Curse

digitalruse · May 13, 2008, 10:18 PM // 22:18

So, being an epic n00b I started a thread in the ele forum without checking that there is a hero forum for asking this question. I did get some great feedback from the posters, but it really needed to be here, and I apologize for the double post. Hopefully the original one in the ele forum will go away.

ANYWAY!

After talking with them about it I am trying to settle on an Ele spec. My group that I play with really lacks any form of hard hitting DPS, so we are looking to this Ele for that. I also gave him some interrupts since heroes have better reflexes for that then us humans most of the time. Where I am stuck is Fire vs. Air. Fire is the obvious choice for damage, but it's energy management leaves something to be desired. Air does respectable damage much faster but is all single target. Here they are:

[fire [email protected]][searing [email protected]][rodgort's [email protected]][glowing [email protected]][liquid [email protected]][meteor [email protected]][leech signet][web of disruption]

-or-

[Elemental [email protected]][Air [email protected]][Lightning [email protected]][Lightning [email protected]][Lightning [email protected]][Chain [email protected]][Leech Signet][Web of Disruption]

As you can see, they are fairly straight forward builds, but I am really stuck on how best to proceed and am looking for some feedback.

Thanks in advance
-DR

P.S. - My group is currently a N/R MM and a Dubious Sin.

P.P.S. - I had also considered a build that does both in some fashion. Fast Air single target attacks and boomier AoE fire attacks:

[Elemental Attunement][fire attunement][Lightning Strike][Lightning Orb][rodgort's invocation][meteor shower][liquid flame][Leech Signet]

Icy The Mage · May 13, 2008, 10:24 PM // 22:24

take out leech signet for power drain, which guarantees energy, and take out rodgorts on the first bar.

Don't even consider the second bar, it's waaayyy too unfocused, and focus makes a good build. (a.k.a. Do ONE thing, not 3)

Improvavel · May 14, 2008, 01:44 AM // 01:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by IcyFiftyFive

Don't even consider the second bar, it's waaayyy too unfocused, and focus makes a good build. (a.k.a. Do ONE thing, not 3)

This is true for brainless heroes not for humans - hybrid bars in the hand of people with brains pwn.

Now for Ele heroes, why not an earth guy?
[Unsteady Ground][Eruption][Churning Earth][Ebon Hawk][Earth Attunement][glyph of lesser energy][ward against melee][death pact signetl]

Aoe Damage, blind, knocks, more melee hate...

the savage nornbear · May 14, 2008, 02:53 AM // 02:53

needs more [splinter weapon]/[ancestors rage]?

digitalruse · May 14, 2008, 03:15 AM // 03:15

So, one of these two then:

[fire [email protected]][searing [email protected]][glowing [email protected]][liquid [email protected]][meteor [email protected]][[email protected]][power drain][web of disruption]

-or-

[Elemental [email protected]][Air [email protected]][Lightning [email protected]][Lightning [email protected]][Lightning [email protected]][Chain [email protected]][power drain][Web of Disruption]

I hadn't really given earth a whole lot of look mainly because I was looking for some high dps. That said, it is not that I don't think that Earth can dish it out it just really relies on mobs staying in one spot (even if they aren't generally smart enough to move) and that can be hard to work with an NPC at the helm, I'd imagine. Also, without using the Dual Attunement I am worried about energy management. Someone with Earth/Water or such would probably REALLY annoy the hell out of somebody, but I don't trust NPCs to be that smart.

This is also why I was leaning towards Air because I don't have to worry about mobs on the go and they'll get womped on. Fire still has enough of a mix of single target and AoE to be tempting with the high damage output.

My concern was two fold in that I had never played a Ele before so I needed to understand it from that angle as well as what skills work best with NPC AI.

Thanks
-DR

Trinity Fire Angel · May 14, 2008, 03:29 AM // 03:29

it;s good to have some self heal as well.... i always make my ele heros E/D with mystic regen and conviction. try focusing on one build like fire or air. if doing air... put in a blind. oh... and some form of energy management. heros love to spam without concern to energy.

ie. if burning... use glowing gaze. if water hex, use glowing ice or whatever that one is for water e-management

snaek · May 14, 2008, 03:32 AM // 03:32

[cry of frustration] > [web of disruption]
even at 0 dom

~~~~

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trinity Fire Angel

it;s good to have some self heal as well.... i always make my ele heros E/D with mystic regen and conviction.

thats a horrible thing to do...
either a support heal or any kind of support
but -never- a self-heal

Kaleban · May 14, 2008, 05:00 AM // 05:00

My two cents:

forget air skills on heros. The BEST thing IMHO is a bunch of AoE attacks, in NM they will pwn, and in HM the scatter will give your guys some relief.

The earth build posted by Improvavel is good for an earth build, and really delivers the melee hate. Your basic SH/Splinter is also great for doing AoE plus buffing the melee characters.

IMHO precision elemental spikers are good only when used by players, who understand how to use them and casting orders and such, Hero AI tends to spread the love around, which works fine on AoE nukers, but not so much single target nukers. I could be wrong of course, but that's just my experience.

zwei2stein · May 14, 2008, 06:44 AM // 06:44

2 cents:

* As said, CoF usually beats Web of Disruption in PvE
* Air is only good if you use its most important feature (Blinding ...)
* Earth Rocks (pun intended). i suggest Improvavels build minus Churring Earth plus Stoning minus Death pact signet plus cry of frustration. That gives it nice damage and nice messing. You might want some other hero (curses necro ...) with weakness.

shru · May 14, 2008, 09:41 AM // 09:41

for air ele heros, you'd want to stick to B-surge:

[B-surge Hero;OghjgwMooS6QIDXVLgYMeThDCAA](shock arrow/shellshock are optional slots, and res sig can be dropped for hard res)

The only decent fire ele build heros run is SF:

[SF hero;OgVDMoysO0txqvID0DwFIDBA]Less is more on an SF bar. The less time your hero spends casting other spells, the more time he spends spamming SF.

as for an earth ele, I don't find it a valueable enough attribute to run a pure warder, but it can be done:
[Warder hero;OghjkwMooOcVYBG7VcKQGpCBAA]I wouldn't recomend it, but if you feel you must. (again, res sig can be swapped for hard res)

I tend to avoid dual attunement heros as you'll have to babysit their upkeep.
Because I play in HM, I tend to use other characters as sources of armor ignoring damage, leaving eles in the role of support, (fire nuking just aint that great when your enemies have a huge 50% damage reducation from their 100AL and such.) but in NM, my SF bar will suffice. (I'd drop the Meobius sin for a 2nd SF'er though, heros utterly fail at anything attack-chain wise)

Super Igor · May 14, 2008, 01:41 PM // 13:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by digitalruse

[fire [email protected]][searing [email protected]][rodgort's [email protected]][glowing [email protected]][liquid [email protected]][meteor [email protected]][leech signet][web of disruption]

-or-

[Elemental [email protected]][Air [email protected]][Lightning [email protected]][Lightning [email protected]][Lightning [email protected]][Chain [email protected]][Leech Signet][Web of Disruption]

P.P.S. - I had also considered a build that does both in some fashion. Fast Air single target attacks and boomier AoE fire attacks:

[Elemental Attunement][fire attunement][Lightning Strike][Lightning Orb][rodgort's invocation][meteor shower][liquid flame][Leech Signet]

Ok, now for the fire bar you should have P-Drain instead of the signet in my oppinion because of lower recharge and highef energy gain, web of distraction is generally ok as it can interrupt normal skills though you might consider using drain delusions with it aswell for energy gain and instant trigger f the "on-ending" interupt. Having rodgort's alongside SF is an overkill, you either have one or another, meteor shower casts and rechrges too long and i unneeded considering how fast things die in pve. You also must hve glyph of leser energy for energ management.

Air ele is bad, imo, give him b-surge as an elite, shock arrow for energy management and meybe shell shock to reduce armor of mobs on HM, glyph is a must too. Dual attunement is bad as it makes your heroes slack behind the group and it is usually bad and microing them to follow you insead of mantaining attunements after battle is frustrating.

Third bar is crap, dont use it.

[fire [email protected]][searing [email protected]][glowing [email protected]][liquid [email protected]][glyph of lesser [email protected]][power [email protected]][web of disruption][drain [email protected]]

[air [email protected]][Blinding [email protected]][Shock [email protected]][shell [email protected]][Glyph of lesser [email protected]][power [email protected]][Web of Disruption][drain [email protected]]

hope I helped.

~Super Igor

~

digitalruse · May 15, 2008, 12:02 AM // 00:02

Wow!

Thanks for all the great feedback everyone. I will give a couple of these builds a try and see which one serves the group best. I hope to only have the Ele be an interrupter until I can get a Ranger or Mesmer PC/NPC and then I can make him that much more flexable.

Quote:

(I'd drop the Meobius sin for a 2nd SF'er though, heros utterly fail at anything attack-chain wise)

Sorry for not being clear. The other members of my group are players, not NPCs. So, the sin works well. ^_^

-DR

Super Igor · May 15, 2008, 01:35 PM // 13:35

Mesmer interrupting > Ranger interrupting.

rukh · May 15, 2008, 03:20 PM // 15:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by shru

for air ele heros, you'd want to stick to B-surge:
[B-surge Hero;OghjgwMooS6QIDXVLgYMeThDCAA](shock arrow/shellshock are optional slots, and res sig can be dropped for hard res)

The only decent fire ele build heros run is SF:
[SF hero;OgVDMoysO0txqvID0DwFIDBA]Less is more on an SF bar. The less time your hero spends casting other spells, the more time he spends spamming SF.

Shru made some really good points, and as an ele with 6mill xp and a few thousand hours in PVE, mostly with heroes and henchies I'll reinforce some of them!

In normal mode, having 3 SF fire eles (with the above build) makes the game a breeze. In GWEN and hard mode, 3 SF eles are still good, but there's a lot of areas where they will struggle or simply not work. For this, you'll want 3 necros (MM, SS & Healer). I'll post the builds when I get home.

If you can't bring 3 SF eles, then I would bring 1 or 2 necros. If you really want eles, then you could bring the B-surge build.

###

As for the rest of the party, see if you can convince your friend to go a N/Rt SS (as the AI runs MMs much better than a person).

Players - N/Rt SS and a Dubious Sin
Heroes - 3 SF eles, 1 N/Mo MM bomber, 2 monks (heal/prot)

This would be for normal mode. For HM, I would suggest:

Players - N/Rt SS and a Dubious Sin
Heroes - 1 N/Mo MM bomber, 1 N/Rt Healer, 2 monks (heal/prot) + 2 more...

And those 2 would depend on where you are and what you need

Tyla · May 15, 2008, 03:45 PM // 15:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Super Igor

Mesmer interrupting > Ranger interrupting.

My fast recharges and disable on D-Shot say otherwise. Even on a hero.

rukh · May 15, 2008, 04:20 PM // 16:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyla

My fast recharges and disable on D-Shot say otherwise. Even on a hero.

I can't speak to your ability with a recurve bow, but the flight time of 0.4sec (*at shortbow distance*) vs a cast time of 0.25sec for power drain and leech signet says a lot, although theoretically both could interrupt 0.5sec actions!

I do frequently see my x/me heroes interrupting 0.5sec spells though o_O

####

But we digress - the point of power drain and leech signet on eles is not to interrupt, but for energy management. I don't think giving your ele hero a bow is a good option :P

Tyla · May 15, 2008, 04:29 PM // 16:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by rukh

I can't speak to your ability with a recurve bow, but the flight time of 0.4sec (*at shortbow distance*) vs a cast time of 0.25sec for power drain and leech signet says a lot, although theoretically both could interrupt 0.5sec actions!

I do frequently see my x/me heroes interrupting 0.5sec spells though o_O

That's because heroes have stupid reflexes. The only good point about Mesmer interrupts on heroes is the line-of-sight, which heroes fail at.

I'm mainly pointing at recharge and effects though. D-Shot's effect is extremely strong, and it's not even an elite.

Savage Shot's recharge is stupid.

Broad Head Arrow in PvE with alot of melees makes the enemy caster doing next to nothing.

Quote:

But we digress - the point of power drain and leech signet on eles is not to interrupt, but for energy management. I don't think giving your ele hero a bow is a good option :P

I agree here, but I was mainly pointing out the fact he didn't look into effects, and recharges.

If heroes knew how to weaponswitch, if I was to use a Monk hero, I would replace GoLE with D-Shot and do a Tommy.

D-Shot shit and Monking at the same time is fun!

Super Igor · May 15, 2008, 07:27 PM // 19:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyla

My fast recharges and disable on D-Shot say otherwise. Even on a hero.

My Mesmer hero's fast recharging instant interrupts and vengeance say otherwise to your comment.

Terrokian · May 15, 2008, 11:58 PM // 23:58

Mesmer IS better at your interruption,but thing is they need PROTECTION.Keep things off their backs and they will work wonders.When I want interrupt on my team I usually make sure I have an MM in there.For example.
[build=Livia;OAZCUsxzaINoGQGH1pAeoqC]
+
[build=Gwen;OQZEATkCPJ8RGXkTB9gsAA]
then whatever other party members you desire.This duo is meant to spit a crap load of conditions and interrupt the enemy making short work of pretty much anything that gets in your way.

Antithesis · May 16, 2008, 01:40 AM // 01:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by shru

for air ele heros, you'd want to stick to B-surge:

[B-surge Hero;OghjgwMooS6QIDXVLgYMeThDCAA](shock arrow/shellshock are optional slots, and res sig can be dropped for hard res)

Disagree. Whilst that is a good build, B-surge sucks on a Hero, they can't manage energy properly. Dual Attunements + [[blinding flash] works much better. I've never needed to manage dual attunements however the build is vulnerable in heavy enchant-stripping zones.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shru

The only decent fire ele build heros run is SF:

[SF hero;OgVDMoysO0txqvID0DwFIDBA]Less is more on an SF bar. The less time your hero spends casting other spells, the more time he spends spamming SF.

Agreed with the exception of Mark of Rodgort. It's decent but is not needed and can cause energy problems. IMHO MoR is better replaced with [[aura of restoration] for improved survivability or [[waste not, want not] to keep up the SF spam.

SF'ers and Ele's in general are better suited to NM. In HM I take Nec's, Para's and Mes's instead.