Gaming → GW2: Elementalist Thread

Lets sit here and discuss our class, shall we?

Right now I am using two daggers, and enjoying that a lot. I switch to a staff for giant boss encounters who have AoE effects that wipe me in one shot and stay at max range.

Most fights start with Ride the Lightning, then into the Electrical Knock Back. Then I switch to fire and use the Fire Charge Attack, AoE, single target giant fire attack (5 button).

If they are still alive I switch to earth and apply some DoTs, knock em down, then switch to water and throw a couple of heals on myself.

Right now I am sitting at 46% crit, level 23. Maxed out Air Traits for the moment, moved to water for now.

For skill points, I got Signet of Air (10% movement speed bonus) Signet of Fire (Crit chance bonus) and Teleport (works well for escaping or after the lightning push back attack, Teleport into them for more damage!)

I chose the healing ability that heals you every time you cast a spell. Seems to be keeping me filled up for the most part, unless I noob stand and DPS.

Not sure if there is a cap, but in Air Attunement I cap out at 45% movement speed increase. Pretty awesome when I need to haul ass out or have to run some where.

I use a staff for group play mainly due to not finding anything that provides a good healing option that is better. For single play I have enjoyed the wand (?) and focus. I also picked up the Frost bow spell last night. Holy... that thing is amazing, and a friend can use it as well.

Ah dang it, you must have been typing this when I started the other thread... anyway I can copy over to yours and delete my thread?

BTW here's a post about using staff to achieve a ton of swiftness. Sav, you said over gchat you get 45% with daggers, how sustainable is that? Which skills?

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There are a bunch of ways to get Swiftness as an Elementalist and when you're low level it's really useful to be able to move around rather quickly between events and everything.

You need: A Staff and (optionally) Arcane Wave

Glyph of Elemental Harmony gives 10s Swiftness when casted in Air attunement.
Windborne Speed (Staff #4, Air) gives 10s Swiftness.
Static Field (Staff #5, Air, Combo Field: Lightning) -> Arcane Wave (Blast Finisher) gives 10s AoE Swiftness. This can also be done with Eruption, but it's just not nearly as smooth and then you run into issues with attunement cooldowns (which would lower your Swiftness uptime).
25, 30 and 40s CD respectively. Over 125s you have 120s of Swiftness. Remember, they all stack in duration so just keep casting them all the time.

same here i like using staff,

btw if you have in the memory of the sky (orange staff) it heals you whenever you kill someone

when you do is put 15 traits into arcane (whenever you switch to air attunement, you get speed), cycle that with staff swiftness and the glyphy of elemental harmony, you can essentially never run out of swiftness by cycling them.

I don't use swiftness, it was the trait bonus from air, tier 1 (both slots) and signet of air.

Traits 25%+10%
Signet 10%

I started with Air for my traits, but have since moved to Arcane. I prefer to change between elements often and felt pigeon-holed by selecting one as a primary due to losing the boon when not in that particular element. I have seen woodenpotatoes use dual daggers, and they look pretty fun. I may switch over from a staff once I get a good pair.

there is a 15 % speed increase when using a dagger when you have 20 in arcane.

for me since i used a staff, i oped for the staff aoe increase instead.

btw, for all my traits, i rather have them recharge faster (20% in fire/air/water) then i can throw out more attacks.

I just watched a bit of his youtube video on doing pvp with scepter/dagger. Wow do I suck. He was flipping attunements like crazy, I could barely follow it.

I'm just too old for this game

I use scepter main hand and dagger off hand. Then went 10 in water, 10 earth and am now going 10 in fire. I have great survivability and pretty good heals. I used armor of earth, mist form, and arcane blast. Fire rotation is fire slash, arcane blast then fire tooth and phoenix. This gets you a quick 9 stack of might. Its pretty fun and I'm not near as squishy as I was the first 10 levels or so. All in all I am really enjoying this game as I really liked the first one.

If you are casting all those fire spells then what spells are you using with those water/earth traits (and what talent did you pick up in those lines)? Do you pre-cast the earth armor before soloing mobs?

you dish out all aoe as fast a possible while switching attunement.

btw i'm a staff user.

Anyone making the elementalist their main or still playing their eles?

I think deep in my heart I keep making alts because I really want to be a flashy spellcaster, but from personal experience (and a ton of QQ in the forums), you just have to do a ton more work to close to the same dps (and survivalability) as other classes. The spec that does "well" is using the thunder hammer skill, since it does great pbaoe and blinds.

I still have my ele as my main. I use scepter main hand, dagger off. Went 10 arcane, 10 fire, 10 lightning. I love switching around abilities, and arcane plays this well. I made an engineer alt and will play around with that off and on.

Just saw this trait in elementalist air magic line:

One with Air:

You move 5% faster every 10 seconds you are attuned to air. Maximum of 25% bonus movement speed.

Whee! Just run all over the map and get the POIs and teleport spots first then go do hearts!

Last nite I remade my elementalist to be an Asura one, and got her to level 10. Using scepter/dagger mainly. For the first time I noticed that in the earth attunement, there's a (single target) blind that blinds for 10 seconds, and only 15 second cooldown. Had a lot of fun leveling her.

I think this is one reason I'm stuck below 30. You just get so much more sense of accomplishment at lower levels :P

Still, reading all the QQ threads makes me think the only class that is flashy enough for me in GW2 might require too much from me. Good thing Panda is here for mindless spamming of 1+2 and telling me where to go quest! That sounded sarcastic but honestly, a lot of the time my gaming is just mindless, I don't need to have an olympic challenge, I just want to pew pew and mobs to die.

I think I've found my main with the Elementalist, at least for awhile.

I started a Mesmer, and while I like it...lot of work for very little output, imo...at least upto level 20 so far.

If you think Elem is complicated, the mesmer is much more so...it's three spells before you see any dmg, and you have to make sure your combo fields are right.

Elem is a blast, literally. Using the fields, you can give yourself 3 / 6 stacks of might within 2 casts, and wreck some serious ass.

I've leveled mine to 15 within a day, and really enjoying it. I think I'll be hanging around with this one for awhile.

Primarily going sceptre / dagger, but staff is pretty good, too.

Yar I've read mesmers really really need their traits to start doing well.

Like I said, I really love big flashy spell effects, and honestly only elementalists have that, so I'll play this for a bit. With my altitis though, a bit might mean just a day, but hey as long it's all fun and games

BTW quite a few posts I read reminds new elementalists to keep their gear up to date, so visit your TP every 5 levels and don't forget the sigils/runes/etc as well! Since this is a more fragile/less forgiving profession (maybe underpowered, who knows), we can't suck up the gear difference like other professions can.

My new level 10 elementalist got a whole new set of gear (some of which she sewed herself with tailoring) last night.

Made it to 16? last night, still going strong. Getting the S/D combo down.

I usually do this:
- start in fire, lay down the fire field
- phoenix (+3 stacks of might)
- dragon tooth (+3 more stacks, slowass spell they need to drop it faster)
- fire grab
- if mobs still alive, switch to earth and do that slam that knocks them down
- cast curling earth (love that spell, but way slow and getting hit while doing it after the mobs get up from the slam)

btw a tip I read is that you can cast cast curling earth, then teleport into the mob just before you finish, then the spell will go off where you are.

Definitely a lot more work though. My warrior would just rush in and hundred blades or dual axes, done :P

Edit: Going up the air traits to get the +25% speed, but I kind of hate the fact I can't see a number. I'm pretty sure I am going faster, but since I've been zipping along with ride the wind and elemental harmony (+10 sec swiftness if you trigger it while attuned to air), it's hard to tell.

I love swiftness. My toon in WOW feels so slow now, makes it hard to play slow toons like the guardian.

Arcane wave will get you 3 stacks as well

I usually do
CoF
Arcane Blast
Dragon Tooth
Pheonix
Arcane Power (Next 5 hits crit)

Then go apeshit on whatever isn't on CD within Fire, then swap to Air or Earth. Usually air as I'll do the 2 instant lightning shots, the RtL and Updraft to finish it out. Hell of a lot of burst damage that ends on a nice knockdown / stun allowing you to regroup and start over.

Sounds good! Why not arcane power first though? Want the might stacks before critting?

I'm tempted to retrait so I can get elemental attunement out of arcane line first, since I don't really need the 25% swiftness out of the air line (takes 50 seconds to max out anyways, and I'm using my RtL and heal spell), but reluctant to give up the +precision, +power or whatever else the other lines can give...

Exactly.I've actually dumped 10 pts into water, just for the extra vit, and stacked vit gear...It's hard for me to know how to gear this damn char, as you need vit/precision/toughness/power and maybe a touch of condition. Lot to choose from.

Exactly. Last night at level 15 I ran to the TP and re-geared every slot (I plan to do so every 5 levels if I can). I didn't just stack power and precision like before, but also vit and toughness. Really helps out soloing.

Seems like Earthquake (dagger offhand #4), the knock down slam skill I mentioned, is also a combo finisher (blast), so that's another 3 stacks right there!

Ring of Fire, Phoenix, Dragons Tooth, Earthquake, Arcane blast. 12 stacks of might straight off the bat. Not sure if Ring of Fire lasts long enough :P

I need more fingers to press da buttons!

Ok, possibly a stupid question, but I'm now 15 on my ele and still don't have weapon switching. I have it on my other toons, but not on this one? Wondering if it's a bug or a class issue?

Class...you swap elements instead of weapons.

You can obviously still swap outside of combat, but not during.

Like Koil said, elementalist do not get weapon swap, even outside of combat (a lot of QQ/request on the forums to request for out of combat swap).

The play style of elementalist is to know what your equipped weapon can do for each of the attunements, then swap attunements during combat for maximum results. Once you cast some spells in one attunement, you go to another one and cast those spells, letting the first attunement's spells recharging/cooldown.

What are you using as your Utlity spells?

I am leaning toward the arcane burst spells and talenting for them becuase the others seem lack luster.

Me? My elementalist is parked at the jewelry work bench at level 26 :P

arcane wave is good to get another 3 stacks of might from my ring of fire.

The glyphs (normal and elite) for summoning elementals are useful.

I use signet of air for more movement speed.

I haven't tried this, but you can start are channeling churning earth, then use teleport right before it finishes to the mob to cause the spike dmg there.

I made a new female norn elementalist last night, and I think I'll try to go D/D this time. Found this nice post (work in progress). Make sure you see this previous post with the crazy pvp videos. Not sure if I can click that fast, but looks fun!

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