-5 energy, -2 energy weapons/offhands WHY?

I just wondered when i was searching the forums. Why do a lot of ppl buy Weapons with -5 energy or offhands with -..energy

A lot off ppl dont even care about the stats just thats its -.... energy.
They say like WTB -5 ENERGY SWORD/Axe

My question is: Why would they buy that sort. isn't it The more energy the better....?

-Energy is useful for breaking Energy denial hexes (Malaise/Wither) and such, along with other general focus-swapping purposes.

if your a constant target of energy draining spells its benaficial to swap to a set with the lowest posable energy to hide the avalable energy on your main set so you can swap from -7 to +13 giving yourself 20 energy to cast just about anything you want then quicky switch back to really mess with those mesmers.


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i'd rather have a -5 sword over a HOD sword

Heh i can see why people would mistake it for the HOD sword, but yes it's called focus swapping. As said to kill of maliase etc, switch to the -5 energy item and it kills it.

don't forget rebirth and like

ty all for the replys

purge signet, ether prodigy, ether lord, etc.

also, you want to use it to cancel wither and malaise. against an energy denial team, you want to use it to hide energy from being drained from you.

I'm tryng to get my hands on a -energy offhand for my monk. My thinking is that when I need to regen energy back up faster (due to my 3regen) I switch to a weapon set with 4 regen and -energy so that I reach maximum faster and then switch back to normal weapon set.

eg. Set1: Holy Rod and Healing Ankh (51 energy, 3 regen)
Set2: Holy Rod and -Energy Offhand (30 odd energy, 4 regen)

I haven't heard of people doing this yet and don't know how useful it is. In Tomb of the Primeval Kings I was switching to my candy cane set so that I could regen quicker, if i needed energy to cast with I quickly switched to my healing set. It seemed to work.

glad you asked that question i was wondering it too. Seems like a good idea to me

any collectors stock - energy foci? the hunt is on

The cities of ascalon quest gives you 2 items: the famous -50 cesta and a scroll, only the scroll can have 2 stats, ones +6 (req ? earth) -5 energy working out to minus 2 without earth points and the other has +25 health -20 health. it's unknown as to how to get the energy or health one, see here http://www.guildwiki.org/wiki/Talk:Cities_of_Ascalon

Regarding the energy situation of casters, have a peek at this image:



The scroll results in energy -2 because I don't meet the requirements.

As you can see, you can stick a big chunk of energy into "safe storage" if an opponent starts draining you. The benefit is that you can reactivate that energy by hitting your weapon set keys.

That is a great image. It should be in an article on hiding energy and the use of focus swapping. (If it is I haven't had the pleasure of reading it)

Thankfully GW doesn't work like that. If you have zero energy and switch to a -7 energy set, you will have -7 energy, not 0.