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help with playing an elementalist

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Denji
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  • GW2: thundermittens.2831
Posted On: 07/25/2012 at 02:24 PM
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Hi everybody :)

 

I was hoping you could help me troubleshoot what Im doing wrong.  I want to play an elementalist at release, because I think they're cool, but in the beta weekends, I've been having a really hard time with them in PVE :(

Up to level 18-ish, the game was challenging for me.   Once I passed my mid teens, the game became super challenging :/     at level 18, I'd say i have a 50% or less chance of surviving an encounter with 3 level 19's.   I have this feeling  that I should be doing better, and there's something that I'm "just missing", but i don't know what it is.    

Background: I've played alot of mmo's, but my skill level is right around average, to slightly below average (im ok with that)

 

playstyle: 

-I played a staff elementalists, and I generally try to keep mobs slowed/locked down, while I run around them and whittle them down.   I don't have every spell memorized yet, but I'd say 75% of the time, Ill fire off the right spell I intended.  I don't have any order I use my skills in, I just use a stun/hold/blind/slow, and spam whatever im "1" skill is for the element Im currently using. 

-Dodging wise, I didn't get it at first, but I'd say I'm "ok" at it now. 

-Against anything with a bow, I just haven't figure out what to do with them yet, I just try to blind/stun where I can. 

-My self combo's I'm still learning, but I do "ok" with those. 

-I know it's not my gear because I traded some gems for gold so I could keep my gear up to date, just so I could "keep up" with the level I was at.

I have tried to help myself by going to TOPVP, Taugrim and Dulfy's sites, but it feels like Im just missing somthing.   Or I just may have to admit to myself that the elementalist or GW2 requires more skill than I have.   That about sums up what I've tried.  Is there anything that stands out that you think Im missing? I don't have to pwn at this game, I just want to get by to lvl 80 so I can see the whole game.  At the pace I'm going, by the time I get to 20, the game will be too hard for me.

Help :/

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JibbitsJr
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Replied On: 07/25/2012 at 08:56 PM PDT
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Hello Shaolin, I feel your pain! I ran into similar problems leveling my staff skills while questing in the teens. I am not a pro or an expert, and I will never claim to be. However, I did find it easier to quest using the scepter / dagger weapon load out. For me it seemed as though the staff weapon load out worked better in a group environment. I know standing on the back lines dropping aoe’s is the typical caster mo, but man those numbers get huge!!!!! You may have tried this setup/rotation already, but I found it effective on a 3 pull. I had the following slotted in my utility spots. Glyph of Storms, Arcane Wave, and I think the very first heal spell. Starting attuned to Water: 1. Frozen Ground – on target starting area 2. Attune Fire 3. Meteor Shower— 4. Glyph of Storms- 5. Attune Lightning 6. Chain Lightning 7. Arcane Wave- once the finally get to you 8. Windborne Speed 9. Kite / Rinse repeat. After windborne speed the rotation is really up to you. I usually used the windborne speed to create a gap so I could keep using chain lightning. This probably is not the best rotation or utilities, but it was pretty effective and I usually dropped at least one of the turds before I had to start moving. I hope this helps in some way. I really think if you give the scepter / dagger a go you would love it. Fire and Earth combo is awesome. 1. Ring of Fire 2. Attune Earth 3. Dodge straff back once 4. Stone Shards- combo bonus bleed+burn

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Engwar
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Replied On: 07/25/2012 at 09:58 PM PDT
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Excellent rotation advice Jib, it's very close to what I used during beta and was very effective.

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Denji
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  • GW2: thundermittens.2831
Replied On: 07/26/2012 at 04:17 AM PDT
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Thank you Jibbs! Thats what I was looking for! I didnt really have a rotation figured out, I was just going with whatever element was up. Weapon wise, I haven't tried scepter dagger. There were too many main-hand off-hand combinations for me to choose from. I chose staff because my main/off hand was decided for me and i wouldnt have to think about it. I'm going to print out your post, and follow your instructions come release. Maybe catch you in chat if I have other questions, if its cool with you. Thanks for your help! 20 more spells to memorize >_<

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JibbitsJr
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Replied On: 07/26/2012 at 05:14 PM PDT
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Hello Denji, I am glad that wall of text helped. :} It will be very nice to bounce ideas off other Ele’s in the guild once the game launches. I look forward to theory crafting with you and others. Absolutely hit me up in vent or game chat anytime you got a question. I am may not know the answer, but I will do my best to help find it.

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Psypher
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Replied On: 07/26/2012 at 07:03 PM PDT

During BWE3 I played an ele and unlocked every skill for every weapon. Whilst doing so, it seemed to me that staves were most suitable for healing and support. That's not to say that they couldn't do damage well, but simply that their "best fit" wasn't DPS. My goal for this beta was to just level and bring pain, so I shifted my focus away from staves and water skills, and instead opted for fire skills with a focus on condition damage/burning, and a bit of arcane thrown in for good measure. It was very much a "best defense is a good offense" approach and was generally successful. I had the most success with DPS using a scepter and focus while fire-attuned, and equipping the Arcane Wave finisher and the Arcane Power utility to grant 5 guaranteed crits. I would generally start most fights at range, open up with the Fire Wall field skill, then follow up with the Phoenix finisher to grant the Might combo boon. Depending on the situation I would continue on with either Dragon's Tooth or Arcane Wave. If Arcane Wave was used, I would throw up Fire Shield immediately afterwards so that they took additional damage at melee range. Frequently these skills used in combination would burst the enemies down with me taking minimal damage. If I used Dragon's Tooth instead of Arcane Wave, I would frequently just stay at a distance and continue rotating through Dragon's Tooth and the basic scepter fire dps skill (Flamestrike?) until they were downed. In addition to the skills, I also slotted all armor and weapons with condition damage enhancements. At level 15, all enhancements slot had anywhere from +4 to +8 condition damage. This bonus damage made my burn skills considerably brutal - if a melee target surprised me from behind, my enemy would frequently die from nothing but my Fire Shield and a well-placed Fire Wall. I never made it to lvl 18, nor have I faced three lvl 19 mobs at the same time, so I can't speak to your specific situation. I dare say, though, that if I attempted to take on said mobs at melee range as a light-armor-class and equipped with a staff (which is meant more for ranged dps than melee) and water-atuned, I would have a difficult time. That's simply not an ideal situation right there. One tactic that Jibbs employed is switching attunements - something that I never tried due to my particular "build" during this beta, but is probably recommended in many situations. I can see many fights starting in either Fire or Lightning, switching to Earth/Water as needed for the situation, then switching to the Fire or Lightning to finish things off being very effective. I"m not sure how I would enhance my 'quips for something like that, though. Power is probably a safe bet for most DPS builds, but the conditional damage for Fire builds or Precision/Crit damage for Lightning/Arcane builds could also be very effective as well. Anywho, thoughts from another fellow ele roaming about the game. Hopefully there's something useful in there for ya. Cheers!

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JibbitsJr
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Replied On: 07/26/2012 at 09:28 PM PDT
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I like the condition build a lot. I posted a link in our forums about a really nice lvl 80 pvp condition build that somebody else put together. The video with it is pretty cool. I have not had a chance to use it yet in the mists though. I am really digging the diversity the Ele brings to the table. So many fun choices.

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Denji
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  • GW2: thundermittens.2831
Replied On: 07/27/2012 at 07:53 AM PDT
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“Anywho, thoughts from another fellow ele roaming about the game. Hopefully there’s something useful in there for ya” Thanks Psypher, yes there’s always something useful I get out someone’s experience. Comparing what you say to what I was doing, yeah it did feel that I was way more useful with a staff when we were running around WvW, than running solo. Between yours and Jibbs’ input, Ill for sure start with scepter/dagger (or) focus the next time around. Also, reading your post, I realized that although I always had max level gear, I didn’t have any of my gear slotted like you did, I probably should’ve done that as well O.o My 7-9 skills were all defensive. From what you say, maybe I should have gone a more on the offense side . Ill try using arcane wave and arcane power this time around and go more offense, rather than my BWE playstyle which was a bit more on the “ run away screaming and toss spells behind me, hoping that I damage one of them before they catch up to me/mash buttons and hope one of the buttons I mashed did something good” technique. All in all, really good stuff that you pointed out that I should’ve tried, that I will do this time around. In general, I wouldn’t say I’m a lazy gamer, but trying to wrap my brain around figuring out all the details like conditions, durations, slotting, planning out my skills, counters, and all that technical stuff in gaming , makes my brain hurt >_< For me it’s like trying to figure out unix syntax (which Im horrible at) All the details hurt my brain, so it’s easier for me to learn off of other’s experience than to figure it out myself :p Thanks for sharing your experience Psypher :)

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SummerRaine
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Replied On: 07/27/2012 at 05:20 PM PDT
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"All the details hurt my brain, so it’s easier for me to learn off of other’s experience than to figure it out myself" That's how I do things too. I have such a hard time getting it worked out in my head on my own that I can get discouraged. That being said, I too love the elementalist and plan on it being my main character at launch. So I am really happy to see all the advice offered in this thread and plan on putting it to good use. Although I didn't play an ele in BWE3, I did in the previous BWE's as well as both stress tests and had an absolute blast. Something I learned recently was how to strafe. Once I got that (mostly) down, coupled with dodging, I felt invincible! My reply isn't much help, it is meant to be more of a thank you to you, Denji, for bringing up this subject and to all those who answered you. It's helped me too and I am grateful! Myk

» Edited on: 2012-07-27 17:22:03

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Denji
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  • GW2: thundermittens.2831
Replied On: 07/28/2012 at 11:16 PM PDT
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Whenever I post a question anywhere, I always close my eyes before I click "post topic" cause I'm afraid everyone's gonna think my question is really really stupid :( Then I check the post few hours later, and when nobody responds Im all like "Oh no, nobody responded, I knew it was a stupid question" ;_; Then somebody like you comes along and goes..... "That's how I do things too" and then Im like "yay! Im not the only one!" XD Thank you for the encouragement Mykhayla =)

» Edited on: 2012-07-28 23:21:13

» Edited on: 2012-07-28 23:27:41

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Odin
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Replied On: 07/29/2012 at 04:45 AM PDT

I'll throw in a "thanks for starting this" reply. I'm new to GW and did no beta testing. I'm also planning an ele as my main so I've been trying to at least read as many opinions on it as possible. Come game time all of these type of threads will be somewhere in my brain while I figure out how I want to play my toon. So I am definitely enjoying this thread.

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Denji
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  • GW2: thundermittens.2831
Replied On: 07/29/2012 at 10:08 AM PDT
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Yay, Im not the only one learning ele :P Wanted to share my other resources. You probably already know these guys, but ill post it anyways. Both of these guys make tutorial videos for gamers. In every tutorial, they share class/stats/playstyle/speccing/rotations/where to use the build, pretty much everything, in a format intentionally meant for someone who is learning, NOT someone who is already a pro. http://taugrim.com/ http://topvp.wordpress.com/

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Psypher
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Replied On: 07/29/2012 at 04:55 PM PDT

I love when we can all learn from each other :) Glad to see people are enjoying the discussion. One thing to keep in mind as we all dive in when the game launches is that what worked in BWE3 may be tuned differently/completely changed in the final release. So with that said, be sure to try and learn by playing first. I TOTALLY understand the brain cramps that can result from trying to read through all the skill and stat information out there, but nothing beats simply playing the game and trying things in there, seeing what works for you and your play style. Read, learn, make informed build choices, discover different possibilities...all that is great. But like Levar Burton said, "Don't take my (his/someone else's) word for it!" Skin that dagger/scepter/staff/trident yourself and see what happens! Can't wait for us to start discussing ele strats, builds, and tips after the live game launches!

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Odin
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Replied On: 07/29/2012 at 05:30 PM PDT

+1 for Psypher's post

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Jar
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  • GW2: Jar.5604
Replied On: 07/30/2012 at 06:25 AM PDT
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Here is the Elementalist from another view; "An Experienced View on the Elementalist (Sorry if this is hard to read, can't do much editing since i'm doing this on my iPad) Some of you have played with me and some of you have not. I'd like to first do a quick introduction and then move on into things i've discovered, and tested thoroughly with the Elementalist Class over this weekend. Like a lot of you i've been gaming for several years now, starting back in the early beta days of Everquest 1. I used to play roughly 19 hours a day, 7 days a week, pretty much having no life other than gaming. After a few years I got hired to be a GM for SOE and thoroughly enjoyed the job, and got to do a lot of in-house testing as a perk. Anyways, this weekend I really focus'd on testing the elementalist and all its weapon sets for different modes of the game (spvp, pve, wvw, ect ect) and here's what i've found. The elementalist is literally the jack of all trades, the can easily tank, heal, single target dps, and mass aoe dps, and summon weapons. Healing: *The water attunement of the elementalist is for great support, but when using a staff and running with +Healing Power gear and Traited for Water, the amount of healing they can do is amazing. Even at level 20 I was able to heal AoE non-stop for 200-550 Per second and when in WvW it was bumped up to over 1500-2500 per second. *Staff is the best hands down for massive healing, but other weapon sets such as the scepter/focus made great use of having 2 quick spot heals, but don't expect that to be enough to actually help out. If you are planning on healing for a fight, you need to have a Staff on! Tanking: *The Earth attunement of the elementalist was great for tanking, out of all the weapon sets, the best for tanking was Scepter/Focus weapon set, with this set you are mostly using bleeds and blinds, but you also get a buff that increases toughness and you can keep it up non-stop. Also you get a buff that repels projectiles plus you have invulnerability you can throw on at any time. Mix this with a few signets and I was able to tank a few of the World Event Bosses with no problem at all. Single Target Dps: *Now with single target dps this took a lot of testing, because of the many great attunements and weapon set combinations to choose from. I tried a condition build using mostly fire and condition gear/traits... This was okay damage but it wasn't jaw dropping like EVERYONE makes it out to be, I found the best weapon set to use with fire was Scepter/Dagger as it was the fastest fire damage with the highest hits. Then I tried Air Attunement, and was shocked to find out just how strong it really was, but only after I tried it with Scepter/Dagger and not Dagger/Dagger like EVERYONE else i kept talking to said. Scepter/Dagger had amazing dps for single target with a channeling skill that you can use while running that did more damage the longer you had it channeled, on top of having 2 instant cast HIGH damage nukes that came back very quickly that didn't break the channel. When using this setup i was able to kill mobs higher level than me in a matter of 2-3 seconds per mob and it gave me great mobility to move around and take little to no damage. Massive AoE Damage: *When doing AoE damage i tried a lot of the tricks i've seen others do, switching between attunemets rapidly and burning all the aoes they have ect ect... But I found overall the damage from doing that was very weak, and it was better to focus on just using Fire Attunement with a Staff out, and using Glyph of Elemental Power and the Glyph of Storms, plus Summon Ice Bow. With this setup I could spam 2 Instant Cast Aoe's down that cause 500-700 burning damage, and then start channeling my Meteor Shower and Glyph of Storms for another 150-300 per hit, with each hit adding burn effects to targets. After that i'd recast the 2 instant cast Aoe's and summon an Ice Bow and use It's massive AoE skill. Overall even on veteran mobs, you will have had them utterly destroyed with this 5 second barrage of skills. In WvW pvp, on the last night while using this setup, i actually had multiple times where i dropped over 5-10 people in seconds to the point they couldn't even move out of the aoe's in time. Conjuring Weapons of Doom: *What a lot of people don't realize is that the Elementalist can summon a few weapons that ANYONE cause use, they are considered siege weapons and there are NO CLASS/RACE Restrictions. These weapons do NOT require you to level them up and unlock the skills, and they are very very powerful. For instance, the Ice Bow, we compared the damage and skills to a ranger's Long Bow skills at the same level, and found that the Ice Bow's did significantly more damage. The AoE skill at level 20 was hitting for 300 per arrow, the auto fire skill that is channeled hits for 75 and works its way up to 300+ damage, and the 5th skill on the bow completely freezes targets in a Ice Cube, works on even bosses as a stun. If you see these bows on the ground, do NOT hesitate to pick them up, the are very very powerful and help you to mix it up a bit and play as a Ranger for a short time. In short, if you guys don't know what class you are interested in playing, and don't want to be limited to just mostly long range or mostly short range.. Give Elementalist a try, you can literally do it all, and do it well. I didn't even get into detail about chain stunning and other neat features. Lmao, its a lot of fun and a great class if you give it a shot."

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Bashir
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Replied On: 07/30/2012 at 09:01 AM PDT

I was playing ele the last 2 Betas. I wanted to try to level all the weapons but staff was just to hard to use solo PvE. These comments are definitely helping me fill in the gaps from what I figured out over 2 weekends.

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PoX
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Replied On: 07/30/2012 at 10:10 AM PDT

On rotations: Arenanet has since Eye of the North in GW1 got into this habit of making NPCs that respond well to certain types of attacks and defense. Don't be afraid to spend some time figuring out what their weaknesses are. Die a few times trying crazy things if you have to, it'll make all the difference when you need it. I've gotten so used to this mentality that when I start having trouble I fall back to an easier area with the kind of npc I'm having trouble with then I try everything I can think of on them to see what kills them the fastest. Use this to understand how damage works. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage. You may have to experiment to see how much effect the Damage Type will have on the intended target. Right now there's no hard science on it for the wiki. See the bottom of that link. In the GW2 world I got the feeling that weapons were not the delimiting factor between tanking, healing, and dmg with the elementalist, but rather the attunements. In short your staff should be just fine. However, enemies can have a weakness for a certain type of elemental damage and it's best not to rule out something like water attunement when attacking an unknown as it may be weak vs cold or water. Don't forget that you can change your build entirely any time you are out of combat (with the exception of traits). If you have to work through multiple mob types and you're having trouble with some mobs but not others rely on the fact that you can re-tune your selected skills and weapons by just finding a safe place to swap out the skills. Then defeat said mob and switch back if needed. Resting on the laurels of a "good rotation" might be dangerous the farther you go. At least if GW1 experience and my personal experience have any truth in reality. Here are some connections that held me over pretty well. Some may be obvious but I'm not patronizing they're here for the sake of thoroughness. When vs melee npcs use toughness, vulnerability, and weakness to help tank. Generally they're vulnerable to elemental damage with some exceptions. As always though the best tank is keeping them off of you. So crippling, blindness, etc are always nice to use. Ranged are usually vulnerable to blunt damage. Earth might be an attunement to try and it also can cause knockdown with certain weapons. Elemental damage is generally well tanked by Guild Wars ranged foes whether magic or bow, and this may be why you're having trouble. Try Magnetic Aura and Stoning with the staff. If you're still having trouble Ice Spike in between. Arcane Power may be good to use before Stoning. A Scepter/Dagger build might work well too with Earthquake/Rock Barrier/Dust Devil, Blinding Flash, Dragon's Tooth/Fire Grab. When you're having trouble finding weaknesses use the GW1 wiki to find a similar foe. The cannon is similar enough that it has given me a good place to start.

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Denji
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  • GW2: thundermittens.2831
Replied On: 07/30/2012 at 10:41 AM PDT
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Wow, that's alot of knowledge in these past few posts, thanks! I've had to break out a notebook, and start writing down notes from each post because the ele knowledge here is becoming so vast O.O Also makes me feel like I was pretty far below the curve with the amout of elementalist knowledge the rest of you have :/ I do feel alot more up to speed though, I have elementalist stickies all over my monitor, and now I've broken out a notebook on top of that. Thanks for all your posts, I take all input seriously, and I scribble notes for every bit of knowledge shared :9

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Psypher
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Replied On: 07/30/2012 at 07:34 PM PDT

@Jar Great post...plenty of info to chew on! A couple questions... - Tanking. What kind of tank does the earth attunement allow us to become? I assume not an avoidance tank since that archetype is typically reserved for a high dex character. So high HP? Pure mitigation? Also, given that we're a light armor class, how does that bode for us tanking end game? I'm not saying we can't do it...I simply didn't try it out in the least. More details, please, if you have them! - Single target DPS. The channeled scepter air ability is simply sick - the fact that you can channel while moving is awesome! - and the big bombs are solid as well. I wanted to play a little more of that atunement with a crit emphasis and go full air/lightning spec, but just didn't have enough time in the beta to do that along w/everything else I was hoping to do. Totally agree that the dual-dagger (DD from here on out) style was a bit overrated. One thing I'm curious about was your preference of the dagger over the focus for the off-hand. I chose the focus so that I could self-combo purely in fire, although I realized later that I could have simply used the arcane finishers instead. In any case, I never spent much time with scepter/dagger. Can you talk any more about the specifics of what you enjoyed about the off-dagger? - Summoned weapons. Oh, snap! Never really paid attention to these options in game. I'll have to take a look at these.

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JibbitsJr
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Replied On: 07/30/2012 at 09:26 PM PDT
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I can not wait to Ele pack hunt. That is gonna be a good time!

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Odin
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Replied On: 07/31/2012 at 06:53 AM PDT

Great stuff folks. As someone who has never even seen GW of any kind on a computer this is greatly helping me be more prepared to hit the ground running upon release.

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Morigana
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Replied On: 08/06/2012 at 07:59 PM PDT

@Jar... Great post and is mostly what I thought but didn't get that involved with it to test it... especially the single target DPS with scepter/dagger I absolutely loved that combo and now that you mentioned the conjured weapons I will definitely give those a try - lots of great advice there. Thanks!

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Denji
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Replied On: 08/22/2012 at 10:12 PM PDT
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Thanks for all your help guys, I tried a scepter/dagger and scepter/focus build tonight, along with all your tips and rotations and it felt pretty good :)

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JibbitsJr
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Replied On: 08/22/2012 at 10:22 PM PDT
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Lots of good information and video to back it up. http://teamlegacy.net/forum/160-elementalist/

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Sathril
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  • GW2: Kurtgrim.2895
  • ESO: @gbooster
Replied On: 08/23/2012 at 08:22 AM PDT
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Wow, that Ice Bow sounds awesome. What's the catch? Does it only last for so long or what? If it does more damage than a ranger's longbow then why not just use that exclusively?

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Sporkimata
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  • ESO: @stuff1976
Replied On: 08/23/2012 at 09:00 AM PDT
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I found too that in Guild Wars 2 that changing the key bindings helped me a lot. The normal key bindings are a little awkward. I personally found this one to be pretty good, http://taugrim.com/2012/06/27/guide-to-guild-wars-2-keybinds/

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Rhamorim
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  • GW2: rhamorim.5879
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Replied On: 08/23/2012 at 09:22 AM PDT
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The Ice Bow, as all conjured weapons, has a limited number of charges (15 by default, if I'm not wrong - there's a trait that raises that to 25). Every skill activation uses one charge, so you can't use it indefinitely. Even with that limitation, since all conjure weapon skills create two copies of them (one in the hands of the conjurer, another on the ground), two elementalists teamed up and traited may use them indefinitely.

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Denji
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  • GW2: thundermittens.2831
Replied On: 08/26/2012 at 06:20 PM PDT
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» Edited on: 2012-08-27 00:50:37

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Ceadda
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  • GW2: Moitz.9632
  • ESO: @Jedgars
Replied On: 09/14/2012 at 11:24 AM PDT
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First off, I'd like to state I believe elementalist is the highest skill cap profession in the game. This means that to start and play it and an average level compared to other classes takes a good understanding of the class and its abilities, as well as practice at them in order to get good at rotating specific skills in different orders. Remember that other than certain engineers, we have 2x more skills, thus 2x more chances to hit the wrong skill, than other classes. This makes it innately harder to appropriate move through the 20 skills +5 extra you have. And let me state this also, if you don't use most of your 20 skills in a fight lasting over 30 seconds, you’re not utilizing the potential that I think the class has. Skills are there to be used :) I'd love to help those who struggle to play an elementalist, as I love mine, and feel strong in my shoes. I recently hit 80 and leveled a decent about doing PVE and WvWvW, as well as some sPvP. I had a very good experience with leveling with a staff, although I did try everything. Elementalists are very easy to think of as glass cannons, but, in my experience and play style; I enjoy a much more balanced approach. Trait builds can vary, but this is the link to what I run: http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fEAQFAWhImIblR5gjEAkCmMUEiHiCWUeMzN5A Realize that your states are MUCH more dependent on the gear you choose for the most part. By going arcane I focused on a holistic approach to my Elementalist, which I go into further detail about. I focus on switching attunement frequently. Almost always 2+ are on cool down as I rotate through and use the shorter cool downs as well as mixing in the longer, stronger cool downs. I also focus on versatility as my strength. I find by utilizing all attunements I have a greater impact on control. There is no skill I don't use consistently out of the 25 we have (5 per attunement, 1 healing, 3 utility, 1 elite). I have a background as a druid in WoW and therefore I think the constant switching of attunements is natural for me. One motto I live by is a dead DPS is no DPS. Live and chip away at strong enemies and outlast them, know when to burst and know when to run. At 80, as I write this from work, I believe I run about 1900 power, 1400 precision, 1300 toughness and 1300 vitality with my gear in WvW, and some condition damage. Once again, I focus on balance. I won't blow you up in 1 hit, but feel in no means like I am weak or can't kill someone. I have run into a few thieves that b/c of their ability to stay on me and stealth and burst I feel like my only option is to run, but let’s remember paper>rock>scissors>paper. I measure myself against other true 80's when I see them and feel if I play right I can beat most everything. As a note to gear, I only had about 3g and 50k karma to spend. I am in decent gear, nothing better. Save all your karma if you can and utilize the trading post to get some cheaper gear. I run a staff because in WvW the range is nice and the ability to add combo fields constantly I believe is a greater help to my team then damage I can alone put out. A major strength I feel of mine is my ability to be slippery. By running my build I can switch to water, lay down a geyser for a burst heal, remove a condition, gain rejuv (2 types) go into air, get 25 seconds of swiftness, lay down a stun field, use a push back, go into earth, put on a reflective shield, lay a cripple zone, immobilize someone, and go into fire for some nukes, then state rolling through attunements again. Now, I realize, theory crafting is nice, and not all of those will hit. But per situation, you can change how you handle that for survivability and when you can dish in damage. Try to always think 2 steps ahead of your current move. Set yourself up moving forward in battle. The best advice I can give in the heat of battle is to be Proactive. Not Reactive. Once your enemy controls the tide of battle, this means trouble. Dictate the grounds on which you fight. Now, this is all play style I prefer. Most people differ from me but I feel as though I’ve seen success as an elementalist. I enjoy being the guy who boosts my entire team. Buffing swiftness to catch an enemy. Laying down the AOE in the middle to add pressure and creating combo fields to help burst enemies. Nothing greater than watching 5-10 people around you having constant combo fields from your abilities. On a note about quick targeting, because I move so much around the field of battle, I dislike it. I like to see exactly where my fields will land, and I use my mouse to move my camera frequently so in all that fuss my pointer is sometimes not easy to pick up on my screen. Also helps reduce mis clicking mistakes on big cool downs. Another thing to notice is when you lay a “wall” type field, the wall rotate depending on the cardinal direction it is around your person. Seeing the angle I lay this helps me a lot. Utility skills, if you've looked at my spec you see I run Arcane Blast, Arcane Wave, Mist Form, Glyph of elementalist, and Glyph of Elemental Harmony. I'll explain choices. First.. Elemental harmony. Easy explanation... Switch into water to heal. The extra rejuv on yourself is huge, and if you can lay down some of you other heals. Use it frequently. 60%= heal time for me, not 20%. Heal often and try to keep yourself capped. In my build water also removes a condition. And… big leap in theory crafting… but I think it smart targets certain conditions. High stacks of bleeds go away before a stack of poison. Crippling and immobilized remove before vulnerability, etc... (Don’t quote me on that). Arcane skills... Blast is the kill shot we have. At 20 second cool down, it is very low CD and has high damage as well as a combo finishing. Wave is great as well, as you can use it offensively or defensively (hint: try using Arcane Wave in a water combo field, watch the extra AOE healing). Mist form, well, the best escape I can see. Doesn't remove conditions but if you go into water, hit mist form, you can still use your healing ability while escaping. Glyph of Elementals - I primary use this one for the fire elemental to do some added damage, since my build is more balanced, I can handle surviving and usually the enemies don't realize the fire elemental is rather squishy. Wrapping it up because I can theory craft forever, I find I can take on 3-4 npc's and live if I properly rotate my attunements. They are much easier to handle if all melee. The elementalist as a glass cannon is not how I play, although the class is well suited for the role, but get used to dying. Personally, when I die I feel 100% as though I misplayed, not as though the class is lacking. I also feel that no class brings more to a group than us and our ability to be versatile depending on the situation. - Jedgar PS: copied directly from my post in the Elementalist Guide, in case people missed it there.

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Denji
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  • GW2: thundermittens.2831
Replied On: 09/14/2012 at 12:33 PM PDT
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@ Jedgar very very nice post, thank you! I may try to catch up with you and play with you for awhile to see what you've learned, and hopefully pick up some new tricks. from you. In groups I use the staff, and I really love the playstyle, although I levelled as a d/d because it's so fun and scratches a different itch for me than my staff. Unfortunately with all the skillbar lag this past few weeks, Ive had to stop playing d/d because it's just no fun playing a twitch class with a half second lag :(

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