As I’m sure most of you are aware, staff Ele is very good at setting up combo fields. For the longest time I thought you needed another person to pull off a combo attack. But one day while I was blasting things away with my staff all alone, I noticed that area might kept showing up. So I did a little research. You can in fact combo with yourself, giving yourself a metaphorical high five.
I bring this up: one to educate those who are unaware of said fact, two give advice on self comboing, and three to hear about other peoples experiences with self comboing.
I play a sturdy support Ele (whom obviously uses a staff). With a staff you can set up 1 fire field (lava font), 1 lightning field (static field), 1 ice field (frozen ground), and 2 water fields (geyser, & healing rain); While also giving me 2 different combo finishers (2 projectiles (stoning & shockwave), 1 blast (eruption)). The combo finishers are all in earth attunement, so to pull off a self-combo one needs to switch in or out of earth. Switching into earth will let you pull of projectile finishers, and switching out (with a little finagling) gets you blast finishers.
Projectile Finishers:
These are the easier of the two to perform. Simply set up one that aforementioned fields from earlier then switch into earth attunement immediately and use stoning or shockwave; thus expanding your abilities to inflict status conditions on foes thus inflicting: burning from fire, chilled from ice, and vulnerability from lightning. Finishing through water will grant yourself 2 seconds of regeneration. Stoning is preferred as it is quicker to cast and as your auto attack it recharges instantly.
Blast Finishers:
Slightly more difficult to pull off than projectile but definitely worth it. To pull off a blast finisher you must use eruption. First begin casting eruption, then about half way through casting change you attunement (this won’t interrupt your casting). Immediately after eruption is done casting set down one of your other combo fields directly on top of it. If done correctly (fast enough) Eruption will blast through your combo field offering: Area might (x3 for 20 seconds) with fire, area frost armor with ice, area swiftness with lightning, and area healing with water.
Personally I’m a fan of the fire and water projectile finishing because the extra burning is nice, and my build is semi centered around health regenerations. Ice projectile finisher is nice against fast bosses to help stack on some extra chill duration. Lighting’s vulnerability doesn’t last too long so I don’t often go for that one, it’s really more useful only in a group. And for blast finishers again water and fire take the cake. Area haling is great and 3 stacks of might before/during the fight, I’m not complaining. I typically use lightning blast finisher to get extra swiftness while running somewhere. Ice is ok,whne alone frost armor isn’t a huge advantage.
I know you can also self-combo with the summoned weapons as well, but have only tired it with frost bow. If anyone else has experience self comboing with Ele summoned weapons I’d love to hear about it.
, Being able to see it in action is much easier than just reading words. And It had completely slipped my mind that some of the other utilities involved combo’s as well.