"echo nuking" - why?

I am having a difficult time finding groups in the most common farming areas (Ruins of the Tomb of the Primeval Kings, Sorrow's Furnace, et cetera) with my ele since I don't run with a "zomgzorz echo nooker of ownagezorz," which everybody seems to want.

I can see the argument for "echo nuking" in that you can throw out the big spells (Meteor Shower) quickly by using Arcane Echo/Echo/Glyph of Renewal or some odd combination of those. To me, though, that just screams "no energy management, you're useless after the first or second volley and have a load of exhaustion." And most PUGs that I have grouped with while trying to run with this type of build don't give me time to get my energy back up to reasonable levels before rushing into another mob.

Could someone that uses an "echo nuker" explain to me why it's in such high demand other than the possible reason I mentioned above? I just find that my "non-echo nuking" ele can put out quite a great deal of damage without a) massive exhaustion and b) energy management problems.



(Search is broken still. Boo.)

But it does a lot of damage. What more do you need?

/common opinion

It just bothers me that it tends to throw energy management out of the window. No energy = gg, you're semi-useless if the battle drags on if the mob isn't dead.

Am I just missing something completely, or is this just another playing style that only the new kids are down with? :|

I kind of find it sad that most groups don't want eles unless they are echo nukers (except in certain cases where it is needed for a certain build), but I do have to admit that they are effective. I usually run my ele as a renewal nuker (used to run as echo nuker) and have found a good balanced build that controls energy pretty well. If interested, here's my build:

max att in fire, a little att in inspiration, and the rest in energy storage.

Skill bar:

Glyph of Renewal
Meteor Shower
Rogdort's Invocation
Glyph of Lesser Energy
Searing Heat
Mantra of Resolve (can be replaced and att points taken out of insp if you will face no interupts)
Fire Attunement
Rez Sig

Basically, I use Renewal, then MS, then lesser energy with Searing heat. I wait until Renewal recharges to do another nuke and same with lesser energy to use with searing heat. Rogdorts is just a good finishing blast. While this doesn't throw out a bunch of nukes that quickly, you do have a 15 sec recharge time to throw down another MS instead of the otherwise 60 sec recharge time. I have found with Fire attunement that energy is not a problem, save maybe in really intense and long firefights.

If you really want an echo nuke build try using Archane Echo with MS, then use glyph of sacrifice before using the echoed MS to throw down two MS at once. While this can do some fast dmg, it will have a long recharge time. If you can afford to throw down 3 nukes, use Renewal on your echoed MS before using glyph of sac to cast it again.

If you get really sick of fire, try out some other ele builds in PvP. Earth, air and water work better there, especially air.

Have been Air or Earth builds since july. Fire has nothing like the wellroundness of these elements.

Wards, weakness, blind, armor ignoring. Fun.

If you have a build that works well without echo nuking, then don't worry about echo nuking. It's not the only build that works, but since it's easier to notice a meteor shower than other skills an ele uses, they think it's the only thing that is really contributing to the group. This, imho, is why rangers, necros (except MM with big armies of minions), and mesmers often get overlooked in PvE, no one realizes how much they are actually contributing to the groups success.

Aye, wards can be VERY helpful to keep a group alive. It's kind of like a reverse nuke.

My ele has been earth/water for several months, but at one point I did use arcane echo with meteor shower and firestorm. I only pipe up to speak on the energy issue you mentioned. My guess is that you aren't using both elemental and fire attunement, I may be wrong.

Energy management is not an issue at all. With Elemental Attunement and Fire Attunement running, you are getting back 80% of your skills cost upon casting. Even an average ele with 80-90 energy is going to have no problem casting the 2 attunements, then arcane echo, meteor shower, firestorm, *meteor storm. You may be down to 40 energy or so after an extended battle, if you are casting your other fire spells as much as possible in between storms and showers.

With the latest AOE adjustments this "echo nuking" oft causes more problems with aggro than it solves, and I prefer to play in groups that don't have an AOE ele because almost all my characters are squishy and tend to be targets of the multi aggro'd mobs.

Aye, ele attunement is a good way to manage energy.

I have to admit though, the hardest build I had to manage energy with was a full earth build that I used before I had many elites. Exhaustion killed me =P

In regards to the AoE update, while MS is still relatively useful compared to firestorm, it can cause a lot of aggro in areas you wouldn't want it to. I think since this update, defensive eles and single attack eles are a lot more useful.

fire nukers are amazing in altar and relic run maps in Tombs

Meteor kicks the ass of most relic runners, and Meteor Shower kicks the ass of most IWAY teams and is very helpful on altar maps

and most exp. fire nukers have figured out their own way for energy management since they shouldnt be using a damage elite really

but thats just from me

for the record, there were ppl like me playing echo nukers since launch. so it isnt just a new fad/build, it has been around for a while.
b/c of my extended leave of absence from the game and the fact that i am now in love with my MM, i havent really played my ele since they added the AoE patch.
from what i do remember from my old build, however, was that searing heat>meteor shower, especially for an echo nuker. even in a big open area, SH can cause most enemies to be hit. bigger AoE, just no knockdown.
as for energy management, fire attunement is a must. then, it's either glyph of energy (eliminates exhaustion for longer battles) or elemental attunement (my personal pick, doesnt cut back on exhaustion but still gives back a lot of energy).
with what i have heard from the anti-AoE patch, i will probably end up going to the unlimited air spike (air+elemental attunement, almost never runs out of energy). perhaps ill play around a bit with earth and water.
if none of this helps explain anything, then sorry for wasting your time :P

First, a big "thank you" to those that answered. I'm too tired to read through everything right now

I know that I've tried it using dual attunements in the past...I tried it just now and they keep getting stripped by mesmers. :/

I would be using an air ele build in PvE...but nobody wanted me in their group when I was, either.

the difference between the "echo nuking" than "steady nuking" is how fast you finish the mob.

People tend to prefer finishing the mob off early even if you have to sit around later, as this allow less mistake to be made during the battle.

Although I am not a big fan of fire, but I also must admit meteor shower being the most powerful spell of all ele spells.

300+ with knockdown AoE damage for 25 energy + exhaustion
is way better than
150 damage for 25 energy
or
100 damage for 10 energy (it is lame, they scatter with fireball...)

Meteor shower also don't scatter as much like most of the AoE out there.

also that why would people want your defensive spells when they can get it from monk who does it better? (common believes; I would argue that ward against harm and ward against melee being excellent for their energy and recharge if not better than monk)

Anyway, the point is that there are nothing that kill mobs that stand there than echo meteor shower. (obviously it is slowly getting replace by SS, as SS can do about the same damage as MS in 3 sec while lasting longer + less energy + better recharge + shorter casting, the only thing SS don't do is disabling the target from hitting you)

I can only sigh for ele... There are only one part Anet are kind enough to do is that, you can get MS quite early in the game making ele the best AoE nuker until spiteful jump in.

Fire Rain causes mobs to flea in terror with the AOE change, it's a great, get off the monk spell for 10 seconds unless it's Alessia...

I think the fact this is common is works well and when you start a new ele, you only get fire skills out the rear untill way latter in the game. If anet wants more non-fire ele with C2 start them on a different "path" air for example, or give us balance spells from all schools from the begining.

PS I still love being a fire ele. I tend to go with "burst" aoe spells as the bulk of the skills.

I think that people who expect you to be an echo nuker as an elementalist are people you should just avoid forming parties with. Echo nuking may work fine, but it is not the only way to play an elementalist. There are lots of other ways to play elementalist, and its a shame that people are too impatient to let you do something else. A blinding + weakening air elementalist is an incredible amount of help to any team, for example, but then the battles may take a little bit more time each time.

I find that energy management is a general problem with elementalists, and that is one of the reasons why I rather play my Mesmer, Necro or Ranger characters. I remember playing air elementalist in one of the Rings of Fire island missions, and the leaders in the group kept rushing from one mob to the next, despite my broadcasting an energy of about 5/82. It got to the point that I just started to stay back and skip every other battle to let my energy recharge. If they weren't going to wait, then they had to accept that my elementalist skills were not going to be available for each battle.

Echo nuking does not work with 99% of PUGs.

Firestorm and Meteor Shower are high damage skills. PvE players are attracted to them because they make big numbers appear. Remember most players can't put together a halfway decent build to save their life. You'll find tons of players running weak builds in PvE (like all the Mo/W healing monks.)

agreed with coolsti.

for those who enjoy playing the 'cookie cutter' builds, good luck to you guys. I however like to play my own way. Even one of my friends from another forum that I regularly group with would rather take the usual "bonder/healer/SS/Echo" team than take my Ranger. He wants me to get my other chars through the game so that I'll have a Monk, Necro, Mesmer etc. But he's gonna get a nasty surprise, coz I have a Me/N and intend to change my E/Mo to E/A, so he wont be getting his builds he wants, and the Monk is gonna be the way I find healing easy

Another of my friends who's pretty good at builds told me a month or so ago about a 'good' leader he had for an SF run. This "Good" leader kicked people out of the group if they had the wrong elite for a tank. Whilst I can understand a tank needs to do his job and tank, if someone has a tanking build that works for them, just coz you don't know about it doesn't mean you should assume its rubbish.

Basically what I'm saying is, play how you like, if you don't enjoy Echo Nuking, or can't get the hang of it, tell groups who insist you use it to go to hell

as you are also talking about SF, i assume you are going with a gear/ keg carrier in which case i go as glyph of renewall and take essence bond, so no energy problem but still the exhaustion.

Elemental attunement can be nice if you do Echo Nuking using Archane Echo since you then use the same amount of energy as one Shower to do 2 Meteor Showers. Though ofcourse Glyph of Renewal is much nicer than Archane Echo...