Something is off

So I've dabbled in pretty much every class, and I've more than dabbled in several, including Thief, Revenant, Warrior, Necro, and Guardian, with the first two being my mains.

I cannot believe how much harder it is to do anything on the Ele than any of the above professions. I die way faster while killing way more slowly. I can't for the life of me figure out why, but it honestly seems to be the design of the class itself just making it really bad at soloing stuff and/or too dependent on just the right combination of traits and skills. I've died repeatedly just trying to unlock the HPs in the Crystal Oasis just to unlock the Weaver. Even if it's the case that I'm using a suboptimal build, it seems to matter way more than it should. Does anyone have any pointers?

What's your build and how are you playing?

If you're running glass you need to kite, be mobile, dodge properly. Try out Scepter + Focus fresh air build. It usually used in PVP or WvW roaming, but it might be just the right thing for you.

@mbhalo.1547 said:If you're running glass you need to kite, be mobile, dodge properly. Try out Scepter + Focus fresh air build. It usually used in PVP or WvW roaming, but it might be just the right thing for you.

With all due respect, honestly don't listen to this suggestion - Scepter+Focus Fresh air build is an old build that requires a lot of effort to master and you will feel the "doing much more for much less" a lot harder than anything else.

Ele's absurd damage is heavily dependent on Staff skills and on stationary targets that sit on their AoE - if the target or you move a lot, you lose a ton of damage once they get out of the AoE (it is insane difference from doing 10 damage to doing 100 damage). But that build relies on good zoning + someone to tank for you (so it is good for T4 fractals and Raid meta, but it is difficult to master in open world PvE).

Ele's sustain is heavily dependent on healing power + healing abilities from water (and blasting water fields) + protection. A good number for healing power is around 400-500 to get that nice sustain. This requires understanding the class skills, how to combo them, where to get the sustain etc. Water and Arcane trait lines offer a lot of the sustain of the class, as does Tempest if you want that.

That being said, want a reliable build that is good enough in damage and sustain in PvE open world while you learn the class? Go old Water/Arcane/(Fire or Air or Tempest) D/D ele. Get this build to around 2k power, 30%-50% crit chance, 400-500 healing power and close to 200% crit damage and the rest can go into vitality / toughness. -

Then learn the basic D/D ele might stack rotation (Video at the end). You will be doing damage to mobs, healing yourself and buffing yourself while doing it and it just ramps up in the damage department.

It is very easy to learn with a bit of practice and works wonders for open world PvE - it is not meta for raids / T4 fractals by far, but it gets the work done in open world PvE and it can carry you all the way to T4 fractal if you want (heck when I don't want the hassle I even use it in T4 and it works - I just mix more Condi damage to help add to the numbers, but I do a solid DPS with it).

Once you get a feel for the class you can branch out more on stats and strategies to find your niche.

If you are on soldiers or clerics you won't kill anything.

Ele is quite fragile but fun to play. It requires many skills lined up in order to match other classes damage, however in certain cases they not only match it but vastly surpass it. Like someone above said, you have to stay mobile and kite (with staff, scepter and even dagger). Facetanking won't work against hordes of monsters.

If you are struggling badly in HPs (PoF veteran HPs...) then equip your earth elemental glyph so he can tank for you. Persistent flames is also a really useful trait in pve. Helped me rally a lot of times when ambushed by tons of trash mobs.

@Einlanzer.1627 said:So I've dabbled in pretty much every class, and I've more than dabbled in several, including Thief, Revenant, Warrior, Necro, and Guardian, with the first two being my mains.

I cannot believe how much harder it is to do anything on the Ele than any of the above professions. I die way faster while killing way more slowly. I can't for the life of me figure out why, but it honestly seems to be the design of the class itself just making it really bad at soloing stuff and/or too dependent on just the right combination of traits and skills. I've died repeatedly just trying to unlock the HPs in the Crystal Oasis just to unlock the Weaver. Even if it's the case that I'm using a suboptimal build, it seems to matter way more than it should. Does anyone have any pointers?

Until you unlock weaver, use Freshair/Staff Tempest and take advantage of skills like your overloads/glyph of storms/meteor shower/lava font/icebow 4...Even if you get downed, you're definitely going to rally cuz something will die to all that continuing damage you queued up. You can also abuse Fire 4 in Open World PvE a lot... Get in trouble, and just fire4 away and the mobs will just chase you straight down the big burning trail to their inevitable deaths.

Use your Healing Glyph... It' way the most efficient heal for solo play. Try to use it in Fire for the Might or if you're really in trouble swap to water first and then back it up with staff 3/5 and then overload.

Once you have some weaver skills unlocked you canswitch over to practice the new rotations, Stone Stance is a nice solo/survive skill cuz it's insta, so you can just use it to barrier up while you're casting meteor shower to survive the channel.

You can use toughness/healing gear if you want, I guess, but I don't think it really helps enough to justify nerfing your dmg output... I did every HP in the first 3 PoF zones solo, and then 4 in the desolation to finish weaver as Tempest (Air/Fire/Temp standard raid traits + Gale Song) in full zerker/scholars...

It's fun, but ya, it takes a lot of getting used to coming from thief/rev. GLHF!

I was under the impression core ele was getting a barrier (was hoping for a support one at that) but nothing came of it. Why is ele so far behind all other classes?

There are some proplems with ele. Its already top dps on glass build so anet cant Buff ele dps.Ele is also most unkillable thing in tyria If that is what player is looking for. So coz of nature of ele its hard to balance elementalist.

Thanks for the input everyone. I guess it's just going to be a matter of spending significant time learning, tuning, and iterating.