Guild Wars 2

okay so I just created a new elementalist like a week before, devoted 40 hours to it and it is now at lv 70

after getting through all the hard part (omfg so kitten hard reaching lv 70 -_-)
I tried the fresh-air build with trait air-30 and arcane-30 (I’ll spend the rest 10 for water later )

and it seems that I barely do any damage to the monster, even though i keep changing attunement, spamming the 1-2-3-4-5 button like crazy getting a lot of might but still it is taking way too long to kill a monster I dont know if it is me who sucks or elementalist is underpowered(no offence, please dont spam me with “here another guy complaining about elementalist , go play another class if you dont like to be active , go suck your own **** and etc”. Please I am just asking for help here )

my main is ranger full zerk and kills monster way faster than my ele at lv 70

so guys can you recommend me some build maybe? I am really interested in the mechanics of elementalist but have no idea how it works…
thks in advance

note: getting a skill point is really really hard

Pve you really shouldn’t have any problems. Just be sure you are blasting your fire fields for might. If you want a roaming world spec, try speccing scepter/dagger 30/30/10/0/0

I roam anywhere with it, and have no problems with group pulls, even in Orr. Most stuff is dead in one blast rotation. If you have condis to deal with, swap to ether renewal. On the plus side its close to a meta dungeon build (assuming you want to provide might and fury).

Edit:
- Example rotation for group world pulls: Fire2 (Dragon’s Tooth), Fire 5 under the DT, Fire 3 + Arcane Wave in the Ring of Fire, Swap Earth, Earth 4, Heal, (most stuff is dead by now, if not – Swap Air, Air 2, Arcane Blast on survivors).
- For Skill points, killing vets is simple. Do the same thing as above, most are 90% dead if not fully dead. If there are champs guarding it, or its in an annoying part of Orr, use a focus, and use the focus invulnerability in earth.

You say your ranger is full zerk. Is your ele full zerk as well? Also, do you use all of your attunments? Because in general, you’ll want to use your auto attacks only if you literally have nothing else to do.

When you get at level 80, consider using a Sigil of Battle. It’ll boost your dps considerably (and yes, it works with attunement swapping).

ThiBash.5634:

You say your ranger is full zerk. Is your ele full zerk as well? Also, do you use all of your attunments? Because in general, you’ll want to use your auto attacks only if you literally have nothing else to do.

When you get at level 80, consider using a Sigil of Battle. It’ll boost your dps considerably (and yes, it works with attunement swapping).

yeah my elementalist is full zerk running with zerk s/d
I keep changing my attunments and literally use all skill every combat(except for earth 5) last time i was running a personal story where risen kraits everywhere it took me like 20 seconds for me to kill a risen krait and whenever a risen abomination(the big krait)hit me I died right away

Sorry, I’m still having difficulties visualizing your problem. You say you don’t do enough damage, and are squishy? Well, ele is squishy, but in pve at least, where mobs politely get hit by your full rotations, we do insane damage, while granting ourselves tons of might and fury. Try out what I listed above, and see if that helps (if you’re lvl 70 you could do 30/20/10/0/0). You say you’re “literally using all skills”? Umm, don’t? The idea isn’t to 1-5 each attunement, use the ones you need, and then move on.

Mobs don’t stand still nearly as much as people give them credit when you are in pugs or zergs. That is why I like d/d better in pve. Way more fast hitting aoe and cleave.

harukazee.2937:

I keep changing my attunments and literally use all skill every combat(except for earth 5) last time i was running a personal story where risen kraits everywhere it took me like 20 seconds for me to kill a risen krait and whenever a risen abomination(the big krait)hit me I died right away

Do you keep your gear up to date? Because when you’re like, a level 70 wearing level 50 armor, and do a level 35 mission, your gear will get downscaled to level 25 too.

ThiBash.5634:

harukazee.2937:

I keep changing my attunments and literally use all skill every combat(except for earth 5) last time i was running a personal story where risen kraits everywhere it took me like 20 seconds for me to kill a risen krait and whenever a risen abomination(the big krait)hit me I died right away

Do you keep your gear up to date? Because when you’re like, a level 70 wearing level 50 armor, and do a level 35 mission, your gear will get downscaled to level 25 too.

wait actually i am using lv 50 set of armors, however my weapons are up to date so what do you think? is it the problem?

harukazee.2937:

wait actually i am using lv 50 set of armors, however my weapons are up to date so what do you think? is it the problem?

Maybe not the issue, but it doesn’t help.

Another part of it may be that eles more or less require active buffing and actively defending themselves. Because eles have so little health, you’ll need to rely on moving around, dodging and defensive skills (like Mistform) a lot more. On the other hand, if you compensate by taking more defensive gear, you’ll need to buff yourself with might through your combo fields.

So basically, you need to use more skills to accomplish the same. Other professions can do more passively (ranger even has 2 auto attacks ).

I run 0/10/10/20/30 wit d/d I like it a lot. auras grant swiftness and damage increased if within 600. I don’t remember the water traits I picked. Have you tried d/d?

ThiBash.5634:

harukazee.2937:

wait actually i am using lv 50 set of armors, however my weapons are up to date so what do you think? is it the problem?

Maybe not the issue, but it doesn’t help.

Another part of it may be that eles more or less require active buffing and actively defending themselves. Because eles have so little health, you’ll need to rely on moving around, dodging and defensive skills (like Mistform) a lot more. On the other hand, if you compensate by taking more defensive gear, you’ll need to buff yourself with might through your combo fields.

So basically, you need to use more skills to accomplish the same. Other professions can do more passively (ranger even has 2 auto attacks ).

yeah thats why i dont even think about switching armors, the difference gap between lv 70 armors and 50 armors are just too small
it kittenes me off why Anet gives low attributes for armors below 80…

Actually sort of know what you mean, i too keep dying when i play my ele for some reason once i hit lvl 80 i could survive better but until then we would be really squishy. I use the 0/10/0/30/30 if you are a noob like me i would suggest pvt armor i know alot of ppl out there does full zerker but until you are good with your ele we need more health and toughness to not get kill by mutiple mobs

It’s really hard for us to give you advice based on a rather scant anecdote.

All I can say is that, generally, Elementalists are really a pain to level compared to Rangers and Warriors, who steamroll everything. At level 80, with a decent amount of offensive gear, Ele’s do some of the best PVE dungeon damage in the game. But then, the PVE in this game is so easy that you don’t need to worry about “topping meters” and the like.

Harukazee, I would say its most likely largely related to your gear. Lvl 50 gear at lvl 70 is a rather large hindrance. Anytime you are downleveled, your armor stats are as well, by a significant amount. So, lets say you have green lvl 70 gear and get down leveled to lvl 50 – it will be like green lvl 50 gear. If you have green lvl 50 gear and get down leveled to lvl 50, it will be something like having lvl 30ish gear (unsure of the actual math, but its noticeable and painful).

As for the rest, for solo stuff, mobs I pull get hit by stuff I cast. In groups, yeah, it may be slightly different, but not often, don’t know, I don’t have a problem landing my pve spells – small groups or not. Zergs… are zergs, who cares what you land, just aoe anything. (hate zerging…).

Fresh air is a popular build, but its a not good pve build. Its a sPvP build.

Now, i don’t play my ele in sPvp so i can’t say if it a good sPvP build or not. But anyway, since you are talking about your levl 70 Ele, that probably mean you are playing in PvE.

Scepter/Dagger have a terrible DPS, and should not use as your main weapon in PvE. Right now there is 3 family of build for the Ele PvE.

Staff : Highest personally DPS, easiest to play. You stay in fire and spam laval front. The trait are 30/20/10/10/0 or 30/10/10/10/10.

S/F or S/D : High DPS, harder to play, stack might like crazy for your party. You gonna have to switch between pretty much all attunements to stack might, then DPS in water with your Light Hammer. Trait vary a lot for that one : 25/10/10/25/0 or 30/10/10/20/0 or 10/25/10/25/0 and a lot more depending on what you want to focus (DPS, Fury, Vulnerability, etc).

D/F : A good all around build. Its nice for solo, fractals and give access to survivability skills since the first two build are really squishy. The Trait : 30/30/10/0/0.

Of course your gear will affect a lot your DPS. But for PvE the Elementalist have the highest potentiel DPS of the game and by far. The problem is that reach the highest DPS is almost impossible. Too many requirements to get all the damage modifier. The enemy need to burn, have vulnerability, be at 33% HP, without a range of 600, you need to be at 90% HP and be in water attunement. This is achievable, but is hard as hell to keep for a long time.

They aren’t under powered.. come 80 if you outfit them in dps gear, they hit pretty kitten hard. Granted I wish they had a slightly larger HP pool.

Thaddeus.4891:

Fresh air is a popular build, but its a not good pve build. Its a sPvP build.

Now, i don’t play my ele in sPvp so i can’t say if it a good sPvP build or not. But anyway, since you are talking about your levl 70 Ele, that probably mean you are playing in PvE.

Scepter/Dagger have a terrible DPS, and should not use as your main weapon in PvE. Right now there is 3 family of build for the Ele PvE.

Staff : Highest personally DPS, easiest to play. You stay in fire and spam laval front. The trait are 30/20/10/10/0 or 30/10/10/10/10.

S/F or S/D : High DPS, harder to play, stack might like crazy for your party. You gonna have to switch between pretty much all attunements to stack might, then DPS in water with your Light Hammer. Trait vary a lot for that one : 25/10/10/25/0 or 30/10/10/20/0 or 10/25/10/25/0 and a lot more depending on what you want to focus (DPS, Fury, Vulnerability, etc).

D/F : A good all around build. Its nice for solo, fractals and give access to survivability skills since the first two build are really squishy. The Trait : 30/30/10/0/0.

Of course your gear will affect a lot your DPS. But for PvE the Elementalist have the highest potentiel DPS of the game and by far. The problem is that reach the highest DPS is almost impossible. Too many requirements to get all the damage modifier. The enemy need to burn, have vulnerability, be at 33% HP, without a range of 600, you need to be at 90% HP and be in water attunement. This is achievable, but is hard as hell to keep for a long time.

What about D/D and just curious how do you guys cope with short range to long range and vice verse do you guys just change to staff? Since ele can only equip 1 wpn set

I think the Ele just lacks the ability to get a good balance between power and survivability. You can get either or, but when you are trying to get a bit of both you end up sacrificing too much for too little. For PvE it is easy, just go for max DPS and learn what and when to dodge but for WvW and PvP to are either hit hard enough to kill but are squishy as kitten or you are tanky a hell but can’t even kill an NPC.

Solo I found d/d the simplest to level with, something like 30/10/10/10/10 (most damage but squishy), 0/20/10/10/30 or 0/10/0/30/30 would work depending on how squishy you want to be. Also better off going full glass in gear and practicing learning when to dodge early, it will help when you get to end game content and eles really cant just stand and tank things like a war or a ranger could anyway no matter your gear. Staff s/d or s/f builds like the others have described are also good and worth trying but theyre a bit more group orientated.

Also gear does matter quite a bit, if you can afford it buy a set of lvl 70 rares and a decent rune set to go with it. If you dont want to spend that you could consider going down to a lower level zone to finish leveling and just saving money for a good set of gear at 80, and then using that to go through the orr zones, its much easier and still worth it since map completion rewards are good. The difference between a poorly geared 70 and an 80 in rares/exotics is huge.

LivingLegend.6528:

Thaddeus.4891:

Fresh air is a popular build, but its a not good pve build. Its a sPvP build.

Now, i don’t play my ele in sPvp so i can’t say if it a good sPvP build or not. But anyway, since you are talking about your levl 70 Ele, that probably mean you are playing in PvE.

Scepter/Dagger have a terrible DPS, and should not use as your main weapon in PvE. Right now there is 3 family of build for the Ele PvE.

Staff : Highest personally DPS, easiest to play. You stay in fire and spam laval front. The trait are 30/20/10/10/0 or 30/10/10/10/10.

S/F or S/D : High DPS, harder to play, stack might like crazy for your party. You gonna have to switch between pretty much all attunements to stack might, then DPS in water with your Light Hammer. Trait vary a lot for that one : 25/10/10/25/0 or 30/10/10/20/0 or 10/25/10/25/0 and a lot more depending on what you want to focus (DPS, Fury, Vulnerability, etc).

D/F : A good all around build. Its nice for solo, fractals and give access to survivability skills since the first two build are really squishy. The Trait : 30/30/10/0/0.

Of course your gear will affect a lot your DPS. But for PvE the Elementalist have the highest potentiel DPS of the game and by far. The problem is that reach the highest DPS is almost impossible. Too many requirements to get all the damage modifier. The enemy need to burn, have vulnerability, be at 33% HP, without a range of 600, you need to be at 90% HP and be in water attunement. This is achievable, but is hard as hell to keep for a long time.

What about D/D and just curious how do you guys cope with short range to long range and vice verse do you guys just change to staff? Since ele can only equip 1 wpn set

I mostly ran D/D when I did Fractals and Dungeons, I’d just swap to staff when I knew I’d have issues with close range.

Nowadays I go full “don’t wanna open my inventory” and run staff with Lightning Hammers for pug runs.

Lostwingman.5034:

LivingLegend.6528:

Thaddeus.4891:

Fresh air is a popular build, but its a not good pve build. Its a sPvP build.

Now, i don’t play my ele in sPvp so i can’t say if it a good sPvP build or not. But anyway, since you are talking about your levl 70 Ele, that probably mean you are playing in PvE.

Scepter/Dagger have a terrible DPS, and should not use as your main weapon in PvE. Right now there is 3 family of build for the Ele PvE.

Staff : Highest personally DPS, easiest to play. You stay in fire and spam laval front. The trait are 30/20/10/10/0 or 30/10/10/10/10.

S/F or S/D : High DPS, harder to play, stack might like crazy for your party. You gonna have to switch between pretty much all attunements to stack might, then DPS in water with your Light Hammer. Trait vary a lot for that one : 25/10/10/25/0 or 30/10/10/20/0 or 10/25/10/25/0 and a lot more depending on what you want to focus (DPS, Fury, Vulnerability, etc).

D/F : A good all around build. Its nice for solo, fractals and give access to survivability skills since the first two build are really squishy. The Trait : 30/30/10/0/0.

Of course your gear will affect a lot your DPS. But for PvE the Elementalist have the highest potentiel DPS of the game and by far. The problem is that reach the highest DPS is almost impossible. Too many requirements to get all the damage modifier. The enemy need to burn, have vulnerability, be at 33% HP, without a range of 600, you need to be at 90% HP and be in water attunement. This is achievable, but is hard as hell to keep for a long time.

What about D/D and just curious how do you guys cope with short range to long range and vice verse do you guys just change to staff? Since ele can only equip 1 wpn set

I mostly ran D/D when I did Fractals and Dungeons, I’d just swap to staff when I knew I’d have issues with close range.

Nowadays I go full “don’t wanna open my inventory” and run staff with Lightning Hammers for pug runs.

hmmm…all the other profession can switch 2 sets of wpn but only the ele just wondering though because when we are in combat we cant switch anything and sometimes we need to kite which i am not sure if just the ice bow is enough O_o(btw pardon my noobness i am still learning how to play a ele

Engineers don’t weapon swap either, they get their range flexibility from kits.
We have to rely on conjures if we are going to do that in combat but they are really awkward to pull out.

D/D is pretty much like D/F. It only change some skills.

D/D is better mobility with bit more awkward might stacking and 1 more heal/condi removal.

D/F is better active survivability and more efficient might stacking

You can change weapon between fight if you want. But you need to know in advance what you gonna need as you can’t really change you weapon in mid fight. The Elementalist have a huge DPS potentiel, combine with a lot of good active defense skill. You strategy should be to burst down an enemy and use your skills to get out when needed, not to kite an enemy. At least with a Dagger or Scepter as your main hand weapon. With the staff you can kite, but even with the Staff you shoudl ALWAYS stay in a 300 range of your allies for boons sharing and activate the damage modifier that activate when you are in 600 range.

Offhand dagger also brings in bigger burst damage skills like Firegrab and Churning Earth (even if they can be awkward to get used to I enjoy the big numbers). It also has access to one of our better fire fields in Ring of Fire.

LivingLegend.6528:

What about D/D and just curious how do you guys cope with short range to long range and vice verse do you guys just change to staff? Since ele can only equip 1 wpn set

With my staff ele it’s simple. I don’t. For me, range is a secondary attribute of the weapon. I’m just as often, maybe even more often, in melee than I am at range. The thing is, unlike ranger longbow or mesmer greatsword, ele staff doesn’t lose effectiveness. Combine with evasive arcana I can hold my own at any range. I often close in jut so I can make use of the combos I setup for team’s melee fighters.

The same goes for D/D too. Dagger for elementalist isn’t a melee weapon. It has a range greater than melee, and when kiting or avoiding damage, you can make use of that to avoid attacks while still being able to attack. The water auto attack has 600 range. That’s quite a lot for a ‘melee’ weapon. Use what you have.

Thaddeus.4891:

Fresh air is a popular build, but its a not good pve build. Its a sPvP build.

- snip -

Scepter/Dagger have a terrible DPS, and should not use as your main weapon in PvE. Right now there is 3 family of build for the Ele PvE.

- snip -

First, true, Fresh Air is a pvp spec, and not terribly useful in pve. Its one of our better pvp specs, but ele in general is rough at the moment in there, relative to the power creep of other classes.

Second, I would counter and say, S/x might not have high sustained damage (unless you count conjure/might stacking builds), but in open world / leveling pve, you don’t need high sustained dps. That only becomes important for things with tons of health, like a boss. For standard exploration / leveling, burst is fine because most stuff is dead by the time you finish one burst rotation. The plus side is that this can also prepare you for might combo fielding/conjures if you want to use that as your dungeon spec.

The reality of course is that anything works in world pve, so I hope that the OP has found some good suggestions in the thread that help him out.

I run D/D or Staff with 30/30/10/0/0 in PVE with Soldier Gear and Zerker Trinkets,
works quite well for me.

Whit.2385:

Thaddeus.4891:

Fresh air is a popular build, but its a not good pve build. Its a sPvP build.

- snip -

Scepter/Dagger have a terrible DPS, and should not use as your main weapon in PvE. Right now there is 3 family of build for the Ele PvE.

- snip -

First, true, Fresh Air is a pvp spec, and not terribly useful in pve. Its one of our better pvp specs, but ele in general is rough at the moment in there, relative to the power creep of other classes.

Second, I would counter and say, S/x might not have high sustained damage (unless you count conjure/might stacking builds), but in open world / leveling pve, you don’t need high sustained dps. That only becomes important for things with tons of health, like a boss. For standard exploration / leveling, burst is fine because most stuff is dead by the time you finish one burst rotation. The plus side is that this can also prepare you for might combo fielding/conjures if you want to use that as your dungeon spec.

The reality of course is that anything works in world pve, so I hope that the OP has found some good suggestions in the thread that help him out.

This don’t change the fact that S/x have a terrible DPS. Of course its enough for completing most thing in the game, but again i can run 0/0/0/0/0, naked and be able to do most thing in the game.

okay guys in advance i wanna say thanks to all of you who comment here
just re-train my trait, went full berserk using “Fresh air” build and i am using zerk scepter/dagger

kill enemy in one rotation
2 fire-4 fire-3 fire-arcane blast(most mob would be dead by now)-4 earth-5earth-air1-air2
and I must say here that elementalist is the best in dps (in my case at least) it does a lot of damage and the evasive arcana and water attunement are kinda OP using trait
air-30 arcane-30 water-3(10 soon)

and stacking might is quite easy

thks for your corporation really appreciate it

fyi:the problem is I am at lv 70 using lv 50 weapons (sorry for my ignorance)
now I kill at 10 seconds(solo)

Glad it worked out! Just an fyi – Fresh Air is fun, and I love running it in pvp, but its not as optimal a pve spec, as you don’t need the burst swaps as frequently. That being said, I am glad you are enjoying it and having fun! That’s the purpose of ele, and in that regard, we stand far ahead of any other class (imo).

When you’re up for trying out other traits in pve, I do highly recommend taking a look at the dungeon meta stickies – even if you are not running dungeon premades, they have a lot of good information in them and ideas for specs. In pve, I rarely feel that I am squishy enough to warrant 30 in arcane or water, but that stuff is fun. Particularly if you want to get into pvp, it is not bad to get used to some of the commonly chosen traits.

-

Thaddeus.4891:

Whit.2385:

Thaddeus.4891:

Fresh air is a popular build, but its a not good pve build. Its a sPvP build.

- snip -

Scepter/Dagger have a terrible DPS, and should not use as your main weapon in PvE. Right now there is 3 family of build for the Ele PvE.

- snip -

First, true, Fresh Air is a pvp spec, and not terribly useful in pve. Its one of our better pvp specs, but ele in general is rough at the moment in there, relative to the power creep of other classes.

Second, I would counter and say, S/x might not have high sustained damage (unless you count conjure/might stacking builds), but in open world / leveling pve, you don’t need high sustained dps. That only becomes important for things with tons of health, like a boss. For standard exploration / leveling, burst is fine because most stuff is dead by the time you finish one burst rotation. The plus side is that this can also prepare you for might combo fielding/conjures if you want to use that as your dungeon spec.

The reality of course is that anything works in world pve, so I hope that the OP has found some good suggestions in the thread that help him out.

This don’t change the fact that S/x have a terrible DPS. Of course its enough for completing most thing in the game, but again i can run 0/0/0/0/0, naked and be able to do most thing in the game.

Also true, but I’m just saying that for open world there is no need to focus on sustained dps, as burst damage will get the job done far quicker. And s/x is low sustain, but great for might blasting and picking up a conjure, then you have excellent dps. Regardless, glad that Haru is more comfortable on ele now!

we’re not under powered. we can hit just as well as anyone else…we just can’t take the hit back without falling over like a deck of cards. Its our base defense that is the issue. if everyone started at the same point at level 1 and grew at the same rate with each level, so in our naked forms we were the same at level 80 no matter what class and everything was determined by weapons, traits, armor, and skill to create gaps then everyone would be happy.