Newbie Ele Help?

Hello!

I've wanted to make a norn for a while (viking lady!) but I'm trying to pick a class. I really like the idea of Ele, but I've been told by people in the game that it's the weakest class and that Tempest/ Weaver is pretty broken. Is this true, or just people whining?

Could you please give your opinion, and if you play ele, maybe some build suggestions?

And what's better later on, Weaver or Tempest?

Thank you!

Ele is not really the "weakest" class, it's the squishiest one. Ele has the lowest health pool combined with the lowest armor value in the game. If someone as much as sneezes in your direction, you drop dead. Additionally ele is difficult to play since you have to cycle through all 4 elements for a total of 20 weapon skills to be effective. Many people compare playing ele to playing a piano.

For a long time this risk was rewarded with the highest potential dps in the game, especially on large hit-boxes. Weaver was incredibly strong as a dps. Well, several nerfs later (especially against large hit-boxes) and all ele has to show for its difficulty is a potentially high dps output.

If you want to play ele, I recommend using the glyph of elementals while leveling. Having a pet takes a lot of aggro away from you. The glyph of storms while attuned to earth is your friend whenever enemies come too close. It creates an aoe that pulses blinds, making enemies miss you with every attack for several seconds. Long enough to kill the entire group. Later on I recommend getting Tempest first. Tempest adds some extra overload skills to your F1-F4 keys, which are a nice addition to your existing build. Weaver on the other hand makes playing ele even more complicated than it already is. You should probably stay away from weaver until you're familiar enough with ele and tempest.

If you like playing difficult rotations, the thrill of playing pure glass and raging about nerfs, you can have a lot of fun with ele.

Edit: Correction: Swapped Tempest and Weaver.

Play whatever you want but just be aware that tryharding on this class doesnt pay off and only gets you to a level that other classes can achieve without much effort. Balance team is also always out to nerf you because of golem dps benchmarks, and they will redirect all your whining comments/concerns/suggestions to this subforum so that you can privately discuss your wishlist with other eles or engage in arguments with a couple few ele montage gods.

P.S. I also highly recommend staff ele/tempest/weaver because it's just too broken of a build that warrants repeated nerfs from devs regardless of game mode, unless of course, you're a reasonable real man then maybe classes such as mesmer, guardian, ranger, necro (scourge), engineer (holosmith), and thief (deadeye) will be better for you.

Or you could roll a support build. A healing tempest can generally carry their weight in competitive modes if you know what to do.

For PvE, I roll a dagger + conjure + fire traits + water traits + tempest. It's generally a good healer, I get plenty of auras by leaping into my fire fields (thanks to flame axe fields + dagger skill leaps) and from overloads themselves, meaning my elementalist generally takes long to die unless it gets locked down.

Yes, it isn't optimal by any means, but it's got a nice balance of offense + defense which works fine in open world to take care of things and help bystanders.

Its only drawback is attempting to take on a group of monsters and not using the earth shield. Even with high healing I tend to die pretty fast when facing a group of veterans or the like, but going into battle defensively with shield 4 and the rest of skills, I can outlast them while letting overloads trim the numbers down.

If only conjuring the shield were a stun break, this sort of build would be a lot more durable.

The point is, depending on what's your target, you can make an elementalist build that'll work. As others have mentioned, if your focus is pure DPS, then the consensus is that you'll get similar rewards for less effort on other classes, and that demoralizes some elementalist mains.

@BunjiKugashira.9754 said:Later on I recommend getting Weaver first. Weaver adds some extra overload skills to your F1-F4 keys, which are a nice addition to your existing build. Tempest on the other hand makes playing ele even more complicated than it already is. You should probably stay away from tempest until you're familiar enough with ele and weaver.

You swapped tempest and weaver, it should be the other way around.

Pros: I play the class because of how fun it feels in my hands, mostly because of the complexity and having many buttons to care for, the feeling of pulling off something on ele is something I can't find on other classes imho. It shines well when burst damage is needed like in Fractals of the Mist, few Raid bosses and it's still a viable option for WvW backline with a staff. It's fun and it's worth a try.

Cons: "Weakest": The weakness of ele is mostly caused by their trait lines and the numbers set on their skills making them highly stats reliant. Take Fire specialization for an example, the trait line provides a lot of damage, but 0 defense, that shouldn't be much of an issue, although some defense would be good but... fine, the issue lies in how the damage of the Fire trait line can only be accessed when attuned to Fire, the condition in which you can have the damage of the Fire spec is to be attuned to fire, that means if you ever needed to heal from Water attunement, you will lose all the damage, what's the problem with that? Well, since you have picked Fire as a specialization, you have already picked stats that match with fire (Berseker/Marauder) and since the numbers on ele's skills are low, you haven't invested anything for the heals, that means that the heals on the water attunement wouldn't be worth it. Now that the the offensive trait lines bring no support and only work inside their respective element while also having low numerical values on every other element making them unworthy to attune for if not geared and specialized for, there comes the issue, you either become full damage and try to prevent getting struck or go for full defense and deal no damage. Ele should overcome their squshiness by attuning to all elements just like mesmer with clones/phantasms and how other squishy classes overcome their squishiness, but the trait lines limit that, you'll find yourself using 2 elements only, maybe 3, but that's rare, so you will never overcome this issue through the 4 elements but by facing the challenge the whole playtime that you can die quickly, thus, you have to calculate every situation. So ele's issues are: 1. Non-universal trait lines, 2. Low numbers on skills making ele make use of every bit of stat thus sacrificing some of their attunements, 3- Low to no party/self support at all while still applying nothing to the target in terms of vulnerability, cc, etc.

Why am I still playing the class then? Simply because every other class feels boring compared to how I like to play a class, it's fun and no class was able to come close to that. Though fun isn't always meta so, I just couldn't care about it anymore. I would recommend giving it a try and learning some few tricks on ele to feel that, but don't get too attached to it, for the moment, ele has been seeing mostly nerfs since Meteor Shower got a massive hit.

Builds:A) Open World:The most popular build of all is Tempest dagger/warhorn, you can play weaver but since it's pure melee and offers no self-sustain/back-up you would need to invest some stats into Marauder, maybe some Toughness as well if you're not used to go full beserker or playing weaver. The reason for Tempest mostly is how the trait line carries its own by providing boons, and shocking aura when finishing Air Overload. If you are going to do Group Events with over 10 people, staff could be better and you can pick either Tempest or Weaver at this time freely.

For Open World Tempest D/Wh or Sc/Wh (sc/wh is mostly end-game):1- Air 3/2/2, Fire 1/1/1, max damage potential with minimum self-sustain2- Air 3/2/2, Arcane 3/3/1 or 3/2/1 depends if you need the shield, this has more boons and lower cooldown on attunements, less damage3- Air 3/2/2, Earth 3/3/1, or 3/2/1 for the maximum boon potential of Tempest with higher sustain but less damage than the others listed above

All of these builds rely on procc'ing Fresh Air, thus, allow you to spam Air Overload many times.

For Tempest: you can pick 3/3/1 for maximum damage or 3/2/1 for some boons.

Utilities are Fire Signet, Glyph of Storms and Glyph of Elementals, you're free to pick the last utility.

Should you run Weaver then Sword/Dagger or Focus:

1- Fire 1/1/2, Air 3/2/1, maximum damage with no self-support, damage mostly relies on the burst of Fresh Air2- Fire 1/1/2, Arcane 3/2/1 or 3/3/1, this brings some boons with less damage3- Air 3/2/2, Arcane 3/2/1 or 3/3/1, this also brings some boons but its damage relies on Fresh Air

Utilites are mostly Twist of Fate, Primordial Stance and Glyph of Storms.

For condition damage variant, it's harder but a lot more defensive, Sword/Focus:1- Earth 2/1/1, Fire 1/3/2, since you attune to earth a lot, this makes the build more tanky than Power build.

Utilities are Twist of Fate, Primordial Stance and Glyph of Storms

For weaver: 1/2/1 for max damage, 3/2/1 for less crit chance against weakened enemies but you have a bit higher HP, 3/3/1 this more of a damage loss but it would work fine if you have an encounter every 70s (wouldn't recommend this one though). If running condi build 1/1/1 or 3/1/1 on weaver line.

For Tempest you can go for Scholar runes. For weaver I prefer Flame Legion runes because it's hard to have a good uptime on Scholar's 6th bonus.

As Ele leaves Open world, the diversity in their build is non-existent.

B ) End-game PvE: Check snowcrows.com for Raids, and for fractals, metabattle.com is enough. The change between Raids and Fractals in terms of gear is nothing, for traits, you may need to change a trait or 2 but it's still playable with raid's setup, the utilities might change a bit for the encounter. Tempest and Weaver are both playable with weaver finding itself a better spot.

C) PvP: It's really bad, you have no option but to play the boring sustain build, I can't play PvP, I like to play aggressively and Weaver (ele as a whole) is totally not the pick for that. The issue is the trait lines and the skills' numbers, you're forced into Water and Earth all the time, so you deal no damage, once you leave these 2 attunements, a good player can burst you down if a simple mistake is made. The build is mostly Mender's Amulet, Earth Runes, Energy and Courage sigils, you can pick Sage Amulet for more damage and a bit sacrifice in sustain, but Mender is safer, the build: https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Weaver_-_Mender%27s_Sword , you may make some few changes to the Major Master trait, more cleanse or some barrier, but the barrier is on a 70s cooldown so...

D) WvW: It has the same issues as PvP when roaming, but you can have some diveristy on the gear/food/utility to get yourself some tankiness or some damage, and there are more playable builds in this mode as a roamer than in PvP but they are all lacking just as PvP. As a staff backline damage dealer in 20v20 or more, it's still viable but Herald ousts it imo, you can stack Heralds (1 for each sub-squad) but you only need a weaver or 2, because as I said, you bring no party support, also because your main damage is on a 20s cooldown vs 4s cooldown for Herald, making weaver an Open Field DPS mostly.

I might have a biased look with some salt, but I would say you should give it a try, you'd lose nothing, but try to not go full main because it's not as rewarding as it's thought it is. The reward is mostly the fun you get playing it, but losing a lot or putting in more effort for same/less results can get you tilted sometimes.

@"Marissa.4796" said:Hello!

I've wanted to make a norn for a while (viking lady!) but I'm trying to pick a class. I really like the idea of Ele, but I've been told by people in the game that it's the weakest class and that Tempest/ Weaver is pretty broken. Is this true, or just people whining?

Could you please give your opinion, and if you play ele, maybe some build suggestions?

And what's better later on, Weaver or Tempest?

Thank you!

Try a build to something like this, its a dagger build which means close range. https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Elementalist_-_Dagger/x_Fresh_Air if it does not work well for you try staff, eventually you want tempest and to use horn when you reach hot, because soloing hot for an ele is a huge pain trust me, getting your hps without mount abilities is very frustrating. If you have all that stuff it will be a breeze. Do not be afraid to put defensive gear on either, just get cheapo. Ele is an amazing and rewarding class. If you want versatility and more survivability pick ranger or guardian, ele is for those who like playing on the edge though without the safety nets. If you want to try a more defensive build go earth instead of fire, I do not recommend any ele condi builds in hot.

@steki.1478 said:

@BunjiKugashira.9754 said:Later on I recommend getting Weaver first. Weaver adds some extra overload skills to your F1-F4 keys, which are a nice addition to your existing build. Tempest on the other hand makes playing ele even more complicated than it already is. You should probably stay away from tempest until you're familiar enough with ele and weaver.

Oh, you're right. Thanks for letting me know, I corrected my post.

Just be ready to do less out of more button pushes then other classes. The best advice i can give new ele players.

@Jski.6180 said:Just be ready to do less out of more button pushes then other classes. The best advice i can give new ele players.

Not every elementalist build goes this way, core fresh air is probably where it's the worst.

I would guess that tempest alleviates this issue as it encourages staying in your elements so you can trigger an overload rather than mad attunment swapping.

It's a similar scenario to engineer, you can play a kit-swap-maniac build, but unless you are pushing for the upper limit DPS values, one could go for a less demanding build.

Viking lady!! Awesome! Toughness for sure, so you can go Earth, Water , Tempest and have fun, not from the dps # you are dishing out, but absorbing! It will allow you to Dominate, pve, (storyline, champions, wanted/bandits, timelimit -fights vs bounties in POF, yes its a draw!!) without anybody's help, if u prefer solo gameplay. In group you provide good heals, sustain, make sure you get condi trinkets so you can at least do 3-5+k condi damage between bleeds and burn. Settler's armor cheap enough to start with , Left Paw if you like the style and want to improve over exotic. Test different builds see what fits your game style, not others opinion of what they THINK the class is. I have no problem going into dungeons/fractals with tempest aura heals with just under 1,400 healing and help keep the team up till completion. OH One last thing to all those people who tell you about how weak ele is , be NICE and RES them during big events or champ fights, because they have dished out massive damage, while they were fighting, but could not SUSTAIN IT, so go ahead weak ele RES em! GL!

@antorios of boxius.1043 said:Viking lady!! Awesome! Toughness for sure, so you can go Earth, Water , Tempest and have fun, not from the dps # you are dishing out, but absorbing! It will allow you to Dominate, pve, (storyline, champions, wanted/bandits, timelimit -fights vs bounties in POF, yes its a draw!!) without anybody's help, if u prefer solo gameplay. In group you provide good heals, sustain, make sure you get condi trinkets so you can at least do 3-5+k condi damage between bleeds and burn. Settler's armor cheap enough to start with , Left Paw if you like the style and want to improve over exotic. Test different builds see what fits your game style, not others opinion of what they THINK the class is. I have no problem going into dungeons/fractals with tempest aura heals with just under 1,400 healing and help keep the team up till completion. OH One last thing to all those people who tell you about how weak ele is , be NICE and RES them during big events or champ fights, because they have dished out massive damage, while they were fighting, but could not SUSTAIN IT, so go ahead weak ele RES em! GL!

Good advice re mixing and learning builds. As for weaknesses, sounds like you don't realise the issues are not in PVE.

@Skotlex.7580 said:

@Jski.6180 said:Just be ready to do less out of more button pushes then other classes. The best advice i can give new ele players.

I think only the all in healing only build with soothing mist camps water and water only but you lose soo much other support effects in both pve and pvp as that type of build that you are losing effects because your pressing less buttons. Over all ele is still going to be more button hits for over all lesser effects for all builds.

THAT is the most important thing to know for new ele players your going to be playing this class for fun more then filling a roll the best you can. If you can deal with that then ele is the class for you.

@antorios of boxius.1043 said:Viking lady!! Awesome! Toughness for sure, so you can go Earth, Water , Tempest and have fun, not from the dps # you are dishing out, but absorbing! It will allow you to Dominate, pve, (storyline, champions, wanted/bandits, timelimit -fights vs bounties in POF, yes its a draw!!) without anybody's help, if u prefer solo gameplay. In group you provide good heals, sustain, make sure you get condi trinkets so you can at least do 3-5+k condi damage between bleeds and burn. Settler's armor cheap enough to start with , Left Paw if you like the style and want to improve over exotic. Test different builds see what fits your game style, not others opinion of what they THINK the class is. I have no problem going into dungeons/fractals with tempest aura heals with just under 1,400 healing and help keep the team up till completion. OH One last thing to all those people who tell you about how weak ele is , be NICE and RES them during big events or champ fights, because they have dished out massive damage, while they were fighting, but could not SUSTAIN IT, so go ahead weak ele RES em! GL!

Do you have a build for this earth/water tempest? Like what traits to pick for it? THank you!

The Aura build i run with guild/group is Earth 1- elemental shielding. 2 -rock solid. 3-stone heart. Water 1-soothing ice. 2-aquamancer's training. 3-powerful aura. Tempest 1-unstable conduit. 2-invigorating torrents. 3-elemental bastion. For solo, i will switch the Grandmaster trait in water for soothing power for more healing, for myself per second. Earth i switch rock solid and replace it with strength of stone for the condi damage% based off toughness which is excellent because of the high rank of toughness i use. Tempest again solo, i switch unstable conduit out for eye of the storm, because u will be knocked down often running solo, if u do not. Plus it works so well with a tank style build! Graphics, sound, etc. Runes for a tank build i find best are superior rune of durability, twice a minute u will get protection and regen for 3 sec and resistance for 1 sec, works great together with auras and boons they provide with this build. Skills , healing slot i use with group wash the pain away, the 3 aura skills, elite is Rebound. Solo i use Glyph of elemental harmony, stronger solo heal, the 3 aura skills, elite is Glyp of elementals. Sometimes even in group i will keep the glyph elite because of the massive heals you get from the water elite(depends on the team i am running with).Tank build with signets is solo, for the most part you will not provide much, to a team out side of heals. Keep water as i stated earlier for solo, as far as Earth 1- Armor of earth 2 - strength of stone 3- written in stone. Tempest 1-eye of the storm 2-harmonious conduit 3- lucid singularity. Simple build, use signets, thats whats works best with the written in stone trait, elite i use the glyph. If you want a bit more damage, switch air signet for the glyph of elemental power, works excellent with the fire signet. I run 3,500+ Armor with this signet build , couple hundred less with the aura build (you lose the earth signet). 1,000 power, no need for precision, or ferocity as condi damage is what you are dealing. Low 700+ healing power, just under 1,100 condi damage, just under 23% boon duration, 30% condition duration. Settler's armor, leading into Left paw, for healing armor i use Veldrunners., (1,300+healing power with this armor +Dwayna runes). If you find u like this style invest in the toughness/armor, because, the difference between 3200 armor and 3,500 armor is MASSIVE. You can see for yourself by testing this vs the wraith champion in the lyssa waypoint, in malchor's leap. This champ is a necro and will drain your health pool, so i use him to test all my builds and armor changes i make. Again this build/ play style is for the few, so test it with exotics before u invest into ascended armor and weapon. Sorry for the long winded typing(computer dummy here/don't know how to link anything) Have fun and GL!

The 3 aura skills are aftershock, flash freeze, and feel the burn.

@antorios of boxius.1043 said:(...)

Really appreciate your help and optimism! :smile: However, just a suggestion for the future, some paragraphs really help with readability...

But I really like your attitude! :smiley:

I've been struggling to learn how to play my Ele. I mostly do PVE and open world, usually with my GF along (who's better at the game than I am). I've finally found a Weaver build that I can keep a rotation going reasobly well with. It's a little weird compared to most since it's pure DOT and actually has fairly decent health (21k). It's not the fastest, but at least I'm able to stay alive most of the time and keep the conditions running on the target.

@Marissa.4796 said:Hello!

I've wanted to make a norn for a while (viking lady!) but I'm trying to pick a class. I really like the idea of Ele, but I've been told by people in the game that it's the weakest class and that Tempest/ Weaver is pretty broken. Is this true, or just people whining?

Could you please give your opinion, and if you play ele, maybe some build suggestions?

And what's better later on, Weaver or Tempest?

Thank you!

Hi i play ele and i must say i can hold my own in wvw groups, you still should be careful. i Play earth, water, tempest. not much dps but i survive and can heal others. i love this charr. i use Maklains Spire with Maklains armor. I just move around and switch from water to earth regular or to air for speed when need. Really no DPS with this build but great healing like i said.

Build and profession balance means too much in this game. Ele is the weakest class in wvw(in my opinion). But it is for NOW. New balances and changes might shift the situation. So look at the color scheme, skills, gameplay and if you like it, choose it. A skilled player that plays a weak profession is better than a bad player ona meta build.