Guild Wars 2

Since I passed that point with my ele not too long ago I can tell you one thing. Whatever gear you aim to go for first, I think that TP will be your solution.

For instance I chose to go with zerker’s gear and soldier’s accessories. Bought all of them on TP (12 silver for 6 pieces of green lvl 80 armor and about 1.5g for 6 accessories).

Not sure where you can get what you need really fast, but if you want to get into dungeons with at least lvl 80 gear (even if it’s green) then try out TP, might work for you.

Warruz.8096:

They can be, on the flip side they can also be a blast

Why do raids have to require 3-5 days a week? I mean just using WoW as an example my guild ran once one week and twice the next week and continued with that and still progressed fine. But even that is besides the point, raids if anything are in reference to size and somewhat to difficulty. Top gear in this game is absurdly easy to find, and so far you dont really need a exact group makeup so why would it change when it becomes 10 mans? And whats wrong with learning tactics? I think most that is what they are looking for is the challenge in the fight.

I really dont see a reason why this would go away when making a raid, i think part of the problem is people associated raids with WoW raids, why cant GW2 Raids allow this?

As for loot this is simple, it provides its own skins that is special to it much like any of the other dungeons. In addition to this it drops gear that has a resistance that is relevant to the raid itself much like fractals providing an in house vertical progression via agony resists the raid can have the same.

Well, let me clarify that so that we are on the same page. You said your guild used to run raids a day one week, then 2 days the next. Bear in mind that if you raided for example Wednesday, Sunday and Tuesday, in WoW terms that would mean 3 raids per week seeing as a WoW week was Wednesday to Wednesday. If however you did less than that, then good for you. Back when I used to play WoW (I stopped WoW when Firelands came out to be exact) even the most casual people raided at least 2 days a week and that was pretty much a single guild. All the rest were at 3 raids per week minimum.

As for the size of the raid and the difficulty, I think that this game is infinitely more difficult when compared to WoW, and I like that aspect. I don’t need an exact group to clear dungeons and thankfully each and everyone has to row or else this will go nowhere. Why should I have to spend more time looking for the people to fill up a 10 man roster or a 15 man roster, while I can go run through 3 explore modes and 5 fractals with the same 5 people I started with.

Nothing is wrong with reading and learning tactics. All I want to say is that there is always an idiot/“smartass” that thinks he doesn’t need to do that. And tactic-ignorance in this particular game even from a single person will be catastrophic.

As for the absurdly easy top gear, I think we are not on the same page at all. For instance I can get an ascended amulet with a month farming. Easy? Yes. Time-consuming? Greatly. Does it matter? No. I don’t mind doing my dailies for a month to get a single piece of equipment, not the slightest but if I am not entrely mistaken if I need a specific set of armor which is only bought with Ascalonian Tears, a set of armor that will make my unique profession and playstyle go through the roof, I will be forced to go and run explore modes to get it. Will I be able to get a substitute gear for that? Most likely, yes. I am not sure about that. Do I mind running the same AC explore mode every time? No. Because I can set it up relatively easy than any 10 man, since I am not very well connected and I only have 4 other ppl whose play times match mine and we can do it relaxing on Skype with a ciggie and a beer.

Since this game already has that very gentle kind of forcing, since I cannot do it at all and still enjoy the game, I have to admit that I would either want to see something really breakthrough on the concept of raiding or nothing at all. From this simple example, to a raid that will be designed for 10 people with unique gear, unavailable anywhere else, I think the line is too kitten thin.

Generally and as this whole thread is about, it is not about reasons why ANet should NOT implement raids. It was a thread of a person wondering why people in general find raiding unattractive. Personally I don’t see a reason why ANet should not proceed with any ideas they have, but until they prove to me that they have in mind something very very special I’d rather not have to run any 10 man raid/dungeon to get my awesome set of Arah gear as I said above.

As for the loot, I really don’t care. If I am to embark on a dangerous adventure through the catacombs of some long forgotten, cursed and dead mage with a group of mates, then the loot can go to hell. They could do something new and exciting of keep giving everyone separate loot.

I think that sums it up. Sorry for the long post, and let me apologise profusely if my train of thought has offended anyone, I assure you it is nothing personal.

Cheers.

Direksone.3867:

Why exactly do you ‘have to’ raid? Where does it say it ‘has to’ take hours. Nowhere. This is a misconception made by many. If you don’t want to, don’t, want to do it once a week whenever you feel like it? Pugging can work, plenty of solutions help with making that viable as well. This game has already broken so many stereotypes, why not raiding too? IF they were to implement raiding, and I think Guild Missions is a step in that direction (well see how that plays out), why do they have to do it the traditional way? Oh right. They don’t.

You don’t ‘have to’ raid anything if you don’t like, but since my experience with raiding was solely gathered in WoW, as far as PvE was concerned, you ‘had to’ raid if you wanted the most shiny loot. Also it does not ‘have to’ take hours anywhere. Again when sharing my WoW experiences, it was never done in under an hour. Pugging, when I was playing at least seemed like sci-fi, and most cases ended badly.

That being said I never said that ANet should not, or most importantly must not, put raids in. If they have some cool ideas for raid content (whatever those are) then by all means, they should go ahead.

However the reason I’m afraid of such a move is because I am not sure they can break that ‘traditional’ raiding style. Seriously this game is really good but if they do something as simple as putting, for example, the awesome Arah gear in a place I have to go with 10+ people to get it, and there is no other way for me to get it, then that would mean some serious minus points to this game so far.

To answer directly on the thread, raids are a pain in the butt. Both organizing one and playing it through. For the reasons all the posters above me said, I think that raids in this game will take some flavour away.

For instance, you have to raid 3-5 days per week. That means “mandatory” participation if you want to go anywhere PvE-wise. You simply have to be there. You have to have the top gear you can find outside of the raid itself, so you won’t fall back when group dynamics are covered. You will need the right foodbuffs/potions for your profession/role and so on. You need to learn tactics. Which is a very important bit. If people just got into a raid and merely mashed buttons for 10-15 mins per boss, it would not be fun. And if anyone says it would, after a month or two it would not.

The liberty you have with this game to experiment around with professions and roles is quite nice and many people might think that a raid will maybe take that away. Also from what I’ve seen so far, a raid would be too much hussle without the proper reward and the loot chance in this game are somehow a bit low for me to engage in a 5 hour raid with tons of gold in repairs.

That aside, I sincerely hope the guild missions are focused on 5-mans. You have great ideas for raids and/or gear? Put more dungeons in! Takes exactly 3 mins to set up and about an hour to finish (that including wipes since I always count the factor of someone being new/having no idea of how thing work). Personally I’d never want to give that up for a raid spot. 6 years of WoW left some pretty big bruises, trust me on this one, in my opinion this game will be a lot better off without raids.

That being said, give more dungeons, more skins/armors/lasers/spaceships/loot-in-general, to the 5-mans style of PvE you already have going.

And once again hello!

I am here yet with another update of my adventures with the elementalist. First off thanks for the tip that TP is cross server. In that case you can get a nice set of masterwork gear (including trinkets) for a bargain price.

I came across some money in game and upgraded my green armor to yellow berserker’s armor for 2.5g (the downside is that the Masquerade set looks terrible if you put the mask on and do not have the right dyes to paint it) but generally it was a good purchase. A couple of berserker’s weapons too.

I also did my first 3 fractals. Aside from the fact that these dungeons have to be the best PvE encounters I played in all my MMO time (Cliffside Fractal, hell yeah!) I realised that the elementalist is a great asset in the group. We were 2 warrs, a mesmer, a guardian and an elementalist. I found myself popping back and forth between D/D and S/D just to put some healing down were it was needed and switch again when some more consistent damage was required.

Following that I realised that I want a pure-healing set. With water runes. And that brings me to this post’s main question.

How on earth can I manage to gather 6 runes of water for example? I assume that the major runes are the best in slot, for lack of a better term, but will I need to salvage (using the BL salvage kits) 6 exotic items? If that is the case, it will be quite painful. Also if I put a Major Rune in a rare item and then salvage it, will I be able to keep the rune?

I think that is all for now but I will be back. Once again your favourable replies will be highly appreciated

Cheers!

Emmiere.1058:

I have some pretty great luck tagging enemies in Orr and I use dual daggers. I always try to make sure I’m one of the first to rush into the pack of undead.

I start off with Burning Speed to bridge the gap and hopefully do some nice damage in the process. I then lay down my Ring of Fire, immediately cast Arcane Wave for some might, swap to earth and do Earthquake for yet more might. And because I’ve got 30 points into Arcane, I typically then dodge out of all the damage coming my way, which will trigger Churning Earth without the lengthy cast time. By then I’ve usually done enough damage to get some loot.

Besides those AoE options, Ride the Lightning hits enemies around it, as well as your target. Updraft also hits multiple foes. Once you’ve knocked them all over, swap to earth and dodge roll quickly for more AoE. You can then Earthquake to knock them all back down, swap to water and use Frozen Burst to chill them and keep them in the same general area.

Basically, we’ve got more AoE with D/D than you think. :] Mess around with some of it, you’ll find really creative ways of taking down mobs of stuff.

Exactly this. It’s like I’m seeing myself playing. Still I haven’t been to Orr yet, I want to explore the whole of Tyria and leave the best for last, but generally that’s the guide line with D/D.

You could tag mobs with the Phoenix thingie (not sure about the name now) but this sometime can backfire. If you run zerker’s gear and time the phoenix to hit the wave of mobs as it is coming, then there are high chances you’ll be flat on your back (or worse) before you can even finish marvelling at the numbers.

Hello again!

I am back with more of an update instead of a question, just to give the heads up to people who may be in the same positions as I am.

First off thanks for the answers about the soldier’s gear. I have to admit that I chose another path but even I cannot say when I’ll decided to go grab it and annoy people in WvW with my presence.

For almost 80 silver I covered the trinkets (neck, back, accessoriesx2, ringsx2) with soldier’s gear. For the armor I got 6 pieces of 80 lvl masterwork berserker’s (green) gear for the total sum of 12 silver. Got 2 daggers, 1 scepter (rare), 1 staff, 1 trident, all of those for about 60 silver in total. The result is a bestial elementalist that can rampage through all of the low level territories (since I chose to use the downleveling system) with an impressive speed. Plus I am fairly confident that I can manage in any dungeon besides Fractals.

Also bear in mind that those prices are in my server, so there may be variations, but overall I think it was a bargain purchase.

Now the reason I said all this is for other new elementalists out there that might want to get back to the toon, or discover it from the beginning like I did, and might not know where to start. Browsing this thread you can also find build(s) and trait allocation that can help you do just that.

As for the profession and its learning curve, I have to say that I am pleased. It is not that I am the best there is out there but I always relished a challenge. Being 80 for almost a day now has only showed me that up to now, I’ve only managed to scratch the surface of the elementalist as a whole and that is something I like in a game such as this. There will be always room for improvement and I have to agree that most likely I’ll never get bored of the profession.

We have everything. Damage, boons, auras. Last night I cleared an area with my brother (warrior) and I had lots of fun going in with the dagger3(fire), dance to earth4 and then aurashare my air3, all the while stacking might so that we could actually bull-rush through the whole area (yes it’s lower than 80) with ease and speed. It was rather special and I can’t wait to get into dungeons and give people the tools to get the job done.

I have no idea what it is going to be like in a month or so, what will be changed/removed/altered/buffed/nerfed but this profession gave me something I always valued in mmos. The feeling that I am needed somewhere. Maybe that was the reason I only managed to level healers back in my WoW days. Still, whether I am the support, the aura-giver, the might-stacker, the staff-healer or the glass cannon I will enjoy this game immensely. Because at the end of the day, taking out of the equation runes/boons/traits/GENERALLYNUMBERS you are left with pure, wild, 15 year old child fun. And I think that is what matters.

Once again thanks for the answers everyone, I seriously hope you won’t be annoyed by my incessant need to question everything, and let me tell you (or warn you, pick one :P) I will be back with more.

Cheers

Hello all! Back with more questions!

First off, I finally hit 80 and I am very proud for that. Please, please stop clapping :P

Now on to more important questions:

I had in mind to create a full soldier’s kit so I can go in dungeons and learn to play the profession, but so far I haven’t been able to find any. By that I mean I had some money stashed so I can buy 80 lvl masterwork gear of the soldier (plus trinkets) but on the BLM I did not find any soldier’s cloth armor at all.

That naturally leads me to assume that there is another way to obtain such gear and I am woefully misinformed. In any case, I did find some trinkets (in fact all of them) of the soldier for bargain prices and I have those slots covered. As for the rest of the gear plus weapons, I’ve chosen to go with berserker’s and learn to play the profession the hard way. Either way I’m about to go dungeons with close friends/family so the retribution of my failure will not be too severe.

Now, the real question.

I have seen that maybe one of the biggest cons of this game is the tooltip section. It is just plain bad. Dagger2 (fire) and dagger2 (water) have exactly the same tooltip. However dagger2 (water) deals the increasing form of damage. Consequently I found a trait that I have some hard time explaining.

Arcane 25: Arcane Precision
Skills have a chance to apply a condition on critical hits.

So I am sitting there, looking at the trait trying to figure out what kind of conditions we are talking about. Conditions based on attunement? Conditions pre-set? What is the chance? 30% or lower? Is it worth it in the long run?

Anyone tips or info will be highly appreciated as usual

Thanks a lot in advance!

Woah indeed!

Thanks a ton for the time you took Slim, as I thank everyone else for their contribution to this thread.

Personally I now have a much better idea on how I should experiment with the elementalist and with what, and I intend to do it as soon as possible. I also hope this thread will help others like it helped me.

I also hope that I did not annoy you or anything, cause soon I will most likely be back with even more questions that need answering.

Once again, thanks a bunch

Hello again everyone!

As promised I came back with even more questions about the elementalist and hopefully this time they will be a bit more specific.

This time it will be about:

ARMOUR, RUNES & SIGILS

As mentioned in earlier replies, the choice of gear varies depending on what style you want to play, but I feel that the options are too many and since I’m close to 80 I thought I should maybe narrow down the things I like.

The three types of armor that I like to try out and use are the following:

Berserker’s
Valkyrie
Soldier’s

In all fairness I am looking at the first two, because I think that the soldier’s armour will be a bit too tank for my “refined tastes”. What do you think?

In case you are wondering you can find those types of armour along with a complete list here.

Moving on to runes.

Now I will have to be frank. I have no idea how those work or if they work, or how difficult are they to acquire/craft. Still I checked the list and came up with the ones that I think will work better for me and my build (here bear in mind that I think I made my mind about the cookie-cutter build D/D or S/D).

Rune of the Centaur
Rune of Earth
Rune of Mercy
Rune of Dwayna
Rune of the Flock
Rune of the Monk
Rune of Water
Rune of Altruism

Again, which one of those (if any) or any combinations, are decent for a D/D or S/D 0/10/0/30/30 elementalist, according to your opinion and experiences.

You can find a complete rune list here.

Lastly I followed the exact same way about sigils (which apparently are equipped on weapons).

Sigil of Restoration
Sigil of Strength
Sigil of Water

The question here is the following (besides the obvious one). The Sigil of Strength says that you have a chance to apply might on critical strike. You apply might to you or to allies? If you apply might to you, does it benefit in any way the rest of the group according to this build of elementalist?

For a list of sigils check here.

I posted the lists I checked before coming up with my own personal preferences in case there are new people out there that might have the same questions as I do. Usually I am not that meticulous :P

So once again, thank you very much for the time you may or may not take to read this post and answer.

Cheers ^^

In theory we all did the same. Running around, dodging as much as possible and when it matters (sometime it’s better to get a hit, so you have enough energy to dodge a big hit later on).

Leveling with a friend is obviously easier since it’s an on-line game and that is better for a number of reasons.

However if you came here straight after WoW, like I did, you will have to die a couple of times, again like I did, to get a solid idea of how this game works. Then you will be able to survive much longer, and sometimes in a much cooler fashion

Other than that, I doubt you will ever find a guide as to what to do. Not something specific at least.

A small tip here, in case someone doesn’t know. Put strafe left/right to A/D respectively. It helps a lot more while running around in tight circles and dodging.

Personally I started off S/D, moved to staff and now I’m knee deep in daggers. After greatly detailed answers from another thread about the elementalist in general, I feel that the daggers work for me best while leveling. On one hand, going up close and personal with the elementalist is not the best course of action but the cookie-cutter build (as I like to call it) gives you great utility in terms of boon/healing/condition removal. Trust me it helps a lot.

While using staff you can kill things from a distance (yes abuse that 1.2k range), the S/D can kill anything really fast (especially in fire and that is if you hit all of your abilities) but the D/D gives the most sustainability of the lot. Now I can easily pull 3-5 mobs at my level and dance around for some time without ever really dropping low in health.

Signet of Air is quite useful. Both passive and active, learn to love it (while leveling at least). Signet of Fire gives you the sustained damage while you dance around. And the Flash Teleport thing gives you an easy way out (or in depending your playstyle) which combined with air4 in D/D is some really nice mobility.

Thank you all very much for the time you took to answer all the questions I had. I have to admit that now I am faring much better with the elementalist.

I will return with more questions I am sure, but for now you can feel safe.

Thanks once again

Thanks a lot for the answers!

It is true that now I have a better grasp of the profession itself, however I come across things that are still mystifying.

For instance, why should I go 0/10/0/30/30 if I don’t aim to play a dagger? Admittedly the water line has some nice things on it, but I thought that the Powerful Auras was the heavy asset here? If for instance I go S/D I can only throw around a single aura (if I’m not mistaken)

Also @benda:

You mentioned berserker’s gear. Isn’t that P/P/CritDmg? If yes, can you really support it with a cookie-cutter build? I mean, no heal power at all?

Overall, your answers were quite helpful, and I do hope I’m not becoming a pain in the butt with all my relentless questions

Cheers ^^

And that I think concludes the post for now. After all it’s just be opened and it would be good to get answers for the questions I think bug every new elementalist out there. Then we can proceed to even more questions

At this point it is safe to say, that if any of the above questions did not cover you, feel free to post your own covering anything you are interested in. (including PvP and WvW)

Please excuse any shabby English in there since it’s not my native language and let me thank you all in advance for the time you may or may not take to answer this rather “newbie” questionnaire.

Kudos to you!

STATS & GEAR

This part of the questioning process will be a rather annoying one to answer based on the nature of the elementalist and the game itself, but I will try to ask straight-forward questions.

Question #6:
If I am to go support ele, will I need to stack healing power? Especially in Water line?

Simple one I think.

Question #7:
What are the best things an elementalist should look out for in gear?

I am aware that there are different stats for the damage build, and different stats for the support build, but I would very much like some general guidelines.

Question #8:
Is condition damage worth it? When compared to other professions (e.g. the necromancer) I only have damaging conditions on the S/D build.

Self-explanatory.

Question #9:
Can I play any kind of elementalist in PvE with any combination of weapons? Is the D/D build viable for dungeons or is Staff-S/D the way forward?

A question that has been bugging me for a while.

Question #10:
Could I possibly be the tank elementalist? I am pretty good at dodging.

Is a deep earth + toughness/vitality gear viable in dungeons? Not sure if that works yet, since I’m still leveling.

TRAITS

The list of traits of the elementalist is:

Fire, Air, Water, Earth and Arcana.

While I am tempted to ask what is the best trait combo to level up, I will resist the urge since I am certain that upon hitting 80, the traits invested in leveling will be refunded and relocated to fulfill certain roles.

Question #1:
Is there a cookie-cutter (most default) build for an aspiring PvE elementalist? If yes, what is it?

I am pretty sure that is a strange question to be answered considering the nature of the game and the profession itself but nonetheless here goes nothing.

Question #2:
I’ve seen a lot of threads talking about the support ele, providing auras, boons and regeneration. What is that?

Again a question that is somewhat difficult to answer, but please make the effort

Question #3:
Arcana Trait Line. Since I am a stance-dancer, doesn’t that mean that I have to max this line? To benefit from the attunement recharge rate?

Self-explanatory I think.

Question #4:
The last trait in the Water line talks about transferring auras to other allies (Powerful Auras). What are auras?

I seriously have no idea how auras work or what they are for that matter.

Question #5:
I am thinking of going an all-out asset to the party, being the support elementalist. Is the Water trait line necessary?

Once again, somewhat difficult but self-explanatory.

First of all hello.

What is really important about this thread is the fact that it is created with the sole purpose of asking questions about the elementalist profession. It is not that I can’t find answers in the forums or by searching individually but I get the feel that a lot of people turn to this profession (both new players to the game, like me, and people that want to see the profession itself) so I figured that instead of rummaging through pages upon pages of threads trying to gather a bit of information here and there, we could create a thread that will cover things that new elementalists need to know.

One thing that potential interested people need to know is that this thread will try to aim to the PvE side of things. From what I’ve seen elementalists are really fun to play in PvP and WvW but there is only a very small margin covering the PvE elementalist. (Also bear in mind that this is my personal preference, anyone interested can post anything about the profession covering any aspect they feel they are interested in.)

So without further ado, the Elementalist.

Up to lvl 57 that I am now I have figured out, by trial and error mostly, that the Elementalist is one of the most, if not the most, versatile profession of the game. This versatility comes from the four different attunements we have that provide a series of spells according to element and weapon set currently equipped.

Leveling as the elementalist so far had not proved that much tricky considering that dying is never far away (if you are not careful) regardless of what kind of weapon you use. I used to run S/D (scepter main-hand/dagger off-hand) until 30ish, when I turned to the staff and now I am currently killing things with D/D (dual dagger) stance dancing like mad, trying to weave into the rotation signets/sigils and cantrips. If I am no entirely mistaken you can pretty much level up with anything you like.

This small introduction, hopefully not a terribly boring one, will bring me to the list of questions that I have in mind for the elementalist.

I have to admit that after a point I stopped reading all the answers (it is too early in the morning) but from what I’ve seen we have two categories of people. Those who enjoy the elementalist and think it’s great as it is, and those who think that playing everything else is way better.

Personally I am still leveling my ele (yes I’m new to the game) but so far I like the versatility it can bring. Sadly I get a bit disappointed as I wanted to avoid another support/healy profession again, but it seems that once I ding 80, I will not be able to enjoy the PvE aspect of the game as a kittened-fireball-throwing-cloth-wearing killer.

Speaking of that, I have been looking for the past day, for a video (preferrably, but anything will do) about a PvE focused damage-dealing elementalist and so far I have not been able to find anything else other than how to build an unkillable (opinions on this part may vary) D/D ele in PvP and WvW. I’d greatly appreciate it, if anyone of you can supply me with such a guide/vid.

That being said, I will keep playing the elementalist trying to do some damage in dungeons whether that is S/D, S, or D/D, and hope that maybe things will turn towards the better (and by that I mean deal kitten-tons of damage in dungeons without having to support anyone else).

The elementalist is fun to play, fun to support with and terribly annoying in PvP from what I’ve seen, but it is kinda frustrating to see that such a versatile profession cannot dish out the appropriate, for its name, pain to mobs that come asking for it.

Well hello there!

First off thanks for taking the time to open a thread about PvE Elementalists. It’s a nice change from PvP and WvW threads I see out there (primarily since I’m more interested in PvE)

Next up I am still leveling. Yes I am a new GW player, my elementalist is still 54 and I have no idea what happens at end game.

However I have experimented a bit with a couple of weapon choices and I thought I could maybe chip in.

S/D: 2(fire), 3(fire), 4(fire), 5(fire) and in theory any single target at your level will be toast. Another alternative I like with S/D is 2(earth)[the floating stones], 1(earth), 2(earth), 3(earth)[if the enemy is ranged], 4(earth), 5(earth) and then maybe a couple of another 1s.

As you can see I am a huge fan of single elements, but in case you go against champions/veterans a mix of earth and fire (starting with earth to stack the bleeds) is quite nice.

The other weapon I’ve tried is the staff and with my limited trait options it goes like this: 2(earth), 5(earth), 4(earth), swap to fire, 3(fire), 2(fire)[a bit closer to you since the mob in most cases will already be on his way to you] and then 1s.

Now I am trying D/D while leveling which is fun but I cannot post a respectable rotation since I’m just mashing buttons

As for kiting, the most I’ve done was with staff (air5,water4, earth4 plus Earth elemental if you happen across a tight corner)

Again from my limited experience a good combo with another profession is Ele/Guardian (yes my boy, everyone likes the guardian) and ele/necro which works quite well in the dungeon (yes it’s only one) that I tried last night.

That’s it from me and in theory I will come back with more coppers to share.

Toodles ^^