Curse

neoteo · Dec 21, 2005, 09:52 AM // 09:52

im near to have all ele skills , if you are playing mostly a ele , i advise you to do the same ,

, after you will be able to run anything with it, actualy my real goal is to unlock all skills with my ele RPG char. i have unlocked some skills with faction , but then is frustating i cant use it in pve , so i have quit doing that , and went back to pve untill i have done it.

sorry that was offtopic , what i mean to say is , there is no best magic all are good depending on situation.

Desthe · Dec 21, 2005, 11:14 AM // 11:14

First of all, Air is useless in all facets of the game. Period. Earth is too expensive and a lot of the skills have exhaustion so that becomes pretty lame after a few castings.

Water is just... well water. Haha.

I'd stick with Fire. You can set people on fire and it has massive aoe for Monks and the Casters who like to linger around them. I dominate with Fire in arena regularly.

Yanman.be · Dec 21, 2005, 11:23 AM // 11:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Desthe

First of all, Air is useless in all facets of the game. Period. Earth is too expensive and a lot of the skills have exhaustion so that becomes pretty lame after a few castings.

Water is just... well water. Haha.

I'd stick with Fire. You can set people on fire and it has massive aoe for Monks and the Casters who like to linger around them. I dominate with Fire in arena regularly.

lol I think it's the opposite of what you just said...
air useless? why would it be in GW then? GG if you ever encountered RUS corp

earth too expensive? >.> talk about fire then... take energy management

for instance, earth attunement + glyph of energy and earthquake...
YOU GAIN ENERGY, enough for the free aftershock..
PLUS it has only 15 seconds cooldown, hard to run from...
more dmg then a single fire skill could possibly do
AND earth has wards and other protective spells

now fire...some loose BIG easy to heal and avoidable dmg for HIGH cost and HORRID recharge...( CA does not count for testing wich magig to use )

and water is nice in pvp..water are the best flagrunners, slow down, and decent aoe dmg too ( maelstrom > meteor shower imo )

Bast · Dec 21, 2005, 11:45 AM // 11:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yanman.be

lol I think it's the opposite of what you just said...
air useless? why would it be in GW then? GG if you ever encountered RUS corp

earth too expensive? >.> talk about fire then... take energ management
for instance, earth attunement + glyph of energy and earthquake...YOU GAIN ENERGY, enough for the free aftershock..PLUS it has only 15 seconds cooldown, hard to run from...more dmg then a single fire skill..AND earth has wards and other protective spells

now fire...some loose BIG easy to heal and avoidable dmg for HIGH cost and LOW recharge...( CA does not count for testing wich magig to use )

and water is nice in pvp..water are the best flagrunners, slow down, and decent aoe dmg too ( maelstrom > meteor shower

owned!

a cadet · Dec 22, 2005, 03:44 AM // 03:44

Well, I cant say I agree with Ensign, but he puts forth some interesting arguments.

Well said.

tafy69 · Dec 22, 2005, 07:17 AM // 07:17

Air and Fire are very nice offensive characters, the splash damage of fire spells are great to waste the monks energy in pressure teams.

For defense most people tend to go with a earth warder, but water ele is also nice for defense too.

The best build i like is a earth ele warder with water trident and blurred vision, its like the ultimate relic blocker

Ensign · Dec 22, 2005, 10:54 PM // 22:54

Thanks to the new observer mode, I can happily confirm that tombs is indeed crap. Run Flame Burst around in people's "backlines" all you want, there are no lines in tombs, nor do most people notice.

I have nothing against AoE skills. I like AoE damage more than most in PvP. I simply do not think that Fireball + Rodgort's Invocation, or Fireball + Meteor Shower, is a sufficient set of tools for someone to do a job, and unlike water partially speccing really doesn't do anything for you. Maybe an expansion or two down the line we'll get enough goodies to make an effective character out of, eh?

(Or, I hope, the AI 'nerf' will allow them to properly balance many of the AoE skills for realistic PvP scenarios instead of shackling the line with PvE AI abuse, and bring the line up to par.)

Peace,
-CxE

Phades · Dec 22, 2005, 11:41 PM // 23:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Chain Lightning and Lightning Strike both deal very good damage per energy and damage per time invested.

I dunno about sustained repeate use of any exhaustion based skill. Chain lightning is nice if you hit more than one target with it, but even simple things like gale will lock you out of being effective over time as an ele. Sure you could glyph it, but that just adds time before its delivered. In pvp, ive always found that i want the skill to be delivered now, if not before now opposed to 3-4s from now. Comparing exaustion based skills though, if you arent hitting 2 targets regularly with chain lightning, id just as soon prefer to use obsidian flame and maintain the ability to assist in other roles as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Fire Eles? Well, I'll consider running one in PvP when I can put three copies of Fireball on my bar. I'll pass on the line in serious competition until then.

They could also just shave off another 2s on the recast time on it and allow it the parity it deserves to have with lightning orb. Then you would only need 2 copies of it on the bar or a 50% recharge reduction. Other nice things they could do is bump immolate's damage up to the incindary bonds level, knock 1s off the cast time for rogdort's invocation and meteor, 10s off the recast time for phoenix, and somehow make firestorm and searing heat suck less. Meteor shower will always be too unweildy for pvp i think. Seeing it on the use/reuse level of earthquake will probably never happen.

Xasew · Dec 23, 2005, 01:40 AM // 01:40

5 Me/Es
3 Monks

16 FC
12 Fire

Double Attunements
AoE(nothing instant except Fireball)
Res Sig

Way better for fame farming than IWAY.

Ensign · Dec 23, 2005, 01:46 AM // 01:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

I dunno about sustained repeate use of any exhaustion based skill.

There is no sustained, repeatable usage of skills in this game - or, if there is, it really doesn't matter. Battles do not last in stalemates forever. Situations change, people move, someone routs, or whatever. Point is when that happens I really don't care if I have zero or full exhaustion. There's going to be a down period when I get to work some of that off, so you might as well exploit the resource.

Firing off 3 Chain Lightnings a minute without Glyph builds up Exhaustion at a rate of 10 energy per minute, which means you aren't even going to care about the loss for a good 5 minutes. Usually enough happens in those five minutes to break the battle in some way. Occasionally it does not and you adjust, but I for one do not play for the stalemate.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Chain lightning is nice if you hit more than one target with it, but even simple things like gale will lock you out of being effective over time as an ele.

That's true for all AoE skills, though. If you can't hit multiple targets consistently you shouldn't be running an AoE enabled Elementalist. Chain is no exception. As for Gale locking someone, that's something that you simply cannot realistically build around. It's the same situation as a Mind Wracker - sometimes they'll have a specialized 1 on 1 lockout character, and you just need to eat the 1 on 1 trade and wiggle enough to try and keep them from breaking the symmetry (5 energy, 1 second cast spells, basically). The Mind Wracker is a much stronger tool than a Gale-lock, really, and I'd be much more worried about that sort of trade than some guy making 1:1 trades of Gale vs. Chain.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Sure you could glyph it, but that just adds time before its delivered. In pvp, ive always found that i want the skill to be delivered now, if not before now opposed to 3-4s from now.

Important when playing Prot or Mesmer, but less so when on Elementalist or Necromancer. Mesmer and many Monk roles are unquestionably twitch based, about making plans and decisions on the fly and executing immediately. Elementalist, I've found, works a bit differently. To be effective you need to see the game 5, 10 seconds ahead and plan your casts around that. They require more planning, basically, than quick decision making. One trick, for instance, is to use a Chain Lightning on a midline caster immediately after an unsuccessful spike. The usual reaction of a spiked caster is to run back out of range, so by dropping a Chain Lightning on him immediately after the spike, he'll 'drag' the effect back with him, so when you finish casting he'll oftentimes be back around the Monks and you'll score some free hits on them.

Sure it would be convenient for skills to happen *now* sometimes, but the big effects you have to pay for. This seems emminently fair.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Comparing exaustion based skills though, if you arent hitting 2 targets regularly with chain lightning

If you aren't hitting two targets with Chain Lightning regularly you should not be using the skill. Period. End of discussion. You should hit at least two targets virtually every time and three with frequency. The AoE on the skill is respectable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

They could also just shave off another 2s on the recast time on it and allow it the parity it deserves to have with lightning orb.

Fireball, in my estimation, is already a better skill than Lightning Orb so there's little reason to keep buffing it. It already costs less, and the AoE give Fireball the potential to deal a whole lot more damage than Lightning Orb on its own. Then there's the different roles of the skills. Lightning Orb is a spike skill, period. The per energy damage is pathetic plus there's that pesky miss chance. You use it to drop a vulnerable target quickly and otherwise save your energy for Strikes, Chains, and other efficient skills. Fireball is an efficiency tool, more comparable to Chain Lightning or Lightning Strike. That it hits hard enough to even be in discussion with Lightning Orb speaks of how good that skill is. I really can't speak highly enough of Fireball, it's just a good all-around tool for a pyromancer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Other nice things they could do is bump immolate's damage up to the incindary bonds level...

There are a lot of little tweaks that would help quite a bit. Fire really has five skills that are at a reasonable power level for PvP - Fireball, Incendiary Bonds, Meteor Shower (grudgingly), Rodgort's Invocation (right on the cusp), and Flame Burst (with heavy reservations). Plus the Attunement and Conjure as assumed. Many of those have little synergy with each other which creates the problem to begin with.

Why the rest of the skills aren't good is as varied as the skills themselves - Immolate simply doesn't do enough damage to justify the energy investment (Lightning Strike does 14 DPE, instantly, Immolate maxes out at 9.5), Mind Burn inexplicibly costs 15, Phoenix and Meteor have pain-inducing cooldowns (I'd rather run 5 Air and an unerring, 1 second cast, 3 second knockdown, fast recharging version of the latter even on a fire build), while Firestorm, Lava Font, and Searing Heat deal downright laughable amounts of damage for the investment (though these 3 have been held back by AI abuse - they are clearly due for a buff now).

My feeling about fire in general is that it's been held back heavily by its popularity. Like swords, it really didn't matter if the line or the skills were good or not, people would use them because they're fire skills and people like fire. It's rather difficult to balance Firestorm, for instance, when it's the most popular fire skill no matter how little damage it does.

I think we're starting to work past that though. There are skills that I'd consider running, like Rodgort's or Incendiary Bonds, that I really don't know how to judge because there isn't enough of a core to start a build with. They're both fine as 7th or 8th skills but that isn't relevant when you're missing numbers 2 and 3. Fill those in, and we can get a better picture of where the line lies.

Peace,
-CxE

Phades · Dec 23, 2005, 07:01 AM // 07:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

There is no sustained, repeatable usage of skills in this game - or, if there is, it really doesn't matter. Battles do not last in stalemates forever. Situations change, people move, someone routs, or whatever. Point is when that happens I really don't care if I have zero or full exhaustion. There's going to be a down period when I get to work some of that off, so you might as well exploit the resource.

Granted, but since energy is more easily denied and manipulated for a slow caster like an elementalist, it just seems like there is more of a need for the overpriced skills to become more managable over time. This is where the dual attunement builds come in, but those are easily taken advantage of by experienced pvp builds and players. The exhaustion for many spells just adds insult to injury in some cases, especially against things that are heavy mitigation or interuption. Yeah, mantra of resolve eases some of that pain in one aspect, but suddenly heightens it in another.

In every 8v8 match ive lost as an elementalist, i noticed that i was almost always exhaustion locked. The matches i helped win, the exhaustion was not much of an issue at all. I suppose its just perception based upon experiences, but being rendered useless over time is not a very acceptable considering little outside interference is required to bring it about in some cases.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Firing off 3 Chain Lightnings a minute without Glyph builds up Exhaustion at a rate of 10 energy per minute, which means you aren't even going to care about the loss for a good 5 minutes. Usually enough happens in those five minutes to break the battle in some way. Occasionally it does not and you adjust, but I for one do not play for the stalemate.

I realize you are lowballing the actual performance output for the profession. It does seem odd to halve the actual potential use of it for comparison. Breaks in the battle are usually controlled by the side that is winning anyway. I havent personally witnessed a losing team sucessfully withdrawing and make any kind of meaningful comeback.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

That's true for all AoE skills, though. If you can't hit multiple targets consistently you shouldn't be running an AoE enabled Elementalist. Chain is no exception.

Well we are talking about AOE and PvP, where people move around alot. Yeah, it is more useable than static aoe spells, but small aoe like this and fireball do tend to strike one target frequently, unless you intentionally target a small group/pair of warriors on the same target.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Important when playing Prot or Mesmer, but less so when on Elementalist or Necromancer. Mesmer and many Monk roles are unquestionably twitch based, about making plans and decisions on the fly and executing immediately. Elementalist, I've found, works a bit differently. To be effective you need to see the game 5, 10 seconds ahead and plan your casts around that. They require more planning, basically, than quick decision making. One trick, for instance, is to use a Chain Lightning on a midline caster immediately after an unsuccessful spike. The usual reaction of a spiked caster is to run back out of range, so by dropping a Chain Lightning on him immediately after the spike, he'll 'drag' the effect back with him, so when you finish casting he'll oftentimes be back around the Monks and you'll score some free hits on them.

Ok i can see that, but i still find it strange that people will occasionally move near each other consistantly if only for a moment. Usually they are kinda spread out within spell range of each other. Even opposite sides of a ward is far enough to avoid the multi hit for an aoe.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Sure it would be convenient for skills to happen *now* sometimes, but the big effects you have to pay for. This seems emminently fair.

That depends on the perspective of the user. Like you said before other professions are more "twich" based. The sad part is their parity of "power" spells are not forced into the same kind of wait before their effects happen. Most of the elementalist spells do damage and nothing else. Many of the other caster professions can do more than one thing, but are also specialized. Unfortunatly they are also are more cost effective. I would expect higher priced, slower cast/recast, skills to drastically outpace similar skills. Unfortunatly a direct comparison is difficult, due to the multiple effects and many of them ignoring armor level entirely.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

If you aren't hitting two targets with Chain Lightning regularly you should not be using the skill. Period. End of discussion. You should hit at least two targets virtually every time and three with frequency. The AoE on the skill is respectable.

Thats like saying fireball should hit 2-3 characters every cast every time its ready. Chain lightning has a little more flexability for the area of effect in this instance, but its not that much bigger. Yes, you can wait for the right opportunty, but then you are waiting to use a prepped usable skill instead of using it. Spikes are timed damage events, but you have been describing using this particular skill as part of a pressure/damage build making repeate use and multiple targets the key instead of damage up front. Choosing to use this skill sparingly seems odd, especially with only 1 or 2 characters using it in this style of situation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Fireball, in my estimation, is already a better skill than Lightning Orb so there's little reason to keep buffing it. It already costs less, and the AoE give Fireball the potential to deal a whole lot more damage than Lightning Orb on its own. Then there's the different roles of the skills. Lightning Orb is a spike skill, period. The per energy damage is pathetic plus there's that pesky miss chance. You use it to drop a vulnerable target quickly and otherwise save your energy for Strikes, Chains, and other efficient skills. Fireball is an efficiency tool, more comparable to Chain Lightning or Lightning Strike. That it hits hard enough to even be in discussion with Lightning Orb speaks of how good that skill is. I really can't speak highly enough of Fireball, it's just a good all-around tool for a pyromancer.

I never said the skill was bad or terribly inefficient for a elementalist skill. I was merely commenting on how a small trim would cause it to "fill" more positions on the skill bar making it more comparable to the air build in the number of direct offense skills in it for consistant/persisting use.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

There are a lot of little tweaks that would help quite a bit. Fire really has five skills that are at a reasonable power level for PvP - Fireball, Incendiary Bonds, Meteor Shower (grudgingly), Rodgort's Invocation (right on the cusp), and Flame Burst (with heavy reservations). Plus the Attunement and Conjure as assumed. Many of those have little synergy with each other which creates the problem to begin with.

Well one problem with incidinary bonds is that its a hex like lightning surge is and should you try to immolate durring the hex as a single caster you lose burning time on the immolate. Alot of them have potential, but their use/reuse time is way off considering their costs. I can rationalize paying more for a stronger spell that is available as often as a skill it is based off of. I can rationalize paying more for a skill that casts faster and is available more often. What elementalists have are skils that can be stronger, but cost more energy, usuable less often, and take longer to have the effect to begin to occur. It simply doesn't make sense in most cases.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Why the rest of the skills aren't good is as varied as the skills themselves - Immolate simply doesn't do enough damage to justify the energy investment (Lightning Strike does 14 DPE, instantly, Immolate maxes out at 9.5), Mind Burn inexplicibly costs 15...

Mind burn also causes exhaustion, while immolate used to be a "efficent" no line of sight single target spell before the fireball change.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Phoenix and Meteor have pain-inducing cooldowns (I'd rather run 5 Air and an unerring, 1 second cast, 3 second knockdown, fast recharging version of the latter even on a fire build),

The 3 second cast time for a PBAOE or k/d spell doesnt really tickle my fancy either. Phoenix was a moderatly useful spirit cleaner, while mass spirit builds were popular though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

while Firestorm, Lava Font, and Searing Heat deal downright laughable amounts of damage for the investment (though these 3 have been held back by AI abuse - they are clearly due for a buff now).

Yeah they are painfully bad, but the patch that buffs them will probably also be the same patch that buffs things like chaos storm, symbol of wrath and others that ignore AL completely and are comparable to fire skills at AL 60. Air does get the distinction of bonus damage to low armor level targets, but i still think there is a need to widen the gap between things that do damage from different professions for crossover skills like these.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

My feeling about fire in general is that it's been held back heavily by its popularity. Like swords, it really didn't matter if the line or the skills were good or not, people would use them because they're fire skills and people like fire. It's rather difficult to balance Firestorm, for instance, when it's the most popular fire skill no matter how little damage it does.

That seems kinda strange to me, but im sure stranger things have happened. It would imply that they track the use of every skill some how globally and record the results, then balance by popularity rather than actual balance. If they were that popular, then any buff would be very well recieved anyway so it wouldnt make sense not to do it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I think we're starting to work past that though. There are skills that I'd consider running, like Rodgort's or Incendiary Bonds, that I really don't know how to judge because there isn't enough of a core to start a build with. They're both fine as 7th or 8th skills but that isn't relevant when you're missing numbers 2 and 3. Fill those in, and we can get a better picture of where the line lies.

Assuming those 2 were to become a staple skill from small tweaks, fireball being another staple skill it would still need another element or secondary profession skill line backing it up as fire has zero utility and the worst energy requirements. Even if you were to blow all of your energy on something like blinding flash, fire still has flame burst which is not far off from it in terms of energy used over time.

Maiyn · Dec 23, 2005, 08:37 AM // 08:37

I definitely think earth magic is too expensive. ... and with all the exhaustion it really makes you have to think about which skills to take. obsidian flame WITH earthquake is a big nono.

Fire magic is almost useless now because of the aoe update, at least in pve... as it was always pretty useless in pvp.

For PVP I would recommend air magic, all the way. You don't have to be on a spike team, but that dmg is really useful. Either than or earth.. Water magic is nice because it slows everyone down. So that comes in handy as well.

Elites for elementalist aren't a whole lot of fun. I've not played my ele in awhile.. and i'm sure there is a reason for it.. sigh.

DarkAynjil · Dec 23, 2005, 08:45 AM // 08:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by a cadet

Just to slightly defend my position in this, Mantra of Resolve is a must for any caster that uses long-casting spells. In the Fire Ele, all you need to do is make sure your attunements and Arcane Echo go uninterupted, Flame Burst is usually too fast to be interupted so it really isnt a must in that build.

As an example of someone that can spike on his own, look at warriors. The Eviscerate/Executioners spike can kill an unprotected caster usually, so if the rest of your team is doing something worthwhile, getting your warrior to do that spike can fell targets. On the other hand, i just dont see an Air Elementalist getting even close in that respect. Combine that with the fact that its single-target damage, and I just dont see a use outside of a spike.

Umm, an Air Ele is going to deal much more damage than that combo in a much shorter time-span, so your point here doesn't hold much water, either. Warriors are single-target as well. The fact that I can take an Air Elementalist and quickly whisk away 300+ HP from a target means: a) A monk somewhere is working overtime to save him, or: b) the target will die shortly.
How is this not a good thing? Air vs. PBAoE Nukes from fire -- Air wins, hands down. 25% Armor Pen = more damage on targets, the skills recharge quicker in most cases or cost less, as well. Air has much more utility as well - with Air, you can Blind, Weaken, Knock-Down, etc. Fire -- straight damage or a short burst of degen (burning). Mantra of resolve in the current metagame = pwned by Wild Blow. You might get away with it in CA, but I can get away with all kinds of things in CA. Aside from VERY SPECIFIC uses in tombs/GvG, the fire line is simply useless or outclassed when compared to Air or Earth spells. Even water offers utility, though the "nukes" tend to stink when it comes to damage and casting times. At least it offers WaH, the Armors, and snares, along with blurred vision - possibly the most under-rated skill in the game, IMO. What does fire offer? Damage. That's it - high damage and AoE - at the "cost" of high casting times, long recycles, and effects that don't really matter (except for altars/heroes) in PvP. For all the time/effort you would go through to cast 2 Flame Bursts, I would have just cast Air Attunement and let go with Orb+Surge, or Orb+Mind Shock, maybe Chain, Strike, Enervating and repeated till you were dead. As long as we're mentioning combos to make things work, how about Echo + Orb? You'll kill faster with it in PvP. Same with Earth - a stone daggers + kinetic armor / warder farms faction much more efficiently.

Ensign · Dec 23, 2005, 12:41 PM // 12:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Granted, but since energy is more easily denied and manipulated for a slow caster like an elementalist, it just seems like there is more of a need for the overpriced skills to become more managable over time.

Energy denial hits expensive skills harder, not slower skills. Granted there's a lot of overlap, but a 15 energy, 1 second cast spell is going to be rocked just as hard if not harder than a 10 energy, 2 second spell. Energy management, well, that's what the rest of your bar is for.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

I realize you are lowballing the actual performance output for the profession. It does seem odd to halve the actual potential use of it for comparison.

You can't just spam AoEs as fast as they recharge and expect them to function maximally. Chain Lightning is on a 13 second recycle, so even in spam mode you're doing a bit better than four per minute - realistically you're often moving or busy with something else when the Chain recycles and you have to put it off, pick your spots, etc. 3 per minute is a perfectly realistic use of the skill.

Recharges/recycles aren't always the limiting factors. Energy costs, or in this case Exhaustion, are more realistic barriers on usage. You can pretend that Obsidian Flame can be maximally used 8 times a minute but that never actually happens, even with Glyph powering it out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Breaks in the battle are usually controlled by the side that is winning anyway.

It's not about controlling the battle, merely a realization that things simply don't last that long. Something changes, someone gets a lead, and you end up running around for a bit with exhaustion working its way off. Arena matches have never lasted more than ~5 minutes in my experience, and tombs maps are generally on two minute timers. GvG matches are the most drawn out affairs and even there things tend to turn relatively quickly - it's rather difficult to deadlock for long periods of time - and even if they do you just run a flag.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

but small aoe like this and fireball do tend to strike one target frequently

Chain Lightning has a significantly larger AoE than Fireball. Fireball does hit one target rather often, Chain hits multiples with consistency. At least, when I use it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Ok i can see that, but i still find it strange that people will occasionally move near each other consistantly if only for a moment.

It takes a concerted effort of a team to spread out enough to avoid being smashed by AoEs. Attention is almost universally better spent on other things unless AoE is really destroying you. If the other team was spending enough effort to avoid getting a double hit from Chain Lightning I'd pump the fist because there's no way that they should be putting that much attention into a single skill.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Thats like saying fireball should hit 2-3 characters every cast every time its ready.

The AoE on Chain Lightning is roughly two and a half times that of a Fireball. Stop being silly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Yes, you can wait for the right opportunty, but then you are waiting to use a prepped usable skill instead of using it.

Please point out the ~350 damage nuke with the instantaneous cast. The only ones that come close to fitting that description are Shatter/Smite Hex, and those are far from unconditional.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Well one problem with incidinary bonds is that its a hex like lightning surge is and should you try to immolate durring the hex as a single caster you lose burning time on the immolate.

...so don't do that? You can use the awesome Shatter Delusions -> Phantom Pain combo too but that really doesn't have anything to do with reality.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

I can rationalize paying more for a skill that casts faster and is available more often. What elementalists have are skils that can be stronger, but cost more energy, usuable less often, and take longer to have the effect to begin to occur. It simply doesn't make sense in most cases.

This is a fair assessment of most of the Elementalist's problems.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

That seems kinda strange to me, but im sure stranger things have happened. It would imply that they track the use of every skill some how globally and record the results, then balance by popularity rather than actual balance.

That isn't what I meant to imply. What I meant is that when you put out a query to your tester base on the state of fire magic and the overwhelming response you get is "OMG FIRESTORM ROCKS! FIRE ROCKS!" isn't hard to justify buffing the line up. Like it or not the lowest common denominator does have a say in balance issues, and it's not pretty.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Assuming those 2 were to become a staple skill from small tweaks, fireball being another staple skill it would still need another element or secondary profession skill line backing it up as fire has zero utility and the worst energy requirements.

Offensive characters rarely have more than three of their slots devoted to attacks. Those 3 slots need to pull the weight, while the rest of the character's build is devoted to utility. This is of course yet another knock on Fire since there is no utility. That isn't crippling of course since you do have unattributed support and the attribute points for a 3rd attribute...except there aren't 3 nukes that I want to use as a basis for a character, certainly nothing along the lines of Orb/Strike/Chain or Orb/Strike/Mind Shock. Fireball/Incendiary Bonds/Rodgorts? Right. If you're going to have a line as one dimensional as fire, it had damn better be good at what it's supposed to do. That's its failure.

Peace,
-CxE