Curse

Odd Sock · Mar 08, 2005, 03:46 PM // 15:46

Ok let's face it AoE spells are considered a pathetic waste of space on your skill bar. No one takes them seriously since all what you have to do is "run out of the Firestorm". Fact is, this mentality on AoE spells has taken out their entire tactical use in team builds. They are costly skills and apparently they can be avoided pretty easily. If you do a slight paradigm shift and make them the focus of a build, I think they can easily be fixed.

Let's first adress the problem of people running away since it's the most apparent one. What can be done to this ? The first solution would be to make AoEs larger. Unfortunatly this is one constant of the problem that can't be changed. Dev's set it to x feet and that's final. The second solution is to keep the ennemies from being able to run away. A few solutions are possible. The best I've thought, yet is actually quite simple. Rangers have a nasty spell called Pindown. As long as this bow attack hits it will cripple the target for any x amount of time. Combine this with Epidemic and you're looking at AoE crippling.

Now crippling only takes out 50% of the target's movement rate. That means that if they were to be struck by the AoE in normal times for 1 second, they'd now be struck for 2 seconds. Personally I still don't think this is enough. We can now turn to the Elementalist line for a little more help on this subject. The earth line has a pretty good skill called Earthquake. For those unfamiliar it causes AoE damage as well as a knockdown. Getting back up from a knockdown takes over a second, that's why those mob can Aftershock you after using their Whirlwind skill. If you look at it now, the ennemies are knocked down and crippled. That basically means they won't be going anywhere for a while.

Now you want to cause damage to those poor saps on the floor. What are the decent ones to use ? If you've done Tombs PvP and fought the Rift Wardens, you'll know Maelstrom is a pretty nasty skill, especially after being snared by Ice Spikes (which in our case is equivalent to Pindown + Epidemic). An added bonus to Maelstrom is that it will interupt any healing going on. So if a monk is also struck in this he'll be as usefull as glasses on a blind man. Another spell I found extremely destructive was the infamous Meteor Shower. If you combine this with what we already have, it's bound to keep them even longer in the AoE since it causes knockdowns as well as dealing mass damage. Again, in the Rift Warden part before the HoH, I got hit a few times by this and let me tell you, even as a Wa/Mo I wasn't too happy on how deadly this skill was since I'd most likely die from it. It tears through health like a hot a knife through butter.

So basically after a little practice and timing, you and your guildies can combo Pindown + Epidemic, while an Earthquake and Maelstrom are being cast. Follow this by a Meteor Shower and a Firestorm or Lava Font and the ennemy monks will have their hands full for sure. If you get a few nature rituals in this, your ever-so costly AoE spells can be cut down to a mere 10 energy per cast, well 20 if you count the exhaustion factor

It's now more of a question on how the ennemies will form up. In Tombs, it's a little more difficult since there is often open space and most self-respecting teams won't gang up together. I noticed that most paths leading to a higher/lower elevation part of the map are often narrower making a great place for a little AoE loving. As for when you make it to the HoH, most paths are narrow to begin with anyways, and when you actually make it to the altar that you have to capture, you can just sit it out untill the last minute and unleash all your AoE at once.

Let's hope this thread brought a slight amount of hope to those still thinking about AoE spells.

Spooky · Mar 08, 2005, 04:08 PM // 16:08

If people are within range to be hit by Epidemic (as far as I can tell, it isn't large) then they're within range to be hit by Deep Freeze, which is cheaper than casting Epidemic + Pin Down, and does considerably more damage to everyone in the area of effect as well as slowing them down.

Dreamsmith · Mar 08, 2005, 04:30 PM // 16:30

Quote:

Ok let's face it AoE spells are considered a pathetic waste of space on your skill bar. No one takes them seriously since all what you have to do is "run out of the Firestorm". Fact is, this mentality on AoE spells has taken out their entire tactical use in team builds.

Hmm. Well, there are two kinds of AoE spells -- the ones that deliver a large burst of damage to everyone in range, like Fireball or Phoenix, and the ones that slowly dish out damage over time, like Fire Storm. You don't make any distinction in your post when you talk about "AoE spells", but your concerns and solutions make it apparent you're talking about the latter.

I tend to think of the Fireball-type AoE spells as offensive, and the Fire Storm kind of AoE spells as defensive. Indeed, I often wish I could center the latter on an ally. If the enemy wants to continue to beat on that target, they need to stand in the rain of fire to do it. If they simply choose to run out of the area of effect, great, that's exactly what I want from a good defensive spell. That's 100% damage prevention for the duration -- hardly a "pathetic waste of space on your skill bar", particularly for an attribute line with few real defensive options.

Still, these are some good ideas on how to get more offensive use out of them...

Cleocatra · Mar 08, 2005, 04:43 PM // 16:43

AoE spells are already wonderful in tombs. You don't need all this fancy other stuff to use them, you just need to hit targets that aren't mobile. The best uses I have found so far include kicking heroes off the hill, protecting our hero from enemies who require close range to deal damage, and using them in narrow pathways when collision detection has tied people up. You could also use them to kill priests and any other immobile targets just fine.

Movement is the bane of AoE. I don't see why you would want to do all of this extra work and take up a lot of spaces on people's skill bars just to make moving players stand in your AoE for two more seconds. In most situations, you would get more damage on the moving targets by just packing in more damage spells.

Greentongue · Mar 08, 2005, 06:50 PM // 18:50

Using Glyph of Sacrifice may be an option to get Meteor Shower off in 1 second instead of 5. This makes the chances of catching a group together much more likely. The extended cooldown is only a problem if you usually are able to get the spell off more frequently. Considering that people don't tend to cluster frequently and will attempt to run out of AoE range, you might only have been able to use it once anyway.

Glyph of Sacrifice (Spell) Your next spell may be cast instantly, but takes an additional 120 seconds to recharge.

Meteor Shower (Spell) Exploding meteors strike the area near your target. Each strikes for 7..91 damage and knocks down anyone it hits. This spell causes Exhaustion.

Ensign · Mar 08, 2005, 07:06 PM // 19:06

The 'storms' aren't a bad class of skills, mechanically. Sure they're usually going to be hitting just 2-3 times before someone gets out of the area of effect, but chasing people off, busting up packs, is the main use of the storms.

The problem with storms is that, well, Chaos Storm is just plain better than every Elementalist storm. It's cheaper, casts a whole lot faster, and is more dangerous than anything this side of Maelstrom. It also isn't played all that much - granted, I feel it's underplayed, but if Chaos Storm isn't good enough to make the cut, then why would something like Searing Heat, which is a whole lot worse on every account, ever make it?

Peace,
-CxE

Vermilion Okeanos · Mar 08, 2005, 07:32 PM // 19:32

I don't think chaos storm should be put higher or below the other storm spells, for the small area of effect.

All it really do is trade raw power with size and casting speed for recharge time. So, I put it on the same level of effectiveness as other storms.

since there are so many AoE, you cant exactly generalize them all in one line.

Male storm thou, is probably indeed the most useful AoE... even now with exhausion, it still pretty good... it is something you can bet that EVERYONE would want to get out of.

fire storm- probably the most balanced AoE out there, or rather... the one that can be used the most often.

meteor shower- if it werent for the recharge time, this thing would have gone broken =/ and of course... there are ways to go over that recharge time... it is basically like thunderclap where you have to make your built just purely around it for it to reach its maximum potential...

hmm... why am I posting all these things? I guess I am bored =/ (currently in my school) oh well, time to find something more interesting to do...

I wish march 18th come faster >_< I can't wait to complete my 2nd character... are there any guild that is full of E? I need to get connect with one...

Sausaletus Rex · Mar 08, 2005, 07:57 PM // 19:57

It's important to draw a distinction here between the single hit nukes like Fireball and the "Storms", the low-damage per hit, lots-of-hits, ticking damge AoEs. The tactics and uses for both are quite different. Used well each subset of an AoE can slice an enemy up.

And it is true that in certain circumstances the Storms aren't what you'd really want to be using. On open ground, where there's room to run and manuever they're easy to get around and difficult to put to effective use. However, open ground is not the only situation in GW. Different situations make different skills more or less useful, after all. You don't bring a Tombs build into the Arena. You don't bring an Arena build into the Tombs. Not if you want to be at your best. You can bring the same strategy, the same concept, but you'll need to tweak and adjust for the specific circumstances and the reason for that is that there are differences in just what's optimal or competitive in each area.

Where Storms shine is when you can count on the enemy grouping together or otherwise passing through specific points. They can be put to very good use in the Tombs, in your King of the Hill maps where you can count on that Hero and its team clustering around a single point, even in the Hall of Heros, where passage ways are narrow. In PvE, too, where you can drop a Storm on top of your tank and chip away at a whole pack of enemies at once, Storms prove their worth.

The key is to find those spots and circumstances those skills are suited for rather than try to fit a square peg into a round hole by trying to make up for their shortcomings in situations where they're not called for.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

The problem with storms is that, well, Chaos Storm is just plain better than every Elementalist storm. It's cheaper, casts a whole lot faster, and is more dangerous than anything this side of Maelstrom. It also isn't played all that much - granted, I feel it's underplayed, but if Chaos Storm isn't good enough to make the cut, then why would something like Searing Heat, which is a whole lot worse on every account, ever make it?

I've always been a fan of Chaos Storm. Always a staple go-to skill for my Mesmers. It's low cost, low cast, comparitively and an AoE energy drain. However, it's in Domination and the reason most people are in Domination is, of course, the interrupts and there's more attractive ways of dealing damage there like Wastrel's+Mind Wrack. And the other players who're combining with Mesmer for damage probably overlook it, too. Elementalist are probably looking past Domination in favor of Inspiration to fuel their more familiar nukes. And Rangers and Warriors take one look at the 15 energy and 2 second casting time and run heading for the hills.

Odd Sock · Mar 09, 2005, 02:52 AM // 02:52

Yes I was talking about AoE that have a duration. Sorry, I should have pointed it out. But what I was trying to point out was that they ARE underplayed skills and looking at the "fancy" strategy I posted it's obvious that they are to an extent very powerfull. The Pindown + Epidemic, I admit never has been tested, and I actually had a few thoughts about it too.

What I wanted to point out is that you never get really Deep Freeze + Maelstromed, or at least I haven't. And this is all because people have the "Firestorm=run away=sucks" mentality. As you all can see a simple strategy like this comboed with an Eruption can prove to be quite hurtfull. Of course my focus wasn't to get a quick kill out of this. If you get everyone to get all panicky and down to 60% health then you most definetly have the upper hand on the battle. AoE over time spells aren't intended to finish off entire teams in a 2 second time span, altough a well placed Meteor Storm could, but rather create chaos in their line.

On a different topic, creating havoc is in my opinion something everyone should consider lookign into. In PvP I sometimes got lost and ended up behind the ennemy monks and casters. Oftentimes I'd go after a caster. Why not a monk ? Cause no one's expecting it, when you think you're a low priority, a she-warrior starts tearing you to peaces and you notice your health bar is down to 50% (not to mention the following Final Thrust will leave you guessing), you get caught off guard. Why was this effective ? I can't give an exact answer, but I'm guessing it's because monks are so busy healing themselves and the targets of focus fire they can sometimes get the tunnel syndrome. This is when you get so focused on one or two elements that you lose sight of the general picture of the battle. For those of you who read stuff for no reason, pick up a copy of the Sun Tzu, it's quite educative on this subject. I can also state that most of the matches where I accidentaly did this, we ended up winning. Chaos rules. AoE over time, even though I haven't tested it personnaly can probably achieve the same thing. If you're a character that has no means of healing and get caught a few seconds in a Firestorm, and get split from your group, you've become an easy prey.

Ensign · Mar 09, 2005, 03:41 AM // 03:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vermilion Okeanos

All it really do is trade raw power with size and casting speed for recharge time. So, I put it on the same level of effectiveness as other storms.

It costs less, casts faster, is more dangerous, and has comparable recharge to the other storms. How is it on the same level under any stretch of the imagination?

Compare it to Fire Storm. Same energy, same recharge, casts in half the time. Ok, so how are the effects? Against Warriors, the damage you'll deal with Chaos Storm is comparable to what you'd get from Fire Storm (as Fire Storm is affected by armor, while Chaos Storm is not). Rangers still have +20 AL vs. Elemental...oh, wait, it's +30 vs. Elemental now. Check. So Chaos Storm is just as threatening to Warriors and Rangers as Fire Storm. What about casters? Destroying their energy utterly if you catch them casting is a whole lot more scary than a few more points of damage - would you trade 12 health for 6 energy? I would.

None of the storms, except perhaps Meteor Shower, are usable from a damage perspective - you'll usually get around 50 damage in an AoE around the target. The real benefit is forcing people to move, or using it when someone has to stand in it. Damage is just a side benefit.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vermilion Okeanos

since there are so many AoE, you cant exactly generalize them all in one line.

True, but you can do them all in a paragraph:

Chaos Storm is the best - long lasting, cheap, quickly cast, scary. Only knock is that it's in an awkward line. Maelstrom is next because of how savagely it owns casters who stand in it - you're going to knock out several spells, deal damage (better than Fire Storm!), and confuse players with a non-obvious in game animation. Best Elementalist storm by far. Firestorm is next because it's cheap - the damage is pretty sad, but at least it makes people move. Meteor Shower is cute, and it's a fun blitz trick with Glyph of Sacrifice, but otherwise the cooldown kills it - skills need to work harder than this. The rest of the storms are trash.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sausaletus Rex

there's more attractive ways of dealing damage there like Wastrel's+Mind Wrack.

Don't make me stab you in the face.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sausaletus Rex

Elementalist are probably looking past Domination in favor of Inspiration to fuel their more familiar nukes.

The fools. They should have realized by now that Barrage is the nuke of choice, not anything an Elementalist has. Though I hear Conjure is good...

Seriously though, use Chaos Storm. It's better than Elementalists.

Peace,
-CxE

Sausaletus Rex · Mar 09, 2005, 04:00 AM // 04:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sausaletus Rex

there's more attractive ways of dealing damage there like Wastrel's+Mind Wrack.

Don't make me stab you in the face.

I said attractive. Not effective. It's an awful combination but people seem to go nuts over it. I attribute it to the unbriddled passion created by those skill's icons because there's really no rational reason why people like them...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

The fools. They should have realized by now that Barrage is the nuke of choice, not anything an Elementalist has. Though I hear Conjure is good...

Well, yeah, for AoE damage, spammed Barrage with a few damage buffs is king. But that's bringing up the whole issue of how Elementalists are, in general, at the moment.

Ensign · Mar 09, 2005, 04:14 AM // 04:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sausaletus Rex

I said attractive. Not effective. It's an awful combination but people seem to go nuts over it.

Yeah, and I should have known better when you said attractive - we all know how that combination works.

*hands Saus a paper bag*

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sausaletus Rex

But that's bringing up the whole issue of how Elementalists are, in general, at the moment.

Well, hey, Energy Storage is better than Fast Casting. You could make a mean Mesmer by going Elementalist/Mesmer with Energy Storage and your favorite combination of Domination and Inspiration skills.

Plus you could Conjure your wand if you wanted to deal damage. =)

Peace,
-CxE

cce · Mar 09, 2005, 04:48 AM // 04:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Well, hey, Energy Storage is better than Fast Casting. You could make a mean Mesmer by going Elementalist/Mesmer with Energy Storage and your favorite combination of Domination and Inspiration skills.

Thank you for assembling the fast-casting table. Given the .75 "dead time" between each cast, it really does affect the usefulness of fast casting. In effect, making a 10 in fast casting worth only about 20% faster for a 5 sec spell (.75+.65)/1.75 = 80% , or a 30% speedup for 3 second spells (.75+1.95)/3.75 -- regardless, it is far less than it should be, given the high cost.

Although, perhaps running a Elementalist primary to get a "good Mesmer" still isn't the best deal, since you can't use runes.

mostro · Mar 09, 2005, 04:53 AM // 04:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Plus you could Conjure your wand if you wanted to deal damage. =)

Obviously. And you can also increase your wand dps by minimizing the projectile travel time by standing right in face of your enemy

Sausaletus Rex · Mar 09, 2005, 04:56 AM // 04:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by cce

Although, perhaps running a Elementalist primary to get a "good Mesmer" still isn't the best deal, since you can't use runes.

Yeah, but going Elementalist/Mesmer missing out on runes isn't such a big deal. Mesmer's don't necessarily want or need their attributes sky high, so the rune boost isn't a necessity.

Still, Fast Casting isn't all that awful, especially when you have the energy tapping ability of a Mesmer to counter-act the advantage of Energy Storage. It's best when, obviously, you have it working on spells with long casting times. Where do you find a lot of large casting times? In the Elementalist list. Probably not enough to make it worth it with aftercast and all but you can go Mes/Ele and function perfectly well.

Ensign · Mar 09, 2005, 05:08 AM // 05:08

Yeah, Fast Casting is pretty marginal on a whole lot of spells - particularly the kinds of skills that really draw people to the Mesmer. When you're looking at, say, Power Leak, with a .25 second cast time, knocking a third off of that (~10 attribute) with Fast Casting saves you a whole .08 seconds - virtually nothing. When you consider the spellcaster refractory period, you're comparing 1 second to .92 seconds - virtually indistinguishable.

The aftercast really keeps you from abusing fast cast by chain casting quick skills, which is, intuitively, what you want to do with it. What it ends up being is more tactical, letting you react to situations more quickly, instead of having to spend that extra second caught in a cast animation.

If you're going to use Fast Casting, you really need to use the slower skills, the 2 and 3 second casting time ones - they get dropped to around 1.3 and 2 seconds to cast, respectively, at 10 Fast Casting. It isn't a huge speed boost, but it makes those skills feel a whole lot more managable. Something like Energy Tap feels really slow and almost unusable on a Mesmer secondary, but it's something that you can squeeze in between casts with Fast Casting.

Maybe that just means that Fast Casting feels better than it actually is, or that it actually is better than it looks on paper. Play around with it a bit, figure out if you value the flexability it gives you, and draw your own conclusions.

Peace,
-CxE

cce · Mar 09, 2005, 05:22 AM // 05:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Yeah, Fast Casting is pretty marginal on a whole lot of spells - particularly the kinds of skills that really draw people to the Mesmer. When you're looking at, say, Power Leak, with a .25 second cast time, knocking a third off of that (~10 attribute) with Fast Casting saves you a whole .08 seconds - virtually nothing. When you consider the spellcaster refractory period, you're comparing 1 second to .92 seconds - virtually indistinguishable.

I think you confused me. Power Leak is listed as 1 second. So... what you're saying is that I should take the listed cast time, subtract .75 from it, and then look that value up in the table? So, at lvl 10 of fast casting,

PowerLeak = .75 + lookup(1-.75) = .75 + .16 = .91
Backfire = .75 + lookup(3.0-.75) = .75 + lookup(2.25) = .75 + 1.4???

I'm confused, sorry. Why are you listing fractional seconds for only times under 1 second?

Sausaletus Rex · Mar 09, 2005, 05:27 AM // 05:27

Fast Casting is starting to bother me. Like Soul Reaping, it's just not up to par with other primaries. Especially when there's insanely broken, degenerative, and deformative things like Expertise walking around. But, obviously, it was too good when there was no aftercast or it affected the whole casting time not just the activation portion (Or was it? I don't think I was a tester just then.) so it was retouched and having it affect both cast and aftercast to get those quick chain casts that it would seem suited for is probably a bit much.

Here's an insane idea. What if Fast Casting didn't work on the activation time but instead on the aftercast? What if it took off, say, 5~5% of that after cast time per rank but left the actual activation/casting time alone? So, at FC 12 you'd have say 30~40 seconds aftercast on all your spells. Maybe the numbers could be tweaked so that it was a bit more but how would the general idea of affecting aftercast instead of cast play out?

Quote:

Originally Posted by cce

I think you confused me. Power Leak is listed as 1 second. So... what you're saying is that I should take the listed cast time, subtract .75 from it, and then look that value up in the table? So, at lvl 10 of fast casting,

PowerLeak = .75 + lookup(1-.75) = .75 + .16 = .91
Backfire = .75 + lookup(3.0-.75) = .75 + lookup(2.25) = .75 + 1.4???

I'm confused, sorry. Why are you listing fractional seconds for only times under 1 second?

Spells that list their casting times as 1 second are widely innaccurate. They cast, that is to say their effects are put in place once your activate the skill, anywhere from .25 seconds to the full 1 second, in the increments shown in Ensign's table. The game doesn't list fractional casting times, anything under a full second gets bumped up to the nearest full second. Casting times over 1 second tend to be more accurate, of course, and you can just add the .75 to them. At 1 second you really have to know the skill.

All interrupts - with the exception of Cry of Frustration which I'm not sure about - are extremely fast. At a full 1 second cast with .75 after cast they'd be nearly unusable. They're almost, but not quite instant, and that's what lets them interrupt just about anything if you've got the timing right.

Draken · Mar 09, 2005, 05:33 AM // 05:33

two ideas i have about this
1.make AOE's ground targetable or...
2. have it so you charge the spell up then stand there imobile till you trigger the spell to go off all the while being interuptable this would atleast allow you to time it better.

right now barrage > elementalist AOE and it only takes one skill slot im wondering if their going to nurf it or make ele AOE better in some fashion.

Pharalon · Mar 09, 2005, 05:33 AM // 05:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sausaletus Rex

Here's an insane idea. What if Fast Casting didn't work on the activation time but instead on the aftercast? What if it took off, say, 5~5% of that after cast time per rank but left the actual activation/casting time alone? So, at FC 12 you'd have say 30~40 seconds aftercast on all your spells. Maybe the numbers could be tweaked so that it was a bit more but how would the general idea of affecting aftercast instead of cast play out?

The problem is that the actual cast time is generally the important bit. That's what lets you get a skill off faster, just beat your opponent to the punch, fire off that Pheonix before a warrior lands a killing blow. Having it affect aftercast won't help you in those situations where timing is paramount, which I think is what the skill was designed for. It would allow you to squeeze out more spells in a given time period, but that's not really what the attribute is about.