Curse

BleysOfAmber · Mar 23, 2011, 10:45 AM // 10:45

Hello everybody. I've been playing a lot recently and came up with something which can be feasible for the caster type of character. Or maybe not. So I'm sharing the idea with a big question mark. It's not a ingenious thing - just stack some things here and there.

I've been struggling with the low AL and health of casters ever since, and I play mostly caster based characters so I wanted to boost the AL and health to a good usable extend.

Full Blessed set works nice to start with, as long as you are enchanted, which is the case with most of the Eles. Then I realised it could be nice to exploit that (when enchanted) a bit more. Let's say adding a focus that's +5 armour and +45 health (when enchanted). Let's throw in the Great Dwarf Armor skill, because GWW states that armor bonuses from skills stack with others like runes and equipment. Thats +24 Armor and +60 Health. Let's say we put a Sup Vig rune + two vitaes (leaving two places for attribute runes and the result will be:

Armor:
60 (base) + 10 (blessed) + 5 (focus) + 24 (skill) = 99
Health: 480 (base) + 45 (focus) + (50+10+10)(runes) + 60 (skill) = 695

That's not extreme at all given you won't sacrifice much and there are two spots left for other runes. You could easily support that state imho and 700 health and 100 AL is not bad for a caster class. Maybe things can be boosted to the extreme more but I think that's playable. What do you think?

**Marty Silverblade** · Mar 23, 2011, 10:57 AM // 10:57

Well, the problem with Ele's isn't surviving. It's dealing damage. Honestly, surviving really isn't difficult at all unless you're in some elite area in HM. Anyway, 700 health is overkill. You really, really don't need that much. 500-600 is fine. If you're dying frequently with that much you're better off figuring out what your big defensive problem is rather than trying to compensate with more health. Armor stacking is good, but you'll want to spend your PvE skill slots on damage, so GDA does cause you to sacrifice something meaningful. The best thing to do would be to use your wand+focus set as a 40/40 and have a spear+shield set to swap to when necessary. Whether that's necessary is another issue.

BleysOfAmber · Mar 23, 2011, 11:10 AM // 11:10

Yes, you are quite right and I get your point. Since I'm playing an Air Ele focused around Invoke lightning, there aren't much PVE-only and GWEN skills that can help with damage. They just don't synergy well with air builds. The above mentioned idea isn't sacrificing much of the damage I do with my build. And It gives me the chance to be self-sufficient and take some pressure off monks... I don't know... I still can manage to inflict around 390 dmg in 6-7 sec (some of which is AoE, and there are nice added effects like 25% penetration, Cracked Armor, Weakness and so on). There are no additional efforts in sustaining the 100/700 idea beside enchantments which makes it easy to use. Maybe it is more specific for Air Eles...

Snorph · Mar 23, 2011, 01:56 PM // 13:56

Good point Marty, I agree with you, I rarely need help when dishing out dmg, as long as my heroes are setup right, and I kite while trying to cast my skills. You right about one thing, Ele's don't do enough dmg, hopefuly anet will fix this.

Kurosaki129 · Mar 23, 2011, 05:36 PM // 17:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marty Silverblade

Well, the problem with Ele's isn't surviving. It's dealing damage. Honestly, surviving really isn't difficult at all unless you're in some elite area in HM. Anyway, 700 health is overkill. You really, really don't need that much. 500-600 is fine. If you're dying frequently with that much you're better off figuring out what your big defensive problem is rather than trying to compensate with more health. Armor stacking is good, but you'll want to spend your PvE skill slots on damage, so GDA does cause you to sacrifice something meaningful. The best thing to do would be to use your wand+focus set as a 40/40 and have a spear+shield set to swap to when necessary. Whether that's necessary is another issue.

words of the wise man.

@ OP, if you stick to what u want to do , getting 600-700hp and take pressure off monks fine. Don't forget other professions such as Ritualist ST Prot, Paragons, takes pressure off as well from monks. You need to do the MAXIUMUM dmg, which in hard mode, ele's do shits. No offense, just my 2cents.

LifeInfusion · Mar 23, 2011, 11:35 PM // 23:35

You can run a warrior with an empty skillbar and do 40DPS (single target), have 600+HP, 116 armor. You can run spear if "melee range" is bad for you.

The problem with eles is not survivability (see armor of earth/stoneflesh used on sins ; stonestriker+ mantra of earth). It's the effin long casts and recharges, armor reduced damage that is less than armor-ignoring (lol 5 recharge clumsiness or 3 rechareg overload versus fireball/liquid flame/rust ... or ANY signet with Keystone signet) and little or no utility in PVE (snares, blind, knockdowns are all there is...single target weakness is sad). If meteor wasn't in a line that only did damage it'd be okay; otherwise it's only a adjacent KD and nothing else. Blurred Vision has too long a recharge when mobs last <10 seconds.

Everything is priced with attunements in mind. If you don't bring Glyph the best you will get is 2 spells in 10 seconds. When mobs reduce the peak damage (127 rodgort's or 140 from orb) in half then the damage is horrible: You top out at about 10DPS which you can get by wanding/spearing with conjures. So we go to AoES:
Eruption: energy horror even with attunement, recharge limited ... long 3s cast
Churning earth: recharge limited
Rust: low damage ...adjacent
Ice Spikes: energy is lame for the damage ... adjacent
Deep Freeze: energy horror even with attunement , damage is lame (~80)
Searing Flames: energy limited, needs 2 casts to be "damage" ... can't do much else while using it
Invoke/chain lightning: maxed out at 3 targets
Fireball: projectile ; adjacent
Phoenix: projectile ; adjacent ... energy intensive
Liquid Flame: recharge is 15...
Rodgort's Invocation: energy horror... Mind Blast/dual attunement only
Dragon's Stomp/Earthquake: energy horror, exhaustion
Incendiary bonds: doesn't do anything for 3sec, if removed = 0 damage ; recharge is 15 ; armor-reduced damage is low for the energy
Lava arrows: pitiful damage ; 3 target cap
meteor: exhaustion ; adjacent
meteor shower: absurd 5sec cast; 60 recharge ; adjacent

Any DOT:
Eruption, Churning Earth, Sandstorm, Unsteady ground, Savannah's Heat, Searing Heat, Teinai's Heat, Firestorm, Breath of Fire, Maelstrom needs a snare. Deep Freeze is the only viable one, since it's bigger than nearby range.

Intensity doesn't help much... Lightning Orb is pretty much the best skill to use with it. Rodgort's can't do [email protected] in hard mode ...ever, so you top out at 70 AOE from Intensity every 10sec.