What are combos and how do you achieve this?
Ideally, dropping a combo field allows allies (and oneself) to then use powers labelled as Combo Finishers through the field to gain additional effects (like burning if you drop a Ring of Fire). Look at tooltips to see which combo finishers you have as an Ele. Then, when allies drop white circles on the ground around you, use the finisher to get a combo. You can also drop your combo fields for allies to take advantage of.
Combo Fields are fields (or walls) that allow other attacks to create additional effects when going through that field. A combo always consists of such a ‘field’ + a ‘finisher’.
F. Ex. Your ring of fire you can create when wielding daggers (I don’t remember the correct name of the skill right now) is a Fire Field. If someone else uses either projectiles (like arrows or bullets) or a big slam attack (like the Warrior’s Whirlwind) inside or across that field, their attacks will get an additional Burning effect when they hit the enemy.
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Basically combos work like this…
Player A sets up a “Combo Field”. Combo fields are lasting areas of a particular effect, and are linked to a particular “element” (loosely used term). Each element type of combo field interacts differently with combo finishers. A combo finisher will not end the combo field, it simply interacts with the field to produce a special effect.
Player B activates a “Combo Finisher” inside of the combo field. There are several types of combo finishers, specifically, Projectile, Whirl, Blast, and Leap. Not all skills act as combo finishers, for example not all projectile weapon attacks act as a projectile combo finisher. Any skill that is a combo finisher will say so in the skill description.
Player A and Player B can actually be the same player. For example, an elementalist using scepter and dagger can set up a Ring of Fire as a Fire Combo Field, and can then use Dragon’s Tooth and Phoenix as two Blast Finsihers.
For more information on what combo fields are possible, and what each finsiher type would do when reacting to a specific combo field type, you can check out the Combo page on the wiki at http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo.
In short though, combos are ways for players to create enhanced power for the group through effect synergy. An elementalist with a staff can lay down Healing Rain, which will heal characters in the area of effect, but then any other characters that unleash a combo finisher within that field will cause additional healing without sacrificing anything. So, for example, a warrior could use a leap attack to deal damage to the target, and doing so inside a water field would cause them to heal themselves while still dealing full damage.
Hope that helps.
Just like they said it adds a bonus effect onto the attacks.
Ring/Wall of Fire + Projectiles = Burning addition to attack
Ring of Fire + Explosive/Slam = Area Might for anybody in the area
Poison AoE + Explosive/Slam = Area Weakness for enemys
Healing AoE + Explosive/Slam = Area Heal
Guardians Projectile Wall + Projectile = Remove Condition for self
Mesmer AoE + Projectile = Confusion on enemy
Those are just a couple of the ones that my guild uses and I could pull off the top of my head real quick.