EoTN Advice

Hi, I am kind of new to GW. I played a few years ago and beat FA but the guild I was in wasn't to helpful they just ran me through stuff. So I came back and bought EoTN to get the GW2 stuff but I am having difficulty getting through. I wanted to know if anyone could tell me a good char structure for a elemental (armor, weapon, etc.).

For elementalist builds, check PvX.

For guides, check this.

ER Infuse Bonder is beastly if you want my opinion, but a requirement is you must be really good at Guild Wars.

I predict closed for this threads future.

A few things that have worked for me in my (admittedly limited) experience... I play an elementalist, and I started GW in October, so I'm still pretty new. I did, however, just finish EotN recently and I've been exploring some of the advanced dungeons and such, successfully - so I guess I must be doing something "right."

In terms of armor, you're obviously going to want something with the max armor rating for the class. That's 60. Apparently there's an ongoing debate among elementalist players as to whether one should focus on using Blessed (+10 armor while enchanted) or Survivor (+15...10...5hp) on their armor. I use both - two Blessed, three Survivor. It works for me. I don't bother with Radiant or Attunement, because honestly, I get my energy buff from having my Energy Storage at max +1, plus the bonus from my weapon and/or focus.

I have four aura's (headpieces), one for each element, with the Superior Fire/Air/Water/Earth (+3, -75 health) in them. To combat the health loss, I use a Superior Vigor, the aforementioned Survivors, and Vitaes. It's nice, because I can be ready for any element, simply by swapping out my headpiece, and leave all the rest of my armor (with the +1 to Energy Storage) alone. I don't have the money to invest in multiple sets of armor yet. LOL And we're not going to discuss just how long it took me to figure out that I could change my element that way... I feel stupid enough.

I have been working on putting together 40/40 sets for each of my elements as well, but I'm not quite there yet. I do use Fire primarily (I know, I'm a walking cliche) so I focused on putting together THAT set as my priority. The rest are being built slowly.

If you can, for now I'd say get a 20/20 Staff in your primary element - whatever you think you'll use most - and try to mod it with an Insightful Head and a Fortitude Wrap. That's what carried me through EotN. And I'll just note that despite how difficult the Wiki makes the end-battle against The Great Destroyer sound, I wiped him and his buddies in less than a minute with very little damage to me or my H/H, and no deaths.

Biggest problem I had was finding ways to use my skills that did NOT involve the pre-defined builds shown on PVX Wiki. Why? Because those builds almost always include elite spells that you have to already be uber-elementalist to capture in the first place. Not such a problem if you've bought the skill packs and can snag any spell you want just with a tome... bit more complex if you a) don't own all the campaigns and b) have to cap the skills for yourself. You can literally trap yourself in a loop of skill hunting if you're not careful:

"Ok, I need this skill to be strong against EotN. Huh, but to cap that skill, I have to kill this baddie, and to kill that baddie, I need this other skill. Damn, but to cap THAT skill I have to kill this other baddie, and I need still ANOTHER skill to kill him..."

Trust me, that way lies madness. And I'll be honest and say, it's why I finally DID give in and buy the skill packs. I was literally driving myself crazy with trying to keep track of what I had to kill to get what skill so I could kill something else so I could get its skill so I could do what I actually wanted to do to begin with. My enjoyment of the game was rapidly diminishing, and it was becoming a stressful experience instead of a fun one. So I bought the skill packs, and now I can do what I want. I'm playing this game for me. And that's the absolute best advice I can give you... play the game for you, in whatever manner increases your enjoyment of it!

I saved the builds I used early on... I'll look through and see what skills I was using that would be obtainable for you in Factions or EotN. I was a Prophecies toon, so many of my "basic" skills aren't available to you, and I'm not as familiar with the basic skills you're able to access at skill trainers in Factions. At least the Core skills I used you would be able to as well.

I by no means think I have awesome builds to suggest or anything... I'm not a hardcore player, so I'm happy whenever I finish something, even if I die 10 times in the process. LOL So any info I share is based solely on "it got me through and worked well enough that I did a good job/met my goals" - NOT a suggestion that it's "the best way."

1) I would check around for a new guild in the towns.
Ask them if they'll actually work on missions with you and be friendly/active etc. And don't be scared to say no!
2) And not all the meta builds have hard to get elite spells, and if they do, you can unlock it with Balthazar Faction and then use a tome for it, it'll make the process simpler, but a bit costly for a new player.
3)EoTN can be challenging at times, remember, wiki is your friend, and has a walkthrough for all the quests and dungeons.
4) Ask for help/ a companion in the outposts, there's almost always someone doing the missions in them
5) It's totally worth it to ask around, and spend time getting skills for your heroes, they can be powerful allies if you let them

biggest mistake of newer players... they forget to add runes/insigs to their heroes, don't be one of those

like corpus said, the heroes can be powerful allies, but you have to equip them as you would your own toon for them to be effective

This right here... very important. I had my heroes for a few weeks before I realized that a) I could add runes/insignia to their armor and b) I could give them different weapons.

I've spent a good chunk of change on equipping and outfitting my heroes. Getting them all their runes, putting together weapons and weapon sets that work with the builds I have them using. I've studied a lot of the Hero builds on PVX to help me understand in what ways the AI is effective and where it's lacking. And I've started sampling some of the established builds, like Discordway (just set that up tonight, actually).

I <3 my heroes. They've allowed me to H/H the majority of what I've done so far - including finishing Prophecies & EotN. I've got a few friends thankfully helping me through Nightfall & Factions because I'm finding that I'm just not that good at "micro-managing" my heroes to the extent I feel is necessary for where I'm at in those campaigns.

Maybe by using some of the established builds I'll find it easier to H/H some of the things I'm working on right now... as I said, I've only just started sampling those builds. But even without those specialized/tested builds, the heroes were a HUGE help!

U can just farm 3k balthazar factions by fighting the zaishen, and then unlock the elite skill u want, then u get the elite tome and just ''learn'' the skill.
This way u dont need any fighting against ur so called ''baddies'' and u still get the skill. Elite tomes prices are all around 6k, some or less, some or more. like the assasin elites are only 2-3k, while the ritualist elite tomes can go for 10-12k. I think elementalist elite tome go for 5k

You'd be lucky to get one for that little. I never see 'WTS Elite Ele tomes' for less than 7k. 6-8k is a more accurate price I think.

Thanks, Chips... I didn't know that about the factions. What I know about anything relating to PvP and associated features could pretty much fit into a thimble with room left over. LOL

I'll keep that in mind as a suggestion for others I may encounter who are trying to obtain elites. Great to know!

I think most things have been covered.

One other thing to note - in Eye of the North, Destroyers resist damage from fire unless you use the ranger skill Winter along with fire spells. So either use Winter somehow with fire spells or use cold damage on them - water or air work.

Thanks a lot this has been super helpful, sorry it took so long but I haven't had a chance to reply but things in EoTN are going much better thanks to your help. I am just stuck at the final quests for each race. I will need to find another person to tag along for those.