Runes of Magic US / AU

How does "Earth Marking" stacking work? After activating the skill every casted skill can add to the stack, or does it have to be an attack? Does it have to be crit? Earth-based?

Fights are short, but they do last more than 5 sec. Any hints about rota after your 5 seconds of flame? I assume that you should use Ancient Spirit Water etc. before the fight (even though you'll start with Earth Core Barrier - you'll still have 25 sec of speed buff), so probably Flame will be be your best friend, but I was just wondering if investing TPs in the earth-based instants or using some of the set skills would make sense: especially for new mages, without Curse X etc.

Quoted from "Magío"

You don't start with ECB wtf. Lol. Most of your DPS is packed into those 5s so you gotta make sure you do it when the boss has all the important debuffs.

Good point ( I'm just starting looking at my M/Wd side - I have soloed a few bosses I didn't want to let near me, so I did start with ECB - you are right, in a proper pt it would not be a good idea, I haven't thought of this... )

ECB after a few flames => agreed, thanks for the tip.

Thanks for the videos: in a proper pt Flame it is.

Would your addon have shown if Earth Marking stacked? Does it ever stack at all? When/how?

Clear.

Magio, huge thanks for all the answers!