E/X -- Up Close and Personal

Something I've been toying with:

E/whatever

Fire - 11 + 3 + 1
Water - 10 + 1
Energy Storage - 10 + 1

Skills:
Mist Form {Elite} 10e
Armor of Mist 10e
Glyph of Lesser Energy 5e
Frozen Burst 15e
Flame Burst 15e
Inferno 10e
<Flex Slot>
<Flex Slot>

Basic Idea:
1) Prepare to go in. Armor of Mist, Mist Form, Glyph of Lesser Energy are cast in that order.
2) Once enemies are all grouped up, do the chain Frozen Burst, Flame Burst, Inferno. Roughly 275 AoE damage in about 2 seconds, and chances are you're at full or near full health thanks to Mist Form and Armor of Mist giving you immunity to attack dmg / +armor / and +33% run speed.
3) At this point you spent 50 energy and have regened about 5 back. With a mana pool around 75 (give or take) you can now use your flex spots to do whatever works best. Since this is an AoE spike type of build, I prefer to use another AoE skill which is quick to cast. Unfortunely, you've run out of truly fast casting options at this point. My favorite options are actually Phoenix or Fireball, despite the 2sec cast times. If you take 1 extra attack skill, then you are only left with 1 slot to heal yourself with or bring Res Sig and whatnot.

It's certainly a limited build that needs support healing (unless you use Aura of Restoration and run away from the pack after you're done casting). But it's fun being up close and personal !

Comments welcomed.

It doesnt work, against any decent non-melee mobs. I have tried this sort of thing in regular missions, with an adjusted build. This isn't useful in *normal* pve... these sorts of builds have there other uses

EDIT: If you must tank with an ele, go earth.

Well, thanks for showing this doesn't work art. I was thinking of trying the same build.

obviously it's only supposed to work against mobs which group up (ie - melee types or hydras). and it isn't supposed to tank at all, not sure where you got that idea from. Armor of Mist is just there to allow you to cast without being absolutely shredded - it might be overkill if you use armor of mist and combine with something like say ... E/Me for physical resistance stance.

With that in mind, I did just that:

E/Me
Armor of Mist
Physical Resistance (or Elemental Resistance/Mantras if cast warrants)
Glyph of Lesser Energy
Frozen Burst
Flame Burst
Inferno
Echo {Elite}
<Flex slot>

Haven't tried this one out yet since I don't have Echo. Idea is to (obviously) echo Inferno since it has the 20 second recast. Flame Burst is relatively spammable with 5 second recast.

Will try it out soon!

Ive never really used flame burst non-farming, as eles are the sort of sort target mobs home in on. Even with armor of mist you are still gonna take a beating. Imo if you want to cast without being shredded, let the warrior run in take aggro then come in afterwards and launch a load of high damage single hitters, and, situation permitting, an aoe.
You could save some of these slots for more direct damage spells, and probably do more damage (as it seems you are after pure damage)

EDIT: ..You never mentioned this apparently. I must have been tired..


I will definitely try out what you are saying with the physical resistance stacked on armor of mist, but i think that unless you are using a full set of superiors you should be able to cast whilst takin the odd it (which your monk can heal)

If you just want to stand your ground against melee mobs you may as well go warrior secondary and use the stances and substitue echo for glyph of renewal.