Ele team (Player and Heroes)

So FOR FUN I decided to theory craft some ele builds for my elementalist and her 3 ele heroes. I decided one for each element would be fun (though searing flames spamming would be funner) I wanted SOME synergy but most of the ele skills that synergize with other elements are either weak or single targeted (for the MOST part) This is what I came up with.

Granted don't forget, 1 Player, 3 ele heroes, and 4 henchman. 2 monks and whatever you want for the other two. (more eles?)



Help me make this better ^_^

Urals hammer would prolly go better with the fire mage making fire the player, but I wanted more control over where maelstrom goes and whether freezing gust is used as damage or Snare for Maelstrom.

Maelstrom isn't very good for PvE, 25 second recharge, I believe? You would also want an AoE snare

The fire ele bar could be much better imo. Fireball is bad as its a projectile, ele heroes don't always make sure they have line of sight before using. You have snares so maybe use a heat [searing/tenais]? I also really dislike Liquid Flame as its a conditional AoE. If I use a MB hero the bar is something like...Mind Blast, Searing Heat, Immolate, Meteor, Rodgorts, Aura of Restoration, Fire Attunement & Flesh of my Flesh as res [if needed].

The earth ele, imo, should utilise the fact you have weakness on the water ele. Use Stoning and maybe either GoLE or Glow Stone for E-Management, I'd take out either Aura of Resto or Ward Against Elements [unless the area/mission you are entering is full of eles ofc]. You could also maybe use a better res. I only use Rit res on my heroes, but thats personal choice.

Lastly the air ele..I'd replace Arc Lightning with Shell Shock.

I take it you don't want to use PvE skills on your bar? Because Tryptophan Signet is almost a must when relying on a full ele midline with nukes for damage. And then there's Assassin's Promise to consider for recharging Maelstrom and YMLaD for Cracked Armour. I suppose then people could claim it wouldn't be a true elementalist build.

But really, it just won't be a true Hero Elementalist build.

... Is funner a word?

Secondary rit would be good for the earth ele. Not only for a rit res, but to take the Earthbind spirit, which works great with Unsteady Ground. With Earthbind up, UG will knock down anything, including Shiro and Dhuum. (I haven't tried this with a hero, though. I don't know if the AI will use it correctly or if you'd need to micro it.)

Going water and not brining Deep Freeze seems... odd. I would also be tempted by Water Trident, but Shatterstone is... alright. All Water Magic elites are kind of crap. Or just cut the bar and take Tryptophan Signet.
I would say Searing Flames on the Fire Ele with Mark of Rodgort, but energy is iffy (even with Glowing Gaze, GoLE and the Attunement they fail). Something like Meteor might be nice too.
Also, you have both an Earth Ele and an Air Ele but you have not got Eruption or BSurge - bring one of them.
If you take the Nec henchmen, you don't need Blood Ritual on the Air Ele.

YOL (yawn out loud). A thread for random ele bars, really?
OK, let's talk about synergy. This will give you some things to think about and you can have MORE fun creating your hero team.

Synergy is when skills benefit each other between members of the team (and allies). Some examples with ele skills are like when one ele has Mark of Rodgort's, and another ele uses fire skills. Or as was mentioned above, a rit uses Earthbind because she knows the ele in her party has Unsteady Ground.

Eles are generally soft, so if you are building an H&H team with eles, consider having some armor/prot/damage mitigation within the team. An ether renewal hero or a couple communing rit skills are possibilities.

IMO any team of elementalists *must* have these things for best efficiency:

mass cracked armor (weaken armor is the best skill for this, by far)
mass snaring and/or knockdown (deep freeze is hard to beat)
ebon battle standard of honor (more damage)
ebon battle standard of wisdom (faster recharge)

i see that you brought By Ural's Hammer for more damage but EBSOH will be vastly more effective since it increases damage for the whole team. Similarly, EBSOW allows everyone to cast their spells much more often. For spells like Rodgort's Invocation or Searing Flames this makes no difference as they already have a quick recharge, but for Unsteady Ground, Savannah Heat and Ray of Judgment it makes a huge difference.

Bring a minion bomber hero or a SoS rit to keep melee out of your face and this kind of team can blow through hardmode... a guildie and I did Vizunah HM, Gyala HM, and Eternal Grove HM with this kind of team and I don't think we had any deaths at all.

The mindblast bar should ditch the power drain and spec more into energy storage to get more out of it. You could bring glowing gaze to synergize with rodgort's, seeing how there is little reason to bring glyph of immolation if you don't have skills that play off burning (Steam maybe?). Mind blast bars tend to bring 10-15 energy utility and power drain is 5 energy and isn't going to be cast that often since it isn't on a mesmer. (If you aren't slapping utility in there, why not run Elemental attunement? Heroes don't use mind blast very well.) Fireball is also used poorly by heros since they don't check for line of sight. It's mediocre unless used by a player since it is adjacent range. I'd sooner put glowing gaze and pump energy storage to 11+1 on that bar as you're also using glyph of immolation and it would help aura of restoration. Then again, I'd also be tempted to slap a prot spirit/aegis on there and drop glyph of immolation for glyph of lesser energy, thereby not needing a prot henchmen. You could also spec into Restoration for Weapon of warding or Channeling for splinter weapon.

Searing flames is a bad choice if running it on only one elementalist because it will require constant glyph of immolation and/or mark of rodgort. It is generally a better idea when paired / trio-ed.

The water magic bar could use deep freeze if you could fit it (especially since you have maelstrom). Maelstrom isn't that great without an AoE snare and you're better off with Thunderclap on your air ele given the recharge (and 25 energy) since you'll only be snaring one target. Basically water magic non-elites = deep freeze, freezing gust, blurred vision.

I agree with blinding surge as the elite for the air elementalist. Invoke Lightning is a mediocre elite and since you have chain lightning it isn't that great. You have ward against melee, so you could bring something else instead of b-surge such as Thunderclap, which would help with large caster mobs. It's nice to have redundancy though, so blinding surge is probably better.

I disagree with bringing Shell shock. The PVE version of Lightning orb already has cracked armor, as does the weaken armor. That's 2 sources of cracked armor already. Since shell shock does very little damage and is single target cracked armor it is a bad idea. Arc Lightning, however, is a weak skill generally ought to be replaced by chilling winds if you are water hexing but Shatterstone would be delayed. Instead I'd bring something from the blood line such as blood bond, which gives 14hp per hit to your physicals and a 68 heal on enemy deaths. You're lacking enchantment removal, so I'd bring Strip enchantment on this character, seeing how it specs just enough to remove 2 enchantments (minimum 8 blood magic). Oppressive gaze would synergize with Weaken armor and the burning condition to max out degen, but I'd say Strip enchantment helps with enemy monks and dervishes. If you brought Stoning then it would synergize with Oppressive Gaze.

On the earth bar, I'd sooner bring Eruption than Churning earth if you bring Deep Freeze. The cast time is only 2 seconds and it applies 10 seconds of blind for 5 seconds, stopping removal. The only disadvantage is 25 energy compared to churning earth.

MAN what was I thinking when I made these. I mean I still want to make an all ele team for fun but this...bleck...embarrassing.

My biggest problem Is I want attunement + aura of restoration on all of them, and thus leaves 6 slot builds in reality. That's either 6 or 5 + utility which is even harder for me to deal with. With all the PvE skills I want to bring, If i do bring 3, thats only 3 spells working off attunement and doing their job, not much a build unless I drop the enchants.

I suck at bar compression. Time to rethink this. (I know ima take EBSoH instead of or + By urals hammer depending on my mains bar.)

Should I change the main to earth to properly place ward(s)? Or water to snare + maelstrom ( I still want maelstrom for AoE interruption). Maybe even Air If i decide to go Blinding surge. Which is more crucial for human playing?

Quote: Originally Posted by ajc2123

Which is more crucial for human playing? Most of the time, straight up damage. The more raw power your bar has, the better.
If you want a more utility or disruption based bar, you need to make sure it is considerably more powerful than anything a hero can do.

Quote: Originally Posted by Xenomortis

Most of the time, straight up damage. The more raw power your bar has, the better.
If you want a more utility or disruption based bar, you need to make sure it is considerably more powerful than anything a hero can do. Alright, so I'm guessing I should spec in Fire myself....unless I want single target dps then air?

Then instead of maelstrom i can give the water mage just a simple interrupt like cry of frustration since AI has better reaction time than my stupid ping, and focus on other skills like blurred vision, deep freeze? stick in glowing ice for energy management and drop water attunement?



This any better?

I assume you're running with two monk henchies then? If so, it'd be more wise to spec /9 prot on one those bars and bring Prot Spirit. OR, make one run ER and take an ele hench.

Quote: Originally Posted by ajc2123

Alright, so I'm guessing I should spec in Fire myself....unless I want single target dps then air? The strongest option would be an AP build with the Norn shouts for good spike capability. However, I'm guessing you don't want to lean that way.

Phoenix is rubbish, Fireball is better. Fireball is still crap though, so don't take it.
Savannah Heat has an annoying recharge, I'd be tempted to take SF over it but that necessitates a good source of burning really (Mark of Rodgort?).

Definitely Prot Spirit over Heal Area and try to get a copy of Aegis in there (maybe cut Lightning Bolt).