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Jan 02, 2010, 02:49 PM // 14:49
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Forge Runner
Join Date: May 2008
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Advanced Guide to Playing Elementalist
Advanced guide to Elementalists I’m writing this guide to share my knowledge of the Elementalist profession, especially since I find I play less and less Guild Wars every day. I mean this as an advanced guide, and therefore will assume you know every interesting skill, why some builds work and others don't, et cetera. If this is not common knowledge to you then do read Cebe's Basic Guide to Playing Elementalist. This is a PvE guide. I could write a PvP guide if I wanted, except I don’t want to. This isn’t a farming guide either. If you’re looking for builds and places to farm as an Elementalist, take a look in the Farming subforum. I will assume HM, because NM is usually simple enough that you don’t need guides for it. Admittedly HM is generally easy enough that everything works, but there are still difficult areas in the game that separate the good from the not so good. I’ll add this here too: although I am an experienced Elementalist, I make no claim to know everything about the profession’s role in every area of the game. My knowledge comes mostly from hero-based teams – I have done everything in the game with heroes. I can put together 2- or 3-man teams that work well at short notice. But I lack experience playing with 8-man teams. If what you’re looking for coincides with my area of expertise, chances are you’ll find it useful to read this guide. But if you’re looking for help in areas I don’t understand well, then you might want to look elsewhere. Changelog 29 December 2010 - minor rewrites in many areas, note on Invoke Lightning change. 27 May 2011 - update. Removing martial weapons, which became a lot weaker for Elementalists without the old Asuran Scan, and included Invoke Lightning. Other changes here and there as well. 16 July 2011 - Extra comment on Invoke Lightning Elementalists, although I've barely used those builds outside of getting my Skill Hunter title ... 29 July 2011 - very small update after the change to Shield Guardian. 9 February 2012 - major update following the Elementalist change. Added section on how to make new builds, and only kept the best builds in the samples section. Melee damage is now considerably weaker + caster damage considerably stronger, and the "your role" section rewrote accordingly. Also added a PvE skill section to "your attributes". Your role Elementalist is a fairly versatile profession that generally deals damage while hiding in the rear. They can deal AoE damage, or focus on single-target damage. They can frontline to some extent, and they can backline very well. Versatile as Elementalists are though they are more a jack of all trades and master of none, and even among other ranged professions there are some outdamage you. Here’s where Elementalists stand relative to the other professions: Midline AoE damage – you are a competent midline AoE damage dealer and the best at doing damage over time. However, for burst damage Mesmers, Necros and Ritualists are noticeably better. It’s important to note the limitations of these statements. Damage over time requires the target to stay still, while burst damage does not. You can support DoT with things like snare and good aggro, while burst damage is generally more reliable and remains effective even against single foes. The profession that does the most AoE damage in general depends on the teambuild, and is usually not Elementalist. Midline single-target damage – With PvE skills, you are the best midline single-target damage dealer in the game. Frontline – while you can frontline, and there are few unique things about Elementalist frontliners, you are in general inferior to the real frontline classes (Dervish, Warrior, Assassin). Backline – you are the best healer in the game, capable of throwing out huge amounts of protection spells and brute healing. You may notice that I’ve classed the damage as “midline”. That’s because of the way the game works. As a caster profession, your spells are all affected by aftercast, which significantly drops your DPS relative to melee professions. If all you look at is damage numbers, frontliners easily outdamage all midliners. In return, they have to run up to their targets, are more vulnerable to shutdown, and have to deal with blocking skills. Still, well-supported, frontliners deal more AoE and single-target damage than all other professions. There is no point trying to compete with them, and the only fair comparison is vs. other midline. Your equipment There isn’t much to say about equipment, much of it is straightforward. Here I’ll address the main questions. Blessed vs. Survivor insignias: Blessed vs. Survivor is a minor issue. The short answer is it doesn’t really matter. You’ll usually be enchanted – you’ll have at least the Attunement on yourself – but many PvE monsters deal so much damage that if you don’t get protted you die, +10 armor or no +10 armor. You may also face large amounts of armor-ignoring damage, and if you get DP’ed then Survivor insignias become increasingly important. That said, +10 armor is +10 armor and against lesser hits you’ll be taking less damage. Take your pick, it isn’t important. Weapons: You have four weapon sets, and should use them all. The sets you’ll want are:
Take your pick. The least important sets are certainly the Longbow and the high energy set, and especially with the Longbow you can simply take it out when you need it. But if you’re impatient, feel free to skimp on the high energy set. You can even use a high-energy-cum-enchanting set if you so desire. PvP’ers will be familiar with other sets like the doubly vampiric, -50 health set or the low-energy set, but you simply don’t need those in PvE. Energy armour: Energy armour has its uses, but is largely confined to Ether Renewal builds. The point is that after a certain amount of energy (about 50-60 energy, depending on how expensive the spells on your skillbar are) then having more energy is a lot less important than having more energy management. If you’re using energy faster than you regain it then it’s only a matter of time before you run out of energy – and besides, even if you don’t run out, you’d still have to wait a while to regenerate energy between fights. You still need a certain amount of maximum energy (for example, good luck to you if you’re trying to use Meteor Shower with 30 max energy) but since you’re an Elementalist, you have Energy Storage for that. You might as well invest into more health / armour – you can never have too much of those. Ether Renewal builds are an exception because 1) you might be maintaining several enchantments without Glyph of Swiftness, whereupon you need the extra energy to keep the enchantments up when ER is down, and 2) you’ll usually have Protective Spirit or even Protective Bond on yourself, so the lower HP / armour don’t matter that much. Superior runes: Some people swear by superior runes, others by minors. The main argument in favour of superior runes is that it adds to your kill speed, and that if you need that +75 HP to survive then instead of blaming the superior rune you should blame your backline / teambuild / personal skill. The main argument against superior runes is that you don’t need the extra kill speed, while you can always use the +75 HP. Take your pick to suit your needs. With the exception of ER builds that need to reach a critical breakpoint, either option works. PS: If you’re wondering, I’m one of those who swear by superior runes. Your attributes Here they are, listed in order of usefulness. I’ve been very selective in my choices of notable skills, assuming for example that if you run Searing Flames you know also to have Glowing Gaze (duh) and Fire Attunement (even more duh).Energy Storage: Your primary attribute also happens to be your best. It forms the core of the only competitive Elementalist build at the moment, and provides a delicious skill every other build can make good use of. When to use Energy Storage: for you, Energy Storage is essentially one skill, Ether Renewal. Use it when you need the defence, e.g. if your team has no Monks / Ritualists, if your PuG has no prots, if you can’t trust your teammates to keep you alive, if your team can use GDW spam, if your team’s Monks want to smite (you can even ask them to smite and let you backline), and so on. Notable Energy Storage skills:
Air Magic: Air isn’t a terribly effective element, but compared to your other attributes it’s great. Its single-target damage is much superior to everything else, making it the most effective line to use with Assassin’s Promise. When to use Air Magic: Air is tied to Assassin’s Promise. If AP is viable, then Air usually is as well. Use Air when you are playing for damage and aren’t expecting to hit many foes at once. This is very general, and I can safely say that I Air Magic is my default choice in almost all of PvE. Notable Air skills:
Fire Magic: Thanks to the last balance update Fire is now the second most useful Elemental line. It has reliable AoE damage that doubles as single-target damage, a generally free elite slot (if not using AP, anyway), space for PvE skills, and is not reliant on the secondary profession. Be aware though that aside from Meteor Shower, Fire Elementalists generally can’t do anything other than damage. When to use Fire Magic: Use Fire if you can hit many foes at a time + the targets don’t have overwhelming armour vs. Fire (e.g. Destroyers, Rangers) or if the targets have underwhelming armour vs. Fire (Plants, Snowmen). Notable Fire skills:
Earth Magic: Earth isn’t a good attribute line, but it isn’t bad either. The main attraction of Earth is that its support abilities are great. The main problem is you usually don’t need support, and if you do you might as well go ER with Order of Pain, Great Dwarf Weapon, Strength of Honour, or whatever. When to use Earth Magic: If mobs are relatively big and you want to do something other than pure damage. Notable Earth skills:
Water Magic: The most useless of your elemental lines. It is extremely limited, only being useful when you are playing dedicated tank and spank – and even then, it’s only one skill that’s useful and you don’t need to spec into Water to use it. The last update was quite kind to Water Magic, but overall did not help. The Water elites aren’t terrible now (although they’re still mediocre), but the rest of Water Magic is just very weak. When to use Water Magic: When you’re playing for fun and don’t care about maximizing your performance or doing lots and lots of DoASCs. Notable Water skills:
PvE skills: not exactly an Elementalist attribute but considering how strong they are, who’s complaining? Expect every power gamer’s Elementalist build to have at least two PvE skills.
Builds Before you start, know what you’re trying to achieve. If your team needs healing, going E/A AP caller does no good. If you’re with heroes, E/A AP caller will usually be faster than E/Mo Infusing. If you’re with a team heavily reliant on armour-sensitive damage, you might want EBSoH. And so on and so forth – build as needed.How to make builds In general, when I make builds, I choose a skill or skill combination that I want to use and start from there, adding skills to the bar as the secondary profession and attribute spec permits. This is, of course, easiest illustrated with examples. So let’s pick a skill and try to make a build out of it – for no reason in particular, I pick Shatterstone. Clearly if I’m using Shatterstone, it is for damage. Equally clearly, if I’m aiming for damage, I must have very high spec into the relevant attribute – Water, in this case. So the build now looks like this: Quote:
We might still need more energy management, but for now let’s continue. Quote:
So looking around there’s Glowing Ice, which you can use in conjunction with Shatterstone for some bonus energy management that doubles as damage. Deep Freeze is certainly worth looking at, as it does the most damage of Water’s pure AoE nukes. Vapor Blade does fine single-target damage, although it rather overlaps Shatterstone. Maelstrom is a unique Water spell that should be considered. Ice Spikes does decent AoE damage while having a fairly low recharge, while Rust also does AoE damage although the secondary effect is largely worthless. We can use Freezing Gust for single-target damage or Blurred Vision for team support. There’re a few more niche skills available as well for rounding off a build, such as Armour of Frost (not likely to be strong, but +1 Water Magic is extra damage), Glyph of Elemental Power (if we do not need Glyph of Lesser Energy), and Aura of Restoration. Note that aside Deep Freeze, which is being used for damage not snare here, none of these skills are mentioned in the notable skill list above. That's because although they're useful skills for rounding out a build, they simply aren't good enough to build around. On the PvE skills side, the ones that immediately pop to mind are Ebon wards and Snow Storm. The Norn shouts and Ebon Vanguard Assassin Support are still great skills, but without Assassin’s Promise for energy supporting them will be difficult, considering they do not return energy from the attunement. Intensity is as always worth a look, as is Elemental Lord. There’re a lot of options, so at this point possible builds diverge, and player style + team composition plays a small role. Let’s assume that I want Deep Freeze because I’m confident in my ability to ball stuff up, snare them, and nuke them to bits with the rest of my team’s AoE damage. We have: Quote:
Quote:
With two slots left let’s try Ice Spikes, just so Deep Freeze is not our only snare, and also use Intensity to squeeze more damage out of Shatterstone. The final build therefore looks like this: Quote:
For another example let’s start with a concept instead of a skill. Again for no particular reason, I choose Searing Flames + Arcane Echo. This idea is pretty clear: Searing Flames deals big AoE damage, but due to its peculiarities a SF Ele needs to spam as many casts of Searing Flames as possible as fast as possible. Arcane Echo’s ability to impersonate another copy of Searing Flames marks the combination as potentially potent. So we start with: Quote:
Considering Searing Flame’s and Arcane Echo’s 15e cost (Arcane Echo energy cost isn’t returned by Fire Attunement either), we are going to need more energy management when the bar is in full swing. A bit of math might help: per cast, Fire Attunement restores 6e. With Elemental Lord and Aura of Restoration, we get 8e back for 15e invested. This is not enough and will drain energy pretty fast. We are going to need Glowing Gaze and Glyph of Lesser Energy at the very least, but let’s try another option: we can use Arcane Mimicry, available thanks to the Mesmer secondary, and target it at an ally with Elemental Attunement. Why not? Double Searing Flames at 18 Fire with infinite energy definitely sounds appealing. Even Arcane Mimicry’s long downtime doesn’t matter too much if we spec high into Energy Storage. At this point you might wonder how I came up with this idea. Don’t worry about it – it’s not obvious. This kind of idea only shows up with a lot of experience, a flash of inspiration, or deep study of the game’s skills. This is also a good reason to read the forums. Others might come up with ideas you haven’t thought of, or point out things you might not know. In any case following this idea we have: Quote:
As with the other example above, we look through the list of skills and pick out the good ones. There’s Mark of Rodgort, which means we can keep stuff burning (i.e. trigger Searing Flames). Glyph of Immolation allows us to get immediate damage from Searing Flames. Glyph of Lesser Energy can deal with the heavy energy costs required to cast Arcane Echo and Arcane Mimicry. Glowing Gaze can shore up our energy should we not use GoLE. Fireball and Liquid Flame are possible for use when Arcane Echo is down, while if energy holds up we can use Rodgort’s Invocation, whose burning synergizes with Searing Flames too. If energy does not hold up, we can try Meteor. For PvE skills, there is as always Intensity and Ebon Battle Standard of Honour. Snow Storm is possible, although given Searing Flame’s big AoE damage it might not be necessary. Finally, Elemental Lord is always an option. Now is as good a time as any to pick four skills quasi-randomly. I say quasi-random because although we don’t expect there to be a huge difference between different choices (no matter what we pick, the idea behind the build stays the same), theoretical considerations can still guide the process. For instance, I’ll discard Mark of Rodgort for now on the grounds that we’re already spending so much time setting up (casting Arcane Echo + Arcane Mimicry + Elemental Attunement = 2.75s + 2.75s + 1.75s of time) that we don’t want to spend more time using a spell that goes away when the target dies. So, quasi-randomly, we have this: Quote:
If, after testing and fixing this flaw, you find yourself with a satisfactory build, you should still not be satisfied. Earlier, we floated several ideas. There’s no guarantee the other ideas would not work. Maybe Mark of Rodgort was unfairly dismissed, or maybe Liquid Flame fills Fireball’s place on the bar better. Who knows? You have to playtest to find out. Explore all the variations, that you may find the best. Samples Here I give sample builds, ideas, options and what I know about said builds. The builds listed here are the best of the best. They have fought their way through the toughest areas in the game and stood the test of time. They have even held their ground through balance updates and the rest of the game changing. That’s not saying that they will not eventually be dethroned, but for the nonce, these are the current best Elementalist builds.ER Infusing - Every Elementalist should be aware of this option, for in coordinated teams this is probably what you’ll be playing. It is exceedingly powerful; you kick out oodles of brute force from the energy (and health!) engine that is Ether Renewal. A lot has been said about this build; here I’ll give a short summary. ER Infusers rely on Ether Renewal + having multiple enchantments on themselves to kick out prots and heals like no tomorrow. The main prots are Protective Spirit and Spirit Bond, which together cover most of what you might face in PvE. The main heal is Infuse Health. Although Infuse costs both health and energy, Ether Renewal provides both of these. You need to cast to trigger the healing though – and hence the key skills in this build are 1/4s cast spells. The power of Ether Renewal is such that you can reasonably hope to tank 5 HM Burning Spirits indefinitely, and that's without a dedicated tank build. It is also powerful enough to maintain 8+ enchantments on you and everyone in the party. This opens up options that no other class can mirror. Still, it’s wise not to be carried away by the power of ER. It has several glaring weaknesses, namely 1) the build collapses if you lose ER; 2) you give up on hex and condition removal; and 3) you give up on party-wide healing. You can cover for these weaknesses, but weaknesses they remain. ER Infuse, as this build is sometimes called, uses roughly the same techniques as Monking, but one significant difference is that you should keep casting. Cast as often as you can and spam GDW if there's nothing else to do. Refresh ER whenever possible (duh). To minimize the chances of losing ER, you can / should stay far away from the frontline, as well as throw Prot Spirit / Spirit Bond on them before you aggro. Maintaining enchantments on every party member helps a lot as well. Avoid skills like Rend Enchants, Strip Enchants and Well of the Profane like the plague. If you do lose ER, make sure to drop maintained enchantments at once, except possibly the ones on yourself, and be a lot more conservative about casting. If you're maintaining Life Attunement, you can still use a few Infuse Healths, but no more. Pump the high set if you need to - ER will restore enough energy in the blink of an eye (but keep at least ~25 energy, which is what you need to start refreshing your energy). Options available to ER healers are: Infuse Health – you can go without it if you really want, but then you won’t be able to push up red bars. Highly recommended that you bring it, especially since you don’t need to invest anything in Healing Prayers to use it. Glyph of Swiftness – use on Ether Renewal for maximum uptime. With it, you can afford to run 13 Energy Storage. Without it, you’ll want 16 Energy Storage for maximum ER duration. If possible, run 4 Air Magic with this skill so you can use it with two spells. Great Dwarf Weapon – awesome support spell if you have physicals in your team. Recharges quite fast, too. Reversal of Fortune – good spell that, with 1/4s cast and 2s cooldown, can fill in the void left by the change to Shield Guardian. Breath of the Great Dwarf – one of the weaknesses of ER Infusers is a lack of party healing. This spell compensates somewhat. If using it, try to ride Glyph of Swiftness to help with its long cooldown. Draw Conditions and Convert Hexes – if you really need the condition and hex removal. Life Attunement and Vital Blessing - as far as maintained enchantments go, these two are the best general options. Life Attunement is especially appealing since it not only increases both you and your partner’s heals, it also increases the health you gain from ER / Aura of Restoration. On the other hand, Vital Blessing counteracts death penalty, doesn’t impede physical damage and stops dangerous Elementalist foes for example from wiping your team out before you know it. Pick whichever suits your needs. Just a note here that all maintained enchantments should be maintained on yourself, even if they don't leave beneficial effects. They power ER. Protective Bond - this spell, if maintained on all your party, is tremendously powerful. As long as it doesn't drop, your team won't die either. The downside is that if you take spike damage your energy can go from 100 to 0 in the blink of an eye, and if that happens you will wipe since you have no energy to cast. In 8-man areas I recommend against maintaining 8 Protective Bonds alone. That doesn't mean you shouldn't use Protective Bond: you can maintain 4-5 of them only. If using Protective Bond, consider using energy armour. Note as well that Protective Bond does not synergize well with Vital Blessing. Other maintained enchantments – Purifying Veil can be helpful if you’re facing blind spam and want to keep your physicals clean. Life Bond looks appealing, but you can't use it on yourself and it only works against attacks. I don't recommend it, but try it out if you want. Balthazar's Spirit can give frontliners some extra energy and adrenaline. Two maintained enchantments? – just an extension from the above idea. It works. With two enchantments you definitely want Life Attunement; the other is up to you. If you’re maintaining two enchantments without Glyph of Swiftness, you’ll want 16 Energy Storage. Sample build: Energy Storage 11 + 1 + 1 = 13 Protection Prayers 12 Air Magic 4 Healing Prayers 5 Infuse Health Spirit Bond Protective Spirit Great Dwarf Weapon Aura of Restoration Ether Renewal Life Attunement Glyph of Swiftness AP calling – Assassin’s Promise is, aside from ER, the best elite available to Elementalists. If you play for damage it is usually the most reliable option. Although Elementalist skills are not exceptional for damage, you’ve got PvE skills to use and should focus around them. The primary PvE skills to use are “You Move Like A Dwarf!”, “Finish Him!” and Ebon Vanguard Assassin Support – there are alternatives (e.g. Lightbringer’s Gaze, Ebon Vanguard Sniper Support, Mindbender ...), but not any that I’ve found that come close to matching these. The main question when using AP is what element you’re going to use. I recommend Air just so you can bring as much damage as you can onto a marked target. Earth works as well – less offense, but more support. Fire isn’t very useful but you can still try it if you hit lots of targets at a time. Run GoLE with these builds; spamming the Norn shouts is energy-intensive, and you don’t have Soul Reaping to keep energy up. A few tips when AP calling. Find the single most threatening enemy monster, and kill him first. Your single-target damage is very strong, and the ranged KD “YMLAD!” can stop Monks from healing. Reserve AP for as long as possible - against mobs with multiple hex removals / deep hex removals, it's very possible AP gets removed. Against other mobs it's also very possible that the target receives a strong prot and doesn't die. Since AP bars function badly without AP, you definitely do not want this to happen. The best way to deal with it is simply to reserve AP until you can kill the target almost instantly after using it. Finishing with "Finish Him!" is ideal. Rend Enchantments on a hero is also very helpful here. Against hex removal one thing you can do is simply to focus the monsters with it first. If you KD them with YMLAD!, they can't cast their anti-hexes, and other players / heroes / henchmen may well cover AP with their own hexes. Always lead with EBVAS if possible; it should also be the first spell you cast after an AP recharge (unless it's another AP). That's because not only does the Assassin deal good damage, it's also a meat shield that reduces pressure on your team. YMLAD! can be used defensively if you need it. Use it to KD threatening damage-dealers when under pressure. Use it also to interrupt deadly spells like Meteor Shower. Tab is your friend; use it to find a low target. Any target lower than 50% is usually an easy kill and therefore an energy boost and another meat shield on the battlefield. You can cast GoLE while tabbing around. If it takes both shouts to finish off a target, lead with “YMLAD!”. That's because “FH!” first may not trigger if the target isn't actually below 50% (has happened to me many times). Sample build: 12 + 3 + 1 = 16 Air Magic 3 + 1 = 4 Energy Storage 12 Deadly Arts “You Move Like A Dwarf!” “Finish Him!” Chain Lightning Lightning Orb Glyph of Lesser Energy Air Attunement Assassin’s Promise Ebon Vanguard Assassin Support AP Earth - although not generally as good as AP Air, AP Earth is still good enough to warrant its own mention. The big difference between the two is that AP Earth has way more AoE damage at its disposal, at the cost of considerably less single-target damage. As such, you should use AP Earth only when you are confident of hitting multiple monsters in a time, and preferably also capable of keeping them in Earth's DoTAoE. The threshold here is about 4 monsters per cast - if you can hit 4 monsters or more per cast, consider AP Earth, otherwise stick with AP Air. The key things to note with AP Earth are the same as that for AP Air, but try to aim your AoE nukes at clusters of monsters. Sample build: 12 + 3 + 1 = 16 Earth Magic 3 + 1 = 4 Energy Storage 12 Deadly Arts “You Move Like A Dwarf!” “Finish Him!” Churning Earth Eruption Glyph of Lesser Energy Earth Attunement Assassin’s Promise Ebon Vanguard Assassin Support FAQs and other stuff I hate you, you are bad / arrogant / retarded etc. Lots of people already do, another won’t make a big difference. Who created ER Infuse? To the best of my knowledge several people put it together right here, on GW Guru. You can read more about it in this thread. Notable names include myself, ElnoreVarda, Ensign and Chthon. I need a build that only include Factions skills. Read Cebe’s guide. I have an effective Water Magic build. Show me. If you can show it fills a niche, no matter how small, and is better than any other option available to Elementalists for that niche, I’ll put it into the guide. Otherwise though I probably won’t be impressed. Why don’t you write a PvP Elementalist guide? I’m not good enough in some PvP formats, and the PvP meta changes more often than ideal for me keeping a guide updated. Why don’t any of your builds include Res Sig? Res Sigs are rather less valuable in PvE than in PvP. You shouldn’t be dying much, and if you do die hard resses are more useful. Also, since you as the player have access to PvE skills, you’re better off using those skills and dealing damage. I’d leave the ressing to heroes, but go ahead and include them if you want. Your guide is a wall of text. I realize. Someday I might get around to adding pictures and all that. Earth magic is better than Air. That is indeed true, depending on area, but when most people say this they usually mean in the general case ... in which case, I suggest looking at this thread. I quote: Quote:
But Water Magic has the best snares in the game! Yes. But The next time you catch yourself wanting a Water-magic snare, try bringing “You Move Like A Dwarf!” instead. I think you're wrong. Tell me why. I play Elementalist a different way from you. Tell me what you do. My word is not gospel - I know several accomplished Elementalists who think differently from me. What happened to the melee builds? I decided that they, being strictly inferior to the primary classes, aren't worth including in the guide. They're still fun to play with, but guide-worthy they aren't. Conclusion You've reached the end of this guide. Thanks for reading, hope you learned something, and remember: my word is not gospel - I know several accomplished Elementalists who think differently from me. Credits Everyone mentioned in this post – Cebe, Ensign, Varda, Chthon and Moloch Vein. Xenomortis helped with some helpful discussions as well, and FengShuiDove and Terek Zelta posted some useful stuff for a previous edition of the guide. Last edited by Jeydra; Feb 09, 2012 at 03:07 PM // 15:07.. |
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Jan 02, 2010, 02:51 PM // 14:51
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#2 |
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Forge Runner
Join Date: May 2008
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Reserving post if I ever need it for guide expansion.
I'll listen to constructive criticism and suggestions, but I can't guarantee I'll follow them. Should also say too that since I play less and less of Guild Wars everyday, this guide is not likely to be updated often, but fortunately (and it's probably the only fortunate part about it lol) ANet's updating the game less and less often, too. |
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Jan 02, 2010, 03:53 PM // 15:53
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#3 |
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Forge Runner
Join Date: Mar 2008
Guild: Not in one.
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You had me interested until you quoted Moloch Vein. Sadly I had to read most of it before I came to that part.
It would be nice if more players would move over to Ether Renewal healing instead of monks. So mentioning that makes this guide helpful in making people more aware. |
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Jan 02, 2010, 03:54 PM // 15:54
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#4 |
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Krytan Explorer
Join Date: Jun 2009
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[Infuse Health][Glyph of Swiftness][Ether Renewal][Optional][Optional][Aura of Restoration][Protective Bond][Life attunement][/build]
Only "guide" you need to playing an elementalist in Guild Wars in HM as it currently is. (But you guide is very nice. I learned a lot from it) Also, I find elementalists to be much more effective than melee in normal mode. Like you said, melee classes have lots of armor ignoring damage which are pretty useless in normal mode except maybe for the last few missions. So I just load up 4 SF nukers, an MM to soak up most the daamge, and 3 defensive roles and just blow through. EDIT: For the record, the guy above me is not me using a puppet account. Last edited by Pugs Not Drugs; Jan 02, 2010 at 04:13 PM // 16:13.. |
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Jan 03, 2010, 07:02 PM // 19:02
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#5 | |
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Tea Powered
Join Date: May 2008
Location: UK
Profession: N/
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I cannot find anything I can really argue against. This is a nice guide and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to play an Ele in HM. Nice work Jeydra.
I would say that you could add a comment explaining why ER Eles don't make monks redundant, but I'm worried that would be drifting away from the main topic. Quote:
Arguments should be weighed on their own merits, not those of the author. |
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Jan 03, 2010, 08:19 PM // 20:19
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#6 |
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Lion's Arch Merchant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: The Dirtiest Parts Of My Mind
Guild: Phlying Skwirls[PS]
Profession: N/
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+1 for sticky. Good of you to take the trouble with this.
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Jan 03, 2010, 08:30 PM // 20:30
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#7 | |
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Forge Runner
Join Date: Mar 2008
Guild: Not in one.
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Quote:
The post should include more about weapon mods and runes, perhaps. Last edited by Cuilan; Jan 03, 2010 at 08:35 PM // 20:35.. |
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Jan 03, 2010, 08:45 PM // 20:45
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#8 |
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Unbanned
Join Date: Jan 2008
Guild: Trinity of the Ascended [ToA] -- IGN: Swirly
Profession: Mo/
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overall good guide, disagree on a few points, primarily water magic. i love that line of magic and it's just as useful as earth or air when it comes to support. the only other thing i have to say is that when you say, "if for some reason you’re playing support but not using ER," as you said, HM damage is pitiful for an ele and ER gets to be rather annoying when all of your H/H are hitting different things and you have to switch from healing to calling because the AI is dumb. if you're playing with people, by all means go with ER but if you're H/H'ing, i prefer to use a damage/support build so i can call for the heroes and whatnot.
most of your other points are right on though. |
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Jan 04, 2010, 12:37 AM // 00:37
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#9 | |
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Jungle Guide
Join Date: Apr 2005
Profession: N/A
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Quote:
Enraged Smash{E} Crude Swing Save Yourselves! Asura Scan Shock Drunken Master Conjure Lightning -Optional- ES + Crude swing gives you very easy SY! maintenance. (ES alone is pretty decent anti-kite/linebacking.) Conjure lets you forgo SoH somewhere else on your heroes and take another copy of splinter, for example. See http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...t10417753.html for more info. If you think that's crap, fine: I respect YOUR ability enough to back down. |
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Jan 04, 2010, 05:53 AM // 05:53
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#10 |
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Desert Nomad
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: USA
Guild: LOVE
Profession: Me/E
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Most of the people who diss the water line do it because they never experimented with it, or played it seriously. Water line is incredibly useful in several areas. Just the thought of the skill "Ward Against Harm" should send chills down the nerve of any fire ele foe.
The water line, unlike other lines, works best when combined with other lines. It can cause create sufficient chaos even in HM to make them viable for use on heroes. Sadly, people have been brainwashed with "discord" and "sabway" that ele heroes are usually discarded from gameplay. P.S. The ER build has been known for a long time. Last time I used the build was two years ago when I completed all EOTN titles with it. In fact, I am surprised it took that long for ER to become a current meta for eles in HM. Yes, ER is the way to go, and there are lot of flexibilities than just the simple ER infuser as outlined in the guide. Last edited by mage767; Jan 04, 2010 at 06:00 AM // 06:00.. |
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Jan 04, 2010, 07:50 AM // 07:50
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#11 |
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Oak Ridge Boys Fan
Join Date: Jun 2007
Profession: E/P
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I would have to ask where a regular monk would be better. I've seen annoying stripping and such, but I can't think of any area where I would want a monk instead of an ele healing partner. It's not that monks are bad, not at all; just yesterday I saw a good one who kept the party from wiping after I screwed up. Nonetheless, other than more slots for hex removal, what are they good for?
Last edited by Malician; Jan 04, 2010 at 07:53 AM // 07:53.. |
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Jan 04, 2010, 10:47 AM // 10:47
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#12 | |
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Forge Runner
Join Date: May 2008
Location: East Anglia, UK
Guild: Order of [Thay]
Profession: N/
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Quote:
But the only thing that gets in my way, as an ER, is the wells of profane which melee get stuck in often, they all get stripped and atleast one person will die depending on the size of the mob. Yes, one fatality is worst-case-scenario. |
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Jan 04, 2010, 06:48 PM // 18:48
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#13 |
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Jungle Guide
Join Date: Apr 2005
Profession: N/A
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After doing some thinking, here's what I would try for an ele in HM:
Enraged Smash{E} Protector's Strike Whirlwind Attack Crude Swing Save Yourselves! Shock Crushing Blow Drunken Master The combo of ES-Protector's-Whirlwind is just too good to pass up. Energy should be okay if you take a zealous and manage your AoEs. Better than an ER? Probably not. Better than AP? Potentially. Lots of AoE and of course more support from SY!. |
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Jan 04, 2010, 07:00 PM // 19:00
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#14 | |
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Tea Powered
Join Date: May 2008
Location: UK
Profession: N/
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Quote:
How valuable is the Deep-Wound from CB do you think? It might be nice when facing a target that's going to be getting some heals. |
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Jan 04, 2010, 09:43 PM // 21:43
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#15 | |
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Jungle Guide
Join Date: Apr 2005
Profession: N/A
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Quote:
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Jan 04, 2010, 10:00 PM // 22:00
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#16 | |
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Jungle Guide
Join Date: Jul 2009
Guild: Mirror of Reason [SNOW]
Profession: E/N
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Quote:
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Jan 04, 2010, 10:05 PM // 22:05
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#17 | |
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Tea Powered
Join Date: May 2008
Location: UK
Profession: N/
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Quote:
More threatening is ER being stripped. |
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Jan 04, 2010, 11:54 PM // 23:54
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#18 |
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Frost Gate Guardian
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Bay Area
Guild: none
Profession: R/
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Utility is far from useless, the quote you used support direct damage being the best way of dealing damage not that it is the only thing that matters. Also you did not invent ER infuser its an intuitive build that I know many people had developed in one form or another although perhaps you and your buddies were the first to use that exact combo of 8 skills. Aside from that useful and informative guide although I think you neglected the usefulness of the elemental attributes in 4 and 6 man areas.
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Jan 05, 2010, 05:47 AM // 05:47
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#19 |
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Lazy by Default
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Stickied.
12345
__________________
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Jan 05, 2010, 08:34 AM // 08:34
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#20 | |
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Wark!!!
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Florida
Profession: W/
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Quote:
Anyways water magic isn't great in PvE but I like playing it anyways when I'm on my el. I think they are more useful in PvP. |
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