Well I for one wouldnt laugh at useing ride the lighting on a touch build b/c it does exactly what needs to be done, put u right next to someone.
The thing is....touch ele is a terrible term, it really doesnt apply to an Ele the same way it applies to a Ranger.
Rangers can reduce the cost of thier touch ****skills**** to about 3-6 mana a cast. With fast recharge times and heavy damage of most touch skills they are a wonderful class to play b/c of the sheer speed they can dish out unblockable damage.
To try and take advantage of this people seem to think "oh hey ill just pump E-storage". Sure it works...sorta but think about it. Most touch skills are 10-15 mana @ 80 mana (round about the most you're going to reasonably have after skills and atts) you only get 8 spells maybe 10 due to recharge before you're ooE, that's 8 touch spells, that doesnt take into account anything else u need to do IE windborn speed/ride the lightning, whatever...
so avg touch damage = about 60 depending on the **skill** sooo lets see using some 3rd grade math here, I come up with 560 damage. Which is just enouhg to take down someone from full hp leaving you ooE.
If that sounds good to you....you havent done enough real PvP.
Plus ALOT of the touch attacks in the elemental line are still SPELLS which has no bearing on the class since its not using expertise, but thats the whole idea behind a touch build to use expertise to reduce skill cost and increase spamability. The thing is people never seen to take regen into account. If I only have to regen 6 mana to use my next skill, thats a whole lot better than 15 which is the case with the ELE, sure on paper a touch ele may look comparable but when you take into account the amount of energy that must be regend as an elementalist to stay effective vs the ranger it is easy to see how much weaker of a class it is.
Factor in lower Armor Class and about 1/3 the ability to deal damage with regualr attacks....well you get u the point.
I guess thats not really the point of the thread tho.
I played a touch ele for awhile and it worked ok. Air/Blood ES
1. Shock
2. Awaken the blood/aura of restoration
3. Ride the lightning
4. Touch of agony
5. Vampiric Touch
6. Vampiric Bite
7. Life Siphon
8. Res Sig
Basicaly hit them with life siphon, use ride the lighting + shock, hit your touch skills, Agony first since it takes 20% hp form u due to awaken blood but since they are knocked down form shock who cares. repeat with touch and bite. till they die
Honestly its a great monk thumper build. wait for a monk to be around 2/3 or 1/2 hp, use ride the lighting + shock to kcock em down, spam ur touch skills and sihpon asap and the monk will usaly go down, you'll be OOE, basicly run aorund and use life sihpon to stay alive and regen mana. Pretty mucha 1 shot deal but it will at least u get u kills, just prey on the weak
