Curse

Vincenthwind · Oct 10, 2011, 09:41 PM // 21:41

Hi, I'm new to GWGuru as well as the game. I started playing Prophecies about a few weeks ago. I put it down for a while and have just picked it back up. Currently I'm in the Southern Shiverpeaks. I'm not failing at this game persay, but I'm not happy with my build or damage. Now I know Prophecies kinda forces eles into a fire build, but I didn't figure that out until I was done wasting as much money as I could "pimping out" my stormforged armor.

I'm a newb, go figure.

Anyway, seeing as I don't really want to blow another who knows how much on flameforged armor, below is the air build I'm currently using:

[build prof=E/Me ins=3 air=12 ene=12][Lightning Surge][Lightning Orb][Chain Lightning][Lightning Strike][Blinding Flash][Glyph of Lesser Energy][Channeling][Air Attunement][/build] (Is there some proper way to format this? Or at least, can someone point me to the FAQ for idiots like me that explains it? Thanks)

Basically, Lightning Surge gets coupled with Lightning Orb for spike damage. Chain Lightning and Lightning Strike are simply run of the mill damage spells. I haven't figured out any useful combo for these two or better replacements. Blinding Flash is for...blinding, obviously. and the last three are for energy management. Speaking of that:

I suck hard at energy management. I always seem to expend all my energy in about three seconds, even with the three enchantments on. Is there some routine between casting and wanding that most people follow, or is it just a matter of finding the right rotation? I'm sorry if this comes off as record-noobiness, but I just want to get better. Thank you.

Mouse at Large · Oct 11, 2011, 07:19 AM // 07:19

You have discovered the truth that your Energy Storage attribute is not energy management. You have a relatively large energy large pool with reasonable regen, but elementalist spells have a cost that reflects this. I have 2 suggestions.

Drop Channeling for Aura of Restoration and check out your equipment. I would suggest using a max 20/10 or 20/19 (20 if you can get it) Hale Air Staff of Enchanting at the stage you are at.

As for rotation, it's better than spamming. Without being patronising, with experience will come the knowledge of the best way to deploy spells. You will get to know which enemies to target e.g. there is not much point in using Blinding Flash on a caster

Vanway · Oct 11, 2011, 07:50 AM // 07:50

you can always change a 1 or two of the runes on your Armour and run fire if you thinks its gonna be alot stronger. it wont be too expensive. just because its called stormforged doesnt mean you have to use air only with it.

HigherMinion · Oct 11, 2011, 08:06 AM // 08:06

Aura of restoration, Air Attunement and Glyph of Lesser Energy are all you need. Just don't spam Blinding Flash on recharge. (Like Mouse said, Blinding Flash is largely useless; it's more a PvP skill) eh, not much help but there's a 5e skill that causes cracked armour... In my state of fatigue, I've forgotten the name of it. halp

Spiritz · Oct 11, 2011, 08:30 AM // 08:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vanway

just because its called stormforged doesnt mean you have to use air only with it.

That is probably the best piece of advice that can be given - dont assume an armor set has to be used like its name - in a way all armor is same but the only part that makes a real difference and is important is the head piece as that usually carries +1 to attributes and giving say a fire +3 rune to that pice makes you have an extra +4 for that attribute.
Usually most players will have a spare head set - eg a warrior may carry depending on his/her build either sword or hammer or axe head set as well.

It may be worth doing a wiki search on armor as it will be better explained than what i can .

Vincenthwind · Oct 11, 2011, 01:06 PM // 13:06

Thanks for the advice. I actually made it to the ring of fire island chain and I just picked up elemental attunement, which runs great with air attunement. I've decided to stick with air. Dual attunement works great for energy management. Should I still stick with Aura of Restoration?

Also thanks for the armor advice. I feel so stupid now, just assuming that stormforged=air.

Mouse at Large · Oct 11, 2011, 02:16 PM // 14:16

As you have obviously been knocking off the missions fairly successfully, you should now have a pretty good idea of what you are doing. By all means drop AoR for another skill of your choice. Just make sure that you have some healing in your party as you now have no self-heal (apart from natural regen).

You may also be able to drop GoLE. Try out some builds and see how you go.

Cool Name · Oct 11, 2011, 02:31 PM // 14:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vincenthwind

Thanks for the advice. I actually made it to the ring of fire island chain and I just picked up elemental attunement, which runs great with air attunement. I've decided to stick with air. Dual attunement works great for energy management. Should I still stick with Aura of Restoration?

Also thanks for the armor advice. I feel so stupid now, just assuming that stormforged=air.

This is just my opinion but I think Aura of restoration has really good healing, especially if you are running dual attunements and therefore will be using a lot of spells. 3 skills for healing/energy management and the rest for damage/utility skills is quite a good split really, and as an ele you currently won't get much better than that. Focus the rest of your skills on lots of damage and you should do well.

Also I want to explain something about armor which prophecies makes really confusing. It might turn out to be a wall of text so it doesn't matter if you don't read it all:

Firstly you need to realise that prophecies as it was when guild wars was released was very different from how guild wars is now. The big difference in terms of armor is Insignias. These came with nightfall and are what gives you +armor against x type of damage etc. Before nightfall the prophecies armors would come with +armor against the respective element type (please anyone correct me, this is just what I remember). Then when nightfall came insignias also came and so now you can get the Insignia separately and apply it to any of your elementalist armors. There are also many other types of insignias, some profession specific and some not.

So now the names of the armors are even more misleading because they don't even provide you with +armor against your element type. Perhaps this is why they changed the names from aeromancer/pyromancer etc to what they are now.

Now I would just like to say that if you organise things correctly you can change element types very easily. I have one headpiece for each element and have any element specific runes on that headpiece. So for earth magic I have my +1 headpiece which also has a rune of superior earth magic on it. Then I just switch to my other headpieces when I want to use a different build. This might seem obvious and simple but it took me way too long to figure it out myself.

LifeInfusion · Oct 11, 2011, 03:07 PM // 15:07

Firstly, you don't need to use air with stormforged armor. Even before insignias, all it meant is that you get +10 elemental but +10 vs air damage instead of +10 vs fire. (Hint: go with blessed insignias unless it's all fire damage.)

If you're in prophecies normal mode, fire is actually decent. Why?

Up to Lion's arch, mobs don't have added fire resist (charr don't; hydras don't).

In Maguuma Jungle, Life Pods and other such things blow up to Fire damage. (see http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Fire_damage)

Crystal desert mobs and other such things do not have extra resist to fire. Jade scarabs will die more easily to Fire because air doesn't have AoE targeting greater than 3 targets. However, Enchanted Hammer mobs seem to be super weak against air (52 armor vs 112), so there's an exception.

In southern Shiverpeaks, fire works better versus ice golems; ice imp mobs. Jade armors/Jade Bows have high armor but air doesn't help that much (91 armor to all elements - 25%=68 to air or 0.8706x listed damage so chain [email protected] tops out at 74ish but [email protected] on 91 armor does 0.5844x or 65ish). If you run dual attune or something like that you could smack Rodgort's Invocation on your bar ([email protected]).

The only problem with fire is Fire Imps/Inferno imps have resistance and so do all the titans. So don't use Fire in the last few missions.

In Prophecies there's no decent air elite either (Invoke) so you have Chain Lightning + Orb only. Lightning Surge takes 3 seconds, has no armor penetration, and is a hex so if it gets removed it does 0. Thunderclap is on 20 cooldown and does 70ish... Mind shock has exhaustion so it's more a PvP spike assist (effectively 30 cooldown). I'd argue the best elite would be Echo to echo chain lightning (it's pretty much Invoke on 2 cast time).

Instead of dumping points in Energy Storage you might want to go
12+1+2 or 12+1+3 air
8+1 Energy Storage
10 Inspiration magic

Echo
Lightning Orb
Chain Lightning
Blinding Flash
Glyph of Lesser Energy (9+ for 15 energy reduction; even with weakness it's 14 reduction)
Channeling
Air Attunement
Aura of Restoration (9+ to deal with weakness)

Energy balance:
+30%+1 from air attunement, +1 from Aura of restoration

Chain Lightning = 10-4-1=5 energy on 6 cooldown+2 cast +0.75 aftercast 5/8.75=~0.57
Echoed= 1.143 total
(4/3) energy/sec from natural regen
=+0.19 extra energy/sec for orb/BFlash

Orb=15-7=8 /(5+2+0.75)=-1.0323 energy/sec <-- why Orb is better on Assassin's Promise or dual attunement bars
BFlash=10-5=5/(6+1+0.75)=-0.645 energy/sec <-- why you shouldn't spam on recharge

Glyph used with Orbx2=-5 cost+30 reduction+7*2 from Attunement/AoR=+39 energy/(30+1+0.75)sec=1.228 energy/sec saved
Glyph used with Orb+10 energy skill=-5 cost+25 reduction+(7+5) from Attunement/AoR=32/(30+1+0.75)=1.00787 energy/sec savings
Glyph used with 10 energy skill x2=-5cost+20reduction+5*2=25/(30+1+0.75)=0.787energy/sec savings

Why I dislike Lightning Surge:
Lightning [email protected] is 100 Lightning damage with 0% armor penetration so 85 with 25% armor penetration from echoed chain lightning will do more.
112 armor: 0.4061x100=41 while 85 w/ 25% penetration does 56 (+15)
91 armor: 0.5844x100=58 while 85 w/ 25% penetration does 74 (+16)
80 armor: 0.7071x100=71 while 85 w/ 25% penetration does 85 (+14)
70 armor: 0.8409x100=84 while 85 w/ 25% penetration does 98 (+14)
60 armor: 100=100 while 85 w/ 25% penetration does 110 (+10)
50 armor: 1.1892x100=119 while 85 w/ 25% penetration does 124 (+5)
40 armor: 1.4142x100=141 while 85 w/ 25% penetration does 143 (+2)
If hex gets removed: 0

Vincenthwind · Oct 11, 2011, 06:20 PM // 18:20

Um..Wow, thanks for all this. You guys are really helpful. Now if only my henchmen had half a brain so I could that Dunes of Despair Bonus. But yeah, I feel like I have an idea now about what to do, so I think I should be able to finish the final few missions.

Mashiyu · Oct 11, 2011, 11:02 PM // 23:02

I actually like Thunderclap for the mass-daze. Sure, later on there are better ways for caster shutdown, but OP surely does not have a Mesmer hero or Technobrabble.

Also, one of the best elites is the first you can actually capture in prophecies: Ether Renewal.

Cool Name · Oct 12, 2011, 07:56 AM // 07:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mashiyu

I actually like Thunderclap for the mass-daze. Sure, later on there are better ways for caster shutdown, but OP surely does not have a Mesmer hero or Technobrabble.

Also, one of the best elites is the first you can actually capture in prophecies: Ether Renewal.

Or you could make a monk character.

Since he made an elementalist I assume he wants to deal damage, and right now that is the better choice for him I think. ER isn't as effective in NM anyway because enemies that hit big are rarer and don't hit as big.

I agree with thunderclap, I don't think I've seen it in it's current state (I think it used to only daze the target? maybe not) but it looks interesting. But I know that when I'm elementalist, if my elite is a spell then I'd like to cast it more than once every 20 seconds.

wilebill · Oct 13, 2011, 01:15 PM // 13:15

Looking at build, replace Blinding Flash with Shell Shock available from Micah Ferguson in Eye of the North. Does a bit of damage, maybe about 40 but cracks armor which makes all your other spells hit harder.

OgBCgMzkxAO4CIgWWl3Q4AtA Read with decode on pvxwiki

I recently dug my Elementalist out of storage and am getting him through Eye of the North. With a good 7 hero set, the above build really works well. You might want to replace Lightning Bolt and Lightning Strike with your own favorites. Perhaps with chain lightning for Lightning Strike.

Intensity is a Nightfall Sunspear skill. Very situational. Can probably replace with something better. Works well in Magus Stones which is where I am now.

In Hard Mode, as expected, damage numbers drop to about half their Normal Mode values. But with a good hero team, still works. I have tested it doing a Mount Quinkai vanquish HM (amused snickers from audience) and it is enough of a sharp stick there, which is all a good hero team needs, if that.

Also works HM in Magus Stones. Have not tested it elsewhere. Probably needs tweaking for specific areas.

Glyph of Elemental Power has a really cool casting animation and the extra 2 to your Air is noticeable if you are running Air 16. Check wiki, it is widely available if you do not have it already.

The ele is one of my oldest characters. Really needs a good hero party to support it. With my current party, my health usually stays glued at 100%. Energy consumption is low. Never go OOM, usually finish fight with full energy bar.

The Air Ele is a very fun character to play. Keep us posted. Good luck!

Mashiyu · Oct 13, 2011, 10:15 PM // 22:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cool Name

Or you could make a monk character.

I know that E/Mo is meta, but with infinite energy you can also use *gasp* elementalist spells, regardless how "un-meta" they are!

wilebill · Oct 13, 2011, 11:36 PM // 23:36

Sorry, it had slipped my mind you were still in Prophecies. For last 3 missions also consider Earth for Ward Against Elements. Going /me and putting spare points into Inspiration for Mantra of Flame will also help keep you alive. Spare points are all you need. Those fire imps are really destructive.

There is a lake out of which Titans come. You will know it when you see it. What I have always done is stake the party a safe distance away and carefully pull groups and Titans. Keep the party staked, cast Ward Against Elements and let them come to you. Makes it much easier.

HigherMinion · Oct 14, 2011, 05:45 AM // 05:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by wilebill

Sorry, it had slipped my mind you were still in Prophecies. For last 3 missions also consider Earth for Ward Against Elements. Going /me and putting spare points into Inspiration for Mantra of Flame will also help keep you alive. Spare points are all you need. Those fire imps are really destructive.

There is a lake out of which Titans come. You will know it when you see it. What I have always done is stake the party a safe distance away and carefully pull groups and Titans. Keep the party staked, cast Ward Against Elements and let them come to you. Makes it much easier.

or... prot spirit.

Cool Name · Oct 14, 2011, 08:35 PM // 20:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mashiyu

I know that E/Mo is meta, but with infinite energy you can also use *gasp* elementalist spells, regardless how "un-meta" they are!

You only get "infinite energy" because of how many enchantments you have on you. As an elementalist you will not have as many as you would if you were a monk with maintained enchantments (this is the reason why it is so good, the skill itself doesn't give you infinite energy). So a damage elementalist will receive much less benefit from ER when compared to a E/Mo. Also you will have to recast it more often and personally I dislike casting my enchantments, and try only do it when necessary.

Finally, I'd say you would want 13 ES for ER to make it more maintainable but also to reach the break point on energy gain. So this takes up a rune and also means you will find it harder to spec into other attributes (I always have fallback).

One good thing about it though which elemental attunements don't have is it works on every spells (EVAS, for example).

Also since an ER E/Mo is so much more common and effective I think it was reasonable for me to assume that's what you meant.