Elementalist - Who needs secondary?

I was wondering, I am currently a lowely level 10 Elementalist/Monk, and I was wondering if I should stop using monk abilities so I can go Pyromancer/Aeromancer build. Have both good aoe's and good single restoration. As for healing myself I can only come up with Aura Of Restoration. I think this would be both a good PvE and PvP build. I was just wondering if anyone else had tried and failed this idea, or if I shouldnt do it. Can someone please give me advice.

Monk is a really good secondary, so I highly recommend that you not switch over to pyro/aero. As an aeromancer myself, I must say that you don;t get the good air skills until Quarrel Falls (or something close). Also, going pure offense is kind of dangerous unless you have good support. Finally, I woudl recommend not splitting your attribute points between fire and air now because there are plenty of fire skills that can deal huge damage too. (having a higher attribute in one area is better than having 2 low ones, especially damage wise)

Sry if this is a lil unclear.

I agree with Z-Shinirei. Spells like Healing Breeze and other Monk spells are very powerful. And though Aura of Restoration is nice at the beginning, it soon becomes useless.

Pure elementalist is a fine option, and Monk is a good secondary to have with no attribute points in (can still use ressurect etc.). I would not, however, recommend Fire/Air, as they are both heavy damage dealers (the difference being Fire is more AoE, air single target). I would choose which you want, then combine with Earth or Water to give more defensive options (wards, armour of mist etc.)

Fire/Air will not give a greatly larger damage output than just Fir or Air alone, but it will restrict your defensive options. Putting all your points is Energy Storage/Fire/Air will make you a very easy target.

By the time you cast all your air or fire spells, the firstof them wil be regened or you'll have no energy so just having purely damaging spells is pointless.

As an E/Mo I find my skill bar dedicated to nukes (Air Nukes) like Enervating Charge, Lightning Orb, etc. The last 2 slots are usually Healing Breeze (Who needs the crap heals of Aura of Restoration when you have the breeze?) and Rebirth for when things get ugly. Rebirth is protection prayers, but points in that attribute only lessen the time before the person you res can use skills again, so the skill is still useful with no pints in protection prayers. Hope that helps a bit. I never use Aura of Restoration anymore, as Healing Breeze costs the same to cast, and doesn't require me to spam spells for a heal.

Quote: Originally Posted by Aalric

I second everyone who said don't go air/fire. I too am an e/mo level 20 and I've tried every combination of elements. Mixing fire and air will actually get you doing less DPS than focusing on one, believe me.

The amount of monk skills I bring really depends on the task. When I'm travelling to a far away town with henches, like Camp Raknor, there might be times when I have to run for it to the next zone. Times like that I bring Mending. Some missions, like Riverside, I would only bring Rebirth, ignoring other monk skills since there are so many warrior types and air magic slaughters them. Most of the time I pack Rebirth and Healing Breeze though, since that is the most general.

Bottom line, if you forego Healing Prayers in favor of a second element, make it water. I find Earth to be of dubious merit outside of pvp.

Elmos are one of the most diverse classes. You have great flexibility to try different things, and you just SHOULD because refund points are cheap.

Seriously, while I think there were a ton of good ideas here, why don't you just TRY it? It will be a lot more fun that way. =)

Go ahead and play as Fire/Air/Energy Storage for a while, see what you like and don't like. You may find after only one mission / quest / whatever that you want to change it, but you probably still can. Refund points are cheap. =)

Elmo can switch to all healing, or all blasting, etc. I've taken my Elmo and put all points into Fire/Storage for one mission, and then Storage / Healing Hands / Protection for the next. Have some fun with it.

Fire and Air are both mostly about damage, Air less so, but still...

If you are going one dimensional then pick one and stay with it.

However, I think you would be much better served splitting up 4 ways with one of each of these groups
Fire/Air
Water/Earth
Healing/Protection
Storage

I have a char I love to use, Elementalist/Monk with Air/Water/Healing/Storage/Protection, it can switch up spells to good effect for whatever the situation warrants.

In PVE she is usually a defender, going down into fissure and underworld, with 68 energy and gylph, enervate, blind, word of healing, heal other, restore life, and pacify she can really reduce the damage the group is taking. I had a group one time go into the underworld with 2 monks, one of them quit because he never got to heal anyone since nobody ever lost any life.

For PVP go for more of a support role to add damage when nessecary or healing when nessecary and you are golden.

YMMV though, what works for me might not work for others.

Tsunamii Starshine

Personally I find Ele/Mes to be much more effective and the highest damage dealer.

Example: with a glyph or renewal, firestorm, Arcane Echo -> Firestorm, Firestorm

I can get 3 firestorms, sometimes 4 down on an area simultaneously.

i second the ele/mes as a superbly effective combo.. all offense

Hi guys,
I just want the experienced players give me your opinion about 2nd profession E/Mo or E/Me. I know that there were several questions like this but I found the answers were depends on your characters and what you want to do. So here are what I want to do
- Play solo in quest to enjoy the game (except for team quest/mission). I dont like to play in team much since my internet connection is not so good. It went off and on quite often.
- Gain Exp as fast as possible by killing monsters. I like to try to kill monster by myself to practise skills.
- I prefer PvE more than PvP
So which path I should take? I am now at pre-searching and haven't choose the 2nd profession. I also know that you can change your 2nd profession later on but it is too far away. From now to that point of time, I need an advice to have a good profession suited to my type.

Thx a lot (for both reading and answering).

Ele/Monk is a PvE'ers dream class.

Anyone still use the ether renewal/divine boon combo anymore? I've used it with my E/Mo with a couple of other auras and it works well for me. I havent had a chance to test fully yet in the harder areas, but it seems to me that if you combine that with aura of restoration, ether renewal, boon and some other defensive aura you would get good enough regeneration/def and still have 4 slots for damage dealers. Just a thought

I'm an ele/mez and do not use ANY mez spells, in fact I use ONLY fire spells. I have 15 fire and 14 energy storgae. I am thinking about chargeing to ele/monk so i can use rez and not have to reley on the signet.

I agree that ElMo is a much more flexible and useful class for PvE than ElMe. ElMe is a mighty and powerful class, but as its advocates have noted, it's all offense. Elementalists, however, are possibly the class which can inherently deal damage the fastest, and is mighty in PvE due the Fire attribute and related Area of Effect attacks. Given that, Monk has just enough healing (and, perhaps most importantly, the ability to repeatedly ressurect, even if it's henchmen) to go really well in PvE and "soloing" with henchmen.

ElMe is more powerful in a mixed group where you can depend on other players. If you are expecting to play a lot with henchmen, I think you want a more flexible class, so I recommend ElMo. If you are playing TRULY solo, then it's iffier call (healing is good, since no one else will do it, but mesmer have some good "Escape" skills like Distortion that you get relatively early on), but there's some parts of the game that will be incredibly difficult to do without at least some henchmen.

Elementalist/Monk is better PVP and PVE than Elementalist/Mesmer is.

It would be a rediculous test, but I guarantee that 8 x Ele/Monk would own 8 x Ele/Mez.

The fact is that defense is much more powerful in this game than offense is.

Case in point, 8 Ele/Mez vs 8 Ele/Monk, 8 ele/monks start off with the spell limiting anything hitting them more than 10% or 5%, then they duke it out, the monks will win that. Dont even bring up backfire either, monks can remove it easily and with the pre-existing enchantments they wont take much damage doing it, if any.

Another case in point, and the reason I switched my PVP char to Ele/Monk. Group of warrior/monk, warrior/elementalist, monk/warrior, and what?

Elementalist/Monk can do good spike damage on low targets and also backup heal the monk when he is getting low... or is it better to leave the monk to his fate? You decide.

No explaination is needed why Ele/Monk is better PVE.

Tsunamii Starshine

Quote: Originally Posted by Raiddinn Beatdropper

Ill be one of the 8 x Elementalist/Monk in the test.

I dont know if you ever played MTG, but a good example comes from there.

David Price, King of Beatdown Decks in MTG said something along these lines once - There are no wrong attacks, only wrong (or mistimed) responses.

With mesmer in order to do on defense what a monk can do on defense you must have the right target, and you must be able to react quick enough. In optimal situations, yes it could be better.

Can people bring that about in practice? I dont think so, not consistently. There will be 2 monks on 1 target, at some point, and the gap will be open. If 6 mez are attacking and 2 are stopping heals, there is no chance you could stop all the healing power on the enemy team, none at all.

The monks will have multiple rez too and the mez wont, if the mez are fast enough and play perfectly it wont be an advantage, but will they? I dont think they will be able to do so consistently in practice. Also, mez that are trying to babysit cant do damage, monks that are babysitting still can.

Tsunamii Starshine