Breaking Energy Denial with Focus Swap
Originally Published by Inde
by Ensign
Energy Denial
Energy denial is an extremely effective - and popular - strategy for small scale confrontations, and they've come to the forefront of discussions as of late. Several people seem to be advocates of trying to lock an opponent's energy down, rendering them unable to use energy based skills at all - and, granted, that's currently extremely effective. But it isn't effective because the victims are truly helpless, it's effective because they're clueless. A good player laughs at an opponent who tries to energy lock them, breaking out of it with minimal effort and punishing them for trying to do something so silly.
Naturally, if an expert can do it, you can too.
What you need:
1. A shield. A vanilla +6 AL shield with no requirements works great - a rare shield with good mods, even if you don't meet the requirements, could be even better. You could even use nothing here - as long as it doesn't have +energy, you're free to do whatever you want.
2.A focus, +10 energy or better.
Negative Energy PvE items do exist if you can get your hand on one for PvP the more power to you. Particularly the Cities Of Ascalon (Symon the Scribe, post-sear Ascalon City) quest reward scroll. It offers you +25 health, +5 armor, and a net -2 energy. It is only a 50% chance reward though, so you may have to repeat the quest.
How it works:
The key to breaking energy denial locks is understanding how a focus works. When you equip a +10 focus, you gain 10 max energy *and* 10 current energy. When you unequip that focus, you lose 10 max energy and 10 current energy. A focus is just an energy battery - it gives you power when you use it, and you lose the power when you unequip it.
If you unequip a focus at low energy, you will drop down into a negative current energy. While negative your energy still regenerates and degenerates as normal. So if you're at 6 energy and unequip your +10 focus, you'll drop down to -4 energy, and it will take you three seconds before you'll hit zero energy again. You could re-equip the focus at any time to regain the 10 max and current energy, just as though you had never unequipped it.
How to play:
Raise your hand if you've thought about going into a caster duel with a focus equipped. Those of you with your hands up have made a fundamental, gamebreaking mistake before you've even cast your first spell. You don't gain anything from having a focus equipped from the start - the focus doesn't matter until you've burned through your normal energy reserves, and are down to that 10 energy that the focus grants you. The difference between having a focus equipped and in reserve? Your opponent can't destroy energy that you don't have. If you're at 20 energy with a focus equipped, an enemy can destroy your energy with an Energy Drain, dropping you to 2 - however, if you had a shield equipped instead, you'd only have 10 current energy, with the Drain only netting 10. You could re-equip the focus at any time to immediately jump back up to 10 energy, and cast whatever you wanted.
That's how you break out of energy locks - by only equipping a focus when you need to, you have a reserve of energy the size of your focus that your opponent cannot touch. Let's say that everything has failed, and you're down to zero energy - with your shield equipped. Your opponent can't do anything else to hurt your energy. But you can still cast - the instant before you want to cast a spell, swap in your +energy focus, kicking your current energy up to 10+. Cast your spell, then immediately unequip your focus again. This should drop you down into negative energy, where you're still regenerating energy but your opponent cannot touch it. Once you've regenerated a bit, you can swap your focus back in and blast away yet again. With just a +10 energy focus in reserve, your opponent can never prevent you from casting 10 energy spells, not matter how many Energy Drains and Ether Feasts they throw at you.
Conclusion
So use this to your advantage. The next time someone tries to Ether Feast you when you're at 3 energy, don't resign yourself to losing in an energy denial lock - quick swap in a focus and Power Leak the bastard. He'll never see it coming.
To leave comments and feedback on this article, please see the forum thread: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=118057
Energy Denial
Energy denial is an extremely effective - and popular - strategy for small scale confrontations, and they've come to the forefront of discussions as of late. Several people seem to be advocates of trying to lock an opponent's energy down, rendering them unable to use energy based skills at all - and, granted, that's currently extremely effective. But it isn't effective because the victims are truly helpless, it's effective because they're clueless. A good player laughs at an opponent who tries to energy lock them, breaking out of it with minimal effort and punishing them for trying to do something so silly.
Naturally, if an expert can do it, you can too.
What you need:
1. A shield. A vanilla +6 AL shield with no requirements works great - a rare shield with good mods, even if you don't meet the requirements, could be even better. You could even use nothing here - as long as it doesn't have +energy, you're free to do whatever you want.
2.A focus, +10 energy or better.
Negative Energy PvE items do exist if you can get your hand on one for PvP the more power to you. Particularly the Cities Of Ascalon (Symon the Scribe, post-sear Ascalon City) quest reward scroll. It offers you +25 health, +5 armor, and a net -2 energy. It is only a 50% chance reward though, so you may have to repeat the quest.
How it works:
The key to breaking energy denial locks is understanding how a focus works. When you equip a +10 focus, you gain 10 max energy *and* 10 current energy. When you unequip that focus, you lose 10 max energy and 10 current energy. A focus is just an energy battery - it gives you power when you use it, and you lose the power when you unequip it.
If you unequip a focus at low energy, you will drop down into a negative current energy. While negative your energy still regenerates and degenerates as normal. So if you're at 6 energy and unequip your +10 focus, you'll drop down to -4 energy, and it will take you three seconds before you'll hit zero energy again. You could re-equip the focus at any time to regain the 10 max and current energy, just as though you had never unequipped it.
How to play:
Raise your hand if you've thought about going into a caster duel with a focus equipped. Those of you with your hands up have made a fundamental, gamebreaking mistake before you've even cast your first spell. You don't gain anything from having a focus equipped from the start - the focus doesn't matter until you've burned through your normal energy reserves, and are down to that 10 energy that the focus grants you. The difference between having a focus equipped and in reserve? Your opponent can't destroy energy that you don't have. If you're at 20 energy with a focus equipped, an enemy can destroy your energy with an Energy Drain, dropping you to 2 - however, if you had a shield equipped instead, you'd only have 10 current energy, with the Drain only netting 10. You could re-equip the focus at any time to immediately jump back up to 10 energy, and cast whatever you wanted.
That's how you break out of energy locks - by only equipping a focus when you need to, you have a reserve of energy the size of your focus that your opponent cannot touch. Let's say that everything has failed, and you're down to zero energy - with your shield equipped. Your opponent can't do anything else to hurt your energy. But you can still cast - the instant before you want to cast a spell, swap in your +energy focus, kicking your current energy up to 10+. Cast your spell, then immediately unequip your focus again. This should drop you down into negative energy, where you're still regenerating energy but your opponent cannot touch it. Once you've regenerated a bit, you can swap your focus back in and blast away yet again. With just a +10 energy focus in reserve, your opponent can never prevent you from casting 10 energy spells, not matter how many Energy Drains and Ether Feasts they throw at you.
Conclusion
So use this to your advantage. The next time someone tries to Ether Feast you when you're at 3 energy, don't resign yourself to losing in an energy denial lock - quick swap in a focus and Power Leak the bastard. He'll never see it coming.
To leave comments and feedback on this article, please see the forum thread: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=118057
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