Witch Elf Guide Part 1

Post by cypresshill
Witch Elf Career Video
Cerberias’ guide to rank 40 witch elf smackdown.
Background:
Gidday, im a rank 40 Witch Elf from Darklands. Currently renown rank 33. I’d figure myself at least a decent player of the Witch Elf class, but im no pro, so if anyone else has anything to add to this, ill be happy to try to update this guide as much as possible. This guide is aimed at rank 40’s, but I hope anyone playing the class will get at least some help out of it. This also means im not going to be talking about basic abilities and which ones more mathematically feasible, as I would expect people to know how the basic mechanics of the game work by rank 40. Note this is only the start of a guide, and will be added to as people respond. More of a group guide made by the community.

Mastery Choices:
So, we’ve got many different specs that im sure many people are using, but im only really going to discuss the two that I have found the most useful in rvr combat.

Carnage – http://www.wardb.com/career.aspx?id=...04:3:8:5:32:25
This spec’s main tools are On Your Knees, Kiss Of Doom (imo a must have for any spec, the damage increase alone from this is pretty nasty), and Elixir of the Cauldron (also imo a must have, were a squishy class, that’s going to attract a lot of fire, why not use that to our advantage in wasting the enemy time).

This spec, in my eyes, is more of a ‘pugging’ spec. That is, you can go in to the enemy ranks, and will usually kill one, without relying too heavily on support. The premise behind this is that you can pop on a bright wizard, throat slitter, get a kiss up, and on your knees everyone in the vicinity. This should give you the time to finish off that one enemy and either start working on the second or to get out of there leaving the enemy reeling from the incredibly fast death of one of their number.

Carnage does allow armor bypass with pierce armor, it gives us ~0 armor mitigation against almost all of our priority targets: RDPS, Runepriests, Archmages, etc... Make sure you get up an ailment on the enemy before using pierce armor so you get the armor penetration for 10 seconds.

Same with EoIP which gives us 0 armor against anyone for a nice burst, or the fact that PA works like a more powerful AW every 10 seconds (assuming they already aren't at 0 from the debuff) - Thanks Sogui

Pro’s
• Doesn’t need as much support to do its job,
• Gets you high on the damage meters (lol),
• Good for spreading a kiss of death over a few healers in the enemy ranks
• Less susceptible to CC, due to knocking down anyone who means to get you off the squishy your focusing.
• High damage, ability to deal with almost all classes attacking you.
• Relatively easy to play well, and kill people

Con’s
• No healing debuff, I cant stress this enough, if your playing with a team, without a healing debuff, against a premade or even a pug with good healers, they are more likely to be able to heal through your damage. (note that kiss of death isn’t a healing taken debuff, it’s a healing done debuff, hence why spreading a kiss of death over their healers is such a good idea)
• Needs weapon skill as a secondary stat to do more damage, since slice doesn’t ignore armour, this means less toughness/wounds and therefore less survivability.

Suffering/Treachery -
http://www.wardb.com/career.aspx?id=...520:11:2592:25
The only other mastery setup that I find useful for RVR combat. This build focuses on high single target damage, and utility. This is the build that I use so I may be a touch bias .

I find this spec very useful when in groups, and against other premades. The ability to put one black lotus up on someone that’s being focus fired as your running back to your healers after nuking down some poor schmuck of a bright wizard, and watching that person, being focus healed, still die, will keep the grin on my face for a long time. I started playing this build by getting an opener, then going for damage, and getting the healing debuff up on the person as soon as possible… but then when I started playing against better and better adversaries, I noticed… people can dispel your opener…. Damn those bright wizards. So, as it stands now I get up a heart seeker straight away after my opener to cover it for a few seconds, getting up a kiss and then a black lotus blade. By this time I should have 3 ailments on the target, which should cover your opener from dispels, unless the other team seems adamant in getting rid of it, instead of healing the person your mauling.

This build is very reliant on team mates. Your very easy to get cc’ed, so you will want at least a tank with you in the front ranks keeping snares up on the target your dpsing, guarding you, and knocking back those pesky Ironbreakers who try to knock you back. You will also want healers, this spec isn’t really designed to kill more than one enemy per stealth run. Go in, kill one, retreat and harass enemy melee/tanks while being healed back up.

Your mission is utility, your there to stun people, to get up debuffs on the right people to cripple the other team, while also nuking down squishy targets to thin the enemy ranks once in a while. This spec IS NOT, at least in my eyes, a suicide spec.

Pro’s
• Healing debuff – love to the black lotus.
• Nasty single target dps, but not hugely more, if at all, than carnage.
• Strength is the only dps stat that is really worthwhile to stack, since our main attack ignores armour. This leaves more room open for toughness/wounds, meaning that your more durable than some people might expect (which is good since you should have a healer, remember, this is a team play spec.)


Con’s
• Vulnerable to cc, moreso than the carnage spec listed above.
• Less aoe damage – don’t expect to top the damage meters with this spec.
• Hardish to play, since most of your moves require positional requirements, getting behind the enemy is sometimes quite difficult.


Gear – Now, im not going to make a full list of gear to aim for, because well, I don’t really have the time to go through all that effort. What I will do is tell you what stats I personally think, are the best stats for your witch elf.

Strength – What more can I say, it increases dps, if your having trouble nuking people down, stock up!
Wounds – Once you have enough strength to get people down, wounds is the best way to get survivability. Some people think toughness is the way to go, but theres a forum somewhere around here that shows that toughness is only the way to go as a tank. That being said, the wounds renown training gives you less wounds than any other stat, and the wounds talismans are the easiest ones to get permanent. I think you know what im saying there, get other stats from renown training and stock up your talismans with 19 wounds perma ones. They’re in our auction house usually for 35g each.

Toughness – Always a nice stat to get, not quite on the level of wounds, but renown training toughness is cheaper per point than wounds, and a lot of the wounds gear has toughness on it too. Basically, the way toughness works is that it reduces the dps taken by a certain amount per person attacking you, so say you have 100 people attacking you at 10 dps each, toughness could reduce that down to very very little (1 damage an attack I think is the lowest). Whereas its not as effective against burst dps (the type of dps were more likely to take). This makes toughness still a nice stat against low dpsers, like healers who are noob enough to try to dps you down while your ripping their face off, or turrets/pets.

Initiative – Although I personally haven’t stacked much of this, ive been hearing lately it’s a pretty decent stat to have afterall. Reduction in being crit is always nice to have.

Weapon skill – Great stat for carnage specced Witch Elves, not so good for the other two mastery trees, mostly because the main attacks of treachery and suffering should be ignoring armor (the dot part of envenomed blade, and if your attacking from behind with agonizing wound)

Willpower – this is for healers, heres hoping that Mythic gets this crap off our gear. Now before everyone says ‘BUT IT GIVES US SPELL DISRUPTION’! you should know that spells aren’t what normally kills us, and were quite good against them (see elixir of the cauldron) I’d much rather have an extra 100 hp than 10 willpower giving me a tinnnny bit of spell disrupt. That also being said, its not the worst stat to have some of, I think I’ve got like +20 of it due to annihilator having some, and my shoulders too.

Intel – If you have any of this, I pity you. Give us absolutely nothing, unless I’m missing something huge.

Ballistic skill – Throwing dagger damage, at least I’d assume, we don’t need any of this stat, were not going to kill anyone with throwing damage, and if we do, its probably because of that nice hefty kiss proc coming from the dagger.

Can anyone give me the link to the character finding profiley thingy website? Incase anyone wants to look at what im using and ask me where to get it.

Mastery Choices:
So, we’ve got many different specs that im sure many people are using, but im only really going to discuss the two that I have found the most useful in rvr combat.

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