Many questions

God I hope I'm posting this in the right section. >.<

The first question would be:

I was in a party that beat factions/killed Shiro in like... barely under 2 minutes a few days ago, and this completely boggled my mind. o_o I have no idea how we did it! I remember somebody saying something about Spike? Or spike damage? o_O; But the party disbanded/left before I could get any in-depth info or ask more. x.x;

Second question:

Also, this is probly stupid of me to ask but...whats this whole "Core" thing about? o_O I've been playing randomly since a couple months before Factions was released, and...I have never heard of "Core" before I started using the wiki. Can anybody explain to me what it is? x_x; Or is it skills/items/etc. that are available in all 3 games?(if thats true, then IMO prophecy needs a sword and possibly another/a ele fire elite, since it'd be the only version that doesn't have special elites for those sections? Or am I wrong? xD; )

Third question:

I don't actualy know if I should post this here... as I said earlier, I play randomly so when it comes to skills, I get easily confused. ^_^; In most games I tend to go for skills that have high-damage output and not hex or special affect skills... ANYWAYS, I've been noticing lately that my fire skills say they'll do 112(for example) damage, but usualy end up doing around 40-50. o_O; I assume this is because of armor and possibly buffs... so I've been considering changing my skills to something else (anything that can dish out damage and actualy make me feel usefull to the party would be nice, lol.)

Anyways, can anybody suggest a good fire (though honestly, I'm up for ANY element, its just I only have a fire head-piece, and have already used a fire rune (+2 to fire skills.) though I stupidly used it on the chest armor instead of the head piece. x_x; Which now that I think about it would be smarter, since then whenever you change head pieces/skill types you don't have to worry about changing other armor pieces. XD) and please, tell me where to get the skills? Currently I'm not far enough into NF to get Searing Flames or Savannah Heat (Yes, I did try reading the elemental builds forum before posting this. I read a lot of good builds I'd like to try, but I didn't have some of the skills. x_x And most of them were Ele/monk where as I'm Ele/ranger (What can I say, I wuv my phoenix pet. <3 ...Even if the bugger does die a lot while I'm casting meteor shower. >_> *growls @ pet*)

My current skill build is: (I don't know how to do a template, I'm sorry. So I'll just list the skills in text.)

Liquid Flame, Elemental Attunement, Rodgort's Invocation, Phoenix, Fireball and Meteor Shower.

I'm currently trying to train my pet (level 10 and no, I didn't do that "let it attack you and you die/monk henchmen revive you for an hour+" thing to level it, lol. Since the group I told you about earlier in this post didn't use henchmen, so I couldn't bring one along. x.x) so the last 2 slots go to charm animal and the revive/heal skill. Though if I have to I will switch those out for a revive (sadly I only have the signet. x_X I forget where or how you get the sunspear rebirth signet thing. >.<; ) or other damage skills. XD

OH, my current attributes are: 15 fire magic, 10 energy storage and 8 beast mastery. ^-^;;

I really hope this makes sense and I'm not breaking a rule. >_< I apologize if I am!

spike damage refers to timing several spells to go off pretty much at once. Normally through casting something with a slight delay in effect followed by an instant effect on top of a trap of some sort. The idea is to deal out so much at the same time the target cannot get a heal off to compensate.

Core items are as you guessed anything that appears in all three games. it has less to do with elites than with basic skills. Core skills, core classes, that sort of thing.

No idea what to do for your ele. I don't play them. I will point out that your spells will do less damage to things that are fire based or fire using than others. (Notice how you dominated in the northern shiverpeaks? those were all cold resistant types) Water or air builds will compensate for you.

1)

spike -- damage from various sources hitting the same target in a short period of time.

you can also try to solo spike but that usually takes longer, so you just unload all your damage you have on a single target in short time and try to kill it right away.

2)

when skills are listed as core they appear in all campaings. there are 5 core elites per class and random normal core skills per class.

so like, ferocious strike is a core elite, which can be capped in all 3 campaigns.

[edit] i actually dunno about any core items (maybe runes & materials as they can be found anywhere? O_o), but there's also the core classes [war, ranger, monk, ele, mes, necro]. cant think off anything else that can be core. T_T oh actually, fow armor is core also. =p but i guess thats it.

3)

yes, its due to armor buffs. i dont know to what armor level the skill descriptions actually fit to, so i cant tell you.

and yes, its the right forum and you arent breaking any rules. its named questions and answers for a reason. just try to keep your posts clear without a lot off topic so its easier to get your questions.

Shiro (in Factions) is one of the easiest bosses in the game due to the Celestial Skills you get from the Kuunavang. The Ele one when you use Arcane Echo -> Echo -> Celestial Storm -> Echo -> Celestial Storm -> Celestial Storm (should kill the banished so all skills recharged here) -> Celestial Storm x3 more will kill Shiro quickly.

Your damage is being reduced due to higher levels of armor. The skill description damage is the amount of damage that is dealt to armor level 60.

Since you have nightfall, try looking into Searing Flames or Savannah Heat for a fire elite and using Fire Attunement, Glowing Gaze, and Glyph of Lesser Energy for energy management.

Since you said you're not far enough in the game to get those skills yet, make do what you have open on your ele. Try changing to a different secondary. A lot of the mesmer skills work well for Eles. Earth builds are fairly nice now with the inclusion of Nightfall such as Sandstorm and the defensive skills.

How far are you into each game?

Which mesmer skills? x_x I've never made a mesmer before. I'm more of a... tanker/huge damage kind've person and less of an interupt/support (which is why I have never made a main that was mesmer or monk before.)
I do have....one or two earth elites... I know I have shockwave (the boss that had it nearly killed my entire team with it. O_O Of course I was only using heros and henchmen. XD)

Uh, I have beaten Prophecy (Still can't complete those darn Titan quests.) and Factions. NF is the only Campain that I haven't beaten yet on my Elemental. (Please note I said beaten and not completed. I did the kurzik side of the factions campain, so the Luxon side is completely undone/unexplored.)

I advise you to leave your beloved pet behind - you're taking up two slots on your skill bar just to have a pet with you and to keep it alive/resurrect it. Those slots (and the 8 points you've got in beast mastery) could be used more usefully.

*chuckles* I know, I was waiting for somebody to say that. I just really don't know what skills to use, you see. So I randomly select a skill sometimes. XD The main skills that I haven't changed in nearly a year are meteor shower, fireball, pheonox and that invocation skill I think? not really sure when I got it. But all the other skills/slots I change out at random times. x_x

oh, I thought of two more questions:

In the wiki, it shows the stats of some skills up to level 20... how is that possible? Lets take for example death magic, you have +1 from the head gear, +3 from a superior rune, and +1 from a staff (I think that all stacks?) sometimes (I believe the highest chance is 20%?) so thats level 17...how do they know what levels 18, 19 and 20 give? o_O I can understand blood magic to a point, since I believe theres a skill that temporarily gives +2 to blood and curses, but still... level 20 stats? is it just an estimated guess?

Second question: How rare is it to "Farm" (or whatever its called) a gold item from a boss? Like the guy you get flesh golem from? Or the necro boss infront of the water works in NF, if I used heros and henchmen how many runs would I have to make(I know its all luck, but an estimated guess would be nice :P) before I got it? (that is what farming is, right? Constantly killing one monster/boss untill you get the desired drop(s)?)

I don't think Ele primary and Ranger secondary mesh very well together (others might disagree). My very first GW character was E/R and I ended up completely ignoring all ranger skills and went pure fire nuker. I dumped that character at Riverside Province and started a new one.

The items you can 'farm' from bosses are green, not gold. The chances of a green drop are rare to start off with and decrease with the number of players (and henchies) in your party. You can get lucky though. The very first time I killed the bone dragon Rotscale (not a boss, but drops a green) I got a green Rotwing Bow even though I was with heroes and henchies.

Haha yeah, I'd say about 90% of my Ele's life has been spent with no ranger skills in his 8 skill lineup.

Hmm...Then whats it called when you kill a boss over and over in an attempt to get a "unique" item?

These are the bosses/their unique weapons that I'm talking about:

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Jerneh_Nightbringer

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Ghial_the_Bone_Dancer