Curse

Tevash Szat · Jul 31, 2005, 11:09 AM // 11:09

In guild wars, my first charcter is a ele/mo and now it is at lvl 20. Seeing as how you can make massive money off of soloing in uw, i tried some monk tactics for themselves, but then i found ot that its near impossible as you cannot pump portection prayers up to 17 where protective bond cost only 1energy. This means that I wold be dead very quickly. After some frustration, i finally got hit by inspiration. Heres my build:

Energy Storage 12 +1headpiece +3 superior rune
Smiting 12

U always need 24 attribute refund points

Balthazaur's Aura
Glyph of Concentration
Divine Boon
Ether Renewal
Zealot's Fire
Protective Bond
Balthazar's Spirit
Essence Bond

When you enter the underworld, first use up 12 refund points to get 97 attribute points from 1 skill then use it to get protection up to twelve. Then, cast protective bond which should be at 3energy now. Then, take the 12 points out of proection and put it back into whatever you took the points out of. After that, cast balthazar's spirit and essence bond. Note it might take a while for the energy to get back to full but make sure it does.
When you see the first mob which is ataxes, right before you aggro, cast zealots fire. When you aggro them, make them surround you and start casting balthazar's aura. Over 10 seconds that should do 237damage if you add the 17damage from zealot's fire. (it is 17 damage since ataxes have some resistance to fire) Then, cast only 4divine boon to give them 68 damage and leave you with around thirtish energy. Only cast 4 as you do not want to lose all of your energy then protective bond wears off and you will die.
Next part is all important, cast glyth of renewal imedietely followed by ether renewal. Ether Renewal is the heart of this build and since you would get VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY pissed off if they interrupted it, u have glyph of concentration to make sure you dont get it interrupted. Ether Renewal should now be at: For 10 seconds, each time you cast a spell, you gain 5 energy and 21 health for each enchantment on you. You have 5 enchantments on so everytime you cast a spell, you gain twenty energy and 84 health. After you cast Ether Renewall, start spamming divine boon. Spamming this will make you invulnerable since you get 20energy ad 84health for a 5energy spell that takes 1/4 of a second to cast and has no recharge!!!!!!!!! In 10seconds im guessing you can get off around 20 divine boon since although it has a 1/4 casting time you cant get it to work 4times a second. 20 divine boons make it go up to 340damage. SO far it has been 237+68+240=545damage in 20seconds!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In the ataxes arent dead by now, you have full energy so cast another around 12divine boons doing another 204damage making the total damage up to 749 which is guaranteed to kill anything.
The only problem might be that if the monsters either interrupt balthazar's aura or lots of divine boon. You can lose the 237damage and still win i guess but that would drop you down to 512damage forcing you to use more divine boons after ether renewal.

I have not tested this build out as I have used up all of my skill points and dont have a cap sig for ether renewal. I will try to post a picture up here as soon as possible.

Dzan · Jul 31, 2005, 02:55 PM // 14:55

Or you could just use the focus that gives +1 protection prayers and use a monk like everyone else.

Tevash Szat · Jul 31, 2005, 04:53 PM // 16:53

The problem is that i dont have a role playing lvl20 monk with the skills and i dont want to use up lots of my time training 1.

spiritofcat · Aug 01, 2005, 05:59 AM // 05:59

This sounds interesting. I'd love to hear if it can be used practically.

knives · Aug 01, 2005, 06:57 AM // 06:57

Too bad you don't have glyph of renewal in your build like you said to use it with ether renewal. And too bad its also an elite which means you can't use both.

Red Locust · Aug 01, 2005, 07:31 AM // 07:31

Looks pretty good, but you run the risk of running out of energy if you're facing a decent sized mob, especially during ether renewal's downtime. An alternative to the monk smiter, and one that I've found works pretty well, is an E/R with quickening zephyr and mist form.

With quickening zephyr active, you can keep mist form active indefinitely, and that's 100% protection vs. melee. Now that you've got that out of the way, you can get down and dirty with some fire AoEs and clean up the aatxes/smites/whatever. Take an attunement to offset the increased energy costs of zephyr.
Glyph of concentration would be a good idea again, since you really don't want to be interrupted in the middle of mist form.

Zeru · Aug 01, 2005, 08:47 AM // 08:47

You cannot do 20 divine boons in 10 seconds sorry. 20 divine boons in 20 seconds sounds more reasonable (.25 cast+.75 aftercast).

twicky_kid · Aug 01, 2005, 05:29 PM // 17:29

here is what i use

pro spirit
breeze
boon
aura
ether renewal
zealots
essence bond
balth spirit

you cannot sustain yourself for a long time w/o using boon. eventually that will drain your energy while ether recharges. i like aura for that reason. you need to kill fast. you also have to be able to manage your spells and # of enemies you're fightning.

spiritofcat · Aug 04, 2005, 08:00 AM // 08:00

Here's my E/Mo solo UW build:

Just need to be able to do more damage.
Those first 3 skills could easily be replaced with anything else. Something that does damage with a low casting time would be good.
I had Aftershock in there before and it seemed quite good, except that it takes ages to recharge.

ImBobNewbie · Aug 04, 2005, 09:04 AM // 09:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by spiritofcat

Here's my E/Mo solo UW build:

Just need to be able to do more damage.
Those first 3 skills could easily be replaced with anything else. Something that does damage with a low casting time would be good.
I had Aftershock in there before and it seemed quite good, except that it takes ages to recharge.

I have been thinking of a similar E/Mo build to solo UW as many of you guys, and especially like spirit's build. However
1. how are you down to only 55 hp (using 3 superior runes it seems)?
2. why don't you go for extra energy storage? (since you have points left over anyway)

EDIT: I will be testing my own variant of the E/Mo build since I do not have a pve monk either. Please post how well your build is doing and if your build is holding up vs aatax / smite / coldfire. I think the colds will be most problematic...

ImBobNewbie · Aug 04, 2005, 09:16 AM // 09:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Locust

Looks pretty good, but you run the risk of running out of energy if you're facing a decent sized mob, especially during ether renewal's downtime. An alternative to the monk smiter, and one that I've found works pretty well, is an E/R with quickening zephyr and mist form.

With quickening zephyr active, you can keep mist form active indefinitely, and that's 100% protection vs. melee. Now that you've got that out of the way, you can get down and dirty with some fire AoEs and clean up the aatxes/smites/whatever. Take an attunement to offset the increased energy costs of zephyr.
Glyph of concentration would be a good idea again, since you really don't want to be interrupted in the middle of mist form.

I don't really understand how you are doing decent fire AoE damage if you're relying on a long lasting mist form for survival. Since lvl 12 water makes mist form last 18 seconds, you need at least a 15 second mist form. (since recharge time is 30 seconds and zephyr will cut it down to 15) So assuming you have maybe 11 in water, you will still need a lot of points left over for fire and energy storage. Probably you have a few leftover points in wilderness survival ?

Red Locust · Aug 04, 2005, 06:16 PM // 18:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by ImBobNewbie

I don't really understand how you are doing decent fire AoE damage if you're relying on a long lasting mist form for survival. Since lvl 12 water makes mist form last 18 seconds, you need at least a 15 second mist form. (since recharge time is 30 seconds and zephyr will cut it down to 15) So assuming you have maybe 11 in water, you will still need a lot of points left over for fire and energy storage. Probably you have a few leftover points in wilderness survival ?

5 or 6 in wilderness survival is enough to get you a quickening zephyr that's 70s. in duration - should be enough for your purposes.

If you want to cut it short, or need all the points you can spare, you just need to get a 14s. duration on mist form. With a 20% enchants staff upgrade that bumps it up to 17s. duration, giving you just enough time to activate the next mist form. That's about 6+1 in water.

That leaves you with 158 attribute points to do what you want with. Granted, not as good as a monk smiter, but we're looking at alternatives, right? This setup lets you take 12 fire and 10 energy storage. Throw in runes, and you have 12+1+3 fire, 10+1 energy, 6+1 water, 6 wilderness.

kleps · Aug 04, 2005, 06:26 PM // 18:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by ImBobNewbie

I have been thinking of a similar E/Mo build to solo UW as many of you guys, and especially like spirit's build. However
1. how are you down to only 55 hp (using 3 superior runes it seems)?
2. why don't you go for extra energy storage? (since you have points left over anyway)

EDIT: I will be testing my own variant of the E/Mo build since I do not have a pve monk either. Please post how well your build is doing and if your build is holding up vs aatax / smite / coldfire. I think the colds will be most problematic...

i can answer #1. he's using 5 superior runes and a -50hp offhand.

ImBobNewbie · Aug 04, 2005, 06:55 PM // 18:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by kleps

i can answer #1. he's using 5 superior runes and a -50hp offhand.

But look closely at the picture... he only has 3 superior runes it seems, earth, water, storage. He does not have points into air or fire. It still makes no sense why he wouldn't opt to take the few extra energy storage he could get.

Edit: Also, I can't really think of a good strategy vs coldfires if you run the mist form build. If there are a group of 3 blocking your way to smites... most likely you'll be dead with the current anti phys build.

Dazzler · Aug 04, 2005, 09:11 PM // 21:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by spiritofcat

Here's my E/Mo solo UW build:

Just need to be able to do more damage.
Those first 3 skills could easily be replaced with anything else. Something that does damage with a low casting time would be good.
I had Aftershock in there before and it seemed quite good, except that it takes ages to recharge.

I came up with a variation of this build on my own and was coming here seeking advice to improve it.

First some questions on your build:

1. Where did you get the -50hp item to get your hp down to 55?
2. How do you manage your energy? I find with Balthazars Spirit and Essence Bond, fighting only 1-2 enemies such as Aatxes at a time does not generate enough energy to keep me in action. And fighting more than 2 Aatxes increases the risk of them interrupting Prot. Spirit at an inopportune time.
3. Once you kill the Aatxes, how do you get past the squiddies that come out when you get the quest to open the doors? when I tried, they just interuppted all my casts and I was dead meat.

Here is my build:

Health: 105
Weapon: Staff of Enchanting +18%

Attributes:
Energy Storage: 13 (9, +1 eye, +3 superior rune)
Healing 8
Smiting 11
Protection 8

Skills
Divine Boon
Zealots Fire
Mending
Protective Spirit
Ether Renewal
Essence Bond
Balthazars Spirit
Balthazars Aura

Strategy,
At start, put on Mending, Essence Bond, Balt. Spirit.
Cast Ether Renewal
Spam Divine Boon to recharge energy
Wait for Ether Renewal to cooldown.
You now have 4 perm. enchantments on you and 0 energy regen.
Approach first pair of Aatxes.
Just outside aggro range, cast Zealots Fire
Attack with staff to attract them and lead them down the stairs a little bit
Before they reach you:
Cast Prot. Spirit
Cast Ether Renewal
Spam Divine Boon to take your E back to full.
Cast Balth. Aura
Spam Divine Boon some more
before Ether Renewal ends, recast Prot Spirit.

Now while Ether Renewal is off, you need to manage your E.
Basically cast Div. Boon as long as you have alot of E.
Recast Prot. Spirit whenever it cools down--do not wait until your prot spirit is ending b/c it might get interrupted and you wait til the last minute and you get interrupted you are dead. So just cast it early--that way if it gets interrupted, you have time to try again 2-3 times before you are in trouble.

As Ether Renewal is cooling down, target your E so you have about 20-25 left when it is done cooling.
Then cast 1 Divine Boon in case they are throwing an interrupt at you
Cast Ether Renewal
Spam Divine Boon to recharge
Cast Balth Aura.

Now just rinse and repeat until they are dead.
If they ever interrupt your Ether Renewal you may run into E problems and will not be able to heal as fast as they are dmging you. In that case, run back to where you started, the Aatxes will not follow for long and will return to their location and you can try again without dying.

Now, if someone can help me get past the squids I would be very greatful.

btw, this build works great against the sand giants. I can take on 8+ giants and a few rockshots at one time with this strategy.

It's not a good build for the griffon run though...I'd never live through the lure phase.

Oh, and to the OP: I don't see how your build would work in practice. It sounds nice in theory, but since you can only cast 1 Boon per second, and since there is now way you can kill the Aatxes before the 10s Ether Renewal ends, you will find that once it ends your E will drop to 0 REAL quick since you will lose 1 E per hit they make on you, plus you will have to keep spamming Boon to heal yourself at a cost of 7 E per cast. In roughly 5s-6s you will be out of E and will be dead in 3s-5s after that I am betting. But I must admit I have not tried it so who knows? Perhaps with a +1 prot. item you can cast Bond at a 13. If so, will that get it down to a cost of 2? Anyone know?

Torcher · Aug 05, 2005, 03:31 PM // 15:31

@Tevash Szat: I've tried your build 5-10 times today and it just can't work. The reason is too big cooldown of Ether Renewal and by the time you can cast it again you're dead and divine boon can't make enough dmg

Dazzler · Aug 05, 2005, 04:18 PM // 16:18

@Torcher, my build does not suffer from that problem as it uses Prot. Spirit instead of Prot. Bond and so you don't lose E each time you are hit, but instead gain 2 E per hit. I am going to track down the -50HP item today and try some new combat strats against the squids to see if I can get past them tonite with my build.

Torcher · Aug 05, 2005, 06:14 PM // 18:14

I haven't tried your build yet Dazzler because Tevash Szat's cost me some money, i'm gonna go farm a little then i will report, it looks like it can do the job..but i got to see it to believe it

ImBobNewbie · Aug 05, 2005, 07:12 PM // 19:12

About the mist form build:

It will most likely NOT work. I have come up with builds that make mobs of 10-15 lvl 24's easy but mist form + zephyr simply will not cut it in the UW.

I tested it the entire day yesterday and found out that your mana will run out ridiculously fast. I was even running glyph of lesser energy to get off a cheap meteor shower, but in the end, the little damage you do between casting mist forms will not do much at all. Let's see if one of these e/mo builds can actually work for an entire smite run...

JackOften · Aug 05, 2005, 07:41 PM // 19:41

I usually just run a 105/55 HP prot spirit basic E/Mo smiter, but instead of essence bonding for no good reason I get a Mend going - so that Ataxe degen doesn't rape my low HP.

For the rest of the run I usually just switch to the high HP setup, its cake anyway. The great thing about E/Mos is you have no real worrys on a smite run except the first few ataxe and prefiring your ether on the graspings (get the quest, run up the stairs, fire balth and ether before they even start running at you - and you can then usually dish out enough damage to make shit work).

Oh, and occasionally shielding hands over essence bond just for those smites and grasps, duh. I'm going to try out Glyph of Concentration though - I forgot about how the mobs not interupting Signets might be really nifty there - and being able to run a full fledged protbond might make stuff more comftorable. I mean the recast of spirit does get old fast