Curse

Cuilan · Apr 28, 2010, 06:02 PM // 18:02

Elementalists still have good options for damage, farming, speed clears, and can very easily equal or exceed a monk. Mesmers needed far...far more done than an elemetalist who would only require a couple skill changes. This update is more than a couple skills. Only looking at the "armor ignoring" aspect of mesmers just shows how little many players know about them.

ANY profession can call for discord.

"Hey guys! Hey, there's this profession called mesmer. The don't do anything themselves but they can ping targets super well for necromancer heroes. Soo amazing!"

Amy Awien · Apr 28, 2010, 08:52 PM // 20:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Melkorium

... Would be good if they lowered the AL at least for elemental damage.

Why just elemental damage? Higher armor means less damage, be it physical or elemental. If that's too much, remove the extra levels from HM monsters. Or bring cracked armor. Keep it simple.

Karate Jesus · Apr 28, 2010, 08:58 PM // 20:58

So....hopefully Thursday this is going to happen?

Not that I don't enjoy afk'ing Nine Rings or anything (oh, wait...), but it would nice to have some content or skill updates the week of the anniversary. Just saying. It would be nice for at least one of my friends who re-installed because of the anniversary+GW2 info to actually stay and not go, "Seriously, nothing's new?" and then uninstall again.

I know Linsey's sick, but "supposedly" she doesn't even do these anymore, so hopefully?

Karate Jesus · Apr 28, 2010, 09:25 PM // 21:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Feedb...pdate_previews

Well, son of a bitch. Are we seriously getting no new content for the anniversary?

That's just terrible PR.....

Zahr Dalsk · Apr 28, 2010, 11:05 PM // 23:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cuilan

Elementalists still have good options for damage

Not in HM PvE, not compared to physicals at any rate.

drkn · Apr 28, 2010, 11:09 PM // 23:09

Quote:

Well, son of a bitch. Are we seriously getting no new content for the anniversary?

Just to note, we got a lot of GW2 info - nothing to celebrate GW1 anniversary maybe, but still a nice thing to see actual game footage, screenshots, get to know some of the mechanics and read about professions and races tomorrow.

Pandora's box · Apr 28, 2010, 11:25 PM // 23:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by drkn

Just to note, we got a lot of GW2 info - nothing to celebrate GW1 anniversary maybe, but still a nice thing to see actual game footage, screenshots, get to know some of the mechanics and read about professions and races tomorrow.

I have the feeling that GW2 will be a completely different game. Personally I would have prefered once or twice a year a new GW1 chapter, despite the fact that more and more skills would give more and more balancing issues. I don't care. Hero skills, PvE only skills, its fun! The more the better! And I hope the upcomming skill balance will buff gameplay

Snark Is Dead · Apr 29, 2010, 02:41 AM // 02:41

Obviously some numbers need to be adjusted but I'm glad they're looking into it. My favorite part of the preview is the focus on energy cost and "pay out" of spells. However, I hope someone is making sure that if any skills are also changed for PvP that it isn't a hex a skill that can be abused like Seeping Wound.

UnChosen · Apr 29, 2010, 03:26 AM // 03:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amy Awien

Why just elemental damage? Higher armor means less damage, be it physical or elemental. If that's too much, remove the extra levels from HM monsters. Or bring cracked armor. Keep it simple.

Remove the extra armour and double/triple/quadruple/quintuple their HP to make it just as "hard" to justify HM. That way every class require nearly the same effort to kill something whether or not its armor ignoring damage. This deal with the underpowered Ele damage and relatively overpowered armor ignoring damage like discord all in one stroke.

reaper with no name · Apr 29, 2010, 05:23 AM // 05:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by UnChosen

Remove the extra armour and double/triple/quadruple/quintuple their HP to make it just as "hard" to justify HM. That way every class require nearly the same effort to kill something whether or not its armor ignoring damage. This deal with the underpowered Ele damage and relatively overpowered armor ignoring damage like discord all in one stroke.

Been there, suggested that. Where were you?

Kashrlyyk · Apr 29, 2010, 08:33 AM // 08:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amy Awien

Why just elemental damage? Higher armor means less damage, be it physical or elemental. If that's too much, remove the extra levels from HM monsters. Or bring cracked armor. Keep it simple.

Why just elemental damage? Because physical classes deal armor ignoring skill damage and only the weapon damage is reduced by armor.

Zahr Dalsk · Apr 29, 2010, 01:29 PM // 13:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amy Awien

Why just elemental damage? Higher armor means less damage, be it physical or elemental. If that's too much, remove the extra levels from HM monsters. Or bring cracked armor. Keep it simple.

Let me explain.

The damage from basic attacks is usually pretty low, alright. Look at the damage the weapons have listed and then cut it by about the same percentage as your elemental spells always seem to go down by.

However! Physical classes get most of their damage not from those weapons, but from attack skills and critical hits. Attack skills' damage is armour-ignoring. That's why, for example, Assassin dagger attacks tend to be terribly weak on their own, but once you add in attack skills (and SoH, why not), the Assassin suddenly becomes the best damage dealer in PvE.

This means that elemental damage characters suffer from HM armour, whereas physical damage characters don't (even though their physical damage does, because it's not actually where they get most of their damage).

tl;dr physical characts do mostly armour ignoring damage, elementalists don't

Personally I hope the same thing happens in GW2. I like that physical characters in GW are the damage dealers and the classic "mage" character serves best as support instead of "nuking."

chuckles79 · Apr 29, 2010, 02:42 PM // 14:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Kerstein

That is part of what we are looking at, yes.

Remember how they changed how certain monsters were using recently buffed skills.

So I think we won't have to fear Rider Mobs like they were a mob of Vengeful Aatxes.

At least we shouldn't.
I suggest everyone assumes paranoia and goes and vanquishes mesmer heavy areas ASAP. The Ascalon area, Rata Sum environs, certain parts of the crystal desert should all be ultra-high priority.

Cuilan · Apr 29, 2010, 03:56 PM // 15:56

With Wind Riders, don't aggro a ton of groups at once like you would with every other situation...?

Gill Halendt · Apr 29, 2010, 04:06 PM // 16:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by UnChosen

Remove the extra armour and double/triple/quadruple/quintuple their HP to make it just as "hard" to justify HM. That way every class require nearly the same effort to kill something whether or not its armor ignoring damage. This deal with the underpowered Ele damage and relatively overpowered armor ignoring damage like discord all in one stroke.

There's no "extra armor", armor increases with level, so the "bonus" monsters get in HM is just due to their higher level.

The problem is Eles not being completely viable as damage dealers. So THAT's what they need to fix - even though I don't really see a reason to, since it's not a problem with the class itself, but rather a problem with people misunderstanding the class and its capabilities, led astray by the archetipe of the "Mage"... Whatever...

Also worth noting that while attack bonuses for physicals is armor ignoring:

- None of these bonuses reaches the base damage of most Ele spells. As an example, @14 Fire Magic, Fireball would deal 105 damage to a 60AC target. That's ~52 against a 100AC target, which is still higher than most of the damage bonus offered by attack skills.
- There's a heapful of counters to physicals, for a reason
- Armor ignoring damage usually has some downside, being it the hi-recharge or cost, or conditions to be met for it to apply

About point 1), the problem with a spell like Fireball is not the damage dealt, but rather it's cost and cast time when compared to most attacks.

They should look into ways to make Ele spells more suitable for HM - easier ways to apply Cracked Armor, more useful secondary effects, etc... Also, I'd rather have the cheapest spells such as Flare or Stone Daggers deal armor ignoring damage and their recharge tuned accordingly, but anything else is fine with me as it is now. The lack of raw damage is easily negated by the multiple ways of supporting the party with utility, and I don't see anything wrong with that.

Axel Zinfandel · Apr 29, 2010, 09:08 PM // 21:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gill Halendt

There's no "extra armor", armor increases with level, so the "bonus" monsters get in HM is just due to their higher level.

The problem is Eles not being completely viable as damage dealers. So THAT's what they need to fix - even though I don't really see a reason to, since it's not a problem with the class itself, but rather a problem with people misunderstanding the class and its capabilities, led astray by the archetipe of the "Mage"... Whatever...

With two of the four elements BUILD on dealing damage, It's expected that they be actually good at that, but it's a laughing stock even in NM anymore.

So there's Infusers, which probably should not exist in the first place, and Bsurge. So if you got rid of the ridiculous Bsurge, seeing as you are hardly even using ele skills for it, you have Bsurge, and believe it or not, everyone doesn't like playing Bsurge.

The trouble is that people do not want to roll elementalists to heal or support the team. they make them because they want to blow things the frak up, and be a glass cannon. Sure, ok, Eles are undeniably meant to have solid support builds as well, but should we really be -forced- to do a roll most of us don't want to play? Yes, it's hard mode, it's supposed to be hard, but Elementalists are forced to change what they do in a much more radical direction than any other class. Physical damagers just.. try to do more damage. Support casting classes like necros.. support in different ways.

Even Ritualists are sitting there blowing stuff up with Splinter and the newly buffed damage skills doing a much better job than eles in HM.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gill Halendt

- None of these bonuses reaches the base damage of most Ele spells. As an example, @14 Fire Magic, Fireball would deal 105 damage to a 60AC target. That's ~52 against a 100AC target, which is still higher than most of the damage bonus offered by attack skills.
- There's a heapful of counters to physicals, for a reason
- Armor ignoring damage usually has some downside, being it the hi-recharge or cost, or conditions to be met for it to apply

-I almost guarantee you most enemies in HM or even end-game NM have over 100AC. The problem also is that ok, sure, the base damage of the spell is close to, if not over an attack from a physical, but Fireball has a 2 second cast time on a 3/4 second aftercast. Most physical attackers could have attacked 2/3 times by then, and took a dump on ele DPS (which you slightly touched at, but is a huge point nonetheless)

-That a lot of enemies either don't carry, or can be easily cured by your team.

-Not for physical characters? I personally am NOT a fan of simply giving eles armor ignoring damage. good, solid Armor Penetration maybe...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gill Halendt

They should look into ways to make Ele spells more suitable for HM - easier ways to apply Cracked Armor, more useful secondary effects, etc... Also, I'd rather have the cheapest spells such as Flare or Stone Daggers deal armor ignoring damage and their recharge tuned accordingly, but anything else is fine with me as it is now. The lack of raw damage is easily negated by the multiple ways of supporting the party with utility, and I don't see anything wrong with that.

There's certainly nothing wrong with it in theory, but being forced to heal above all other things is not something elementalists, of all classes, should be doing.

MithranArkanere · Apr 29, 2010, 09:26 PM // 21:26

I have never found problems with Elementalists.
You can kill almost anything just with fire.
Just a couple of changes when dealing with destroyers, fire elementals and some HM areas, and you are set.

We may not deal as much damage to a single target as others, but we still have most of wider area of effect damage-dealing skills.
Hey, even in GW2 'Area of Effect' is an Elementalist thing.

Of course, I would never be against any Elementalist buff.

Entrad · Apr 29, 2010, 09:32 PM // 21:32

Very nice, looking forward to it. Now my pre-Searing Mesmer can have some fun with Empathy. Not to say that pre-Searing Mesmers don't have enough fun as it is.

snaek · Apr 29, 2010, 11:32 PM // 23:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gill Halendt

The problem is Eles not being completely viable as damage dealers. So THAT's what they need to fix - even though I don't really see a reason to, since it's not a problem with the class itself, but rather a problem with people misunderstanding the class and its capabilities, led astray by the archetipe of the "Mage"... Whatever...

if i had no concept of the archetype of 'mage' and i looked at the skills eles had, i would think that they are a damage dealing class. out of the 34 fire skills, only 1 of them doesn't deal damage (which i don't think really it counts because its an attunement). fire is supposed to damage you say? okay fine, lets take a look at some of the supposed "support" magic lines: 17 out of 30 water magic skills are damage dealing skills. thats still more than half. the other half are self-defense and snare skills--which for the most part are completely useless for pve. water is a pvp attribute? fine, lets look at earth magic: they still have 18 out of 35 skills that deal damage.

might i also remind you that nuking was actually quite viable, if not the standard role for eles pre-hard mode. some of the variations of the original tank-n-spank builds (pre-factions) consisted of meteor shower eles (and also firestorm before the aoe scatter).

Zodiac Meteor · Apr 30, 2010, 01:18 AM // 01:18

GLF duo Gwenway

Migraine, that spells death to players...