Raptor Farming, post SF nerf
It would seem that the Raptors are not quaking in thier shoes anymore, even with a Wintersday in July (see your GW login screen for details) weekend coming up. Are there any improvements to the Sliver Armor builds?

I have tried the Sliver armor build with Intensity and Ebon Standard of Honor, which pumps up the damage to nearly what it is before the Shadow Form nerf and it take longer and is clunkier, but you can kill most of them. It has definately will be slower and less efficient. I am also trying a Degen build which is also having some success because it is not effected by the nerf, but it works best on a Perma Shadow SIN, which I have.

Jjadin gave me a SF build with Shadow Form that I tried and it work OK, but not like before with Intensity and Ebon Battle Standard of Honor. For and ele the following may work well. I think this build may be worth a try which does not use SF. OgVTMyEzyBV8VLFxCeIKwEEBA I may think about changing Ward Against Foes for Glyph of Renewal for Sliver Armer Spamming

I came up with a build that uses Sliver armor + ebon battle standard to kill the boss. Then it uses Radiation field + vipers defense to kill the other raptors. When it works well they all die in about 1 min. When it doesnt work well...its not pretty. Biggest problem is if the Broodmother doesnt die fast enough. You need the recharge on SF to be able to wait out the degen. I use air of superiority and sometimes get a recharge even if the Broodmother doesnt die. The next problem with this degen build is the timing. You have to time it just right because they will scatter. I use Radiation field (asuran R10) then immediately after the portal closes I use vipers defense. If I time it wrong they will scatter before I can use vipers defense. It also seems that if I use vipers defense too early, they dont always die. Its a far cry from the old fire build that I loved so much. I still havent mastered the timing and the results are somewhat inconsistent for me. Sometimes I can get 8 perfect runs in a row, then another time I get like 3 runs in a row where they all have like 50 health left and dont die. The mist form build on wiki works pretty well. I came up with almost an identical build before I saw theirs but mine failed because I didnt use magnetic aura.

Jjaden have you tried MIST Form replacing SF in the Fire Build. I thinking this may have a chance of working, but I have not tried it.

I use that build when my ele farms raptors, except I have GoR in place Ward Against Foes. A second before I go up against the boss I hit Magnetic Aura because her poison will get through so I target her with Ether Feast and keep wanding her so she doesn't get away. Here is the build I use; OgVTM0Ezw5rWKWG8QUBKwEEBA . I have a sup Earth rune and Minor Energy rune on my GEO Armor. I also use a 20% Enchant mod and have a High Energy set wand/focus on standby, for those times when only one or 2 raptors are left and I need just enough juice to kill them.

mist form has to be accompanied by mantra of resolve, magnetic aura, and channeling. You need magnetic aura to stop them from interupting you so much. You need channeling to counter the energy lost from the penalty whenever mantra of resolves stops you from being interupted. So thats 4 skills right there, if you try to keep air of superiority you only have 3 spots left for fire. And we still dont have a running skill mentioned here. I dont think mist form and fire are going to work.

I have not played around lately, I will have to take a night off from HFFF. I was thinking though that Ether Nightmare and an echoed Cry of Pain might do the trick for offense. Ether Nightmare gives me 7 degen for 10 seconds. Or, replace Arcane Echo with Radiation Field (I might even have that on my Ele) to get the full 10 pips of degen. It looks like my Ether Nightmare/CoP/Arcane might fit into the slots left for a Mist Form build. Something like 16 water, 12 Inspiration, 4 Energy (or Air if Glyph of Swiftness fits in there somewhere)? For an ele, glyph of Swiftness might come in handy.

I was thinking that you would not get interupted from attacks if Mist Form is up, but I have not tried that. Yes if you are getting interupted, then that would not be good. Update: I guess I answered my own question looking up the skill. Although using Mist Form prevents one from taking damage from attacks, the attacks will still hit, and any possible effects delivered by those attacks will still come through. This includes conditions, interrupts, and the life stealing from Vampiric weapons and Nightmare Weapon.

This build works for me: From PvX Wiki - Elementalist/Mesmer Level: 20 Energy Storage: 4+1 Water Magic: 11+3 Earth Magic: 12+1+1 Inspiration Magic: 5 Glyph of Elemental Power (Elementalist other) For 25 seconds, your elemental attributes are boosted by 2 for your next 10 Spells. Energy:5 Cast:1 Recharge:5 Armor of Mist (Water Magic) For 17 seconds, you gain +32 armor and move 33% faster. Energy:10 Cast:1 Recharge:30 Mantra of Resolve (Inspiration Magic) For 50 seconds, you cannot be interrupted, but each time you would have been interrupted, you lose 8 Energy or Mantra of Resolve ends. Energy:10 Cast:0 Recharge:20 Magnetic Aura (Earth Magic) For 17 seconds, Magnetic Aura has a 75% chance to block melee attacks. Energy:5 Cast:0.25 Recharge:60 Mist Form (Water Magic) For 17 seconds, you cannot take or deal damage from attacks. Energy:10 Cast:1 Recharge:30 Channeling (Inspiration Magic) For 24 seconds, whenever you cast a Spell, you gain 1 Energy for each foe in the area. Energy:5 Cast:1 Recharge:15 Sliver Armor (Earth Magic) For 10 seconds, you have a 45% chance to block attacks and whenever you are the target of a hostile Spell or attack, one nearby foe is struck for 29 earth damage. Energy:10 Cast:1 Recharge:30 Air of Superiority ( ) For 10..30 seconds you gain a random Asuran Benefit every time you earn Experience from Killing an Enemy Energy:5 Cast:0 Recharge:20 The caster weapon has to have enchant extension, of course, but needs to be ranged, not a sword or axe. Target Brood mother on the way into the cave. Enter the cave and cast Glyph + Armor of Mist. Aggro everything, and while doing so cast Mantra. When the Boss message pops up, cast Magnetic, Mist form, Channeling, attack Brood Mother, Sliver Form, Air. You are counting on either killing the Brood Mother or Air to recharge your skills. Neither Mist or Sliver last long enough to take the whole group down in one casting. The ranged weapon helps point Sliver in the right direction. Not as good as the fire build, but the most steady of the three or four other builds I have tried. Jhaedin, I have 22 golds and several scrolls if you are interested. I also have three Claws of the brood Mother if anyone wants them (free, I will keep them until I need room in storage).

Interested in the golds. I finished my survivor but Big City Brawler is probably still working on his and may want the scrolls.

Actually, it is 19 golds and three greens. Sorry for any confusion this may have caused. Please move along, nothing to see here. :)

Surprize how well that build works. In HM works like a charm, now I have more greens to get rid of like thos Broodmothers Claws. I like to put the skills in the order of use so like the order you listed them Cyvil.

Not sure why this post is in this section. Is it worth it to farm Wintersday stuff, I guess it may be candy canes, etc. I am not sure I would do with all of them, sell them I guess which means I need to buy something. Wormsy you got another Obsidan Edge you want to sell. My eyes are on maybe the Crystaline, hmmm.

Kind of off topic but is it even worth farming Raptors in Normal mode for special event drops? I've been having a heck of a time trying to finish EotN, still stuck on Heart of Shiver Peaks, so no HM for me right now in the North. I have been tinkering with a wamo build which is just an adaption of my old Vermin build to farm them, have gotten loads of die, one gold none max elemental sword and a bunch of crappy golds, but I know in HM the drops would be much better and more plentiful. Haven't farmed for special event drops in NM just wondering if it is even worth the time? The run is super fast but I think I may fair better just doing my 105 MoD runs from Bot Springs. Mostly just wanting to stock up on ale and candy canes, preferably peppermint I already have a stash of winter green ones that should last forever.