Guild Wars 2

Hey guys,

So I’m getting my engineer to 80 then diving into an elementalist. Class looks very fun to play!

Really I’m just after any advice or tips and tricks you have please! So far I know dd for PvP and staff for pve. Ill probably hate levelling as I’m used to levelling on my ranger which is a doddle. But again any tips for levelling also?

which class do you think has the best appeal in equipment? I checked out metabattle and the “rotation” seems ok but a little confusing. The 4 attunements seems worrying as it seems like a lot to do but I’ve no idea if I need to swap often etc etc

also roaming, are we viable? Solo queue PvP, pug dungeons and fractals, how are we?

Cheers!!

Adjust.6903:

Hey guys,

So I’m getting my engineer to 80 then diving into an elementalist. Class looks very fun to play!

Really I’m just after any advice or tips and tricks you have please! So far I know dd for PvP and staff for pve. Ill probably hate levelling as I’m used to levelling on my ranger which is a doddle. But again any tips for levelling also?

which class do you think has the best appeal in equipment? I checked out metabattle and the “rotation” seems ok but a little confusing. The 4 attunements seems worrying as it seems like a lot to do but I’ve no idea if I need to swap often etc etc

also roaming, are we viable? Solo queue PvP, pug dungeons and fractals, how are we?

Cheers!!

Welcome to the life of an ele!
Eles are in high demand for all game modes i believe.

Tips:
I recommend trying all weapons (there’s more to an ele than d/d)

Playing an ele is kind of like it playing rock-paper-scissors. You have an ability that can counter every occasion if played correctly. Don’t be afraid to swap attunments.

You can use cantrips and swap attunements while channeling skills (churning earth, meteor shower, etc)

Combo fields and finishers are your friends as you have a lot of them, you can get extra heals or might if you use skills in right order.

That’s one thing I was curious about. Comboa. What are some good basic combos that are a must have?

Welcome to the world of elementalists!

Eles are strong, versatile and in demand in every game mode. There are a lot more possibilities than staff PvE and d/d PvP !

A few examples of the builds you can run in various game modes :

Dungeon PvE :
- Staff zerker, just sit in fire attunement for massive damage
- s/f conjure lightning hammer ; With the right traits, over the top dps.

WvW :
- 0/X/X/6/6 d/d ele is an excellent roamer.
- so is 0/X/X/6/6 d/f !
- Staff ele is relevant as ever in WvW zerging. Or in GvG, in you’re into that kind of thing.

sPvP :
The aforementioned roaming builds (d/d or d/f) are relevant here too.
You can also have fun with fresh air builds, gimmick ohk builds, and more…

While leveling, make sure to try all weapons to find which ones suit your playstyle better. There is no point in forcing yourself into playing d/d ele if you don’t enjoy the skillset/rotation. Take your time and read all skills carefully. You have a lot of combo possibilities.

If you were used to engi kits, ele attunement swap shouldn’t confuse you too much.

Good luck, and have fun!

Adjust.6903:

That’s one thing I was curious about. Comboa. What are some good basic combos that are a must have?

I can only speak about Staff since I’ve played that pretty much exclusively since launch.

Staff’s big finisher is Eruption in Earth (slot 2). It’s on a delay, so you can drop Earth 2, swap attunements, then drop any field you want on it.

Earth 2 > Fire 2. Fire field for Might.
Earth 2 > Water 3 or 5. Water field for AOE Healing (very useful for survival)
Earth 2 > Air 5. Air field for switfness.

You can also combo with Water 4 for Frost Armor, but that buff sucks so don’t bother.

In addition, you can get up to 3 more blast finishers. 1 from Arcane Blast (utility slot), 1 from Arcane Brilliance (Heal slot), and one from Evasive Arcana (dodge roll while in Earth). You can make an incredible support build this way, if desired.

There are a few more, lesser combos that can be useful while you are cycling attunements.

Fire 4 > Earth 5. Burning Retreat + Immobilize, great for kiting. Also inflicts burning by sending a projectile through a fire field.
Water 4 > Earth 5. Inflicts immobilize and Chill. Great for kiting.
Air 5 > Air 3. Knocks target back through Static Field, for a combination gap opener and stun.

Fire 4, Water 4, Air 3/4/5, Earth 4 and 5. Not true combos, but by cycling between these you can kite almost forever.

Awesome replies tbanks a bunch guys so far so helpful! Yeah I really hate the engineer for pve, oh boy I would rage so hard at how it was levelling I just found it a nightmare after playing my warrior and ranger. Ditched the warrior due to how simple it was, yawn… Boring! However engineer in PvP/dungeons and elementalist especially are so much fun..!

Appreciate the advice thank you very much!

i have a question tho. ik most of the combs but i think still more that idk, cuz yasterday i was playing CoF and one of the praty said give us fury for 2 min i was like WTF i don’t anything about that :P they kicked me at the endi deserved that XD
The question is how do i give them fury for longer than 10 sec i believe ?

A m b Y.9704:

i have a question tho. ik most of the combs but i think still more that idk, cuz yasterday i was playing CoF and one of the praty said give us fury for 2 min i was like WTF i don’t anything about that :P they kicked me at the endi deserved that XD
The question is how do i give them fury for longer than 10 sec i believe ?

Persisting Flames is a trait that give you longer fire field duration and give you might when you blast them.

If you were using a staff you can’t really give 2min. You have only 3 blast at max so you can give 30sec each approx 30sec. In theory you can keep perma fury, in practice it will almost perma fury.

If you were using S/X then you have between 5 and 6 blast so you can give around a min of fury each approx 30sec.

Lightning Flash can be used while casting other spells. Its extremely useful for landing D/D abilities like F3, E4 for surprise knockdowns, and E5 which has a ridiculous cast time but hits like a truck.

Getting good with lightning flash will make a big difference in your success rate as D/D (if you so choose to use that).

the best advice i can give is if you’re planning on doing any PVP/WVW, you’ll want 4+ water/arcane, or you’ll have no sustain and/or die a lot.

Thaddeus.4891:

A m b Y.9704:

i have a question tho. ik most of the combs but i think still more that idk, cuz yasterday i was playing CoF and one of the praty said give us fury for 2 min i was like WTF i don’t anything about that :P they kicked me at the endi deserved that XD
The question is how do i give them fury for longer than 10 sec i believe ?

Persisting Flames is a trait that give you longer fire field duration and give you might when you blast them.

If you were using a staff you can’t really give 2min. You have only 3 blast at max so you can give 30sec each approx 30sec. In theory you can keep perma fury, in practice it will almost perma fury.

If you were using S/X then you have between 5 and 6 blast so you can give around a min of fury each approx 30sec.

Pre-stacking might before the fight will allow to stack up to 2 minutes of fury.

Iris Ng.9845:

Pre-stacking might before the fight will allow to stack up to 2 minutes of fury.

And how could you do that on your own? With 10sec of fury for each blast that mean 12 blast. I guess you can by swapping weapons, but i don’t think that count. People in party have 2min because it’s not only 1 S/X ele that blast might. If you have two S/X Ele then yes you can reach 2min. But by your own in one shot you can’t.

By swapping weapons. Anything counts as long as you can do it.

Edit: I think stacking fury is a fair trade for having the leisure to play staff while the PS war pumps off the might. More often than not, pugs are ignorant to the importance of fury. If I played PS war and notice the lack of fury, I usually bring signet of rage instead of war banner.

Thaddeus.4891:

Iris Ng.9845:

Pre-stacking might before the fight will allow to stack up to 2 minutes of fury.

And how could you do that on your own? With 10sec of fury for each blast that mean 12 blast. I guess you can by swapping weapons, but i don’t think that count. People in party have 2min because it’s not only 1 S/X ele that blast might. If you have two S/X Ele then yes you can reach 2min. But by your own in one shot you can’t.

12 would be difficult, but 9 is definitely doable
http://dulfy.net/2014/07/11/gw2-elementalist-pve-class-guide-by-haviz-and-zelyhn/#Pre-fight_rotation

Some tips to increase your dps output and speed as an ele

• You can change attunements during a spell cast and your spell will still complete. This is useful for chaining a frost field right after a meteor shower and necessary for the current D/D ele might stack rotation
• Meteor shower will get its full damage output after about 50% of its cast bar is complete. You can start cast on another spell after this point to boost your dps or utility.
• A well placed static field can wipe an enemy zerg in WvW assuming your zerg is dumping aoes out on top of it. Same goes for an earth wall (Earth staff 4)
• Save water fields for recovery stage in WvW or healing in pve. You can dodge roll through it with evasive arcana to get an extra water hit, then earth attune and dodge into a water field for the blast finish, which is another water heal.

• Dagger Dagger rotation: Start in air attunement then
  Air 4, Air 5 (most players will try to dodge air 5). Fire attunement while flying from Air 5, Fire 3, Fire 4, Fire 5, dodge backward, switch to earth attune during dodge (evasive arcana blast), earth 4, water attunement, Water 3, switch back to air for dps and static field. If you do this while on the meta DD ele you’ll have a near 21 stack of might on you.

• While leveling, dagger dagger will in my opinion do more damage output than staff, especially if you use the rotation above. If you spec 6,2,0,0,6 you can have near permanent fury and full might stacks. Sub 80 DD still lets you stack might. Look for Minor and Major runes that increase might duration.

• IN WvW you’re pretty much the sole source of the recovery phase. Don’t let this keep you from doing damage. Let it keep you out of water attunement though with the exception of going in to use a water field. Work with the air and earth utility and fire for dps. When zergging use the staff. When solo you can go dagger/dagger or other combos.

*Fire dagger 3 and fire staff 4 (i forget the names off the top of my head) are fire fields even though they don’t show the combo markers on the ground. You can blast finish off them for might stacks.

Iris Ng.9845:

Pre-stacking might before the fight will allow to stack up to 2 minutes of fury.

Not unless you have at least +33,(3)% fury duration.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

12 would be difficult, but 9 is definitely doable
http://dulfy.net/2014/07/11/gw2-elementalist-pve-class-guide-by-haviz-and-zelyhn/#Pre-fight_rotation

There’s no point in blasting more than 9 times since that’s the size of the queue. Fury, as most boons, stacks up to 9 times.

lioka qiao.8734:

Some tips to increase your dps output and speed as an ele

• You can change attunements during a spell cast and your spell will still complete. This is useful for chaining a frost field right after a meteor shower and necessary for the current D/D ele might stack rotation
• Meteor shower will get its full damage output after about 50% of its cast bar is complete. You can start cast on another spell after this point to boost your dps or utility.
• A well placed static field can wipe an enemy zerg in WvW assuming your zerg is dumping aoes out on top of it. Same goes for an earth wall (Earth staff 4)
• Save water fields for recovery stage in WvW or healing in pve. You can dodge roll through it with evasive arcana to get an extra water hit, then earth attune and dodge into a water field for the blast finish, which is another water heal.

• Dagger Dagger rotation: Start in air attunement then
  Air 4, Air 5 (most players will try to dodge air 5). Fire attunement while flying from Air 5, Fire 3, Fire 4, Fire 5, dodge backward, switch to earth attune during dodge (evasive arcana blast), earth 4, water attunement, Water 3, switch back to air for dps and static field. If you do this while on the meta DD ele you’ll have a near 21 stack of might on you.

• While leveling, dagger dagger will in my opinion do more damage output than staff, especially if you use the rotation above. If you spec 6,2,0,0,6 you can have near permanent fury and full might stacks. Sub 80 DD still lets you stack might. Look for Minor and Major runes that increase might duration.

• IN WvW you’re pretty much the sole source of the recovery phase. Don’t let this keep you from doing damage. Let it keep you out of water attunement though with the exception of going in to use a water field. Work with the air and earth utility and fire for dps. When zergging use the staff. When solo you can go dagger/dagger or other combos.

*Fire dagger 3 and fire staff 4 (i forget the names off the top of my head) are fire fields even though they don’t show the combo markers on the ground. You can blast finish off them for might stacks.

Just want to add for the second D/D rotation your E4 will still be on CD. So I like to use F3-F4-W3-Earth Dodge-E5+Lightning Flash(optional depending on if you are in a position where you can get it off safely).

This gets you three more might blasts to keep you highly stacked longer.

Adjust.6903:

Hey guys,

So I’m getting my engineer to 80 then diving into an elementalist. Class looks very fun to play!

Really I’m just after any advice or tips and tricks you have please! So far I know dd for PvP and staff for pve. Ill probably hate levelling as I’m used to levelling on my ranger which is a doddle. But again any tips for levelling also?

which class do you think has the best appeal in equipment? I checked out metabattle and the “rotation” seems ok but a little confusing. The 4 attunements seems worrying as it seems like a lot to do but I’ve no idea if I need to swap often etc etc

also roaming, are we viable? Solo queue PvP, pug dungeons and fractals, how are we?

Cheers!!

Just some tips:

- You need to change attunements all the time because of the high cooldowns on our skills, the best is to end in Air because lightning whip is your best auto-attack.

- Practice your combos on still targets (golems) and make sure you master them, for example:
Earth 4,3,5 (water 4 while in churning earth) Lightning flash to target, water 3, etc.

- keep the cc pressure rotation, if your opponent isn’t knockdowned he should be chilled or stunned

- do not waste 2 knockdowns in a row unless a friend is doing the dps, for example after Air 5 do not go to earth 4, but go to fire 3-5 then to earth 4

- make sure to use fire 3 at 900 range so that your fire 5 land on target

- learn your opponent classes animations, squishy classes have to dodge damage more