Maxing Fire Damage and other help? - Guild Wars Forums

bakedleaf · Mar 28, 2007, 09:54 PM // 21:54

Hi, I am new to guild wars and I just got my first level 20 RPC, but I don't really feel like I am doing alot of damage. I am a fire elementalist/ranger, and I have maxed out my fire attribute, and I have one bonus point, so it is 13. I know you can get items to boost abilities and stuff, so I want to know if someone can give me the names of these items and how I can get them (It is a Factions character, I also have prophecies). I also just want to know if anyone has general tips on being the strongest possible.

P.S: How do you make alot of money? what are the best/easiest ways

Spartan117 · Mar 28, 2007, 10:04 PM // 22:04

you can use runes that can boost certin attributes with a small loss of health but they are non-stacking. As for money i am still figureing that one out rofl.

BeefEater4:20 · Mar 28, 2007, 10:16 PM // 22:16

My advice would be to purchase a major or superior fire rune and apply it to a headpiece that adds +1 to fire magic. Runes will not stack together, however, they will stack with a headpiece. This means you can have a max of 16 (12 +3 +1, Attr, Rune, Hat) in one attribute and 15 in your other primary attributes. You cannot use runes for your secondary class attributes.

As to making money, an relatively easy method is to gain access to high end areas by completing the missions, then just explore those high end areas and kill things for drops. You could also research in the farming forums here and on www.gw.gamewikis.org for solo farming builds and information.

However, large amounts of money are not required as you can easily find max damage weapons in the later areas of each campaign and purchasing max armor costs about 10K. If you want pretty max armor, then it costs more, but you're only paying for looks, not functionality. Same goes for weapons, while a gold req 9 15-22 15^50 fellblade will cost alot, it is just a funtional as a blue req 9 15-22 15^50 long sword. The fellblade just looks alot cooler

Stormlord Alex · Mar 28, 2007, 11:06 PM // 23:06

The best way to max out your damage as an ele is to boost your element of choice as high as possible. In your case, purchase a Pyromancer's Aura/Flame's Eye (head armour) and attach a rune of Superior (or Major if you can't afford it) Fire Magic to it, resulting in 16(15 with Major) Fire magic.

The best items to equip as a Fire ele... It's all personal preference here, 22 months of being an ele tells me that, for general PvE, a wand and offhand with 20% half casting time and half skill recharge times for Fire Magic is the 'best' set for PvE, allowing you (sufficient energy provided) to be able to fire off more spells faster than other weapon choices. Which is, as a Fire ele, what you really need to be doing to pull your weight in a team.

On to my next point... energy management! Perhaps the single most important skill a caster can learn in GW, being able to manage your energy allows you to stay effective throughout a battle, particularly useful (from a PvE perspective) in long battles with constant enemy reinforcements, or where you have to hold and defend a position. As an ele, this is primarily done through the use of specific skills (as opposed to say, a monk, who conserve energy with efficient casts) - eles have, without a doubt, the best non-elite energy managing skills in the game. Glyph of Lesser Energy, as it is at the moment, is incredible - so much so, that even non-ele casters use it over their own class' energy skills.
Glyph of Lesser Energy (GoLE is a common abbreviation) combined with an Attunement spell for your element (Attunements are enchantments that return energy when a spell is cast) is a pretty darn good way for you to keep energy high. [skill]Fire Attunement[/skill]

The next way of making your damage even better - good skill selection. Despite what many elementalists (in-game, at least) think, spamming Flare ad infinitum simply won't cut it for damage. The Fire ele's main strength lies in his ability to do damage over an area, however, these AoE skills come with hefty downtimes. So, it's best to take a balance of big, shiny AoE skills, as well as smaller spells with lower recharges to pick stuff off inbetween. As an example... For a while, I ran

[skill]Teinai's Heat[/skill][skill]Searing Heat[/skill][skill]Fireball[/skill][skill]Smoldering Embers[/skill]

as my damaging spells on my new ele. While, admittedly, not the perfect skill selection, it works well enough - open up with the Heats on clumps of stationary enemies to soften them up, and use Fireball and Embers to pick off the survivors.
Another thing to consider is that higher-level enemies take greatly reduced damage from your spells, inflicting burning on them is an effective way to bypass their armour. [skill]Mark of Rodgort[/skill] and [skill]Immolate[/skill] are effective here.

Hmm... Oh, yes.
[skill]Meteor Shower[/skill] <-- An impressive skill, to be sure, with a particularly noticeable animation. Many PuG eles swear by this skill, and it is, truth be told, an effective skill under the right conditions. Stuff to consider:

1)Stationary clusters of enemies, particularly caster-types - using MS on moving foes means you've just wasted, essentially, a one-shot skill. Wait till aggro settles and the enemy mages are trained in on a target before casting.

2)Time delay is an important thing to consider - MS takes 5 seconds to cast, and it's a further 3 seconds before the 1st meteor hits. That's 8 seconds before the spell actually does anything. For this reason, I, and many others, use [skill]Glyph of Sacrifice[/skill] before casting, reducing the delay to 3 seconds. With a halfway decent PuG, guild group or hench team, in them 8 seconds the enemy would be pretty beat-up and you would've been better off with Rodgort's Invocation.
To be honest, the extra 30 sec recharge tagged on by the glyph isn't a biggie. MS already has 60 sec cooldown, it's a one-shot skill either way. Meteor Shower will have recharged by the time you need it again, and in PvE, morale boosts that instantly recharge skills are easy to come by.

Yeah... that's about all I can think of.
I haven't mention SF, Liquid Flame or any of the other goodies in Nightfall 'cuz... the OP can't get 'em.

My fingers hurt...

regards, Stormlord.

P.S.... Oh... yeah, check out the ele forums here at guru. Ensign knows his stuff

Guildwiki also has a builds section you can pull ideas from (though, even some of the vetted builds there are not all too good... beware!)

bakedleaf · Mar 28, 2007, 11:18 PM // 23:18

Ok I got the major rune and applied it to my pyromancers aura, btw, I haven't gotten my max armor.

anything else I can do?

bakedleaf · Mar 28, 2007, 11:25 PM // 23:25

OMG....

I hadn't refreshed my page and saw that stormlord.

amazing, that is truely helpful, thanks!

so is the max you can get on fire spells 16?

Coloneh · Mar 28, 2007, 11:29 PM // 23:29

get max armor

Stormlord Alex · Mar 28, 2007, 11:32 PM // 23:32

The max is, generally, 16. You do not need any higher, unless you wanna laugh at a 400-damage Fireball on a level 1 mantid.

It is possible to get it up to... ehm... maths... maths... 21? under very... extreme circumstances.

12 (base) + 1 (headgear) + 3 (Superior rune) + 2 (glyph of Elemental Power) + 1 (staff/offhand that boosts fire magic 20%) + 1 (blessing available from Balthazar shrines) + 1 (from New Year lucky blessing).

Yeah. Not that you ever need 21 Fire Magic.

Stick with 16

BeefEater4:20 · Mar 28, 2007, 11:33 PM // 23:33

The max consistent attr you can get is 16. there are skills and items that can temporarily raise your attributes by +1 or +2, but they are not permanent effects. IE: you can get a staff wrapping of fire magic with up to a 20% chance of adding +1 to fire magic when casting, and there is a skill called glyph of elemental power (or something like that) that adds +2 to your attribute for the next 5 spells cast

Edit:

Well, I guess stormlord alex can type faster than i can

Spartan117 · Mar 29, 2007, 12:02 AM // 00:02

You can always salvage the rune out of your armor later with an expert or superior kit. i do it all the time.

Antheus · Mar 29, 2007, 12:07 AM // 00:07

With release of NF I finally came to the conclusion that more than major fire and minor energy storage is a waste of hp.

Running eles with 500-550 health has proven to benefit the teams so much more than that extra 2 damage ever could.

Your milage may vary, but the only build where I still use superior rune is minion master. Every other uses either a single major or only minors (for monks).

Quote:

You can always salvage the rune out of your armor later with an expert or superior kit. i do it all the time.

You also run the rist of destroying the armor you're salvaging from.

HawkofStorms · Mar 29, 2007, 01:13 AM // 01:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Antheus

You also run the rist of destroying the armor you're salvaging from.

But if you had read the whole post, you'll see it isn't max armor he's talking about, so he's going to sell it to a merchant anyway, he might as well get the runes out of it.

bakedleaf · Mar 29, 2007, 07:40 PM // 19:40

thanks, also, what are the best defensive skills, though I am level 20, I still find my self killed by a group of 6 level 11 bone turtles... Im guessing thats bad?

Yea, so defensive and healing skills, I have a +8 health regeneration troll unguent, but that takes a LONG time to cast, thanks for the help on getting my fire damage high, but now I need to max defense and healing

derrtyboy69 · Mar 29, 2007, 08:43 PM // 20:43

Do you have max armor yet? Thats the first thing. I'm not sure if yoou are, but in a group of people or henchies, your best defense is to kite from melee enemies (run around). Aura of restoration is a basic ele self heal that is under energy storage. Generally, ele armor skills like Armor of Earth, or Armor of Mist will work better than troll unguent in groups.

Antheus · Mar 30, 2007, 02:22 AM // 02:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by bakedleaf

thanks, also, what are the best defensive skills, though I am level 20, I still find my self killed by a group of 6 level 11 bone turtles... Im guessing thats bad?

Yea, so defensive and healing skills, I have a +8 health regeneration troll unguent, but that takes a LONG time to cast, thanks for the help on getting my fire damage high, but now I need to max defense and healing

A monk? Or two?

Of the ele defensive skills I prefer ward against melee and sliver armor.

But by far best protection is a prot monk.

For solo builds look into farming forum.

c_ras · Mar 30, 2007, 03:20 PM // 15:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by bakedleaf

thanks, also, what are the best defensive skills, though I am level 20, I still find my self killed by a group of 6 level 11 bone turtles... Im guessing thats bad?

Yea, so defensive and healing skills, I have a +8 health regeneration troll unguent, but that takes a LONG time to cast, thanks for the help on getting my fire damage high, but now I need to max defense and healing

Great Ele Defensive skills:

[skill]Sliver Armor[/skill] , [skill]Stoneflesh Aura[/skill] , [skill]Ward Against Elements[/skill] , [skill]Ward Against Melee[/skill] , [skill]Magnetic Aura[/skill] , [skill]Kinetic Armor[/skill] , and/or [skill]Obsidian Flesh[/skill]

All of which are under Earth Magic (more defensive based skills) though rather than under Fire. When it comes to PvE, I think Fire Magic and Earth magic are the two more widely used elemental attributes.

With a Ranger Secondary
about the only skill I can think of is [skill]Natural Stride[/skill] (for a little defense) and [skill]Troll Unguent[/skill] (as an option for a self heal...although you'll have to put quite a bit in WS for it to be pretty effective)
- Aldoros of Faydark

Stormlord Alex · Mar 30, 2007, 04:07 PM // 16:07

The best defensive skill for PvE?

Kiting. It requires no attribute points, costs no Energy, is available to every proffession, and doesn't even take up a skill slot.

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Kiting

HawkofStorms · Mar 30, 2007, 06:46 PM // 18:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by bakedleaf

thanks, also, what are the best defensive skills, though I am level 20, I still find my self killed by a group of 6 level 11 bone turtles... Im guessing thats bad?

Yea, so defensive and healing skills, I have a +8 health regeneration troll unguent, but that takes a LONG time to cast, thanks for the help on getting my fire damage high, but now I need to max defense and healing

From the sounds of it, it doesn't sound like you are using other people. Make sure to use henchmen and heroes.

angmar_nite · Mar 31, 2007, 12:00 AM // 00:00

Do you need a guy to help you around? I can provide financial support and help with quests and missions. I know elementalists like the back of my hand and Tyria almost as well.

Catch my ele on at: dark lord nitemare.

Edit: well guys, I can now confirm he does have max armor

Mar 28, 2007, 09:54 PM // 21:54	#1
bakedleaf Pre-Searing Cadet Join Date: Mar 2007 Profession: E/R	Maxing Fire Damage and other help? Hi, I am new to guild wars and I just got my first level 20 RPC, but I don't really feel like I am doing alot of damage. I am a fire elementalist/ranger, and I have maxed out my fire attribute, and I have one bonus point, so it is 13. I know you can get items to boost abilities and stuff, so I want to know if someone can give me the names of these items and how I can get them (It is a Factions character, I also have prophecies). I also just want to know if anyone has general tips on being the strongest possible. P.S: How do you make alot of money? what are the best/easiest ways

Mar 28, 2007, 11:06 PM // 23:06	#4
Stormlord Alex Grotto Attendant Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Beyond the Forest of Doom, past the Cavern of Agony... on Kitten & Puppy Island Guild: Soul of Melandru [sOm] Profession: W/E	The best way to max out your damage as an ele is to boost your element of choice as high as possible. In your case, purchase a Pyromancer's Aura/Flame's Eye (head armour) and attach a rune of Superior (or Major if you can't afford it) Fire Magic to it, resulting in 16(15 with Major) Fire magic. The best items to equip as a Fire ele... It's all personal preference here, 22 months of being an ele tells me that, for general PvE, a wand and offhand with 20% half casting time and half skill recharge times for Fire Magic is the 'best' set for PvE, allowing you (sufficient energy provided) to be able to fire off more spells faster than other weapon choices. Which is, as a Fire ele, what you really need to be doing to pull your weight in a team. On to my next point... energy management! Perhaps the single most important skill a caster can learn in GW, being able to manage your energy allows you to stay effective throughout a battle, particularly useful (from a PvE perspective) in long battles with constant enemy reinforcements, or where you have to hold and defend a position. As an ele, this is primarily done through the use of specific skills (as opposed to say, a monk, who conserve energy with efficient casts) - eles have, without a doubt, the best non-elite energy managing skills in the game. Glyph of Lesser Energy, as it is at the moment, is incredible - so much so, that even non-ele casters use it over their own class' energy skills. Glyph of Lesser Energy (GoLE is a common abbreviation) combined with an Attunement spell for your element (Attunements are enchantments that return energy when a spell is cast) is a pretty darn good way for you to keep energy high. [skill]Fire Attunement[/skill] The next way of making your damage even better - good skill selection. Despite what many elementalists (in-game, at least) think, spamming Flare ad infinitum simply won't cut it for damage. The Fire ele's main strength lies in his ability to do damage over an area, however, these AoE skills come with hefty downtimes. So, it's best to take a balance of big, shiny AoE skills, as well as smaller spells with lower recharges to pick stuff off inbetween. As an example... For a while, I ran [skill]Teinai's Heat[/skill][skill]Searing Heat[/skill][skill]Fireball[/skill][skill]Smoldering Embers[/skill] as my damaging spells on my new ele. While, admittedly, not the perfect skill selection, it works well enough - open up with the Heats on clumps of stationary enemies to soften them up, and use Fireball and Embers to pick off the survivors. Another thing to consider is that higher-level enemies take greatly reduced damage from your spells, inflicting burning on them is an effective way to bypass their armour. [skill]Mark of Rodgort[/skill] and [skill]Immolate[/skill] are effective here. Hmm... Oh, yes. [skill]Meteor Shower[/skill] <-- An impressive skill, to be sure, with a particularly noticeable animation. Many PuG eles swear by this skill, and it is, truth be told, an effective skill under the right conditions. Stuff to consider: 1)Stationary clusters of enemies, particularly caster-types - using MS on moving foes means you've just wasted, essentially, a one-shot skill. Wait till aggro settles and the enemy mages are trained in on a target before casting. 2)Time delay is an important thing to consider - MS takes 5 seconds to cast, and it's a further 3 seconds before the 1st meteor hits. That's 8 seconds before the spell actually does anything. For this reason, I, and many others, use [skill]Glyph of Sacrifice[/skill] before casting, reducing the delay to 3 seconds. With a halfway decent PuG, guild group or hench team, in them 8 seconds the enemy would be pretty beat-up and you would've been better off with Rodgort's Invocation. To be honest, the extra 30 sec recharge tagged on by the glyph isn't a biggie. MS already has 60 sec cooldown, it's a one-shot skill either way. Meteor Shower will have recharged by the time you need it again, and in PvE, morale boosts that instantly recharge skills are easy to come by. Yeah... that's about all I can think of. I haven't mention SF, Liquid Flame or any of the other goodies in Nightfall 'cuz... the OP can't get 'em. My fingers hurt... regards, Stormlord. P.S.... Oh... yeah, check out the ele forums here at guru. Ensign knows his stuff Guildwiki also has a builds section you can pull ideas from (though, even some of the vetted builds there are not all too good... beware!) Last edited by Stormlord Alex; Mar 28, 2007 at 11:10 PM // 23:10..

Mar 31, 2007, 12:00 AM // 00:00	#19
angmar_nite Jungle Guide Join Date: Feb 2007 Guild: [SNOW] of [YUM] Profession: E/	Do you need a guy to help you around? I can provide financial support and help with quests and missions. I know elementalists like the back of my hand and Tyria almost as well. Catch my ele on at: dark lord nitemare. Edit: well guys, I can now confirm he does have max armor Last edited by angmar_nite; Mar 31, 2007 at 12:32 AM // 00:32..

Mar 28, 2007, 10:04 PM // 22:04	#2
Spartan117 Academy Page Join Date: Mar 2007 Guild: The Other Hand Profession: W/R	you can use runes that can boost certin attributes with a small loss of health but they are non-stacking. As for money i am still figureing that one out rofl.

Mar 28, 2007, 10:16 PM // 22:16	#3
BeefEater4:20 Ascalonian Squire Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: British Columbia, Canada Guild: Knights of Saitin[KOS]	My advice would be to purchase a major or superior fire rune and apply it to a headpiece that adds +1 to fire magic. Runes will not stack together, however, they will stack with a headpiece. This means you can have a max of 16 (12 +3 +1, Attr, Rune, Hat) in one attribute and 15 in your other primary attributes. You cannot use runes for your secondary class attributes. As to making money, an relatively easy method is to gain access to high end areas by completing the missions, then just explore those high end areas and kill things for drops. You could also research in the farming forums here and on www.gw.gamewikis.org for solo farming builds and information. However, large amounts of money are not required as you can easily find max damage weapons in the later areas of each campaign and purchasing max armor costs about 10K. If you want pretty max armor, then it costs more, but you're only paying for looks, not functionality. Same goes for weapons, while a gold req 9 15-22 15^50 fellblade will cost alot, it is just a funtional as a blue req 9 15-22 15^50 long sword. The fellblade just looks alot cooler

Mar 28, 2007, 11:18 PM // 23:18	#5
bakedleaf Pre-Searing Cadet Join Date: Mar 2007 Profession: E/R	Ok I got the major rune and applied it to my pyromancers aura, btw, I haven't gotten my max armor. anything else I can do?

Mar 28, 2007, 11:25 PM // 23:25	#6
bakedleaf Pre-Searing Cadet Join Date: Mar 2007 Profession: E/R	OMG.... I hadn't refreshed my page and saw that stormlord. amazing, that is truely helpful, thanks! so is the max you can get on fire spells 16?

Mar 28, 2007, 11:29 PM // 23:29	#7
Coloneh Furnace Stoker Join Date: Nov 2006 Profession: D/W	get max armor

Mar 28, 2007, 11:32 PM // 23:32	#8
Stormlord Alex Grotto Attendant Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Beyond the Forest of Doom, past the Cavern of Agony... on Kitten & Puppy Island Guild: Soul of Melandru [sOm] Profession: W/E	The max is, generally, 16. You do not need any higher, unless you wanna laugh at a 400-damage Fireball on a level 1 mantid. It is possible to get it up to... ehm... maths... maths... 21? under very... extreme circumstances. 12 (base) + 1 (headgear) + 3 (Superior rune) + 2 (glyph of Elemental Power) + 1 (staff/offhand that boosts fire magic 20%) + 1 (blessing available from Balthazar shrines) + 1 (from New Year lucky blessing). Yeah. Not that you ever need 21 Fire Magic. Stick with 16

Mar 28, 2007, 11:33 PM // 23:33	#9
BeefEater4:20 Ascalonian Squire Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: British Columbia, Canada Guild: Knights of Saitin[KOS]	The max consistent attr you can get is 16. there are skills and items that can temporarily raise your attributes by +1 or +2, but they are not permanent effects. IE: you can get a staff wrapping of fire magic with up to a 20% chance of adding +1 to fire magic when casting, and there is a skill called glyph of elemental power (or something like that) that adds +2 to your attribute for the next 5 spells cast Edit: Well, I guess stormlord alex can type faster than i can

Mar 29, 2007, 12:02 AM // 00:02	#10
Spartan117 Academy Page Join Date: Mar 2007 Guild: The Other Hand Profession: W/R	You can always salvage the rune out of your armor later with an expert or superior kit. i do it all the time.

Mar 29, 2007, 07:40 PM // 19:40	#13
bakedleaf Pre-Searing Cadet Join Date: Mar 2007 Profession: E/R	thanks, also, what are the best defensive skills, though I am level 20, I still find my self killed by a group of 6 level 11 bone turtles... Im guessing thats bad? Yea, so defensive and healing skills, I have a +8 health regeneration troll unguent, but that takes a LONG time to cast, thanks for the help on getting my fire damage high, but now I need to max defense and healing

Mar 29, 2007, 08:43 PM // 20:43	#14
derrtyboy69 Grotto Attendant Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: The Clouds Guild: Scars Meadows [SMS] Profession: Mo/Me	Do you have max armor yet? Thats the first thing. I'm not sure if yoou are, but in a group of people or henchies, your best defense is to kite from melee enemies (run around). Aura of restoration is a basic ele self heal that is under energy storage. Generally, ele armor skills like Armor of Earth, or Armor of Mist will work better than troll unguent in groups.

Mar 30, 2007, 04:07 PM // 16:07	#17
Stormlord Alex Grotto Attendant Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Beyond the Forest of Doom, past the Cavern of Agony... on Kitten & Puppy Island Guild: Soul of Melandru [sOm] Profession: W/E	The best defensive skill for PvE? Kiting. It requires no attribute points, costs no Energy, is available to every proffession, and doesn't even take up a skill slot. http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Kiting