Earth Magic is an Elementalist secondary attribute meaning that any character with an Elementalist for their primary or secondary class can put points into this attribute.
Guild Wars Description
"No inherent effect. Many Elementalist skills, especially spells which protect you or your allies or deal earth damage, become more effective with higher Earth Magic."
General Description
Earth Magic, like Water Magic and unlike Fire Magic and Air Magic, has a mixed bag of skills. There are a large number of protection skills here, but there are also some surprisingly strong damaging spells as well.
First up, the protection skills. Armor of Earth and Kinetic Armor both give you an armor bonus, while Magnetic Aura blocks 75% of melee attacks. All together, these three give a melee attacker a great advantage. Earth Magic also possesses three ward skills: Ward Against Foes, Ward Against Elements, and Ward Against Melee, all of which, when used at the right time, can give your party the edge.
Anyone who has ever fought a Sand Elemental knows Earth Magic skills pack quite a punch. Obsidian Flame, Stone Daggers and Stoning cause large amounts of damage to a single foe, while Earthquake, Aftershock, and Crystal Wave all deal large amounts of damage to many foes. Aftershock is particularly powerful, dealing extra damage if the foe is knocked down, and possessing a low energy cost and near-instant cast speed. In comparison to Aftershock, Crystal Wave is a more expensive, less damaging spell that recharges more slowly and cures enemies of their conditions.
Earth Magic is a favourite attribute of Warrior primaries because of its bonuses to melee attackers, and also because of the area-of-effect spells that effect everyone around the caster. For a melee attacker, this is quite a lot of people. A dealdly tactic is using Backbreaker as a hammer warrior to knock down a foe, then using Aftershock to deal huge amounts of damage. However, Earth Magic is diverse enough to be used by all professions.
See Also
- Earth Magic skills
- List of Attributes