Thou shall not Escape – EL PVP Guide by Sakasen

Thou shall not Escape – EL PVP Guide von Sakasen steht unter einer Creative Commons Namensnennung-Nicht-kommerziell-Weitergabe unter gleichen Bedingungen 3.0 Unported Lizenz.
Added to MMOsite Build Collection :)

After looking through some EL Guides i thought, theres so much damage potential you leave out by grabing only ice or firebuild, thinking you should set your priority in decent combos. Some people might already know me from my Force User Guide, i got an EL as alternative Character, so dont be too harsh if theres anything wrong. After the recent patch in which EL is granted an nearly greaticeshield, but this has been neved, my build doesnt rely on that fact you need to use your iceshield in order to get your combos. I think the slow from the ice is a Key element in PVP, so i maxed out that Tree.

*NOTICE: This refers to Dragon Nest Sea – but you can use the additional SP on other versions on skills, that you want to improve.

LEVELCAP-Skillbuilds 40&50

Levelcap 40

Levelcap 50

Im not going to explain all Skills, just the Ones who are worth to be mentioned.

Sorceress Tree:
Glacial Spike – High Freeze Chance, short CD, short Casting, long Range, notice to only use at short range since the travel time is so long, not maxed since the freezeeffect and not the damage is wanted.

Poison Missile – Used to keep the Enemy down. Leaved at level 1 due lack of sp.

Charged Missile – Since EL lack ranged skills, i prefer to get this skill, if you hit you can cast immediatly void Blast to knock your enemy down, but its quite hard to hit. For skilled PVP player only i guess.

Airkick – Why not Airkick? I dont believe i ever needed Airkick with my EL in PVP, since many skills having a knock up effects like iceshards or firewall. I think its not usefull, but its your preference.

Elemental Lord Tree:
Fireball – A Gamemaking Skill if you know how to use it, use it when you waiting for CD at long ranged, dont use that at short range. With a bit Aimtraining you get like 80% Hitchance since the Hitbox is large.

Fire Wall – Nice amount of Superarmor while casting, throws your enemies standing nearby up in the air, great for setting your next combos.

Hot Rod – Some people wont get this far, since they dont believe that its usefull at all. I think the other Way around, since EL lack mobility and doesnt got so many ranged Skills, you get that in order to stay near you enemy and glacial wave him right afterwards.

Icy Shards – Great Damage, shines with the EX skill. Can be easily chained with Frozen Spikes. Since this is one for your main skills, get a Plate for it!

Ice Shield – Im not sure how long it takes till the Superarmor is going to be nerfed, but i still recommend to max out this Skill, since 50% Damagereduction is amazing. Take a Plate for That! Due Sp-Lack LvL 6. If you don't like this Skill grab Fireshield instead(Colo rules)

Chilling Mist – Used right after Glacial Wave in order to get your icestacking slow on your Enemy. Great Damage, but not maxed due lack of sp.

Glacial Wave – In my Opinion this is the Best Skill of EL, the freezeduration can me increased by leveling up and with a skill palte. Leaved at Level 8, since the steps from that on will only be 0.3 sec instead of 0.5 sec.

Shatter – One of the scariest Skill for Enemies, it slows you so much down, you will only have around 40% Movement Speed.

Phoenix Storm alias Angry Bird - After some suggestions i decided it have to be in this build, since the cast time is quite short, dealing a good amoutn of damage when the enemy is frozen, also will make it able to take ignite. Notice this has the highest chance of burning your enemy.

Ignite - Ignites enemies in burnstatus, dealing a high amount of damage. A hit fireball will mostly cause burnstatus, making this ability for a nice chain of damage before the enemy can counter.

Combos and Openings:
Im Not very experienced in that, but i know some decent Combos you can pull off. I would be glad if you would tell me more about that.

Opening 1
Glacial Spike + Flame Spark + Freezing Field
You using the first two Skills as flinch, aiming Glacial Spike to the right side of your Enemy and Flame Spark to the left Side, making him dodge, that he cannot avoid Freezing Field, which slows your Enemy quite well.

Opening 2
Shockwave + Freezing Field
Due the Long Time to again your Balance after Shockwave, Freezing Field has a great Hitchance.

Strong combo 1
Flame Rod + Glacial Wave + Chilling Mist + Shatter
Flame Rod makes your Enemy unable to move, also using up all the Blockstatus that Clerics might have. Notice some class can counter you with Flamerod, so be aware. After they are unable to move due the Fire Damage, immediatly freeze them with Glacial Wave, so they will be defenseless agianst Chilling Mist and Shatter.

Waiting for Cooldowns(Mostly against Melee):
CD 1:
Fireball + Flame Spark
While using Fireball at the distance, they mostly move to the back to make it harder to hit, but you can take your time to aim at then, notice this requires aimtraining in order to hit, also noticing you have to aim higher how further your enemy is.

CD 2:
Firewall + Frozen Spikes + Icy Shards
Firewall grants you a nice amount of SA, knocking enemies to the air. You can combo then right afterwards, using Frozen Spikes at short ranged, when they aerial evade, you just using icyshards in ex mode to hit them again. Before reaching Cap 50, you might consider to use it the other Way around.

Crests and Equip:
For Skills i would suggest:

• Glacial Wave– 20% Duration
• Shatter – 20% Damage
• Chilling Mist – 20% Damage
• Icy Shards – 20% Damage

For Stats i would suggest(PVP!):

• Magician Plate – Magicdamage
• Wise Plate – Int
• Fatal Plate – Crit
• Wind Plate – Agi
• Life Vitality – max HP
• Vitality – Vit
• Shining Plate – Phy. Def
• Ultimate Plate – Final Damage

For Suffix i suggest:

Both Weapons - Intellect
Upper Body+Lower Body - Intellect
Gloves and Shoes – Iron Wall
Tiara/Hairstyle - Tent

Potentials:
For Armor i suggest:
INT+MAX HP+VIT/AGI

For Weapons i suggest:
INT+Magicdmg / Iceattk+Fireattk

For Necklace and Earrings i suggest:
MAX HP+INT+VIT/AGI

For Rings i suggest:
Magicdmg / Iceattk + INT + AGI + (MAX HP)

Playstyle against each Class
This is the Quint of what youll need to learn to win, you playstyle against the other classes and their openings, this differences the Good Player from the Bad Ones.
Swordmaster: There are two Types of SM – the one type immediatly rush in, the other Type try to initiate mostly with moonlight splitter and then goes to melee, in this case keep an eye at him to see the moonlight splitter comes, mostly they wont engage after failing this one. After the recent patch they mostly running while waiting for Cooldowns and for your Mana to run out. Just activate you Shield if they run towards you, otherwise deactivate it, take care of Rage and Moonlight Splitter, because these are the openings of them. Try to take advantage of their running in order to use your fireball, with a bit calculation you're able to hit them. Also, Hot Rod it great on them too if used right, since you are a bit faster than they are. Beware of their ability to escape from beeing froezn, you might consider to burn them first for that case.
Mercenary: Easiest Class to fight in my Opinion, untill he gets the chance to fight you close combat. The Distance Spells are mostly punishing swing and bombs away, but they are quite easy to dodge if you keep an eye of them, the key to win is to freeze him at close ranged, since mercenaries rely on close combat to hit you. The Answer against Iron Skin is Glacial Wave, Since it still freeze him and they run straight into you. Notice Firewall is a great option to hit him
Paladin: Quite difficult Class in my opinion to fight with. This Class has really much hp in addition also has heal and block, making it hard to get him down. Paladin mostly using Shield Charge, Paralyze Bolt and Charitable Zap to initiate, the last one is hard to avoid, but the other ones are easy to dodge. The Bind and Shocking State is not good for you, try to prevent that in order to cast your combos. I guess keep your distance and waiting for cooldowns is the key to win here, i think the skills of Paladin are easy to dodge.
Priest: This is quite tricky to fight with, as agressive play will resume into beeing electroshocked all the time, since he spams his sticks all the time. The Key is here is hit him as hard as you can with your full Combo and keep the distance than in order to not getted shocked, since this is the key damage from priest. Also these Sticks are really painfull, just keep away from them and dont try to destroy them. Notice he runs towards you if his combo is ready, try to interrupt his first spell, so he goes back again.
Acrobat: In my Opinion the hardest Class to fight against, can jump 2 Times, Bind you and deal heavy damage with melee combo, making it nearly impossible to escape from that. The Answer against his Bind is Fireball, when he goes close range Fire Wall is a good option. Notice you need to hit them after a dodge animation, otherwise you skill won't him him.
Bowmaster: You need to be agressive in order to get near them and fullfill your combo, since the range skills of bowmaster are stronger than yours. Notice agressive Gameplay doesnt mean you just running at him and spamming your skills like an idiot, it means, you need to stay as near as you can by the Bowmaster and still be able to dodge hsi attacks. The Key here is to stick at him, and attack him right after a dodge.
Elemental Lord: A very interesting Fight, notice the Key here is to Glacial Wave him first and keep him slowed, your first full combo will declare who wins. Also notice while Glacial Wave on cooldowm, Iceskills>Fireskills, the slow is superior in that terms.
Force User: You really want to know how you beat my main? I guess you have to evade timestop, thats the key to win, this class doesnt have much superarmor, take advantage of that. For more Information, just look at my Force User PVP Guide.


I Hoped you liked that Guide, Comment and Suggestions are welcome!

post a run or pvp match using this build so we get a ideal at how to use this build please.

Interesting build. Thanks for posting.

added to guide collection!

Detailed versus class description . Nice!

Question, am curious as to why no Phoenix bird and no icy gust? phoenix does massive damage when target is frozen and dosen't break target and the snare from icy gust at higher levels is pretty good as well

Phoenix storm alias angry bird, why dont i get that one?

Its simple as it sounds, Ice>Fire, in order to use your combo you stack iceskills instead of fireskills to keep him slowed. im not sure about that, but in my theoretical opinion the slow from a ice skill is superior to the firedamage of phoenix, after iceskills i mostly use fireball, no way he can escape that with 30% movability. Due the Slow projectile and low Damage (1758+81% is low compared to firewall) i decided to use the sp in firewall instead, with has a insane scaling (351%+7676). i suggest to use Glacial Spike instead since the freeze effect stacks, meaning you keep him even longer slowed or even freezed. The other option would to give up sp in firewall and get phoenix storm lvl 4 and ignite lvl1 or phoenix sotrm lvl 6. I dont think the Damage can be compared to each other.

Why not Ice Gust/Frostwind?

Frostwind is quite a slow casting skill, his damage at lvl9 cant be compared to other skills like flame spark. I dont think you got time to cast that skill, i rather suggest to cast other skills instead, because i never felt i run out of skills. Actually my EL got that skill and i dont ever felt like it was necessary.

@chris
This is actually a theoretical Build, i play mainly a PVP FU and a PVM EL - this is based on the Skillschains i experienced in PVP with my EL. Would be glas if some experienced EL would comment on that.

Opening 1(Alternate)
Original:Charged Missile + Void Blast
Alternate: Charge Missile + Basic Attack( Knocked Down)+ Flame Worm [SMILE=2]
This is what i usually do if u fell that void blast is too hard to hit
Since EL have to get that skill might as well use it [SMILE=3]

Well, i think your patatic if your using the Shields.
thats the must OP thing in pvp, in 1v1 using it just makes you look like a noob :]

You talkin nonsense, i dont get the shield because of the SA, i use it to get the 50% damagereduction, which is insane. Stop accusing, this isn't based on the recent patch that came out *eyeroll

Unlike NA and SEA, using a shield here is pretty noobish lol

The recent patch adds too much SA to the Iceshield thats true, but think about it without the fact of SA - it freezes and you get 50% less Damage, you can say what you want, a professional player won't give you the victory for free, If you saw the recent Tournament, you would have see that, i dont htink you can call these people "noobish". Its true the SA is too great, but it also true that this shield will grant you a huge bonus. tell a priest to play without heal i want to hear that.  What i want to say is, that you are still able to beat EL, i hope the balance will be soon restored, since that SA is too huge and thats the only point i agree with,

*UPDATE - Due some great Feedback i changed my build into a hybrid one, making is build really suitable for gvg.

Why is Ice Barrier 2?
Leave it at level 1. There is only a 15% difference in magic strength durability, but costs a whopping 5 SP.
In PvP, any decent-damaging skill will render it useless in one shot. You will hardly ever see its freeze aspect.

Flame Spark
In PvP, Flame Spark's constant strong pokes + stagger has proved itself extremely invaluable.
In my opinion, level 9 is just too good to pass up.

Ice Shield is maxed but Mana Surge/Magic Return is 0
I won't judge you for using shield, but for the sake of argument, the above is contradictory.
Shield will burn MP at an insane rate whether or not you have masterful control of the toggle. You need to be able to save MP wherever possible.
For only 7 SP (Mana Surge/Magic Return 3), you'll have a 20% chance to recover 30% of whatever you just used.


Level 1 Frost Wind has 10% delay.
Level 9 Frost Wind has 42% delay.
re: http://forum.mmosite.com/thread/ ... tml#p4eabbe0d6f6331

As for its usage, I like to use it during a knockdown combo right after Poison.
In most cases, it will hit. Especially if it's high level, it will be harder for your opponent to escape your knockdown combo.

I have a few more gripes, but I'll leave it at this for now.

pve el?


sigh...

@azumax
Your points are good, but considering the fact you have to give up sp on ignite/firetree, this build is far much stronger in gvg than yours if you do ladder - As my choice is to be strong in teamfights, you need to max out your survivability, meaning you need to get that extra 15% on top of your iceshield. Frostwind might be a great skill in 1vs1, but in gvg you cannot give so much sp for that, use it in ignite/hot rod instead. 2 EL rushing in with flamerod + a fu teleport and timestop is a deadly combo in gvg. Without flamerod you lack an great opening, in sea this is atm a very strong combo, its nearly impossible to stop that even with bind from clerics. As EL i felt like you never survived so long that you mana will be down to zero, also you are quite guarded by your teammates as you are the maindamagedealer. The last poitn is, that you dont only rely on the shield alone, you can sure play without it, you just have to think about the situation, if you are 2+ in a 8vs8 you wont need to toggle that on.

@chris
you misunderstood me, im talking that i used the combochains with my pvm el, this is ofc a pvp guide, the max of iceshield should be a signifikant symbol of that.

His build is actually pretty similar to mine and its working very well in DNSEA. where everyone uses their ice shield. too much noobs around to agree not to use it.

i can understand his concept. but i can say that his build works very well till lv 40. it isnt so at lvl 50.

because to do well at lvl 50, u need a high lvl frost wind and firebird.

a high lvl frost wind and firebird cannot be utilized at lvl 40 cap. there isnt enough sp as u need ur skills like flame road and ultimate and shatter and ice sield (on SEA)

so hes actually done quite a gd job for those on DN SEA and NA who are getting the lvl 40 cap soon

Im going to summarize, why i took the build as it is now:



As you can see, i take flame rod as irreplacable skill and maxing out ice shield, giving you 50% resistance, also maxing out icy shards since you get your ex skill.

Suggestions says that i have to take icy gust -> 307 / 312 sp, one level in glacial wave is the best way to use up the last sp.

Other Suggestion are to level up glacial wave + phoenix storm -> 311 / 312 sp, lead to glacial wave level 8 and phoenix storm level 7 - sounds not strong at all

Lets say to upgrade Glacial way to Level 8, leading for 6,5 sec freeze, 0,5 sec-steps from 1-8, 0,3 sec-steps till 11. -> 299/312 sp, by giving up one level in glacial wave you can max out chilling mist, leading to my Build. For Damagecomparison look at that:

Level 3 426% + 4554
Level 7 450% + 10629

Considering hte Fact that Chilling Mist has theoretical the biggest growth, the conclusion is to take the build as it is now.

If you're talking about group fight, then I'm even more concerned about having Mana Surge/Magic Return at 0.



The former makes it sound like ELs are disposable, which they are far from. I constantly see ELs with the highest kill-to-death ratios, meaning they have to last on the field for a while. And you can't achieve this with dwindling mana.

And there's really not much conventional truth to the latter unless you have had previous arrangement with your teammates. Besides Protect mode, everyone will be looking out for themselves first and foremost.

[quote]Quote: Originally Posted by [url=http://forum.mmosite.com/member/info/3072892/2]Sakasen[/url] at Dec 5, 2011 12:47 pm
The recent patch adds too much SA to the Iceshield thats true, but think about it without the fact of SA - it freezes and you get 50% less Damage, you can say what you want, a professional player won't give you the victory for free, If you saw the recent Tournament, you would have see that, i dont htink you can call these people "noobish". Its true the SA is too great, but it also true that this shield will grant you a huge bonus. tell a priest to play without heal i want to hear that. What i want to say is, that you are still able to beat EL, i hope the balance will be soon restored, since that SA is too huge and thats the only point i agree with,

*UPDATE - Due some great Feedback i changed my build into a hybrid one, making is build really suitable for gvg. [url=http://forum.mmosite.com/thread/2/217/20111204/Thou_shall_not_Escape_EL_PVP_Guide_by_Sakasen-4edbe51b005054a13-1.html#p4edd2dc5132788][STB_STATIC_IMAGE_HOST]images/back.gif[/STB_STATIC_IMAGE_HOST][/url][/quote]lol people like you is why pvp in sea and na is completely broken, tournament = win or win, you obviously gonna use all your skills

@azumax
well, i maybe express it the wrong way, what i mean is, that EL are mostly the first targets in group fights, even with protection you will mostly be focussed, leading you to either kill them first or get killed before your mana runs out. Mana management, well its a weakness in this build i guess, but imo i think you can manage that. If not, this build doesnt fit with your playstyle and grab another one.

@186
Fairness is declared by the people theirselves and not by a single person. I'm making the best out of the situation, if you think iceshield isnt worth that, get fireshield and there you go with you playstyle. I'm not the one who made that iceshield buff, its too strong in my opinion too, but what do you want to do about that? Keep crying isnt an solution, please stop writing all over the same thing, cause it doesnt change anything and sabotaged my thread. thanks.

Its a nice build and i appreciate the time you took into making it! i will surely try it out when i make my first PVP EL. also i agree that that you should utilise what you have been given (ice shield). If people are so bummed about it being used against them why dont they make an EL and use it aswell? There has to be ways to beat an EL with ice shield or else they wouldnt put it there in the first place and its being patched soon anyway