Curse

Buddha · Jan 03, 2006, 09:05 AM // 09:05

I'm a lvl 20 ele working in the desert right now and I can't for life of me make a good spike build. My goal is of course to cause the most amount of dmg to one target than move on. Only works in a team of course but I'm just not putting out the dmg I think ele's can. So I was wondering what other people's skill set is that use a spiker build. Thanks in advance.

Warskull · Jan 03, 2006, 10:45 AM // 10:45

Your two major options are lightning orb+lightning strike or obsidian flame. Unfornately the PvE for eles was done very badly and the energy management skills to run a proper spiker isn't available until very late into the game.

angshuman · Jan 03, 2006, 03:11 PM // 15:11

The primary issue here is that late-game PvE monsters have a lot more health and armor than your human PvP opponents. Even against human opponents, you would typically need multiple Air or Earth ele's casting Orb or Obsidian Flame simultaneously (with perhaps a supporting Mesmer) in order to get an insta-kill. By yourself, one popular combo you can pull off is Surge{E}, Orb, Strike, although you probably don't have access to Surge yet. E/Me's can enhance this and use the combo: Phantom Pain, Surge{E}, Orb, Strike, Shatter Delusions. This sequence would probably annihilate a lvl-20 AL60 target, but you'll be left gasping for Energy after casting in on maybe 2 targets, with 20 exhaustion to boot. It's not very practical in PvE.

The energy management skills you speak of are all elites -- Glyph of Energy that you will cap later on in Mineral Springs, and Elemental Attunement and Ether Renewal even later in the Ring of Fire islands. However, even these skills will not really enable you to "spike" or insta-kill a target, rather they will keep you up and running for a much longer period.

As of now (and to a large extent even later on after you cap your Elites), the best spike you can get without exhausting yourself to extinction is probably in the Fire line (I'm assuming you do not have either of the Rodgort's spells yet). Let's try and build a long, devastating Fire spell combo. The core of this is the sequence:

- Immolate, Incendiary Bonds, Fireball.

The best part is that the latter two spells are actually AoE. Incendiary Bonds was debugged recently by Anet, and after the fix, I'd have to say that Bonds + Fireball is a very nice combo by itself. Now, if you are an E/Me, you can throw in Arcane Echo into the mixture. That way, you can pull off the following continuous sequence without having to stop for even a fraction of a second:

- Arcane Echo, Fireball, Immolate, I-Bonds, Echoed-Fireball, Fireball (should be just-recharged), Immolate.

The idea is to keep the target burning as long as possible while keeping it under constant direct attack too. Total energy cost for that combo (including A-Echo) is 80, but with Fire Attunement running, it should come down to about 61. Accounting for aftercast, the sequence takes a little more than 17 seconds. Again, don't forget the partial-AoE aspect of the combo. You should have enough leftover energy to finish off the remaining targets with your two Fireballs and Immolate as and when they become available.

You can also try with Water + Air combinations (Water Hex + Lightning Touch) or Air + Earth (Whirlwind + Aftershock), but I doubt they will be able to match the sustained and relentless damage of the above Fire combo.

Grammar · Jan 04, 2006, 05:16 AM // 05:16

Lightning Orb and Obsidian Flame are by far the 2 best ele spike spells in the game IMO.
Make an air or earth build centered around one of those two skills.

For PvE, I like Lightning Orb better. It doesn't cause exhaustion, and you can spam the hell out of it with dual attunements, and rather quickly at that. 2 second cast, 5 second recast; sometimes faster with the proper equipment, such as a 20/20 focus.
Bring no more than 2 additional attack skills (and NOTHING that causes exhaustion), because you want to save most of your energy for Lightning Orb. And pick skills that are QUICK; speed is extremely important in a spike build.
I usually bring Enervating Charge (1 second cast, 8 second recast) and Lightning Strike (1 second cast, 5 second recast).

Example of a possible combo:
Enervating Charge -> Lightning Orb -> Lightning Strike -> regular attack (or 2) -> Lightning Orb -> Lightning Strike (if needed).
(50 energy total, before attunments)

Obviously, you'll use different combos for different situations, but this one works great for warriors and rangers because Enervating Charge weakens them for 20 seconds right from the get-go, which works great in PvE (or replace Enervating Charge with Blinding Flash and blind them right from the get-go; but I prefer Enervating Charge because it costs less energy and does damage).

If you don't have elites yet, then use the non-elite attunment and Glyph of Lesser Energy (to use right before Lighning Orb), until you can replace the glyph with the second, elite attunement later on.

For PvP however, Obsidian Flame might be the way to go.