Curse

erfweiss · Feb 14, 2007, 10:08 AM // 10:08

This was my bar earlier in the day:

E/Me
Fire: 16
Energy Storage 13
Extra 5 points in: whatever floats your boat

1) Fireball
2) Arcane Echo
3) Liquid Flame
4) Rodgorts Invocation
5) Meteor Shower
6) Glyph of Lesser Energy
7) Elemental Attunement
8) Aura of Restoration / Signet of Capture

Ensign · Feb 14, 2007, 11:49 AM // 11:49

Or you could not use Attunements and use Vitaes instead. Because, as we all know, max energy is so important in Guild Wars.

If you're familiar with my posting history you might know that I have a thing for Mind Blast. I like how it's a nice package of emanagement and DPS, you use it as a followup to anything that you do and it keeps your energy topped off and smooth. It was outclassed by Searing Flames for a long time, but I don't think it is anymore (outside of SF packs) so I've been tinkering with it a bit more since the last skill rebalance.

The coolest thing that came out of that rebalancing was Smoldering Embers. It hits as hard as Fireball now on the same e/c/r. More to the point, Mind Blast -> Fireball -> Mind Blast -> Smoldering Embers synchs up *perfectly* and is infinitely repeatable, making it a nice little beater combo to build a Fire Elementalist around.

To that end I've been running this bar in PvE the last few days:

Mind Blast, Fireball, Smoldering Embers, Fire Attunement, Heal Party, Resurrection Chant, Glyph of Sacrifice, ~slot

To get it out of the way, that bar is really simple, you just beat on things (~40 DPS) and crank out Heal Party or fast res as needed. Nothing fancy, you don't get to take any fancy AoE screenshots but it's great for just beating dorks down in sequence through most of PvE. Again energy is great, no downtime, can spam Heal Party on recharge if needed.

I've tried a bunch of skills in the random slot, the obligitory Glyph Sac / Meteor Shower (which I'm still underwhelmed by), Liquid Flame (which I liked when you ran Immolate but with Smoldering Embers I just end up in a rhythm and don't end up using it), even Lava Arrows (don't laugh, it's actually almost reasonable after the buff), or Flame Djinn's Haste (it's pretty nice now, between being a speed boost and a decent PBAoE, but not quite what I want). Nothing has really jumped out as the skill to run, any ideas? You can run pretty much anything there, the character can spend all of his time and energy casting what's already on his bar, so it should be really money.

Alternatively, there's an old sequence that works a bit better in light of recent buffs:

Mind Blast -> Rodgort's Invocation -> Mind Blast -> Fireball -> Mind Blast -> Incendiary Bonds -> Mind Blast -> Fireball

Which is also infinitely repeatable, synchs up perfectly, and is a bit more attractive with the buff to Incendiary Bonds (if you're into Incendiary Bonds). You have that slot, so if you really want to go nuts with the 240 AoEs, try out that sequence. Bar would then be:

Mind Blast, Fireball, Incendiary Bonds, Rodgort's Invocation, Fire Attunement, Heal Party, Resurrection Chant, Glyph of Sacrifice

Both bars run the same stats, 12+4 Fire Magic, 8 Energy Storage, 10 Healing Prayers

In any case, I'm really liking Mind Blasters right now, give 'em a shot if you haven't recently. The combination DPS and energy elite, even if it's not amazing at either, is reasonably solid, and all the time you spend casting it has a really nice synergy with the longish recharges on many fire skills.

Peace,
-CxE

Cebe · Feb 14, 2007, 11:55 AM // 11:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Heal Party, Resurrection Chant, Glyph of Sacrifice,

........

Stormlord Alex · Feb 14, 2007, 01:44 PM // 13:44

Nice build there Ensign... Might have to give it a go when I get Mind blast! <-- Ele still in Kourna

And I, too, am liking the new Embers... 2 x Fireball is FTW

Ensign · Feb 14, 2007, 08:27 PM // 20:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celestial Beaver

........

They're E/Mo backbone skills, and absolutely better than anything else you can put in those slots when you have an energy elite.

That does not mean that these are the old days where you'd use Prodigy and Heal Party and camp in the back and spam Heal Party over and over again because that is the best thing that you can do. Far from it. Eles have been buffed enough that even with the recent nerfs to their first non-energy, money elites, they're respectable facepunchers. Granted they aren't Dragon Slashers Frenzying someone's face, but they don't need to be, because they get the advantages of being a ranged caster and they can carry a bunch of utility that a Warrior simply can't.

I know that you look at that Smoldering Embers bar and see the Monk stuff and frown. While I'm sure that brings up images of the character being a Heal Party bot, the presence of those skills doesn't make that the case. When I'm running a character like that I'm cycling Fireball, Mind Blast, and Smoldering Embers 90% of the time. That's the beauty of that combo, it's a nice compact damage and energy engine in one. You can make a character with those 3 skills and 5 Signets of Capture, and still crank out respectable damage, spending 100% of your time casting DDs. Believe me, I do for long stretches. What that means, is that instead of having to fill the rest of my bar with skills that fill in gaps in spell sequences or otherwise help me beat on things, I can spend them on skills that do anything I want. Similarly on a Mind Blast bar you have a 10-spec in any attribute you feel like, because your energy and your damage are coming from one attribute and a reasonable investment in Energy Storage.

It's from that perspective that Heal Party is so good. Putting that skill on my bar does nothing to my damage output. I have the slots, the attribute points, it's completely free. And what I get from putting it there, is the added ability to instantly shift modes from being a pretty good DPS machine into a pretty good support healer. 90% of the time I'll cycle DDs on enemies, but if the Monks are hurting and the party looks like it's getting rocked, I can simply shift into Mind Blast -> Heal Party -> Mind Blast -> Heal Party for a few cycles to stabilize the team, to let the Monks recover before getting back to blasting things full time. Is that the main plan? Of course not. But it does happen, and the ability to address that fairly common occurance in such a powerful fashion, at such a minimal cost, is so strong that I think you have to be daft to ignore its potential.

Glyph of Sacrifice / Resurrection Chant has the same idea. It does not cost you damage output to bring it on these damage bars - again, 100% of your time can be spent blasting with your other skills. But when someone does happen to die, and people do die in Guild Wars, you have the absolute best mid-combat res available at your fingertips. I'm not going to go over why Glyph/Res is so good, if you've played with it for any period of time I think it becomes obvious. The question has to be, what are you going to gain from *not* running Glyph/Res? How are you going to make better use of those slots? To beat that horse dead once again, Mind Blasters have outstanding slot compression. 100% of your time can be spent casting 3 reasonably efficient damage skills. You don't need to spend the slots on more offense.

So to sum it up, yes, you're going to find Heal Party, Resurrection Chant, and Glyph of Sacrifice on basically every PvE Elementalist bar (with an energy elite) for the forseeable future, because they are simply the strongest skills available. They cost you next to nothing and situationally provide enormous benefits. There may very well be good reasons to not run those skills on this sort of character in PvE - but without something similarly outstanding demanding those attribute points and slots, you're just being daft by leaving them off of your bar.

Peace,
-CxE

Pwnd by a guineapig · Feb 15, 2007, 12:49 AM // 00:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Strangelove

My FoW nuker... chock full of energy management. Nothing makes me more ashamed than to see an ele begging for blood rit after every battle

Fire Magic: 16 (12+3+1)
ES: 13 (12+1)

Fireball
Rodgort's invocation
Meteor
Meteor shower
Arcane echo
Fire attunement
Glyph of energy (E)
Rez sig

The glyph of energy keeps you going much longer and is resistant to enchantment stripping. For areas with minimal enchantment strippage, bring dual attunements and aura of restoration as a cover.

Why dont you have a +3 rune for energy storage?

Stormlord Alex · Feb 15, 2007, 01:53 AM // 01:53

Please, Pwned, an extra few energy at the expense of a *massive* 75 health is simply a waste - especially on a class that has such a high energy and great e-management anyways. Heck, I only run Minor Energy Storage 'cuz I occaisonally run an Energy Storage elite (Prodigy, take a bow!)

stefke86 · Feb 15, 2007, 06:23 AM // 06:23

My FoW buld...and pve build in general.

E/Mo

16 fire
14 ES
3 Healing

1:flare
2:fireball
3:glowing gaze
4:rodgorts invocation
5:meteor shower
6:fire attunelent
7:elemental attunement
8:rebirth

Basically using this build i never seem to drop below 50 energy (except in those really long lasting battles)

Strategy is to cast: meteror shower>Rodgorts invocation>Glowing gaze>fireball>spam flare> repeat from rodgorts on if anyone is still standing.

Though many people frownupon that buld,it yet has to fail me (finished prophecies and factions with it, almsot at the end of nightfall aswell))

Dr Strangelove · Feb 15, 2007, 07:17 AM // 07:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pwnd by a guineapig

Why dont you have a +3 rune for energy storage?

Because I'm not a retard? +9 or however much more energy for -75 health is a crappy tradeoff. For most builds you don't even need the minor rune, I just keep it around for running prodigy and the like. At any rate, that build is hopelessly outdated, having been semi-useful before Factions came out. A pure SF nuker would look something like:

12+3+1 Fire Magic
8+1 Energy Storage
10 Healing Prayers/Earth Magic depending on skill choice

Searing Flames [E]
Glowing Gaze
Mark of Rodgort
Meteor Shower
Fire Attunement
Glyph of lesser energy
Heal Party/ward v melee/glyph of sacrifice, depending on the area
Rez

However, I'm falling more and more in love with

Ebon Hawk
Unsteady Ground
Eruption
Stoning
Earth Attunement
Ward v Melee
Glyph of lesser energy
Rez/Glowstone if playing with heroes/hench

Mostly farks up physicals to no end, but hey, fun stuff.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Mind Blast, Fireball, Incendiary Bonds, Rodgort's Invocation, Fire Attunement, Heal Party, Resurrection Chant, Glyph of Sacrifice

I like that bar too, although I prefer bringing searing heat for the scatter effect and nifty consolation damage thrown in. Glyph of sacrifice feels like a weak skill in that build, as it only has one other skill to work with. In PvE, a rebirth sig will do just as well and only hog up one slot.

Smoldering embers feels kind of meh. Yeah, it does fireball damage and all, but it's single target. If you really want single target damage, there are about a billion better options than that. I'm of the opinion that a fire ele should attempt to AoE and AoE well, hoping the gamble will pay off on big bunches of enemies.

Ensign · Feb 15, 2007, 11:24 AM // 11:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Strangelove

A pure SF nuker would look something like:

Mark of Rodgort

I played around with Mark of Rodgort in a Searing Flames build today and I was really unimpressed, to be perfectly honest. It doesn't do anything at all until the third cast of Searing Flames - that one will deal damage instead of cause burning - but you're one cast behind from casting Mark of Rodgort to begin with. So really, Mark doesn't start showing value until your fifth cast of Searing Flames on the same target...which happened so rarely as to be laughable.

In a pack of Searing Flames Eles, Mark of Rodgort continues to lose potency, since the number of Searing Flames triggers it adds does not scale with the number of copies of Searing Flames. With 3 Searing Flames Eles Mark of Rodgort is a complete waste. Liquid Flame outperformed Mark of Rodgort on the standard bar, even after the buff to Mark and the nerf to Searing Flames.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Strangelove

I like that bar too, although I prefer bringing searing heat for the scatter effect and nifty consolation damage thrown in. Glyph of sacrifice feels like a weak skill in that build, as it only has one other skill to work with.

I can see running a Ressig instead through a bulk of PvE, as long as you're assured a bunch of morale boosts the performance would be pretty comparable. If I wasn't such a ninja with the Glyphres I might be more willing to drop it. =)

Glyph of Sacrifice doesn't really combo with any skills besides Resurrection Chant and Meteor Shower. I think Glyph/Res is clearly good enough to run on its own, being the strongest res option in the game...Meteor Shower, I think is completely unplayable without Glyph of Sacrifice already on the bar, and it only becomes ok if the Glyph is there. If you're with a really organized team that's taking its time and balling all the enemies up for Searing Flames or something, sure, have fun with Glyph/Met Shower. Otherwise leave it at home.

Put another way, "Glyph of Sacrifice + Meteor Shower" without Resurrection Chant on your bar is worse than "Good skill + empty slot" in a vast majority of builds and situations.

I've played with Searing Heat a bit post change, it's priced aggressively now, but I'm still sufficiently unhappy with the recharge that it's still nothing more than a cute trick in my mind. I won't cut something actually important for it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Strangelove

Smoldering embers feels kind of meh. Yeah, it does fireball damage and all, but it's single target. If you really want single target damage, there are about a billion better options than that. I'm of the opinion that a fire ele should attempt to AoE and AoE well, hoping the gamble will pay off on big bunches of enemies.

The thing is...there really aren't better single target options. You can cycle Immolates but that actually isn't any better damage (especially in PvE where the burning from Smoldering Embers will trigger consistently, provided they don't die first) largely because there's really weak synergy between Mind Blast and Immolate, you end up in this cooldown hell where you're wasting a lot of time waiting for things to recharge. If you have the Fireball you're casting Immolate exactly as often as Smoldering Embers, wasting a second standing there in the cycle instead of spending it casting, and dealing less damage overall because of it. What other single target damage options are there? Flare spam? Air guys get a bit higher DPS, but are more fragile, require more slots, are are basically limited to blind for utility. I'm not impressed.

Smoldering Embers is not a good skill. What it is, however, is a skill that happens to fit into the standard timing of a Mind Blaster reasonably well, and is just good enough to outperform objectively better skills that are a whole lot more awkward. The only time that it really shined was in combination with Mark of Rodgort, where it has some cute synergy (Embers triggers the Mark, starts burning, then Embers triggers extending burning), otherwise it's just a blah option that happens to fill the time and needs that I expect of it.

After another night testing various options I think it's clear that, at least in the zones I was doing, Rodgort's Invocation is the best skill to slip in there. It's not impressive by any means, but the high usability, reliability, and synergy in the timing make it work out nicely. It also lessens the emphasis on Smoldering Embers early on against standard trash mobs since you can go Fireball -> Rodgorts -> Fireball to get some decent AoE in there when called for before having to fall back to the single target damage.

Tried Incendiary Bonds as well, I wasn't impressed at all. The hex was removed, monsters died, or otherwise the effect is a whole lot less than it should have been because of how long it takes to do its job. You had to cast it really early on in the fight to make it do anything useful, and that just made the Rodgort's worse. It's ok, but not impressed.

I won't disagree that AoE is a good thing, but if you're not running Searing Flames your AoE options are not attractive. Rodgort's Invocation and Fireball are fine, after that it's a bunch of skills that are awkward to use, or have recharges that aren't justified by the effect. Hence, my tendency to stick to those two AoEs and find ways to stay useful while they're recharging.

Peace,
-CxE

dgb · Feb 15, 2007, 02:57 PM // 14:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Nothing has really jumped out as the skill to run, any ideas? You can run pretty much anything there, the character can spend all of his time and energy casting what's already on his bar, so it should be really money.

Flash with a mid spec air? It doesn't look particularly intensive on attributes, so you could get away with the splash. The problem with this idea is that you have to choose to mitigate damage or red bars up (Blast->Flash->Blast or Blast->Party->Blast). Aside from that I'm really not sure.

I tried experimenting with something similar as a gank character once, it went Blast, Mark of Rodgort, Fireball, Flash, Freezing Gust, Fire Attune, Storm Djinns, random self heal that I never decided on. With the buffs you'd swap Mark for Smouldering. It made for a decent solo character (constant burning, reasonable DPS), mobility control, physical control, but generally suffered for lack of interupts and the fact that half of the opponents you'd fight would have 80+ AL (warriors, rangers, eles) leaving you in low DPS city...

Lava Font is something that I've played around with. It can get a decent DPS going if you can catch people in them and it's a decent disruption effect for getting a monster off someone.

Dr Strangelove · Feb 15, 2007, 05:56 PM // 17:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I played around with Mark of Rodgort in a Searing Flames build today and I was really unimpressed, to be perfectly honest. It doesn't do anything at all until the third cast of Searing Flames - that one will deal damage instead of cause burning - but you're one cast behind from casting Mark of Rodgort to begin with. So really, Mark doesn't start showing value until your fifth cast of Searing Flames on the same target...which happened so rarely as to be laughable.

True, I suppose I was thinking of semi-acceptable way to run a SF by itself, which I no longer advocate at all. It's kind of a weak build now that people only bring for the meteor shower in places like DoA and FoW. SF is reduced to something to do when you're waiting for MS to recharge.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I've played with Searing Heat a bit post change, it's priced aggressively now, but I'm still sufficiently unhappy with the recharge that it's still nothing more than a cute trick in my mind. I won't cut something actually important for it.

I'm a huge fan of AoE scatter. In PvE, you usually get all or almost all of the procs from searing heat, and, more importantly, you get an AoE shutdown for a few seconds after which you can completely rearrange aggro. A fun trick, if you can pull it off, is to have a couple of eles chaining DoT to keep the AI permanently scattering.

I'll admit that the recharge is balls, but as the saying goes, if wishes were horses, Izzy would make firestorm not suck.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dgb

Lava Font is something that I've played around with. It can get a decent DPS going if you can catch people in them and it's a decent disruption effect for getting a monster off someone.

Lava font always seems nice to me at first, but the combination of long casting time, point blank range, low damage, and tiny AoE means it becomes very, very limited in ability.

Ensign · Feb 15, 2007, 09:01 PM // 21:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Strangelove

It's kind of a weak build now that people only bring for the meteor shower in places like DoA and FoW.

I don't know that I'd say that, DoA at least is still an area where people are bringing 3 eles, and with 3 Searing Flames the skill is still very good. The Deep as well, Searing Flames is the elite you want when you're rounding up mobs for a bunch of eles.

But, yeah, for regular gameplay I wouldn't bother with the skill anymore.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Strangelove

I'm a huge fan of AoE scatter.

I am as well, especially for more typical gameplay where you're not carefully rounding up all the mobs. For a period of time I ran Dragon's Breath when Factions first came out, to drop on a guy to make him move...largely for the same reason I could do that with Searing Heat on the Embers bar, because there's a slot on the bar that I never have to use to be effective. But the recharge on all of those ticking AoE skills is horrible. Searing Heat is at least entertaining to think about now, and I've played with it, I just keep cutting it because I want more out of that slot.

If I could add one skill in chapter 4, it'd be:

Flamestrike, Spell. Target foe and all adjacent foes are struck for 15...60 fire damage. Create Flamestrike at target foe's location. For 5 seconds, foes adjacent to that location are struck for 5...20 damage each second. 10/2/10

Pity that if the concept was actually executed, it'd be given a 30 second recharge.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Strangelove

Lava font always seems nice to me at first, but the combination of long casting time, point blank range, low damage, and tiny AoE means it becomes very, very limited in ability.

At least the damage isn't low anymore. It's a cute anti-aggro skill in PvE, but yeah, the high casting time and tiny AoE make it a weak skill.

Peace,
-CxE

Ensign · Feb 16, 2007, 12:10 AM // 00:10

I retract my comment about Searing Heat. I've sufficiently compressed my bar with Mind Blast and Fireball that I don't need a second cast per fight out of that slot, and Searing Heat is an outstanding skill if the recharge isn't a problem. Current bar for regular PvE:

Fireball
Rodgort's Invocation
Searing Heat
Mind Blast
Fire Attunement
Heal Party
Resurrection Chant
Glyph of Sacrifice

16 Fire, 10 Healing, 8 Energy Storage

Peace,
-Cx

draco inferno · Feb 16, 2007, 07:31 AM // 07:31

one thing about mind blasters that is also pretty nice is the ability to adapt to different situations. i have always been a fan of extinguish in high-condition areas and the deep. you don't even need to spend attribute points for it to do its job. you can even change up healing magic for wards or snares if you are desperate to do so (gyala comes to mind). mind blast was something that i looked at during the launch of nf, shifted to sf instead, and never got back to. im really glad you jarred that memory, ensign, and saved me the effort of fishing around for a solid build.

my all time favorite is still starburst nuker though. i love taking off my pants, running around in the enemy's back lines, and making my party exclaim "OMG WTF U NOOB!" here's my standard starburst bar:

e/me
16 fire
8-10 energy
rest in earth/inspiration as you see fit

starburst (E)
flame burst
inferno
flame djinn's haste (when i first heard of the buff, i assure you i leapt for joy. burning speed is what i used to put here and still works if you're looking for that extra "WTF" factor.)
kinetic armor (to make you not die)
fire attunement
channeling
~slot---i generally pack aura of restoration for when the monks get mad and refuse to heal me. a rez is pretty pointless, considering if anyone's gonna die, it will most likely be you.

let's just say it keeps things interesting, 'specially without the pants.

and no, i havent read this whole thread so this could very well already be nestled somewhere in here. similar ideas have also been used in pvp, but i can assure you that i created this without knowing of anyone else using it.

Edge Martinez · Feb 16, 2007, 09:29 AM // 09:29

I use:

E/Me
Fire 12+1+2
Energy 12+1

1. Fire attunement
2. Fireball
3. Archane Echo
4. Meteor Shower
5. Glyph of Lesser Energy
6. Liquid Flame
7. Searing Flames {E}
8. Res Sig

If not dealing with large mobs, I'll drop Fireball for Flare. Depending on what the mob is, Breath of Fire may replace Liquid Flame as a defensive measure.

No superior rune needed. I run anything from UW to The Deep. Keep Fire Attunement up, and use the glyph as often as possible. For most things, just spam Searing Flames. It manages energy surprisingly well. Fireball and Liquid Flame are cheaper finishers, or alternatives in a non-critical encounter. Sometimes you just need a nuke, and that's what Meteor Shower is for.

Arcane Echo is a wildcard. I sometimes use it to copy Meteor Shower for a second nuking. Against bosses, like Kanaxi, where conditions don't last as long, I'll use it to copy Searing Flames and chain SF as long as possible. This way the burning on the bosses don't end before the skill recharges and even gives you a second or so of slop in case you aren't on point. You eat energy fast this way though.

Ensign · Feb 16, 2007, 12:23 PM // 12:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by dgb

Flash with a mid spec air? It doesn't look particularly intensive on attributes, so you could get away with the splash.

I tried that on a Mind Blaster (you can definitely make the attributes work) but wasn't very impressed by it. The problem is that blind, at least the way I've gotten used to using it, is something that you use reactively, on a melee guy as he approaches you or your teammates. In case of emergency, c+blind. You *could* just spam blind on recharge, but BFlash is too expensive for that to be too good. It's better in PvE where blind never gets removed...and maybe it'd be good for that, to lock down a particular enemy indefinitely.

But for me, in practice, blind is something that is best on a character with low time commitments so that he can quickly react to incoming damage. A Mind Blaster, on the other hand, wants 100% time utilization. So while you could blindback a single target as part of your spam sequence, you're not going to use the skill reactively, which is a lot of its strength. I found that for PvE, if you just want some passive melee defense, you should just run a Ward Against Melee and be done with it. Ward works nicely, you don't need a super-high spec and it's easy to get a team to sit in it. Plus, low time commitment, so more time spent blasting.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dgb

I tried experimenting with something similar as a gank character once, it went Blast, Mark of Rodgort, Fireball, Flash, Freezing Gust, Fire Attune, Storm Djinns, random self heal that I never decided on.

Freezing Gust is something that looks like it'd fit, though it isn't something I'm going to make use of in PvE. You'd have to drop the Party, naturally, to get to 11 Water Magic...but if you did, you have a decent DPS beater with a servicable snare as well. How did that character feel? Experimenting with PvP Mind Blasters has taught me that you really don't want to bog yourself down with lots of utility like the old E/Mos had - Mind Blast and the high Fire spec in general want you to be a beater, while the free attribute points allow you to splash in some interesting tricks. That makes me think that the listed bar would have been an unfocused nightmare to run. How'd it play out for you?

Quote:

Originally Posted by draco inferno

one thing about mind blasters that is also pretty nice is the ability to adapt to different situations.

Yeah, that's why it's such a pet skill of mine. It enables these two traditional ele concepts, the DD-based Fire beater and the utility Ele, by providing this compact engine that fills a lot of crucial jobs. It's not spectacular, but by being both your energy elite and fire DD, you have the room on your bar to fit in both the fire DDs and the other utility that you want - while providing the energy for those skills and leaving attribute points to play with. Having gotten used to playing utility casters, it's really nice to be a pretty effective offensive character that can switch roles into whatever else I felt like speccing that day without incident.

It almost...feels like playing a physical, where you're building up resources doing what you want to be doing anyway (hitting people with DDs) and using that to pay for the variety of special attacks and utility skills that you put on your bar.

Quote:

Originally Posted by draco inferno

flame djinn's haste (when i first heard of the buff, i assure you i leapt for joy.

The new Flame Djinn's Haste is *awesome*. It's now a combination of a decent PBAoE and a very good speed buff, that just happens to serve as a convenient cover enchantment as well. I absolutely love skills that can provide a bunch of different purposes, I love being speedy, and that makes Flame Djinn's Haste one of the best skills in the Fire line. For all of you fledgling skill designers, this is a skill that shows how to do it right.

Peace,
-CxE

Sophitia Leafblade · Feb 16, 2007, 02:35 PM // 14:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

They're E/Mo backbone skills, and absolutely better than anything else you can put in those slots when you have an energy elite.

...

So to sum it up, yes, you're going to find Heal Party, Resurrection Chant, and Glyph of Sacrifice on basically every PvE Elementalist bar (with an energy elite) for the forseeable future, because they are simply the strongest skills available. They cost you next to nothing and situationally provide enormous benefits. There may very well be good reasons to not run those skills on this sort of character in PvE - but without something similarly outstanding demanding those attribute points and slots, you're just being daft by leaving them off of your bar.

Peace,
-CxE

*Shudders*
I dont think ive ever used any of those skills on my Ele and she's done just fine getting through the game.

anyways back to the topic at hand. My General Nuking build usually is:

[skill]Glyph of Energy[/skill][skill]Meteor shower[/skill][skill]Rodgort's invocation[/skill][skill]Phoenix[/skill][skill]Fireball[/skill][skill]Glyph of Restoration[/skill][skill]Fire Attunement[/skill] [skill]Rebirth[/skill]

Never seems to run out of energy (unless u use Rebirth, which is only for emergency team wipe out scenarios) and provides a good continual damage output.

Katari · Feb 16, 2007, 03:51 PM // 15:51

Yeah, you can get past PvE with just about anything really. When you start henching it, the quality of skillbars in your party drops. Good 'ole Cynn has a somewhat pooor bar as well, but she's better than nothing.

Meteor Shower is really not that great when you're playing with a good team.

Stormlord Alex · Feb 16, 2007, 05:26 PM // 17:26

/agree - with a halfway decent team, by the time the first meteor hits the mob's gonna be just about dead. Glyph of Sacrifice/Meteor Shower's the only way to go IMO. Plus, you can use the Glyph on Res Chant too