Curse

Nal Agrim · Sep 16, 2006, 08:41 AM // 08:41

I started GW a few weeks ago, I made a few PvP characters and jumped into the random arenas, but mainly I focussed on playing a PvE E/Mo through the prophecies campaign. I dunno, it just appeals more to me to PvP with a char I trained myself...for whatever reasons

Anyway, I am nearing the end of the Prophecies campaign, and now I want to get this char ready for PvP. I think in general I know what to do, but I´d like to hear from you if I am missing anything and what you consider most important:

1) Get all the elite skills
2) Get the 1.5k armor set: actually I am totally unsure here what armor to get, which resistance is most important? How do I compare them at all?
3) Get good weapons with upgrades: any recommendations? Wand or staff? What are the usual upgrades used in pvp on staves?
4) Get the right runes: Here I have a big question: how many armor/rune sets do you actually have? How often do you change attributes in team pvp?

Anything else that needs to be done? Is there anything in Factions that is better than Prophecies stuff? I am planning to buy it anyway, but I want to know if there is anything specific I better get from there.

Well, thats what I figured out so far. Any advise on how to make my char perfect for pvp would be great. And dont tell me just to roll a PvP char, pls

Thanks

dgb · Sep 16, 2006, 10:38 AM // 10:38

1) Not really, there are a number of elites that are garbage or are never going to see play and aren't worth bothing with. Ether Renewal, Lightning Surge, Glimmering Mark, Mist Form, Ward Against Harm are all ele elites that I wouldn't bother capping.

2) Get the canthan sets, they have better bonuses, particularly + health or +armour vs. physical.

3) You're going to be running ether prodigy so you'll want enchant mods, aside from that health mods are good. For GvG I'd want a 20/20 Water Staff with a hale head and enchant wrapping, same for air, arguably a 20/20 Water and Air with hale head and fortitude wrapping for when you know you're about to be focused. HA you'll probably want the 20/20 fire staff with hale + fortitude, 20/20 earth with the same, probably something without fastcast mods for spiking with air as well.

4) I leave my superiors/majors on my headpiece, my monk has 12 different PvP headpieces (min, maj, sup of every monk att.), I guess you'd want the same for your ele, some runes are less useful. Water doesn't really scale well with a sup rune, neither does e.storage so sups and majors for that may not be worthwhile. On body armour, my hands and feet never change (health armour) but my body and legs changes between armour vs phys, health and armour vs elements. I'm not sure what swaps you'd want on ele, I'd guess armour vs phys and health. Runes on the body armour, you'll want your vigor, minor e.storage, minor air, minor earth and minor water on them. Yes that's five runes on four pieces, you'll probably need to have a couple of swaps so you can get the minors as you need them. Realistically if I was setting up an ele for PVP I'd have probably about 3/4 of the backpack devoted to armour because of the amount of combinations oyu can have.

I change my attributes all the time, especially for an ele where you're likely to use all four lines.

Factions armour is unambiguously better than prophecies as your oponent can't tell the difference between what sets are what.

Sounds obvious but buy a superior vigor, yes it's expensive for only 9 extra health but you're cheating yourself and your team if you run a major.

TheOneMephisto · Sep 16, 2006, 12:41 PM // 12:41

Umm, for weapons you want to run a +5energy axe of enchanting (the totem axe is perfect and fairly cheap) along with a 20/20 or 20 recharge/+30 health (preferably the +health one) of each element.

dgb · Sep 16, 2006, 12:54 PM // 12:54

I really don't see why an extra +5 energy adds much to an ele who's max is allready up in the 60s and 70s. Why not a fiery flame spitter with the 10% recharge?

Meta Physical · Sep 16, 2006, 01:19 PM // 13:19

Although I've got a Fiery Flame Spitter for you if you need it, I'd recommend staying with a staff or wand + focus - having played as an Ele for my main character, I've stuck through the whole PvE game w/ a Collector's Fire Staff 20/20, with +60 health from Hale and Fortitude mods - granted, as DGB stated above, fire staves are good with those mods, since you'll be targeted as a nuker, most likely. With other elements, such as Air or Water, you'll be wanting something to boost your spell-casting power, like Enchanting or Insightful wraps.

On the other hand, you might want to take the path of Wand and Focus, which can bag probably the highest % of Faster Casting or Faster Recharge with some good ones. Depending on what elements you're playing, you're likely to find any focus you'll ever want on a collector somewhere - there's 20/20 fire, +1 (20%) +30 Health, and the same of these 2 types for probably all the elements. I'd personally go with any 20/20 Focus, but playing with the +1 (20) +30 is, too, a viable option.

Wands might be a little more complicated, as there aren't too many great wands on collectors (Not many dual mods. Ever), so I'd have to go and advise on getting a wand with your elemental focus with the following stats:

11-22 ("Element in Use" - Req <13) You'll probably be pumping your element, so req isn't too much of a focus here.
+5 Energy (<i>When Health >50%</i>, OR <i>"When Enchanted,"</i> if you're playing with enchantments often)
Here, you can take your pick of any of these stats:
>10% Faster Casting Rate
>10% Faster Recharge Rate
>20% [Insert Element] Casting Rate
>20% [Insert Element] Recharge Rate

This might come out a teensy bit expensive, but nothing too drastic.

...but that's just my 2 cents

-Meta

Thom Bangalter · Sep 16, 2006, 02:32 PM // 14:32

here's what you need:

razarjan's fervor and a hct 20% (element), health +30.
the fervor and a +15/-1 health +30 offhand.

those are my two primary sets when I play ele, though I have more.

As for armor, if I had to pick one set, it would be the +Health armor.

Robster Lobster · Sep 16, 2006, 03:18 PM // 15:18

Along with everything mentioned above, I like to use +60 health staves in all attribute lines in case you come up against bloodspike and the like, and also a 20/20 healing prayers wand and a 20/20 healing prayers staff for the occasional time when I really need to pump out those Heal Parties. A prot equivalent could also be helpful if you're planning on running Aegis.

Ensign · Sep 16, 2006, 07:00 PM // 19:00

Capture Ether Prodigy. If you feel like it, capture Second Wind or Mind Shock. Ether Prodigy is the elite skill you will be using on 99% of your elementalist bars. The skill icon from that skill is burning into my monitor.

Armor sets - I use two regularly, +10 vs. physical and +35 health. I lug around more sets but I rarely use them.

Weapon sets - I've found myself using three sets for the most part:

Primary set: Rajazan's Fervor + Shield of Choice
Secondary set: Rajazan's Fervor + +15/-1 focus
Third set: Hale Staff of Enchanting

Weapon + shield is just the best set for general combat. Swap to the +15/-1 set when you need to borrow some energy for a big spell. Pull out the staff when you need to wand something.

Runes: Superior Vigor on every armor set you might use. I then use the three minor runes that go with the elements on my bar - usually air, water, and energy storage. I then swap between air, water, and energy storage hats, depending on the situation (though I usually use the water hat). I carry around seven hats in general now - minor, major, and superior air/water hats, and a superior energy storage hat. In many matches I never swap, but in competitive matches I've found myself using as many as five different hats.

Peace,
-CxE

perfect · Sep 16, 2006, 07:07 PM // 19:07

Glyph of Energy is another important elite when playing a warder/earth ele with obsidian flame in HA.

Thom Bangalter · Sep 16, 2006, 08:40 PM // 20:40

In HA, shockwave, glyph of energy, and starburst are most commonly used, sometimes you see e/me with psychic distraction.

as for GVG, all you need is ether prodigy.

around · Sep 16, 2006, 08:53 PM // 20:53

I always use +5 while above 50 20% recharge and 20% recharge +30 hp stuff. Mix and match to what attributes you're running.

Nal Agrim · Sep 17, 2006, 07:52 PM // 19:52

Hi again

Thanks a lot for all the advise, I already started to work off the (ever growing) list of things to do

I bought Factions and got myself the 6k Archmage armor. I´ll buy the Battlemage set as soon as I got the money

So far I only have minor runes, all these things cost quite a lot

I also got the fire staff from the Southern Silverpeaks collector, again so far only with a +23 fortitude which I got as random drop. I also want to check builds a bit first before I put the really good (and expensive) stuff on anything.
And finally, I capped a few elite skills and tried to get myself to the final Prophecies missions, but I havent finished the Thunderkeep mission yet. Maybe its only me, but I find it extremely hard to not end up in a PuG that fails any mission in under 5 minutes...so far I ended up doing most missions just with henchmen which actually worked better for me than the groups I randomly joined...

Anyway, I got a few more questions:

1) Some of you suggested getting a Rajazan's Fervor. I looked it up and saw that there is a Tyrian counterpart, the Totem Axe. Can you give me some info if one of those is easier to get than the other, and give me a rough idea how long one has to farm for such an item?

2) I am a bit confused which of the various methods is best for getting weapons. As E/Mo I can forget about weaponsmiths, is that right? At least thats what I thought when looking at GuildWiki.
And how do dropped items compare to collector stuff? I guess the green items in general are the best, but apart from those is there any chance of getting better loot than what collectors hand out?

3) I know this question probably has many answers, but I would like to hear your opinions: I think I decided to stay with E/Mo for now, but even that leaves so many different builds, I am rather lost. I just dont think I can learn them all at once, not to mention getting stuff for all builds, so I am interested to hear: which build would you recommend to a beginner? Especially keeping in mind that I probably will mainly do random arenas and (hopefully) some Team fights someday soon

4) I started to notice that buying/capping skills becomes a huge money drain rather quickly, so before I go waste all my gold on skills I wont need anyway, I´d rather ask which skills are an absolute must have for now. I already got that Ether Prodigy should be on top of my list, and I´ll get it as soon as I reach the mission, but what else is important? Are any of the skills you need to buy a must have?

Again, thanks a lot for any advise, I am sure these are noob questions, but well...thats what I am atm

TheOneMephisto · Sep 17, 2006, 09:27 PM // 21:27

For eles go with mainly collectors/droks crafter (not sure)/factions crafters for weapons. Check guildwiki for all the stuff.

You can get a totem axe for around 5k, and they're not hard to farm. guilwiki it.

Skills that you need, off the top of my head:
blinding flash
enervating charge
lightning orb
gale
ether prodigy
air attunement
elemental attunement
obsidian flame
ward against foes/melee/stability
deep freeze
shard storm
ice spikes
ice prison
lightning strike
windeborn speed
earth attunement
earthquake
aftershock
fire attunement
fire ball
fire burst
inferno
meteor
meteor shower
rodgort's invocation
starburst
armor of mist
blurred vision
frozen burst
vapor blade
glyph of energy
glyph of lesser energy
glyph of sacrifice
heal party
extinguish
aegis
draw conditions
heal other
healing breeze
holy veil

Some of those you won't use as often as others, and I'm not entirely sure if some of those are still commonly played... If you get all those skills though, you should be fairly certain that you can play the majority of ele builds.

Thom Bangalter · Sep 23, 2006, 05:14 PM // 17:14

additionally, a lot of these skills can be obtained through skill quests. Roll an e/mo, and do all the skill quests.