Profession: Elementalist/Ranger
Type: Solo farming, Insects
Category: Geomancer
Attributes:
Earth Magic: 15 (11 + 3 + 1)
Fire Magic: 10
Beast Mastery: 10
Energy Storage: 2 (1 + 1)
Skills:
Edge of Extinction
Glyph of Lesser Energy
Bed of Coals
Unsteady Ground {E}
Aftershock
Teinai's Crystals/Dragon's Stomp
Armor of Earth
Stoneflesh Aura
Equipment:
Galigord's Stone Staff is more or less optimal, but any weapon set that has a +20% enchantment duration bonus will work fine.
Summary:
Here's a quick, simple, entertaining little build that is also profitable in a modest way.
Videos:
Insects
Tusked Howlers
Walkthrough:
Exit Yohlun Haven into Arkjok Ward and immediately head south to engage the four groups of insects patrolling in the area. Activate Armor of Earth and Stoneflesh Aura as you make contact with the first group. With these two enchantments in force, most attacks will hit you for zero damage. The Beetle Lances will do some damage with their Harrier's Toss, but not enough to be dangerous.
Continue on until you've aggro'ed all four groups. Do not aggro the Mandragor groups, as they can remove enchantments and interrupt you -- they aren't considered insects anyway.
Next, spin around and head back north so as to get the ranged units bunched up. Use the corner of the nearby mountain to help compact them. Around this time you will need to renew Stoneflesh Aura and Armor of Earth, as well. When the Beetle Queens and Lances are grouped nicely, run up to them and lay down Edge of Extinction. Make sure you are standing right where you want to be when you put it down because if you move afterwards the Termites will destroy your Extinction spirit.
Now that all the setup work is done, the fun begins. Hit your Glyph of Lesser Energy; then, cast Bed of Coals, Unsteady Ground, and Aftershock as quickly as possible. It's important to get through this spell combination before the Termites decide to run off. If all goes well, then by the time your character has finished the casting animation from the last spell, all the insects will be dead in a heap.
Occasionally, a group of three our four Beetle Queens will time their healing spells perfectly and live out the spike. Also, the Termites will sometimes target the Extinction spirit. In either case, you don't really have the firepower to out-damage the Monks. So, just pick up the drops and re-zone.
You can also take out the Tusked Howler groups that spawn nearby with this build, and it's occasionally a good idea to do so. The battle will be similar to an insect battle, with a few changes. Start by putting up your enchantments, as before. Next, you will need to draw the Howlers against some nearby terrain so as to compact them tightly. Then, move close to the Howlers, approaching in such a way that you pin them against the rock face. You won't be able to completely cut off their escape route, but you can usually at least delay a few of them.
Next, you'll need to soften them up a bit with either Aftershock or Teinai's Crystals. Your enchantments should be coming due around this time; re-cast them as necessary. Then, lay down your Extinction Spirit and start into the main combo. You want to delay slightly between casting Bed of Coals and Unsteady Ground. If you used Teinai's Crystals, wait for two activations of Bed of Coals; with Aftershock, make it five. Finally, follow Aftershock with either another Teinai's Crystals or Dragon's Stomp. Dragon's Stomp is a little more foolproof, since it can work at distance and affects a larger area. Teinai's Crystals is probably quicker, however. This last spell should finish off the group. If it doesn't, then dodge behind some terrain and wait for your spells to recharge. When you are in good shape again, finish off the remainders.
Notes and Concerns:
An insect battle should last about as long as it takes to put down the spirit and cast your damage spells -- less than 15 seconds at any rate. A run takes just over a minute, and you can expect to pull in about 10k per hour. Also, there is a Wandering Priest conveniently located closeby which will give you the Insect Hunt blessing. Using this you can make about 1,000 Sunspear points an hour until you make Castellan.
Since the run goes so quickly, you will invoke the anti-farming code. When you start getting significantly fewer drops than there are insects, that's the time to throttle it back a bit. So long as you don't pass a certain number of runs per hour, you can keep farming for quite awhile. So, my advice is to kill some time by taking out the Tusked Howler groups every five to ten runs. They provide about the same amount of profit, actually; you just have to do more running to get to their spawns.
You can play around with the skill set if you don't have the listed skills. Whirlwind can act as a poor man's Unsteady Ground, and Eruption will work in place of Bed of Coals. Really, the damage line-up is fairly interchangeable; just try to bring one DoT AoE spell, one area knockdown, and Aftershock. You cannot, however, substitute for Stoneflesh Aura; so, make every attempt to get it. If memory serves, it is available at The Kodash Bazaar; however, it's probably quicker to unlock it with Balthazar faction and then buy it at the skill trainer in Yohlon Haven.
Finally, in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that using Edge of Extinction really only nets you four kills, typically -- the Beetle Queens and Lances. The Bladed Veldt Termites are only level 16 and run Frenzy on top of that; so, any quick, moderately lethal area spike will kill them. However, it is useful to have Edge of Extinction for finishing off any Termites that bail out early. Also, it gives you some margin for error in case you cast something out of order or make a similar mistake.
Credit:
This effort was inspired by the original Grawl Bomber build. This appears to be the first mention of it on GW Guru.
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