Curse

Divineshadows · Jan 15, 2007, 11:46 PM // 23:46

http://gwshack.us/0d502

This one is not my design, but rather one I played with [SoS]. I found it very effective and won most matches very quickly. It won a match in 30 seconds, a new record for me by a few seconds, on the map with the fireball obelisk (where you start quite close together). The last skill slot on the elementalist is variable allowing the user to choose from damage, a damaging interrupt against attackers, a helper prot at 6 spec dropping energy storage to 12 (cause SoA is good enough to warrant a 2nd copy in a build), or a long lasting cover enchantment for the attunement. Blinding surge and gale are the bread on butter skills on that bar anyway.

bashar pvp · Jan 16, 2007, 02:49 AM // 02:49

Well, for the last skill of the emo, i'd take a ward against melee, with 9 or 10 in earth

edit: and maybe i'd take enervating charge instead of the second blind, it may help to cover the blind.

Divineshadows · Jan 16, 2007, 05:15 PM // 17:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by bashar pvp

Well, for the last skill of the emo, i'd take a ward against melee, with 9 or 10 in earth

Complete overkill given that the ele has surge, flash, and gale.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bashar pvp

edit: and maybe i'd take enervating charge instead of the second blind, it may help to cover the blind.

The second blind is important. Assume your opposition has two rangers and two pets. You can output more blinds over the span of a few seconds to help your team weather the initial onslaught than if you just had surge. Also, even the best elementalists end up with their blind skill getting d-lunged, d-shotted, d-chopped, or diversioned once in a while when playing against skilled opponents. It is nice to have another blind skill to fall back on.

bashar pvp · Jan 16, 2007, 05:52 PM // 17:52

Well, i mostly play balanced in ta, with a blindbot emo. I do play it or with it almost every day, and what i know, is that you can not keep a melee blind permanently against a good team. And you won't be able to blind the pets permanently as well.

And you'll sometime have to deal with melandrus, or with guys bringing Sight beyond sight.

If you get your b-surge diverted or anything, you'll have trouble to shutdown melees with a 15 energy skill alone, that you'll be forced to spam because the opponents will remove the blind. A ward, and evervating charge to decrease the damage output, may save your life in that kind of situations

People i know usually bring the two blinds without gale, or gale with only one blind (that's what i do).

It's the first time really, that i read that bringing a ward is a "complete overkill", people i know usually says "life saviour"

(oh, sorry for my poor english skills, i hope i didnt make too many mistakes)

Divineshadows · Jan 16, 2007, 06:21 PM // 18:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by bashar pvp

Well, i mostly play balanced in ta, with a blindbot emo. I do play it or with it almost every day, and what i know, is that you can not keep a melee blind permanently against a good team. And you won't be able to blind the pets permanently as well.

Of course it's not possible against a good team. However, you make their support expend a lot more energy if they actually want their team to do damage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bashar pvp

And you'll sometime have to deal with melandrus, or with guys bringing Sight beyond sight.

If the other team's melee is a melandru's dervish, then I always order my team to run around the map waiting for the form to wear off while the chasing melandru's gets galed at times to prevent catching us. Once the form wears off, we typically roll the team because they did not bring adequate condition removal. Of course, later attempts of the dervish to put up the form result in a hammer bash, d-lunge, or gale with this build.

Sight beyond sight users are a little more complicated. They require a lot of gale and kiting from.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bashar pvp

It's the first time really, that i read that bringing a ward is a "complete overkill", people i know usually says "life saviour"

Against these un-blindable character templates you mention, the ward doesn't help that much against smart players. They simply hit whatever happens to be outside of the ward which in this build is the rampage thumper and at times the rampage spear chucker. This forces your offense into a situation of kite or die and really just draws out the match. Basically, the ele ends up falling back on use of gale to slow down the unblindable melee and the ward only shifts their attack focus from you monk and ele to your rangers and/or pets.

the choseone · Jan 16, 2007, 06:23 PM // 18:23

why no draw on the ele? using it on monk is meh when you have a blindbot. i would also drop blinding flash and substitute it with ward against melee and substitute lightning bolt for draw then and running dismiss on the monk and place in gift or prot spirit/spirit bond

Divineshadows · Jan 16, 2007, 07:10 PM // 19:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by the choseone

why no draw on the ele? using it on monk is meh when you have a blindbot. i would also drop blinding flash and substitute it with ward against melee and substitute lightning bolt for draw then and running dismiss on the monk and place in gift or prot spirit/spirit bond

For GvG, draw on a midline support is the accepted standard in most builds and it has been this way for a while. For TA, there are only certain midline character templates that can afford both the time and energy to use draw. They include:

- Domination Me/Mo with enough investment and skills in inspiration. Domination mesmers have longer recharge skills and are most effective at using their skills at the right moments rather than spamming their skills. This is in direct contrast to illusion degen spreaders which I would never put draw conditions on.

- Water E/Mo with adequate energy management. Like domination mesmers, water eles have longer recharge skills and can make use of draw while skills are on recharge. Air eles are more akin to illusion mesmers with shorter recharge, more spammable skills. While the air ele can easily afford the energy to use draw, it is the time that they cannot afford. Each time an air ele uses draw thats 1 second of time they are not spending blinding the opposition, galing, orbing to spike assist, or kiting.

- N/Mo using Reaper's Mark + curses or a N/Mo Spoil victor. Both of these hex templates have longer recharge skills for the most part and can easily afford the time and energy to use draw while their other "money" skills are on recharge.

The more time and energy the air elementalist is free to spend using blind, the less damage the opposition gets to place on your team, and in turn the more your monk is free to use draw. Dismiss condition is garbage in most TA builds, but your likelihood of getting the conditional heal is far too low unless you are running really enchant heavy. For builds where you have an off-monk draw, mend condition is the removal of choice (you can still run mending touch too on the monk). In general though, I find 3/4 second single condition removals in TA distasteful on a monk, because of the slower response and the amount of time it takes away from the monk's protting and healing.