11 replies to this topic

[Gilles VI]

Hello everyone

I would need some advice for my Elementalist.
During the BWE's I always played an Elementalist, first up to lvl47 in BWE1&2 and then up to lvl15 in BWE3, and my current Elementalist is lvl65, so I got quite some experience with it.

That being said, I clocked over 400h on my full tanky guardian now, so I wanted to finally do some damage in dungeons! (I'm levelling my Elementalist in dungeons since lvl28)
So I went full berserker & power/precision trait , so yes you can guess it, I'm very good at kiting and snaring enemies, but once they got me I'm instantly downed..

So my question is, do any of you have some tips for dungeons?
I'm not really looking for a complete standard trait/equipment setup, but more like some personal experience & tips you people got by just playing the game.

Cheers

[Eliirae]

Pick something besides full on glass cannon gear.  That's pretty much it.  Give yourself just enough vitality and toughness to survive more than a single hit.

[Shadowrose]

Go glass cannon gear and kill things before they kill you.

There ain't no need for survivability if they die before they reach you.

Dungeons are a different story, you'll also need skill there

[BlaineTog]

Man, dungeons can be rough for Eles.  You need some survivability, but you can't possibly stack enough to tank through the vigors of a dungeon and still be useful for anything other than your combo fields.

I'd suggest running 2 Cantrips and Arcane Shield for your utility skills with a staff as your weapon, though Glyph of Storms can be useful against big groups if you use it in Earth (AoE blinds).  Stay WAY BACK from the action and throw your spells.  Switch to water a lot so your team doesn't die horribly.  Kite like crazy when you get rushed.

[kekuso]

In my opinion, the role that elementalist (staff) most easily fills is healer/support/condition damage. However, if you already have someone with enough support, I'd say you could try out S/D or even D/D for dps. Note that for these weapons, especially D/D, your survivability will drop dramatically if you lack experience and skill.

So pretty much stick with staff builds for dungeons until you feel comfortable with (1) the dungeon and (2) another set of weapons.  (And your party of course). I personally love running a D/D aura build and seeing my party members surprise at how effective ele can be at close range when played correctly.

[Silinsar]

If you want to melee in dungeons I'd suggest Focus as OH weapon. It offers similar control (only one is AoE but the average CD is lower), the same amount of auras, fields and blast finishers (latter with less CD), better condition remove (3 every 25sec instead of one every 40sec), much projectile reflection/disruption (swirling winds is awesome vs ranged mobs) and 4sec invulnerability on top of that. Additionally, there are more ranged skills in Focus' arsenal which gives you something to do when you have get off an enemy for a moment.

OH Daggers strength are hard hitting skills with quite long CD, which are great for burst and of course the mobility from RTL... thats what I miss the most when I'm playing with Focus.
However, I prefer more durability and less burst for dungeons, since fights usually take a while and surviving is more important to me than DPS peaks which occur rarely (especially Churning Earth can't be used often because the casting time makes you such a vulnerable target).

Edited by Silinsar, 08 November 2012 - 09:46 PM.

[Aetou]

BlaineTog, on 08 November 2012 - 08:06 PM, said:

Man, dungeons can be rough for Eles.  You need some survivability, but you can't possibly stack enough to tank through the vigors of a dungeon and still be useful for anything other than your combo fields.

Not true at all.  I can put out ample damage while still being very tanky.  The key to that is really...

kekuso, on 08 November 2012 - 08:52 PM, said:

In my opinion, the role that elementalist (staff) most easily fills is healer/support/condition damage.

Eruption, when geared for it, is absolutely sick.  You can be dropping 8-12k damage on an entire pack of mobs about once every 8s just from the one attack.  With Blasting Staff the area of effect is pretty insane and you should have no trouble landing it on everything.  Going 30 in Earth not only makes Eruption even nastier but also helps considerably on the survivability side of things (roughly 15% less damage taken due to the Toughness alone, then Signet of Restoration will be healing you for about 8k every 20s.)  I go 20 in Water too both for the extra health, the cleanse, the healing and access to a number of very useful Master traits that you can swap around for different situations.  Factor in a very quick Flame Burst (~5-7k on each target) and Lava Font (~2k, but for a .5s cast!) and you can hopefully see that the damage output is very high while still giving you time to then step into Air/Water to drop Controls/Heals before stepping back into Earth to start the whole sequence again.  All of that is while wearing Soldier Armor to retain very good resilience, you can definitely stack damage even higher once you are comfortable losing some of the safety net.  I'd personally go light on the 'Healer' side in terms of gear, it isn't needed as with Healing 300-400 you'll be doing more than enough assuming you have a Guardian around too (or if not, a second Ele, which you almost always will.)

Now, you can build for direct damage as an Ele and do fine (although I'd suggest doing it with D/D to be honest) but you're going to want to put at least 10 in Water and be wearing at least 2-4 bits of Soldier gear along with all that Berserker in order to be able to stay alive long enough to make a difference.

[Gilles VI]

Shadowrose, on 08 November 2012 - 07:20 PM, said:

Go glass cannon gear and kill things before they kill you.

There ain't no need for survivability if they die before they reach you.

Dungeons are a different story, you'll also need skill there

I was talking specificially about dungeons.

And skill is no problem, I speedclear loads of dungeons. I farmed over 2000 ascalonian tears, and that's only 1 of the 6 dungeons I do speedruns.

[blindude]

For me is at least 15 in water for the obvious reason 10 in air which in dungeons is for the glyph cd reduction trait,then 30 in arcane for evasive arcana/blasting staff or renewing staming and elemental attunement.
Realy just bring the 2 summons with you and if you rolled an asura radiation field.Equip a staff and a cantrip and you are set.Frankly i havent tried many things so far but i never really felt the need to.Your damage should come from fire and earth and its quite big on multiple targets cause in staff like everything is aoe.

Edited by blindude, 08 November 2012 - 10:25 PM.

[Gilles VI]

Yea problem is, I played over 400h on my very tanky/supportive guardian, and I would finally like to do some sick damage.
So when I want damage I should go D/D or S/D?

And staying alive is no problem, I could make it to 60% when protecting Magg in CoF solo after the nerf.

[Ibioc]

I'm most the way to Dungeon Master on my elementalist, so I'll do my best to lend a hand.  

The number #1 way to roll dungeons as an elementalist is staff support, (my build is 0/0/10/30/30) I think you know that but that's not what you want to do.

Here is how I would spec for offensive dungeon elementalist:

http://gw2skills.net...KyWkrIZRDLOlM/A

If you want to do lots of damage, what you need to understand is that you NEED to be able to withstand a hit.  Zerker armor is not good for elementalists in dungeons.  You can run the zerker trinkets, but if all your armor is that you will lose out.  At 65 I would probably go with Knight Gear (P/Pre/V) as I don't think you have access to Soldier Set (P/T/V).  

You're going to want to use a sceptre, as it has way more damage potential than staff and mid-range is the place to fight most bosses (about half of dungeon bosses hate melee).  Outside of that, this build specs glyphs, cantrips, and crit vuln stacking.   The cantrip effects in particular will routinely save your bacon.   Use the Glyph of Storms (it's way overpowered, especially out of earth spec) and Ring of Fire and set off those fields with your blast finishers in fire/earth  attunement.  I much prefer dagger offhand to focus, as the mobility is your friend and OH dagger still allows for crazy good offense. (Ring of Fire, Churning Earth + Teleport, Updraft for Quick Escape, and Cleansing Wave for an extra condition removal).

Hope this helps, it is what I do when I want to change up from staff support.

Edited by Ibioc, 08 November 2012 - 10:44 PM.

[Gilles VI]

Ibioc, on 08 November 2012 - 10:42 PM, said:

I'm most the way to Dungeon Master on my elementalist, so I'll do my best to lend a hand.  

The number #1 way to roll dungeons as an elementalist is staff support, (my build is 0/0/10/30/30) I think you know that but that's not what you want to do.

Here is how I would spec for offensive dungeon elementalist:

http://gw2skills.net...KyWkrIZRDLOlM/A

If you want to do lots of damage, what you need to understand is that you NEED to be able to withstand a hit.  Zerker armor is not good for elementalists in dungeons.  You can run the zerker trinkets, but if all your armor is that you will lose out.  At 65 I would probably go with Knight Gear (P/Pre/V) as I don't think you have access to Soldier Set (P/T/V).  

You're going to want to use a sceptre, as it has way more damage potential than staff and mid-range is the place to fight most bosses (about half of dungeon bosses hate melee).  Outside of that, this build specs glyphs, cantrips, and crit vuln stacking.   The cantrip effects in particular will routinely save your bacon.   Use the Glyph of Storms (it's way overpowered, especially out of earth spec) and Ring of Fire and set off those fields with your blast finishers in fire/earth  attunement.  I much prefer dagger offhand to focus, as the mobility is your friend and OH dagger still allows for crazy good offense. (Ring of Fire, Churning Earth + Teleport, Updraft for Quick Escape, and Cleansing Wave for an extra condition removal).

Hope this helps, it is what I do when I want to change up from staff support.

This was very helpfull, thank you!