Curse

Phoenix Arrows · Apr 15, 2006, 04:21 AM // 04:21

Obsidian Flame is not the only high-damage spell. Ever heard of Lightning Orb? 120+ on a caster. That is actually more than Obsidian Flame. No exhaustion either =O.

Exhaustion spells were not ment to be spammed. They were to be used in a special situation. For Obsidian Flame, it is used as a killing spell. Spamming Stone Daggers will get you the same damage if you count Obsidian Flame's exhaustion.

Glyph of Energy helps with exhaustion, so try using it.

BTW, on the thing about Warriors being the best self-healers, think about a 16 Divine Favor/15 Healing Prayers Monk with Aura of Faith [E] and Divine Boon using Healing Touch. Has got to be 200+ and recharges in 4 seconds like Healing Signet. Healing Signet also has the -40 armor while using it, so you are likely to take a lot of damage if you're using it in battle. The slower attack speed is :S :S :S. That is not necessary. Lightning Orb on it = 200+ dmg = dead Warrior. Also, does that mean Monks should have a slower casting speed with each use of healing skills?

quickmonty · Apr 15, 2006, 04:29 AM // 04:29

Lightning Orb
Originally Published by Coldize

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Description Lightning Orb flies towards target foe and strikes for 10-82 lightning damage if it hits. This Spell has 25% armor penetration.
Energy Cost 15
Casting Time 2 seconds
Recharge Time 5 seconds
Skill Type Spell
Linked Attribute Air Magic

Obsidian Flame
Originally Published by Coldize

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Description Deal 22-94 damage to target foe. This Spell ignores armor but causes Exhaustion.
Energy Cost 5
Exhaustion This spell causes exhaustion
Casting Time 2 seconds
Recharge Time 5 seconds
Skill Type Spell
Linked Attribute Earth Magic

Lighting Orb is 3x the energy cost, does *less* damage (if it hits!) and has 25% armor penetration where Obsidian Flame ignores armor. Hardly a fair comparison. (where did that 120+ on a caster come from?) Yes .... Glyph of Energy can help.

Phoenix Arrows · Apr 15, 2006, 04:51 AM // 04:51

16 Air Magic -.-

You can also get +2 from Glyph of Elemental Power and +1 from an item.

Lemme check GuildWiki for 19 Air Magic.

BRB

EDIT:

Obsidian Flame would cost the same as Lightning Orb due to it's -10 max energy from exhaustion, which is worse than using 10 more energy.

GuildWiki is down at the moment, so I didn't get numbers on 19 Air and Earth Magic.

Obsidian Flame at 16 is 118 damage.
Lightning Orb at 16 is 106 damage.

The 25% armor penetration would mean the armor for a caster would be lowered to 45 armor. I could test out 19 Air Magic in the Isle of Nameless later on the Suit of 60 Armor.

But anyways, the damage will be around 126 if I remember correctly. I use Orb a lot ^^.

Xpl0iter · Apr 15, 2006, 05:13 AM // 05:13

I wouldn't compare ob flame with orb. and 120 + Damage maybe from 16 attribute, what you mentioned is at attribute 12 damage description.

Secondly, glyph of energy Can help, but for next 10 seconds, you can doodle, if you are using glyph just to use ob flame, well now your relying too much on 1 skill to dishout damage, hence why blood spiking appeared at first place.

If you would like a good comparison, here you go:

NECRO Spells:
Awaken the Blood
E10 C1 R45
For 20..39 seconds, you gain +2 Blood Magic and +2 Curses, but whenever you sacrifice Health, you sacrifice 50% more than the normal amount.

Shadow Strike
E10 C2 R8
Target foe takes 12..41 shadow damage. If that foe's Health is above 50%, you steal 12..41 Health. ( At level 18 with awaken, its 55, not 41 + 50% chances you will steal 55 health for your self while damaging them )

Vampiric Gaze
E10 C1 R5
Steal 18..52 Health from target foe.( 68 damage when Awaken is up)
Since the armour is ignored, you gain Life, WHILE damaging the foe.) not bad is it?

In Total, you did 105 + 68 = 173 damage no armour involved in 3 seconds.

Ele Spells:
Glyph of Energy
E5 C1 R15
Description : Glyph. Your next Spell costs 20 less Energy to cast and does not cause Exhaustion.

Obsidian Flame
E5 C2 R5
Deal 22..94 damage to target foe. This Spell ignores armor but causes Exhaustion.

Issues:
1) 3 seconds as well. You do
2) 118 damage with 16 attribute
3) after 8 seconds, you can use both necro skills. After 13 seconds, you can use both Glyph and Ob Flame, Why 13 seconds? because when Glyph has been casted, it starts to recharge. When ob flame is casted, you take another 2 seconds to cast.
4) No healing in return.
5) Oh shizit, did i mention Glyph of energy is an ELITE? in 2 skills, and takes the oppurtunity from us to take another elite just so we can deal with exhaustion?

Conclusion: We eles do 118 BIG deal armour ignore damage in 13 seconds. 2 skills used. One elite.

A necro does 173 damage, 3 skills used. If people got issues with 3 skills compared to 2 skills with ele..... i will redo the math.
Shadow strike: 41 damage, and 41 life stealing over 50% health. total 82 damage.
Vampirirc Gaze: 52 life stealing.
Total, 134 damage, 3 second cast.

In every way, you gained 52 health Atleast, and dealt damage with not much of a loss, other than that, you wont deal another 41 damage if life is less than 50% of that foe. that would make, 93 damage regardless in 3 seconds
Recastable in 8 seconds. while for us, it is recastable in 13 seconds.

Enough of me comparing for now i guess.
If my english confuses any one, let me know, i will get someone to redo my post.

Regardz
An Elementalist.

quickmonty · Apr 15, 2006, 05:14 AM // 05:14

To Phoenix Arrows:
Someone ran numbers once on the difference between direct energy cost and exhaustion. I'll see if I can find that post, but the conclussion was that exhaustion is far worse than increased energy cost over the period of time of a typical battle. Exhaustion decreases your energy pool for a period of time and takes longer to regen than energy used.

It would also be interesting, in your test at Isle of Nameless to see the effects of Obsidian Flame ignoring armor. Should be the same damage on all the targets.

I'll also double check, but I think Flame at 16 is around 120 or better. Could be mistaken.

Exploiter:
It's not so much your English, but trying to figure out what point you are trying to make. You quote my post out of context, as I was replying to another post that compared the two skills. I never said that Glyph of energy was some uber skill to cure the exhuastion problem, just that it CAN help. And why are you comparing necros to eles? Necros don't have exhaustion. It's like comparing apples to oranges.

/appologies for getting off topic

Akhilleus · Apr 15, 2006, 05:19 AM // 05:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by AaronSwitchblade

Before anyone flames me, read the full suggestion

The idea would be to have an elementalist skill - or even an emote that completely gets rid of exhaustion.

It would take 20 seconds to initiate, and then a further 10 seconds to get rid of all the exhaustion. Whilst using this, even the weakest hit on the elementalist would mean instant death.

The idea behind this is what's happening to me now. I'm in the middle of the Shiverpeaks after a big fight, in which I used Obsidian Flame a lot and have become very exhausted. I'm now miles from any enemy, and I'm going to wait till I'm not exhausted anymore. Basically, people ARE going to wait out their exhaustion in between battles; it would be nice if ArenaNet (in keeping with most other things in Guild Wars) could eliminate this wait.

Ideally this skill would be disabled in PvP.

in·stant·ly (nstnt-l)
adv.
1. At once.
2. With insistence; urgently.
conj. Chiefly British
As soon as.

this skill suggestion is far from instantly.

Xpl0iter · Apr 15, 2006, 05:45 AM // 05:45

Heh monty, reason i am comparing the two is to emphasize what exhaustion does to a class. How the effectiveness decreases when you deal with exhaustion related spells, and how non exhausting professions can deal damage without much of issues.

Zui · Apr 15, 2006, 06:42 AM // 06:42

This isin't a thread about spiking, but since it has become one...

Shadow strike+vamp gaze deals its total damage in slightly over 1 second. Obsidian fame does it instantly. There is no spell combo, therefore there is no aftercast, and no second cast. I'll leave it at that, as the debate as to which one is 'better' should be in gladiators arena, not here.

Back to the exhaustion mechanic, which is what is being debated. Exhausting spells all have a very powerful effect, and thus shouldn't be highly spammable, here are some examples:

1. Obsidian flame, massive armor ignoring damage causes 118 at 16 earth, 2 second cast.
2. Earthquake, targeted, nearby aoe radius, causes knockdown and 105 damage at 16 earth, 3 second cast.
3. Meteor, targed, adjacent aoe radius, causes knockdown and 119 damage at 16 fire, 3 second cast.

The only exhaustion causing spells that don't have a long cast time are the elite ones(all 1 second save one that is 2), gale, and shock.

All exhaustion spells would completely change the game if they were spammable, look at the last PvP season with the galespam, due to the broken exhaustion mechanic and gale only costing 5 energy. Most of them have a long cast time, and are quite powerful compared with everything else in the game. Energy storage is a great fix for elementalists exhaustion problems, and keeps them from spamming too much. After all +40 maximum energy, is going to let you use exhaustion causing spells much more often, assuming you have around 13 in energy storage.

As for the skill Shadow Strike, 1/2 of the damage from it is conditional, only triggering while the target is above 50% life. This doesn't make it a very good finishing skill, like obsidian flame can be. Obsidian flame is unconditional damage(save prot spirit) and causes exhaustion, versus a spell with conditional + damage, that doesn't cause exhaustion.

Used properly any exhaustion causing skills are a great asset, but used improperly they can completely shut you down for minutes in PvE, and in PvP will probably make you loose, as -1 team mate really isin't that appealing.

As for lightning orb versus obsidian flame, lightning orb acts as a projectile like several other spells, thus it can be dodged quite eaisly. You can go test it out at isle of the nameless if you want, just about anyone can dodge it 60+ percent of the time. While obsidian flame is sure to hit. The damage is simmilar, but the damage from lightning orb will go down vs targets with higher armor, while the damage from obsidian flame will not. Both have the same casting time, so can be inturupted just as easily, and will do simmilar damage versus a target with 60 al(providing orb hits). It's really an interesting trade off, and should be decided on what you're trying to accomplish with your build.

NatalieD · Apr 15, 2006, 07:24 AM // 07:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by quickmonty

Lighting Orb is 3x the energy cost, does *less* damage (if it hits!) and has 25% armor penetration where Obsidian Flame ignores armor. Hardly a fair comparison. (where did that 120+ on a caster come from?) Yes .... Glyph of Energy can help.

You don't understand how armor works. A (non-armor-ignoring) spell does exactly its listed damage if it hits a target with 60 AL. Which is what casters have, unless they use a defensive staff or something. An armor-ignoring spell does exactly its listed damage on any target. So armor-ignoring is only really a benefit when you're targeting a warrior or a ranger.

When you use a non-armor-ignoring spell against a target with less than 60 AL, you do more damage than the skill lists. Armor penetration can reduce a target's effective AL to less than 60. Lightning orb, hitting a caster, treats them as having 45 AL, so the damage actually ends up substantially higher than what the skill description says. Higher than obsidian flame, in fact.

quickmonty · Apr 15, 2006, 11:38 AM // 11:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by NatalieD

You don't understand how armor works. A (non-armor-ignoring) spell does exactly its listed damage if it hits a target with 60 AL. Which is what casters have, unless they use a defensive staff or something. An armor-ignoring spell does exactly its listed damage on any target. So armor-ignoring is only really a benefit when you're targeting a warrior or a ranger.

When you use a non-armor-ignoring spell against a target with less than 60 AL, you do more damage than the skill lists. Armor penetration can reduce a target's effective AL to less than 60. Lightning orb, hitting a caster, treats them as having 45 AL, so the damage actually ends up substantially higher than what the skill description says. Higher than obsidian flame, in fact.

Ignores armor ........ ignores armor. Plain and simple. Doesn't matter if the target is a warrior, ranger or a troll.

Do you have test numbers to back the *fact* that lightning orb does more damage than obsidian flame? I'm going to run some tests today to get some actual numbers.

Deathwingg00 · Apr 15, 2006, 12:05 PM // 12:05

Weaken armor + lightning orb on warrior = 140 damage