Curse

Akathrielah · Sep 25, 2005, 05:05 AM // 05:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goonter

Just in case you didnt read anything Ive posted about it, Glyph of Concentration makes your "cast times" negotable.
You can cast Metero Shower while dazed, through 15 interrupts with it.
It cost 5 energy, cast in 1 second, and recast in 2. You can use it in front of all of your 2 second plus cast skills without skipping a beat.
Its been ignored all this time, but with the new ranger interrupt spikes, its time to dust this skill off and make it common in our eley builds.
Its well worth it.

So you want to add in an additional 5 energy and 1 seconds to every spell =p ?

Quote:

Umm 2 words. Earth spiking...

Is very limited.

Phades · Sep 25, 2005, 05:37 AM // 05:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goonter

Just in case you didnt read anything Ive posted about it, Glyph of Concentration makes your "cast times" negotable.
You can cast Metero Shower while dazed, through 15 interrupts with it.
It cost 5 energy, cast in 1 second, and recast in 2. You can use it in front of all of your 2 second plus cast skills without skipping a beat.
Its been ignored all this time, but with the new ranger interrupt spikes, its time to dust this skill off and make it common in our eley builds.
Its well worth it.

Ok first off, why bother with the glyph wasting more of your time on every spell cast when you can go with a mesmer stance instead, taking no time.

Secondly i can eat a snickers in the time it takes meteor shower to cast with dazed on me. Stacking any of the others on top of that and i might be able to press the key and take a piss and come back before its done. Well maybe not a piss, but definatly grab something to drink.

If you havent figured it out yet, the ranger can get you half, if not completely dead in that timeframe depending on what else is going on around you. Being forced into an excessivly long spell to attack with, while being pinned down into one location is a real loser, especially when you can face situations where the casting time lasts longer than the actual effect of the spell. It is not, an ok situation by any streach of the imagination. If healing spells scaled up in the elementalist manner for cost and time to release, there would be alot more dead people in the time frame it takes to get them off. Then you can also argue actual effect for things like meteor shower or malestorm (duration + damage) against the time to release the spell against a physical equivilant and they fail miserably. This is due to the available effect stacking for physical attack users, while casters have very little to alter their effects in addition to the aoe skills being static, while physical attacks are mobile. I think this is mostly due to the monk lines potentially becomming unstopable if such things were added to the class.

Goonter · Sep 25, 2005, 06:23 AM // 06:23

No, I understand that there is something unbalancing with chain interupting and the damage it does.
But I do think this trend is causing people to all want to cast like monks instead of realizing that chain interupting needs to be fixed instead.
There is nothing wrong with long cast times if the spell is potent enough to merit a long cast time.
When interrupting becomes an issue in the metagame (as it has) glyph of concentration for elemenist is a good solution.
+5 energy getting you down? Get some Attunements.
Your a elementist smitter? Yeah, your currently shafted. Partly the consequence of being overpopular and therefore quickly targetted. Partly the consequence that Glyphs dont do much for E/Mo builds.

Mantra of Concentration doesnt compete with Glyph of Concentration at the current moment.
Mantra of Resolve might be better. But if your dazed, (like that happens alot) Id rather go with the glyph. Even without the "dazed" the glyph is cheaper.
1 second cast time is a small window even for interrupt spam.

Elementist and Necros are most vunerable to interrupting and elementist have a built in defence. One thats been over looked, but its a pretty good skill.
And the dazed thing is a bonus not a requirment to use this skill.
You can cast Restore Life for 8 seconds, without a worry. Thats worth 5 energy isnt it?

Anyways, the ranger thing is a slightly different topic than elementists skills are lacking.
But the ranger thing, being that rangers wiped the floor with elementist even before the buff, sort of makes being an elementist that wants to invest in heavy hitting spells sort of non optional, without some spell insurance.

That being said, cast times might be ok, rangers do need fixing.
Cost and Recast might be ok, smitting does need fixing.
Because, there is no reason to be a damage elementist if your not dealing holy damage.
And because, theres no reason to leave Glyph of Concentration off your skill bar if you want to use Metero Shower in the current metagame.
And it seems to be universally agreed, Water needs love.

Phades · Sep 25, 2005, 06:53 AM // 06:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goonter

No, I understand that there is something unbalancing with chain interupting and the damage it does.
But I do think this trend is causing people to all want to cast like monks instead of realizing that chain interupting needs to be fixed instead.
There is nothing wrong with long cast times if the spell is potent enough to merit a long cast time.

Comparitivly speaking, there is no spell short of the resurects that are worth the long time spent casting. Standing around casting for 10s is eons to be killed, knocked down, interupted, or blacked out if any of the cast time slows are active on the character. Even though the spell follows the target, think of just the distance that can be traveled in that time frame without a run speed boost.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goonter

When interrupting becomes an issue in the metagame (as it has) glyph of concentration for elemenist is a good solution.
+5 energy getting you down? Get some Attunements.
Your a elementist smitter? Yeah, your currently shafted. Partly the consequence of being overpopular and therefore quickly targetted. Partly the consequence that Glyphs dont do much for E/Mo builds.

Not sure where you are going with this, but the mesmer solution takes no time and costs less energy per possible interupt. It also does not risk being interupted its self. E/MO builds arent shafted that bad, because the longest cast time in the builds tends to be zealots fire and ether renewal and just gets faster from there. Wasting another 1.75s on top of 5s is not what id call a good deal even if it was free.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goonter

Mantra of Concentration doesnt compete with Glyph of Concentration at the current moment.
Mantra of Resolve might be better. But if your dazed, (like that happens alot) Id rather go with the glyph. Even without the "dazed" the glyph is cheaper.
1 second cast time is a small window even for interrupt spam.

I have no clue as to where you get your information from, but at 5 ranks the cost for resolve is the same as the glyph per interupt, at 8 ranks it is 1pt less and at 11 its 2 points less, with a 50/62/74 second duration respectivly. You also get the benefit from the mantra on every skill used, not just spells. You have no arguement here other than not putting points into a secondary skill. Also, depending on the spell used, the glyph's bonus effect of ignoring dazed lessens the shorter the duration of the cast time of the spell. You are breaking even with anything that starts at a 2s cast time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goonter

You can cast Restore Life for 8 seconds, without a worry. Thats worth 5 energy isnt it?

Or you can use glyph of sacrifice and not worry about being killed in those 8s spent casting or being interupted and hope that your team isnt getting wiped so badly that requires a res from yourself more than once every 90s.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goonter

Cost and Recast might be ok, smitting does need fixing.
Because, there is no reason to be a damage elementist if your not dealing holy damage.
And because, theres no reason to leave Glyph of Concentration off your skill bar if you want to use Metero Shower in the current metagame.
And it seems to be universally agreed, Water needs love.

Analyze why zealots fire with monk skills outdamage flare then come back and make this statement again with a straight face. A better suggestion would be why you would want to use meteor shower as the centerpiece skill in a build in the first place in tombs requiring 2-4 support skills to have it run somewhat efficiently.

Goonter · Sep 25, 2005, 07:42 AM // 07:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Comparitivly speaking, there is no spell short of the resurects that are worth the long time spent casting.

I dont know if your statement is true. It sounds like an opinion.

Quote:

Standing around casting for 10s is eons to be killed, knocked down, interupted, or blacked out if any of the cast time slows are active on the character. Even though the spell follows the target, think of just the distance that can be traveled in that time frame without a run speed boost.

Nothing takes 10 seconds to cast by itself, and if it you were in a condition where you would take 10 seconds to cast something, why would you want to cast it?
I never meant to impress upon anyone that I thought that this was a good idea.

Quote:

Not sure where you are going with this, but the mesmer solution takes no time and costs less energy per possible interupt. It also does not risk being interupted its self. E/MO builds arent shafted that bad, because the longest cast time in the builds tends to be zealots fire and ether renewal and just gets faster from there. Wasting another 1.75s on top of 5s is not what id call a good deal even if it was free.

If your a E/N maybe the mesmer solution wont work for you.
If your a Me/E maybe you invest in fastcasting instead.
Thats the only direction I can go with that and still look right.
I dont think glyph works for E/Mos either considering thier current effencany without it.
There interrpting isnt kicking there butts, Im sure. But I "chance" inturrping from the spam is still bogus.
I dont care for e/mo smiting, but 2 wrongs (no matter the insignificance) dont make a right.

Quote:

I have no clue as to where you get your information from, but at 5 ranks the cost for resolve is the same as the glyph per interupt, at 8 ranks it is 1pt less and at 11 its 2 points less, with a 50/62/74 second duration respectivly. You also get the benefit from the mantra on every skill used, not just spells. You have no arguement here other than not putting points into a secondary skill. Also, depending on the spell used, the glyph's bonus effect of ignoring dazed lessens the shorter the duration of the cast time of the spell. You are breaking even with anything that starts at a 2s cast time.

Good point.
You heard it here folks.
Make a E/Me, invest in inspirations and vola,
chain interupting isnt your problem.

Quote:

Or you can use glyph of sacrifice and not worry about being killed in those 8s spent casting or being interupted and hope that your team isnt getting wiped so badly that requires a res from yourself more than once every 90s.

Yeah, that works too. You know all the tricks.

Quote:

Analyze why zealots fire with monk skills outdamage flare then come back and make this statement again with a straight face. A better suggestion would be why you would want to use meteor shower as the centerpiece skill in a build in the first place in tombs requiring 2-4 support skills to have it run somewhat efficiently.

What did my face look like when I made that statement?
Besides, you read me wrong. That statment was an example of how to treat long casting spells in the current metagame not an example of a good build. Its ok though. Misunderstandings happen.

I dont completely disagree with you. But Im just saying, Glyph of Concentration was always a good option and now its an important one.
And no one should be upset to use it to survive the current shift with interrupting.
The skill is not crap. It doesnt "rule" like zealots fire, but is pretty effective for protecting +2 second spells, especally for elemenist using elemental spells.

Rieselle · Sep 25, 2005, 10:07 AM // 10:07

Long cast times matter less for interrupting than it does for the fact that the spells aren't worth it. In the amount of time it takes to wind up your big huge spell, a warrior or ranger or smiter can do the same if not more damage, not be exhausted, and not waste all that energy on a spell that everyone can just move out of. (in the case of meteor shower, they even have 2 completely useless meteors to warn them before they even start taking damage!)

Fire spells are good in PvE... that's why I suggested increasing the AOE and/or making them follow the target. Either would not unbalance things in pve too much, whilst helping out in pvp.

Also, compare something like rotgort's invocation to fireball. 25 energy, 5 sec cast time - for exactly the same damage, plus a tiny bit of burning. I dont know how that slipped in there, but I dont see how they can expect anyone to use such a spell.

Bast · Sep 25, 2005, 10:15 AM // 10:15

You're supposed to use Rodgort's Invocation? Wtf are you thinking?

FrogDevourer · Sep 25, 2005, 10:47 AM // 10:47

Quote:

Does any one else feel that Elementalist skills are kind of... lacking?

That's an euphemism. Sure Ele still have a couple of cheap tricks like spiking and the most unbalanced skill in the game, but they just can't be compared to other professions as far as PvP is concerned. For PvE, if a build as stupid as the echo nuker is the best option, you know something is lacking in the elementalist area.

The flare video should be renamed and serve as a newbie tutorial: "never believe a screenshot or a video, try it by yourself, lose, then try to understand why you lost".

Xasew · Sep 25, 2005, 01:29 PM // 13:29

All elements have means of spiking huge amounts of dmg AND knock down at the same time, except water. All elements are fine except for water. Water needs more dmg.

Phades · Sep 25, 2005, 02:34 PM // 14:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goonter

I dont know if your statement is true. It sounds like an opinion.

Weight the options and make your own decision. Personally i like to look at healing or protection availabilty and cost versus cast or reaction time against the time it takes to get the spell out when speaking about damaging spells. Aside from ele skills, the only spells that really break the 3s barrier are the res skills.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goonter

Nothing takes 10 seconds to cast by itself, and if it you were in a condition where you would take 10 seconds to cast something, why would you want to cast it?
I never meant to impress upon anyone that I thought that this was a good idea.

There is no need to act like you have backfire on when you dont. The only real issue is that these style of attacks only impact one of the 6 professions heavily. Necros get hit by it as well, but not nearly as bad as eles do.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goonter

If your a E/N maybe the mesmer solution wont work for you.
If your a Me/E maybe you invest in fastcasting instead.
Thats the only direction I can go with that and still look right.
I dont think glyph works for E/Mos either considering thier current effencany without it.
There interrpting isnt kicking there butts, Im sure. But I "chance" inturrping from the spam is still bogus.
I dont care for e/mo smiting, but 2 wrongs (no matter the insignificance) dont make a right.

Each build acts differently, but only the ele skills largely meet or break the 3s barrier to even being to warrent time wasted using a glyph of concentration. We were talking about ele skills, so im not sure why you would use an ele work around in a situation that doesnt require it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goonter

Good point.
You heard it here folks.
Make a E/Me, invest in inspirations and vola,
chain interupting isnt your problem.

Only problem is that the damage via ranger chain interupts have the additional effects occur (damage/dazed)due to the spell/skill being used, opposed to mesmer interupts that have their effects trigger if the spell is actually interupted. This is not the issue here, the time till delivery is. Its not about the time that something could be interupted, its about how long before the effect comes into place against the duration and actual effect of what occurs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goonter

Besides, you read me wrong. That statment was an example of how to treat long casting spells in the current metagame not an example of a good build. Its ok though. Misunderstandings happen.

Current metagame has everything to do with a good build as well. Forcing something into a situation it is not suited for, doesn't suddenly make it a good option. Then taking it a step further to lessen how many draw backs it has by loading the skill bar to work around it doesnt make a bad skill good. It merely makes poor skills average and using up more space. Even if the interupt rangers werent envouge, using those types of skills together doesnt make the individual parts worth using.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goonter

I dont completely disagree with you. But Im just saying, Glyph of Concentration was always a good option and now its an important one.
And no one should be upset to use it to survive the current shift with interrupting.
The skill is not crap. It doesnt "rule" like zealots fire, but is pretty effective for protecting +2 second spells, especally for elemenist using elemental spells.

Well, like others have pointed out in the past there are 2 types of skills. The ones that are used because they are good(or broken) and the ones that arent because they are weaker than the good skills. An easy example is comparing eviserate to cleave. Cleave gets left behind due to the advantages eviserate has. For people planning around specific events or build styles in competitive play, there is never a reason to take a sub-par skill or combination of skills.

Sniper22 · Sep 25, 2005, 02:58 PM // 14:58

It seems like a lot of people think their class is underpowered. If you want warriors or rangers to do less damage, just throw in a blinding skill or one of the many other shutdown skills. Elementalists aren't lacking at all IMO.
Lightning is strong and fast
Fire is slower casting but AOE damage
Earth provides defense and skills that ignore armor
Water can slow enemies (like warriors) down and deals an ok amount of damage but if u put things like (maelstorm, ice prison, water trident) it can do a lot
Combining different attributes together. DoT + Gale helps.

entropy · Sep 25, 2005, 03:01 PM // 15:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Akathrielah

So you want to add in an additional 5 energy and 1 seconds to every spell =p ?

Is very limited.

It would not be every spell and earth spiking is limited yes but so are all the elementalist skill lines. There are only a few skills worth using but I was just pointing out that earth is effective if coordinated. Better than Air in my opinion.
Its the 2+ second spells that would need glyph of concentration.

My understanding was that resolve prevented you from being interupted at the cost of X energy. Multiple interupts would drain your energy fairly quickly. Along with the fact that its a stance and you would have to wait out the effects. Glyph is only for one spell yes but how many 2+ second skills are you carrying on your skill bar? Also I always thought that glyph protected against interupts no matter how many. Correct me if I'm wrong. But 5 energy is less than 2; 3 energy interupts. With the multiple interupts going wouldn't glyph be the better choice?

neoteo · Sep 25, 2005, 03:23 PM // 15:23

i do 119 with 16 at fire , i can hardly kill some warriors in competition arenas , but i dont even take my ele to tombs anymore.

but its perfect for questing witch is what i love more.

Brett Kuntz · Sep 25, 2005, 04:03 PM // 16:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lasareth

Water is seriously lacking in all aspects. The others I guess serve one purpose or another. Earth is good, since it provides defense as well as offense.

Water is the best elementalist line out there. If you think it's lacking, or even mediocre, it shows you've never played a Water elem.

Lasareth · Sep 25, 2005, 04:12 PM // 16:12

So what makes it so good? Tell me I'm wrong as much as you want, but until I see reasoning behind it I have no motivation to believe it. Other than slowing down the enemy, water magic is less effective than earth or air, depending on which setup you choose.

Kampfkeks · Sep 25, 2005, 04:22 PM // 16:22

Maelstroem is another nice spell.
Well basically water feels like one of those jack of all trade thingies. It can interrupt, it can snare, it can protect. Well and it can do some damage too.

It won't do much without a proper use of your secondary class though. A hydromancer with a Necromancer Subclass really shines when it comes to damage.
Other than that, i think the water line is probably the least exhaustion heavy line. One can build a complete hydromancer that does quite well, without bringing a single exhaustion based spell. So combine that with some Kind of Dual Attunement and you simply will never run out of energy.

But honestly, compared to the other lines... water lacks. Just in every way. However it also is doing good things in everyone of those lines. If only they would fix Mistform (they said they did, but they didn't.. damn it -.-). So basically water is the way to go when you're looking for a slow but steady engine of damage/interruption/snare. And you can overcome some of its weaknesses with the clever use of your secondary (Feast of Corruption + Mass Hex from Icespells anyone? Maybe throw in Soul Barbs?).

Sainte · Sep 25, 2005, 04:23 PM // 16:23

Well, at this point..

Fire - Rather good if you know how to use it

Air - Still hurts like a mofo, but works 10x better when you go X/E

Earth - Rather defensive, DPS is really low. While you can occasinally hit that Obsidian Flame, you will be doing nothing for the next 5-6 seconds. Melee Spells, KD/AS are horrible in higher level arenas, because you will get eaten up way too fast.

Water - Definately lacking. I tried using water in any combination possible, and the slow effects just arent good enough. Way too many conditions and not enough actual use. Where fire is AoE, Air is target Spike, and Earth is defense, water falls short on its interupt/slows.

Id love to see some tweaking with water skills, maybe actually making then do some damage once in a while, because I can hit harder using Lightining Strike than an Elite like Trident

Deathlord · Sep 25, 2005, 04:45 PM // 16:45

I wouldn't say Water is all to great, but theres a dab of skills that gives it minor decency. Maelstrom is a good interrupter for alot of people, just don't try it on experienced players. Ward of Harm is good for warders. There are also a few Def+ Skills that come with speed that ain't too bad for warriors.

But onto the suggestions department.

: Reply to Rieselle
No, do not make AOE Chase opponents. The reason fire works well in PvE is because of the enemies intelligence. If they lack it, then it'll rule more than anything in the world, if they have alot, then you're useless. That's one of the main aspects of GW. If you build a counter towards something, then you leave yourself open to counters, aka, you have a strength against something, and you have a weakness against something. Personally, I think Homing skills are not only pointless and cheap, but very stupid. If you have two or three elementalists with meteor shower and if all three cast (Without arcane echo) then you have a 24/7 knockdown. If they run, you meteor and they're locked in a KD spam.
Damage scale ups when your exhausted? Exhaustion is a bad thing, not a optional condition you can abuse to "Pwn" enemies.
Combo Mechanic- Changes too much of the gameplay, if ANet put this in, they'd have to allow it for every other class, and come on, ANet is good, but we're talking major change.
Self Enchants- They're FINE. Attunements grant 30% of your energy back for your energy branch. Even with 12 attribute points in air, you still have 55 seconds duration out of 60 cast time. Armor of Earth duration lasts 2x longer than the recharge time. If your opponent has any enchant removals, they'd probably aim for the monks first.
Nerf Ether Renewel + Meteor Shower Cosmetics - Agreed. Fake Meteors are just stupid, and ether renewel has definetly become a seed of abuse.

:Reply to Symbol
The burning condition would make fire horribly overpowered. 1 second of burning causes 14 damage. 4 Seconds would add total of 56, which doesn't seem so bad, until you throw it on a spammable spell such as flare.
The air I agree with definetly. Since they nerfed most of the decent air skills in spike groups (Chain lightning for one) its hardly used much anymore.

My Suggestion- Change Air back to the way it was, improve water spells so they all act as hexes, allowing combo with things such as soul barbs to supply the damage. Fire is fine as it is. Altar maps and relics benefit greatly from AOE attacks.

Symbol · Sep 25, 2005, 05:12 PM // 17:12

Quote:

The burning condition would make fire horribly overpowered. 1 second of burning causes 14 damage. 4 Seconds would add total of 56, which doesn't seem so bad, until you throw it on a spammable spell such as flare.

But you can already do this with mark of rodgort + flare (spam flare and continual burning) and it isn't particularly overpowered.

Quote:

Nerf Ether Renewel + Meteor Shower Cosmetics - Agreed. Fake Meteors are just stupid, and ether renewel has definetly become a seed of abuse.

Ether renewal is only abusive for certain OTHER classes (namely the E/Mo smiter). Since elementalist:
a) can 't load up on useful enchants (while the smiter's two damage skills are enchants)
b) doesn't have a spammable 1/4 second cast spell to fill up energy
c) can't accomplish anything useful by spamming what what no-recharge spells he does have (you can spam flare 5 times for 10 seconds to fill up your energy, but you've just wasted 10 seconds spamming a crappy spell like flare, meanwhile said smiter has been trigger zealot's fire with tons of 1.25 sec casts of divine boon)
d) given the cost of the elementalists spam spells attunement gives comparable amount of energy back

one has to change renewal carefully not to render it useless in comparison to attunement for primary elementalists. Right now I think a scaling cap of 1-4 enchants (like the 1-4 energy per cast) is sufficient, anything more should be contingent on rebalancing the other elementalist skills.

Deathlord · Sep 25, 2005, 05:57 PM // 17:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

But you can already do this with mark of rodgort + flare (spam flare and continual burning) and it isn't particularly overpowered.

True, but Mark of Rodgort can be removable, and it costs 25 energy to cast. A Passive 56 damage per flare with little to no way of stopping is different from MOR.