Build:E/A Solo Green Farmer

From PvXwiki

The PvXwiki community finds this to be a good build. Through the PvX vetting system, it has reached an overall Rating in the range from 3.75 to < 4.75 and thus qualifies for the medium category of working builds: Good. This build has been designed for the following use: PvE farming

This build utilizes the elite Shadow Arts skill Shadow Form and the earth magic skill Sliver Armor to quickly take down bosses that are accompanied by medium/large mobs to efficiently farm their green items.

[edit] Attributes and skills

Elementalist / Assassin 12 + 1 + 3 Earth Magic 12 Shadow Arts 3 + 3 Energy Storage Shadow Form Factions Assassin. Shadow Arts 12 Shadow Form Elite Enchantment Spell For 18 seconds, all hostile Spells that target you fail and all attacks against you miss, but you deal 33% less damage. When Shadow Form ends, lose all but 41 Health. 45 1 10 Death's Charge Factions Assassin. Shadow Arts 12 Death's Charge Spell Shadow Step to target foe. If that foe has more Health than you, you are healed for 173. 30 ¼ 5 Ebon Battle Standard of Honor EotN No Profession. Ebon Vanguard rank Ebon Battle Standard of Honor Ward Spell You plant an Ebon Battle Standard of Honor at your current location. For 14..20 seconds, non-Spirit allies in this area strike for +8..15 damage and an additional +7..10 vs. Charr. 20 1 10 Sliver Armor Factions Elementalist. Earth Magic 16 Sliver Armor Enchantment Spell For 11 seconds, you have 52% chance to block attacks and whenever you are the target of a hostile Spell or attack one nearby foe is struck for 37 earth damage. 30 1 10 "By Ural's Hammer!" EotN No Profession. Deldrimor rank "By Ural's Hammer!" Shout For 7..10 seconds, you have +2 Health regeneration and do 25% more damage. This lasts 7..10 more seconds for each ally within earshot who is under 50% Health. 30 5 Intensity Nightfall Elementalist. Sunspear rank Intensity Enchantment Spell For 10 seconds, your spells deal 15..25% more damage. 45 1 5 Obsidian Flame Core Elementalist. Earth Magic 16 Obsidian Flame Spell Deal 118 damage to target foe. This Spell ignores armor but causes Exhaustion. 5 2 5 Dark Escape Factions Assassin. Shadow Arts 12 Dark Escape Stance For 13 seconds, you move 25% faster and take half damage. Dark Escape ends if you successfully hit with an attack. 30 5 Template code

[edit] Equipment

• Armor with Radiant Insignia
• Enchantments last 20% longer weapon. However, at 16 Earth Magic and 12 Shadow Arts, a 15%-19% upgrade will also provide the same extended durations for Sliver Armor and Shadow Form as a 20% upgrade.
• Arius' Sai or Chimor's Daggers are recommended Daggers.
• Galigord's Stone Staff is a recommended Staff.
• Totem Axe/Rajazan's Fervor + Galigord's Stone Scroll are also recommended. Earth Scrolls with identical stats as Galigord's can be found at Collector Ohtah in the Undercity (5 Plague Idols) or Collector Denos Makaluum in Vasburg Armory (5 Stone Horns). Droajam's Storm is also very similar to Galigord's Stone Scroll (and may be preferable depending on what you are farming).

[edit] Usage

• Run to the boss using Dark Escape, or, for the most difficult runs (even if longer with this method), a group of henchmen. When you arrive next to the boss send them away from radar range.
• When you are just out of aggro, activate Shadow Form and use Death's Charge to teleport in. Usually aggroing before teleporting in makes enemies clump together, giving Sliver Armor less of a chance to target the boss.
• Activate Ebon Battle Standard of Honor.
• Then activate Sliver Armor followed by Intensity and "By Ural's Hammer!". Make sure you are closer to the boss than anything else, or you will not kill it! If Sliver Armor ends up targeting the wrong foe, try stepping away and then back to the boss, this will often give you the desired effect.
• Spam Obsidian Flame on recharge.
• Just after the boss is dead, activate Shadow Form and use the speed buffs to run away to safety. You can use Shadow Form again since Morale Boosts recharges all skills.

[edit] Counters

• Shadow Form doesn't protect against signets, touch skills, traps and Area of Effect damage, but you can not be the target of AoE damage.
• Shadow Form will be removed by foes using Expunge Enchantments.
• A Dervish boss with Intimidating Aura and Chilling Victory will hit through and remove Shadow Form. Even though the initial attack will miss, the conditional damage will hit, thus triggering Intimidating Aura and removing your most recent enchantment. Bring a Cover Enchantment like Aura of Restoration and cast it AFTER Shadow Form and Sliver Armor.

[edit] Variants

• Obsidian Flame and Dark Escape may be switched out for other skills, depending on what you are farming.

• When fighting Warrior bosses, such as Sunreach Warmaker, it helps to use Rust so that his Healing Signet takes 2 times as long to cast. To do this, though, you will be required to take one point off of Energy Storage and put it into Water Magic.

• Caltrops is useful against bosses who attempt to flee when heavily damaged.

• Feigned Neutrality and/or Shadow Refuge is useful against groups which have mobs with touch skills which penetrate Shadow Form and is also required for the run to some bosses.

• You may also use Shock, Aftershock, & Teinai's Crystals in that order. Shock is a great interrupt on many bosses who cast their healing spells first to negate Sliver Armor.

• Shadow of Haste serves to give you an emergency out and is particularly useful when learning the build, taking the 'error' out of 'trial and error'. This serves particularly well when attempting to master a series of difficult bosses in a single run, such as the monk-mesmer-elementalist-necro constructs in Sunjiang District Explorable. Be warned - the speed boost offered by the skill makes pulling groups more difficult.

• See variant Build:E/A Gloom Farmer for farming gemstones in Gloom.

• Elemental Lord.

• Crystal Wave or Teinai's Crystals

• You Move Like a Dwarf! is a great knockdown/interrupt. It also doubles as a snare for bosses that like to run.

• Finish Him! is great to not only lower the boss's high AL, but deal a quick bit of damage and deep wound.

[edit] Notes

• Sometimes the skill Sliver Armor may start hitting other enemies instead of the boss and may change targets.
• If you have more than three melee opponents attacking you, the one being hit by Sliver Armor may flee.
• You can defeat mobs on the way to bosses as well as bosses using this build, so if the boss is covered by a big big mob you can't handle, or something annoying is in your way, the build works for it too.
• If your still learning, swap out Glyph of Elemental Power for Death's Retreat bring a hero and flag them a bit away from the boss and the battle your going to take, if you think your in trouble, run and use Death's Retreat on the flagged hero, then both of you run, this is a nice way to break aggro.
• Some of the bosses listed can be killed in NM without the use of Ebon Battle Standard of Honor by using Tenai's Crystals, or alternative Crystal Wave if you dont have access to the EOTN campaign or your Ebon Vanguard reputation is at a very low rank, on the other hand alot of the bosses on the list both in normal mode and hard mode cannot be killed without a high rank (work on your titles to make your character a more efficient farmer).

[edit] List of soloable bosses

The list of bosses currently soloable with this build can be found here.

A list of bosses soloable before the Shadow Form nerf can be found here.

[edit] See also

• Video: Green Farming.
• Video: E/A Green Farming Showing Several Bosses.
• Threads at GuildWars Guru and GWOnline.
• Video: E/A Solo Green Farming Guide Part 1 and E/A Solo Green Farming Guide Part 2.

[edit] NOTE

These videos were taken prior to the Shadow Form skill adjustment. The skills shown in the videos and the bosses that were farmed may no longer work as the damage of Sliver Armor is now greatly reduced but they still give a good indication of how the build functions.