Elementalist Help

[zumkehr54]

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but i can barely kill anything without dying. Also, I do all the help things (hearts on the map) and I'm always behind on the level requirement for my personal story.

[Valeron]

Personal story is not a continuous story quest like it is in swtor for example. You will have level gaps in which you have engage in other activities to level up. Leveling is a process of everything that is in the game, not just individual parts.

About the elementalist, what level are you and what weapon are you using?

[Zilong]

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but i can barely kill anything without dying. Also, I do all the help things (hearts on the map) and I'm always behind on the level requirement for my personal story.

Yeah. We need more info to help you out but Ill give a few pointers that could aid you.

First as Doozer said, personal quests are usually 3-4 levels from each other (sometimes less) so you won't be able to do it back to back.
Second: Really important things can help you get alot of experience.
Gathering is always helpful and you don't fight for nodes, so always carry the tools for it.
Crafting and being more specific here the Discovery panel. Grab 2 disciplines and make some discoveries (keep in mind to take 2 different mats needed disciplines, so you can craft more. Like Jeweler and Tailoring uses different mats, so more exp for you). When I first played the game I used crafting as my "level close gapper".
Dailies and monthly: They award a good amount of exp.
Exploring: Doing 100% of a map, vistas and such also are good for exp.
Cities: When you don't feel like fighting the world, grab a city and make it 100% there. It also helps alot in exp.
Events: Hop in every event you see. And stick around enough to see if there is an follow up event!

If you do all this I'm pretty super sure you will over-level you character and your personal story progression. Takes a bit of time to get used to..but hang in there

--

About being ele: What weapon you using, what traits you investing? And importantly so are you dodging? And even more do you sit only on one element? or change elements?

[Deleted]

Have a nosey at: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...12-20-12/first

I use an almost similar build & dagger/dagger, but different utilities & have no problem splattering Champions etc.Mine is full Clerics gear though.

[Deleted]

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but i can barely kill anything without dying. Also, I do all the help things (hearts on the map) and I'm always behind on the level requirement for my personal story.

You need the gear for your level and then do the hearts for your appropriate level (or if you're too high level you'll be downgraded to appropriate). If you like the challenge you can try stuff above your level, but it will be tough, allowing little room for mistakes such as not dodging, pulling too much, etc. Also, remember to use all your atunements (F1-F4).

[sacrypheyes]

elementalist being the squishiest class (along with thieves), you basically have to rely that much more on kiting or proper dodging tactics.
if you're the type to stay at one spot while firing your spells, that's the first thing you should stop doing right away as we don't have the armor nor the innate regen of say, warriors.

and well yeah, gear is also something you'll want to improve as soon as you can as you level, as having more damage/tankiness will always help.

[Thelxi]

I leveled my ele d/d full zerker and just killed before getting killed. It was fast enough for me but not nearly as smooth or safe as my warrior or mesmer. Definitely doable though.

Other people like to actually get tanky leveling gear with ghetto specs that use things like summoned hammer. But those builds are excruciatingly slow, at least for me.

[Deleted]

If you do events (play at prime time!), some gathering, pay attention to the Daily achievements for xp bonuses, and maybe do crafting as well you should be able to keep the level of your area in step with your character level and then do each personal story quest as you reach the right level range. You get xp for all kinds of things though, sometimes you will find an under-level area where you are doing quests while down-levelled by a little bit and you pick up extra from exploring as well.

I've been playing my elementalist a bit and I found it easier after I started Paying more attention to crowd control. Explore the different weapons and open up the skills you get with them

[Lollis]

Level your crafting skills and clear whole maps to get XP bonuses. Do events when you can.

Levelling an Elementalist does not allow for mistakes, and you will be punished for them.

I found levelling as S/D with deep Power and Precision focus was the most satisfying way for me to level even if it was not the most effective. Opening with Lightning Flash, Blind, and Ride the Lightning before swapping to Fire with Dragon's Tooth, Phoenix, and Fire Grab made for nice quickish kills but it was a pain when fighting more than three mobs or more than two if one is a ranged user such as in Orr, and Imps who do ridiculous damage compared to their health pool are no joke if you fail on dodging especially if there is more than one.

When you get a decent Staff, you should be able to manage a couple of mobs at once with Magnetic Aura reflecting ranged attacks in addition to all of the CC you get, but if you are running around trying to prevent yourself from getting hit you might have trouble AoEing mobs down with your fire abilities.

Playing Elementalist is tougher than most classes, but once you get used to all the dodging and paying attention to everything you will become a better player.

[Karizee]

Elementalist is one of the most difficult professions to play well with the biggest learning curve, but if you have the patience to learn it, it's one of the most rewarding.

It's all about maximizing your combos for damage and mobility for avioding damage.

Your tooltips will tell you which of your abilities are combos fields and combo finishers. Try scepter/dagger for leveling. Here is a simple 'rotation' that will give you a feel for the class and get you through most of the leveling blues.


Air 4 (Ride the Lightening) to give you the opening advantage
Air 5 (Updraft) to stun your foe.

While your foe is lying in a stunned, huddled little mess line up your fields and finishers.

Fire 4 (Ring of Fire) is the combo field.
Fire 2 (Dragon Tooth) finisher
Fire 3 (Phoenix) finisher - make sure to target the reticule just past your foe, the bird will get him coming and going.
Earth 4 (Earthquake) he is waking out of that stun? Oh no you don't! Another finisher and stun.
Earth 5 (Churning Earth) finish him off!

As you can see, Dragon's Tooth is one of your biggest damage abilities. But if you apply it without a field you may as well be blowing bubbles at your foe for all the damage it does. Do it in a field and it's KABOOM. Also, if your foe is moving around it could well miss. So it goes Stun, Field, Finisher.

Now, this is very rudimentary and I didn't include any of the utility spells since not sure how many skills you have unlocked yet.

Also, I would highly recommend rebinding your keys, the default binds are shit for this profession since you have to change attunements so often

[Lollis]

I'd also like to add that on single target at least (or dual melee), with good enough gear you should not need to switch into Water or Earth attunement at all with S/D. I found that Air and Fire was enough for me to kill stuff and survive with.

[Deleted]

But if you only do heart quests you will end up under-level for the area by about lvl 15, the game seems to assume you're doing at least some other things to pick up xp alongside just the kills and the quests.

[rhandric]

But if you only do heart quests you will end up under-level for the area by about lvl 15, the game seems to assume you're doing at least some other things to pick up xp alongside just the kills and the quests.

Because hearts were added more or less as an after-thought

[Meledelion]

I'm thinking about challenging myself by without crafting/hearts/ps

[summourn]

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but i can barely kill anything without dying. Also, I do all the help things (hearts on the map) and I'm always behind on the level requirement for my personal story.

I was having a very similar problem myself with survivability until I experimented around a bit. Elementalist is much squishier seeming than even the other cloth classes. It really does help if you put a lot of your points into boosting your vitality, toughness, and healing instead of damage boosts. I'm fond of adding points to water because it grants regeneration so long as you're specced to it. I've had fun playing around with the class lately and have made my utility skills the various elemental weapons. I swap between all of them in battle, usually one or the other is on cooldown by the time I'm running out. They seem to do some pretty massive damage, and regardless of what you're using or how much damage you're doing with them, you can remain in water spec and get regen benefits the entire time while doing so.

That style might not be for everyone, but I sure am having a blast with it, and have been living a bit longer than I'd tend to do just kiting things around with my regular spells.