Am I missing something?

I've recently added 2 Superior Runes to my armor which dropped my Health to 255. Up until now I've got made due with a few Minor Runes and a plus here and there from items. Yesterday, I went on the Abbadon's Mouth mission and couldn't stay alive to, well, save my life. The Ether Seal's Chain Lightning quickly got me to -55% DP which meant on res I would die again (actually was quite funny). A candy cane later and about 12 resses I managed to get up and going again. Later when you have to face the 6 Ether Seals before the door the same thing happened again! Go me. I got mad skillz.

I've always prided myself on trying not getting aggro, being a team player, staying in the back, and doing my best not to be a drain on the Mo folks in the group so this death and dying scenario is quite new to me. I'm wondering how other Ele deal with this? Should I have multiple sets of armors that only have the runes that I actually need for a mission? Have I just got lazy with 480HP and I should just pay better attention?

The prefered setup for most professions involve 1 superior rune attached to the helm of choice that matches the same characteristic the helm has(unless a +2 &+3 split is prefered to a +1 &+4), with a superior vigor to keep your hp high and not cause you to be a priority target for the AI. Then keep different weapons and head armor combinations for the other elements and switch as needed.

The only reason to tank hp like that, is to try a gimmic 105/55hp build focused around monk skills such as prot spirit or necromancer skills like aura of the lich.

What Phades said. I have a hat with a superior rune for each of the four elements. I even have a second hat with a minor fire rune to switch to in cases when I have a ton of DP, but in practice I never use that.

There are a few cases in which one might want 2 sup runes, one for your principal damage attribute and one for the profession's primary attribute. E.g., I'm probably going to do that soon for my MM, since the heavy emphasis on saccing (and the extreme ability to avoid aggro) make max HP less important than for most other builds, and because Soul Reaping ROCKS in an MM build. But I don't think +6 max energy plus a few more points of health/minute justifies a Sup rune of Energy Storage in any build I can think of. Maybe if I ran Ether Prodigy more consistently I'd feel differently, or if I wanted to play an Ether Renewal build in which I needed to invest heavily in a third attribute.

i got 2 sup runes on my ele all the time, but i also have a maj vigor and a millus eye (+45 hp when enchanted), so i get away with 427 hp (i think...)

As the others said, matching Sup rune to each of the helmets. Major vigor, minor energy storage, and two other minors on the rest of your armor. HP for the Ele is precious since we already have relatively poor armor.

I tend to have minor water and air on my remaining 2 pieces of armor since they are the elements i use least in PvE. I also carry all pairs of wands/artifacts so I can switch builds quickly without having to rummage through storage.

I used to carry around all four sets of 1.5K Droks armors to switch depending on the situation, but now I just use my 15k Aero since the updated armors are now 10/10.

Perhaps equip Mantra of Lightning to reduce the damage from the Ether towers and at the same time gain energy And if you want go Earth build with Armor of earth, Kinetic armor, Obsidian armor, Ward Against Elements, Aura of Res...

do you have 1k?

buy millus eye offhand

D'oh! It was me. I ran with the same armor setup last night and the same thing happened again so it is definately a bad choice for PvE.

Thanks for the tips folks! I'll definately get me separate Eyes with each of the Superior Runes on them and drop those on the armor.