Curse

Lazarus · Aug 26, 2005, 03:11 PM // 15:11

Lately I have been getting a bit bored playing a monk all the time, so I started working on my Ele/Me character, getting him to the point where he was capping elite skills. Once I had a few I created a PvP character and waited for Extreme PvP weekend to start. Then as I was abot to log on last night the update came and 2 of my main skills had been nerfed. This sent me back to the drawing board.

Early this moring I came up with this "Mud Mage" build. I won more than 10 in row twice with it and have had good success in the Team Arenas with it as well. I haven't taken it to the Tombs yet. This was very suprising to me and I wanted to ask your opinions.

Here are the stats and skills I am using:

Earth 12
Water 12
Energy 10

Aura of Restoration
Armor of Mist
Water Trident
Ice Spikes
Obsidian Flame
Earthquake
Aftershock
Res Signet

Does anyone have any thoughts for refinements or improvements they would like to add?

Thanks,

Lazarus

DarkAynjil · Aug 26, 2005, 06:59 PM // 18:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lazarus

Lately I have been getting a bit bored playing a monk all the time, so I started working on my Ele/Me character, getting him to the point where he was capping elite skills. Once I had a few I created a PvP character and waited for Extreme PvP weekend to start. Then as I was abot to log on last night the update came and 2 of my main skills had been nerfed. This sent me back to the drawing board.

Early this moring I came up with this "Mud Mage" build. I won more than 10 in row twice with it and have had good success in the Team Arenas with it as well. I haven't taken it to the Tombs yet. This was very suprising to me and I wanted to ask your opinions.

Here are the stats and skills I am using:

Earth 12
Water 12
Energy 10

Aura of Restoration
Armor of Mist
Water Trident
Ice Spikes
Obsidian Flame
Earthquake
Aftershock
Res Signet

Does anyone have any thoughts for refinements or improvements they would like to add?

Thanks,

Lazarus

Hmm. I would take Armor of Earth over Armor of Mist for higher AL, and drop EQ for Maelstrom, replace AS with WaH. I'd also drop Trident for a Mes E-steal like Energy Tap, since you have no energy management... Aura of Restoration is crap, IMO. I would probably swap in Ether Feast for it, If you went the Inspiration route. That's just my opinion though... I'm still new to Earth and Water, I just find the EQ+AS combo to be to expensive and easy to counter.

Auntie I · Aug 26, 2005, 07:04 PM // 19:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkAynjil

Hmm. I would take Armor of Earth over Armor of Mist for higher AL, and drop EQ for Maelstrom, replace AS with WaH. I'd also drop Trident for a Mes E-steal like Energy Tap, since you have no energy management... Aura of Restoration is crap, IMO. I would probably swap in Ether Feast for it, If you went the Inspiration route. That's just my opinion though... I'm still new to Earth and Water, I just find the EQ+AS combo to be to expensive and easy to counter.

So in other words, no you wouldn't use that build you'd use
Armor of Earth
Maelstrom
Ward against Harm
Energy Tap
Ether Feast

Leaving only
Rez Signet (fairly standard for any non monk build)
Ice Spikes
and Obsidian Flame

Interesting!

BTW I do like the name Mud Mage for a Earth Water Combo.

Kyten · Aug 27, 2005, 04:55 AM // 04:55

id rather call it nature mage (earth=rock water=.... makes plant=tree=nature and mud sounds kinda offensive like they're slobs) but how exactly you get your attribs like that, your using runes right?

Yukito Kunisaki · Aug 27, 2005, 07:49 AM // 07:49

10+2 or 10+1+3 Earth Magic [for offense], water for utility
7-9 + 1 E. Store
10 Water Magic / Earth Magic
7+ Inspiration

depending on what you're looking for, you can either help your team by blinding/hexing/snaring your foes in mass, or just slamming them to hell, snaring them so they can't escape, and slam them some more.

We need some snares, and some HARD hitting spells...

Snares with water which come to mind:
Shard Storm [for that single enemy rushing to his doom]
Ice spikes [better than SS, does more dmg and 2x as long snare AoE]
Frozen Burst [not good, would you get mobbed and survive?]
Deep Freeze [the big mama AoE snare, 10s. of walking, PAINFUL to deal with...]

After you choose a snare, find the knockout skill in earth magic:
Earthquake
Obsidian Flame
Crystal Wave
etc.

I don't know earth magic too well, my n/e is an ice specialist.

But this is a lot of energy to burn and you want one or two skills to get them back up.
Energy Tap [kinda dangerous due to 3s. cast time]
Energy Drain {E} [ah, the skill to steal with, might want to sacrifice some e.storage for inspiration, just a tad]
Channeling: good for when in a grouped heated fight, which should benefit you since some of your snares are AoE
Drain Enchantment: not for the enchant knockout capabilities, but for the nice energy boost you get.
Inspire Hex/enchantment isn't worth it due to useless skills hitting ur skill bar when u might not have the stat to run it.

Try not to deal too much into 'what if's'. That's what your monk is for. E/Me has some crazy capabilities since mesmer can manipulate how cheesy your skills can be.

I wouldn't put anything into the armors unless it was random arena. I'd bet money on Frost Armor over Armor of Mist or Earth. I didn't run into enough fire users to care. Mist is good if you intend to run alot. [which is counterproductive since you can't cast while running] A of Earth is hot if you don't intend to move [which is what a caster does] but watch out for the enchant strip and the like.