Guild Wars 2

Well to down an elementalist you wanna carefully TIME and coordinate you’re burst, which usually right after him leaving water attument and having no protection up. In which scenario both direct and condition damage will pose a big threat to the elementalist.

Always usefull: Boon removal (Mesmer/Necro), putting chills on the elementalist and torment + confusion ( low HP).

For engineers, you wanna condi burst or keep interupting them. Most builds only have 1 stunbreak and 1 condition cleanse.

The meta simply changes at times, what is wrong with the might stacking? Don’t Fresh air or tempest Ele’s not spike for more damage when they are using 25 stacks of might? The typical D/D build has hardly changed ( if at all) and went from complete garbage to viable after some small buffs . Had you change the amulet or runes, elementalists would likely immediately go to trash tier again. It is a delicate matter, personally I think the passive might building possible through runes/sigils could be tweaked.

Grimezy.5679:

Yes I am using Doom + Battle Sigils. Perhaps I will just have to keep practising against him and hope for the best. I’d look into playing a different class against him but I’d much rather PvP on the class I main.

Do you think a S/F or S/D Fresh Air build could burst him down? The only issue I can see is he sustains good melee pressure which could leave me in a pickle. The only reason I survived so long was because of my burning speed + teleports, etc. I may be a sitting duck using a Scepter… Although Dragons Tooth may be easy to land with him being close to me all the time and a quick combined with phoenix, obsidian flesh, lightning strikes could just do it.

I might give Fresh Air a go I’ve used S/F one heck of a lot in dungeons so it’s very natural to play for me. If it doesn’t work though I’m going to get smashed, literally

Fresh air builds, while devastating in group play, never really shine in 1 vs 1’s, from my experience. Dagger/focus is probably more suited for 1vs1’s.

Downstate is fine, whenever people go down in a team fight you get plenty of choices, options and gameplay. The balancing is also pretty decent, yes some classes can teleport out and stall, but at the same time thiefs/mesmers/eles are the most easy to burst down while downstated.

You using doom sigil to counter the passive regeneration? Usually helps me a ton vs warriors. Dodge the obvious F1, or when you run out of vigor and expect to get bursted pop weakness/protection.

Secondly good warriors are a pain to kill for any d/d celestial ele in a pure 1vs1, in pvp matches I rarely commit to fighting one.

Kravick.4906:

So I’m finally getting around to leveling an elementalist to 80. It is now 71. I have tried Staff, S/D, and D/D. Universally, I have noticed that a -lot- of skills are incredibly underwhelming for damage. It is always a struggle just to kill things without getting killed in return. None of the other classes I have leveled to 80 (Ele and mesmer are the only classes I have that are not level 80) all have a much, MUCH easier time in PVE.

Is it just me, or is this class severely underwhelming for damage?

And before anyone says its a L2P issue (It very well could be, I don’t know.), my typical rotation is as follows:

D/D: start in Air, RTL to target, Shocking Touch, Updraft (if able), Switch to fire, Burning Speed to target, Drake’s Breath, Ring of Fire, Fire Grab, Switch to Earth, Earthquake, Churning Earth and pop Arcane Shield at the same time. If I don’t have Arcane Shield up, I will typically be downed before Churning Earth goes off. If NPC is still alive, switch to water and pop everything waiting for Fire to come off attunement. My heal skill will be used at some point during that rotation depending on HP levels. This all happens in about 5-7 seconds give or take. This combo doesn’t even kill most NPCs at level 70, and I’m left auto attacking in whatever attunement is left. If I am fighting more than 2 NPCs, I’ll just get absolutely destroyed. If I do kill them, I’m left at about 20-30% of my HP, and thats after using all my healing abilities.

S/D: Start in Air, Lightning Strike, Blinding Flash, RTL to target, Updraft if able, Lightning Strike again, go into fire, Ring of Fire, Dragon’s Tooth, Phoenix targeted just behind the target so it hits them going out, exploding, and on the return, Fire Grab, Switch to earth, Earthquake, Churning Earth while popping Arcane Shield (or I’ll die), go into water, pop everything waiting for cool downs. Again, I’ll heal where needed. Again, more than 2 targets and I get my kitten handed to me.

Staff: I really don’t have a rotation here. I’m honestly not sure what to do with this weapon. I know its good for WvW but it doesn’t seem that great for killing random NPCs with as nothing stays still long enough to be hit by anything but auto attack. (Possible L2P issue here.)

My traits are put in Fire, then Air, and any left over put in Arcane. I still do not have all of them unlocked (THIS NEW TRAIT UNLOCK SYSTEM IS REALLY REALLY BAD!)

What am I doing wrong? or is this class like mesmer in that its complete crap until you get all your traits and exotic armor?

You think to much in skill combinations, however it’s best to think in attument rotations. Basically you will burn though you’re attunements to fast, sure ride the lightning → updraft is nice to knock a mob down, but when you switch to another attument you’re best auto attack is now on atleast a 13 second CD. If you play like this a conjurer with usefull auto attack ( lightning hammer) will help you out a bunch, but this will not solve your problem with the class.

However try to open in fire, stack some burning on mobs + fire fields, switch earth for might and bleeds/cripple , then use lightning to kill the mobs. Do not use churning earth if it gets you killed. Also pick atleast elemental attument, water for cantrips and remainder in lightning if you want. Forget about fire until you hit 80.

A d/d celestial Ele is not that tanky at all, besides they have zero ranged options and only burst cleansing. Put some confusion/torment/poison/chill on them after they leave water attument and profit.

Celestina.2894:

Hekmatyar.8725:

No real issues adressed with some heavy handed nerfs on the side.

Laughable.

OH NOES FGS IS NERFED WHATEVER SHALL WE DO, OH NO WE CAN’T ABUSE THE PRETTY OBVIOUSLY UNINTENDED TORNADO GLITCH ANYMORE

Oh right, aoe vuln and continue nuking.

Sorry, but you people who honestly think we’re being hit hard are adorable. If you honestly required FGS to not be useless in groups or Tornado-meteor to be useful in a zerg, you shouldn’t be playing ele.

You cannot deny we took some of the biggest nerfs of all profession (40% of our damage out put??). Which for all intends and purposes was expected. Now we have no elite skills worth noting, yeah fgs for running away. Very occasional use of elementals. Now again you could say: Well first fix the old stuff and next consider buffs. However like you pointed out balance patches are infrequent, they will leave us without viable elites for half a year.

Bweh I play my mesmer quite alot in pvp, and the change to I-leap is good, don’t even need to add a cooldown, lots of classes can wreak unpredictable or hard to telegraph burst.

But seriously torment on auto attack? Lets make one of the most toxic gamplays even more toxic?

Hmm sounds like we getting nerfed at different aspects, FGS nerf had it comming, again they could have just reworked some of their pve content which would fix alot more.

To bad we prolly wont have any usefull elite left.

IceVyper.6810:

lordkrall.7241:

IceVyper.6810:

As I said before, there is nothing special about the Ascended Armors. They only require time to be crafted, nothing else. On top of that, most people were hugely displeased with their aesthetics and instantly reskinned them.

But it does require exactly what you wanted the PvE exclusive set to require. As stated in your original post:

I wish Anet would introduce an equally prestegius armor set, that could be craftable through PVE rewards and activities. I wouldn’t even mind paying 100 pristine relics per piece.

The Ascended Armor sets require either getting lucky and getting chests from specific content.
Or being crafted, which require doing multiple types of specific content.

They exist even if you don’t like them.

This was merely a suggestion from my part. Basically, if I say:

*let the new armor come from a really hard new dungeon, people will isntantly say that no dungeon will ever be hard enough, blah blah blah. And I will keep getting references to old GW1 dungeons that are completely irrelevant to this game.

*if I mention a scanvenger hunt, like the one for the new backpiece, I will instantly get the replies about spamming 11111 on world bosses.

*my crafting suggestion brought the ascended armor replies.

*and then, of course, there is the crazy grinding part. But for something harder to obtain, instead of geodes. That’s why I suggested the pristine fractal relics.

What we basically need is legendary armor.

Dedicated PVE players ask for more challenging and complex content though, not just rewards. Also are legendary weapons that exclusive? You just need alot of gold or time, nothing difficult involved here. You state ascended gear grind is annoying but not hard, well to me there is no difference between grinding ascended armor and Legendary weapon farming, both are bottemline boring. Secondly, you ask for exclusive armor, if everybody can gain enough fractal relics or tokens, is it really exclusive???

From memory only the liadri challenge was a little bit skill related, and Arenanet did reward you with a cool title.

Now while I find your arguments for justifying exclusive armor skins very weak, I do agree some more cool skins would be nice ( this goes for all gameplay modes). To be quite honest PVE and WVW are probably getting some more exclusive skins this year, till then be glad pvp is getting promoted and you are infact expected to be satisfied with current skins. Cause quite frankly, content and reward wise, PVE in general gets the best updates through living story etc. Bottemline some players feel the need to work towards a goal in this game, but currently the three major game modes (PVP,WVW, PVE) all can use some updating there, however of these 3 pve gets the most updates by far ( which is telling something with the same dungeons being in game for over a year now).

Which respectable commander doesn’t have 300g these days? One could even argue this is a much wanted gold sink.

For the longest time, the pve base was getting all good rewards and content updates. Currently Arenanet is bringing most game modes together in terms of rewards, however some more love for pvp is not unwarrented. PVP players have been stuck with the exact same content and zones for the longest time.

Now while I consider myself more of a pve player, I do not feel we need skins right now. However nice skins are always happily received.

Domino.1359:

New to Ele and jumping on this question: With Fire’s Pyromancer’s Puissance trait(Grandmanster – stacks might every fire weapon skill), why do I never see it used in most builds? It seems more efficient than swapping for combo fields.
I’m asking mainly for PvE solo.

Well if you play a staff elementalist, the extra damage ticks you gain from higher lava font uptimes easily outperform Pyromancer’s Puissance.

When doing solo pve in the open world with dagger main-hand, elementalists with sigil of battle and/or sigil of strenght gain might simply from hitting opponents and swapping attuments. If they run with a might rune ( strenght,hoelbrak) the increased might duration combined with the fire fields-blast finishers and sigils will keep an elementalist above 21 stacks of might quite easily.

People running with 6 points in fire mainly utilize it for group compositions which are lacking might and fury up time. Pyromancers Puissance only gives personal might stacks, which elementalists can build up quite easily through battle anyways. So for solo content, lightning/water and arcane have alot more to offer.

You can get the statue to the next phase ( maybe a little bit class dependent) in 2 maybe 3 skills. On my Power elementalist it takes one lava font+meteor shower + burning retreat (vs the wall). Mesmers with great sword, sword focus can simply summon 2 phantasms and pop time warp, will get it down to the next phase in no time. Once he hits his next phase, start ranging and kill the mender while also beating some ghosts, traited focus reflects so those archers/mages should be no problem? In otherwords, simply bring stun breaks + condition clearing + dodges so you can survive, the adds and the statue will melt away.

Keep you’re stunbreaks/cleanses to cleanse the fears and kd’s especially when you need to burn the mender down. Dodge/kite the flames or use distortion on f4 or sword 2, alternatively you can use a blink skill ( swap on sword 3 or blink).

So in burn phase: stand at the side (melee range) and burn it down quickly, or simply in front and evade the KD.

In the charge phase, range and focus menders, while killing ghosts and avoiding the flame, fears and knockbacks. I would recommend clearing the chill so you can more comfortably kite the flames and avoid KD’s and also KB and cripple the mender.

I had no clue about how to fight mesmer either, made one myself played it for a week and got a feel for the way they move / distract. Whenever I get on my other pvp characters I dealt alot more easy with mesmers.

Altough it quickly became my favourite pvp character, by no means do I find them OP. You just need to start recognizing what they are actually doing, for example did he blink, use his torch stealth or did he decoy and when you start to see the real mesmer you wanna put alot of pressure on him.

If he is running a phantasm build, dont solo him. If he is running PU, in pvp, remember to fight on point, if you are planning to disengage, make sure you do not leave fields/trails for him to use torment on.

Holl.3109:

DutchRiders.2871:

If it works for you, why you would be a fool using it? Running soldiers you could also use arcane power for guarenteed crits if you do not need the immoblize, burn,chill or blind.

For me personally I kinda need the cleansing and healing from water attument and usually run a 0/6/0/4/4 fresh air build. I also do not fancy using piercing shards ( the 20% more damage to vulnerable foes), it only works in water attument and rarely you wanna use water for the purpose of dealing damage in pvp.

I think most ele players do simply not expect their Dragons tooth to hit anyways or use different methods ( earth quake, signet, gale from focus, ride the lightning).

What do you mean with your first sentence? And using soldiers I have 177% crit dmg, so not too much, that’s why I don’t use arcane power.
And because of the master minor trait in arcana the piercing shards last 5 sec after you leave water, so 5/9 seconds (theoretically) you have piercing shards.
And the other CC’s are 2 seconds of knockdown, and DT takes 3 sec to cast/hit.

I meant if it works for you, you should use elemental surge. Personally I feel the cleanses and healing from water are more valuable. The piercing shard uptime in my opinion is not worth it and the timing off piercing shard uptime does not fit my playstyle, I get in an fight, cast my fire / lightning skills heal up and subsequently get out.

What I did like: The atmosphere and looks of the new events, more charr and norn content never hurts.

Didn’t like the story line: No explanation why Mordremoth is the biggest threat, we simply need to take it for granted. Sure if they explained Mordremoth could disrupt organisation by preventing way point usage or is influencing multiple regions, I could have bought into that, but they did not explain anything at all. As a direct result from this the norn and charr also were quite easily persuaded to join the cause. The charr part to me felt the most reasonable and I enjoyed experiencing this part of the story. Could have made the game play a little bit more interesting though.

They could have gone a much better routes altogether, like first assessing the true threat, try to convince the norn and charr, and subsequently deal a significant blow to the threats both the norns and chars face( it just felt so short and rushed). Hell they could even have attacked the sons of svanir while making it look like it was mordremoths doing, effectively setting the minions up against eachother. Overall the norn and charr parts just felt to rushed.

Secondly, The main character has been in the same devise as scarlet ( just recently passed), yet nobody raises an eyebrow or cracks a joke about the mental state of the personal character. Sure they ask, you feeling fine boss? Or the pale tree mentions something like: The device could fry your brain, yet everybody treats the character like nothing happened.

If it works for you, why you would be a fool using it? Running soldiers you could also use arcane power for guarenteed crits if you do not need the immoblize, burn,chill or blind.

For me personally I kinda need the cleansing and healing from water attument and usually run a 0/6/0/4/4 fresh air build. I also do not fancy using piercing shards ( the 20% more damage to vulnerable foes), it only works in water attument and rarely you wanna use water for the purpose of dealing damage in pvp.

I think most ele players do simply not expect their Dragons tooth to hit anyways or use different methods ( earth quake, signet, gale from focus, ride the lightning).

How exactly do increasing amounts of gold hurt the gw2 economy? Please don’t make the false comparison between the TP and a real market. Secondly not that many players do even farm dungeons to the extend you describing.

Don’t get me wrong, they could just remove gold all together, and I could care less.

Prolly getting the dagger skin, altough there is an abundance of good looking dagger skins, they simply match to good with the look of my asura elementalist to pass.

Second one is for my guardian, the greatsword is one of the better looking ones in the game if you ask me.

The axes/mace/warhorn/hammer and bows look pretty good to, might pick the axes over the greatsword in the end. Since I never really use maces and might craft volcanus.

Try putting more points in arcana and take elemental attument, most elementalists with survivability issues need to mitigate the incoming damage. Elemental attument, can grant you protection and regeneration when you attune to earth and water. For the adept trait, vigorous precision and windborne dagger are my favorities.

Also if you do play with dagger, put points in air, lightning whip is your strongest auto attack. Pick the 10% more damage trait when attuned to air. Stone splinter in earth ( 10% more damage to targets nearby) can further increase your damage.

kokiman.2364:

DutchRiders.2871:

Devs should just unlock all skins in every players wardrobe , since they screwed up.

Lol they won’t do that. They want those skins to be special.

I know they won’t, I’m just saying they should. If they wanted it to be special, they should have put more effort in the reward system.

From a lore point of view, yeah asura and charr are enjoyable races. Most seasoned players will however pick a race based on aethestics ( horizontal gear progression) , every single skin/armor piece is designed for humans.

Charrs have only limited options ( clipping issues), their navigation is horrible ( try a jumping puzzle), and some animations including the way they walk are ridiculous.

Norns simply have less clipping issuess. At the same time they can use huge weapons. Females look particulary good, males also look better than most races.

Sylvari: Again its so difficult to get a decent looking sylvari.

Asura: Great animations, funny fellahs, however armor can look ridiculous and their great swords are smaller than charr or norn daggers.

My point is pretty obvious, if you design a game around humans, camera angles are more natural, better looks, more armor options, etc you should not be surprised players will choose the race you put most effort in.

Devs should just unlock all skins in every players wardrobe , since they screwed up.

Tequatl update, great jungle wurm, marionnette, tuning down queensdale and FGS champ train, the scarlet knights stuff, to me it seems obvious arenanet is moving away from the huge zergs. If you split groups the event is very easy and plenty overflows are doing the event with almost guarenteed gold rewards, not hard at all.

I took alot of mobility/cripple and interupt skills, so you can get to the meat hunks before chomper, make sure to eat the meat hunks only ( they improve your damage), the sticks poison you. After you consumed three pieces you should go all out and finish chomper off.

Gear: Dagger/Dagger in full berzerk.

Traits: 0/6/2/2/4

Trait selection: Tough choice between bolt to the heart and one with air ( both work), air training and fresh air. Stone splinter and vital striking. In arcane I took windborne dagger and elemental attunement.

Utilities: Armor of earth/frostbow/glyph of elemental power. For the heal anything goes, altough ether renewal channel takes to long in this fight.

Playstyle: Pop the glyph in earth, mark chomper and just burst him down. Throw cripples etc etc and when chomper seems to get to meat before you can, use your earth 4 or lightning 4+5. When you consumed 3 meats, pop armor of earth and frost bow 5+4. After that struggar is a piece of cake.

Did not try the 5 gambits in a third tier, but I had either go with dead eye dunwell or subject 7. I can imagine myself using Frost bow 5+4 and pushing subject 7 ( probably staff 3+ lightning hammer 3) in a wall and finish him off with FGS.

Dungeons and mechanics in general are way to ambiguous for casual players or PUGers like me to develop counter measures. Sometimes you can block projectiles, other times you cannot and you must evade ( Arch Diviner).

The champion icebrood wolf for example, you do not see anything comming he simply instagibs you, without notice. It was not until I tryed soloing him I noted you need to bait his lunge/w.e it is what hits you.

guanlongwucaii.3162:

ele seems to take aggro from a lot of mobs, Tazza included.

other examples – lupi phase 3 (tossup between ele, guard – though ele normally takes aggro), COE golem (and the trash mob golems laser eles in my experience)

Now you mention it,did definitely experience extreme focus when fighting the COE golem. Luckily the NPC usually gets it.

I could be horribly wrong, but as long as I melee her she doesnt seem to focus me in particular. Playing a zerker elementalist as well. Usually whenever one of the other guys starts running all over the place or long ranging they get focussed.

Well, on most classes you need to experience the ‘tells’ of attacks and subsequently memorize them. However from my experience an ele has the least room for error, and sometimes you simply died in 1 -2 hits. There is nothing to learn when you are dead on the floor.

A second problem would be that most of our damage dealt and or survivability comes from specific trait set ups. This was the same before the april patch, and has become even more bothersome during leveling up post patch. Simply cannnot do jack about this, at 80 we are in a very good place in pve though.

Anyways some tips that might help you:

- LoS projectile attacks, find a pillar/obstacle wall pull the champion and whenever he uses a dangerous ranged attack move behind the wall.

- When using a dagger +focus Air 4 destroys projectiles, earth 4 reflects projectiles and earth 2 ( not in the description) blocks a projectile at the peak of the animation + earth 5 obsidian flesh turns you invulnerable

- Some specific skills have frames in which you dodge attacks, for example the skill 3 on a fiery great sword, fire 3 on main hand dagger and fire 4 on staff. Just to name a few.

- You can remove stacks of defiance on a champion ( the yellow ones I believe) so you can interupt the champion to avoid an especially bothersome attack. Under the effects of defiance you cannot CC a champion.

- Protection, weakness and regeneration are important for sustainability vs champions, the only real damage mitigation we can get and passive healing.

- Some utilities are really good for survivability, including glyph of storms ( not vs a champ though), glyph of elemental power (earth) for the cripple, glyph of elementals for the rock golem which can tank. Obviously cantrips can help out a bunch as well. A much forgotten utility skill is earth shield, it can make you invulnerable, though its probably not worth the slot.

Lea.6194:

hi DEKeyz, thanks for the update and the quality of your builds
I was playing your previous build (I run ele in dungeon, doing might and fury) : S/D 30/10/10/20/0.
What are the new features/pros of your new build S/D 6/6/2/0/0 ? (seems we loose some damages without water traits ?)
Thanks in advance

The 6/6/2 build was also in the previous guide? Anyways seems logical you gain some potentional to stack vulnerability and deal more damage when you are not using a conjurer, however you lose the damage potentional from camping water when using LH or FGS. As a general rule of thumb, if you cannot camp LH in water and you’re party members do not keep vulnerability/fury/might up, just stick with the 6/6/2.

I have had different experiences with the megaserver, for one I loved playing in the low level explorable zones again. Much more people to play with, however when going for Tequatl, or some kind of guild event, the megaserver limits my experience. Second I do think it is weird to only maintain home servers for wvw and use the current itteration of the megaserver for the open world.

The megaserver splits existing communities and limits their experience, essentially based on a black box the megaserver sorts players. Second of all their is no such thing as a server community anymore, which is a shame and I suspect will influence wvw ultimately as well.

In the end, guilds dont want a smart algorithm which decides what community you belong to, people want to choose the communities they interact with themselves. The current implementation is lackluster.

Atleast keep some citadels/PVE zones server specific, for the sake of the server spirit (WVW) and RP communities. Second large guild events/missions/World boss events, should allow players to choose with whom they had like to play. The current megaserver system is to restrictive for already existing communities.

Piratoz.8627:

DutchRiders: the thing is with strength runes and sigil it is extremely easy to stack high amounts of might; all you have to do is attack and have a relatively high crit chance. The 7% damage bonus from rune of strength only needs 1 stack of might to activate so it is essentially always up.

Dexlmentia: Pyromancer’s Puissance looks decent on a build where you camp fire a lot such as a staff dps build. However Persisting Flames increases the amount of time that lava font stays on the ground giving the possibility of having lava font up 100% of the time in addition to granting aoe fury when you blast finish a fire field. This results in Persisting Flames giving a higher dps for yourself and your party than Pyromancer’s Puissance. The best thing about sigil of strength + strength runes is it is essentially a better version of Pyromancer’s Puissance as long as you have decent crit chance and can be utilized in any attunement, not just fire.

In my opinion runes of strength are now superior for dps than scholar runes for a large array of situations. Scholar runes are still the best if you can maintain 90%+ hp for long periods of time and you are in a might stacking party such as scepter/LH ele.

O don’t get me wrong, I definitely agree with you, I use strenght atm in open world content and in many other scenarios they are more convenient. However I wouldnt spend 40-50gold just to get a strenght set, when I can get a scholar set ( which is still superior in organized dungeon runs anyway) at like 20 gold. I fully agree that they provide an insane amount of might stacks and are amazing for most content, just did not think they would be this popular.

Yep, I bought alot of strenght runes pre patch, making all kinds of gains :P. Did not expect they would be this popular though. However if you think about it, how easy do you stick above 90% health or close to 25 stacks of might in dungeons or when trying to lv , explore or participate in open world events

In the organized groups I would definitely go with runes of the scholar. Actually, at current prices I dont think strenght runes are worth it anyway.

Just did a few runs with friends to try out the new skills etc, AC bosses died faster then usual, SE and TA did also feel faster. We expected quite the dmg decrease, but fractals went smooth as ever. Still have to try arah though.

At low levels I used scepter + dagger, build up some might and use conjurers ( axe and hammer are valid choices). Glyph of elemental power / glyph of storm and glyph of elementals all work pretty decent in earth attunement. First trait points in fire ( cause power at low levels is OP).

At like lv 60, 30 fire and 20 air works great. Reduced glyph cooldowns ( almost perma elemental up time) and the astonishing damage boost from 30 fire makes it a strong leveling build.

I’m currently leveling my guardian from 70 to 80, the build I use is more offensive, sometimes I skip champions or group events ( but they ain’t effective for leveling anyways). Gear wise I run full zerk, 3 runes of strenght and 3 runes of fire and trinkets are knights ( was the cheapest option xD). Main weapon is GS and off hand sword+focus or when traveling/aoe tagging I use a staff.

Trait distribution is: 20/25/0/0/15 (at 70), for majors I simply pick the obvious blind spam + every single damage booster. My utilities switch around alot, usually I try to have at least 1 fire field. In general I try to avoid using shouts, except retreat when traveling.

Although this is pretty similar to the dungeon meta, when solo lvling traveling speed and being able to clear fights is the priority. So I used to run with some points into honor for the minor traits, and shouts/2hander traits. The reason I run with very little defensive traits is because I set up might/fire fields and group the monsters up and kill them before my defensive utilities ( reflects, condi clears, sometimes SoJ) run out. If you try to balance dmg / defense to much you end up with little healing and little damage, which I think applies to your build.

So my tip would be, start investing in offensive gear and pick more offensive traits.

Well I’m very familiar with your experience, either groups go down in the bomb phase or they are typically bad at positioning mai trin.

When they go down in the cannon phase, you need to work out a ress strategy for your class. On my elementalist I usually summon an earth elemental to grab aggro and chain projectile defenses, dodges and blocking skills while ressing. Alternatively at lower lvs I can solo her and in general I will opt for that option if she is at 25% health.

When ressing or soloing her, remember to block/reflect/destroy her pistol shot ( really easy tell, she faces towards you and aims her pistol for a few seconds). Save your dodges for the pistol spin, if your ressing they are easy to dodge since you see them comming. If you are soloing, the spin shot is more troublesome, since its harder to read the tell and react properly at close range.

To position her properly the most important thing is every body has to melee range her when hork is about to fire the electric shot. Once her stacks are down you can max melee kite her or play more offensively depending on the amount of party wide conditional removal.

If you just project these new traits to your current situation/playstyle and the meta game, yeah the traits are not looking promising.

However with upcomming changes, and a changing meta game, who knows how these traits will compare.

Well I consider myself your average pug player, and altough the first time we struggled a little we got him on the 2nd try rather smooth. However we did wipe 2 times on Aldus hehehe….. So I doubt this will be a PUG killer.

The implementation though is poorly done, really the exact same troll with an identical loot table?

My advice would be play around with sigils/exotic gear before going for anything ascended. If you have limited play time, dont even bother with ascended.

I run full zerk trinkets/or assasins + either knight/pvt/berzerker exotic. Never felt at a disadvantage compared to ascended.

Well in PVE I like the build diversity and play styles quite a bit. We are in a very good place pve wise.

As for pvp, we are the most squishie class, locked into either range or melee, have huge cooldowns and bad projectile defense, bad cleansings, bad conditions, lackluster CC abilities, the attument swapping is also very punishing.

So the attument swap recharge rates and in general cooldowns should be greatly reduced. Would have to find another stat for arcana though. Also the idea of making elemental attument baseline and build evasive arcana separately in minor traits appeals.

Weapon skills should grant more build in or when traited defensive options and control, thus some form of stability/cures/aegis/dodge ( like burning speed)/stuns or chills. For example wall of earth in staff could now also block projectiles, or another example ring of fire cures conditions in a persisting flame type effect. Add a type of cleansing aura when traited for water. Stuff like that.

Utility wise: Cantrips are fine, mist form/lightning flash/ armor of earth/ arcane shield are all very strong abilities. The problem is the rate at which we need to burn them to stay alive, it is ridiculous. Low inherent defense in the trait lines/weapon skills and base value of stats and large cooldowns in general ( focus comes to mind) and high attument recharge rates means we burn our utilities like other classes burn their auto attacks.

Basically our attument swapping and build in defensive/controlling options need some love. Or our practical damage/condition damage needs to be boosted in return. However playing one of the most squishie classes and still have lackluster damage outputs, no control skills nor any decent defensive skills for party members makes little sense to me.

On my ele I would run one of the fresh air builds with dagger and focus (fractals especially) or for dungeons a scepter + focus/dagger and a 30/x/x/20/20..

The dungeon build gives me easy access to might and fury stacking and still decent with conjurers if I pick the proper traits. For survivability I can pick perma fury and elemental attument for easy boons on swap, and if really needed swap some water traits. Due to low precision with that build I would be mainly running signet of fire. The other traits depend.

However usually if you join decent compositions and only allow melee zerkers, things are pretty decent. I never run a full dmg lightning hammer build in pugs though or a staff build.

Come on the main city is turned into a battle ground and pure chaos, thats just awesome no matter how you put it. It looks amazing and the settlement camps are also like a completely different area. In terms of gameplay, clearing events with groups of like 10 people is way more efficient then simply zerging.

Its been a long time since I enjoyed the experience of an MMO this much.

I

In dungeons and events/meta events elementalists are in a great place. It is easy to tag events and deal amazing damage on large hit boxes and multiple enemies ( frost bow, meteor shower, Fiery great sword, etc). Alternatively we bring some of the best offensive boons to a party ( Might and Fury). Moreover you have alot of viable weapon sets and builds, just take a look at the stickies.

When you play the meta game type of ele, you’re active defenses are almost none existent and you’re base hp and armor is the lowest of all classes. Survivability will be very dependent on positioning, understanding mechanics and relying on party members. Combined with the fact that to pull of our full damage potentional we require impractical rotations and slight coordination within the group, PUGs when running dungeons might be unforgiving. For example some of the easy dungeons will still be a pain if you’re guardian is not helping with condition cleansing, providing stability and reflects.

Overall if anything in PVE we might require some love with sustainability without sacrificing to much damage and utility. WvW I just really started showing an interest in since the new Edge of the Mist maps.

.

Players are smart and learn quickly how to take advantage of the system and mechanics in general. The champion train is not very different from tagging events and world bosses. The meta game evolves and developers chose what to encourage or discourage.

Now as a new player, who met starting players during leveling up, you are greatly overestimating the negative effects of the champ train ( if there actually are any). The amount of people who only at later levels learn about the train or join the train is shocking. Especially for such a well known phenomenon. I for one did not known about the train till level 50 and I participated once to help a friend out at lv 80.

However what actually is holding back new players, is the amount of veterans not visiting maps like sparkly fen, blazeridge steppes etc. Queensdale is a beautifull map with alot of people running around. If anything they should integrate the champ train to the story and make it more interesting. I’m a huge fan of making some easy, yet rewarding events, located at central points where new players enjoy the experience as well.

You do not fail events or dungeons and what not cause people did participate in the train. Alot of new players only meet veterans at these type of events and learn something about their class. After failing some event a few times, they will quickly learn and adapt if you explain it.

Hmm if only I had known it doesnt really matter at all what you do at your first main character. Just enjoy the game, anything you do at 80 is probably way more efficient at 80 than when you do it at lower levels. However make sure you reward yourself properly!

Skill points: At 80 you gain them so easily it ain’t even funny. Shouldnt be a focus after you got your most important skills, again at 80 you get them so easily.

Currency wise, gold is the most important, you can buy gear sets or materials needed for crafting at the trading post. As such don’t spend to much gold at the trading posts when leveling. Additionally you can turn tokens into gold by salvaging rares and exotics bought with tokens, globs of ectoplasma sell for 30 silver each. You can buy gems with gold and vica versa ( make absolutely sure to check exchange rates).

Saving up karma to directly buy exotic gear at 80 is a waste, unless you do it for the skin. Better more easily available alternatives ( dungeons, TP and crafted sets) are out there. You might wanna save up skill points and karma points for getting recipes and you’re ascended + legendary gear. Keep in mind obtaining these takes so long karma becomes a non issue IMO. So if you during leveling face a dillema whether to spend gold or karma, spend the karma.

Do you’re daileys, when I did hit 80 I believe I only had about 9 of them xD. Laurels however are one of the few resources absolutely needed for obtaining ascended amulets.

Get waypoints, achievements+daileys, do farm map nodes and don’t spend ridiculous amounts of gold. Secondly make sure you reward yourself properly! You wanna have enough inventory space ( 18 bag slots help alot :P) and don’t sell your items to cheap! Third make a salvaging vs selling strategy, at low level character I immediately sell whites at merchants, salvage blues and greens (unless they sell for more than 1 silver), and sell rares + exotics

Rares + exotics = profit at lower levels and they do not give many important materials when salvaged. I think in general people just do not pay enough attention to the trading post, sure magic find is important but if you sell a green for 3 silver and you buy back 3 greens of 1 silver, you end up with more magic find. Do keep tax rates and listing fees in mind though!

At 80 I do salvage any rare or exotic under 40 silver.

Most importantly, salvaging light armor gives you components used in tailoring, same holds true for medium and heavy armor ( I didnt realise hehehe). So salvaging heavy armor is probably less important when you do not want to craft heavy armor. Just get a feel for the market and by the time you hit 80 you can make alot of gold by exploiting inefficiencies at the trading post ( just takes 5 minutes a day really).

As a new player who just made the gear upgrade from a green/rare geared elementalist to a full lv 80 pvt and berzerker set (exotic), the influence of gear on the meta game ( including play styles) seems underestimated in this topic. When running dungeons with guildies, playing with alts and what you could consider undergeared players, we definitely did focus less on DPS than the meta game is currently doing. Now some elitists might be able to run any dungeon or fractal without armor and still focus on dps, average players will have more trouble and probably need some more healing from team mates, sharing of shields etc. What allows the average to good player to currently focus solely on dps are the increasing gear levels and berzerker gear.

There is a phlentora of different builds, playstyles and group composition to clear content available. Some builds and classes simply are more suited to heal group members. As plenty already mentioned those builds and plays however are detrimental to the current dps game.

I don’t think the issue is lack of the standard trinity. The major flaw of pve is the constant difficulty level of for example dungeons whereas gear levels keep increasing. Yet players keep farming world bosses and dungeons for the high rewards and low risks, queensdale champion cycle comes to mind. Fractals seem to be the only exception to some extend. The major issue are overgeared players running dungeons and world bosses of the same difficulty level with ease, yet still receiving high rewards. In other words the reward scaling system meant to keep low level PVE interesting for higher characters, actually makes it a little bit to interesting and the weaponary isnt downscaled enough in pve.

The most elegant solution would be introducing new content while limiting the arms race. In short the game needs an expansion.