Guild Wars 2

For the majority of dungeon paths today, you are mostly doing one of three things:

1. Skipping trash on a long run
2. Killing gobs of trash stacked on top of each other
3. Killing a boss stacked on top of each other

These things really benefit from a dagger/focus weapon set. You get two blast finishers for might stacking, an 8 second fire field, missile reflect, condition remover, invulnerability, and AOE missile destroy. It’s really strong. Here are your best tips for survival while stacking with a bunch of heavies.

1. Arcane II for very frequent dodging.
2. Blinds (lightning hammer is great source; there are a couple of others based on your setup)
3. Arcane Shield when you are going to channel, or just need to eat a blow.
4. Focus Earth5
5. FGS#3 evades
6. Dagger#3 evades
7. You have two chills, which are really great defensive abilities to reduce dmg to your whole party

Also, start with more vitality in your gear until you can avoid getting downed regularly. Once you get good at using your active defenses listed above, then gear more offensively. A guardian who is good at high Aegis up time makes a huge difference for us. Enjoy! Elementalists are super strong in dungeons.

On my 4th point, I meant Focus #5 not earth V.

Elementalist survivability is designed to be based on active abilities more than passive, so I like to stay offensive in stats (a little toughness to avoid cleave one-shots, but not all out toughness).

For dungeons:

1. Learn the fights. If you don’t know the attacks, you can’t act accordingly.
2. Arcane II lets you permadodge.
3. Using a focus off-hand gives you a ranged chill, stun, invulnerability, condition cleanse, blast finisher (for water fields) and missile reflect.
4. Arcane Shield is strong. Between Aegis (if you’re with a guardian), arcane shield, earth V, and your blinds, as long as you can stay out of red circles (see arcane II above), you should be able to stay alive with hardly any vitality/toughness.

I do better with the focus than a staff because of the current “stack here” meta.

This just happened to me as well after leaving Citadel of Flame, I can’t join any groups.

In pve, ele’s can do good damage when specced for it. I haven’t felt inadequate in the least bit in pve content. I can kill a veteran solo in around 5 seconds and solo about 80% of the champions.

I am not built pure beserker either, but can still do amazing burst damage while maintaining good survivability using scepter/focus. The focus defensive abilities make me fairly difficult to kill as well when I don’t play poorly. I am a casual player, and there are many better elementalists then me.

It’s not the class; an elementalist can kill a veteran in pve in around 5 seconds. (At least I can on my elementalist, and I am a casual player who’s really not that good.)

The class IS much more complicated due to atunements and having 20 abilities available at once, plus the synergies that exist with traits and 6-10 skills chosen. So, it takes more work to learn the best combos given your weapon set and loadout.

For those that actually take the time and effort to learn all that’s available, ele’s can pull off some impressive results in pve. For those that are turned off by complex design, pick a different profession.

What are the best tactics on Deadeye Dunwell? I’ve read the Dulfy strategy guide, and was wondering if anyone does this w/o going Dagger MH. The graphic spam of elemental abilities makes it harder to see the graphics clueing you in on the imminent killshot w/o some range to make the thin little gold line visible. The mark on your own feet is downright camouflaged with our own abilities! Also, there is less issue with bombs if you don’t have to close the distance.

Does anyone do this with scepter? What’s the rotation to stay on top of the killshot?

Any advice is much appreciated! Thanks!

Over the last two weeks, I’ve been trying the stereotypical “Mage” model to gain my own opinions, and I think it’s faithfully implemented. I have a staff dps build with Valkyrie armor, beserker jewels/weapons, and scholar runes. Arcane skills 7-9 or additional AOE or survival skills subbed in based on the encounter.

The build excels in two things. AOE dmg is stout. Also, the ability to quickly burst down an add at range right when they spawn seems unmatched compared to the other people I’ve been running with. I don’t think sustained dmg on a boss is greater than any other GC build (it’s probably less), and the build is squishy, with active skills required for any noticeable mitigation (it IS a ranged cloth dps build afterall).

However, in its entirety, it seems like a faithful adaption of the stereotypical Mage.

Arah is very long and ends with an epic battle against Zaitan. Plan a couple of hours for it so you don’t feel rushed or surprised.

So what IS the best way for D/D to take out objects where Fire 3 may send you off a clif, is on CD, etc?