17 replies to this topic

[Alilei22]

I really want to try out an Elementalist but Im bad at juggling a bunch of different abilities.   If I have no desire to do super high level FoTMs or PvP tournaments can I still effectively play an Elementalist if I dont go through all 4 elements?  Im sure after I get used to it maybe I can begin getting more complex.  If I just wanna mess around in SPvP or WvW running with a Zerg can I just stay in one attunement and just blast away?  Can I also do the same for level 80 event farming for Karma and drops?  Also for leveling will I always be dieing if Im not constantly switching through all 4 while dodging all over the place?  I just want to try out a caster and everyone always say Ele is the hardest to play because of having to use all 4 attunements.  But I have already tried Necro and Mesmer and didnt like them very much.  

[Keaghan]

Just play your character through PvE, learn your skills, and you will love it. Its very hard to get into right of that by trying to learn all the skills at once through PvP, get like 10-20 hours in with PvE, and learn to play it.

They are a very rewarding class, I'm playing an Asura Elementalist as one of my alts with my friends when we all log on at the same time, and the class is great, you bring so much utility to the party.

[Alilei22]

Dagger/Dagger looks like the most fun.  But is it also the hardest to play since you are close to melee range all the time?  Also what about for farming?  Will I be able to make gold at level 80 doing Events and such pretty easily?

[Geeri]

You cannot really play an Elementalist effectively without swapping from attunement to attunement. But, I don't even think you'll be competent enough in PvE to want to go on sticking to only one attunement. But don't fret, this does not mean you *have* to be attunement hopping all the time if you do not aim too high:

* using Scepter/dagger in PvE you can clear almost anything using a fire + earth rotation and sticking to somewhat lower level areas.
* using a staff in dungeons and in WvW zergs (assuming you wish to do these) will allow you to attunement swap naturally; it is the most "rotation-less" weapon and by basically just putting everything on cooldown and moving on to the next attunement you are already contributing.

I advise against D/D as it simply less forgiving and requires a lot of attunement swapping (I don't think I spend more than 6 seconds in any one attunement while I'm in combat myself).


Using the above tactics you might get a feel for the class and start swapping to whatever it is you need at a given point in time; playing more adaptively. Mastering 20 abilities at a time may seem daunting at first, but you should really ease into it. It'll come naturally after a while.

Edited by Geeri, 04 February 2013 - 08:13 AM.

[jthamind]

when it comes to attunement swapping, you don't have to look at it as having 20 different skills, which can seem overwhelming. just look at it as having five different skills, and those five different skills should be changing every 8-10 seconds. like it's been mentioned already, you do need to learn to swap attunements to get the best out of the class, but it's really something you get used to after you use ele for a while.

[IsThisNameTaken]

I suggest learning the piano

[MartinFirestorm]

You can probably make it without tons of attunement swapping, but I'm not sure why you'd want to. That's one of the features of the class which makes it strong and flexible, and if you ask me, fun.

[AzureRogue]

As someone above posted, stay away from D/D if you don't want to be attunement swapping very frequently.  I've never played around with Scepter/x beyond just casual PvE but you can get  by there with minimum swapping.  I actually found that for PvE and WvW (dungeons aside) it was pretty easy to coast by with Staff on Fire (swapping to Air for swiftness).  I'm not claiming that it's the most effective way to play, but it can be done (and fairly easily).

That said, once you get used to it I think you'll find that you WANT to be swapping attunements.  You'll get bored with sticking to one or two pretty quickly.  D/D elementalist is made fun (imo) because of the constant attunement swapping, position awareness, and mobility.

[Kymeric]

I just started up and Elementalist after not playing one since the BWEs.

I immediately capped all the cities, like I do on every toon.  While I did that, I changed attunements whenever they were on cooldown to start the process of getting the muscle memory for the four hotkeys.

Then, instead of focusing on one element and trying to add the rest of the slowly, I'm focusing on a couple of skills in each attunement.  General open world PvE is easy enough at low level that you can really pick two or three skills per attunement and work from there.

That should give you a solid base for attunement dancing without getting overloaded by learning 20 skills all at once, or just randomly hitting them on cooldown and hoping for the best.

[TGIFrisbie]

Geeri gives sound advice.

When it comes to making money end game probably easiest to stick to dungeons or node farming, though recently materials took a hit due to teleport node bots.

For dungeons Staff is pretty solid and easy, sticking with Fire and Water as your most basic attunement swaps.  This is not the only way to play, the only options available, nor necessarily the best way to play.  I just find it very easy and comfortable and should fill your niche for less attunement swaps.

[Bloggi]

This might sound like a cop out response, but spending the time to level your elementalist from 1-80 and doing the DEs will essentially ease you into the profession. For leveling, some have suggested S/D or S/F instead of D/D or staff but it's horses for courses. I did try a few weapon combinations until leveling into the mid 20s. After that I used the staff exclusively. There will probably be a weapon combination that is more suited to the way you play.

Regardless, take baby steps. Rotate between two attunements for the start, memorize what the skills in each attunement actually do. Gradually build up to rotating between 3 attunements, then all 4. Do this when fighting one foe, then build up and do it when you're under fire by a few foes in a DE, good place being an event chain in Kessex Hills starting at the bridge, then move on to the event chain in Harathi Hinterlands (starting at Cloven Hoof Pass if memory serves me right). Throughout the events there will be plenty of opportunities for you to attempt to forecast attacks and practice dodging.

Once more confident with that, move to the dungeons, starting with something a bit easier like AC (bring a stun breaker and make sure you can switch a utility for Frost Bow and know how to use it). And if you're feeling even more sassy after tackling mutiple dungeons and want the possibility of a real fight, go to WvW (which I absolutely hate, but some like it). It's down to time and practice. If a fuddy duddy like me can do it, so can you.

For utitilies, feel free to try anything you like of course, but for me I went with Arcane Shield with my first skill point. Add Mist Form in the same tier. Consider Cleansing Flame in the second tier (clears damaging conditions which are a killer for a low level ele with low HP). In the third tier, look into things like Armor of Earth and Lightning Flash. Essentially, use utilities for survival initially, then switch out as you get more comfortable and want to use more aggressive kinds of utilities, but always have at least ONE stun breaker. When it comes to choice of Elite, I believe all of them have their uses. Take Glyph of Elementals if you are soloing a lot and need something to take some fire. Alternatively use Firey Greatsword for farming and bigger DEs with lots of other people around. Practice a little with Tornado on land and Whirlpool underwater. I think the ele is great underwater with Whirlpool and skills in water attunement.

Bottomline is that if you swap attunements frequently and use each skill as its available, you can put on constant pressure and constant support for your team. What I've found is that nothing irks team mates more than an ele that doesn't change attunements and auto-attacks from range. Yes you can still do damage that way but I think it's nowhere near as effective as really knowing all your weapon skills and throwing them out at the right time.

[Eliirae]

I can't imagine not wanting to swap attunments.  Your only good abilities are on 10+ second cooldowns, so unless you want to be running around spamming your #1 ability all day you'll have to Press F2, F3, F4 every so often.  It's not a big a deal as some people try to make it seem.

Categorize each attunment and it becomes much easier.  Fire = Damage.  Water = Healing.  Air = Movement.  Earth = Knockdown

[Scorch Raven]

You can get away from atunement swaping if you want, its why we have utlity spells. just depends on how you WANT to play.

When Farming/Doing hearts, Ill stick to Air or Fire (Air is D/D, Fire is S/D) and i rarely have to wait for skills to reset.

But instances and sPVP/WvW its different. There is little down time for these scenarios, and you should consider running atleast 2 of the 4 Atunements. I run Fire/Air for the Auras and Combo Fields Personally (Its nice that you can throw down FireField, then launch an arcane Bolt at your target to give Might to everyone), and once you get used to swapping its really not that bad. Just comes down to timing and what you feel like doing.

I dont run staff that often, seems annoying to swap between 3 Elements and watching your Cool downs (I wish we could see Timers for skills we do not have on our skill bars!!), while watching the Floor for target circles, planning for dodges, Giving Benefit for your fellow party Members, and making sure you are targeting the right Mob (So many Targeting issues still), really playing a elementalist properly is like a full time job sometimes!

But like i said, you are not stuck in any one play style with this class, its just that to really use the class to its full potentail you are going to have to get creative.

[Turtle Freak]

I'm just getting started with elementalist myself (currently level 16 I think), and I think the best weapons to use are scepter/dagger for someone starting out.  It is a lot more forgiving than dagger/dagger because it gives you the freedom of long range basic attacks while still keeping the really powerful melee-range attacks.

My current favorite skill chain is starting with air and opening with Ride the Lightning (skill 4) followed by Updraft (or whatever... skill 5) and spamming the other two lightning abilities since they instant cast.  Then I immediately switch to earth and use skill 4 followed by 5 to knockdown everyone around me and do massive damage.  Then if the fight is still going I use skill 2 and 3 to get my toughness up and blind the enemy.  Then I finish up with fire.

The big problem I am having is that the heal skill on elementalist does so little.  I guess I'm spoiled by my guardian's healing signet that heals well over half my hp bar.  It seems that for reliable healing on the elementalist you have to occasionally hop to water for the extra boost.

[Peter M Abraham]

Good day:

For PVE leveling until level 80, I first found scepter & dagger to be great; and then in my 40's switched over to staff all the way to 80 focusing on doing as many dynamic events as possible.

When I got to 80, I did switch to dagger & dagger.

While it does involve a lot of switching atunements, the fast pace makes it more insteresting.

Thank you.

[jthamind]

Turtle Freak, on 07 February 2013 - 03:57 PM, said:

The big problem I am having is that the heal skill on elementalist does so little.  I guess I'm spoiled by my guardian's healing signet that heals well over half my hp bar.  It seems that for reliable healing on the elementalist you have to occasionally hop to water for the extra boost.

Glyph of Elemental Harmony heals me for about half my health, and that's with 0 healing gear and 30 in Water.

Edited by jthamind, 07 February 2013 - 07:54 PM.

[Eliirae]

jthamind, on 07 February 2013 - 07:50 PM, said:

Glyph of Elemental Harmony heals me for about half my health, and that's with 0 healing gear and 30 in Water.

And then you could swap into water attunment and use that for about half health + regeneration

[Bloggi]

Yes the Glyph heal skill is incredible in water attunement with the regeneration, which is even more amazing in a + boon duration build. For me, the regeneration alone increases the net health gain by about 60% (5K+ heal from skill use plus an additional 3K+ from regeneration). Recently I've started to use Signet of Restoration and haven't tested it out extensively. Having said that, it appears to work much better than it looks and is an option for those of us who hardly ever activate our heal skill.

Edited by Bloggi, 08 February 2013 - 02:32 AM.