E/D Tank (RA/AB only build)

This build actually works! Got 3 glad points in one day's worth of decent RA.

Skills:
Attributes: Earth Magic 16, Energy Storage 12, Earth Prayers 8

1.) Obsidian Flame
2.) Ash Blast
3.) Ebon Hawk
4.) Stoning
5.) Armor of Earth
6.) Mystic Regeneration
7.) Earth Attunement
8.) Elemental Attunement {E}

USAGE: Mantain your 4 enchantments ALWAYS, unless you are sure you won't be attacked, then keep Armor of Earth and Mystic Regeneration down.

Simple build, Obsidian Flame for great damage, however the important skill to your pressure is Ebon Hawk to hit a moving or attacking foe (kiters or attackers) so they get weakened, then hit them with Stoning to knock them down. If they are a melee or ranged attacker (ranger or para for ranged), hit them right away with Ash Blast after knocked down.

You can check to see if your Ebon Hawk worked by seeing if a grey arrow pointing downwards appears to the right of their health bar after you use the skill. Then it can usually mean it worked. Otherwise you can almost spam the skills in any order just for the damage. Obsidian Flame is a great damage skill, and with both attunements your energy is actually pretty stable throughout the match unless it drags on for about 4 minutes and you are spamming Obsidian Flame. Then save the Flame for energy.

This is a great build to feel confident with in RA by charging in and tanking for your party since RA is full of clueless attackers anyways. You can apply great damage pressure so you are actually a tank with good bite.

Like I said, this is a RA only build. I don't think it'll do that well in PvE, maybe some places, and this build is definetaly not for Organized PvP like TA, GvG, or HA. You can, however, also use this in Fort Aspenwood and AB.

I've tested the build with different skills and I concluded this one was the better one. I just wanted to share this fun RA/AB build to those struggling to survive in either.

Oh, and BTW, you will notice no res sig. This build can't afford a Res Sig, it's pure tank with some good damage. If you think you need to, switch Ash Blast out for a Res Sig.

People who run builds like this make me want to hurt things. Hurt things with great vengeance and furious anger.

Seriously, you rely on people being dumb enough to sit and attack you while the rest of your team kills things. When they, your only hope of winning, dies, you can't even rez them because you're too busy playing ubertank.

"But I can kill things" you say. No. No you cannot kill anyone who is awake. You have the DPS of a wet sponge.

First Off.... You need to relax man. If seeing a GUild Wars build makes you want to hurt things, get help.

This is an RA Build!!! Do you realize how many clueless people will attack you? I pvped with this build ALL day and about 90% of my matches I was able to tank clueless PvPers to help take pressure off of my team. I strictly said this isnt' a build for other forms of PvP, not really even AB, but RA it is a tank that can do damage with some other effects. Yes the DPS isn't as good as a good warrior or Sin but it's a tank that at least has damage, the point is to tank for your team and do damage in the meanwhile, this build with some modifications in FA is a great tank.

I also said switch Ash Blast for res sig if you read.

This is RA build. Get that in your head.

Quote:

There was a really good post about this by Ensign a while ago, that I wish I could find.

Basically, tanks and other such builds that rely on people being stupid are a huge mistake in any form of PvP. The builds may work stunningly against dumb people who sit and ineffectively pound on you whe whole match while the rest of your team kills them one by one.

Then again, you could have killed the dumb team with almost anything. The teams in RA/AB etc. that are actually going to give you trouble are the ones who have a couple people who actually know what they're doing. Anyone who has the slightest clue what they're doing will switch targets against this build, leaving you with mediocre at best damage and team support. If you win in that case, it wasn't because of you, but because of the rest of your team pulling your weight.

However, if your build is designed to work no matter how dumb the enemy is, then you'll always be effective, and usually even more so than you would have been with your noob farming build.

Anyway, back to your build. You have a relatively weak spike with some poor melee hate skills. You have 2 skills on your bar dedicated to keeping you and only you alive. You have no rez, which is a critical failure in all forms of PvP except AB, in which you really should bring a speed boost in your rez slot if you can.

So how can you fix it?

1)I'd toss armor of earth for a resurrection signet. One skill on your bar doesn't make up for 8 skills on someone else's bar. The +9 regen from mystic regen is enough to keep you alive anyway.

2)Earth kinda sucks for single target damage, but I'll admit you have picked some of the better skills in there. With earth, you really need that elite skill too. Let's toss elemental attunement for unsteady ground, which gives us an easy knockdown along with a nice amount of damage.

3) Tossing elemental attunement means a few things - we can't rely on mystic regen for big healing anymore, and we need to check our energy management. Let's toss ash blast for glyph of lesser energy. We already have sufficient melee hate from knockdowns and weakness to survive well enough.

For healing, we're in a rougher situation. healing breeze is always popular, but kinda weak. Mystic regen will still give us +6 regen for a longer period of time, but it's not spectacular. Some of the rit stuff is pretty attractive too, like weapon of warding and generous was tsungrai. Let's go with healing breeze, not because it's the best spell, but because we can cast it on teammates and it's easy to use.

Now our build looks like this:

[skill]obsidian flame[/skill][skill]ebon hawk[/skill][skill]stoning[/skill][skill]unsteady ground[/skill][skill]healing breeze[/skill][skill]glyph of lesser energy[/skill][skill]earth attunement[/skill][skill]resurrection signet[/skill]

Which is kind of a bastardized version of the HA UG warder. It's certainly not the best build, as we lack reliable healing, and our offense is still somewhat low, but we have fixed a few major problems that we had. With further refinement, and perhaps testing of other elemental lines, we might improve it.

As a side note, I apologize for my rudeness if you really took it that badly. Also, you have to remember that there are people who come and take these posts as teaching material about the game. When you post something with the caveat "just for fun" you're really doing a disservice to that person who's actually trying to learn good builds. Post the best stuff you can, and discourage crap from others. With any luck, the commmunity as a whole, and thus RA will get a bit more skillful and more entertaining for all of us.

Yup. Elemental Attunement is kinda wasted on earth skills. The return just doesn't justify the use over your regular attunes (not anymore anyways). Attunements function better on round figures and 10 being the only one makes it easier to understand.

For 10e E. Attune. grants you 5 energy return. Regular Attune. grants you 4. The numbers for 5e spells are the same and 15+ doesn't matter as you won't feel the benefit that much anyway.
E. attune needs a buff imo. Something along the lines of the buff given to the regular attunements. It's elite but just not good enough these days. Unsteady is a pretty good choice for an earth elite. The recharge is ok even if the duration sucks.
That brings us to Ebon Hawk. On paper it's a great skill. In reality the 2 second cast kills it (when it comes to delivering it's condition). If you ever run a build that relies on weakness to work (Stoning is awesome with GoLE and Earth attune. Glowstone is ok but is kinda' silly for being a projectile) then you want weakness on demand. Not when some guy is moving around or attacking.
Enervating Charge may require some points Air but it's worth it. (I used to use B. Surge as a cover till the cost was balanced. Yeah... Earth elites could be better). You could even go */N for Enfeeble or even Enfeebling Blood. Both of these have great recharge times as well.
Blood may require sac and have a 2 second cast but it's good for spreading weakness around. Plus it can help mask your Knockdown target. Weakness is such a great condition nowadays it's worth spreading it anyways.
Now... If you really wanna' look cool in front of your friends you'll be packing YAA. Works quite well. What's great about YAA is it works well as an attack or a defense skill, requires no cast-time, and you can use it 'while' casting a spell. Call me crazy but I find it fun to use ^_^.

Coming back to elite skills; it's a shame earth doesn't have any really note-worthy elites. Aoe DoT is generally bad in the game so Aoe-DoT/PBAoe elites was never going to be an amazing idea. I still haven't worked out a 'good' use for Stone Sheath yet. Obsidian is fun for a laugh but that's it. Besides theres more melee than ever these days and is does nothing for you in that regard.
Give earth guys cool things like Icy Shackles (I used to hate this now it's a favorite), Shatterstone, Trident, Blinding Surge. Or heaven forbid, something of the quality of Mind Shock. I'd even settle for a Mind Blast earth analogy. Go on Anet, you know you want to.
Let's face it. Obsidian Flame is the best elite earth ever had...


Btw can anyone explain to me why anet thought it was a good idea to stop Crystal Wave/Tenai's Crystals from ignoring magical resistance? It was actually a pretty good idea.
I guess we can't have anything challenging the all-mighty power of prot can we?

For taking more advantage of noobs, take out elem attunement and put in obsid flesh. That way, you'd be an even better tank than before. Seriously, why run a tanking build when you can run a damage/balanced build. Sure your tank build can beat AB/RA noobs, but a damage/balanced build can do it faster, thus saving you more time and getting more glad pts.

Oh, and just for reference, I got 20 win streak (RA+TA) with a w/mo with zb and rof. Build rarely matters in RA (and if you get crap opponents in TA), and it's basically based on how good your team is and how good the other team is.

Oooh, YAA + stoning does sound like a ton of fun, I'll have to go try that out.

Meh... earth tanks.

If you must do it, bring a res or two so when your the only one left standing, your teammates wont quit after 2 hours of you not being able to kill anything and no one being able to kill you.

Well, at least he equipped some damage.

I was a prot monk on a team that went against a build like this that had NO damage skills. He just would wand people.

Needles to say he was the last on his team and settled into trying to grief us out of a victory.

One by one my team left till I was the only one. He would type smug stuff to me about how he would win and just leave after I did.

I never typed one word to him. Eventually even his fellow guildmates wrote me foul messages that I should leave the RA. I ignored them.

After 2 hours and 20 min he left cussing me. I half think he thought I was a bot because I refused to type or converse with him.

He made his build to grief people out of victories in RA, While I fashion myself to be to damn stubborn to reward him for it.

Griefing can be fun in ra. I will admit I do everyonce in a while.

Prot Spirit + Stoneflesh Aura + Res + Earth Attunement + 4 Offensive Spells.

theres your earth tank.

Geotanks are quite possibly the lamest builds ever but fun to verse when you pack corrupt enchantment.

Why don't you bring Stoneflesh aura in your build?

Yeah, I've seen some of these people in RA. They're the famous "last ones to die". They also do jack shit during the round, and brag about things like "Oh but I can TAKE -16 degen!".
People running tanking builds in RA are either:
a)Retarded or
b)all of the above

I've had some experience with it. The earth tank can be nice to play, I've had much fun seeing 4 players attacking me without doing any damage.

But it's easily countered. Interrupts will cause you to run out of energy quickly since you con't get the return of your dual attunements. Also, an interrupt of stoneflesh may alllow an enemy group to do more damage than you can regen.

Enchant removal will also give much problems. In short, nice build to play with for some time, but certainly not a godly build for RA/AB.

Yea I'm 2 days late. Pfft.

Started my first AB attempt 2 weeks ago Saturday ... an hour into it I know that I'm out to just humiliate Stoneflesh Eles.

All that power an ele has and you limit it to weak skills?
"Dude I can spam Stone Daggers and if I get close to you I can aftershock you!! Beat that noob."

One Gaze of Contempt ... one Power Block(E) and there goes the Stoneflesh ele build.

So sad people limit themselves to that.