Curse

Cebe · Jan 30, 2007, 08:50 AM // 08:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by frojack

Show me the Air skills that can compete with these in terms of quirky potential....

That wasn't my original point.

My original, albeit slightly unfair, and rather sleepily carried out test was to try to ascertain which could deal the most damage. That is not the same as "which one is most quirky". My motive? I've seen a lot of people claiming that a Channeling Ritualist can out-damage an Air Ele. I wanted to see if I could justify that claim. In short, I couldn't. I believe if anyone can it would require a lot more time for skills to cast/spirits to charge up etc.. therefore although it would be technically more powerful, it sure aint an efficient way of playing in PvE (just to reinforce I'm talking about PvE here).

Also, on to your point. Let's look at the Air line vs the Channeling line:

[wiki]Lightning Javelin[/wiki] = [wiki]Wailing Weapon[/wiki]
Difference is Wailing Weapon costs more and has a stunningly bad recharge.

[wiki]Gale[/wiki], [wiki]Thunderclap[/wiki], [wiki]Whirlwind[/wiki] = [wiki]Grasping was Kuurong[/wiki]
Air magic has many knockdowns. More than I listed there. The only one I can see Channeling having is elite.

As for the weapon spells that interrupt non-attacking foes...you're forgetting Air Magic knockdowns can do that as well... Then again, Air Magic can blind foes. Yes, Restoration has a few spells for that but we're not talking about Restoration here. Blind was Mingston required getting up close to the mob, Weapon of Shadow has a rubbish recharge.

Channeling still just seems very conditional to me. If there is one thing out of place...like a spirit not being on top of you, or an ally who runs away just as you cast a weapon spell on him/her, it just doesn't seem to work as well as I think it could (and should).

Iscana · Jan 30, 2007, 09:38 AM // 09:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Batou of Nine

How can yall be using [skill]Destruction[/skill] WITHOUT [skill]Rupture Soul[/skill]?!?! That's proposterous!

Attributes:
Channeling Magic: 16 (1+3)
Spawning Power: 13
Restoration Magic: the rest.

Skills:
Spirit Rift
Destruction
Rupture Soul
Essence Strike
Spirit Boon Strike
Grasping Was Kuurong (E) or any e-management elite.
Optional
Optional

If you work time right you can afford the full cycle once, but without any sort of e-management you can't recover from the energy usage very fast. Drop Destruction just outside of aggro range. Aggro, caste Grasping, upon arrival of foes to adjecant range caste Essence if a little energy is needed for Rupture. AFter at least 20 seconds cast Spirit Rift, use Rupture Soul, drop Grasping Was Kuurong, then use any self heal or e-management you may have brought...

All in all you just did 79 dmg from Grasping + 142 dmg from Rift + 146 dmg from Rupture + around 100 dmg from Destruction + KD + Blind = 467 Pre-Armor Lightning dmg. So of course if they will still be alive, you have some time to recover with 13 seconds of blind on them... Use Essence + whatever else you got for e-recovery, or use something for self heal... This is a general PvE AoE build...

As most said though, you can actually dish out a steady stream of DPS on single targets as a Channeling Rit... hehe. Ya so thats my 2 cent fun build...

cheers!

Sounds nice, the build I use it:
Channeling: 12 + 3 + 1 (16)
Restoration: 12
Weapon: Ssyn's channeling staff (2x health +30, 20% faster cast and recharge, is very handy and usefull)

Skills:
Gaze from Beyond
Echo (elite)
Destruction
Channelled strike
Essence strike
Renewing Surge
Generous was Tsungrai
(res or flesh of my flesh)

Simply use destruction as energy battery, and find some nice out of the battle place and start spiking down some enemies. If you do the cycle well you'll not get out of energy that fast, and when destruction is dead because of Gaze, you can cast already a new one. Renewing surge does instand recharge when holding generous was tsungrai ashes, and can be usefull to kill enemies when you couldn't finish you real high damage spike cycle.

The damage you do is:
if spirit: Gaze from beyond = (42x3)126, Gaze Echo = 126, Channeled strike = (101+37) 138, essence strike= 66, Gaze from beyond = 126
Total of 1 cycle: (126x3) + 138 + 66 = 582 dmg for sure, and I did not even touch Renewing surge whish does 63 dmg spamable and when enemies are close Destruction does addition dmg which can be around 150.
The fun thing is that when you cast 3 times Gaze, your spirit dies, but cast him again, do essence strike and boem energy enough for extra cycle.
This is where Destructive was Glaive with 25% armor penestration was just awesome, I could do with only 1 Gaze from beyond, 150/200 dmg on armor 60 in 1 shot. Too bad they changed it back to 5% which does give you some extra dmg on spikes, but not that effective.

(btw with that elite, just replace echo with archane echo)

Now 582dmg sounds awesome, but actually you'll do just around 400dmg or 350 to armor 100 warriors, and yes that's sad. Althought with some running, hide behind walls and touch my destruction tactics you can kill a warrior with ease. Also ele spike builds are a laught, they try to spike you, but around the time you're almost dead, they are already eating dust. Same for lots of builds, the only real counters are: Energy denial, interupts and big melee spikes. But well it's still a very nice build for GvG and AB, but totally not for PvE, then you can better go Restoration or Communing.

frojack · Jan 30, 2007, 10:50 AM // 10:50

That wasn't directed at you ^_^!

What was directed at you was how meaningless this test is. I won't talk about the conditional nature of both classes (haha, no spirits. Oh? Did your Orb miss. Out of energy?).
What I will talk about is aoe vs. single target spiking...

Why take 2 class-lines which favour single target spiking and do an aoe test? There's only like 3 aoe damage spells in air. 2 of these are more utility than anything else. Besides, if you really want to test aoe, fire wipes the floor with both.
If your keen to test, then test the single target spiking. That's where both of these guys excel.

@ Dr. Strangelove...

^_^.... Who the hell uses Destruction for actual direct, non-suicidal damage? Not many... It has interesting quality simply because it ignores armour, never mind being a good drone for your Rit requirements. In situations where your damage is meaningless (heavy-armour foe) you can change your tactic by trying to employ Destruction to do your dirty work.
A messy, difficult solution to employ (quite gimmicky in fact!), but an option nonetheless. Some of the weapon spells fair much better at these 'changes of tact' however... Warmonger's is awesome. Simple as that. Wailing should be. Nightmare was also pretty exceptional over that weekend (despite the claims of over-powering effectiveness), Splinter can prove effective on several allies spiking a bunched group. Even though I dislike the skill, I recognise the ability to bolster your team with Weapon of Fury. Even better if you can use Weapon of Quickening.
The nice thing about channelling is the fact that you don't need an elite to fuel your damage. Meaning you can make use of other elites to help out (Weapon of Remedy, Tranquil Was Tanasen, Attuned Was Songkai etc.).

Some may argue that this really limits your ability to deal damage, having to sacrifice slots for utility. However, I would ask the question: how many damage spells do you really need? Can An elementalist (even a Ritualist) really support more than 4 or 5? Or a better question would be: Does a 5th damage spell really add that much to your repertoire? Wouldn't utility be more useful? Especially in circumstance where your damage fails to be of any use. We already know the answers to these questions...

How channelling compares to air is neither here nor there. If you want damage with built-in utility, you play an Elementalist, simple as that. You could argue that this makes ritualists useless in most serious play. You could also argue that people could just try and come up with different ways to play the game. Whatever...

Who knows... Perhaps this is all just too complicated. If it ain't broke, don't fix it right? The holy trinity do their job well enough I guess...

Cebe · Jan 30, 2007, 12:09 PM // 12:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by frojack

What was directed at you was how meaningless this test is. I won't talk about the conditional nature of both classes (haha, no spirits. Oh? Did your Orb miss. Out of energy?).

I find this very funny.

No offense taken by the way

But really...My ele is my best character. First and favourite. My energy is around the 75 mark and rarely drops below 50...unless I die. So, no, I'm never out of energy during battle...unlike my Rit when she goes Channeling. Also, I'm not stupid enough to cast Lightning Orb on a warrior who is using sprint...because that's just dumb. When I take Lightning Orb I tend to use it on stationary foes. Orb is also not the only Elementalist spell

So...really...Rits still have a much much bigger problem. Destruction is a rubbish spirit to take along - this I have already established. Empowerment seems a little pointless...

Symbol · Jan 30, 2007, 12:20 PM // 12:20

Quote:

My original, albeit slightly unfair, and rather sleepily carried out test was to try to ascertain which could deal the most damage. That is not the same as "which one is most quirky". My motive? I've seen a lot of people claiming that a Channeling Ritualist can out-damage an Air Ele. I wanted to see if I could justify that claim. In short, I couldn't. I believe if anyone can it would require a lot more time for skills to cast/spirits to charge up etc.. therefore although it would be technically more powerful, it sure aint an efficient way of playing in PvE (just to reinforce I'm talking about PvE here

But your test is just wrong. A cursory glance at the channelling nukes will illustrate that they are in almost all ways superior to anything in air.

Cebe · Jan 30, 2007, 01:39 PM // 13:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

But your test is just wrong. A cursory glance at the channelling nukes will illustrate that they are in almost all ways superior to anything in air.

*rubs eyes*

Nope, still don't see much to back up that claim...

I'm not saying you're wrong....but I'm still very very unconvinced.

frojack · Jan 30, 2007, 01:42 PM // 13:42

I'm glad. No offence was intended...

Energy? Blah... Depends on how good you are with pacing. Subjective...

Lightning Orb is funny because it can even miss a foe moving at normal speed. That's why the skill pisses everyone off... On target... On target... Side-step! Oh! it's missed the mark... _-_ Destruction is only rubbish if you try to replace say, Channelled Strike with it. It isn't used like that. You can't just drop it and expect it to kill stuff ^_^. Needs more work than that. Like I said though, it's not a primary offensive weapon. Perhaps not even secondary. It just pretty cheap to use and has a nasty 'kick' if the enemy get too close.
With the Earshot range, I hope to lure a lot more over-zealous melee into it's area since it won't be so obvious anymore...

Cebe · Jan 30, 2007, 01:56 PM // 13:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by frojack

I'm glad. No offence was intended...

Energy? Blah... Depends on how good you are with pacing. Subjective...

Lightning Orb is funny because it can even miss a foe moving at normal speed. That's why the skill pisses everyone off... On target... On target... Side-step! Oh! it's missed the mark... _-_ Destruction is only rubbish if you try to replace say, Channelled Strike with it. It isn't used like that. You can't just drop it and expect it to kill stuff ^_^. Needs more work than that. Like I said though, it's not a primary offensive weapon. Perhaps not even secondary. It just pretty cheap to use and has a nasty 'kick' if the enemy get too close.
With the Earshot range, I hope to lure a lot more over-zealous melee into it's area since it won't be so obvious anymore...

Like I said, Air has more than just Orb. Lightning Hammer (yes, it's 25 energy but to an Ele that's nothing), Enervating Charge, Lightning Strike, Arc Lightning, Chain Lightning, Invoke Lightning, Gust, Lightning Surge . . . . don't miss.

Anyhoo, How does this sound? Something I tried yesterday:
[skill]Serpent's Quickness[/skill][skill]Attuned was Songkai[/skill][skill]Empowerment[/skill][skill]Spirit Rift[/skill][skill]Ancestors' Rage[/skill][skill]Channeled Strike[/skill][skill]Essence Strike[/skill][skill]Flesh of my Flesh[/skill]

It worked better than some Channeling builds I've tried. Things I don't like about it are:

Empowerment: 60 Second recharge? O.o Come off it. Even the 40 seconds after the reduction by SQ is too long really considering how fast you move through areas in PvE.
Spirit Rift: By the time the 3 seconds are up all foes are either dead or have run off.
Attuned was Songkai: I hate hate hate e-management elites. There should be no need for them...I would much rather take a more interesting and fun elite.
Essence Strike: If you move more than about 1 step away from being right on top of Empowerment you don't get any energy back. So if your target runs a little too far away...no bonus energy for you...

Any comments? Spirit Rift...good or bad? You're relying on foes to stay in the area for 3 seconds...it just doesn't happen.

Dr Strangelove · Jan 30, 2007, 07:49 PM // 19:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

But your test is just wrong. A cursory glance at the channelling nukes will illustrate that they are in almost all ways superior to anything in air.

On the surface, they are better - more damage for less energy. Good deal right? Only problem with that is, eles have some of the most ridiculously powerful energy management skills in the game. Rits have... attuned was songkai. So while eles can drop 15 and 25 energy nukes without batting an eye, tossing down even a couple spirit rifts *hurts*.

It really hit me hardest when I played without my heroes with some friends. They would charge in and kill everything before I could even cast my destruction and ashes. When I finally did get them up, I had to hope something decided to come attack me.

At any rate, if a rit wants to do damage, I don't know why you wouldn't run weapon of remedy/vengeful weapon or spirit's strength.

Terra Xin · Jan 31, 2007, 01:30 AM // 01:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celestial Beaver

Like I said, Air has more than just Orb. Lightning Hammer (yes, it's 25 energy but to an Ele that's nothing), Enervating Charge, Lightning Strike, Arc Lightning, Chain Lightning, Invoke Lightning, Gust, Lightning Surge . . . . don't miss.

Anyhoo, How does this sound? Something I tried yesterday:
[skill]Serpent's Quickness[/skill][skill]Attuned was Songkai[/skill][skill]Empowerment[/skill][skill]Spirit Rift[/skill][skill]Ancestors' Rage[/skill][skill]Channeled Strike[/skill][skill]Essence Strike[/skill][skill]Flesh of my Flesh[/skill]

Ancestors Rage is targettable, you shouldn't really be using that skill on yourself at all. It's a skill for tankers and other front liners. Spirit Rift has to be used sparingly, and you have to know how to time the movement of your targets. If you can predict that a target isn't going to move in the next three seconds, then use this skill immediately, otherwise you're wasting a skill slot. The problem with your build and Essence strike is that you're not likely going to be standing next to your spirit for the entire time. Essence strike is good for stationary purposes (but hopefully once the 'within earshot' takes place, I'll retract this statement) but you're build allows you free mobility, so you dont need to stand there as if you were bound by that one skill. I would suggest taking that out for another skill (you're using AwS anyway)... erm, I dont have any ideas for a replacement skill, however.

Channeled Strike would have to be my least favourite skill in the channeling line. You're paying an extra 5 energy and an additional 1 second cast to deal, 20 more damage to a target? (compared to Ancestor's Rage, Spirit Burn and Wielder's Strike). You're also holding an item, that which already puts a damper on your energy pool. This is the build that I use, it has great DPS, I use it to go henching with my rit:

Blue Lightning Baby!!
Echo
Destruction
Gaze From Beyond
Essence Strike
Lamentation
Spirit Burn
Mend Body and Soul
Resurrection Signet

Echo has the biggest influence on the build (never echo Destruction btw...). Basically, you will almost always use echo with spirit burn, because it has the shortest recharge, so you can spam that more frequently than usual. Constantly use essence strike as often as you can, as that will keep your energy high. Only use lamentation when enemies are clumped around corpses which isn't too hard to accomplish when you're in a party.

In another situation, if your party is coming under heavy fire, and your monks need a little help, you are still able to use your channeling skills, but instead of echoing Spirit Burn, you Echo MBS instead. This way, your damage is only reduced by a skill, but your healing has doubled in its effectiveness. Again, making sure that you are always channeling spells, thus keeping your energy afloat with Essence strike.

In the last situation, Essence strike can also be echoed as a boost to energy recovery, and that's as far as I can go explaining that one :P.

Echo priorities are those three skills, you shouldn't really echo Lamentation unless you're in RA or something, but then I wouldn't take Lamentation there. I know you can't echo all three of the skills at the same time, which is why, knowing which skill to echo at the right moment comes from experience.

Unlike Air Magic, Channeling combines better with other professions, and again, unlike Air Magic and Energy Storage, you dont need to invest any points into Spawning Power in order to make it more effective.

Batou of Nine · Jan 31, 2007, 02:31 AM // 02:31

Dude people if you learned NOTHING from my build in post #20... let me make it bluntly obvious!

STOP USING DESTRUCTION WITHOUT RUPTURE SOUL!!!!

Those skills were made for eachother. If you cant figure it out. Here is the skill descriptions AGAIN!

[skill]Destruction[/skill][skill]Rupture Soul[/skill]

Get it? If you dont use both, then do everyone a favor and dont use EITHER. One is pretty much a waste w/o the other. The combo serves multiple functions its really a no brainer.

Cheers

Terra Xin · Jan 31, 2007, 02:41 AM // 02:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Batou of Nine

Dude people if you learned NOTHING from my build in post #20... let me make it bluntly obvious!

STOP USING DESTRUCTION WITHOUT RUPTURE SOUL!!!!

Those skills were made for eachother. If you cant figure it out. Here is the skill descriptions AGAIN!

[skill]Destruction[/skill][skill]Rupture Soul[/skill]

Get it? If you dont use both, then do everyone a favor and dont use EITHER. One is pretty much a waste w/o the other. The combo serves multiple functions its really a no brainer.

Cheers

according to you, but a skill has more than one use.

Calen The Civl · Jan 31, 2007, 04:52 AM // 04:52

As a PvE ritualist, I find direct damage using channeling to only work at lower level areas. It just cannot deal with the higher level creatures (about levels 20-30 depending on the class)

However, I did experiment over the testing weekend with indirect channeling builds. I found the ritualist can pour far more damaged indirectly than with direct channeling on higher level critters. Indirect damage includes the use of the changed Splinter Weapon (which i hope will remain as it was during the testing weekend) and other ally targeting spells.

Three allies with splinter weapon attacking a mob did far more damage than direct channeling could have. It was entertaining to see the group I was with exclaim in surprise with the speed those mobs dropped. I hope with the upcoming skill change the rit will see this method of indirect damage remain similar to the last testing period.

Cebe · Jan 31, 2007, 08:36 AM // 08:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Batou of Nine

Dude people if you learned NOTHING from my build in post #20... let me make it bluntly obvious!

STOP USING DESTRUCTION WITHOUT RUPTURE SOUL!!!!

Those skills were made for eachother. If you cant figure it out. Here is the skill descriptions AGAIN!

[skill]Destruction[/skill][skill]Rupture Soul[/skill]

Get it? If you dont use both, then do everyone a favor and dont use EITHER. One is pretty much a waste w/o the other. The combo serves multiple functions its really a no brainer.

Cheers

I'm with Terra on this one...I don't want to be up close to the mobs with my AL60 armor... Neither do I want to "coax" the over to me...I wouldn't want to cast destruction next to an avicara who's stabbing my eyes out and try to get rupture soul off before he kills me. I'd rather stay on the backline.

Thanks for the build Idea btw Terra, I'll give that a try tonight and see what I make of it.

Dr Strangelove · Jan 31, 2007, 09:31 AM // 09:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calen The Civl

As a PvE ritualist, I find direct damage using channeling to only work at lower level areas. It just cannot deal with the higher level creatures (about levels 20-30 depending on the class)

However, I did experiment over the testing weekend with indirect channeling builds. I found the ritualist can pour far more damaged indirectly than with direct channeling on higher level critters. Indirect damage includes the use of the changed Splinter Weapon (which i hope will remain as it was during the testing weekend) and other ally targeting spells.

Three allies with splinter weapon attacking a mob did far more damage than direct channeling could have. It was entertaining to see the group I was with exclaim in surprise with the speed those mobs dropped. I hope with the upcoming skill change the rit will see this method of indirect damage remain similar to the last testing period.

QFT. I was really pleased with the buffs to the offensive buff, they made the class much more interesting, and kinda more how I though it would be when I started playing it. If those stay, I'd be surprised to see any channeling rits running lightning damage over weapon buffs.

Terra's build up there seems like a nice idea. However, I think if you really want to see channeling nukes go berserk, just run an E/Rt with ether prodigy and a big pile of channeling nukes. Might actually be pretty interesting spamming spirit rift....

frojack · Jan 31, 2007, 10:07 AM // 10:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calen The Civl

As a PvE ritualist, I find direct damage using channeling to only work at lower level areas. It just cannot deal with the higher level creatures (about levels 20-30 depending on the class)

However, I did experiment over the testing weekend with indirect channeling builds. I found the ritualist can pour far more damaged indirectly than with direct channeling on higher level critters. Indirect damage includes the use of the changed Splinter Weapon (which i hope will remain as it was during the testing weekend) and other ally targeting spells.

Three allies with splinter weapon attacking a mob did far more damage than direct channeling could have. It was entertaining to see the group I was with exclaim in surprise with the speed those mobs dropped. I hope with the upcoming skill change the rit will see this method of indirect damage remain similar to the last testing period.

Exactly. Keep up the good work...

Cebe · Jan 31, 2007, 10:24 AM // 10:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calen The Civl

Three allies with splinter weapon attacking a mob did far more damage than direct channeling could have. It was entertaining to see the group I was with exclaim in surprise with the speed those mobs dropped. I hope with the upcoming skill change the rit will see this method of indirect damage remain similar to the last testing period.

I have to admit, Splinter Weapon does look pretty awesome if the changes remain... I was working on a weapon spell build the other day and it's all so changeable and malleable...very cool really. It just seems to have the following format:

[wiki]Renewing Memories[/wiki]
[wiki]Wielder's Remedy[/wiki]
<Item Spell> (Ones I favour are [wiki]Generous was Tsungrai[/wiki], or [wiki]Tranquil was Tanasen[/wiki])
[wiki]Soothing Memories[/wiki]
<Weapon Spell>
<Weapon Spell>
<Weapon Spell>
<Weapon Spell>

Yes, Wielder's Zeal isn't there...I don't like E-management elites...as useful as they can be they're so boring. Wielder's Remedy is there primarily to cover Renewing Memories...in areas at high risk of enchantment removal.

As for the weapon spells, I found [wiki]Splinter Weapon[/wiki] and [wiki]Weapon of Fury[/wiki] to be nice from the channeling line (amongst others)...or a restoration build with Vengeful weapon, weapon of warding, Resilient Weapon...although the restoration one didn't really do much for me...

Anyone else tried a weapon-spell build with the new elonian skills?

frojack · Jan 31, 2007, 12:13 PM // 12:13

Weapon of Remedy is probably the best weapon spell in the game. Closely followed by Weapon of Warding, Resilient Weapon, and Vengeful.
Most of the weapon spells are either good or okay. The only one that's really rubbish is Spirit Light Weapon...

Cebe · Jan 31, 2007, 04:34 PM // 16:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by frojack

Weapon of Remedy is probably the best weapon spell in the game. Closely followed by Weapon of Warding, Resilient Weapon, and Vengeful.
Most of the weapon spells are either good or okay. The only one that's really rubbish is Spirit Light Weapon...

Aye, I capped weapon of remedy the other day - looks pretty awesome...like Vengeful Weapon's Elite.

I thought combining Serpent's Quickness with Vengeful Weapon / Weapon of Remedy would make them uber-spammable.

Terra Xin · Feb 01, 2007, 12:16 AM // 00:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celestial Beaver

Aye, I capped weapon of remedy the other day - looks pretty awesome...like Vengeful Weapon's Elite.

I thought combining Serpent's Quickness with Vengeful Weapon / Weapon of Remedy would make them uber-spammable.

Its really strange with how Remedy acts towards the player's mindset. Normally, a healer would have less trouble if their targets who are under pressure started to kite, because kiting=less damage taken. Remedy weapon however, works better on targets who are stationary, because that way they have a higher change at getting hit, triggering remedy weapon. There have been many times that I couldnt get remedy weapon to trigger because someone kept kiting, so its an easy 5 energy gone to waste.

Nightmare weapon was simply overpowered during the weekend. I think I ran this build:

[skill=text]Nightmare Weapon[/skill]
[skill=text]"You're All Alone!"[/skill]
[skill=text]Flurry[/skill]
[skill=text]Wielder's Boon[/skill]
[skill=text]Soldier's Defense[/skill]
[skill=text]Wielder's Strike[/skill]
[skill=text]"Watch Yourself!"[/skill]
[skill=text]Resurrection Signet[/skill]

I pretty much used a spear for this, since the damage from my weapon didn't matter. 250 life-stealing damage every 10 seconds, with IAS, block, added armour, and snares. I could solo alot of targets during that weekend^^.

I heard alot of BP Rangers used splinter weapon in... everywhere. And the damage was insane as well.