Guild Wars 2

not going to really rate that but 7/10 for the humor part. This is my most recent though haven’t checked the last dyes I got.

It is good for PvE, you just need to get used to positioning for certain spells. S/D was fun for me during leveling and dungeons.

I am not sure how you spec for a specific weapon with Ele but with traits that gives boons on auras I can use all weapons(fury, protection and speed) . Just bring arcane blast with you.

For PvE I suggest you switch weapons every now and then , it is more fun this way

For WvW it is better to use staff IMO but I think S/D has its uses there.

One build does not make the whole class OP. I personally do not like playing bunker and I do not. It is the people own falt they lack creativity and wan to win at any cost instead of having fun Just run with teammate – it is not a solo game.

I agree the D/D bunker is effective (maybe OP) but it is no fun to me. If they make trait stat points count more than gear and high crit chance and dmg impossible for bunkers (for all classes) then theer will be nothing OP in the build even.

But the whole class being OP? Nah…

Not for me (Priory). They ganged me tons of times and no single friendly npc alive in the area, I guess I’ll retry another day.

Pretty much this ^. Well said, sir.

It is a well known fact that bad players use the word ‘noob’ too much and any other class then theirs is overpowered. As a mesmer (maybe not that good) I die quite often to necros.
If Anet listen to those spoon-fed whiners we (all classes) will end up without AoE capabilities for PvE and PvP, no burst damage and all will be around single target. Yay.

PS. Mesmers will be always hated because they are not straightforward to fight. And it is the class that should be a priority target in a battle and I rarely see this.

Lol and that is with confusion nerfed @OP – you learned nothing, you cannot even see the mesmer, obviously. If you see bunch of happy mesmers running towards you – this is NOT the mesmer

Some people call a nerf everything.. too much whine sometimes..
A skill got changed, how dare they – go burn em all.

It appears skills were not the focus of the update anyway. Those are just some minor fixes.

You can cross weapon skill sets so yes. Getting best from both worlds with no drawbacks is imba for me.

Good is relative term.

Damage isn’t all but some people do not realize it. Nor they realise the fact that ele can buff their own damage and survivability (might stacks, auras, protection, fields, fury…) depending on weapon and build. Necros and rangers also have issues but I do not mind running with any of them. Wondering what they’ll do when their class gets nerfed. The community got less mature and more arrogant in a way since BWEs. Probably due to too many copies sold (not that it is a bad thing).

If you need party go to GW2lfg.com and you’ll get people to run with.

I personally do not have time for waiting for party so if I do not have luck I try zergs, dailies watch movies and go back to party lfg another time

Anyone demanding you play your toon in a specific manner does not deserve to be in your party
The attitude you mention can hardly come from good\creative players. In PvE I find myself being last man standing on numerous occasions and my build is not even tanky.

In the end – this is just a game and ppl are supposed to have fun. I personally do not want to be in groups which consider GW2 as a chore.

Do you have vertical sync on?

^this. I had runs 4 eles+1 engi and 3 eles+2 mesmers and we performed far from worse.
What most people do not realize is that you do not own them anything. A guardian is not supposed to buff YOU – so stay close to guardian if you want some buffs. Same goes for any profession. Aura sharing is not the only thing you can do.

Almost nobody will give you credit for might buff, AoE heals or protection from earth swap. But any of those combined with Guardian buffs go pretty well. A good ele is one that do not die often, period. I won’t run aura sharing just because someone is telling me to.

P.S. It is funny how well a combination between ‘worst’ classes is. Any two players from ranger/ele/necro classes can upkeep burning/bleeding/other conditions pretty good + contributing to raw damage and even buffing ally.
The most selfish playstyle I’ve personally seen comes from classes from Warriors because a lot of guys running them believe you owe them and it was not for once I have seen the Leroy style from the same.

@OP you do not need such guys in your party believe me. Bad arguments from bad players.

Once upon a time in GW1 it was like ‘Meteor shower! GET OUT!’ .. not is like ’oh yeah..let me finish my casts and I may move out of the way. Sure now we can spam more AoE but it is quite weaker and only available for Staff eles… I do not see how damage nerf to it will balance anything .. you can evade it , block it and soak it up …

It is more than normal Eles to have more AoE capabilities than other classes. Time will tell. Game designers may have great ideas but at the end they do not make the final call.

Limiting targets on AoE to 5 means they should elevate the damage up not nerfing it down lol. What is the point of taking trait for larger AoE attacks…?

GW – Guilds of Warriors?

So eles learned to play and are now OP?

Pretty much what Jake.1842 said. I like S/D and I am running it most of the time in PvE.

I am personally thinking of Power/Toughness/Vitality gear with condition damage rune as it appears it can fit into almost any build, then I could change accessories and weapons to fit different stats.

S/D is far from useless in dungeons and fractals… I usually go melee range as it suits my style but I can attack from range if necessary. I am beginning to think the majority of those threads come from D/D-only users.

Tornado’s underwater version is Whirlpool, just to clarify.

You can bleed and burn right off the bat with either D/D or S/D.

You need to use the weapon skills with their secondary effects like fields + finishers (tooltip on skills) , play with utility skills and traits. You cannot get much of the last two before level ~15-20 when you can get your first 10 points into trait line.

Every single skill may not be that powerful but the secret is in using them in combos, building conditions\damage on foes and later boons\buffs on you. After lv 20 it gets better.. this is for every single class. Get used to dodge mechanic – it is important.
I suggest you do not put points in water during leveling or at least not before later levels. Else you may spoil your style and decrease damage potential making fights longer at levels below 30-40.
Heck, do not put points in water traits till like at least 70 if you ask me. Managing with lower hp pool will teach you to avoid and negate damage better and points in vitality will just improve it, otherwise it may be hard to remove points from that line if needed to. I managed to ding 80 without single point in water and I never felt weak. Your call though…but bear in mind healing does not scale well till near endgame.

Your mistake is the sentence in the beginning of second paragraph. Look for tips not weapon builds. Unlock all your skills on all your weapons+ underwater ones and keep a copy of every single weapon combination in your inventory to swap on the move.

Also, learning skills and their usages takes time. Experiment!

Here is interesting info:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Tips-and-Tricks-by-Elementalists/first#post1176969

It provides some info on usages you can overlook in the beginning. Or look for threads like this.

Combo fields are your best friend

You can summon two elementals at the same time by using both elite and non-elite skills.

Pure PvE leveling tips.

Cast Glyph of Elemental Power while in fire attunement, then swap to earth (especially scepter auto-attack\churning earth) – you can stack bleeding and have chance for burning.

Casting Glyph of Storms while in earth provides replenishing AoE blind which leads to extremely good protection. Combine with Churning Earth can apply mass bleed to lots of enemies simultaneously. (very long chain example but fun- dragon’s tooth-fire field-Glyph of Storms in earth-churning earth-earthquake (latter can be reversed)).

Glyph of lesser elementals, Arcane Shield, Glyph of Storms provide pretty good defense and are easy to obtain.

Efficient way to use Whirlpool is to cast protection spell, then transform, circle around targets.

Early levels, trait points provide a lot of advantage (first line). Consider putting 10 points into air/earth first. Air line has a trait that reduces glyph cooldowns by 20% and your first heal is a glyph. Earth can provide automatic earth shield.

Do not underestimate the power of the secondary effects, like: Scepter weapon – phoenix skill cures condition and gives vigor. Switching to earth with elemental attunement + arcana trait (elemental attunement) gives protection and combined with Scepter’s armor of earth provide prolonged defense increase.

Dodge!

Always be on the move.

Do not burst all your spells on single target. Better to save the cooldown and kill it a bit slower. You never know what is behind you

Elementalist can put down multiple melee mobs with the same efficiency as putting one down. Sometimes it is better to just get 3 mobs to attack you. Saves time.

Dragon’s tooth – A nice way to land it is to run towards the target while casting it. When the target is close to you, dodge towards the spells landing point and cast fire field. Requires a bit of timing but it is good exercise.

While in a group try to use healing spells next to wounded ally – a lot of them are AoE based. You help the team at no cost.

Do not buy gear with money while leveling – use karma, there is no point in saving it. Use your money for map teleports.

Experiment. You can discover skill combos that you may feel pretty useful.

Auto-attacks may feel weak but they are always available – always use them while other skills are on recharge.

1v1 are rare in this game unless one is too selfish not to aid his teammates.

Elementalist can prevent someone from getting away IF the said skills are not on cooldown. I’d love to see ele killing multiple players all having immobilize skills. This is assuming. In prolonged fight it depends.

I am also able to get into zerg and get away but just because just few ppl bother to attack me. As Cirax said thief also have good escape mechanics, if not better. Remove stealth?
Healing and tanking are possible ok, but our damage got nerfed! And I am one of those players who refuse to flood their utility skills bar with escape skills. I use different utilities. So ability to escape comes at a cost.

If you take away the escape capability the build would be UP?

Let’s talk about the build – it is boring and you still use it. It is D/D no other weapons. You have 3 get-away skills and you use ALL to get away from SINGLE fight (probably then waiting for recharge). Boring but A LOT of players are using heaving investment into water and arcana not only for PvP but also in PvE and also during leveling. Why? Because (quoting tons of threads) ‘it is hard to survive else’ (wrong!).

Am I the only guy who sees problem elsewhere?? Why the most boring build is the most wanted one?

I speak only for PvE but I never invested in water during leveling. Now I have rare gear with all-round stats and some MF (like 70%) so I can equip any weapon I want and deal some nice damage and have survivability at the same time. I invested 10 points in water after getting to 80 just to have some HP increase from the base. So there is different path.

And do not forget exotic gear comes at the cost of heavy grinding. If you have 5-6 hours a week and you do not want to be too repetitive in gameplay I doubt you’ll get it that easy.

So nerf.. what? Escape? I see qq threads ’ my tanky ele is useless’. Damage, vitality scaling? Other builds will be much less effective leading to the most boring build being the only one. Nerf all escpaes? same.

What I’d love to see is trait stats having more weight on endgame as well as increased condition damage overall. Then I’d love to see those threads ’my-tanky-ele-does-not-deal-enough-dmg.

Also, do not give WvW as example because people are usually distracted by other factors.

Experienced players can escape your highest damage skill leading you to doing small amounts of damage. I had a PvP fight where an asura necro managed to evade my churning earth skill every time 4 times in a row and it was not 1v1. he was paying attention. Takiness over damage seems good tradeoff – it is all the build is about. And I never used it even i sPvP.

I cannot kill certain guardians at all so they are also OP right?

I do not want to offend anyone and maybe something needs to change but not at the cost of crippling escape mechanics nor nerfing damage. Remember you sacrifice damage, variety of weapon skills and fun for tanki-ness and boring-ness. There must be raw damage, survivability, condition damage, middle-ground builds and more than one from a type to achieve

P.S. @OP – people are saying you are trolling because you did not have any single creative suggestion for change without crippling other areas, because you say it is boring but you use it, because they think if you are experienced you would have used other build.
P.P.S. Get a video of such ele killing 2 thiefs with perma stealth and condition damage+2 guardians and I’d agree it is ‘way OP’.

I love it. I always wanted to be able to use all 4 elements efficiently. It is much more mobile than standard mage and I like it. Chaining skills and building might will also improve dps by good margin. Combo fields are your best friend

Also If you have both Glyphs of elemental and lesser elemental you can have two elementals simultaneously. I haven’t used this in a while so I hope they did not change it.
Upgrade your gear via carma vendors throughout the world.

elementalist is like fast paced dancing – you control the fight, how much damage you take. Do not stand still

Here are my tips.

Learn to dodge – very important. A lot of people do not do this often in the beginning and having trouble staying alive.

Initial lv tips:

Whatever you pit as traits till lv 40 it will make a BIG difference especially around 20-25.
I uses 3 trait lined – air, earth and arcana. Air gives 100 precision with 10 trait points, earth gives 100 condition damage and 100 toughness.
In the beginning air will scale your critical chance very good you you might want to begin with that to have some free +50% damage and up from crits. Killing faster lowers incoming damage.

Earth is also good choice – condition damage is good but it is sustained damage and you need to kite a bit.

Arcana – elemental attunement is very useful. With it when you switch to earth you get protection so you can get some hits safely for few seconds.

Adept Traits – Air – glyph recharge -20% is quite nice as your first healing spell is glyph
Earth – armor of earth will add survivability when things get out of hand.
Arcana – elemental attunement. – A must basically. Swapping to earth provides protection so good to soak up damage.

My choices – first invest 10 points in air. Then 10 in Earth and Arcana last. Then you are lv 40 and you can unlock the second line.

Early utility skills – do not bother with healing as of yet. Ether renewal is good but you need to have skill that negates damage when you cast it to prevent interrupts when needed. Besides casting the default heal while in water gives regeneration and while in earth gives protection which is really attractive until you get more skills.

So my choices – Arcane shield. Very nice and you can activate it when channeling other spell like churning earth.
Glyph of elemental power – You can cast it while on file attunement then switch to earth to add some bleeds and chance for burning from the glyph.
Signet of fire – along will air trait early levels it gives pretty nice crit chance.
Line 2 – Glyph of lesser elemental. Adds survivability a lot. Ice and Earth elementals are very nice.

The rest of skills are your choice. A lot of skills may appear weak but you must use them in combos to synergize with other skills like – Arcane wave can be cast in fire fields to give might or in water for aoe heals. It can also be cast while chanelling so combining with Churning earth from offhand dagger is nice.

Glyph of storms casted in earth attunement gives steady AOE blind.

Skip the third line and go for the Glyph of elementals. You will return to that line later.
At some point take Tornado – used underwater for whirlpool version. In order to avoid damage with it – cast some utility skill like armor if earth if you have it. OR Arcane shield. Activate the skill and begin to strafe to one direction AND around the targets. This skill can be taken later on.

Gear – stats do not matter much until like lv 50-60. BUT take armor with stats that you do not have as traits whenever you can – e.g. Vitality, power… You will often swap gear so do not try to build gear stats too much. Avoid healing power – you cannot scale it that much to make a difference and it will impact the DPS.

Weapon stat choices – Always on the offensive! Power, condition damage, precision. You will swap gear more often than weapons.

More generic tips :

Bring all weapons all the time – two daggers, scepter, focus and staff. Swap then once in a while and of course unlocking all their skills as well as underwater skills is top priority.

My favourite – Scepter/Dagger – it has two blinds, protection, ride the lightning and updraft – all good for CC. A sample chain – fire field->Dragon tooth->Earthquake->Churning earth. Use Arcane shield while casting Churning earth for avoiding damage. If you have trouble landing dragon tooth on melee mobs run back and forward with evade For ranged targets get close before casting ring of fire (range will not matter with those mobs).

Dagger/Dagger – very enjoying but you need to be quite mobile. You are like a bouncing ball with those.

Focus- it sacrifices DPS for protection. Use it while in groups and having trouble staying alive. You can cast flame wall under the feet of targets when other engage them, you can negate projectiles, reflect them and have 4 seconds of invulnerability.
I haven’t used it much.

In any way you need to get used to crowd control. Staff provides a lot of CC to keep enemies at bay.

Do not fear to jump to foes. Use utility skills to avoid damage.

Experiment – I never stayed too long with single weapon set. Swap them, experiment with combos. If you feel you are getting hit too often, chance tactics, weapons and/or utility skills. Those can make big difference.

If you are overwhelmed just escape and reset the fight.

Use auto-attacks.. some add bleeds like Scepter earth … they help and are always available.

Sorry for the long post but I could not help it

I am not sure if it is only on updraft and if it always has been like that – but certain underwater abilities cause delay after executing – e.g. if you use earth 5 then earth #1 or #2 the attack does not appear immediately, the toon just sits there for approximately the same amount of time. So maybe those two are related…

Can you post your build?

@wintermute.4096 – about the staff. You can use Glyph of elemental power while in fire, swap to earth and spam weakness and bleeds. On top of that you have quite a good chance to cause burning. You get 3 conditions while in single attunement. Sure the burning is not that awesome but it can be re-applied. So it is all matter of choice really..

If you lower the cd too much we could have too many perma boons(e.g. 10 sec initial cooldown leads to 4 seconds with 60% off). The cooldown itself is not a problem – I personally think one can go with 15 pts in arcana easy, if you utilize auto-attack a bit more.
The problem is that other traits are not so tempting so people put points into arcana.

Arcana is utility trait, it makes you overall better, Mesmers also have such trait line. It won’t change much as design but I prefer to have better grandmaster traits for the other trees(e.g. reduced cooldown for that element only and non-stacking with arcane global cd).

P.S. I mean no offense but stop thinking Ele is all about might stacks. A lot of players cycle through fire/earth skills before combat to get high might stacks and then have too many cooldowns when they engage.
If arcana does not provide additional Boon duration would you put 30 pts in it?

The issue is you need to plan ahead. You want everything available on demand? right…You either change your weapon out of combat or stay D/D. You know a boss is coming and did not change to other weapon? Who makes you do D/D in dungeons? You die, you learn your mistake and change your weapon.

@OP For me – S/D is good for dungeons. It provides medium range abilities which I usually find sufficient. If I feel we die a lot I switch to S/F. Evade more and the range would matter less.

S/D provides two blinds, armor of earth, two heals. Agreed for dragon’s tooth (and some other similar skills) but besides from that s/d is middle ground between control and damage. Especially for prolonged fights.
It is not all about damage.

@OP – the problem is players do not want to discover builds but to have one single very efficient build which leads to favoring just a few. Especially for spoon-fed kids, really. The only thing to consider is gear at endgame and then you can reset your traits easily to try different things. I rarely see this.
There are other builds but not so effective and players do not want to try them for fun, they feel they must have ultimate build around a single weapon set. For a lot of ppl the game is a chore. The funny part is such builds are not versatile at all and when Anet makes an update that affect it, people will whine on the forums on the time and gold they spent.

Pretty much this. The community is just a lot worse than GW1, maybe because it was popular from the very start. There are some constructive posts and people trying stuff but not enough. The mentality is just wrong. People are give choices they do not utilize, they want best build and farming the ‘best’ zone etc..gets boring at the end especially if you want to do something else.
I’d advise you trying your own build before looking up the most popular ones.

I believe it is LoS, ground elevation and target positioning/hitbox. It appears pretty messy at moments.

actually not exactly – I see fire going directly through target and it is still a miss (fire2). Not always but a lot of times. If I have to be extremely precise to land a skill I’d love to see its damage multiplied.

Fire Grab sometimes fail for me too but not that often. I am with latency around 40-60ms. Regardless of latency it is a cone skill meaning it is easier to land. BUT there is a problem with the mechanic that calculates hit/miss – fire breath, cone of cold can be avoided by just going forward and strafing a bit – it is all miss. Lightning whip also misses..
I the case of Fire Grab and latency I suggest that due to the high latency (200+) the target may have strafed just before you activate the skill.
It appears there is something not right with those server calculations.

In sPvP I had used all-rounder like +60 to all stats, high crit chance and nice condition damage from accessories, trait lines – earth/water/arcana.

I am going to try similar in PvE as it appears to be suited for any weapon combo.
Maybe the vigil armor (power, toughness, vit) the above trait lines and the rest into condition damage and crit chance. My only concern is if I would be able to leverage good condition damage+ crit chance from accessories only for PvE.

For leveling in PvE – unlock the skills of all weapons first. Whatever you choose keep all weapon combinations in your inventory (two daggers, scepter, focus, staff). D/D and S/D are good combos but staff is also viable.

I suggest you change your weapons every now and then otherwise you may feel the gameplay is too repetitive.

Cannot say for all but out of 2 servers the decent PvE is now in lv 80 zones…

Excessive kicking is problem of the community and always will be. Unfortunately there is nothing you can do about it. Usually casual players suffer from this.

But you can apply burn all day long even with all skills on cd

It is not indeed but some people tend to swap too fast and the element is on cooldown when needed

It could use some buff yes but at the same time Ele users also should learn how to use their skills effectively and when to swap. I am all for variety so if it is possible to change something without hurting the gameplay I’d say why not.

I’d say Mesmer. It is agile in combat, both of you will benefit of the clones and the cover they provide as well as AOE negation effects like null field. Later on Ele can mass bleed targets and Mesmer can throw mass confusion (through shatter trait giving confusion on f1-f4 use). Mesmer can aslo benefit from Ele’s swiftness bonuses. Two eles would be also quite good. The drawback is that such combo will become powerful after lv 30 It may require a bit more tactics at some point though.

It is my belief duos should use toons that are similar to game play as otherwise one class may need to catch up with the other.

Guardian is slower so the ele will mainly benefit from boons(well protection too). I see it as a nice combo.
Anyway it really does not matter much, play as you like – the most important thing is to enjoy your toon

P.S. Ele+Mes is still my favorite though If the Mesmer is Human, Elemental+Hounds of Balthazar as elite skill combo will be devastating.

Hearts can be chore but they are still interesting somehow – you have to do various of things and always have a choice what to do I do not think DEs are chore though. At least they are fun to me Unfortunately this proves one point – if people are not forced to camp in one are for grinding XP they are not going to complete it for the gameplay itself.

I personally love DEs and like to wander around enjoying the artwork but sadly this is not the majority of people. I have 2 characters so I do different zones with both. I see their paths will cross at lv 65-70 but up to then I have explored totally different areas so it does not feel repetitive.

So people just love mindless grind again and again? This game offers much more in comparison to other MMOs.
I love doing lower level areas on non-capped character also because there is a feel of steady progression – leveling up every now and then, finding items etc. How it is more enjoyable endgame?
And yes I always do it my way

Map variety is also good here but not appreciated much it seems.

P.S. GW1 had areas populated everywhere but the reason was it was heavily instanced and you get max lv cap very early in the game so it is not a goal. Plus cooperative missions.

It is max 3 now but with expansion you will get more points… this could be solved by re-ordering though. Or just having this bonus when the trait line is maxed out(with the preserved ability to max out 2).

The other issue for a lot of professions is in your last paragraph – grandmaster traits do not always feel grandmaster

@maddoctor – I missed that paragraph, my bad But I believe there should be a way to restrict players in a way e.g. to be able to have lower cooldown on only 2 attunements (but not 3) at a time and higher CD for the other two. Or a bit higher CD but common for all 4 elements (arcana bonus). It might work though And the bonus should not be 20% but like 30% otherwise arcana is still more appealing(15 points -30% off globally).
Still I see arcana as all-round performance booster so I would never totally abandon this line.

Oops, I thought it was later

P.S. fingers crossed to get it sooner!

I just wander how people level their alts. It appears to me the majority is doing it through dungeons and crafting. I usually level 1-2 characters simultaneously (so I level them slowly) and I noticed most areas are now totally deserted. I rarely see other players, at least not in the same amount as before.

I usually find myself soloing DEs just because there is no one else around. GW2 provides a good experience curve so no one needs to grind in order to gain levels. Just explore, do dungeons and events.

So why people do not enjoy exploring with alts and prefer grinding level 80 areas with 2 characters? Somehow I think that is the reason for the low population in lower lv areas.

True but I do not agree for one reason – with the trait that gives clones on dodge. So let’s assume Shatters are lower on CD with 30%. This provide Mesmers the option to spam f1 and nuke you down in no time. Also if there is no decent bonus for arcana points it will go into oblivion. Traits are good yes but it is not only the traits that makes you put points into specific trait line.

Yes attunement swap IS important that is why it must be timed well and not used just because it is available. I personally do not have much issues when using my skills right and in moderate pace. When I have severe issues with attunement swap I usually find out I busted my skills in vain and too fast when it was not needed.

You have to choose which two lines you want most besides arcana. If certain things get fixed and more build become more viable I think it will have more positive results.

And the trait passive bonus will go to hell. Also, Mesmers will want lower shatter CD etc…
Anyway I posted my reasons why I dislike the idea above.