Curse

AcidDaze · Jan 06, 2009, 02:18 PM // 14:18

Obviously in HM most of the time you are going to be in a team so, taking advice from alot of the above posts here we go...

most of the time when I'm vanquishing i as an ele run this:
[Arcane Echo][Searing Flames][auspicious incantation][Glyph of lesser energy][rodgort's invocation][fire attunement]

this makes it possible for me to almost constantly keep a mob on fire and keep launching those spells contiuously without running out of energy. it also leaves space for res sig, cap sig, pain inverter.........

now, this is the point where someone jumps in and says "OMFG have you not listened to a word that has been said before, necros rule!!" or something along those lines.
to which i reply, now think of who will be yur team mates?
you need a mm or two to keep that mob nicely bunched up, one of those mm's has [splinter weapon] and the other with [mark of pain] and both will have [Discord]

the third hero is then your choise, do you need a healer or can you put up with the healer and prot hench? do you need interupts?

as i said, not all (if not none) of these are my ideas just an amalgamation of lots of peoples.

to directly reply to the OP, my only char is an ele and i've had loads of fun with it. i can do most things in gw with ease and the rest with the help of my friends. HM isn't just about how much damage you personaly can do to a group or single target but how much damage your whole party can do to a group or single target.
as to PvP, i have only done a small amount of that but i have found that there are plenty of different things an ele can do there but i have found that the most sought after eles are those that can run the flags quickly without getting killed, those that can take pressure of the monks and those that can shut down enemy casters.
have fun matey.

(oh yeah if you do find that you like the taste of solitued, earth magic is your friend for soloing

)

kaply · Jan 29, 2009, 06:20 PM // 18:20

Just want to note, there's two kinds of AoE. Single hit and over time. I've never seen mobs run from single hit AoEs, including searing flames. This is the main draw to searing flames for me. That and the health degen portion which should be mentioned, which does 98 more damage for the full duration. (7 pips degen x 2 health/pip/s x 7s)

Re: AcidDaze
Rodgort's invocation is not really that useful in a SF build. SF burn is 7 seconds, RI's burn is 3s with a 2s cast time and massive energy cost.

I usually use this build for HM vanquishing
[Immolate]["Finish Him!"][Pain Inverter][Glowing Gaze][Glyph of Lesser Energy][Fire Attunement][Protective Spirit][Searing Flames] along with sabway heroes.

The glyph and protective spirit are relatively optional. The beauty of this build is that it's relatively mindless. Spam Searing Flames on the largest group of enemies. Glowing Gaze during SF cooldown. Pain Inverter on strong AoE mobs. Finish Him on enemies low on health. Immolate + GG for single target.

I've tried Air, it's a lot of single target spam. Invoke Lightning seems to be the closest I've seen to an AoE and then it has a 2s cast time with a 15s recast. That's barely worth considering as an AoE spell, as the rest of the time I'm casting single target spells. No, I'm not going to walk up to something to do a multi target touch spell.

With Water I've tried a [Mirror of Ice] build but I've noticed that water's damage also scales down just as badly as fire on the hexes. So I'm assuming that any cold damage from water will suffer the same issues that fire has (cept against fire immunes of course).

With Earth magic, I can't seem to find a build that fits my play style. Armor ignoring spells are good, but PBAoE doesn't suit my tastes in HM. Wards are oftentimes too defensive to be useful given a sabway team. Earth single target isn't spectacular given their casting time and recharges.

One last thing that I'd like to mention is that Monks tend to have more single target healing than group healing. Having them waste time on healing multiple friendlies seems to work out better in HM to whittle them and their group down.

Improvavel · Jan 29, 2009, 07:32 PM // 19:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by kaply

One last thing that I'd like to mention is that Monks tend to have more single target healing than group healing. Having them waste time on healing multiple friendlies seems to work out better in HM to whittle them and their group down.

[[Splinter Weapon (PvE)] waves.

Burning Freebies · Feb 02, 2009, 03:26 PM // 15:26

What do you eles use for most HM missions, cause ive just made myself believe i can get Legendary guardian, but i think a nice new build would help. Ive got full sabway heroes kitted up with skills and such, so any suggestions?

MasterSasori · Feb 02, 2009, 10:50 PM // 22:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burning Freebies

What do you eles use for most HM missions, cause ive just made myself believe i can get Legendary guardian, but i think a nice new build would help. Ive got full sabway heroes kitted up with skills and such, so any suggestions?

Have you tried using hexes in Earth/Water department or use AP and go Discordway?

Much better from what I hear.

Plenty of Discordway variants here in guru, please do some research and don't open up the 67th thread on optimal discordway for so and so. PvX wiki discordway is ftl.

Burning Freebies · Feb 03, 2009, 08:37 AM // 08:37

Ok, ill look around. Thanks.

Parson Brown · Feb 06, 2009, 06:40 PM // 18:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burning Freebies

What do you eles use for most HM missions, cause ive just made myself believe i can get Legendary guardian, but i think a nice new build would help. Ive got full sabway heroes kitted up with skills and such, so any suggestions?

A pretty standard AoE Earth build will take you far, but feel free to use the other elements when the situation dictates. Air and interrupts for Harvest temple, or Water in the Fire Island Chain... Same goes for Sabway. It tends to fall apart in places with few corpses, or areas like the jungle in Tyria, where the spiders spam [skill]Verata's Aura[/skill]

eat-mcdonalds-and-die · Feb 08, 2009, 03:53 PM // 15:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by MasterSasori

Have you tried using hexes in Earth/Water department or use AP and go Discordway?

Much better from what I hear.

Plenty of Discordway variants here in guru, please do some research and don't open up the 67th thread on optimal discordway for so and so. PvX wiki discordway is ftl.

Is there anything similar that uses only 2 necros and only 1 or 2 rit skills, and nothing from EotN?

Daft Shifty · Feb 11, 2009, 04:59 AM // 04:59

no. there wont be enough spike damage imo. But then again i DO suppose you could use an ele wit SF or rt/n minion bomber. But I've been wrong before.

BigDave · Feb 15, 2009, 11:09 AM // 11:09

A bit late to the party, but....meh

Combining damage-over-time earth spells with [ebon battle standard of honor] and [weaken armor] works wonders in HM. It's quite common (from my experience) to hit casters for 50-55 damage per hit @ 15 earth magic and a maxed ward. Against physicals you should be seeing 30-50 per hit depending on what class you hit (with a few exceptions for foes who have massively inflated armour levels).

Assuming you take the 3 earth DoT nukes and provide weaken armor yourself with a /N secondary you'll be repeatedly knocking things on their arse keeping them in the AoE and blinding them in the process. Add in damage of 50-55 per hit vs casters, times by 5 for the full duration of the spell, times again by 3 for the number of nukes and you've just dropped up to 750-825 damage to each foe caught in the AoE for the duration over a period of around 8 seconds (physicals should take around 450-750). If you use mindbender to cast your nukes quickly and drop them in the right order you'll find it's quite common to keep things in the AoE for most of, frequently all of the duration. Unsteady Ground knocks them down very quickly since all foes attack frequently. Follow immediately with Churning Earth to knock them down when they try to run out of the AoE (and they will try). Follow then with Eruption to further damage and blind them so if they survive they'll not be able to do any attack damage for a short time.

Generally speaking, in HM it's fairly pointless from a damage perspective to drop one spell here and one spell there, even though you'll still get the utility. If however you concentrate your fire and try to hit as many foes as possible the damage mounts up very fast indeed. And your monks will love you for stopping those warriors tearing through your backline.

You could also go /Me secondary to bring Arcane Echo for even more fun. Just make sure someone else on your team brings Weaken Armor. Not only does it benefit you but it also helps your team do damage.

Chthon · Feb 16, 2009, 02:48 AM // 02:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigDave

A bit late to the party, but....meh

Combining damage-over-time earth spells with [ebon battle standard of honor] and [weaken armor] works wonders in HM. It's quite common (from my experience) to hit casters for 50-55 damage per hit @ 15 earth magic and a maxed ward. Against physicals you should be seeing 30-50 per hit depending on what class you hit (with a few exceptions for foes who have massively inflated armour levels).

Assuming you take the 3 earth DoT nukes and provide weaken armor yourself with a /N secondary you'll be repeatedly knocking things on their arse keeping them in the AoE and blinding them in the process. Add in damage of 50-55 per hit vs casters, times by 5 for the full duration of the spell, times again by 3 for the number of nukes and you've just dropped up to 750-825 damage to each foe caught in the AoE for the duration over a period of around 8 seconds (physicals should take around 450-750). If you use mindbender to cast your nukes quickly and drop them in the right order you'll find it's quite common to keep things in the AoE for most of, frequently all of the duration. Unsteady Ground knocks them down very quickly since all foes attack frequently. Follow immediately with Churning Earth to knock them down when they try to run out of the AoE (and they will try). Follow then with Eruption to further damage and blind them so if they survive they'll not be able to do any attack damage for a short time.

Generally speaking, in HM it's fairly pointless from a damage perspective to drop one spell here and one spell there, even though you'll still get the utility. If however you concentrate your fire and try to hit as many foes as possible the damage mounts up very fast indeed. And your monks will love you for stopping those warriors tearing through your backline.

You could also go /Me secondary to bring Arcane Echo for even more fun. Just make sure someone else on your team brings Weaken Armor. Not only does it benefit you but it also helps your team do damage.

1. I agree that EBSofHonor + DoTAoE is probably the best you're going to manage for HM ele damage. If you don't want to go E.Renewal "monk," that's your best bet.

2. I suggest delegating weaken armor to a necro hero so that you can use AP for yourself. Something like:
[assassin's promise][finish him][churning earth][eruption][ward against melee][ebon battle standard of honor][glyph of lesser energy][mindbender]
has a lot more staying power than just casting your DoTAoE spells once and then waiting for them to recharge.

MasterSasori · Feb 17, 2009, 10:36 PM // 22:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by eat-mcdonalds-and-die

Is there anything similar that uses only 2 necros and only 1 or 2 rit skills, and nothing from EotN?

Discordway works best, the more of them you have. You really want to have 3 if possible. Like wise, rit skills are important because Rt's Restoration line is just so good.

So for these two, I said, no: you have to have them.

For nothing from EotN, you can sidestep it. Unfortunately you won't have Livia, but then you can just have something else like a BHA ranger or Interrupt Mesmer or whatever you want instead that could make Discord run well. Maybe try Rt/N? Just a thought.

Asara · Feb 18, 2009, 04:16 AM // 04:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigDave

A bit late to the party, but....meh

Combining damage-over-time earth spells with [ebon battle standard of honor] and [weaken armor] works wonders in HM. It's quite common (from my experience) to hit casters for 50-55 damage per hit @ 15 earth magic and a maxed ward. Against physicals you should be seeing 30-50 per hit depending on what class you hit (with a few exceptions for foes who have massively inflated armour levels).

I've had the same experience - I don't quite understand why people act as if eles do -no- direct damage in HM. Yes, I get that foes have massive armor, but as you pointed out AoE cracked armor mitigates that. Dropping USEFUL AoE damage spells along with the ebon ward does dmg and has a very potent primary purpose as well.

I love using the ebon ward (if I can slot it) along with AP'd churning earth/eruption. If you use AP and GoLE well, you will see massive stacked AoE damage.

D A R K S O I F O N · Mar 05, 2009, 11:02 PM // 23:02

Im stuggeling to farm in h/m at the vortex areas. Does anyone have a build that can be run with 3 heroes that can work effectively with an ele. I just want to farm there so i can buy my tormented weapon sets.

Jeydra · Apr 28, 2009, 08:23 AM // 08:23

I'm beginning to question the so-called "consensus" that Elementalists can't do damage in HM. What, then, do you call builds like this one? This isn't of course a representative build, but all builds based on a similar concept.

12 Air / 12 Deadly Arts / 3 Energy Storage

YMLAD!
Finish Him!
Enervating Charge
Lightning Orb
Glyph of Lesser Energy
Air Attunement
Assassin's Promise
Ebon Vanguard Assassin Support

When I ran similar builds it was deadly, people died (fast) and just how much damage I was contributing becomes apparent whenever I miss an Assassin's Promise: kills come a lot slower, if they come at all. Of course when mobs come in hordes of 20 or above, then it's hard to top Splinter Weapon and such, but across much of the games mobs don't come in such numbers - usually an 8-man party is at a slight numerical advantage, or at most equal numbers.

If Elementalist damage in HM is unenviable, then what is the above build?

Chthon · Apr 29, 2009, 03:30 AM // 03:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

If Elementalist damage in HM is unenviable, then what is the above build?

Looks like PvE skill abuse to me

Seriously though, how much of that build's effectiveness is the ele skills, and how much is the PvE skills + AP?

draxynnic · Apr 29, 2009, 05:01 AM // 05:01

I agree with Cthon on this one. The important skills in that build are Ebon Vanguard Assassin Support, Finish Him!, and Assassin's Promise. A Mesmer (Cry of Pain instead of YMLAD!, Arcane Echo) or Necromancer (Barbs, Mark of Pain) could do it better.

Jeydra · May 04, 2009, 09:52 AM // 09:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Looks like PvE skill abuse to me

Seriously though, how much of that build's effectiveness is the ele skills, and how much is the PvE skills + AP?

GoLE + Air Attunement / Air nukes (build is energy intensive) and Lightning Orb (strong single-target nuke that cools down quite fast if the target still doesn't die).

And it doesn't matter if it is PvE abuse ... it is 1) Elementalist primary and 2) effective damage, which makes it Elementalist damage and contrary to the idea that Elementalists are ineffective damage dealers in HM. That's what matters.

draxynnic · May 05, 2009, 02:53 AM // 02:53

Enervating Charge performs a function probably better filled by Enfeeble or Enfeebling Blood - although if you don't have a Necro along, it's reasonable to carry yourself. I'd hope there's an Epidemic or something similar in your group, though - if you are scoring kills quickly, a single-target weakness isn't going to make much difference.

GOLE and the attunement are basically there to feed Lightning Orb. Working on the completely untested assumption that monster armour scales at roughly the same rate as hero armour (3/level with modifiers for profession and special resistances/vulnerabilities, which act as their equivalent to insignias), in Hard Mode you can probably expect the elemental armour of non-Rangers to be somewhere around the 100 mark. Averaging out, assuming use of a superior air headpiece, you're looking at about 106 damage per orb... or a DPS around 15 (2s cast time plus 5s recharge for a 7s total cycle). Enervating gives another 7 or so, plus whatever you get from wanding, if you get the time.

That's... decent, if you're really looking to play this sort of build with an elementalist, but I'd bet that a necromancer that can put Mark of Pain and/or Barbs on a target before throwing in an assassin and support with up to 30DPS with Necrosis afterwards, or a Mesmer that can throw two assassins and CoP, can do it better. Admittedly, you can't always take the primary you want, but the Elementalist portion of your build just seems to be there as something to do until the AP triggers and you can repeat the professionless skills, as opposed to other professions with skills that actually synergise with them.

Axel Zinfandel · May 05, 2009, 03:46 AM // 03:46

Basically speaking

NM eles = nuking

HM eles = utility/healing