"What's a Good Nuker Build?"

I created the following thread on GuildWarsGuru, which can be found here. I thought I'd post it here for you all because I'm pretty proud of it. The reason I decided to create it was because there were becomming an overwhelming number of threads created on GWG asking for "Nuker Builds". Perhaps some people in the syke guild will be able to make use of it also.

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It's a question that has plagued the GWG Elementalist Forum since the dawn of time I'm sure. I write this in hope that at least some of those who create threads asking for "the best nuker build for " will see it, and perhaps even find it vaguely useful.

It is not always possible for players to own all the Guild Wars games. Due to this, this forum gains a lot of requests for "1-campaign only" "nuker" builds. The recent volume of such requests provoked me to construct this article. This is in no way meant to be a definitive list of Fire Magic builds, as such, if anyone has any others, or has improvements on the ones I have created here, feel free to let me know.

What This Article Contains.
1. What is a Nuker?
2a. "I Only Have Prophecies..." - Ideas for those who only have the first campaign.
2b. "I Only Have Factions..." - Ideas for those who only have the second campaign.
2c. "I Only Have Nightfall..." - Ideas for those who only have the third campaign.
3. Combining Campaigns
4. Final Comments

1. What is a Nuker?

Guildwiki describes a nuker as:
Quote:

Originally Posted by Guildwiki Nuking is a term used in gaming for causing great amounts of damage to a number of enemies. This is normally done with using high-damage area of effect spells (like Meteor Shower) to take out a group of enemies at once. A player who Nukes is referred to as a Nuker.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guildwiki When asking for a Nuker, players almost always mean pyromancers who inflict highly damaging AoE spells such as Searing Flames and Meteor Shower.

So, so far what have we learnt? Well, we've learnt that whenever players speak about "nuker builds" they invariably want Pyromancer (Fire Magic) AoE Builds. These sort of builds are quite clearly the type of builds many new players lean towards, and in that light, this article will attempt to cover that topic from the viewpoints of owning each of the campaigns.

2a. "I Only Have prophecies..."

Both Prophecies and Factions have a problem when it comes to Fire Magic builds in that neither have any outstanding Fire Magic elites for general PvE play. There is, however, one Elite Skill which is common to both campaigns which serves as a good "catch-all" skill for any elemental build. That skill is Elemental Attunement.

As it would happen, Elemental Attunement makes a fantastic skill, when paired with Fire Attunement, to make it possible to spam some of the high-damage, low-recharge Prophecies skills such as Rodgort's Invocation.

For information, the skills available to you are the following:
Core Fire Magic skills
Prophecies-Only Fire magic skills

Elemental Attunement
Fire Attunement
Ward Against Melee
Immolate
Fireball
Rodgort's Invocation
Optional Slot
Optional Slot

Attributes:
Fire Magic: 12 + Headpiece + minor/major/sup Rune
Earth Magic: 9 + 1
Energy Storage: 9 + 1

Ok, let's take a look at this build. Starting off with Elemental Attunement and Fire Attunement. These two skills manage your energy very well indeed, and give you the power to spam Rodgort's Invocation. Ward Against Melee gives you a secondary use to the team by way of being able to provide some sort of defense. You don't need to fill your skillbar with damage spells just because you're using Fire Magic.. Ward Against Melee can be substituted for another ward if necessary, such as Ward Against Elements.

Because Rodgort's Invocation now has a 5-second recharge, you aught to be using that as often as you can, as it is a high-damage AoE skill with additional burning. Burning should not be overlooked, as Rodgort's causes 3 seconds of burning, which after the 3 seconds will have resulted in another 42 health loss. Immolate is another quick-recharge skill which causes burning, although only to one target, whilst Fireball is a high-damage AoE skill, hitting adjacent foes.

Now we come to the optional slots. Many people would encourage you take a Resurrection skill here. If you have Monk secondary you can take a "Hard Res" such as Restore Life. Rebirth is bad for Elementalists as it causes you to lose all energy, you should steer away from this skill outside special situations. If you don't have Monk secondary you can always take Resurrection Signet if you need a Resurrection skill. The other optional slot can be used for your AoE of choice, such as Searing Heat, or Meteor Shower, or even another Ward spell from the Earth Magic line if you want to be able to give more party support. A further option is to play E/Me and take Arcane Echo to echo Rodgort's Invocation. This will give you periods of 20 seconds in which you can spam Rodgort's Invocation at double the rate.

2b. "I Only Have Factions..."

As Prophecies, Factions' Fire Magic Elite skills are not amazingly good, even though you have a choice of 3. Let's look at these.

Mind Burn
- This skill happens to be a core elite, and therefore is also available in Prophecies. It is easy to meet the condition, due to your Energy Storage attribute giving you inherently higher energy than most of your foes, however, it has a 5 second recharge, and causes exhaustion. Repeated use of this skill which is allowed by it's recharge leads to a great deal of exhaustion, so care needs to be taken, meaning it's not a good idea to cast this skill as often as you might like.

Double Dragon
- This skill used to cause exhaustion, and though it does not any more, does still have it's 30 second recharge, meaning it's spammability goes down the drain. This skill is also what is known as "PBAoE" (Point Blank Area of Effect), which means you need to get up close to your foe. This can be dangerous for an Elementalist as you only have 60 armour, and are more vulnerable than, say, a Warrior, when running up to foes.

Star Burst
- Like Double Dragon, another PBAoE skill, and as such, should be avoided for the majority of PvE with Factions-only builds.

Running up to foes to poke them with Star Burst, or use Double Dragon may sound fun at the time, but consider your Monks. If you begin taking a lot of damage because of your high-risk manoeuvre, you risk draining your Monk's energy trying to keep you alive.

Considering the usefulness of the 3 Factions Fire Magic elites, I would consider Elemental Attunement to, once again, be the most useful and appropriate elite available in Factions for Fire Magic builds.

For information, the skills available to you are the following:
Core Fire magic Skills
Factions Fire Magic Skills

Elemental Attunement
Fire Attunement
Ward Against Melee
Immolate
Fireball
Teinai's Heat
Optional Slot
Optional Slot

Attributes:
Fire Magic: 12 + Headpiece + minor/major/sup Rune
Earth Magic: 9 + 1
Energy Storage: 9 + 1

Much the same as Prophecies I guess, reason being, Factions contains some skills which are "Prophecies Duplicates"...but unfortunately it does not have a copy of that sexy skill Rodgort's Invocation. I've replaced Rodgort's with Teinai's Heat, which incidentally, is a copy of Searing Heat, as it at least has the chance of causing burning on it's 5th pulse of AoE damage.

I included Wars of Stability in this build, mainly to make people aware of it since we all know how boring wards seem when you first start playing Ele, though any ward can be used in it's place. Ward of Stability can potentially be decent support in Kaineng City, as it can stop the party being knocked down by the Jade Brotherhood's AoE knockdown skill, Dragon's Stomp. Alternatively you may find Ward Against Melee useful here due to the high numbers of Jade Brotherhood Knights and Am Fah Assassins.

Again, 2 optional slots. One could be used for a Resurrection skill. Decent Resurrection choices would be Resurrection Chant for an E/Mo, or Flesh of my Flesh for an E/Rt, anyone else is stuck with Resurrection Signet, should you choose to take a Res. Other skills for the optional slots are Smoldering Embers due to it's quick recharge. It is of course possible to use another AoE skill here such as Breath of Fire, though it does have a long-ish recharge, is a very cheap spell.

2c. "I Only Have Nightfall..."

Well it needs to be said. Nightfall is King of Fire Magic. For once, Elemental Attunement is surpassed by all 3 of it's non-Core Fire magic Elites. As well as Mind Burn, Nightfall has Searing Flames, Savannah Heat and Mind Blast.

For information, the skills available to you are the following:
Core Fire Magic skills
Nightfall-Only Fire magic skills

Let's take a quick look at some of these new elites in a little more detail.

Searing Flames
- Searing Flames relies on foes in an area to be on fire in order for it to deal damage. Searing Flames (Often abbreviated to SF) also sets foes on fire if they are not already. In order for Searing Flames to work well it is a better idea to use 2 or more "SF Eles", this is so that does can be kept on fire as much as possible, and through continual spamming of Searing Flames, take a great deal of damage.

There is a potential issue with Searing Flames, and that is, it's a 15 energy spell with a 2 second recharge. Clearly, you can't take Dual Attunements with Searing Flames, but there are other devices which can be used to manage your energy.

Glyph of Lesser Energy and Glowing Gaze are two such skills. The latter allows you to gain energy if it hits a burning foe.

So let's look at a Searing Flames build:

Fire Attunement
Glyph of Lesser Energy
Searing Flames
Glowing Gaze
Optional Slot
Optional Slot
Optional Slot
Optional Slot

Well that's pretty much the core of a Searing Flames build, and with 2+ SF Eles works very well on bunches of foes, and incidentally, with Nightfall, Ele Heroes come in very handy in that you can set them up as SF Eles also. There are of course 4 optional slots. Skills which could be used here include a Resurrection skill, Liquid Flame or Fireball, perhaps an AoE Fire Skill. You could go E/Me for Shatter Hex or Power Drain, or E/Mo for Aegis or Convert Hexes.

Savannah Heat
- This skill becomes more powerful on each pulse of damage, so it becomes important to keep the enemy in the area of effect for as long as possible. One way of achieving this is with a snare. The Water Magic line contains a core skill called Deep Freeze, which provides an unconditional 10 second 66% speed reduction to foes in an area. Another way of keeping enemies in this AoE is with a knockdown skill, however, Nightfall lacks effective AoE knockdown skills.

Let's take a look at a potential Nightfall-Only Savannah Heat Build:

Fire Attunement
Glyph of Lesser Energy
Savannah Heat
Immolate
Fireball
Deep Freeze
Optional Slot
Optional Slot

Attributes:
Fire Magic: 12 + Headpiece + minor/major/sup Rune
Water Magic: 8 + 1
Energy Storage: 10 + 1

In this build, energy is less of a concern, as there is no uber-spammable 15+ energy skill, however, Glyph of Lesser Energy can be very useful in powering Deep Freeze, as Fire Attunement will not give any energy back from the use of this expensive snare.

The optional slots, once again, could be a Resurrection skill, or another water magic skill such as Steam or Blurred Vision. Steam can be used after Immolate to give 8 seconds of blind along with dealing a respectable 76 cold damage. Due to Deep Freeze snaring you could incorporate a further AoE Fire Magic skill in here, though the only other available to you in Nightfall would be Fire Storm.

Mind Blast
- Finally we move onto Mind Blast. Mind Blast is quite possibly one of the most flexible skills an Elementalist has. Mind Blast provides some stunning energy management, and allows an Elementalist to use skills that other forms of Energy Management are not compatible with. Unfortunately, Nightfall offers few fire magic skills which do Mind Blast justice.

3. Combining Campaigns

Clearly the more campaigns you have, the more varied, and improved builds you can create. If you only own one campaign you will almost always be lacking something that another campaign could give you. One skill I am thinking of in particular is Mark of Rodgort which can really improve a Fire Magic build since Burning is such a potent condition.

Mind Blast really comes into its own when combined with other campaigns. With that in mind, to do Mind Blast justice, it should be paired up with one of the most Legendary skills, Rodgort's Invocation.

Fire Attunement
Glyph of Elemental Power
Mind Blast
Rodgort's Invocation
Fireball
Mark of Rodgort
Ward Against Melee
Optional Slot

Attributes:
Fire Magic: 12 + Headpiece + minor/major/sup Rune
Earth Magic: 9 + 1
Energy Storage: 9 + 1

Or alternatively, Mind Blast could be used to power Blinding Flash spamming, one of the most potent melee-shutdown skills in the Elementalist's skill list.

Next let's consider the Searing Flames build described in section 2c. This build has the capacity to incorporate many different skills. If Prophecies is owned as well, Glyph of Sacrifice + Meteor Shower can be used as a quick opening to a battle. A Further advantage of using more than 1 SF Ele is that it only takes one to carry Mark of Rodgort, a Prophecies skill which can be used to great effect to keep foes burning.

4. Final Comments

Wow, I didn't think it was possible for me to write so much. I hope that some people find this useful, and I haven't made any major errors anywhere.

I've always found PuGs demanding "Fire Magic Nukers" to b e quite single minded and stereotypical. This thread is in no way meant to suggest that this is the only thing an Elementalist can do.

nice guild

this would help alot new players

Thanks

Just a heads up to people reading this: the original GWG thread will probably be updated quite a bit with new ideas and points people raise, so keep an eye on that too.

very nice
thx man

many ele will like this

greetings slayer