Echovaldburgh

[Gnome]

The Frozen Bear hug

Elemental /Assassin

Build Code: copy and paste below to use
OgdTsYW+zBagMuGy5nP1odMBBA

Introduction
This is an anti-caster build that I have used to great success in “Fort Aspenwood” and in “Random Arena” with a minor modification.

Setup
Skills information from http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Skill

1 Water attunement or Resurrection signet if you play in Random Arena
Enchantment Spell. For 36...55...60 seconds, you are attuned to Water. You gain 1 Energy plus 30% of the base Energy cost of the Skill each time you use Water Magic. [ 10 energy 2 cast 45 cooldown ]

Signet. Resurrect target party member. That party member is returned to life with 100% Health and 25% Energy. This Signet only recharges when you gain a morale boost. [ 3 cast ]

2 Glyph of lesser Energy
Glyph. For the next 15 seconds, your next 2 Spells cost 10...16...18 less Energy to cast. [ 5 energy 1 cast 30 cooldown]

3 Maelstrom
Spell. Create a Maelstrom at target foe's location. For 10 seconds, foes adjacent to that area are struck for 10...22...25 cold damage each second. Maelstrom interrupts Spell-casting when it hits. This Spell causes Exhaustion. [ 25 energy 2 cast 30 cooldown]

4 Shadow walk
Stance. Shadow Step to target foe. For 30 seconds, you cannot cast Enchantments. When this Stance ends, you return to your original location
[ 5 energy 30 cooldown]

5 Winters embrace
Hex Spell. For 2...5...6 seconds, you and target touched foe move 90% slower. [ 5 energy 3/4 cast 12 cooldown]

6 Frozen burst
Hex Spell. All nearby foes are struck for 10...70...85 cold damage and move 66% slower for 3...7...8 seconds.
[ 15 energy 3/4 cast 5 cooldown]

7 Water trident
Elite Spell. Send out a fast-moving Water Trident striking target foe for 10...58...70 cold damage if it hits. If it hits a moving foe, that foe is knocked down. [ 5 energy 1 cast 3 cooldown]

8 Dash
Stance. For 3 seconds, you run 50% faster.
[ 5 energy 8 cooldown]
Kit
One Superior vigor rune
One minor water magic rune +1 Glacier head piece
Two runes of vitae
One Minor Energy Storage Rune
Five survivor Insignia

Note. You may want to try with Blessed insignias instead (+10 armor while enchanted). I have not tested this at the time of writing this article.

Weapon set

Main hand
sword or axe +5 energy +30 health
Wand 20/20 water magic. (Example: Drikard's Rod)

offhand
Focus 20/20 water magic (Example: The Brainfreezer)
Or go with a 20% recharge and a +30 hp mod if you like to have a little more health. (Example: Crystal Focus)

Note: I will not go in to weapon swapping here. If you want to learn more about this tactic there is a ton of information about this topic on the internet.

Attributed
Water Magic 14
Energy Storage 13

Application
I will give you a case so you can see its use more clearly. After playing countless matches in “Fort aspenwood” I noticed the heavily use of Elementals from the Luxon side. They used fire magic mostly and nuked the gates in a disturbing quick manner.

To counter this and frankly just to try and make a fresh useful build I came up with “the frozen bear hug”. Now if there is no monk, restoration ritual or other healer present this will be my target.

Beforehand I cast water attunement then I scout for a suitable target. When I have one I cast glyph of lesser energy followed by Maelstrom. This is a critical moment, you have to be very fast now and use shadow walk followed by Winters embrace. If you succeed in trapping your target he will be 90% slower and unable to cast any spells. To be short he is in your mercy. If he panics and tried to move you knock him down with water trident else you make use of Frozen burst and keeps winters embrace on him until the target is dead.

The best players out there are great at kiting (moving around, never stands still). They can be a real challenge to trap. If you face one of these players try using Winters embrace before maelstrom and make quick use of water trident after that. Move an inch closer while they are knockt down and use Frozen burst. Snare them in with winters embrace again and use another maelstrom if needed.

Pros and Cons
+Can shutdown and kill a caster with little harm to self from target caster.

+snare 90% of targets movement speed.( Helping your allies to catch and kill the target)

+Frozen burst is a great get away if you are hunted by melee characters.

+shadow walk plus Dash allows you to get out of danger if you get in trouble and need to leg it.

+ can interrupt snare and kill more than one enemy if they stand close (I have done it many times)

-you have no healing so you must rely on movement and friendly healers to survive

-If the target manages to kite out of maelstrom before you snare them you will not be able to interrupt the targets spells.

-winters embrace will slow you down 90% as well.

-It is possible for the enemy to remove winters embrace.

-You cannot remove your own 90% movement disadvantage (a drawback from using winters embrace)

-Shadow walk is a stance and can be broken with for example wild blow. This will teleport you back to where you casted Shadow walk.

-when Shadow walk expires it will teleport you back even if your target is not dead yet.

-It is easy to forget to cancel out shadow walk with dash after a kill sometimes. This will teleport you back when you least expect it.

Last word

I have got a lot of feedback from this build while playing in “Fort aspenwood”( from Luxon casters mostly) It’s a fun build that I hope you will enjoy as much as I have!
If you have any questions please send me a pm from the forum or make a post and I will try to get back to you.


Thanks for reading and happy hunting!



**Update**
The nurf to "Shadow walk" (1 sec before you can use any skill after use) made this build not work as well as it used to do. =(

**Update 2**
"Shadow walk" was tweaked again and now only attack skills are affected by the 1sec drawback, making this build work as intended again
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[Elder]

Gnome, after reading this Im happy you aren't luxon (to often atleast). When mastered this sounds like a mean killingmachine wich as a bonus is really annoying for the ones not expecting it.
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[Gnome]

yes its pretty effective and annoying. After a few successfull kills they will look for you and try to kite when you use maelstrom, this is when you use winters embrace before maelstrom.

[Narik]

[This is an Echo Historical Build and may have been affected by balance changes since the original time of posting, refer to the date of thread creation before commenting on the build]

Nerfed, or changed rather, as it was not exactly overpowered to begin. Principle still applies, trap a monk in a rupting aoe storm so you can spank him. NEXT
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Everything in Good Humour.