How the hek do you survive heart of thrones map with core builds?

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

@"EpicName.4523" said:Most people will tell you that berserker is the way to go even for open world, because as long as you kill, you should be fine. Dead foe means no damage, right? However, I don't believe this holds true for the profession with the lowest health and least passive defences in the entire game.

It holds true for every class, in the sense that if you do enough damage to take the enemy down before they can kill you, you will live.

Unfortunately, it has the hidden "fine print" that nobody tends to mention, which is that it also assumes you are essentially avoiding all significant damage through appropriate dodging and positioning, as well as skillful use of your variety of defensive skills, and also not getting into situations where you are overwhelmed, or using an escape of some sort to get out of them.

Even in full defensive gear most classes won't last long trying to facetank anything in HoT, or even more than one or two core veteran monsters. This, in the same way, is the source of the "bah, defensive gear adds nothing, just go zerk" theory; personally, I think it is appropriate as adding in some vitality can definitely turn a mistake from "dead" to "low health, struggle to survive". It isn't amazing, but it definitely beats falling down in the slightest breeze.

I also, FWIW, tend to recommend a move speed utility or trait to anyone having trouble: sure, 25% extra move speed in combat isn't gonna help you kill things, but it sure will help you get the heck out of the way faster, which is useful when you don't spot the attack early enough.

Likewise, something that grants vigour, or restores endurance, is highly valuable to a player having trouble: again, definitely not the highest DPS option, but it turns a screw-up from "no dodge left, you die" into "one dodge left, you live" often enough...

[Ringlin.1863]

@EpicName.4523 said:I too had problems surviving on my ele, until I started using x2 exotic soldier earrings. The added toughness and vitality really made a difference.

That's interesting - I never expected it to make much difference. Now I'd like to play around with that.

I'm core ele in HoT right now, 3/4 of the way through the story.

Cerioth's advice above is good for each enemy, and I use something similar to Dadnir's posted build (4th post), staff. With staff, I'm in Fire and Earth most of the time for solo combat. Air helps with movement out-of-combat, but in combat, it offers only two damage skills, weaker than your Fire AA. I find Water's heal underwhelming, though there are times when it helps.

Do position yourself so you can use Fire 4 safely. Remember it adds an evade as well as a retreat.

I love double elementals, and I cast them in Fire 90% of the time. They're fairly hearty, and I need the Earth elemental only for specialized fights.

[ZNICK.8537]

I tried to do a campaign/story in a Tempest (sword/dagger) with full ascended and legendary weapons and got pummeled. It seemed that it was spawning mobs faster than me and the 2 NPC's fighting with me could kill them.

ALl of my armor was damaged when we finally beat it... and I'm sure that after a certain number of deaths it "lets you" win. I started with full Minstrels and slowly added bezerker gear to do more damage but it was no help.

These need to be toned down. I was pissed off, wasted 90 minutes and will likely not do any more stories because of it.

Z

[STIHL.2489]

Play an Engineer, and use Flamethrower and Juggernaut Trait..

[Ryou.2398]

@Cerioth.7062 said:I do not understand why you are targeting and attacking people who are trying to help you. I have read through all the responses and none of them seem like they are assuming, accusing or being toxic towards you.

It is just that - the build is not everything. If you struggle with core ele in HoT, then I would say you definitely need more practice in skill usage. HoT is all about countering. All of the mobs have extremely low HP and thus they should die quickly to your attacks, but if you do not utilize your skills/traits right you are going to struggle. Some examples:

• Pocket Raptors. Spot them before they spot you, they die to one AOE.
• Mordrem Snipers are going to shoot a straight line at you, simply dodge out and you are good
• For the shadowstepping hyleks use protection or a block when you see them stealth because they are going to melee attack you next - place aoes under yourself
• Reflect bristleback projectiles
• Arrowheads will roll onto their sides so make sure to keep some distance
• Stoneheads charge directly at you so simply flank them
• Rolling devils you want to cc quickly, use your ice fields or earth skills for this
• Mushrooms tend to spray goo or charge at you depending on type, just be careful with positioning and you will do fine
• CC anything that has a breakbar
• Use your elementals to body block attacks
• Dont attack chak when they have the damage reflect bubble up

And so on!

I personally prefer scepter/dagger with fire, air and arcane specs and using mainly glyphs or arcane skills in utilities. Fiery Greatsword elite or glyph of elementals. Change heal skill depending on situation.

I did not attack anyone I think you need to read the responses more carefully and why are you bringing it back up after everything was clearly over after all this time? Anyways I appreciate the advice but I certainly do not appreciate your assumptions.

[Salocin.2783]

Yikes this is the most obnoxious person I've come across in recent memory, yet this thread is filled with sound advice from helpful people. This community can be nice to a fault.

[Gustaff.6581]

Well, he's asking for a build, nothing more. He is not asking for advise or for someone to solve his problems.

You can try marauders, the dps loss is negligible and you gain like 2 or 3k of extra hp

[Ryou.2398]

@Salocin.2783 said:Yikes this is the most obnoxious person I've come across in recent memory, yet this thread is filled with sound advice from helpful people. This community can be nice to a fault.

Please show me what is so obnoxious to you? I was polite for the most part, if I wanted to be rude it would be allot more obvious trust me.

[Ryou.2398]

@Conqueror.3682 said:Well, he's asking for a build, nothing more. He is not asking for advise or for someone to solve his problems.

You can try marauders, the dps loss is negligible and you gain like 2 or 3k of extra hp

Thank you finally someone understands:)

[Conncept.7638]

You don't really, the "specializations will not be a direct upgrade" was a bold faced lie on part of the developers, scaling and breadth of mechanics is massively in the specializations favor. Nonetheless, you certainly can complete the content with a base class build, it's just going to take longer to kill things, you'll die a lot, and frequently have to rely on trial by error to complete content that wasn't made with the build you're using in mind.

[aceofbass.2163]

@Ryou.2398 How the hek do you survive heart of thrones map with core builds?

You don't. Valar Morghulis!

[Runo.3780]

@Ryou.2398 said:I am not ignoring the advice it simply does not apply to me considering I already know my ele well to begin with,. the problem is people in the forums just like to assume and want to be toxic like in any other mmo.

I don't want to be nitpicking but from what I see the most toxic person in this thread is you :(.

[Ryou.2398]

@Runo.3780 said:

@Ryou.2398 said:I am not ignoring the advice it simply does not apply to me considering I already know my ele well to begin with,. the problem is people in the forums just like to assume and want to be toxic like in any other mmo.

I don't want to be nitpicking but from what I see the most toxic person in this thread is you :(.

Well it does not matter what you think to me, as only I can know what emotions and intent where behind my words to begin with, unlike you I do not judge people so easily behind a keyboard. Besides I am not seeking validation from you or anyone else no offense but nice to meet you.

[michelada.2947]

Avoid using berserk on hot and pof maps

[Ayrilana.1396]

@michelada.2947 said:Avoid using berserk on hot and pof maps

That depends. Years ago I found myself more likely to die in PVT gear than berserkers simply because the extra defense stats didn’t translate into as much to make up for the loss of DPS.

With berserkers (or other DPS stats), you try to kill the enemy quickly so that they don’t have time to really hurt you. To protect yourself, you use your active defenses as well as any mechanics that the enemies may have.

[Undertow.2389]

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWhUMoshtMwnB0RMIAY0TYLkJlLZJIFEBgCwBA-jxRBAB4pDIiLAAAPAgyU+Rp6PEt/QjKBBA-e

That's what I used for pretty much all of HoT exploration and story missions (except for a high healing power d/d setup for the very last instance fight vs mordremoth). You aren't going to be soloing every HP champ but it gets you through the normal mobs and veterans at a brisk pace.A bit of healing power and the water trait line goes a long way. You end up healing for 6-8k every time you swap to water.Staff is better than dagger due to being ranged with better aoe damage and control options.