Elementalist sPvP | Tournament Dagger/Dagger | Team fighter Blinx D/D Cantrip Ele
Table of Contents
Summary
The Elementalist is a very versatile class that can fulfill many different roles. They are the jack of all trades but the master of none, therefore it is vital for you to be aware of the opportunities presented so you can be as productive as possible. This build has great sustain but not as many options for game changing plays as some other classes so it's important to stay active.
I came up with this build about 4 months after the release of Guild Wars 2 and it has proven to be very effective. While running this build, I was able to contribute to my team's undefeated championship victory in the Curse sponsored Master of The Mists tournament as well a championship victory in the only other tournament we have participating in which was the SOAC week 3 tournament sponsored by TDTV. Hopefully this guide will help you maximize your efficiency and become a better Elementalist.
If you would like to see how I play this build and videos of shoutcasted tournaments I have participated in, check out my stream at twitch.tv/blinxpvp
EDIT: I no longer run this build as a lot has changed since I made this guide. Elementalists in general are very weak at the moment and I have yet to find a viable ele build for high level competitive play but hopefully there will be some balance changes soon!
Below are some general strengths and weakeness of the build in a competitive 5v5 environment.
STRENGTHS
Ad hoc role fulfillment
Team fighting
Supporting allies(peeling)
Pressuring/training individual opponents
Great sustainability
Strong CC
WEAKNESSES
Very little condition pressure
Very easy to build bad habits (face rolling your skill rotations)
Most D/D builds are very similar and can be very predictable
Very limited range
Comparatively high APM (actions per minute)
Reliant on boons and susceptible to boon removal
I. Weapons and Skills
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- 0Fury: 2 sSwiftness: 5 sRegeneration: 9 sVigor: 9 s
- 0Fury: 2 sSwiftness: 5 sRegeneration: 9 sVigor: 9 s
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- 0Fury: 2 sSwiftness: 5 sRegeneration: 9 sVigor: 9 s
- 0Fury: 2 sSwiftness: 5 sRegeneration: 9 sVigor: 9 s
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- 0Fury: 2 sSwiftness: 5 sRegeneration: 9 sVigor: 9 s
- 0Fury: 2 sSwiftness: 5 sRegeneration: 9 sVigor: 9 s
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- 0Fury: 2 sSwiftness: 5 sRegeneration: 9 sVigor: 9 s
- 0Fury: 2 sSwiftness: 5 sRegeneration: 9 sVigor: 9 s
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- 0Fury: 2 sSwiftness: 5 sRegeneration: 9 sVigor: 9 s
- 0Fury: 2 sSwiftness: 5 sRegeneration: 9 sVigor: 9 s
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- 0Fury: 2 sSwiftness: 5 sRegeneration: 9 sVigor: 9 s
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- 0Fury: 2 sSwiftness: 5 sRegeneration: 9 sVigor: 9 s
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- 0Fury: 2 sSwiftness: 5 sRegeneration: 9 sVigor: 9 s
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- 0Fury: 2 sSwiftness: 5 sRegeneration: 9 sVigor: 9 s
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- 0Fury: 2 sSwiftness: 5 sRegeneration: 9 sVigor: 9 s
Weapon and Skill Details
The dagger/dagger weapon set offers great CC and survivability as well as good damage and mobility. The main weakness of this weapon set is range and obvious skill animations which make is easier for your opponent to predict and counter what you're doing. Below is an overview of each attunement and skill.
FIRE
Fire is the attunement you will be doing most of your damage in. When swapping to fire attunement all allies within 360 range including yourself will receive 1 stack of might that lasts for 20 seconds.
Dragon's Claw: Generally you won't want to be spamming this attack but it's very good for finishing off a target when you're in close proximity.
Drake's Breath: This is a great skill against classes that have very little condi clear like shatter mesmers. It does a pretty good amount of DPS as well and can be useful for downed body cleave. It's also useful for putting burn on an opponent so you can maximize the damage of fire grab.
Burning Speed: This is one of your main damage dealers. Try to make sure you hit your opponenet(s) at the end of the of the travel distance so you hit them with the explosion. You can also use burning speed for mobility as it does have a pretty low cooldown.
Ring of Fire: This skill does pretty good damage both in the initial explosion and through burning damage. You opponents get 5 seconds of burning when they walk through the ring so try to place it where you can kite them through it. It's also a fire combo field so try to use your blast finishers in it to stack might.
Fire Grab: This skill has very high burst damage. It hits multiple foes but has a pretty small area of effect. It does considerably more damage to opponents who are burning so do your best to use it on burning foes. This skill is notoriously unreliable to use when your opponent is on a different z axis than you. Try not to use it on stairs and hills. You can however activate the skill and jump so you are on an equal plane with your opponent. This is usually the only way to hit someone on a different elevation.
WATER
Water is a mostly defensive attunement. Most of your heals come from water. When switching to your water attunement all allies within 240 range including yourself will get 6 seconds of regeneration as well as the buff "soothing mist" which will heal for 90 hp a second which in this build will remain for around 14 seconds after you switch to another attunement. Also with the water traits in this build you will remove 2 conditions every time you attune to water.
Vapor Blade: This is one of your longest range attacks but it moves very slow. It will hit any target it connects with both on the way out of your hands and when traveling back to you. It can put a decent amount of vulnerability on but it's generally not an efficient way to do damage. It's main use is to stack a bit of vulnerability while waiting for you other damage cooldowns to be reset and then burst with your fire skills before the vulnerability wears off.
Cone of Cold: This is a useful skill both for doing damage and healing yourself. Don't forget to use this as a heal when needed.
Frozen Burst: Pretty self explanatory. Generally you want to use this whenever you go into water but try to time it so your opponent can't clear the chill right away.
Frost Aura: This is an extremely useful skill for many reasons. With the trait "Zephyr's Boon" you get fury and swiftness for 6 seconds. It can be used offensively to give yourself fury and defensively to put chill on your opponent (2 seconds every time they hit you with a cooldown of 1 second per attacker). It's also very useful for mitigating burst as is does reduce incoming damage by 10%. If you are about to get bursted, activating this skill and switching to earth to get protection will give you 43% damage mitigation.
Cleansing Wave: This is one of your main sources of healing. It's an AOE heal so you'll want to use it for peels in team fights. It also cures a condition so it can be very useful to break an immobilize if your cantrips are on cooldown. Generally this is most useful against shatter mesmers when they immobilize you with their sword 3 but it's also good vs longbow/greatsword warriors to break the longbow 5 immobilize.
AIR
The air attunement is very versatile. It has most of your mobility, some CC, some damage and even some defensive abilities. When swapping to air attunement all allies within 360 range including yourself will receive 6 seconds of swiftness.
Lightning Whip: This is a great skill for putting pressure on your foe. It has a pretty large area of effect and does good damage. This skill is very useful for putting pressure on bunkers before you try to burst them down and it can do a lot of DPS vs squishies like backstab thieves and shatter mesmers.
Lightning Touch: This skill has a pretty long cast time for what it does but weakness is very good and can mitigate a lot of damage. This is great to use in team fights or if your 1v1 against a d/p thief and they go stealth to prepare a backstab. I wouldn't recommend using this skill too often mainly because of the high cast time and minimal area of effect.
Shocking Aura: As dagger/dagger ele it is vital for you to know exactly when to use this skill. It's very useful for interrupting combos by other classes such as a dagger/dagger eles burning speed combo or a warriors 100 blades combo. It only effects targets that are in melee range however. It's also important to use this skill to peel for allies when they are getting trained by activating this skill and running in between your ally and the person attacking him. You can also use this skill to give yourself fury if you need to burst a target down. Another use is to give yourself swiftness to get to a point of contention.
Ride The Lightning: Generally this skill should be used for mobility and to disengage from fights but sometimes it's a good idea to use it to burst down an opponent. A nice little trick is while sitting on point in clock tower on the Battle of Kyhlo you can jump and Ride The Lightning through a side window towards one of the side nodes. This is a great way to quickly get to a side point from mid.
Updraft: This is your most useful CC skill. It hits multiple opponents and is great for both setting up a fire combo and for disabling opponents trying to resurrect a teammate. Try to maximize the use of this skill by hitting more than 1 opponent in a team fight, interrupting and important ability (Signet of Undeath, Illusion of Life, Heal), land critical damage or to secure a ressurection or a stomp.
EARTH
Earth attunement has a little bit of everything. It has cc, damage and some defensive capability. When attuning to earth all allies within 240 range including yourself will receive protection for 6 seconds. It's very important to get in the habit of switching to earth when your about to get bursted so you can proc protection to mitigate the damage.
Impale: This skill is generally not effective at dealing damage unless your opponent is on a ledge above you and your just about to finish him off. Most earth skills will hit opponents who are on a higher elevation unlike skills from other attunements.
Ring of Earth: This skill does decent damage and applies a 3 second cripple so it can be very useful for training opponents and keeping them locked within melee range.
Magnetic Grasp: This is an extremely useful CC ability. Its great for closing distances on fleeing foes as well as locking down kiters. When your trying to cap/decap a point an your opponent is just about to get on point use this skill to immobilize them so you can get the cap/decap. Conversely, if your defending a point a someone is trying to backcap you can use this to either immobilize them (if they haven't got to the point yet) and then Magnetic Leap to the point for mobility. Also, Magnetic Leap is a leap finisher so you can create a fire aura on yourself when you leap through a fire field such as Ring of Fire. This is great because when you apply an aura on yourself you will get fury and swiftness for 7 seconds because of the trait Zephyr's Boon.
Earthquake: This is a great cc ability for locking opponents down so you and your allies can train them as well as interrupting resurrections. It's also a blast finisher so it's great to stack might after you have done your fire combo. Try to maximize the use of this skill by hitting more than 1 opponent in a team fight, interrupting and important ability (Signet of Undeath, Illusion of Life, Heal), land critical damage or to secure a ressurection or stomp.
Churning Earth: This is a very high burst skill that also applies a decent amount of condition damage. This skill provides a huge chunk of damage in this build so it's important to use it effectively. One of the best uses for it is to punish opponents trying to resurrect.
UTILITIES
Signet of Restoration: Generally you will want to keep this skill off cooldown unless it's going to make a difference of you surviving or not. If you are engaging in a large team fight it's very smart to tank as much damage as you can so your squishies can do the damage they need. If it's a 5v5 team fight you'll usually want to use this heal near the end of the fight so as to maximize your effective HP and tank as much damage as possible. Usually if it's a 5v5 the skill will be off cooldown before the next engagement so it does no harm to active the signet near the end of a large engagement. Also, since you heal whenever you use a skill (as long as the signet is off cooldown) it's a good habit to continue auto attacking whenever possible (unless you have confusion on you). For instance, if you need to step away from a fight for a few seconds for some heals to come off cooldown, keep auto attacking to get some extra heals. Very few players do this but it does make a difference.
Lightning Flash: This is one of the most important skills in this build. It has a tremendous amount of synergy with other skills. It's great for mobility, disengaging from fights, avoiding burst combos as well as setting up your own combos. You can use it to extend the range of many of your skills without interrupting the channel or cast. Some useful applications of this are in the Basic Gameplay section of this guide where the rotations are listed.
Mist Form: This is a vital skill for survival as well as utility. It can help you avoid massive amounts of damage from high burst classes. Keep in mind however, if you use mist form while on a point you technically have no presence on the point so even if you are on the point while in mist form it can get decapped/capped if you have no other allies on the point. There a couple tricks with mist form that greatly add to it's utility. You can stomp and resurrect allies while in mist form so you cannot be damaged or cc'd. Just make sure you start the stomp or resurrection before mist form. Also, Mist form will allow you to pass barriers put up by guardians such as Line of Warding or Ring of Warding. It will also let you get out of Entangling Roots.
Cleansing Fire: This is a pretty good skill when fighting condition comps but not very good against all power comps. Sometimes it is worth swapping this skill out for either Armor of Earth or Arcane Wave. It is very rare to see a 100% power comp that has no condition pressure but it's something to keep in mind. Also, something that is often overlooked is the fact that this skill applies 3 seconds of AOE burning. This can be very useful for getting the maximize damage out of Fire Grab. There are some interesting combos provided in the combo section of this guide that use this skill offensively.
Glyph of Elementals: To be honest, Elementalists have some of the worst elites for pvp. This skill is not very useful for anything but small skirmishes as the pet dies too quickly in team fights. Also the skills they use activate very infrequent and unreliably. It can be a great help in 1v1's though so that's why it's the preferred choice. The fire elemental is usually the best one to use mainly because of its damage. It has a range auto attack and a melee AOE attack that do pretty good damage. I use this in most fights unless I'm trying to hold a point in an outnumbered fight in which case I'll use the water elemental which does an AOE 6k heal and it will also apply an AOE chill similar to the skill Frozen Burst. The earth elemental will apply 3 seconds of protection that is AOE while the air elemental will stun foes for 1 second and give AOE swiftness. Tornado is also another good option for this build and in some cases better. If you know you will need to 1v1 a class that doesn't run stability and either defend or neutralize a node this is probably a better option. Also if your team needs a stronger team fight I would consider either Tornado or Conjure Fiery Greatsword depending on the comp your team and the opposing team is running.
II. Traits
Fire Magic
Air Magic
Earth Magic
Water Magic
Arcana
Trait Details
For a D/D there is very few options as far as an optimal trait setup. 30 points in arcana is a must. Both for the the attunement recharge rate and the traits provided. 30 in water is also vital to your survival. The 10 points in air adds a lot to your overall DPS. This is by far the most common trait setup for D/D Elementalists in PvP.
AIR MAGIC
Zephyr's Speed: This trait is only really useful when traveling from point to point but in all honesty it doesn't do much.
Zephyr's Boon: This is a vital skill to your overall DPS as it gives you fury which is a huge boost to overall DPS. This can also help to give you swiftness if you need to get to a point quickly.
WATER MAGIC
Soothing Mist: This buff will heal you and all allies within a 240 radius for 90 hp a second which in this build will remain for around 14 seconds after you switch to another attunement.
Soothing Disruption: This skill not only gives you permanent vigor when paired with Renewing Stamina and it also allows your each use of your Cantrips to remove 1 condition when paired with the trait Cleansing Water. However sometimes I do choose to swap this out for cleansing wave for additional condition cleanse.
Healing Ripple: This will heal you for the same amount as Cleansing Wave (1602 in this build) in a radius of 240 every time you attune to water. This is a vital trait and it's very important to wait until your in range of the ally you are peeling for before attuning to water so they are in range of this heal.
Cantrip Mastery: This is pretty self explanatory.
Bountiful Power: This one is pretty straight forward. On average when you're 1v1ing you will sustain 3-5 boons while in team fights usually 4-7 depending on your team comp. This trait has good synergy with Zephyr's Boon and Soothing Disruption because the more boons you have the more damage you will be doing.
Cleansing Water: This is a very important trait as it accounts for a lot of your condition cleanse. With this trait you will clear 1 condition every time you attune to water or use a Cantrip.
ARCANA
Arcane Fury: This is a useful skill for adding to your crit chance on certain burst combos. Since Fury stacks in duration it allows you to maintain in good amount of fury up time.
Elemental Attunement: This is one of the best traits an Elementalist has. It accounts for a significant amount of your survivability. The protection boon when attuning to earth is extremely useful and often times is the difference between life and death.
Lingering Elements: In this build, this trait only affects the movement speed increase from Zephyr's Speed and the buff from Soothing Mist. It does not affect the fury you get from Arcane Fury.
Renewing Stamina: This trait provides a substantial amount of vigor which pairs very well with Evasive Arcana.
Arcana Precision: This trait will proc a condition depending on the attunement you are in. Fire will proc 1 second of burning, Water is 1 stack of vulnerability for 9 seconds, Air is 3 seconds of weakness and Earth is 1 stack of bleeding for 5 seconds. This skill has around a 7.5% chance to proc.
Evasive Arcana: This trait is one of the defining aspects of this build. This trait MUST be utilized to it's max potential for this build to be optimized. The Cleansing Wave from water is crucial to your survivability and should be used as much as possible. Also the "Churning Earth" that is actived when in Earth is not the same as the Churning Earth from your dagger weapon set. It does significantly less damage, is a smaller AOE, and it only applies one 20 second bleed and a 2 second cripple. It is a blast finisher however, so you'll want to use this on your Fire Ring fire field to stack might. Also, the Blinding Flash is very useful and is especially good at blinding down bodies so a teammate can get a stomp. This is a very over-looked use of this trait. Another tricky thing you can do is dodge roll into your opponent in fire to put a 5 second burn on them which does pretty good DPS and allows you to setup a max damage Firegrab easier. This is one of the best ways to setup your Firegrab.
III. Stat Specifics & Effects
Primary Stats
- Health 23645 (+12000)
- Vitality 2116 (+1200)
- Armor 2736 (+900)
- Toughness 1816 (+900)
- Attack 3311 (+1414)
- Power 2291 (+1375)
- Critical Hit 5% (+5%)
- Precision 1016 (+100)
Secondary Stats
- Attunement Recharge Rate 30% (+30%)
- Boon Duration 30% (+30%)
- Critical Damage 9% (+9%)
- Damage 1020 (+4%)
- Defense 920 (+0)
- Ferocity 135 (+135)
- Healing Power 300 (+300)
Boons
Conditions
Control
Fields & Finishers
Stat and Effect Details
This build has pretty good power at 2004 but if you are stacking might with good skill rotations you should have 4-10 stacks of might consistently. In a team fight this number can easily double as you do provide 3 blast finishers (Earthquake, Churning Earth, and Evasive Arcana in earth) and 2 fire combo fields (Burning Speed and Ring of Fire). Also with this build you generally should be able to stay alive for the majority of the match so often times you'll be running around with an additional 250 power from the 25 stacks of bloodlust. All in all, this build can do very good damage once it gets rolling.
IV. Runes, Sigils, Accessories & Jewels
Armor & Runes
- Power: 25
- Ferocity: 35
- Power: 50
- 25% chance when struck to summon a rock dog. (Cooldown: 90 seconds)
- Power: 100
- Damage: 4%
- Power: 25
- Ferocity: 35
- Power: 50
- 25% chance when struck to summon a rock dog. (Cooldown: 90 seconds)
- Power: 100
- Damage: 4%
- Power: 25
- Ferocity: 35
- Power: 50
- 25% chance when struck to summon a rock dog. (Cooldown: 90 seconds)
- Power: 100
- Damage: 4%
- Power: 25
- Ferocity: 35
- Power: 50
- 25% chance when struck to summon a rock dog. (Cooldown: 90 seconds)
- Power: 100
- Damage: 4%
- Power: 25
- Ferocity: 35
- Power: 50
- 25% chance when struck to summon a rock dog. (Cooldown: 90 seconds)
- Power: 100
- Damage: 4%
- Power: 25
- Ferocity: 35
- Power: 50
- 25% chance when struck to summon a rock dog. (Cooldown: 90 seconds)
- Power: 100
- Damage: 4%
Rune Stat Totals
- Power 175
- Ferocity 35
- Damage 4%
Rune Bonuses
PvP Rune of the Ogre- Power: 25
- Ferocity: 35
- Power: 50
- 25% chance when struck to summon a rock dog. (Cooldown: 90 seconds)
- Power: 100
- Damage: 4%
Accessories & Jewels
Accessory Totals
- Power:1200
- Toughness:900
- Vitality:900
Weapon Set Sigils
- Weapon Strength: 924-981
- Weapon Strength: 924-981
Weapon Set I
Sigil of Superior BloodlustYou gain +10 power each time you kill a foe. (max 25 stacks and ends on down or weapon change)
Sigil of Superior EnergyYou gain 50% of your endurance when you swap to this weapon while in combat. (This effect cannot trigger more than once every 9s)
- Weapon Strength: 905-1000
Water Weapon I
Sigil of Superior LeechingYour next attack after swapping to this weapon while in combat steals some health.
Upgrade Item Details
AMULET/JEWEL
Most Eles choose to use a Valkyrie's amulet with a Berserker's jewel. The reason I choose Soldier's is because with all things considered, the damage increase from Valkyrie's (which is vastly over estimated) isn't worth the massive amount of survivability you gain with Soldier's. Using Soldier's allows you to stick in fights longer and be more aggressive and it has great synergy with Sigil of Bloodlust as you should be able to maintain 25 stacks of bloodlust (250 additional power) for the majority of the match. You're also able to run a pure damage rune set and not be too squishy which means overall, you will be doing more damage than if you were running Valkyrie's.
In doing the math, I found that even if you use every heal skill as often as possible (Cleansing Wave water 5, Cleansing Wave from Evasive Arcana, Cone of Cold, and signet heal with 1 attack per second) in a 50 second window (to accommodate Cleansing Wave from water 5 and Cone of Cold cast time), Valkyrie's gives 4074 more in healing than Soldier's but Soldier's gives 5690 more total HP which is not affected by poison and is more valuable vs burst damage. Also, consider that doing this max heal rotation sacrifices a lot of damage and utility from other skills. If fact it takes just over 69 seconds of this rotation to match the total effective HP of Soldier's and it is very unlikely you will be able to complete this rotation without being poisoned and CC'd. Realistically, I estimate it takes at a minimum 3 minutes of constant fighting (in a non 1v1 situation) for Valkyrie's amulet to match the effective HP of Soldier's. Another bonus to running Soldier's is if you need to reset from a fight (disengage entirely and reset your HP pool) you will essentially get an additional 5690 heal that you wouldn't get from Valkyrie's which is MASSIVE. This alone would probably make Soldier's more useful than Valkyrie's but fortunately there are multiple other factors that make this decision very clear.
RUNES
I choose Runes of The Ogre because they add a lot of DPS to this build as well as strong 1v1 capability. The rock dog can hit very hard and is especially useful for 1v1's on a node. In a team fight the rock dog will die very quickly so if you're not worried about having to 1v1 other good options here are Runes of Divinity (less damage but more survivability) or Runes of The Pack. Runes of The Pack add a lot of DPS to most Elementalist builds and are very rarely used. If you don't think you'll need to 1v1 at all I would suggest Runes of The Pack for this build.
SIGILS
Energy Sigil: This has great synergy with Evasive Arcana as often times you will be using your dodge rolls offensively. The Energy Sigil paired with permanent vigor is what allows you to get the most out of Evasive Arcana which is a vital to this build.
Sigil of Superior Bloodlust: This sigil is very useful because generally you should be staying alive for the majority of the match so you'll get a huge damage increase from this sigil. Some players decide to run Sigil of Minor Accuracy which will generally give you more consistent damage but far less burst potential and overall effective DPS. Other options here would be Sigil of Force which will provide more damage if you have less than 10 stacks of bloodlust (2 confirmed kills) but less damage at 15 or more stacks of bloodlust and Sigil of Accuracy which when compared to Sigil of Force will do less burst damage and overall DPS but more consistent damage. Overall, I find the stacking sigils far more effective considering you will be able to stay alive or escape most fights and the max potential is significantly higher.
V. Basic Gameplay
Playing an Elementalist gives you many options (20 skills with every weapon set) so you'll need to think quickly to figure out how you'll have the most impact depending on the circumstances. You'll want to have a good understanding of most roles so you can mobile and have good rotations from point to point, back cap, defend back caps, pressure/train opponents, support/peel for allies, DPS downed bodies with AOE, resurrect downed allies, bunker a point and CC when needed. You are useful in nearly every situation so it's important to be able to prioritize well and identify what is needed most.
One of the most important skills of an Elementalist is to manage cooldowns and swap attunements as efficiently as possible. With some time, you will be able to keep a mental counter of what skills are on cooldown so you know whether or not to swap into a specific attunement. Reviewing recordings of yourself playing is a great tool for improvement. For me, it's been essential in identifying areas of opportunity. One of the biggest mistakes I see Elementalists make is using the same skill chains repeatedly instead of responding and reacting to each unique situation. It can be effective to use a predetermined combo regardless of what your opponent is doing but this is a flawed methodology. You will always be better off reacting to each specific situation. As an ele it can be easy to fall into bad habits and use the same skill rotations so its essential to predict your opponents actions so you can stay one step ahead of them and counter what they are doing.
Main Skill Rotation
This is a great big damage combo for non 1v1 situations. Make sure you start channeling the Churning Earth on the outskirts of a fight and then swap to air about 3/4 of the way through the channel, activate Shocking Aura and Lightning Flash right before the channel completes. I try to target my Lightning Flash so the Churning Earth will hit as many opponents as possible but also try to teleport onto an opponent. Often times, because you activated Shocking Aura, your foe will be stunned which will ensure the Churning Earth hits. Also, throw in a dodge roll right after you Earthquake while in your Ring of Fire to get 3 stacks of might.
Quick Burst DPS
This is a great combo vs ultra squishies. Make sure to start the Earthquake channel and Lightning Flash onto your opponent before the Earthquake channel completes. Also, the cleansing fire will complete before the channel of fire grab completes so the target will have burning on them when the Fire Grab hits. With 25 stacks of bloodlust, you can instagib ultra squishies from range, relatively untelegraphed, with a teleport in under 1.5 seconds with this combo. If the target already has burning on them, don't use the Cleansing Fire.
Burst Mitigation
If you are about to get bursted by power damage this is the ideal way to defend yourself if you are unable to dodge roll or if Mist Form and Shocking Aura and unavailable.
Popular Burst Rotation
Use this one sparingly as most experienced players will dodge right before you hit them with Ride the Lightning which will cause you to miss both ride the lightning and the updraft. Generally I use this combo only when I am bursting down an opponent who I know is unable to avoid the Ride the Lightning/Updraft or when I'm so close to an opponent that they wont have enough time to react to the Ride the Lightning/Updraft.
Lightning Flash Burning Speed Combo
To extend the range of Burning Speed, control your position and do a little extra damage, start channeling the skill and before it completes, Lightning Flash on top of you opponent. This can be very useful for chasing down fleeing opponents, surprising them and covering up the skill animation so it's harder to dodge and for maintaining your position (not falling off a cliff or staying on a point so it doesn't get de-capped).
Lightning Flash Earthquake Combo
Start channeling an Earthquake and right before the channel completes Lightning Flash onto your opponent. This is extremely useful for both interrupting skills/stomps/resurrections from a distance and chasing fleeing opponents.
Lightning Flash Fire Grab Combo
Begin channeling a Fire Grab and surprise your opponent with a long range high damage combo that can be very difficult to avoid. You'll want to be quick with this one as you have just under 3/4 of a second to target the Lightning Flash and activate Cleansing Fire. If the target already has burning on them, don't use the Cleansing Fire.
Lightning Flash Updraft Combo
Similar to the Earthquake combo, you can use Updraft to interrupted important skills and adding in the Lightning Flash gives you a near instant 900 range AOE 2+ second CC. Updraft has no cast time however so you'll want to Lightning Flash before you activate Updraft.
VI. Tips and Tricks
PREGAME BUFF STACKING COMBO
At the beginning of each round make sure you have a staff and scepter to give yourself 250 extra toughness for 30 seconds while providing your entire team with 36 seconds of swiftness. Your teammates will love you for doing this ^^
1. start with scepter in earth attunement
2. use earth 2
3. equip your staff
4. use earth 2
5. use earth 3
6. swap to air
7. use air 5 on the earth 2 combo field
8. use air 4
9. re-equip your daggers
VII. Closing
Playing an Elementalist can be a challenge at first but with some time and diligence the class is very rewarding to play. Thank you for taking the time to read my guide. I'm happy to answer questions so feel free to whisper me in game at Batmang.5421. Thanks again and good luck! ^^
...and remember, if all else fails, CLEAVE WITH LIGHTNING WHIP o.O
- B L I N X
Sal