. Basically, if I don’t burn down the enemies very, very quickly I’m in trouble, because my only heal is Arcane Brilliance, and Water attacks don’t provide heals for D/F.

How can I improve my staying power and survive better?

D/F full DPS/might stacking build is for high end group content and niche solo attempts. Knowledge is your greatest defense, followed closely by a support guardian of some kind. Between dodging, your invuln, and experience with the little things like staying at 300 range, you can manage most of the time. It’s not really a good build for risky pugging.

I really only use it in 49 fractals and once in a while in dungeons.

I see. So then is Staff still preferable for soloing PvE content that is challenging and/or annoying (like personal story and Orr)?

More broadly, how does one become a “tanky” Ele? I’ve heard that some specs, particularly dagger-based ones, can be very survivable. Is it just about stacking Valkyrie or Soldier gear in place of Zerk and knowing when to dodge, basically?

Guys, D/F is designed for solo, trust me

The only reason I theorycrafted an optimal rotation for D/F is for group content purposes, but otherwise I am hardly using that (only on some bosses).

The “tankiness” of D/F comes from its versatility. You are never going to be truly in melee, you are going to be kiting a lot, and you can efficiently respond to a lot of situations. The key is use to water and earth to ensure your safety via controls, reflects, blocks, etc. Then when you master the encounters you can start focusing more on might stacking.

Glyph of elemental Powers is one of my favorite tool to survive with this build. I often take quick glyphs instead of bolt to the heart, then GoEP and glyph of storms are my best friends. Glyph of elemental harmony cast in water is also a life saver.

This is why you need to understand the mindset behind a build

Your survivability comes from knowing attacks and encounters well so you can use your defensive abillities(Air4, Earth4 Earth5 and Earth2). Earth2 is not the easiest to use, but its a projectile blocker on a very short CD. Also dont forget about your Elite, Earth Ele is an amazing tank. Because of its high toughness it normally takes aggro and takes a while to die, also the active gives you protection and cripples your enemy.

For your auto attack, Lightning whips range is HUGE. Abuse that

Some videos you could watch:
Sesshi Solo Bloomhunger, Mossman and Uncategorized Champions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvGpkxn7fsU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tCoNMfD6ho
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNFZB2rZt70

Bunch of D/F stuff on Robyn’s channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmQQCtcfjO57pXwxy7axq1Q/videos

Xdmatt.3958:

So I bought a dagger and a focus to spice up my Elementalist experience, as I’ve been running strictly staff for a while. I’m following DeKeyz guide for the build and rotations.

What I’ve noticed. I’m certainly putting big number on the board, and fast, which is awfully nice of course – I’m burning enemies down even quicker than I did with Staff. But, all of this is happening at point-blank range, which seems, uh, inadvisable for someone who goes to battle wearing pajamas. With Staff, range was my defense, and if someone decided to get up close, I would either Burning Retreat away or they’d meet Mr. Lightning Hammer and Mr. Fiery Greatsword (the latter giving me pleasant amounts of mobility combined with AoE and facepunching power). At any rate, I didn’t spend much time toe-to-toe.

With D/F, I find myself having to be in the middle of it all. Now I’ve figured out that I need to move a whole lot more than I did with staff. Auras help somewhat, and then of course there’s Earth 5 invulnerability. But it only gets you so far when 1-2 swings take off half your health. DeKeyz says that D/F is good for difficult content and has a lot of survivability, but I’m just not seeing where it comes from. Basically, if I don’t burn down the enemies very, very quickly I’m in trouble, because my only heal is Arcane Brilliance, and Water attacks don’t provide heals for D/F.

How can I improve my staying power and survive better?

Play the D/F ele the same way you would play a D/D thief. One of the most basic things is simply staying out of the arc of attack of a boss. If the boss only hits in a 90* arc in front of him, if you are behind him you won’t be hit at all. That eliminates the need for dodging or any defensive measures. A lot of that just comes from experience and being comfortable with a particular boss to know how his attacks work.

Second thing is that while the DPS rotations that DeKeyz and Zel demonstrate are ideals, combat is usually very dynamic and bosses will fight back. This means you need to focus more on the boss and less on the rotation. The more experienced and comfortable you get the “ideal” rotations will become easier to maintain against even challenging bosses. But as you learn its important to not get tunnel vision on dps rotations and ignore the one-shot coming at you.

You have three projectile blocking skills, invulnerability, and two long range hard disables. All of those will prevent you from taking damage. You also have pretty good access to chill, which makes it easier to kite with the great range noted above.