Elemental Geomancers get no love

Last I checked, a ward is a regular spell, not an enchantment.

yesm. Wards, Serepent Quickness, etc, can not be taken down. They are not Enchantments, they're "untouchables"

While PvE players may be completely ignorant of what Geomancers can do, they are still extremely powerful. Unfortunately you are limited in certain areas of the game because Dolyak Riders, Beastmasters/Giant Herders, and Giants cannot be knocked down.

My suggestion is cap Glyph of Energy and go to town with obsidian flame. EQ+AS can output a ton of damage in PvE also, just toss off armor of earth to cover yourself. Ward Against Melee and Ward Against Elements are great boons to your team as an Geomancer.

Fantus is right, most PvE players are clueless. People still have a really hard time finding groups as anything other than these roles. This is in spite of the fact that a slight swap in the generic 2 warriors, 2 echo fire nukers, 3 monks, 1 SS necro build makes so many places much easier.

The perfect example of this is Echo fire nukers. Try to explain to them that Glyph of Renewal is superior to Echo in almost every way possible (especially if you use it with meteor shower.) Their response "No it's not, noob!"

Obsidian Flame+Glyph of Energy is one of the best combos you can get in end game PvE. You can go /Me for mantra of resolve or /R for serpents quickness, depending on how interrupt heavy the area is.

Something like:
12+4 Earth
10 Wilderness
8 Energy Storage

Obsidian Flame (really the only offensive spell you need if you manage your exhaustion well)
Glyph of Energy
Glyph of Elemental Power
Eruption
Ward Against Melee
Ward Against Elements
Serpents Quickness
Rez Sig

You should be able to churn out those Obs flames using either GoE to get past exhaustion or Glyph of Elemental Power to boost damage. The occasional eruption can blind and scatter foes. When the enemy numbers are reduced take a short breather and Obs flame less often (only with GoE.) If you get good at exhaustion management you will have pretty nice damage output and some defensive bonuses for your team.

I'll say this much. Before the whole pet/barrage thing when people were still experimenting with mixed groups in the uw/tombs/topk, I happened to join a 5man team as their second barrage ranger and without a doubt, I'd say a geomancer has got to be the BEST aggro tank for the job. Just a coordinated effort between the geo and the monk. I forget what skills they were using but basically the geo went in alone to draw all spells on him. And unlike warriors, all mosters WILL go after the ele first and stick to him like glue. The skills I did spot him using I think were armor of earth, obsidian flesh and stone daggers. One thing's for sure, they had a real hard time killing him. And I'm pretty sure the monk was using spellbreaker and bond on the geo. But this 5man team was moving through as fast, if not faster than today's average pet/barrage group. And this wasn't slow 1-patrol-at-a-time pace. This guy was aggroing larger groups like in level 2 at one point he was surrounded by at least 7-10 grasps and 6 shades. We didn't finish though since the monk took off, but hell if I hadn't seen it, I'd never believe an ele could be a viable tank.

Watching a geomancer primary in action with obsidian and armor of earth, it kinda reminds me of that simpsons episode where Homer is chasing Flanders beating on his car with a bat, and his sons scream "faster daddy faster!" and Flanders replies "I CAN'T!!!! IT'S A GEOOOO!!!!!"

Serpent's Quickness is a stance. Wild Blow owns SQ

But, seriously, you're complaining because no one wants your character? Welcome to my Ranger/Mesmer/Necro world, buddy. Glad to have ya.

haha, excuse me? Everyone wants a Ranger anymore. People are in love with Necro's. It's the Mesmers (who mind you I am finding gaining in popuarlity, slowly.) and MAINLY the Elms anymore.

Wow I always see rangers and necros wanted in UW and FoW. I know when I start a group the first thing I look for is a Necro, then Monk.

Exactly Peggie. Necro's and Rangers are up there with Warriors and Monks these days. Elementalist are on the bottom with Mesmers gaining up with the other 4.

Oh great, this is what I have to look forward to with my poor hydromancer?! Oh well, It's worth it to play something different. I mnow, right after they "fixed" AoE, fire elementalists were on the bottom of the food chain. So who knows, maybe in a month, geomancers will be all the rage!

Geomancers r quite nice

once in random i was the only one alive and 4 opponents couldnt kill me for 3 minutes starting to spam "die already die bitch" i was just like lol do some dmg u noobs ^^

Ok, now go back a few months and you will understand what he was referring to.

lol. I know what he was refering to, but that is no excuse. All PC's should be almost equaled level of wanting.

Since all classes are almost perfectly balanced, yes. In theory they all should be equally wanted. It would be logical. Most humans don't act logically, though.

I honestly believe that an 8 man team with all Ele's and monks could probably make every mission in the game trivial if they utilized all the different types of Elemental primaries.

1 Geo to tank, a Hydro to do damage and snare and ward, a Pyro to AOE, an Air for whirlwind and thunderclap OR glimmering mark + spammable lighting spells to AOE blind repeatedly.

I want to try one of those setups so bad one day. I'm pretty sure it would put the standard group to shame in power and speed of killing.

I don't get why people still use warriors to "tank". Anet sorta screwed up how well they could tank, and now it hardly takes anything to steal aggro from a warrior. The mobs seem smarter and they stick to squishies like glue.

Only a Geo is a squishie encased in ridiculously high armor. Enchant removal would be the thing that kills the Geo as the tank, but I think there are ways to counter enchant removal as well.

Has ANYONE ever done a team with like 5 to 6 ele's and 2 to 3 monks?

I bet it's fun as hell :P

quick edit: a few mesmer secondaries on the Ele's where they take Fevered Dreams as their elite and 1 or 2 fire ele's with Rodgort's Mark = AOE 7 degen on TOP of all the AOE.

Food for thought

I'm definitely hoping to try that one day to. I have this dream that in Factions , I'll set up a guild of purely Ele's and monks. We'll then go into PVP battles as team 'Captain Planet' with all the Elements , Lol, now that would be fun.

Oh btw, the Captain Planet thing is a refference to some crappy cartoon that used to appear on British TV, circa 1996. "Goooo PLANET!!!...." -_-.

Yeah..

You might be able to get around the enchantment removal thing with Obsidian Flesh + Archane Echo. That seems practical unstopable. Though I sure I have tried using this in the desert and those Jade Scarab bastards still somehow manage to remove all my stuff .

I dunno... Anyone with more experience wanna' shed some light on this subject?

I know I'd be real interested to see an all E/ and Mo/ GvG build.

I'm pretty sure a team of all squishies is probably an incredibly risky build to run but I somehow don't doubt that this could work.

You'd have tremendous spike potential as well as utility.

Yes rangers can spike better but a team of rangers can't provide the support spells that the eles can throw out for each other.

I saw a GvG the other day with 3 Obsidian Flame Ele's. Basically anything under about 60% hp got tri nuked and died.

It was a thing of beauty, granted using an easily abusable power, but still, was fun watching every person that fell under 60% hp instantly die.

Was even more fun watching a Warrior that had just used frenzy get spiked for 3 200+ obs flames.

600 damage in a second. Instant death hehe.

I cry for fire ele in pvp. Apparently, from what i've seen, there is only one high rank guild that uses a fire ele. I cannot remember the name, but they use it for pressure. Echo Rodgort's Invocation mainly, along with things like incendiary bonds, fireball, and basically ANY instant damage AOE with or without burn.

The purpose was just to put pressure on the monks to heal while the mesmers screwed around with them.

I long for the day that a Fire Ele is a thing to be feared. I will not allow myself to think that an ele is a pure support character. It can be BUILT that way, but I'll be damned if I go Elementalist primary to become some sort of high energy monk.

I firmly feel that fire needs more "burn" to it if the damage doesn't get raised at all.

I wish they would change searing heat to a 3 second burn on each pulse of the spell, that way even if you get hit with one tick of it and run out of the AOE you still get 3 seconds of burn, if you stay in you get burn for 5 seconds and the burn 3 seconds after it's over.

For the energy cost it should work this way. But that's just me.

Yeah, more burning skills would make fire more usefull in pvp, as burning is afaik the only condition that can't be removed. Perhaps a new Fire Elite...

How about 'Lava Crawl'...sends out a white-hot fireball at the enemy location

cost 40-50 nrg, cast time 2, recharge 30, causes Exhaustion

Strikes for 7-91 fire damage in an area
Causes Burning condition for 1-5 seconds
Causes Crippled condition for 1-5 seconds

What's cool about this is that this Elite isn't conditional (stupid Mind Burn), Causes crippled con. (like lava does) and is quick to cast. Plus, It has a fairly long recharge, isn't guaranteed (since fireballs can miss), and requires line-of-sight to work. Why the Ridiculous nrg cost? So that this skill is ONLY abused by eles, plus it's a real gamble. more than half your nrg for a spell that can easily miss (running skills, swirling aura etc. )? Plus cripple can easily be removed.

Over-powered? Quite possibly. Abussive? (Arcane Echo, Echo) definitely, Loadsa fun? Oh yes .

Imagine, no more Kenyan Olympic runners in pvp...

Okay I know I'm insane but still .

Most ppl dont realize the power of the Geomancer, my group wouldn't have beaten Defend Denravi if I wasnt a Geomancer

With ele resistance and wards against ele-their atks did 3-5 and chain lightning *to me* did 25 :P

What? Burning can definitely be removed with remove/mend condition or anything else that removes conditions for that matter.