Curse

Leonidas2 · Jul 14, 2007, 10:24 PM // 22:24

Disclaimer: Before we begin, I would like to clarify what this is since the title was not long enough to do so. This is NOT a guide to how to defeat hard mode as an Elementalist. I will not tell you what team build I always ran, or what elites worked best in what zones as far as my heroes are concerned. Half the fun is testing builds and seeing how well they do and finding out for yourself. This is merely my personal experience playing as an Elementalist in hard mode and I’m just passing on the knowledge. These builds and advice I will give is not the end all – save all to use in hard mode, and some builds can probably be improved upon to an extent. However, in their current state, they served well enough in the zones I used them in. And rest assured, I will give general ideas of what zones/missions they fell under.

Also, I should note that 75-85% of hard mode was done with heroes and henchmen or my Ranger friend and 6 heroes. Therefore, I am sharing solely hero/hench or full hero team tactics and builds. Sadly, it was difficult to find others to do hard mode with, if not impossible.

But without any further ado, on to the main topic!

Leo’s Guide to Elementalists in Hard Mode

I. Basic Need-to-Know facts about Hard mode encounters
II. Aggroing, and what to expect when doing so
III. Knowing there is more to an Elementalist than raw fire damage.
IV. Offense and Defense, find the balance
V. Builds
VI. Conclusion

I. Basic Need-to-Know facts about hard mode encounters

Although anyone that has read the Anet description or stepped into a hard mode area would know this, I decided to make a section dedicated to it. There are many things that may surprise you, and I’d like to knock them out of the way. So let’s start with the basics.

Hard Mode enemies are faster, stronger, better, higher level, more intelligent, spike extremely well, and always know who has the lowest HP in the party or who has the most DP. Most enjoy high armor levels, and their energy (or energy regeneration) seems endless. They appeared programmed to attack not what was closest to them all the time, but what was causing them the most grief. In other words, what was disrupting their damage and killing ability the most. Usually this would be a monk, and therefore they would assault them frequently. However, when I ran air or earth builds that broke up their attack chains and abilities, I found myself under heavy fire often.

As an added note, your spells will begin to do significantly less damage than that prior to Normal Mode enemies. The high powered armor penetrating air spells will still yield results, as will the decent fire skills. But the small ticks of AoE that earth brings in the form of Sandstorm and Unsteady Ground will be drastically less, especially against bosses. Don’t expect to be the powerhouse you once were, but don’t let that deter you. Unsteady Ground has its place in HM, just not in a solid damaging build.

And yes, the AI does spike. It has been my experience to see this on multiple occasions. Sometimes, they would even adrenaline spike too. Most of the time, their damage is pretty scattered among your party, but the moment a party member gets low on health or some target becomes a priority to their AI system, they will attempt to gank that target. For example, when fighting in the Vizunah Square mission, one moment my damage indicator was empty, seconds later, I had 6x Mind Burn, 2x Lava Arrows, 2x Enraged Smash, 1x Vile Maisma, and 2x Marauders Shot with 2x Kindle Arrows. Thankfully, Dunkoro and Talhkora are very fast on heals.

And 9 times out of 10, they will immediately attempt to kill a party member that was just resurrected.

My point is, the AI is smarter in Hard Mode, so watch yourself. Kiting isn’t much of an option, seeing how everything moves around 50% faster. And due to the increased damage, attack speed, and decreased casting times, their spikes can be very quick and deadly. You will be required in Hard Mode to keep track of where the enemy is on the battlefield and respond accordingly. If the 2 Shiro’ken warriors suddenly bear down on say, the Mesmer (because Mesmers are kewl), you must intercept the damage, or risk losing him. Likely, the casters in the back are turning their spells on him too.

II. Aggroing, and what to expect when doing so

It’s not pretty, let’s just say that. Aggroing as an Elementalist is a tricky work, considering how squishy you are compared to a ranger or a warrior aggroing. My Ranger friend that worked with me was extremely good at it, able to run in first, take hits, stance out, and soak some initial damage. But without a living breathing tank, it’s even difficult to send Koss forward and have him hold the aggro. Your best bet tends to be to get where the enemy is just outside your bubble, and Ctrl-Shift-Space call. Due to the way the heroes and the henchies stack around you, the high armor members will be up front with the squishy party members in the back. This helps, but really isn’t enough, and almost always, you’re going to have things running past poor Koss. Now, the fun starts.

The first 5 seconds of the battle is pivotal in deciding the outcome of the encounter (As my monk, I ran 30-50% of my energy pool healing those first seconds, then it slowed down enough to almost passively regen energy). Common sense: The enemy has full energy, all skills recharged, no debilitating hexes or conditions, and nothing to stop them from slapping you in the face. The warriors are a small exception to this as it takes them a moment to build adrenaline, which, unless you make them miss, happens excessively fast due to their constant 33% attack speed buff. Dervishes sometimes lag behind as they throw up enchantments, but we’re getting off topic….

Due to this, your role in mitigating damage should be primary, damage being secondary. Unless of course your build synergizes damage and defense, in which more power to you (For example: Blinding Surge). But hey, you’re an Elementalist, you can pack so much damage mitigation you make a Paragon cry. Knock them down, blind them, weaken them, ward them, slow them down, any of these will do just nicely. By stopping their initial strikes, they will be less coordinated until they build up adrenaline and recharges to spike someone, and buy you time to kill them. This, however, does not mean you switch to pure damage after you’ve successfully diverted theirs, you must always keep an eye on them, continue to shut them down to an extent, but focus more on killing them and moving on. The best defense is a dead opponent. Most importantly, continue to call targets after one dies. Otherwise, your heroes and henchies will attack whatever they want and DPS will drop. A near dead opponent fights just as good as a full health one, make sure they are dead.

Know your limitations too. If you can only blind and weaken, let another hero or henchmen handle the opposing Elementalist, there’s nothing you can do to stop him. Focus on what you are built to do. If an encounter comes up that has nothing that you chose to defend against, then coordinate your heroes and henchies defense to what extent you can, and you can start the DPS immediately. It is okay and advised to blind some wanding casters though; anyone who has fought the Jade Brotherhood Elementalists knows that. Not to mention any bosses will wand for 50-60 damage against you (And Kunnavang wands for 250 damage; Glint isn’t much different).

Most zones are very specific on what element or line of magic they use on most of the creatures in the area. Place armor on accordingly if you have it. The difference between having 80 armor vs. earth damage and only 70 armor against it will surprise you.

III. Knowing there is more to an Elementalist than raw fire damage

This has been an issue with me ever since I began this game. The concept of fire magic. The facts are undeniable; fire magic is the most damaging line of the Elementalist. If not because it causes the meanest degenerative condition, then because every skill in the line is offensive, with absolutely no defense (Flame Djinns Haste is pushing it to classify it as defense, considering it does a good bit of damage and is only a self cast speed buff). In groups of human players, I sometimes warrant the use of fire magic to burn things down, as it is a very efficient means of making multiple kills quickly around a breathing tank.

But…

We’re talking about heroes and henchmen or a pack of heroes. They aren’t as smart as a human player, and frequently come under attack because a hero tank can’t hold aggro. Therefore, I rarely touched fire magic when going out into Hard Mode with heroes and henchmen. It’s simple, there isn’t any defense. You must stop and mitigate damage, or you will be smashed by some mobs. Sure, using a Paragon with “They’re on Fire!” does work to an extent, but most of the time the mobs are too far spread among your party that it’s very difficult to keep everything burning constantly, not to mention Morghan isn’t too great about keeping it up all the time.

Air magic is perfect for some zones, having the ability to easily and efficiently shut down the opposition while maintaining high DPS on a single target. Sure, its just one target, and you don’t get to see all the pretty numbers if you were using fire magic, but its still a good bit of DPS and still maintains your offense while balancing some defensive skills in with it. Is air best for every zone? No. There is no best for every zone, but it sure took a lot of pressure off the monks when Kunnavang couldn’t wand anyone for 250 damage the entire fight (In which he turned to attempt to kill me at the end, only to miss with all his attacks, just an example of how the AI choose their target).

Earth magic, though more complicated to run, shuts down and DPS’s slightly differently. Using mostly DoT’s and knockdowns, earth can be a vicious combination of shutdown and damage if used correctly. Wards provide excellent team defense against things air cannot such as elemental attacks and knock downs. Ward of Stability is a life saver against the Jade Elementalists and the turtles of the jade sea for example. Knocking your opponent down acts as a general interrupt and stops their movement and casting for 2 seconds. And when they aren’t doing anything, you get a hand up on the damage output. Precasting and predicting the mobs movement is vital to using any earth build effectively. Know your casting time, and start casting while they are en route so it will hit when they get there, not 2 seconds too late.

I honestly don’t have much to say about water. Yea, it kicked some serious butt in Hell’s Precipace with Rust and Shatterstone and Vapor Blade (Foolish Hand/Fists of the Titans casting a 6 second healing signet *insert evil laughter here*). Outside of that…no, I never ran it. Water is mostly a defensive line, and I couldn’t balance enough DPS into it to warrant its use.

IV. Offense and Defense, find the balance

Balance is key to Guild Wars. Purely offensive builds will be destroyed easily, lacking any means of keeping damage off. Purely defensive builds lack enough damage output, and battles turn into a war of attrition rather than brief encounters as you move onward. When making your build, think about how your heroes are built and what kind of henchmen you plan on bringing (or what heroes your friend is planning on bringing) and think about what’s in the zone ahead of you. If you’re going into a caster heavy zone, there’s no need to run things like Blinding Flash as you’ll never have a chance to use it. As a general rule of thumb that I used, Earth for caster heavy zones and air for physical heavy zones.

As an Elementalist, at least one (and usually two) of your skills are already taken up by an energy management skill and a resurrection skill. This leaves six skills to use together with your heroes to make a successful build. Usually not enough to try out your first or second idea for a build. Rest assured if your build is a total failure the first or second time, its okay. New builds don’t grow on trees, you have to make and test them multiple times before finding a balance that works effectively. Once you find that, don’t ever stop trying to improve them. Some of my builds that I used for months suddenly got better when I ran across a skill that had slipped my mind and placed it in.

As my general rule of thumb for making new builds: Always build around an elite skill. Start with an idea of what you want to do, whether it be damage, defense, movement manipulation, knockdown, whatever, just have that in mind. Then find an elite that goes along with it, or helps it in some way. For example, I want to make a knockdown build. Scanning the Elementalist elites I find Unsteady Ground and Thunderclap to be really good at that. Gust is rather conditional and only one target. Air seems to have high damage, but low knockdown capacity, and using Thunderclap would mean you’d have to rely on them not removing a hex. Next, I would go to the earth line and scan it. Earthquake, Dragons Stomp, Churning Earth, quite a number of these skills just knockdown, end of story. Once you have an elite and a general idea of the skills, make sure your energy isn’t going to suffer too much. A build that never runs out of energy is as bad as a build that runs out of energy insanely fast as long as a build that you have significant down time waiting on recharges. Now think about your defensive capacity as well as if you need a rez signet or not. Using our example of knockdowns, an enemy on the ground is mostly defensive enough as they aren’t doing anything, so placing a ward in would be optional. And finally test, test, test. Things that look good on paper may be horrible when tested and vice versa. Nothing beats just good ole stepping outside and using it.

Once you have your build set, make sure your heroes compliment it in some way, even very basic ways. If you’re focusing on movement manipulation, chances are your DPS is going to suffer. Make sure to bring someone that can really lay the hurt on. Take into account that your enemy is slowed as well, so AoE type things like SS or Fire Magic would be even more useful now as the mobs are more likely to stay bunched up. On the reverse, if you’re packing loads of damage, bring heroes that are defensive in some way so that you aren’t being killed constantly.

Before I look like a hypocrite however, I should share that pure damage builds do work if pulls are done correctly and you are efficient enough in dealing the damage. I used 2 SF eles, an MM, and a healing monk to vanquish and guardian many of the 4 man zones. The only tough pull was the first few pulls until the MM got going, then you can just pull into the minions and kill away. This tactic is not suggested past 4 man though because as the party size goes up, so does the diversity of the mobs and the size of them as well. Ascalon was full of 1-3 mob pulls; the Shiverpeaks had 7-8 mob pulls.

V. Builds

While I cannot and will not share every last build I have in my inventory, I will share the staple builds that carried me though most of HM. There were a few off the wall builds to manage certain zones that had excessive amounts of the same creature (*coughmamnoonlagooncough*), but I’m sure you can figure that out on your own.

Bring the Thunder

16 Air
13 Energy Storage
1. Elemental Attunement
2. Air Attunement
3. Lightning Hammer
4. Lightning Orb
5. Lightning Strike
6. Enervating Charge
7. Blinding Flash
8. Death Pact Signet

No, I did not get this build off wiki. I’ve been running it since the first time I hit THK in prophecies and only changed 2 skills when factions came out. This is the best physical damage defense build I have been able to come up with. Blinding and weakened an enemy is vital to keeping them from killing you and doing so quickly. Warriors, dervishes, assassins, and rangers can all be easily subdued by this. Even large groups can, because you can just cast tab cast tab cast tab. Your DPS doesn’t suffer much as the high powered hammer and orb will strike single targets fiercely and strike is the quick in-between damage. Be wary about running this in zones where many mobs remove enchantments, as it quickly loses efficiency when you can’t return energy. I think the best fun I had with this was blinding the Forgotten Archers that use Marksmens Wager.

No Escape

16 Earth
13 Energy Storage
1. Unsteady Ground
2. Ebon Hawk
3. Glowstone
4. Stoning
5. Churning Earth
6. Ward against Melee
7. Ward against the Elements
8. Earth Attunement

The only issue I ever had with this build was its lack of rez skill. Otherwise, it worked great to disrupt the enemy. Churning Earth is brutal to HM enemies as they are always moving faster than normal so it’s a guaranteed knockdown. The wards are interchangeable to whatever the zone needs, however I never used ward against foes. The DPS of this build is rather low though compared to the others, but its ability to interrupt the enemy and protect the team is much higher in compensation. Consider using with another Ele running a Savannah Heat build. It does nicely to keep them in the AoE.

Rain of Fire

15 Fire
11 Energy Storage
Rest in whatever line Promise is in, I have forgotten currently
1. Fire Attunement
2. Intensity
3. Glyph of Sacrifice
4. Meteor Shower
5. Deaths Charge
6. Bed of Coals
7. Assassins Promise
8. Inferno

Your basic promise bomber, though used very little (Only against the Yeti’s outside Aspenwood Gate for the faction farm run). It has great damage output in Normal Mode, but in Hard Mode it is suggested that you target only the casters with the chain combo. As with any promise build, make sure you get the promise off before death, or you’ll be stuck with long recharges to go again. Works best with Rank 10 Sunspear of course. Cast them in the order as they appear, but switch it up after 5 if your target is dying too fast. 20% Enchantment mod suggested as well.

I am not sharing the Searing Flames build as everyone knows that or it’s very easy to find elsewhere.

VI. Conclusion

As this has become longer than I had originally expected and I’m sure y’all are getting tired of reading it, I will try to wrap this up quickly with a few tips that you should keep in mind when entering Hard Mode.

- 3 Monks shouldn’t ever need to be used no matter where you are in Hard Mode, unless one of them is a smiter. Your team should aid the monks in mitigating damage enough to where they can keep up.
- If you choose to use Zenmai or Melonni or some front line lower armor character, make sure you give them some sort of armor or survivability. They hold aggro better than Koss for the simple reason they have less armor and are targeted like a caster.
- Kiting should be kept to a minimum when running with full heroes, and even less when running with heroes and henchmen. When you move, they move, and that usually means everyone breaks from attacking.
- Experience scrolls are a life saver in some zones. Deaths cannot always be avoided, and any DP is extremely bad. Throwing the measly 50% for 10 minute scroll suffices just fine, as you’re already earning double just for being in Hard Mode.
- The meanest bosses I came across were ironically elemental bosses. Everything in Hard mode runs their skills at 20 in whatever lines they use, and then a boss will do double damage with that, not counting the extra damage from being higher level than you. Remember this, and go for these bosses first. If you wipe, you can kill the easy stuff somewhere else and then return to finish the job, but if you leave them for last, you have nothing to work off your DP, and may not win.
- Death Pact Signet is an amazing rez ability for the Elementalist, as almost always you will have more energy than the person you are rezzing. Bringing a monk back to life with full energy (and hopefully full health) can save your group. As an added bonus, if you know you’re wiping anyways, use it on a team mate that will die quickly again. If they die quick enough, no extra DP is suffered by them, and you won’t get any from dying due to Death Pact Signet.
- Pull your groups if it looks like a patrol passes through there. And be patient if you don’t know for certain. The main reason any group will wipe is because of another mob patrolling into them. Sometimes, it’s even best to scout the zone out in Normal Mode to see what goes where and when.
- Grind the Lightbringer title. In Elona, the ability to do up to 35-40% more damage is extremely helpful, especially for Jennur’s Horde and Dzagonur Bastion where speed is key. Plus, you’re an Elementalist, your attacks are already high powered, this just makes them do silly damage. The other day, I hit a level 28 Margonite Executioner in Hard Mode for 232 damage. Rank 7 Ligthbringer, 16 air magic lighting orb, hit during a healing signet.
- Remember, you are only an Elementalist, you are squishy, do not try to be a tank without extremely good armor buffs.
- Don't forget to strafe to dodge incoming projectiles. It's one of the simpliest ways to mitigate damage.

I will be sure to add more in as they come to me. I hope this guide helped in some way as too being a better Elementalist in Hard Mode when people are scarce (which is almost always). My IGN is Leonidas The Second. Feel Free to PM me if you have any questions or comments as I’m usually online and never doing anything. Good luck!

candyman_sb · Jul 15, 2007, 12:07 AM // 00:07

This is a nice guide. Maybe add more build if you want and have the time.

Stormlord Alex · Jul 15, 2007, 01:38 PM // 13:38

You forgot Mind Blast + Earth Wards, Protection Prayers, Heal Party, etc. etc.

Mind Blast support ele is sex in most areas.

Leonidas2 · Jul 15, 2007, 07:43 PM // 19:43

Yea yea Alex, always the critic

. Like I said, there is no way I used or tried every single build that works. I found the ones that I liked and ran with them. I will have to try your Mind Blaster idea though, sounds like fun with fire magic.

xDusT II · Jul 16, 2007, 06:43 AM // 06:43

very detailed guide, I agree on not kiting in HM, there's not much point seeing as enemies move faster than you so allowing them free criticals seems pretty pointless.

Another useful tip is that percentage decreases are generally better than numerical decreases. Byt his I mean shielding hands largely loses potential in HM over percentage based defesive skills such as Aegis or Shield of Deflection (personal favourite)

Searing Flames elementalists are designed to work in "packs". Running a large group of them fueling a minion master can be an effective way to rival the damage of enemy NPC's. I personally never run SF eles with a paragon unless he is taking both "They're on Fire" and "There's Nothing To Fear" . If you don't have 3-4 capable Searing Flames elementalists it's probably not worth it over a more defensive build.

Another thing I find is that in HM, Protection is generally superior to Healing due to it's nature. The aim on Healing Prayers is to outheal the damage done by the enmy however in HM that becomes near impossible without thorough amounts of damage mitigation.

Generally, my main problem in HM is AoE spells and Ticking AoE's. Due to Hero's and Henchman sitting in a circle around you, a single AoE spike can drop the whole party nearly instantly.

Cebe · Jul 16, 2007, 08:19 AM // 08:19

It's a very nicely put together guide.

One aspect of playing as Ele in HM with Heroes which you didn't touch on was the choice of heroes. I have tried a number of builds in Hard Mode and each build tends to require slightly different heroes:

General Morgahn: The good General gomes in very handy when you decide to go Fire. A couple of times, most memorably vanquishing Ferndale, I decided to try out taking multiple eles, and trying to keep everything on fire for the duration of the fight. General Morgahn's "They're on Fire!" can help to reduce damage by about 30%.

Razah: Razah is a fantastic support character. Mine is set up as a Spirit Spammer for HM and is particularly good when accompanying an Earth Elementalist. Giving Razah Shelter and Earthbind in particular can reduce the thread of initial spike damage, and augment your knockdowns. It can sometimes be auspicious to have him put up the spirits before you aggro but it can be very worthwhile to do so.

I rarely take a warrior, hero or henchman, because let's face it, enemies will just go fo the backline first anyway...so there's no point using a "tank" these days. Taking a protection monk, and forcing them to cast protection spells on you before you aggro/lure the mob can be a very auspicious move also.

Skyros · Jul 18, 2007, 06:58 AM // 06:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by xDusT II

If you don't have 3-4 capable Searing Flames elementalists it's probably not worth it over a more defensive build.

I'd have to whole heartedly disagree with you on this. 3-4 SF eles on nm or hm is overkill for most areas in GW. I've vanquished numerous area with 2 SF eles (myself included), Morgahn (SoR + ToF), and MoW (mm) and additional henchmen. SF is powerful enough in most cases (except for some heket/skree) groups) to warrant only 2 chars equiped with it. That skill coupled with Mark of Rodgort will keep things burning for the damage condition of SF to kick in.

In most cases where SF just doesn't have the punch needed to take down foes, a well placed MS will usually cause enough additional damage to take them down. Sometimes, mobs will just take longer to kill though.

Lugging around 3-4 eles are just waste of a character slot that could be better used for another support char.

---

The guide was average. It was missing alot of key info that I find helpful when vanquishing in HM.

For example, if you position your grp far back enough and then call target to a nearby grp, the warrior henchmen WILL run in and take initial aggro. This eliminates the need for a human tank / ranger puller for most areas.

I also found that while your approach to finding a balance to offense and defense alright, killing the enemies quickly should be priority one in HM or the pure damage output of the aggroed grp will overwhelm you. In my experiances, taking a dedicated support hero (Morgahn, Razah, etc.) for party wide buffs is FAR more effective then every hero in your grp taking a defensive skill that takes attribute points away.

Another important point missed was that fact that support chars in enemy mobs NEED to be taken down first. You can usually get away with just burning down monsters in any order in nm but in hm, the support units heals and buffs are a too serious threat to ignore. AT THE VERY LEAST they will cause fights to last longer, lowering your chance of sucess as your party slowly loses momemtum and AT THE MOST, it will stonewall your offensive capability and result in a wipe.

A good guide for a new ele vanquisher, nothing new for seasoned one.

BigDave · Jul 18, 2007, 08:15 AM // 08:15

One tactic i use quite a lot in HM for luring is to flag all heroes to a point well clear of the enemy. I'll then run out about an aggro bubble clear of my heroes to the group and hit something with a longbow and run back to my heroes. If you have a MM in the group the minions will run out to block the incomming enemy who have now bunched up nicely into a line (because you have pulled them a little further than normal they all try to converge on you drawing themselves together in the process). The minions body block most things and the enemy will lose interest in you because you're not doing anything atm. Then you turn around and kill them while the minions keep them busy

Vanquished most of elona like that.

Razah set up as a spirit spammer is a BIG help in the opening stages of a fight to soak up a huge amount of damage giving you the upper hand. Spirits like displacement and shadowsong are fantastic at keeping any melee off your back line. Spirits like shelter and union can counter spikes and general damage in the first few secs until aggro settles on specific targets that your monks can then look after. Earthbind is great with MS. It does good damage and if landed in the right place can severely disrupt several of the enemy due to the increased KD time from the spirit. Many times i've used a combo of arcane echo, MS, glyph of sac, MS, savannah heat with earthbind up, and most of the back line of an enemy group has vanished because they couldn't move out if it.