Elementalist Tank Build - just tweaked it, works great!

MasterDinadan

MasterDinadan

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: May 2005

The Zaishen Force

Me/E

Alright check out this build... nobody in PVP expects an elementalist to be able to take hits, but with this build you will be virtually indestructible without at least 3 or 4 people focussing on you. And this is alone... with the aid of an ally monk I'm sure you can handle being attacked by many more. This build is an Elementalist/Ranger

Attributes:
12+2 Earth Magic
10+1 Energy Storage
8 Wilderness Survival

Skills:
Crystal Wave
Stoning
Stone Daggers
Earth Attunement
Armor of Earth
Aura of Restoration
Ether Renewal (elite)
Quickening Zephyr

The idea is to make use of Armor of Earth, Aura of Restoration, and Ether Renewal to keep yourself alive. Since the build has 4 enchantments in it, Ether Renewal becomes incredibly powerful. The problem that normally exists with Ether Renewal is that you are unable to have it all the time because it's duration is much shorter than the recharge. However, Quickening Zephyr solves that issue at the cost of a large amount of energy cost with every spell. Luckily, Ether Renewal also restores energy, so by making Ether Renewal better, you are offsetting the additional cost of Quickened skills anyway. Once you have your ritual summoned, and all 4 of your enchantments active, you simply spam your offense spells. At range, alternate between Stone Daggers and Stoning (with your nature ritual, you need only cast Stone Daggers once before stoning recharged, without it you would have to cast daggers three times before stoning recharged). If the enemy gets close, use crystal wave to punish them (very effective against warriors or rangers with elemental resistance). You will be able to maintain Ether Renewal almost constantly as long as your nature ritual stays alive and many enemies do not see a great threat caused by these rituals and will simply ignore them. Of course if you are worried about the spirit getting attacked, have a ranger ally bring Quickening Zephy also to back you up if your spirit is killed prematurely. Anyway, with continuous Ether Renewal, you are free to spam your offense spells all you want because you will regenerate more energy then you are spending. In addition, every single spell heals you a good amount, enough so that you can easily survive direct attacks from multiple enemies without help from your allies, WHILE you are spamming offensive spells on them.
What more can you ask for? Great healing and Spammable offense and they both work together at the same time.

The weaknesses, obviously there is trouble if you nature spirit gets killed, but that happens rarely (don't stand near it if the enemy is using AoE, and if they are not using AoE, stand on top of it because they may not notice it). Another weakness is the necro spell Rend Enchantments, because it will remove ALL of your enchantments, making ether renewal virtually useless even if it is recasted. Unfortunatly, restoring all 4 enchantments is very costly energy-wise especially with the nature ritual in effect, but you will likely have a lot of enegry with your high energy storage and all the regenerating you are able to do with Ether Renewal before your enchantments are killed.

Aranador

Academy Page

Join Date: Jun 2005

Well - one problem - is you are making your allies skills cost more energy too - this may be fine for you - but you may break your allies skills with this.

Also - you are likely to be killed by hexes and knockdowns. Yes - it is good against warriors, but as always - good against one thing, weak to another GW is a nice game.

MasterDinadan

MasterDinadan

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: May 2005

The Zaishen Force

Me/E

Your allies skills do cost more but with the right planning that isn't a problem. Just let your allies know that you use the ritual and at least they will be prepared for it and will bring some energy management maybe.
The thing is, the spirit affects enemies as well. And unlike your allies (if you tell them), your enemies won't be expecting it and so they probably won't have prepared.
Certainly deploying that spirit can cripple allies that depend on spamming skills that use up a lot of energy and not worrying about recharge times, but that's why you need to consider team strategy. If you don't work well with someone in the group, group with someone else...

Red Locust

Red Locust

Site Contributor

Join Date: May 2005

If you wanted to go all out on the ele tank, you could get obsidian flesh and maybe ward vs. melee (to benefit the rest of the team as well). With obsidian and armor of earth active, you can afford to get into the fray and cast something like earthquake, aftershock and crystal wave for some serious AoE damage.

Minwanabi

Minwanabi

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Mar 2005

Michigan

Quote:
The weaknesses, obviously there is trouble if you nature spirit gets killed, but that happens rarely Haha... I'm sorry, but most spirits are always targets, and quickening zephyr more than any other. Every good team will kill this as fast as they can, because unless they're ready to heal/cast with it, they'll lose, and they know it. At the same time, if you don't discuss this build with your team, and are trying to PUG with it, you'll be screwing them, since the monks won't be ready. Be careful with QZ, it takes a lot of coordination to run with.