(Update 8-28-2012) The Elementalist from my perspective

This is basic information about the Elementalist from a players perspective. I have also done a small amount of research to decide the best way to play the Elementalist as a support caster. This gives the added benefit of being fairly survivable while playing with strangers/solo or just picking up the random event. I have heard the Elementalist becomes harder to play in the 20's, but don't let this deter you from playing one as I believe that it is just a matter of adjusting your build for maximum survivability.

To be honest I only got to level 13 with my Elementalist in BWE3 so my knowledge is limited on how they play past that level. If anyone can add some constructive feedback it would be great. I am by no means an expert (yet), but I hope this will help people to understand the profession more and to get a an idea of how they play.

Weapons

The Elementalist has access to 1 weapon at any given time. Unlike other professions, the Elementalist does not have access to the weapon swap ability. However, they have 4 attunements they can switch between at any given time, however there is a timer when switching from one to the other. Because of this, the Elementalist has access to 20 different skill sets at any given 5 skills for each attunement for each weapon combination they use.

Elementalist's can use:

1. Two-handed

• staff

1. Main-hand

• Scepter
• Dagger

1. Off-hand

• Dagger
• Focus

1. Aquatic

• Trident

Using  Jerich's Crafting Guide we can easily determine which crafting professions will net the Elementalist the most profit and usability. Personally I will be doing Tailoring and Artificer on my Elementalist.

One thing worth mentioning is the option to use Fast-Cast Ground Targeting. This comes in handy while strafing when you want to drop an AOE ability. I find that when I am strafing I tend to hold the right mouse button to help me turn, which makes it impossible to click the ground. So this ground casting option might help with your AOE targeting.

Ground targeting works just as well if you are moving with the mouse (holding both mouse buttons and just steering with the mouse). You can simply hit the AOE ability you want to drop, swap attunements hit the next one and all in quick succession and it will simply drop the AOE right on top of your character, or wherever your mouse is pointed.

Attunements

Each attunement will provide spells appropriate for the type of weapon(s) the Elementalist has equipped. There are a number of builds I have found that work great in some circumstances, not so great in others.

Switching attunements incur a cool down timer. Switching out of an attunement puts the now inactive attunement into a 15 second cool down time. While the other inactive attunements take a 2 second cool down time. There are traits and maybe gear that will reduce these timers.

I was going to talk about Combo fields and finishers. Someone already beat me to it. Thanks JibbitsJr for posting them Here.

What do the Attribute points mean?

There are a number of stats in the game. These are called attributes. Below I discuss how they work, affect your class and further I break it down to show you how they can affect a given play style.

I have also found a very comprehensive write up about stat distribution on armor and how it all works together. The link is at the bottom in the references section.

Primary attributes

There are 4 common primary attributes. There are two Defensive attributes and two Offensive attributes. The offensive are Power and Precision and the defensive ones are Toughness and vitality. Bulleted below are each primary attribute and what they effect.

As you gain levels your attributes increase by 4 points up through level 9. Each level from 10-19 grant 6 points 8 points are granted from 30-69 and from 70-79 you are granted 18 points. At 80 your attributes increase by 20 points. At level 80 you should have a base of 916 in all of your attributes for every profession.

As you upgrade your armor and begin spending points in your trait lines, you can further increase your base stats. Below is a breakdown of the primary attributes and what each one effects. They are embedded with links to their respective guild wars 2 wiki page.

• Power — every point increases attack by one point. Increases damage for all attacks.
• Precision — increases critical hit chance.
• Toughness — every point increases armor by one point.
• Vitality — every point increases maximum health by ten points. More health allows a character to better withstand a single large attack and degenerative damage.

Secondary attributes

So, there are 5 secondary attributes, three offensive and two defensive. These do not increase as you level. They can only be improved with gear upgrades or trait line selections. Below is a breakdown of each of the secondary attributes and links to their respective wiki pages.

•  Boon Duration — Improves the duration of all boons applied by the character.
• Condition Damage — Improves the damage done by conditions like burning, poison, confusion, and bleeding.
• Condition Duration — Improves the duration of all conditions inflicted by the character.
• Critical Damage — Improves the damage multiplier on critical strikes.
• Healing Power — Improves all outgoing heals that your character does, including self heals.

Profession Attributes.

Profession attributes are linked directly to a specific profession. These improve aspects of the given profession. Below is a breakdown of each of the professions, what they are used for and how they effect each of the classes. These also contain links to their respective wiki pages.

• Virtue Recharge Rate — Reduces the recharge on all virtues; linked to Virtues.
• Burst Damage — Improves the damage of warrior burst attacks; linked to Discipline.
• Tool Belt Recharge Rate — Reduces the recharge on all tool belt skills; linked to Tools.
• Pet Attribute Bonus — Improves pet attributes; linked to Beastmastery.
• Steal Recharge Rate — Reduces the recharge of the steal ability; linked to Trickery.
• Attunement Recharge Rate — Reduces the recharge of the four elemental attunements; linked to Arcana.
• Shredding Recharge Rate — Reduces the recharge on all shatter skills; linked to Illusions.
• Life Force Pool — Increases the size of the necromancer’s life force pool; linked to Soul Reaping.

 So for a damage dealing elementalist. I chose to focus on Power first then Precision second. This will give me the best damage and healing from power with the chance of crits from precision. I will also look for additional crit damage on gear and trait lines. By building with damage in mind. I tend to kill things faster than they can hit me. I heal often during a fight. Furthermore, I have been able to overcome the problem I was having wiht 2-3 mobs at once. Aoe is FUN! 

After power and precision I add in toughness where I can. My overall goal is to kill before I get killed when out soloing. So toughness and vitality are low on my stat priority list, but they are on there. I would not take either above power or precision if I can help it though. At level 32 I have 2518 health and I do pretty well at on elevel +2 levels 1-3 mobs at a time.

Build Options ...Play Style?

While I was playing around with the traits and figuring things out. I discovered that fire is the heavy damage dealer, water is heals air is crowd control and earth is mostly for living. It seems earth tends to have longer cool downs than the other elements, but I have lived longer with throwing rocks at my enemies.

With that said, the choice is yours what attunement you want to focus on, however I will give you this. Soloing is much easier when I can kill you first. Grouping is great when for destroying a pack of enemies. Though, sometimes I want to do my own thing so I need a viable solo build. For this, fire build with some traits in earth is working great.  

I find I do a lot better in fire and air damage wise than with anything else. Conditions make a difference while leveling as well since I tend to kite, I believe this is common practice. When I set them on fire, they burn dead, using staff I did an event where I set almost everything on fire, ended up winning while I was downed due to the condition (fire) damage. So +condition damage and +power  and +precision on your gear will make you do some good damage. Keep in mind, this is a damage build so I am focusing there. Later I will look into doing a tanky earthy build focusing around toughness and vitality and skills to go with that.

Switch Attunements Often!

With that said, play style...it's up to the individual, so this is really my opinion based on how I have been playing the game. Elementalist takes some skill and finesse to play. It will be hard I won't lie, it is very discouraging when you get squished a lot in a row, believe me I know. However, if you keep to it I promise you will be rewarded for your patience and practice. There are a number of weapon builds you have access to, I think a "melee wizard" build is the best for soloing they are very mobile and can be durable.

Switching attunements means survival. When one bar is on cool down don't spam 1, switch to something else to maximize dps, spike damage and survivability/durability.

This is my projected build, this will likely change by the time I hit 80, and I am sure I will change it around then as well. DPS Build.

Why Play an Elementalist

If you like the glass cannon wizard archetype, this is the profession for you. While you can play this "wizard" in various ways, this is the profession that focuses on controlling the elements. We are a very versatile profession which allows us to heal, apply condition damage (bleeds-earth and burning-fire). We can build to be a bit durable (not nearly as much as warriors, but we can handle our own with the right skills) Or we can move out of the way quickly (Ride the Lightening, lightening flash etc).

We are not a pet profession by any means, however we can summon an elemental (normal or elite versions), you can have 2 elementals summoned at  a time. One Elite and one Normal. However you will need the skills slotted, and they don't last too long. I find the normal elementals aren't very powerful, they are good for distractions otherwise I would slot defensible or damage improving abilities.

The builds are endless with this profession. It is very fun, but very squishy. Play wisely and have patience and you will be rewarded. If you don't like dying all of the time you should stay away from this profession.

Conclusion!

We Need Weapon Swap with an out of combat restriction!  Nuff Said!

References

Guild Wars 2 Wiki

Guild Wars 2 Junkies

Guild Wars 2 Guru Forums

My Own play Experience.

» Edited on: 2012-08-28 21:11:17

I played around quite a bit with the elementalist which is my first love - and I will have a staff build but also probably dual wield daggers when I am running in the open fields. But I will level all the skill possibilities within my first day so that I can access all of them. After doing an armor buff - Ride the Lightning coupled with Cone of Cold and Drakes' Breath - and a few other spells are just great fun in melee range - even though the elementalist should usually stay out of melee range - giving my enemy the unexpected is just too much fun :) and I am so happy the devs realized this. ... and I'll prbably be giving Lightning Hammer a try - I am addicted to any skills/abilities that can knockback or launch foes. And I ave a natural affinity to Lightning/electrical spells - I have no idea why - I just do. It will be exciting to see all the variations people come up with for the Elememtalist - well, at least for me - since I really like them.

» Edited on: 2012-08-15 16:41:54

I'm pretty excited for the elementalist. I love a lot of their spells over all, I prefer the staff, but I will, like you, unlock all weapon combinations just so I have access to them and get a feel for each style.

Yeah... if you are quick with the fingers - there's a lot of great combinations to use. I, too, prefer the staff and a Elementalists should be a great defenders for bridges and such. I mean 3 or 4 lava fonts with the same number of meteor showers should be a death trap when trying to cross a bridge especially if someone throws down a Static Field or Frozen Ground. I still have fond memories of my Bright Wizard standing on top keep walls raining fire down on the enemy. :)

I bought a G13 just to help me be a better elementalist =)

So does this mean you decided on a class? Good writeup so far by the way, Im gonna assume that you like writing guides, since what you have so far looks well thought out and put together. Im actually a ~meh~ skilled gamer, but I want to play ele, so i need all the help I can get, looking forward to whatever you have to put out.

Thank you for writing this Starfire! Great guide. I am definitely going to look into using the quick targeting for my elementalist.

Very nice Starfire! An elementalist will be my main character and I eat up any and all info I can about them. I'm trying to memorize combos now but it's slow going that will hopefully pick up once I can actually practice!! Anyhow, great to see other ele's in the making! Myk

I updated the original post, since I can't find the edit tools in the reply to this topic window. Any suggestions, requests or corrections are very much appreciated and encouraged. I look forward to blasting things with lightening and frying chickens with fireballs. Double win!

Updated again as of 8/29/2012. A lot of people have been asking about stats and what would be best for an elementalist. So I included a section for that information in my original post. I hope this helps.

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