Air/Water build?

Hi All!

I was wondering if anyone ever tried this type of build,where you use
waters hex spells to fuel airs damage spells that require foes to be hexed?
I would be using this for PvE solo & some grouping. Thx for all advice.

Zothen

frozenburst
lightning touch

blurred vision
arc lightning

i have found these go together really well, when i do a water/air i get kinda fustrated about the level of damage i do. most often if i do this i run full air with 1 or 2 mass water hexes, im looking forward to nightfall and all its new ele hex's.

sorry i dont really have a full build i have tested to pass onto you.

iV

Thx for responding! I am curious as to what your set is? Do you have any
suggestions for a 2nd profession for this type of build and why? Thx for
all the advice.

Zothen

i keep change my secondary. if im exploring or helping someone i will go monk for a hard res, if im running i go sin for dash and dark escape along with a water build, if i want to do mass damage i go mesmer for the echo. one of my favorite is doing an elemental barrage with a ranger secondary. as for skills the best advice i can give is just cap and buy all the ele skills and start playing around with them, everyone has differnat style and what works for me may not be the best for you.


iV

arc lightning and gust are some interesting spells that you could use in RA or AB, or somewhere where you just want to mess around. There is also a mist form invicimentalist build floating around somewhere on the wiki you could search for, but primarily in gvg you'll see a water ele with deep freeze and other water snares speccing for blinding flash.

Sadly, lightning touch, arc lightning, and gust are kinda sucky. The recharge is a bit long to build an entire build around damaging enemies with them. The AoE from fire is far better, and the single target damage from using other air spells is far better too. In addition, attunements won't work on lightning touch, as it's a skill, and it requires you to be in melee range. To top it all off, you have to divide attributes between 2 elemental lines.

I've done it on occasion with my Me/E in PvE. I can't remember the precise build (been a while since I've used that character) but it included Ice Spikes, Blurred Vision, Gust, Arc Lightning, Lightning Strike, and a couple of energy-management skills (Ether Signet and Energy Tap from memory, with the eightth slot being a res or a situational skill like Power Drain or Drain Enchantment depending on the opposition). From memory, I usually ran 11 air, 10 water, and the rest in Fast Casting and Inspiration. (Normally I use it in areas with enchantment stripping, hence the lack of attunements - also note the Mesmer primary for Elemental Attunement )

Generally, it behaves like an air spike build with a little crowd control on the side. Gust and Arc Lightning are both decent support for Lightning Strike even without the secondary costs - it doesn't kill single targets quite as quickly as a conventional air spike build, but it does still dish out the damage at a reasonable rate. On top of that, Ice Spikes serves to slow down the approaching horde (giving you more time to pick off your first target before the enemy melee hits) while Blurred Vision is a good follow-up once they close, or if there are any clumps of enemy archers. Energy Tap and Ether Signet are, of course, used for energy management - I generally follow a 'tap early, tap often' mantra with Energy Tap, while with Ether Signet, try to drain your energy completely before activating it to reduce the chance of your energy climbing over the cutoff before it goes off.

That's my general approach, anyway. I suppose the best piece of advice is to repeat my earlier comment - even without the secondary effect, Gust and Arc Lightning are efficient damage dealers for their five energy cost. Getting the secondary effect is certainly worthwhile, and do keep it in mind when deciding what order to cast your spells, but on the other hand, don't feel that you have to have your target hexed before throwing Gust or Arc.