Curse

Kunder · Jan 07, 2012, 08:28 PM // 20:28

Air magic could use a decent AoE cracked armor. Making Chain and Invoke apply it wouldn't be a bad idea IMO. Using only one of them you won't output huge damage yourself, but the rest of your team (especially other eles) see large benefits from cracked armor everything, and the air ele could focus the rest of their bar on support.

Water I don't know about. Thematically it just isn't fitting into PvE well. Just adding more nuke spells makes it another version of fire magic. The only "cool" thing Water is doing that is relevant for PvE is healing from Mist Form, but the heal is pretty low at the moment so I don't see much use since the rest of the non-elites you are using are mostly fluff.

Perhaps for PvE water non-elites we make some more double cast spells, but instead of AoE hexing enemy's move speed down, they reduce enemy cast speed/attack speed/hit rate/etc? That would combine well with Mist Form for a full support character.

bhavv · Jan 07, 2012, 08:29 PM // 20:29

I've had one 5e exhaustion spell per hero (chain lightning or obby flame), and they never get over exhausted.

Regarding pure DPS, per single spike neither Searing Flames nor Invoke come close to matching this:

Thats the RA version, for PVE drop the last two skills for elemental lord and EBSOH. Have cracked armour somewhere as well. I honestly dont see why so many people still play ellys in PVE without ebsoh and cracked armour, this would obviously be what is limiting them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kunder

Air magic could use a decent AoE cracked armor.

Thunderclap? Its range is terrible however, it should really have an area range and it would be fine.

Kaida the Heartless · Jan 07, 2012, 08:42 PM // 20:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by bhavv

Hence there is nothing about this update that harms hero builds in any ways, all it has done is give you so many more options with elly heroes.

The update took out the former #1 Ele build. I'd say that's pretty harmful. Yea, you get many more options, but none of them are as effective (save Searing Flames, which I, personally, have always said was better). That's all Ensign, Jeydra, and Xeno are trying to say.

It's like you have some Bacon, and someone comes along and takes all of it and gives you 3x your Bacon in Bologna instead. Yea, there's more, but its just not as good!

Ensign · Jan 07, 2012, 08:50 PM // 20:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

You play an Ele better than a Warrior?

Ever since the Rit update came along, I've consistently found playing a caster in a h/h caster ball easier than playing as a melee character, but since I've always believed I truly suck at playing melee, I've never given it much thought.

That's a fun self depreciating way to look at it, but I think not.

I think a big part of it simply comes from having to include the support structure to play melee - more removal, melee buffs - and that costs you speed when you only have one melee to use it with. Melee + Melee buffs scale ridiculously well, and a team of 4 melee plus some buffs and cleaning is crazy strong; one melee without buffs is not as strong as a caster in PvE, and adding the buffs to make you feel good isn't that much better than just having heroes pumping damage themselves.

The other part of it, and this is probably the 'you play Ele better than melee' part, is EVAS. I feel like proper use of that skill, coupled with Assassin's Promise, does so much to make your team fast and durable; it's not like waiting for a minion horde to catch up and sending them in first at all.

That's also a big part of what made the Air Eles so good. Fire an Assassin from max range, call a target, AP, and the Air Eles burst it down, resetting everything before your sin dies consistently; adding another sin, repeat. It's such a powerful momentum build, and the faster you go the safer you are.

Anyway, there's nothing to replace it on the horizon, so I guess I'm switching back to walking a big wall of summons into things for the win.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaida the Heartless

The update took out the former #1 Ele build. I'd say that's pretty harmful. Yea, you get many more options, but none of them are as effective (save Searing Flames, which I, personally, have always said was better). That's all Ensign, Jeydra, and Xeno are trying to say.

My general point is that I thought that in a couple particular circumstances (in particular, on Assassin's Promise casters with hero builds) that Invoke Lightning Eles were stronger than the 2nd and potentially 3rd Dom Mesmers. They clearly are not now.

It is also not at all clear to me that any new hero Ele build is superior to a Dom Mesmer. I'll likely be experimenting a bit with that the next few days, but again, I'm not really optimistic about it.

Searing Flames isn't a terrible hero; it is just extremely energy hungry, and it is more of a DPS hero than a burst hero (and it was the fast bursts from Air to trigger AP that I liked). So it's a bit harder to mash Command stuff on to, and doesn't really serve the same purpose - and *really* benefits from multiple copies. I don't really like them all that much, but I'd be a little surprised if you were able to get them to work in, say, Slaver's.

makosi · Jan 07, 2012, 09:00 PM // 21:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

That's a fun self depreciating way to look at it, but I think not.

I think a big part of it simply comes from having to include the support structure to play melee - more removal, melee buffs - and that costs you speed when you only have one melee to use it with. Melee + Melee buffs scale ridiculously well, and a team of 4 melee plus some buffs and cleaning is crazy strong; one melee without buffs is not as strong as a caster in PvE, and adding the buffs to make you feel good isn't that much better than just having heroes pumping damage themselves.

On top of this, when you're a melee with spell-caster heroes (as most people use) then the heroes like to join your war/sin/derv in melee. They don't stand back. This is what I dislike most about running melees in PvE.

Kunder · Jan 07, 2012, 09:05 PM // 21:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

That's also a big part of what made the Air Eles so good. Fire an Assassin from max range, call a target, AP, and the Air Eles burst it down, resetting everything before your sin dies consistently; adding another sin, repeat. It's such a powerful momentum build, and the faster you go the safer you are.

Replace Air eles with SF, run an FD build and use your AP/air to spread cracked armor around in between using EVAS every 3s (or use AP/any other cracked armor applyer). You should do as well or better as the IV teams did thanks to the inherent armor reductions. Only snag is that SF spam tends to have less energy available for the Fall Back you might like.

Playing around with the specific skill sets at the moment to see what I like. Hard to choose between EBSoH/EBSoW/FH as my other pve skills.

EDIT: Now that I remember FH gives cracked armor in addition to deep wound, it might be best to simply go the Me/A route and FC echo spam your EVAS.

Swingline · Jan 07, 2012, 09:06 PM // 21:06

EBSoH is a crutch. After this update I would move away from it for fear of it being nerfed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bhavv

Thunderclap? Its range is terrible however, it should really have an area range and it would be fine.

Weaken Armor is the best non elite for cracked armor.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

The other part of it, and this is probably the 'you play Ele better than melee' part, is EVAS. I feel like proper use of that skill, coupled with Assassin's Promise, does so much to make your team fast and durable; it's not like waiting for a minion horde to catch up and sending them in first at all.

That's also a big part of what made the Air Eles so good. Fire an Assassin from max range, call a target, AP, and the Air Eles burst it down, resetting everything before your sin dies consistently; adding another sin, repeat. It's such a powerful momentum build, and the faster you go the safer you are.

The fact a sin elite and a pve only skill are the best for eles over their own elites and skills is downright terrible skill design.

Quote:

Originally Posted by makosi

On top of this, when you're a melee with spell-caster heroes (as most people use) then the heroes like to join your war/sin/derv in melee. They don't stand back. This is what I dislike most about running melees in PvE.

That's what the buttons under your compass are for.

makosi · Jan 07, 2012, 09:16 PM // 21:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swingline

That's what the buttons under your compass are for.

But as a caster you don't need to go to this trouble. And flagging is not as simple as that: the heroes will do absolutely nothing until they reach their flag point.

It's a wee bit tedious to do that for every single mob.

Swingline · Jan 07, 2012, 09:19 PM // 21:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by makosi

But as a caster you don't need to go to this trouble. And flagging is not as simple as that: the heroes will do absolutely nothing until they reach their flag point.

It's a wee bit tedious to do that for every single mob.

I got gwamm and 50/50 with a warrior. Its not hard.

Kunder · Jan 07, 2012, 09:25 PM // 21:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swingline

Weaken Armor is the best non elite for cracked armor.

There are really no good non-elites at all for cracked armor. I define "good" as at least Nearby range. If you aren't consistently hitting 2 or 3 enemies per usage it would often be better to bring just another damage spell slinger.

This is why I <3 FD with everything I have. Well, the AoE deep wound and dazed spreading helps too.

Quote:

EBSoH is a crutch. After this update I would move away from it for fear of it being nerfed.

TBH its not a HUGE benefit unless you are using DoTAoEs, which apply the bonus every second, or are a physical who can hit things really fast. Cracked Armor generally provides 50-100% more damage for spells like SF or Invoke unless the enemy armor is already close to being floored at 60. The main advantage is simply ease of use compared to trying to spread cracked armor around.

Swingline · Jan 07, 2012, 09:33 PM // 21:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kunder

There are really no good non-elites at all for cracked armor. I define "good" as at least Nearby range. If you aren't consistently hitting 2 or 3 enemies per usage it would often be better to bring just another damage spell slinger.

This is why I <3 FD with everything I have. Well, the AoE deep wound and dazed spreading helps too.

TBH its not a HUGE benefit unless you are using DoTAoEs, which apply the bonus every second, or are a physical who can hit things really fast. Cracked Armor generally provides 50-100% more damage unless the enemy armor is already close to being floored at 60.

I use weaken armor on my MM at 5+1 curses(thats all you need). It may be only adjacent range but it's a 5 second recharge and the hero seems to use it all the time, that may be because of his build though. Since the update went live I rape shit faster than Insanity Wolf. I see SF constantly doing full damage because of weaken armor, on more than one mob to.

Chthon · Jan 07, 2012, 09:37 PM // 21:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

What spells are you going to put there, other than Rodgort's + Chain?

Last night I was toying with Rodgort's+Chain+Deep Freeze+Steam.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

You can't possibly be this stupid.

Oh yes he can. Just you wait.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiogoSilva

5ex on a single skill is irrelevant...

Perhaps my eyes are going bad, but I had to re-read that 3 times to figure out that you're not playing a much more interesting version of GW than I am.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Searing Flames isn't a terrible hero; it is just extremely energy hungry, and it is more of a DPS hero than a burst hero (and it was the fast bursts from Air to trigger AP that I liked). So it's a bit harder to mash Command stuff on to, and doesn't really serve the same purpose - and *really* benefits from multiple copies. I don't really like them all that much, but I'd be a little surprised if you were able to get them to work in, say, Slaver's.

Last night I took up Thommis as my testing ground. The fourth (fifth?) mob is one of those obnoxious two-healer/multi-rezzer mobs, plus it just never balls up right for me, so it's a reasonably challenging test. My work-in-progress Searing Flames team died the first time, but did just fine when I added a Panic mesmer. Not exactly ready for prime time, but it works.

Swingline · Jan 07, 2012, 09:44 PM // 21:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Last night I took up Thommis as my testing ground. The fourth (fifth?) mob is one of those obnoxious two-healer/multi-rezzer mobs, plus it just never balls up right for me, so it's a reasonably challenging test. My work-in-progress Searing Flames team died the first time, but did just fine when I added a Panic mesmer. Not exactly ready for prime time, but it works.

It's an elite area. I won't ever expect it to die to shitter flame heroes alone. Your going to need some form of shutdown otherwise your going to have some problems. Not saying it isn't impossible though. Luck can play a factor, it's just not logical.

DiogoSilva · Jan 07, 2012, 09:47 PM // 21:47

Double Dragon benefits (abuses) the most out of Ebon Battle Standard of Honor. First, it's 8 seconds of no-scatter; second, it applies twice per second. Sure, that's only the best of possibilities, and many times you'll cast it on a melee and only cause half of its effect. But even then, it's worth it - no other elementalist skill that deals damage per second lasts so long without causing scatter.

Against Master of Damage, after EBSoH, my Double Dragon did 352 damage, 44DPS. If I bring a hero with me and put him on avoid combat, it's 704, 88DPS. If I use Tenai's Heat and Searing's Heat right after I cast DD, and then Fireball once for the time remaining, I get 109-120 damage per second the first 5 seconds, and 162-171 for the last 5 seconds, resulting in about 575+830= 1405 damage in 10 (or less?) seconds. Master of Damage said 1435 over 13 seconds, but I didn't even cast anything else after my first fireball, which was 1-2 seconds before DD ending. EDIT: And my single best damage spike were was at 7 seconds, over 350.

Not sure how good that can be compared to Searing Flames builds, though. Searing Flames damage is more constant, because it recharges so fast, while DD+Heats are one huge nuke spike that gets out of fuel right after.

Kunder · Jan 07, 2012, 09:52 PM // 21:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swingline

I use weaken armor on my MM at 5+1 curses(thats all you need). It may be only adjacent range but it's a 5 second recharge and the hero seems to use it all the time, that may be because of his build though. Since the update went live I rape shit faster than Insanity Wolf. I see SF constantly doing full damage because of weaken armor, on more than one mob to.

Problem is that if he is "using it all the time" then he's casting his other stuff a lot less. This is particularly bad for a MM, who already wants to spend 95% of their time either casting minion spells or BotM/OoU/whatever. Feels very unoptimal to slot Weaken Armor and measurably decrease the effectiveness of everything else he does.

Daesu · Jan 07, 2012, 09:54 PM // 21:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

@Daesu - what are the bars you're using in your Ele team?

I haven't had as much chance to play recently but the credit here should go to Chthon.

I simply took his Mist Form theory crafted build which he posted earlier, apply it to an ele heroes team and they work amazingly well so far.

I am sure if I look closer, I would find some AI deficiencies with the build, so I am still very much in the testing phase. I may have more time to test this out tomorrow.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...2&postcount=36

DiogoSilva · Jan 07, 2012, 09:55 PM // 21:55

I usually opt for more than one source of cracked amor. Have Weaken on my necro rit support/ healer, an Spirit Rift on my ritualist. Once melee AI gets better, I might add a dervish for extra cracked armor plus whatever he does best.

Kaida the Heartless · Jan 07, 2012, 10:00 PM // 22:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

My general point is that I thought that in a couple particular circumstances (in particular, on Assassin's Promise casters with hero builds) that Invoke Lightning Eles were stronger than the 2nd and potentially 3rd Dom Mesmers. They clearly are not now.

It is also not at all clear to me that any new hero Ele build is superior to a Dom Mesmer. I'll likely be experimenting a bit with that the next few days, but again, I'm not really optimistic about it.

Searing Flames isn't a terrible hero; it is just extremely energy hungry, and it is more of a DPS hero than a burst hero (and it was the fast bursts from Air to trigger AP that I liked). So it's a bit harder to mash Command stuff on to, and doesn't really serve the same purpose - and *really* benefits from multiple copies. I don't really like them all that much, but I'd be a little surprised if you were able to get them to work in, say, Slaver's.

Agreed.

I don't think the SF Ele is stronger than a Dom Mesmer either, until you reach about the 3rd or 4th Mes in a party. At that point, Mesmers really start stepping on each others toes. This is one of the main reasons I'm really hoping the non-elite changes will open up [more] options.

Slaver's is actually one of the first places I got Searing Flames to work. There are plenty of targets to hit and the AI often doesn't know how to properly heal/prot when everything is on fire and taking constant spikes of damage. Having foes burn SoR or Dwayna's Kiss on the wrong target is a huge boon. Is it fast? Definitely not as much as Invoke, but I never minded sacrificing (some) speed in favor of that "unstoppable force" feeling where I can pretty safely clear most any mob.

bj91x · Jan 07, 2012, 10:31 PM // 22:31

I guess different people have different opinions on what is an acceptable behavior for an AI to handle exhaustion. For me, AI's shouldn't use exhaustion spells once they reach 75% energy. For skills like Mind Burn, it's very important for the caster to have high energy. Without that, this skill does poor damage and STILL causes exhaustion.

If exhaustion expires MUCH faster when outside of combat, I wouldn't mind it as much. Then having exhaustion would make sense. It would allow the caster to deal high damage at the initial stage of a fight, but have it slow down near the end of the fight to balance it out. By the time the next fight begins, the caster can restart from the beginning rather than suffer from a previous fight.

Kaida the Heartless · Jan 07, 2012, 10:54 PM // 22:54

The fact that the Heroes are even going to hit 75% in exhaustion implies that there will be a DPS loss once they inevitably hit that point. That's the issue.