Ride the Lightning

Ride the lightning to your foe, then strike all nearby foes with an electrical burst. If a foe is hit by the burst, the skill's recharge is halved. — In-game description

Ride the Lightning

Profession

Elementalist (skill list)

Weapon

Off hand dagger

Attunement

Air

Movement

Leap

Game link

API

5529

“

20

25

 

Ride the Lightning

Ride the lightning to your foe, then strike all nearby foes with an electrical burst. If a foe is hit by the burst, the skill's recharge is halved.

 Damage: 367 (1.0)^?

 Damage: 220 (0.6)^?

 Number of Targets: 5

 Radius: 180

 Range: 1,200

— In-game description

Related traits

Air

• Aeromancer's Training — Gain ferocity, and gain additional ferocity while attuned to air. Air weapon skills get a reduced recharge time.

Notes

• Using this skill puts you under the Ride the Lightning effect for 2 second, during which you will move at a rate of 600 units per second and cannot use skills or swap attunements.
  • The effect ends early if you are knocked down, die, enter underwater mode, or reach your target.
  • Unlike Mist Form, you can still take damage while riding the lightning.
• Without a target, you will move forward the full distance or until you hit an obstacle. If a foe is targeted, you continue moving until you hit your opponent, tracking its forward motion. However, if the target changes course during the two seconds, you will miss.
• Although the skill's obvious use is to close the distance on a target, it is frequently used to escape foes or quickly travel across a map. The skill can also be used to move across gaps that are too far to jump.
  • Without a target, you will move forward 1,200 units and stop. With a target, you will move until you are at the same map coordinates (i.e x, y axes) as the target.
  • While crossing the gap, you will lose vertical height (i.e. along the z-axis), as if under the effects of gravity.
  • Once you stop, if nothing is below you, you will fall until you hit the surface. If the distance is far enough, you will suffer falling damage and enter combat; as with any fall, you can be defeated if the drop is too far.
• Using the skill with auto-targeting enabled will often cause you to travel in an unexpected direction or aggro foes that you meant to avoid.

Version history

For a detailed skill history, see here.

Patch	Changes
August 23, 2022	(PvE only) Recharge reduced from 30 seconds to 20 seconds.
March 29, 2022	Reduced cooldown from 30 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP and WvW.
February 25, 2020	Competitive content update: (Competitive split) Reduced power coefficient from 1.0 to 0.6.
February 22, 2017	The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds.
January 26, 2016	This ability is no longer able to be used in midair.
June 23, 2015	Specialization update: Movement-speed adjustments no longer affect the intended travel distance.
April 30, 2013	Recharge increased 20 seconds to 40 seconds. Recharge is now halved if the player strikes a foe. Reduced the range to 1200 from the previous (hidden) 1550. Distance is reduced by 40% while carrying the orb. (In Spirit Watch)
February 26, 2013	This ability's recharge has been increased to 20 seconds.
December 16, 2012	No longer resets attunement cooldowns.
November 15, 2012	This skill should now track moving enemies more reliably.
August 28, 2012	Game release: Ride the Lightning has been added to the game.

Trivia

• A Guild Wars skill bears the same name as this skill.
• Ride the Lightning was an album released in 1984 by the heavy metal band Metallica. The title was taken from a passage in the Stephen King novel The Stand and refers to execution by electric chair.
• The original target range was 1550; this was changed in the April 30, 2013 update to match the 1200 stated in the tooltip.