Spotlight on Skills #9
Originally Published by Sausaletus Rex
Every so often this column will shine the spotlight on a particular skill or set of skills for an in-depth analysis of just what that skill can do for you and the best ways to make it work. Keep in mind that Guild Wars is still under development and the information in this column is subject to swift and drastic change.
We turn on the spotlight again to view another suite of skills. Today, we take a look at:
An oft-overlooked benefit to picking up the Elementalist is access to a subset of skills known as glyphs. These six skills are unique to the Elementalist skill list and distinctive enough mechanically to merit their own classification. So just what are glyphs? They’re picture perfect examples of meta-skills. Skills that exist solely to make other skills better. By themselves they’re useless but when used in combination with another skill they can make that skill faster, stronger, cheaper, or better in some way, shape, or form.
Probably the best news concerning glyphs is that they’re all unlinked. None of them has any variable in its effect that an attribute will increase so they can be used by any character regardless of their attributes or profession makeup. The effects of the glyphs vary, of course, but each costs five energy and takes one second to cast with that additional .75 second aftercast. In effect, they add a bit of energy cost and casting time cost to any spell in order to alter it in some way. Once used a glyph remains sitting in your displayed effects similar to an enchantment or a stance, a benefit with a duration, but one that will be canceled as soon as it takes effect. Basically, glyphs don’t need to affect a spell right away; they can be cast in advance and will “enchant” your character until that next spell is cast – not activated. Multiple glyphs cannot stack, as, like a stance, casting a new glyph will override an earlier one. But that singular glyph will remain for a good length of time – all glyph “enchantments” have a duration of fifteen seconds which is equal to or greater than the recharge of all but one glyph – just waiting for your character to use that next spell so you can buff with a glyph well before combat takes place.
Note that most Glyphs work only with spells classified as spells and not with any skill you might like to use. If you use a skill that’s not a spell the effort you put into casting that glyph will be wasted. They’re useful, then, only to a character that’s going to be casting spells. But as spells are found on four of the six profession’s skill lists, that’s quite a large cross-section.
As they have an appreciable casting time glyphs can be interrupted before they’re activated and as they do cost energy, albeit not much, anything that’s denying an opponent energy can hamper their ability to cast glyphs. They’re not spells so a Power Drain won’t work but a Disrupting Chop will. Otherwise, there’s not much you can do about the glyph itself. There’s no way of removing an active glyph from a character nor of preventing its effects on the next spell they cast. What can work to counter glyphs, though, is to prevent an opponent from spell casting. That glyph will make their spells better but the point is moot if they can’t use spells in the first place.
Now, let’s go over the various glyphs available to see just what they can offer a spell caster. First, we’ll look at what’s probably the most well known glyph. It’s the one that any Elementalist who takes a trip out to Wizard’s Folly to speak with Aziure will have and one that’s probably a staple of most Elementalist’s skill bars in the early goings I’m speaking about the Glyph of Lesser Energy.
The benefit here, of course, is that you’ll slice fifteen energy off of the cost of your spell for a cost of five energy – a net savings of ten energy. Also not to be overlooked is that additional 1.75 casting time. Glyph of Lesser Energy recharges in thirty seconds so you won’t be adding too much to your casting time but you will be adding some. In effect, the tradeoff here is to sacrifice a bit of time management for a bit of energy management.
Of course, you’ll only maximize that energy management if you’re using Glyph of Lesser Energy in conjunction with spells that cost at least fifteen energy. The Glyph can be used with spells that cost less but over the long haul you won’t save as much. As energy management, then, it will reduce your casting costs by ten energy every thirty seconds (Actually, every 31.75 but let’s not get too picky.) or roughly one energy every three seconds. That figure should sound hauntingly familiar because, of course, it’s the same amount as a pip of energy regeneration. If you use Glyph of Lesser Energy with a fifteen energy spell as often as you can what you’ve done is the equivalent of gaining a pip. You’ll be spending energy though but your four pip Elementalist will be able to spend it as though they actually have five.
Which is not bad, it’s not terribly good as there are far better options that will gain your character a lot more energy, but if you’re throwing around a lot of high cost spells then mitigating their cost over the long run, which is what Glyph of Lesser Energy is for, can certainly be worth the slot that this glyph would take up.
There is, however, another way of looking at Glyph of Lesser Energy. Rather than considering it over a lengthy period of time, consider it when used in spurts. What it does is allow you to wipe out the cost of most spells, which means that, in the short term, your character builds a decent energy advantage over an opponent. In the early stages of a battle such an advantage can be a decisive factor. If you’re planning on spending a lot of energy on an opening move then using Glyph of Lesser Energy means you’ll be able to add another spell to your flurry of damage.
Also, since it can be cast well before you use the skill it’s discounting, if you consider it in the context of a string of spells rather than a full battle, the cost of the spell it’s used with is largely irrelevant. After you spend the five energy it takes to cast it an Elementalist only need wait for an additional two seconds after it’s finished casting to recover the full five energy. They’re then walking around with a full energy bar and with an enchantment making their next spell – provided it costs fifteen energy or less - free. Obviously, it works best with a spell that’s high cost but that energy advantage, that having more energy than an opponent allowing you to be more flexible, remains regardless of the cost of that spell. The glyph will remain on a character for a long time so it’s something your character can do to buff up before the gates open in the Arena or when approaching the next mob in PvE.
Next, we’ll move on to Glyph of Lesser Energy’s big brother, Glyph of Energy.
As with Glyph of Lesser Energy, it reduces the cost of your next spell. Here, it’s twenty energy as opposed to fifteen. So you’ll net fifteen energy as opposed to Glyph of Lesser Energy’s ten. Why does a difference of five energy make one skill elite and the other normal? The answer lies in the recharge time for Glyph of Energy. It’s fifteen seconds, not thirty. So in the time that Glyph of Lesser Energy will save your character ten energy, Glyph of Energy will save them thirty. That’s thirty energy in thirty seconds, fifteen energy in fifteen seconds, or one energy every second. Or the rough equivalent of not one, but three pips of regeneration. (Rough thanks to the additional casting time added by popping off of glyph every now and then. Really, it’s something like .9 energy every second but, as I said, let’s not get too picky).
That’s in an ideal world, though, because to get that sort of energy management you’ll need to be using spells that can be reduced in cost by twenty energy. And you’ll need to have one of them ready to go every 16.75 seconds. That means that short of doing something like using Mantra of Recovery unlinked with fifteen energy spells you’re stuck using the spells that cost twenty-five energy to begin with. And those spells that cost twenty-five energy are, by and large, useless. Look at Fire Magic, for example and spot the twenty-five energy spells. Sure, there’s Meteor and Meteor Shower and Searing Heat and everyone’s favorite Mark of Rodgort but take a look not at the energy cost of those spells but at the casting times. They’re big, clunky spells with lengthy casting times to begin with. Adding Glyph of Energy to them means you’ll be adding even more time casting where you’re not getting the benefit of that spell.
Or course, you’ll still gain roughly two pips by using Glyph of Energy with fifteen energy spells. And there are much more appealing options there, to be sure. But to do so you’re not just spending 1.75 seconds out of every 16.75 casting your glyph – that’s about 11% of your time, by the way, just to make your spells cheaper – you’re also using up your elite slot. And that means of all the elites available to your character you’ve settled on Glyph of Energy as the best. Which likely isn’t the case. There are better elites that can give your character better energy management. And there are better elites that can add a lot more power to your character. It can work but it’s probably not the best idea even if there weren’t a non-elite version of the skill laying around in Glyph of Lesser Energy.
From one elite glyph to the next. It’s Glyph of Renewal’s turn.
Like Glyph of Energy it’s five energy every fifteen seconds to make your next spell better. However, what you’re trading here is not time management for energy management but the opposite. By giving up some energy you’re cutting the recharge time of a spell in half, meaning you can cast it a lot more often. Of course, to cast it twice as often you’ll spend twice the energy to do so. So, you’re really adding not just five energy but five energy and the cost of the spell. Because, if you’re not using this glyph on a spell you want to cast as often as possible you’re misusing it horribly.
All it does is to lower a recharge time letting you cast a spell more often. For example, take the skill Maelstrom, which costs twenty-five energy to cast every thirty, seconds with a four second casting time. By using Glyph of Renewal first you’ll cut that recharge time to fifteen seconds letting you cast two Maelstroms in that thirty seconds. Of course, you’ll spend not twenty-five energy but fifty-five doing so – the difference between spending .8 energy a second and spending 1.8 – and you’ll add 1.75 seconds to that healthy 4.75 second casting time.
Glyph of Renewal works best with skills with thirty second recharge times, of course, as it means that as Glyph of Renewal recharges to be used your amped up spell is also getting ready to be reused and you can keep chaining the two together. Spells that take longer to recharge won’t be ready in time to get the most out of Glyph of Renewal and spells that take less will be ready too quickly. Rather than letting you double the amount you can use a spell, when you use Glyph of Renewal with a spell with a recharge under thirty seconds, you’re talking about using a spell three times instead of two or less. It’s an advantage not to be underestimated but it’s a drop in the percentile increase to your spell’s availability so you’re not optimizing your potential.
If glyphs were instant cast, Glyph of Renewal would be an excellent skill. Managing your casting time is as big of, if not more of, an advantage as properly managing your energy. Being able to slam an opponent with rapid-fire skills allows you to set the temp, allows you to overwhelm defenses, allows you to increase your chances of winning any matchup. However, Glyph of Renewal is time management that takes time itself to work. It needs 1.75 seconds every 16.75 seconds in order to allow you to cast more frequently. Everything it allows you to do better needs to be squeezed into those remaining 15 seconds. It’s not a huge deal but when you want to put your casting to as much of an effect as possible it’s not the best idea ever to pause every now and then to cast a skill that’s not doing damage or healing or anything other than letting you do those things better. There’s also the problem of energy management here. You’ll be spending five energy every fifteen seconds before even considering the cost of your spells, and that means you’ve just blown a pip of energy to allow your character to chain cast even better.
Since Glyph of Renewal is elite it’s probably a bit subpar for most characters. The best energy management skills are, by and large, elite and you won’t be getting much use out of Glyph of Renewal without solid energy management. Given what else is available for a characters elite slot, it’s hard to see this skill making the cut. Still, it’s a skill that offers a lot of power and would be far and away too strong were it just a normal skill. It’s not bad by any stretch, it’s just that when you only have one elite slot you’re looking for the most broken and abusive skill you can find. Decent doesn’t cut it when there’s great to be had.
Pressing on we’ll turn to another glyph that manages time, although one that does it from the exact opposite direction, Glyph of Sacrifice.
Here, rather than shortening recharge times you’re shortening casting times. And you’re doing it at that, by now familiar, cost of five energy every fifteen seconds with a 1.75 casting time. But more than that, you’re also adding one hundred and twenty seconds – a full two minutes – onto the recharge time of whatever spell you’re using.
Two minutes, of course, is an eternity in the midst of a battle. And there’s little way to get around this penalty. “Disabling” a skill is locking it and forcing it to recharge over a certain period of time. You can use skills that alter that recharge such as Mantra of Recovery or Oath Shot to get around that two minute timer, though. Otherwise your skill will be unavailable for a long time. Those affect normal recharge times but not the timer that needs to elapse before your skill can recharge again. Glyph of Sacrifice, then, is suited for use in that initial encounter. As an opening move, it lets you replace the casting time of any spell with the 1.75 casting time of a glyph. That means you can fire off a Meteor Shower or an Earthquake as soon as you encounter the enemy and then immediately begin casting a follow-up. You build an advantage there because you’re able to pack in more actions during that opening flurry of spells. Combined with a spell that you probably won’t be getting much use out of anyway because the casting time is too long or its effects too unreliable over a long battle, that burst of casting can be staggeringly effective. If Glyph of Recovery is something that lets you cast a lot over the long haul, Glyph of Sacrifice is built for the short hop – you’ll sacrifice your ability to cast that spell more than once so it’s not a skill to use if you’re intending to trade blows back and forth. It’s a skill that you use when you’re trying to overwhelm someone.
Obviously, you don’t want to use this glyph on a spell with a casting time less than one second because all you’ll be doing is adding to its casting cost. Although an instant casting time will make your spell very difficult to interrupt, skills with short casting times are generally the spells you’ll want to toss around as much as possible and Glyph of Sacrifice makes them unspammable. Likewise, even though Glyph of Sacrifice recharges pretty quickly you’ll probably want to avoid using it with every spell you can because you’ll soon find yourself unable to cast any spells at all for a long, long time.
To put it this way, a Monk/Elementalist wouldn’t want to use this glyph with Orison of Healing or even Infuse Health. However, they might find it very valuable when used with a rezzing spell like Restore Life or Rebirth. Such skills can be pivotal but they have extremely long casting times. Resurrect, for example, has an eight second casting time. But being able to revive a dead teammate in the middle of a battle is simply too tempting so people can put up with it. It’s also something a competent opponent realizes is a good thing for you so casting a rez spell is generally akin to begging for an interrupt. Glyph of Sacrifice turns that easily disrupted cast into a quick ticket to having a teammate around again. As rez skills are something that will see only infrequent use, hopefully, that two minute penalty isn’t that big of a deal. If you need to rez more than once or twice over those two minutes, you’ve likely got bigger problems than not having your rez available.
Rezzes are the sort of skills that work best with Glyph of Sacrifice, they’re important, they take forever to cast, and they’re rarely used but important when they are. Generally, it’s probably best to ignore such cumbersome and unreliable skills in the first place but if they’re a part of your plan, Glyph of Sacrifice can work to make them much better.
The next glyph is another that affects the casting of a spell although, of course, in a completely different manner. On to the Glyph of Concentration.
Unlike most other glyphs the Glyph of Concentration seems to work with any skill to prevent it from being interrupted so it can be put to good use by any character looking to avoid an interruption. However, it’s main purpose is to defeat that which would normally interrupt a spell. Hexes that increase casting time like Arcane Conundrum aren’t affected but most everything else an anti-caster will thow at you, such as Power Leak or Shame or Concussion Shot is. Eliminated completely by adding five energy and 1.75 seconds to the spells you’ll cast so it’s of obvious benefit to any cast who’s likely to be interrupted. The real power behind this skill is in the recharge time, though. It’s the quickest glyph to recycle at two seconds. So, when your caster becomes Dazed and targeted by that Ranger/Warrior with Disrupting Chop and their pet with Disrupting Lunge you can fairly reliably cast through it all.
Of course, to do so you’ll spend 1.75 seconds casting your glyph out of every 3.75 seconds (The two seconds it needs to recharge with the casting time, that’s the so-called recycle time for Glyph of Concentration and, as you might guess, it’s extremely low) so you’re up to doubling the casting time on your spammable skills. There’ll be little downtime as long as you’re using it with spells that take around a second to cast, which, of course, is just about any spell you’d want to cast in a situation where you need to cast but cold be interrupted. In other words, you’ll spend nearly half your time making sure you can cast your spells. But since you wouldn’t be able to cast them otherwise that’s not a bad deal. If you’re casting, say, Orison of Healing through Dazed with Glyph of Concentration then you’re talking about taking 3.5 seconds to avoid being interrupted versus 5.25 seconds and getting disrupted when anyone so much as breathes on you. It’s not ideal but it’s certainly better than the alternative.
The problem, though, is that you’ll be spending five energy every 3.75 seconds or the equivalent of four full pips of degeneration just by recasting Glyph of Concentration. It’s already an incredible drain on your energy pool before you add in the cost of those spells you’re using it with. It gets to be an expensive proposition very quickly. Also, in the example of that Ranger/Warrior your spells might well be safe from the plethora of disruption they’ve packed but the glyph itself is not. Distracting Blow, Disrupting Lunge, and other interrupts are indiscriminant; they’ll stop you from casting anything, including a glyph. If you can’t get the Glyph of Concentration to resolve then you can’t get around that interruption. It’s best, then, against interrupts that target only spells or take a long time to recharge so they’ll tend to be saved for an important skill, such as the various spell-based interrupts available to a Mesmer rather than the rapid interruption available to a Ranger or a Warrior. It can be a very good thing to apply before an encounter to avoid having your first spell slammed hard but it’s not really something you’ll want to use before each and every spell.
Glyph of Concentration, then, is not something you can sustain casting forever. It’s too much of a drain on your energy should you do so. Instead, it’s best put to using with that vital spell you absolutely need to get past the opponent trying to prevent you from spell casting. It can be put to good effect but most characters interested in interrupting your character are likely going to be able to interrupt the glyph itself rendering it useless.
Finally, on to the glyph that doesn’t have anything to do with affecting your energy costs or casting times or recharge times, Glyph of Elemental Power.
Again, a very quick glyph as it has a recharge time of five seconds. What using this glyph does is to boost the linked attribute of the next spell you cast so long as that attribute is one of the elemental attributes available to an Elementalist – Air, Fire, Earth, and Water. So, it’s something that’s only going to benefit a character using Elementalist spells in the first place.
For example, say you’re going to cast Water Trident with your Water Magic of 12. Now, Water Trident deals 10~58 damage linked to Water Magic so you deal ten damage plus another four points of damage for each rank in Water Magic. In other words the formula for Water Trident’s damage is 10+(4xWater). At Water Magic of 12 you’ll deal that fifty-eight damage. But, should you use Glyph of Elemental Power first, you’ll cast that Water Trident as if you had Water Magic of 14 and deal an extra eight damage for a total of sixty-six damage. For a cost of five energy and 1.75 seconds you’ve increased your damage. The same holds true for increasing the duration of a spell or any other effect: Glyph of Elemental Power gives it a boost.
With headgear, superior runes, and the various item modifiers that can increase your attributes as well, with Glyph of Elemental Power your character can use skills at attribute ranks of 18, 19, and even 20. Mostly, though, by that level you’re bumping up against the law of diminishing returns. Going back to Water Trident, Glyph of Elemental Power adds eight damage for that five energy or about 1.6 damage per point of energy. That’s far less than the 11.6 damage per energy you’re getting from that Water 12 Water Trident alone and together the two skills make the damage from Water Trident worth 6.6 damage per energy. You’ve boosted the damage but at a cost of making the skill less efficient overall. Also, the higher you press your attributes, the less you gain from each attribute rank. We can figure out the damage of a Water 16 Water Trident easily (That’s a natural 12 with a +1 Glacier’s Eye and a +3 Superior Rune of Water Magic) knowing the formula so it’s seventy-four damage. With Glyph of Elemental Power it’s eight two. So, the additional damage from the glyph is only 9% of the total compared to the 12% it adds at Water 12. The lower the attributes the more adding another attribute rank will add in terms of percentage. Going from Water 0 to Water 2 with Glyph of Elemental Power is going from 10 damage to 18 or nearly double, after all.
However, Glyph of Elemental Power is not best used to make your poor attribute better. What it’s for is spike damage or delivering a lot of damage all at once. Adding Glyph of Elemental Power to your spells makes them more inefficient both in terms of the amount of energy you’re using but also in terms of the amount of time it takes to cast your spells. The key to pumping out a lot of DPS or damage per second is to do damage as quickly as possible. Glyph of Elemental Power will actually hurt your DPS because it’s not adding that much to your damage to make up for the time it’s taking (DPS is measured by taking the effect of your damage and dividing it by the time it takes to achieve it. As you can chain multiple spells together, the recycle time isn’t all that important in terms of damage except when considering how sustainable that damage is. What matters is how quickly you can chain those skills together and just how much you can get out of them. Increasing the amount of time it takes to cast a spell will lower your DPS). Back to Water Trident again, normally with Water 12 you’ll deal fifty-eight damage in 1.75 seconds for a DPS of 33. Glyph of Elemental Power’s eight damage also takes 1.75 seconds to achieve so it’s a DPS of roughly 4~5. Taken together, though, you don’t get 38DPS, instead you get the DPS of sixty-six divided by the 3.5 seconds it takes to cast or about 19. You’ve shot your DPS in the foot but by doing so you’ve created a spike of damage. Rather than hitting someone for fifty-eight damage you’ve hit them for sixty-six.
Damage, after all, arrives all at once not over time. The goal of spike damage is to overwhelm an enemy by hitting them with a lot of damage all at once. The actual DPS might be poor because the time it takes to deliver such a spike might be long but by delivering, say, 20DPS over five seconds in a hundred damage packet rather than five twenty damage packets you’re much more threatening to someone’s defenses. And that’s where Glyph of Elemental Power comes in. Using it to amp up your attributes every 6.75 seconds you can spike your damage high enough to punch through defenses. Spike damage is best when coordinated and focused. One character spiking their damage isn’t as deadly as three or four all at once. You’ll take a hit to your sustained damage output but that might be just what’s you need. Sustained damage is a marathon. Spike damage is a sprint. If you’re planning to devastate the enemy before they can respond, it’s spike damage that you’re looking for. If you’re already pumping up your elemental attribute to max out your damage then Glyph of Elemental Power can work very well to help you win that dash.
Overall glyphs offer a lot of possibilities. They’re not the most broken or abusive skills out there but they can be put to good use with a little bit of planning and preparation. A character shouldn’t try loading up on glyphs, though, as that makes for a skill bar that’s fairly limited. Glyphs only work to make other skills better so they’re at best a supplement to you other skills and not something to focus on. Still, if you’re an Elementalist and your skill bar has a slot free, then there just might be a glyph that will help you out. And if you’re trying to decide what profession to pick up as a secondary, there’s a lot to be said for going with Elementalist for the glyphs alone.
We turn on the spotlight again to view another suite of skills. Today, we take a look at:
Glyphs
An oft-overlooked benefit to picking up the Elementalist is access to a subset of skills known as glyphs. These six skills are unique to the Elementalist skill list and distinctive enough mechanically to merit their own classification. So just what are glyphs? They’re picture perfect examples of meta-skills. Skills that exist solely to make other skills better. By themselves they’re useless but when used in combination with another skill they can make that skill faster, stronger, cheaper, or better in some way, shape, or form.
Probably the best news concerning glyphs is that they’re all unlinked. None of them has any variable in its effect that an attribute will increase so they can be used by any character regardless of their attributes or profession makeup. The effects of the glyphs vary, of course, but each costs five energy and takes one second to cast with that additional .75 second aftercast. In effect, they add a bit of energy cost and casting time cost to any spell in order to alter it in some way. Once used a glyph remains sitting in your displayed effects similar to an enchantment or a stance, a benefit with a duration, but one that will be canceled as soon as it takes effect. Basically, glyphs don’t need to affect a spell right away; they can be cast in advance and will “enchant” your character until that next spell is cast – not activated. Multiple glyphs cannot stack, as, like a stance, casting a new glyph will override an earlier one. But that singular glyph will remain for a good length of time – all glyph “enchantments” have a duration of fifteen seconds which is equal to or greater than the recharge of all but one glyph – just waiting for your character to use that next spell so you can buff with a glyph well before combat takes place.
Note that most Glyphs work only with spells classified as spells and not with any skill you might like to use. If you use a skill that’s not a spell the effort you put into casting that glyph will be wasted. They’re useful, then, only to a character that’s going to be casting spells. But as spells are found on four of the six profession’s skill lists, that’s quite a large cross-section.
As they have an appreciable casting time glyphs can be interrupted before they’re activated and as they do cost energy, albeit not much, anything that’s denying an opponent energy can hamper their ability to cast glyphs. They’re not spells so a Power Drain won’t work but a Disrupting Chop will. Otherwise, there’s not much you can do about the glyph itself. There’s no way of removing an active glyph from a character nor of preventing its effects on the next spell they cast. What can work to counter glyphs, though, is to prevent an opponent from spell casting. That glyph will make their spells better but the point is moot if they can’t use spells in the first place.
Now, let’s go over the various glyphs available to see just what they can offer a spell caster. First, we’ll look at what’s probably the most well known glyph. It’s the one that any Elementalist who takes a trip out to Wizard’s Folly to speak with Aziure will have and one that’s probably a staple of most Elementalist’s skill bars in the early goings I’m speaking about the Glyph of Lesser Energy.
“Your next spell costs 15 less Energy to cast.” - Glyph of Lesser Energy. Glyph. 5 energy, 1 second casting time, 30 seconds recharge time.
The benefit here, of course, is that you’ll slice fifteen energy off of the cost of your spell for a cost of five energy – a net savings of ten energy. Also not to be overlooked is that additional 1.75 casting time. Glyph of Lesser Energy recharges in thirty seconds so you won’t be adding too much to your casting time but you will be adding some. In effect, the tradeoff here is to sacrifice a bit of time management for a bit of energy management.
Of course, you’ll only maximize that energy management if you’re using Glyph of Lesser Energy in conjunction with spells that cost at least fifteen energy. The Glyph can be used with spells that cost less but over the long haul you won’t save as much. As energy management, then, it will reduce your casting costs by ten energy every thirty seconds (Actually, every 31.75 but let’s not get too picky.) or roughly one energy every three seconds. That figure should sound hauntingly familiar because, of course, it’s the same amount as a pip of energy regeneration. If you use Glyph of Lesser Energy with a fifteen energy spell as often as you can what you’ve done is the equivalent of gaining a pip. You’ll be spending energy though but your four pip Elementalist will be able to spend it as though they actually have five.
Which is not bad, it’s not terribly good as there are far better options that will gain your character a lot more energy, but if you’re throwing around a lot of high cost spells then mitigating their cost over the long run, which is what Glyph of Lesser Energy is for, can certainly be worth the slot that this glyph would take up.
There is, however, another way of looking at Glyph of Lesser Energy. Rather than considering it over a lengthy period of time, consider it when used in spurts. What it does is allow you to wipe out the cost of most spells, which means that, in the short term, your character builds a decent energy advantage over an opponent. In the early stages of a battle such an advantage can be a decisive factor. If you’re planning on spending a lot of energy on an opening move then using Glyph of Lesser Energy means you’ll be able to add another spell to your flurry of damage.
Also, since it can be cast well before you use the skill it’s discounting, if you consider it in the context of a string of spells rather than a full battle, the cost of the spell it’s used with is largely irrelevant. After you spend the five energy it takes to cast it an Elementalist only need wait for an additional two seconds after it’s finished casting to recover the full five energy. They’re then walking around with a full energy bar and with an enchantment making their next spell – provided it costs fifteen energy or less - free. Obviously, it works best with a spell that’s high cost but that energy advantage, that having more energy than an opponent allowing you to be more flexible, remains regardless of the cost of that spell. The glyph will remain on a character for a long time so it’s something your character can do to buff up before the gates open in the Arena or when approaching the next mob in PvE.
Next, we’ll move on to Glyph of Lesser Energy’s big brother, Glyph of Energy.
“Your next spell costs 20 less Energy to cast.” - Glyph of Energy. Glyph. 5 energy, 1 second casting time, 15 second recharge time.
As with Glyph of Lesser Energy, it reduces the cost of your next spell. Here, it’s twenty energy as opposed to fifteen. So you’ll net fifteen energy as opposed to Glyph of Lesser Energy’s ten. Why does a difference of five energy make one skill elite and the other normal? The answer lies in the recharge time for Glyph of Energy. It’s fifteen seconds, not thirty. So in the time that Glyph of Lesser Energy will save your character ten energy, Glyph of Energy will save them thirty. That’s thirty energy in thirty seconds, fifteen energy in fifteen seconds, or one energy every second. Or the rough equivalent of not one, but three pips of regeneration. (Rough thanks to the additional casting time added by popping off of glyph every now and then. Really, it’s something like .9 energy every second but, as I said, let’s not get too picky).
That’s in an ideal world, though, because to get that sort of energy management you’ll need to be using spells that can be reduced in cost by twenty energy. And you’ll need to have one of them ready to go every 16.75 seconds. That means that short of doing something like using Mantra of Recovery unlinked with fifteen energy spells you’re stuck using the spells that cost twenty-five energy to begin with. And those spells that cost twenty-five energy are, by and large, useless. Look at Fire Magic, for example and spot the twenty-five energy spells. Sure, there’s Meteor and Meteor Shower and Searing Heat and everyone’s favorite Mark of Rodgort but take a look not at the energy cost of those spells but at the casting times. They’re big, clunky spells with lengthy casting times to begin with. Adding Glyph of Energy to them means you’ll be adding even more time casting where you’re not getting the benefit of that spell.
Or course, you’ll still gain roughly two pips by using Glyph of Energy with fifteen energy spells. And there are much more appealing options there, to be sure. But to do so you’re not just spending 1.75 seconds out of every 16.75 casting your glyph – that’s about 11% of your time, by the way, just to make your spells cheaper – you’re also using up your elite slot. And that means of all the elites available to your character you’ve settled on Glyph of Energy as the best. Which likely isn’t the case. There are better elites that can give your character better energy management. And there are better elites that can add a lot more power to your character. It can work but it’s probably not the best idea even if there weren’t a non-elite version of the skill laying around in Glyph of Lesser Energy.
From one elite glyph to the next. It’s Glyph of Renewal’s turn.
“Your next spell recharges twice as fast as normal.” - Glyph of Renewal. Glyph. 5 energy, 1 second casting time, 15 second recharge time.
Like Glyph of Energy it’s five energy every fifteen seconds to make your next spell better. However, what you’re trading here is not time management for energy management but the opposite. By giving up some energy you’re cutting the recharge time of a spell in half, meaning you can cast it a lot more often. Of course, to cast it twice as often you’ll spend twice the energy to do so. So, you’re really adding not just five energy but five energy and the cost of the spell. Because, if you’re not using this glyph on a spell you want to cast as often as possible you’re misusing it horribly.
All it does is to lower a recharge time letting you cast a spell more often. For example, take the skill Maelstrom, which costs twenty-five energy to cast every thirty, seconds with a four second casting time. By using Glyph of Renewal first you’ll cut that recharge time to fifteen seconds letting you cast two Maelstroms in that thirty seconds. Of course, you’ll spend not twenty-five energy but fifty-five doing so – the difference between spending .8 energy a second and spending 1.8 – and you’ll add 1.75 seconds to that healthy 4.75 second casting time.
Glyph of Renewal works best with skills with thirty second recharge times, of course, as it means that as Glyph of Renewal recharges to be used your amped up spell is also getting ready to be reused and you can keep chaining the two together. Spells that take longer to recharge won’t be ready in time to get the most out of Glyph of Renewal and spells that take less will be ready too quickly. Rather than letting you double the amount you can use a spell, when you use Glyph of Renewal with a spell with a recharge under thirty seconds, you’re talking about using a spell three times instead of two or less. It’s an advantage not to be underestimated but it’s a drop in the percentile increase to your spell’s availability so you’re not optimizing your potential.
If glyphs were instant cast, Glyph of Renewal would be an excellent skill. Managing your casting time is as big of, if not more of, an advantage as properly managing your energy. Being able to slam an opponent with rapid-fire skills allows you to set the temp, allows you to overwhelm defenses, allows you to increase your chances of winning any matchup. However, Glyph of Renewal is time management that takes time itself to work. It needs 1.75 seconds every 16.75 seconds in order to allow you to cast more frequently. Everything it allows you to do better needs to be squeezed into those remaining 15 seconds. It’s not a huge deal but when you want to put your casting to as much of an effect as possible it’s not the best idea ever to pause every now and then to cast a skill that’s not doing damage or healing or anything other than letting you do those things better. There’s also the problem of energy management here. You’ll be spending five energy every fifteen seconds before even considering the cost of your spells, and that means you’ve just blown a pip of energy to allow your character to chain cast even better.
Since Glyph of Renewal is elite it’s probably a bit subpar for most characters. The best energy management skills are, by and large, elite and you won’t be getting much use out of Glyph of Renewal without solid energy management. Given what else is available for a characters elite slot, it’s hard to see this skill making the cut. Still, it’s a skill that offers a lot of power and would be far and away too strong were it just a normal skill. It’s not bad by any stretch, it’s just that when you only have one elite slot you’re looking for the most broken and abusive skill you can find. Decent doesn’t cut it when there’s great to be had.
Pressing on we’ll turn to another glyph that manages time, although one that does it from the exact opposite direction, Glyph of Sacrifice.
“Your next spell may be cast instantly, but takes an additional 120 seconds to recharge.” - Glyph of Sacrifice. Glyph. 5 energy, 1 second casting time, 15 second recharge time.
Here, rather than shortening recharge times you’re shortening casting times. And you’re doing it at that, by now familiar, cost of five energy every fifteen seconds with a 1.75 casting time. But more than that, you’re also adding one hundred and twenty seconds – a full two minutes – onto the recharge time of whatever spell you’re using.
Two minutes, of course, is an eternity in the midst of a battle. And there’s little way to get around this penalty. “Disabling” a skill is locking it and forcing it to recharge over a certain period of time. You can use skills that alter that recharge such as Mantra of Recovery or Oath Shot to get around that two minute timer, though. Otherwise your skill will be unavailable for a long time. Those affect normal recharge times but not the timer that needs to elapse before your skill can recharge again. Glyph of Sacrifice, then, is suited for use in that initial encounter. As an opening move, it lets you replace the casting time of any spell with the 1.75 casting time of a glyph. That means you can fire off a Meteor Shower or an Earthquake as soon as you encounter the enemy and then immediately begin casting a follow-up. You build an advantage there because you’re able to pack in more actions during that opening flurry of spells. Combined with a spell that you probably won’t be getting much use out of anyway because the casting time is too long or its effects too unreliable over a long battle, that burst of casting can be staggeringly effective. If Glyph of Recovery is something that lets you cast a lot over the long haul, Glyph of Sacrifice is built for the short hop – you’ll sacrifice your ability to cast that spell more than once so it’s not a skill to use if you’re intending to trade blows back and forth. It’s a skill that you use when you’re trying to overwhelm someone.
Obviously, you don’t want to use this glyph on a spell with a casting time less than one second because all you’ll be doing is adding to its casting cost. Although an instant casting time will make your spell very difficult to interrupt, skills with short casting times are generally the spells you’ll want to toss around as much as possible and Glyph of Sacrifice makes them unspammable. Likewise, even though Glyph of Sacrifice recharges pretty quickly you’ll probably want to avoid using it with every spell you can because you’ll soon find yourself unable to cast any spells at all for a long, long time.
To put it this way, a Monk/Elementalist wouldn’t want to use this glyph with Orison of Healing or even Infuse Health. However, they might find it very valuable when used with a rezzing spell like Restore Life or Rebirth. Such skills can be pivotal but they have extremely long casting times. Resurrect, for example, has an eight second casting time. But being able to revive a dead teammate in the middle of a battle is simply too tempting so people can put up with it. It’s also something a competent opponent realizes is a good thing for you so casting a rez spell is generally akin to begging for an interrupt. Glyph of Sacrifice turns that easily disrupted cast into a quick ticket to having a teammate around again. As rez skills are something that will see only infrequent use, hopefully, that two minute penalty isn’t that big of a deal. If you need to rez more than once or twice over those two minutes, you’ve likely got bigger problems than not having your rez available.
Rezzes are the sort of skills that work best with Glyph of Sacrifice, they’re important, they take forever to cast, and they’re rarely used but important when they are. Generally, it’s probably best to ignore such cumbersome and unreliable skills in the first place but if they’re a part of your plan, Glyph of Sacrifice can work to make them much better.
The next glyph is another that affects the casting of a spell although, of course, in a completely different manner. On to the Glyph of Concentration.
“Your next spell cannot be interrupted, and ignores the effects of Dazed.” - Glyph of Concentration. Glyph. 5 energy, 1 second casting time, 2 second recharge time.
Unlike most other glyphs the Glyph of Concentration seems to work with any skill to prevent it from being interrupted so it can be put to good use by any character looking to avoid an interruption. However, it’s main purpose is to defeat that which would normally interrupt a spell. Hexes that increase casting time like Arcane Conundrum aren’t affected but most everything else an anti-caster will thow at you, such as Power Leak or Shame or Concussion Shot is. Eliminated completely by adding five energy and 1.75 seconds to the spells you’ll cast so it’s of obvious benefit to any cast who’s likely to be interrupted. The real power behind this skill is in the recharge time, though. It’s the quickest glyph to recycle at two seconds. So, when your caster becomes Dazed and targeted by that Ranger/Warrior with Disrupting Chop and their pet with Disrupting Lunge you can fairly reliably cast through it all.
Of course, to do so you’ll spend 1.75 seconds casting your glyph out of every 3.75 seconds (The two seconds it needs to recharge with the casting time, that’s the so-called recycle time for Glyph of Concentration and, as you might guess, it’s extremely low) so you’re up to doubling the casting time on your spammable skills. There’ll be little downtime as long as you’re using it with spells that take around a second to cast, which, of course, is just about any spell you’d want to cast in a situation where you need to cast but cold be interrupted. In other words, you’ll spend nearly half your time making sure you can cast your spells. But since you wouldn’t be able to cast them otherwise that’s not a bad deal. If you’re casting, say, Orison of Healing through Dazed with Glyph of Concentration then you’re talking about taking 3.5 seconds to avoid being interrupted versus 5.25 seconds and getting disrupted when anyone so much as breathes on you. It’s not ideal but it’s certainly better than the alternative.
The problem, though, is that you’ll be spending five energy every 3.75 seconds or the equivalent of four full pips of degeneration just by recasting Glyph of Concentration. It’s already an incredible drain on your energy pool before you add in the cost of those spells you’re using it with. It gets to be an expensive proposition very quickly. Also, in the example of that Ranger/Warrior your spells might well be safe from the plethora of disruption they’ve packed but the glyph itself is not. Distracting Blow, Disrupting Lunge, and other interrupts are indiscriminant; they’ll stop you from casting anything, including a glyph. If you can’t get the Glyph of Concentration to resolve then you can’t get around that interruption. It’s best, then, against interrupts that target only spells or take a long time to recharge so they’ll tend to be saved for an important skill, such as the various spell-based interrupts available to a Mesmer rather than the rapid interruption available to a Ranger or a Warrior. It can be a very good thing to apply before an encounter to avoid having your first spell slammed hard but it’s not really something you’ll want to use before each and every spell.
Glyph of Concentration, then, is not something you can sustain casting forever. It’s too much of a drain on your energy should you do so. Instead, it’s best put to using with that vital spell you absolutely need to get past the opponent trying to prevent you from spell casting. It can be put to good effect but most characters interested in interrupting your character are likely going to be able to interrupt the glyph itself rendering it useless.
Finally, on to the glyph that doesn’t have anything to do with affecting your energy costs or casting times or recharge times, Glyph of Elemental Power.
“Your Elemental attributes are boosted by 2 for your next spell.” - Glyph of Elemental Power. 5 energy, 1 second casting time, 5 second recharge time.
Again, a very quick glyph as it has a recharge time of five seconds. What using this glyph does is to boost the linked attribute of the next spell you cast so long as that attribute is one of the elemental attributes available to an Elementalist – Air, Fire, Earth, and Water. So, it’s something that’s only going to benefit a character using Elementalist spells in the first place.
For example, say you’re going to cast Water Trident with your Water Magic of 12. Now, Water Trident deals 10~58 damage linked to Water Magic so you deal ten damage plus another four points of damage for each rank in Water Magic. In other words the formula for Water Trident’s damage is 10+(4xWater). At Water Magic of 12 you’ll deal that fifty-eight damage. But, should you use Glyph of Elemental Power first, you’ll cast that Water Trident as if you had Water Magic of 14 and deal an extra eight damage for a total of sixty-six damage. For a cost of five energy and 1.75 seconds you’ve increased your damage. The same holds true for increasing the duration of a spell or any other effect: Glyph of Elemental Power gives it a boost.
With headgear, superior runes, and the various item modifiers that can increase your attributes as well, with Glyph of Elemental Power your character can use skills at attribute ranks of 18, 19, and even 20. Mostly, though, by that level you’re bumping up against the law of diminishing returns. Going back to Water Trident, Glyph of Elemental Power adds eight damage for that five energy or about 1.6 damage per point of energy. That’s far less than the 11.6 damage per energy you’re getting from that Water 12 Water Trident alone and together the two skills make the damage from Water Trident worth 6.6 damage per energy. You’ve boosted the damage but at a cost of making the skill less efficient overall. Also, the higher you press your attributes, the less you gain from each attribute rank. We can figure out the damage of a Water 16 Water Trident easily (That’s a natural 12 with a +1 Glacier’s Eye and a +3 Superior Rune of Water Magic) knowing the formula so it’s seventy-four damage. With Glyph of Elemental Power it’s eight two. So, the additional damage from the glyph is only 9% of the total compared to the 12% it adds at Water 12. The lower the attributes the more adding another attribute rank will add in terms of percentage. Going from Water 0 to Water 2 with Glyph of Elemental Power is going from 10 damage to 18 or nearly double, after all.
However, Glyph of Elemental Power is not best used to make your poor attribute better. What it’s for is spike damage or delivering a lot of damage all at once. Adding Glyph of Elemental Power to your spells makes them more inefficient both in terms of the amount of energy you’re using but also in terms of the amount of time it takes to cast your spells. The key to pumping out a lot of DPS or damage per second is to do damage as quickly as possible. Glyph of Elemental Power will actually hurt your DPS because it’s not adding that much to your damage to make up for the time it’s taking (DPS is measured by taking the effect of your damage and dividing it by the time it takes to achieve it. As you can chain multiple spells together, the recycle time isn’t all that important in terms of damage except when considering how sustainable that damage is. What matters is how quickly you can chain those skills together and just how much you can get out of them. Increasing the amount of time it takes to cast a spell will lower your DPS). Back to Water Trident again, normally with Water 12 you’ll deal fifty-eight damage in 1.75 seconds for a DPS of 33. Glyph of Elemental Power’s eight damage also takes 1.75 seconds to achieve so it’s a DPS of roughly 4~5. Taken together, though, you don’t get 38DPS, instead you get the DPS of sixty-six divided by the 3.5 seconds it takes to cast or about 19. You’ve shot your DPS in the foot but by doing so you’ve created a spike of damage. Rather than hitting someone for fifty-eight damage you’ve hit them for sixty-six.
Damage, after all, arrives all at once not over time. The goal of spike damage is to overwhelm an enemy by hitting them with a lot of damage all at once. The actual DPS might be poor because the time it takes to deliver such a spike might be long but by delivering, say, 20DPS over five seconds in a hundred damage packet rather than five twenty damage packets you’re much more threatening to someone’s defenses. And that’s where Glyph of Elemental Power comes in. Using it to amp up your attributes every 6.75 seconds you can spike your damage high enough to punch through defenses. Spike damage is best when coordinated and focused. One character spiking their damage isn’t as deadly as three or four all at once. You’ll take a hit to your sustained damage output but that might be just what’s you need. Sustained damage is a marathon. Spike damage is a sprint. If you’re planning to devastate the enemy before they can respond, it’s spike damage that you’re looking for. If you’re already pumping up your elemental attribute to max out your damage then Glyph of Elemental Power can work very well to help you win that dash.
Overall glyphs offer a lot of possibilities. They’re not the most broken or abusive skills out there but they can be put to good use with a little bit of planning and preparation. A character shouldn’t try loading up on glyphs, though, as that makes for a skill bar that’s fairly limited. Glyphs only work to make other skills better so they’re at best a supplement to you other skills and not something to focus on. Still, if you’re an Elementalist and your skill bar has a slot free, then there just might be a glyph that will help you out. And if you’re trying to decide what profession to pick up as a secondary, there’s a lot to be said for going with Elementalist for the glyphs alone.
MMO Guru Network
