Curse

ajc2123 · Jun 18, 2009, 01:59 AM // 01:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

The problem with that is, unless you make lots of PvE / PvP skill splits, changing core skills will also cause PvP ripples. It is undoubtedly a dangerous change. I'm not convinced this is a good idea.

PS: It's Hamstring, not Cripslash.

That's Why in my previous post (Seriously, No one reads things all the way?) I said PvE only.

PS: Oh well, shit happens.

Kendel · Jun 18, 2009, 02:18 AM // 02:18

Theres 1 major problem with making better PvE versions of skills so Ele's aren't quite as pathetic vs some HM foes and making changes to PvE skills like Ele Lord and Intensity is a bad idea, it cramps the skillbar even more.

They are the foes you are trying to kill. You buff the skills and you end up on the recieving of some insane 300+ damage spells from regular HM foes.

It could be worth changing the Attunements or Aura of Restoration (although the latter is used more by foes) to give them enchanced damage or AP or other effects based on your number of points in the attribute. Very few foes run Attunements (if any) and 99.9% of players use them so the benefits stay largely for us without seriously overpowering regular Ele foes.

BigDave · Jun 18, 2009, 03:30 AM // 03:30

I still can't understand the "Elementalist's can't do damage in HM" attitude. My post included a screenshot showing some pretty impressive damage, aswell as damage prevention and still people say the damage from ele's in HM is poor.

With 2 PvE skills (and lets face it, who doesn't use PvE skills these days?), only one of which needs to be at a decent level an ele can put out some pretty impressive damage. And if using the right build can prevent a lot of damage aswell.

It's long been accepted that in PvE there are only 2 truly viable attributes to deal large nuking damage. Fire and Earth. For the sake of HM and foes fleeing AoE lets ignore Fire which only does a little more damage anyway. That leaves Earth magic.

Now for some calculations.

@ 15 Earth Prayers the 3 AoE damage-over-time Earth nukes do 40 damage to a 60AL target. Unsteady Ground, Churning Earth and Eruption. What effect do they have on foes? Unsteady Ground knocks down anything that is hit while attacking, a pretty easy condition to meet. Churning Earth knocks down anything moving faster than "normal", which everything in HM does. Again a very easy condition to meet. And finally Eruption blinds everything it hits for 10 seconds which basically renders almost anything relying on physical attacks absolutely useless.

For the PvE skills, Ebon Battle Standard of Honor (an ele's best friend) does an extra 12 armour ignoring damage @ rank 6, a very easy rank to meet. "By Ural's Hammer!" last for 9 seconds @ rank 6, again a very easy rank to meet. Mindbender is a great help for damage compression but not needed. It does however last long enough to get your spells off even at low ranks.

If you cast Eruption, Unsteady Ground and Churning Earth in that order you will put pretty much anything on it's arse for the whole duration of all 3 spells. Especially if you can pack Mindbender on your bar. Prior to casting the spells you will have cast Ebon Battle Standard of Honor to add damage. The moment before Eruption starts hitting you will have hit "By Ural's Hammer!" to add yet more damage. Assuming you cast each spell end to end "Ural's" should last for the whole duration of all 3 spells, maybe missing the last pulse of the last spell.

Still with me?

You've just knocked down at least twice, and blinded pretty everything you've just hit. Fantastic damage prevention. But what damage did you do to the enemy? Lets work it out.

Eruption does 40 damage x 5 hits. Same for Unsteady Ground and Churning Earth. so that's 15 hits of 40 damage. If you hit a 100AL target you'll only be doing 20 damage per hit due to armour damage reduction. Ebon Battle Standard of Honor adds 12 armour ignoring damage (@ rank 6) so we're back up to 32 damage. "Ural's" adds 25% damage so we're now up to 32x1.25 = 40 damage. The exact same as what the spell would have done to a 60AL target before buffs. 40x15 = 600 damage. That's PER TARGET caught in the AoE, with 100AL. And i can say from experience that if you cast the spells at the right time and in the right order you WILL keep things stuck in the AoE.

And here's a screenshot of me nuking Mountain Trolls in HM.

http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r...letrollsHM.jpg

There are only 3 trolls in this shot and my vanguard rank is higher hence 44 damage instead of 40, but it makes the point. Ele damage in HM is more than enough when done correctly. And this is with NO cracked armour which i almost always carry on my SS hero. The damage is over 50 per hit with cracked armour.

Chthon · Jun 18, 2009, 03:35 AM // 03:35

1. I agree that eles need to do better damage in HM. They're supposed to be a damage class, and they're not.

2. My pet solution to this problem is to change the monsters. Monsters throughout the game should be given "theme" weaknesses like many monsters in Prophecies have. Each monster should have one element set at 60AL, one that maxes around 80 or 90AL, and the other 2 scaling normally. Monsters appearing in the same area should have mostly overlapping weaknesses to make sure there's a viable ele build for each zone. (Of course I realize that the amount of work needed to do this means it's unlikely a-net will ever do it.)

3. Barring my pet solution, I think sticking armor penetration on a PvE skill is a pretty good one-size-fits-all solution to the problem.

4.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmakinen

Actually it does. The whole issue is about scaling, or lack of it in the case of elementalist skills. Tweaking elemental attributes or +damage% are both linear processes whereas armor damage reduction is exponential. No matter how you set the parameters, you're bound to have silly OP stuff or pathetic underperformance somewhere along the range. Armor penetration addresses this directly. A spell with 25% armor penetration will do 29% more damage to an AL60 target but 68% more damage to an AL120 target, in comparison with a similar spell but without AP. Hence it's possible to make elemental damage viable at the high end while keeping low end damage within reasonable bounds.

THis. Also, it avoids the problem of HM ele monsters getting even more ridiculous as a side effect of buffing player eles.

Axel Zinfandel · Jun 18, 2009, 03:52 AM // 03:52

There's also the matter that Anet is working on GW2. They aren't going to change every monster in the game when they can buff one skill.

@BigDave I'm pointing my finger at Fire Magic, and to a lesser extent Air Magic. Earth is -awesome- for support, really, but 50 damage is hardly nuking

Jeydra · Jun 18, 2009, 04:28 AM // 04:28

@BigDave - there're lots of reasons, eg:

1. By Ural's Hammer and the Vanguard Ward are both skills that you have to bring yourself. You cannot delegate them to a hero (which would allow you to bring more offense and hence more damage - after all it is the player in charge of most of the DPS in a team, and you need PvE skills for that).
2. Downtime. By Ural's Hammer has downtime = 20s.
3. Cast time. Churning Earth and Eruption both have 2-3s cast times. This drops your DPS (and you still have to factor in aftercast). You also spend a lot of time putting buffs up.
4. AoE scatter. HM monsters do that a lot especially when Churning Earth is down.
5. Physicals still do more damage (if you deal 100 a hit with a Scythe and hit 3 people and have 33% IAS will you outdamage that?).
6. SY! compensates for not having blind. It's not as good as blind itself but it also affects other kinds of damage.

BigDave · Jun 18, 2009, 06:00 AM // 06:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

@BigDave - there're lots of reasons, eg:

1. By Ural's Hammer and the Vanguard Ward are both skills that you have to bring yourself. You cannot delegate them to a hero (which would allow you to bring more offense and hence more damage - after all it is the player in charge of most of the DPS in a team, and you need PvE skills for that).

Those skills are damage or am i imagining those yellow numbers? The ward also adds damage to other peoples spells if they take ones that work with it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

2. Downtime. By Ural's Hammer has downtime = 20s.

The downtime of Urals matches the downtime of the nukes. Funny that. And if you use the nukes properly the first time you only need it once.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

3. Cast time. Churning Earth and Eruption both have 2-3s cast times. This drops your DPS (and you still have to factor in aftercast). You also spend a lot of time putting buffs up.

Cast time can be sorted with either Mindbender or a 40/40 set. The faster you cast, the faster your damage is put down, the faster things die. As for setting up buffs, you can do that while you're deciding where to drop your nukes or do you just drop them on the first thing you see? I hope not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

4. AoE scatter. HM monsters do that a lot especially when Churning Earth is down.

Churning Earth causes scatter, yes....which then triggers a KD. Unsteady Ground also triggers a KD. KD's keep things where they are. If a thing can't get out of the AoE then it takes more damage. Do you see the pattern?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

5. Physicals still do more damage (if you deal 100 a hit with a Scythe and hit 3 people and have 33% IAS will you outdamage that?).

Probably will over a short period. While your scythe is hitting 3 targets (if you're lucky) for 100 my nukes are hitting 5-6 targets for 50. And there are 3 nukes. Over a period of around 10 seconds the nukes are doing more damage to more targets, at the end of which everything is dead because the other members of the party have been adding their damage aswell. Everything is dead = job done.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

6. SY! compensates for not having blind. It's not as good as blind itself but it also affects other kinds of damage.

Because every player and his dog can fit SY! on their bar. Yeah even the monks take it.

This thread was about Elementalists doing damage in HM. They can. They're not the best at it but they certainly can do heavy damage. If you can't then you're doing it wrong.

Jeydra · Jun 18, 2009, 06:28 AM // 06:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigDave

Those skills are damage or am i imagining those yellow numbers? The ward also adds damage to other peoples spells if they take ones that work with it.

Those skills are buffs not damage. BUH does no damage on its own and neither does the Vanguard Ward. Each buff you take reduces one offensive spell you can use.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigDave

The downtime of Urals matches the downtime of the nukes. Funny that. And if you use the nukes properly the first time you only need it once.

And so we conclude the entire bar has heavy downtime, which is a good thing or bad thing? As for needing it only once what happened to their healers?

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigDave

Cast time can be sorted with either Mindbender or a 40/40 set. The faster you cast, the faster your damage is put down, the faster things die. As for setting up buffs, you can do that while you're deciding where to drop your nukes or do you just drop them on the first thing you see? I hope not.

40/40 sets don't trigger all the time. Mindbender is another buff you have to put up. If you're setting up buffs you aren't dealing damage. That drops your DPS.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigDave

Churning Earth causes scatter, yes....which then triggers a KD. Unsteady Ground also triggers a KD. KD's keep things where they are. If a thing can't get out of the AoE then it takes more damage. Do you see the pattern?

Until it runs out. How long does Churning Earth last?

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigDave

Probably will over a short period. While your scythe is hitting 3 targets (if you're lucky) for 100 my nukes are hitting 5-6 targets for 50. And there are 3 nukes. Over a period of around 10 seconds the nukes are doing more damage to more targets, at the end of which everything is dead because the other members of the party have been adding their damage aswell. Everything is dead = job done.

100 damage is conservative. How can it be lucky to hit 3 targets with a scythe if it isn't even luckier to hit 5-6 targets with an AoE nuke? There are 3 nukes that take how long to cast? How many attacks can the Scythesin pull off in the meantime?

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigDave

Because every player and his dog can fit SY! on their bar. Yeah even the monks take it.

This thread was about Elementalists doing damage in HM. They can. They're not the best at it but they certainly can do heavy damage. If you can't then you're doing it wrong.

You can't. You can bring SY, but you're casting = not wanding = no adrenaline to SY.

As for dealing "heavy damage" it depends on what you call "heavy". Is 50 DPS heavy to you?

ajc2123 · Jun 18, 2009, 10:34 AM // 10:34

I hurd
[Deep Freeze]
[Meteor Shower]
was good.

sonofthort · Jun 18, 2009, 03:34 PM // 15:34

Although I agree with BigDave that there are ways to get around monsters armor in hm, doing so requires 2-3 extra skills on your bar that only funtion to increase the damage of your other spells, hence largley limiting an ele's options.

FengShuiDove · Jun 18, 2009, 05:02 PM // 17:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmakinen

PvE assassins who don't own NF are at a huge disadvantage. For them it's perma or bust

What's funnier is that both the A/E and A/Me versions of permaform depend on [[Deadly Paradox], a Nightfall skill. Selling point much?

Someone earlier in the thread mentioned the Conjures. Adding +damage and/or armor penetration to the Conjures on spells of the same attribute line would be an excellent fix. Let's assess the damage of 4 common high dps builds:

1. Scythe Sin -- DPS is gained through Critical hits (multiplicative) and +damage on Eremite's/Mystic (additive).

2. Scythe War -- Gained through armor penetration (multiplicative) and +damage on Eremite's/Mystic (additive).

3. Moebius Sin -- Strictly through insane +damage (additive)

4. D-Slash War -- +damage from D-Slash (additive) and some from armor penetration (multiplicative).

The problem is that Eles, as mentioned several times, have no modifiers that scale either additively or multiplicatively into HM, just straight damage numbers. Modify the Conjures for +damage or %ap on spells of the same attribute and change a useless elite's functionality to something like Elemental Attunement for Conjures. This would increase damage without buffing a large pool of skills or the functionality of HM or the Elementalist profession in general, and an elite like that would encourage 12/10/8, 12/9/9, or 12/11/6 splits between two elements and E-Storage. You'll notice that Earth doesn't have a Conjure and that puts it at a disadvantage, but still, Earth is typically more utility anyway through KD, Wards, etc., and if you need more damage from Earth skills you could use the "Conjure elite" with Churning Earth, Wards, etc.

Kendel · Jun 18, 2009, 05:13 PM // 17:13

I disagree pretty much entirely.

Unsteady Ground is dreadful. Its damage is nothing spectacular and it lasts 5 seconds. If you are VERY lucky you'll actually get 2 KD'd from it, but you won't, they get up and run off.
Churning Earth, this is just dodgy, you hit a moving target? HM foes move quite fast, if you target a moving foe, he's out of range before the first hit even triggers. If you target the mob to agro, you might be lucky to get 1 KD off but your damage is still crap.
Eruption also does pretty poor damage, if you seriously think your taking Eruption for the damage and not the Blind your deluded.

If you want a KD, you take Earthquake, its reliable and has a large area. Also you can take Meteor/Meteor Shower with your Fire AoEs to stop em moving. In NM your damage is ok, but armour has too big an effect from HM foes, especially some of the higher end foes (ah the joys of HM Mursaat bosses with something like 180 AL, they were hilarious in Prophecies when fire eles couldn't even scratch them).

Your bar seems very contrived. You've got your energy management (or possibly not), your buffs, and some AoEs with a terrible recharge. Your just kidding yourself, you chose skills for the KD and Blind, thats not a damage dealers choice, thats utility.

sonofthort · Jun 18, 2009, 06:06 PM // 18:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by FengShuiDove

Someone earlier in the thread mentioned the Conjures. Adding +damage and/or armor penetration to the Conjures on spells of the same attribute line would be an excellent fix.

In an earlier post I pointed out that applying the armor penetration to the conjure spells might not be as good as applying them to attunement spells, reason being there is an attunement for every element, attunement spells are common on almost every ele damage bar, and imo 25% armor penetration better fits the name attunement than conjure. Another problem ppl have pointed out is that updating core skills with armor penetration would also give the benefit to hm monsters, I'm personally not sure how often monsters use attunement spells, somebody said they usually don't, but this fact adds strength to the arguement that the buff should be applied to pve only skills intensity or elemental lord. My original thinking on elemental lord is to make it equivelent to aura of restoration because alot of ele's use aura of restoration anyways, I think the buff should be applied to a skill which almost all ele's almost always use, as to open up the most possibilities, so again attunement spells would be ideal but then again monsters would gain the benefit as well.

Coney · Jun 18, 2009, 07:12 PM // 19:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by sonofthort

You hear it all over, Ele's are underpowered in HM because their spells are not armor ignoring and monsters in HM have extra high armor, which causes groups to rely on other classes for nuking. I would like to hear some suggestions as to how ele's could be buffed to bring them back into the mainstream.

How about a simple change suggested by your very post - make more spells armor-ignoring (or semi-ignoring).

Pretty cut and dry - and I agree. As it stands now, my ele in HM usually uses burning, as it's fixed degen. That, and OP PvE spells. I've heard that some of the earth magic spells are armor-ignoring, but not too sure (crystal wave).

Or how about armor-permiability based on so many ranks of Energy storage - something like 20% penetration every 4-5 points.

These are simple changes - yours requires major rework of a spell, and massive testing to ensure it isn't exploitable/OP.

Kendel · Jun 18, 2009, 07:58 PM // 19:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by sonofthort

In an earlier post I pointed out that applying the armor penetration to the conjure spells might not be as good as applying them to attunement spells, reason being there is an attunement for every element, attunement spells are common on almost every ele damage bar, and imo 25% armor penetration better fits the name attunement than conjure. Another problem ppl have pointed out is that updating core skills with armor penetration would also give the benefit to hm monsters, I'm personally not sure how often monsters use attunement spells, somebody said they usually don't, but this fact adds strength to the arguement that the buff should be applied to pve only skills intensity or elemental lord. My original thinking on elemental lord is to make it equivelent to aura of restoration because alot of ele's use aura of restoration anyways, I think the buff should be applied to a skill which almost all ele's almost always use, as to open up the most possibilities, so again attunement spells would be ideal but then again monsters would gain the benefit as well.

I think they should be done to Attunements also but for a different reason. The elements have different specialities. Adding Armour penetration to fire doesn't make sense. Simply do something to Attunements (PvE) so it scales with that element, not with some external title that woudl just be irritating for players.

Enhance the damage dealt by Fire spells, maybe by 10% every 3 ranks in Fire. So if you ran with 15 fire you'd be getting 50% more damage.

Enhance the armour penetration of Air spells, something like 8-10% per 3 ranks in Air, so instead of the base 25% which seems to do very little, your getting around 70-80% armour penetration on spells that are single target and are really worth using for damage. Possibly boost condition duration too because Blinding Flash has been getting nerfed recently and Thunderclap is a great skill but isn't always that great a choice thanks to Technobabble.

Enhance hex duration by 10% and damage by 5% per 3 ranks in Water, that way your few skills that do cause damage get a little boost and your hexes like Deep Freeze become alot more effective.

As for Earth i have no idea. Enhancing ward duration seems an obvious choice, as done maybe damage or condition draiton.

sonofthort · Jun 18, 2009, 08:23 PM // 20:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coney

How about a simple change suggested by your very post - make more spells armor-ignoring (or semi-ignoring).

Pretty cut and dry - and I agree. As it stands now, my ele in HM usually uses burning, as it's fixed degen. That, and OP PvE spells. I've heard that some of the earth magic spells are armor-ignoring, but not too sure (crystal wave).

Or how about armor-permiability based on so many ranks of Energy storage - something like 20% penetration every 4-5 points.

These are simple changes - yours requires major rework of a spell, and massive testing to ensure it isn't exploitable/OP.

I'm not sure that it would be all that difficult to make one spell grant 25% armor penetration, seems like it would be easier than buffing a ton of spells to be armor ignoring, which in my opinion they shouldn't be armor ignoring. And 20% armor penetration for every 4-5 points in energy storage, could be an interesting idea, 60%+ armor penetration might result in crazy wtf damage, might be too powerful, but a buff to energy storage could be an idea (doesn't really fit the descripton of energy storage tho, maybe make that change to each elemental attribute).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kendel

I think they should be done to Attunements also but for a different reason. The elements have different specialities. Adding Armour penetration to fire doesn't make sense. Simply do something to Attunements (PvE) so it scales with that element, not with some external title that woudl just be irritating for players.

Enhance the damage dealt by Fire spells, maybe by 10% every 3 ranks in Fire. So if you ran with 15 fire you'd be getting 50% more damage.

Enhance the armour penetration of Air spells, something like 8-10% per 3 ranks in Air, so instead of the base 25% which seems to do very little, your getting around 70-80% armour penetration on spells that are single target and are really worth using for damage. Possibly boost condition duration too because Blinding Flash has been getting nerfed recently and Thunderclap is a great skill but isn't always that great a choice thanks to Technobabble.

Enhance hex duration by 10% and damage by 5% per 3 ranks in Water, that way your few skills that do cause damage get a little boost and your hexes like Deep Freeze become alot more effective.

As for Earth i have no idea. Enhancing ward duration seems an obvious choice, as done maybe damage or condition draiton.

I see why you say it doesn't make sense to add armor penetration to fire magic, but armor penetration, as others have pointed out, address the problem of high armor in HM directly, it would allow good nuking in HM, but not make nuking extremely over powered in NM. As for increased hex and ward duration, I'm not really sure that the durations are a problem, but it does fit the general pattern you are suggesting, I would like to see it focus more on increasing damage tho.

EDIT: Just came to my attention that buffing the attribute classes themselves would give the buff to every hm monster!!!! This is definetly not a good thing!

aoeclald · Jun 18, 2009, 09:04 PM // 21:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kendel

I think they should be done to Attunements also but for a different reason. The elements have different specialities. Adding Armour penetration to fire doesn't make sense. Simply do something to Attunements (PvE) so it scales with that element, not with some external title that woudl just be irritating for players.

Enhance the damage dealt by Fire spells, maybe by 10% every 3 ranks in Fire. So if you ran with 15 fire you'd be getting 50% more damage.

Enhance the armour penetration of Air spells, something like 8-10% per 3 ranks in Air, so instead of the base 25% which seems to do very little, your getting around 70-80% armour penetration on spells that are single target and are really worth using for damage. Possibly boost condition duration too because Blinding Flash has been getting nerfed recently and Thunderclap is a great skill but isn't always that great a choice thanks to Technobabble.

Enhance hex duration by 10% and damage by 5% per 3 ranks in Water, that way your few skills that do cause damage get a little boost and your hexes like Deep Freeze become alot more effective.

As for Earth i have no idea. Enhancing ward duration seems an obvious choice, as done maybe damage or condition draiton.

Changing it the way you have it will end up being more beneficial to other professions than an elementalist. Mesmers will be able to abuse Fire builds combined with Fast Casting to deal large amounts of damage with 1 second spells. The same goes for most of those.

Also, increasing hex duration will make some of the hexes worse. For example, Shatterstone will last longer meaning the burst of damage it does can be easily caught and healed. Shatterstone is one of the few great damaging elites in the Water tier and making the change you suggest would ruin that skill.

The same goes for making the change to attunements as previously mentioned. Considering anyone can pop an attunement on their bar means all professions get to abuse the damage boost, with our prime subject being the mesmer.

Right now as it stands, the only viable option would be to rework Intensity to fit the needs that you guys ask for. Also, where do you guys see this "Elementalists are sold as being the highest damage class" because I've never seen anywhere that ANet would have said this. In terms of what you might have expected compared to other games that caster-classes do tend to be the most damaging, Guild Wars does not fit the other realm of games. In fact, Guild Wars is one of the few CORPG's (Competitive Online Roleplaying Games) compared to WoW and other MMORPG's you are probably basing your opinions on.

Keira Nightgale · Jun 18, 2009, 10:16 PM // 22:16

I heard assasin promise + ural+intensity+ ebon makes your screen filled with big numbers if you run fire or earth.

Short · Jun 18, 2009, 10:29 PM // 22:29

Ele's don't particularly need massive damage in HM, they're more of a support class with earth etc. If you do want damage just take Intensity, BUH! and EBSoH. Easy tbh.

Kendel · Jun 18, 2009, 10:59 PM // 22:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by aoeclald

Changing it the way you have it will end up being more beneficial to other professions than an elementalist. Mesmers will be able to abuse Fire builds combined with Fast Casting to deal large amounts of damage with 1 second spells. The same goes for most of those.

So? Scale it with PvE skills ANYONE can use it and it turns it into a grind. Scale it with Energy Storage and you basically screw people up that are lowering ES for a bit of 3rd attribute speccing. Who cares if Mesmers can use it, if Cry of Pain ever gets kicked out of the realm of being a stupidly overpowered AoE spike skill then Mesmers can use it for some damage aswell.

Quote:

Also, increasing hex duration will make some of the hexes worse. For example, Shatterstone will last longer meaning the burst of damage it does can be easily caught and healed. Shatterstone is one of the few great damaging elites in the Water tier and making the change you suggest would ruin that skill.

Yes i did think of Shatterstone... then i thought, who gives a toss. If you increase them by 50%+ Shatterstone would last 5s instead of 3s. Do you seriously think "I need to spike, i'll go Water magic"? If you do then Air has some serious problems that a massive increase in AP would solve. It wouldn't effect it much, making Deep Freeze last 15+ seconds is a hell of alot better.

Quote:

The same goes for making the change to attunements as previously mentioned. Considering anyone can pop an attunement on their bar means all professions get to abuse the damage boost, with our prime subject being the mesmer.

Again how is that a problem? Mesmers have always lacked in PvE due to the way they work. Cry of Pain not only made Mesmers capable of dealing AoE damage it made them FAR better at it than Eles for farming. If they start using Ele again this really isn't a problem until they start to do it far better than a real Ele.

Awesome Keira, you mean i get to gimp half my bar by running PvE skills to amp up my damage, leaving me 3 slots to bring skills that actually hurt? Wow i can do so much with that... /sarcasm.

@sonof - Yes thats why i was going for Attunements. Buff skills or attributes and you turn the already stupidly powerful HM ele foes into 1 hit killing machines. Almost nothing in PvE uses Attunements and almost every player uses them.

Also a thought for Earth, give it increased knockdown time. Say 50/100% at 15 so you get 3 or 4 second KDs, making them really worth using.