Guild Wars 2

A lot of players use it because it was insanely strong during fights against objects in AC, and it stuck with them as a clutch utility weapon. In fact, it still kinda sucks outside of that one instance.

Also, there’s a Water tree trait that procs with Soothing Mist and Frost Bow, and so I suppose players take it because so many Eles spec heavily into Water with Mist Form.

In the end, I agree. It’s a pretty bad utility skill outside of certain (really, just one) parts of the game.

Staff is clunky, slow, and has low damage. The first two make it bad in PvP, and the latter makes it bad in PvE.

It’s insane in WvW zergs, however.

I did read, and he said he PvEs.

Blasting Staff is a waste in PvE where mobs naturally bunch together.

If you have 30 in Arcana, always take Elemental Attunement, Renewing Stamina, and Evasive Arcana.

You say that you dislike cantrips, yet you spend a whole 10 points in earth to gain… a cantrip.

If you want to spec into damage, put more points into Air Magic from Water Magic.

If you need survivability, put up cantrips, but don’t waste valuable trait points on it which could instead do something more useful (water 30 traits and air 20 traits are both very strong).

Frost Bow is a pretty blah utility. Ditch it.

I personally like Ether Renewal more than Glyph of Elemental Harmony.

To be quite honest, Staff is a low DPS weapon with low utility for dungeons. The main reason is that the nature of dungeons just doesn’t lend itself to Staff’s AoE control, and that as a long-range weapon, Staff’s damage is just really low.

If you want to play DPS, play a Warrior.

If you want to play Support, play a Guardian.

If you want to play a Jack of All Trades, you should look to other versions of the Ele, to be honest. Dagger mainhand with either Focus or Dagger offhand are the best options for now.

Earth 4 Focus is a Blast Finisher, and also insanely good overall (reflect projectiles, cure three conditions, deal AoE damage and cripple foes around you).

Honestly, all they need to do is make them kits like the Engie and I’d be good to go.

Cleansing Wave should be Cleansing Water. Cleansing Water will proc on cantrips thanks to Soothing Disruption.

Look at the guide in my sig for more info on specifically the PvE D/D Ele.

Don’t worry, you can refund them at the cost of 3 silver and 50 copper.

If you’re looking for a general guide to the Ele, look to Daphoenix’s guide to the Ele (with an emphasis on WvW): https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-Mastering-the-D-D-ele-5-12-12

Here is my guide to the Ele if you just want to do dungeons/fractals: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Neko-s-Guide-to-the-D-D-Ele-in-Dungeons-1

Straight-up simple question. Why does Fire Aura have have such a ginormous cooldown?

I really do want to know, and I hope every Ele out there bumps this thread until we get a good answer.

Smooth Marc.8743:

Try out 0/30/0/20/20 or 10/30/0/20/10 dagger/focus.Pick up offensive traits like vital striking,air training etc.

For runes and gear go all berserker with scholar runes.If you’re worried about dying use valkrie armor and weapons(but keep berserker trinkets) with divinity or some other defensive rune set up.Like Byron said if you get hit your dead anyway so you might as well maximize the damage you do.

I use sigil of energy for extra endurance regen, but if you feel like you can stay alive without it use something else.

I honestly think 0/10/0/30/30 d/d is overrated in pve.Dagger offhand does not offer much on boss fights except extra healing.Churning earth and fire grab are on too long of a cool-down to make a difference and bosses are immune to knock downs.

I don’t think aura sharing is worth it, because auras are pretty worthless in pve except magnetic Aura.Evasive arcane is pretty much overkill for self healing.If you need that much healing you’re making too many mistakes.

This is a bit off topic, butI don’t think ele dps is as bad as you make it out to be.I was messing around soloing Lupicus as glass cannon ele, and my kill time was not that far off from my warrior’s (which is 7ish min).It’s a nightmare to stay alive in phase 3 so I’m still working on a kill, but I’m on pace for like 10-11 min kill.It’s only slower than a warrior because I’m forced to sit in water and earth attunment for extended periods of time in phase 3 so I don’t put sigil of energy on cool-down.

I want to see this in action. I think a lot of Eles are looking to push the class further in PvE.

Scepter lacks any real sustained damage. It’s a poor choice for dungeons if you can melee instead.

Daggers have far superior sustained damage and you are still able to stack a ton of might using just Earth’s blast finishers and Arcane Wave.

What the above poster said is basically true.

Check out my guide to the D/D Ele in PvE Dungeons and Fractals: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Neko-s-Guide-to-the-D-D-Ele-in-Dungeons-1

Basically, Eles who would like to play high-level PvE have two choices: play the gimmicky Conjure Lightning Hammer build, or play 0/10/0/30/30 and still try to keep the spirit of what it means to play an Elementalist.

Elementalist is, unfortunately, a subpar choice compared to Warrior, Guardian, and Mesmer. The 0/10/0/30/30 Ele and its variations ultimately do far less damage and have far less utility than a DPS Guardian, which does basically everything you want to do, only better with more damage to boot.

But do what is enjoyable to you. I still play my Ele as my main in high-level PvE because it is what I enjoy. And with a 0/10/0/30/30 D/D setup (switching to Scepter as needed), you can still be fairly effective, just not as effective as many others are.

You should still go full Berserker gear for dungeons, I feel. The Ele has enough in-built survivability with 15 in Water and 30 in Arcana that attuning to Water is a nice, consistent heal.

I’d suggest looking at my guide to Eles in Dungeons and Fractals for more information: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Neko-s-Guide-to-the-D-D-Ele-in-Dungeons-1

As for WvW, your choice of Knights + Valkyrie is solid.

Ele is considered a very powerful class in PvP and WvW. Like the Ranger, our strengths in PvP formats don’t translate well to PvE, and so the Ele is sorta lackluster in PvE with no hopes of getting buffed in the near futute.

Clerics + Berserkers in some fasion is actually pretty fine for a Staff Ele in WvW.

It worked for this guy after all: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-919RMwyfnk

The real power of non-glass cannon Staff Eles in WvW (and by the way, I actually encourage glass cannon Staff Eles just because even a PUG group should keep you safe), however, comes from our CC than anything else. Stun Cage is your best zerg v zerg spell, and that isn’t effected by stats. So regardless of what you gear with (and yea,h gear does play a huge role), it’s more important to learn what good CCd you habe a staff Ele.

Full Berserkers should be your goal for PvE in the end. In fact, if you only plan to PvE, go double daggers with full Berserker gear (and staff/scepter/focus in bag) and don’t look back.

If you plan to do WvW, it’s still a bit complicated. If you only run with zergs, full Berserker Staff Ele is very strong. If you plan to roam, go for something tankier (Knights on your armor and something with vitality on your trinkets is a good way to go).

Either way, 0/10/0/30/30 and its variations (such as 0/20/0/20/30) are indeed the best trait arrays. Stay away from fire, put 15 in Water, max Arcana for acceptable trait builds.

Elementalist might possibly be the worst class when it comes to leveling.

The main reason is you need traits, mainly 30 in Arcana and 15 in Water, for the Ele to achieve a normal level of survivability.

For now, at level 30ish, put points into Water/Arcana. I’ve heard Scepter is a good way to level.

Go for low hanging fruit. Clear the lowest starting zones. Do your daily. Fight stuff way below your level. Try to find the easiest points to level in.

Basically, until Level 60, you’re in for a rough ride. No, it’s not fair, and no, it’s not good design. But tough it out till then, stressing Water and Arcana, and the moment you can put 30 in Arcane and 15 in Water, you will solidly be able to constantly restore your health by just reattuning to Water.

Keep your gear up to date. Go for Power/Vitality dual stat gear and then Knights gear when you get go 60. Eles have a huge DPS and armor and health disadvantage compared to other classes (read: low in all 3 categories). What’s good about us, however, is our broad array of abilities that allow us to have an answer to anything.

So cheer up. Ele is indeed a ton of pain to level and I do feel ANet needs to do something about it. But my advice is stick to Arcana/Water, both to get used to what Eles do at level 80, as well as because it actually maximizes your survivability.

Look to my guide on the D/D Elementalist for Dungeons and Fractals: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Neko-s-Guide-to-the-D-D-Ele-in-Dungeons-1/

Is this for WvW or PvE?

Look to Daphoenix’s guide for a general guide on the Ele: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-Mastering-the-D-D-ele-5-12-12 (Knights+Celestial Tanky DPS build, mainly for PvP formats)

Look to Zoose’s guide for a guide to the Ele in PvP: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX1OjClufdk (Valykrie+Berserker Aura Sharing Survivability DPS build, mainly for PvP formats)

Look to my own guide for a guide to the Ele in PvE/Dungeons/Fractals: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Neko-s-Guide-to-the-D-D-Ele-in-Dungeons-1/ (Full Berserker Glass Cannon, mainly for PvE formats)

If you want someone who can support well, please go look at the Guardian first. They have the best supportive abilities in the game. Their ability to support in dungeons is superb and I would highly recommend them over the Elementalist in this regard.

If you want to play a class that is highly versatile and able to do many things pretty well, the Elementalist is a great choice, however. Good Elementalists provide a steady stream of Support, Control, and Damage that may not be as good as other classes, but they are able to do all three pretty well at the same time. The biggest upside to an Elementalist is their power to do many things without having to give up much in return. Their downsides include low stats, low default dps, and the inability to do things quite as well as other classes can (the developers constantly monitor the Ele to prevent it from outshining other classes in their own roles, such as mobility for the Thief or support for the Guardian or damage for the Warrior).

This build has served me well. It works in FOTM 38 just fine, for me: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Neko-s-Guide-to-the-D-D-Ele-in-Dungeons-1

I play FOTM 38 just fine in full Berserker gear as a DD Ele.

Here’s my guide to the Ele for specifically PvE: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Neko-s-Guide-to-the-D-D-Ele-in-Dungeons-1

A good WvW and PvE build are different from each other.

The best I could suggest is full Berserker gear and going double dagger in dungeons and staff in WvW.

Here’s my guide to the Ele in Dungeons and Fractals: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Neko-s-Guide-to-the-D-D-Ele-in-Dungeons-1

Equip a Berserker staff for WvW and stick with a zerg to transfer this build to that format.

For what format are you playing? WvW or PvE?

And yes, sigil of battle and sigil of energy share a cooldown.

THIS IS THE GREATEST CHANGE EVER, THANK YOU ANET.

No really. This is a huge quality of life change for D/D Elementalists. More players will probably play the D/D Ele now that Lightning Whip won’t miss all the time.

Overall, I am extremely happy with this change.

Why not just form a group or make a group that doesn’t require Warriors? I don’t see why you feel the need (or indeed, at all desire) to be accepted by those sorts of people on the gw2lfg site.

Do not go to Gendarran. It’s way too hard at your level.

Instead, go to one of the starter zones and clear that out. Afterwards, find areas that are below your level and grind those for dynamic events, poi, waypoints, vistas, and hearts.

The fact is that the Ele is a really difficult leveling experience (it was my first, so yes, I remember how awful it was), but as long as you go for easy points, you should be able to Dagger-Dagger your way through lowbie mobs and level as quickly as you can.

Staff is pretty hard to use effectively in PvE, I find.

Staff is very strong in WvW with a zerg.

Go full Berserkers (for ranged AoE DPS) or full Clerics (for sustainability and support) and don’t look back. 0/10/0/30/30 with Bolt to the Heart, Cleansing Wave, Vital Striking, Cleansing Water, Elemental Attunement, Blasting Staff, and Evasive Arcana.

Don’t ever take condition damage on an Ele. It’s awful.

For your utilities, take Arcane Wave, Lightning Flash, and Mist Form.

Learn to Blast Finish in your own Healing Rain by casting it, then dodge rolling into it with Earth, or blasting in it with Arcane Wave. You can also do this in the reverse by using Earth 2 (a delayed blast finisher) and then Casting Healing Rain or Geyser on top of the Earth spell.

Air 5 is amazing and really screws up zergs.

Use Fire 5 on walls and against zergs.

And use Water 4 on zergs to snare and slow people.

Staff is very useful in WvW.

Condition damage is awful for an Ele.

Go for almost anything else. Clerics for Bunker in PvP/WvW, Knights for Hybrid-DPS in WvW, or Berserker in PvE/Dungeons.

Here’s my guide to the Ele in dungeons in PvE: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Neko-s-Guide-to-the-D-D-Ele-in-Dungeons-1

I’m gonna suggest trying something you’ve probably not thought of before. It should be easy for you since you already have CoF Armor.

Go 0/10/0/30/30 (the “Water Arcanist” Elementalist build) with full Bererker gear (trinkets, and armor), and see where that takes you.

Elementalists have incredible survivability from the Water tree, and when coupled with full Berserker gear, you’re able to do OK damage while having incredible sustainability.

Look to my guide on the DD Ele in Dungeons and Fractals: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Neko-s-Guide-to-the-D-D-Ele-in-Dungeons-1

My own D/D Ele build (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Neko-s-Guide-to-the-D-D-Ele-in-Dungeons-1) generally provides the following:
-Moderate DPS (Full Berserker)
-Strong Party Fury uptime (Auras)
-Very Strong Party Might duration (12 stacks for 20+ seconds is very valuable)
-Very Strong Condition Cleansing (Cleansing Wave and Evasive Arcana Water Dodge Roll)
-Strong Party Burst Heals (Water Attunement)
-Moderate Protection Uptime (Earth Attunement)
-Access to snares (immobilize on Earth 3, chill on Water 3) and CC (blowout on Air 5, stun on Air 3, Knockdown on Earth 4)

The Ele is a jack of all trades. They are able to fill out a party no matter the composition. While the Mesmer may be more utilitous, good luck trying to get Focus Pull to be useful in your average PUG. I consider the Ele a suboptimal class in Organized Mes/War/Guard groups, but a pretty strong choice in random PUG groups.

I have no advice on leveling, but here’s what I run for the D/D Ele in Dungeons and Fractals: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Neko-s-Guide-to-the-D-D-Ele-in-Dungeons-1

I hate to say this, but I see a lot of things wrong with this

First off, trying to go 30/30/X in your Power/Precision/Crit Damage trees for the stats is sort of a waste. While it does increase your DPS somewhat, the fact is that the Staff’s DPS sucks no matter how hard you try and pukitten.

The reason for this is twofold. Ranged weapons in this game generally have really bad damage (with some exceptions), and the Elementalist has really bad damage (because he has so many skills available to him at any given time).

The staff’s main attraction comes from the utility it provides. Combo fields, decent heals, stun cage, snare… to be honest, I find it’s sort of lackluster in most dungeon situations compared to Scepter or Dagger.

If you really want to DPS with staff, at the very least, I would seriously suggest putting 30 in Arcana. The ability to constantly swap attunements is the most powerful ability an Ele can have. More importantly, Evasive Arcana is the strongest trait we have, and it serves an even more important role in Staff than almost any other weapon spec. The Earth blast finisher is absolutely amazing for Staff’s various combo fields.

Additionally, Arcane Wave is basically necessary for a good Staff build, again, mainly for the Blast Finisher. Blasting in your own combo fields, and the fields of your allies, can lead to some really great effects.

In all honesty, I would try out the 0/10/0/30/30 spec:
-Bolt to the Heat: 20% damage increase when foe is below 33% HP
-Vital Striking: 10% damage increase when above 90% HP
-Soothing Disruption: Cantrips grant vigor and regen
-Cleansing Water: Remove a condition when granting regen
-Powerful Aura: You only share one aura
-Elemental Attunement: Grant a boon when changing attunements
-Renewing Stamina: Gain vigor on crit
-Evasive Arcana: Cast a spell at the end of a dodge roll (most notable for the blast finisher in Water)

Utility slots:
-Arcane Wave
-Mist Form
-Lightning Flash
-Glyph of Elementals [Elite]

And all Berserker gear.

Your main rotation is to start in Air. You engage with Static Field to stun enemies, then swap to Fire for some burst from 2 and 3. If your allies are doing well, use 4 to create a Fire Field, then dodge roll back into it in Earth attunement to blast finish, giving 3 stacks of might. You can even then Arcane Wave blast to grant 3 more stacks of might. If your allies need heals, instead swap to Water attunement, lay down Healing Rain, then swap to Earth attunement and roll into your Healing Rain for a blast finisher, then Arcane Wave for yet another blast finisher, for massive burst heals.

If you find yourself in Earth attunement with other attunements off cooldown, you can use Eruption (Earth 2) to create a Delayed Blast Finisher, then place a combo field on top of Eruption. Your choices are Lava Font (Fire Field for might), Frozen Ground (Ice Field for Frost Aura), and Healing Rain/Geyser (Water Field for burst heals).

Your best pure DPS rotation is probably staying in Fire Attunement and using 2 and 3 off cooldown while auto attacking, though it really won’t get you that far compared to a melee set.

In the end, if you’re really set on Staff, I’d suggest looking to other things the staff can do, such as its copious combo fields and various utility stuff (AoE stun is nice on trash). If you’re set on DPS, I’d really suggest looking at another class, or switching to almost any other weapon set the Ele has.

Please don’t let the gloom and doom of this forum get you, people like to kitten a lot and overexaggerate, and one of the side-effects of such exaggeration is thakitten misleads newcomers (or returners) such as yourself.

The D/D Ele is a great class in WvW, though I would ask what server/tier you’re on, and whakitten is you intend to do.

The Thief offers a unique style of gameplay. You have the best escape mechanism in the game yet you’re so squishy once someone manages to get a snare on you. It’s skillful, somehow both forgiving yet unforgiving all at the same time (you can always escape, but linger one second too long and you’re eaten alive).

The D/D Ele too is also quite unique, in many ways standing in stark contrast to the Thief’s tactics. The Ele talks a lot, smashes things around them, blows stuff up, and has flashy effects. They can’t be sneaky at all but instead they embrace getting into the midst of things with a combination of mobility moves, gap closers, perma swiftness, and tons of heals.

I would suggest playing both and trying to see which one you like the most. I will say, however, that both are actually quite different (this is actually something I notice a lot – a lot of players assume that a D/D Ele plays a lot like a Thief because it uses Daggers, when in fact it’s very different).

If we’re talking sPvP, where things are a bit more structured and sane, the Ele is generally considered the better class.

In WvW, it depends on your tier and what you want to do.

But don’t let anyone tell you Ele is not viable in the PvP formats. That is very untrue.

Just, it should be noted that we only have one good spec: 0/10/0/30/30 and the variations of that, and you can’t reliably play a glass cannon one and will need to spec for defense. Then again, don’t let that bother you too much. The people down in the Thief forum are perpetually complaining that they lack reliable sustain outside of stealthing, so every class has its downsides. Which, btw, I think was ANet’s intention.

For D/D Ele in dungeons, I suggest my guide:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Neko-s-Guide-to-the-D-D-Ele-in-Dungeons-1/

“Soon”

Is “ANet time” a meme like “Valve time” yet?

I’m just going to throw it out there that after they added AC Mastery, I felt really cheated because I spent all my points on other things.

I know that they promised to give us all a one-time reset of points after they nerf Arrow Carts further, which is sorta nice, but I’m pretty sure by then AC Mastery won’t be as good anymore.

Anyway, I’d just like it if ANet acknowledged that adding WXP abilities should give us all a chance to retrait. As it stands, WvW abilities are the only things in the game that feel… really dated. I can freely enjoy making characters because I can retrait my character’s class traits for a minimal fee. It’s hard for me to enjoy WvW without that same sort of retraiting available.

Basically, I’m quitting playing WvW until the day the trait reset comes in. Just so the developers know.

If you want to play a mage, I seriously suggest taking a look at the Mesmer first. Please.

The Elementalist is powerful and has an incredible build (0/10/0/30/30). And I really love the Ele a ton.

But if you’re hoping to play some utilitous spell caster who wields powerful utility and damage spells all in one, go look at the Mesmer first.

Ele has three sorts of roles at the moment – the Staff user which is mainly a WvW AoE utility/nuker type, the Scepter which is probably the most traditional caster type with OK (but not incredible) mid-range DPS, and the Dagger Ele which seems to be some sort of street fighter or Avatar (as in the TV show) duelist.

But if you’re going for a mage sorta character with powerful burst and powerful utility, you’re much better off with the Mesmer.

If you really wanna play Ele, here is my guide to the D/D Ele in Dungeons and Fractals: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Neko-s-Guide-to-the-D-D-Ele-in-Dungeons-1

ThiBash.5634:

Did you seriously claim that the staff is worthless for dungeons?

Between Frozen Ground, Static Field and Meteor Shower, you can clear groups blazingly fast. Nothing the scepter does comes even close to that. And Dragon’s Tooth is even trickier to land since it’s a one-hit or miss.

This is what I said:

Neko.9021:

Staff
High skill cap to use, and pretty awkward at that. The main thing is that it can be really hard to land most of this weapon’s attacks, and the auto-attacks themselves do incredibly low damage. In most dungeons, you’re probably better off using Daggers or Scepter. There are some cases where the Staff is really nice to have (such as clearing lots of trash or lots of enemies, such as the Ascalon Fractal), but overall, especially for newer players, I’d point you in the direction of the other weapon sets first.

So no, I did not say staff is “worthless in dungeons.”

However, the fact is that in dungeons, melee attacks are generally better because melee attacks do more DPS than ranged ones. It is for this reason that I suggest the D/D Ele most of all when trying to clear dungeons. Scepter is nice because it has good burst damage attacks from range. Staff is good for clearing lots of trash.

Chaosky.5276:

Neko.9021:

Shatterstone (Water 2) is a nice low cooldown damaging attack and you should use it off cooldown.

You’d do more DPS by just using the Water autoattack.

Wow, I’m kitten . Thank you for telling me that. I will adjust the guide to reflect this.

Getting the Monk Runes aren’t so bad, just 4 AC runs for two of them. If that’s too harsh, then yes, more Ruby Orbs would be just fine.

As the writer of the guide, yes. If you dodge roll in Water with Evasive Arcana, you cast Cleansing Wave at the end of your Dodge Roll.

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