Curse

Gildor Took · Jan 31, 2006, 06:47 AM // 06:47

well it's true that warriors do more dps then eles this is clearly evident in the early success of iway.

but as an ele you need to cast spells so you are prone to interuption where warriors generally don't get targeted for interuption. After the first 12 seconds of casting all your spells porbably most of your energy has been depleted while a good warrior will be able to maintain consant dps.

Vermilion Okeanos · Jan 31, 2006, 07:47 AM // 07:47

Just to add: while warrior can be hex and/or snared, both of those problem currently are less of a problem than ele trying to get energy. (mend can be spam easily, while HoD helm really cut the effeciency of hex to half)

Not to mention warrior already can solo spike, higher DPS, tougher armor, and with the current favor W/E galing everyone without exhaustion effecting them much at all.

EDIT: I remembered something... I remember somewhere I read from Arenanet long ago about "elementalist are very different from other game's sorcerer, no?" or something like that... I am currently having trouble to locate the source.

Ensign · Jan 31, 2006, 10:02 AM // 10:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Banebow

As to spiking, ele spike can be strong, but why do you think everyone who wants to spike runs ranger spike now, rather than air spike?

Rangers are a stronger pure spike. The reason you'd use Elementalists in a spike is for the utility. Elementalists make solid utility characters that can also spike acceptably well. If you wanted Wards + some spike, or Blinding Flash + some spike, Eles are a solid choice.

What Elementalists are not, because I want to beat this to death, are Warrior replacements. You need Warriors. If you want to assist your Warriors with some supporting Elementalists, knock yourself out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

In fact wasn't this the whole premise of the initial warrior/ele comparison? Comparing damage in a (near) vacuum?

The premise of the initial discussion was me raging about the lack of alternatives to Warriors in the 'things that kill people' slot after wasting a week of my life trying to make it work. I figured that, hey, if every other team is going to be nothing but blind and cripple and blocks that it might be a good idea to find an alternative offense to trying to kill with Warriors through all that junk. But as it turns out, if you don't run Warriors you're just a crappy spike build because Warriors are offense in this game, nothing else even comes close. Even with blocks and blinds and cripples flying everywhere.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

It's one thing to say, "how useful is this skill when I need to devote one or two other slots on my bar to supporting it" and another to say "how useful is this skill when I have to devote another _person_ to supporting it".

Agreed, which is why I felt that the Dual -> Savage of Dual -> Punishing comparisons were the most valid. The Orders should be accounted for as damage that the Order guy is contributing to a spike.

Now there are some logistical concerns that make it better to spike this way than with casters, and extra bonuses from synergies should not be ignored, but on straight comparisons it needs to be what each character is realistically contributing. No argument.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

My problem with your position is that there's no middle ground. Either a spike skill is the best when a team bases their entire spike strategy around it or it's pointless.

I haven't used the word pointless, and I agree that Obsidian Flame can be quite useful under the right circumstances. My contention is with your use of the word 'impressive' to describe Obsidian Flame. It could simply be relative values, but I'm not about to start calling every skill that fills a role well impressive. Heal Other is not impressive, and I hold it in comparable regard to Obsidian Flame. Conjure Phantasm is not impressive. Neither is Endure Pain.

Eviscerate is impressive. Crippling Shot is impressive. Skills that straight-out destroy people are impressive. Skills that you try to use because they're so good. Those other skills are just important parts of your skill library that you should not begrudge in the right circumstances.

I think you think that I'm making a strong statement about Obs. Flame when I'm just nitpicking terminology. If your position is simply a dilution of how I use that word then we can drop this without incident.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Glasswalker

Actually, if you read his post in the original thread that spawned this one, he said they (and necros) "pretty much suck".

I said they kinda suck, which I stand by. When you go into a new fight the scariest targets on the other team are almost unfailingly the Warriors, Mesmers, and Monks. That's not to say that Rangers, Elementalists, or Necromancers aren't important at all, they're probably there to fill important roles in the build. But it is to say that if you put your priority on stopping their Elementalists and Necros instead of their Mesmers and Warriors you're probably going to get rocked.

Role-playing classes are important, there are critical masses of the other classes and the extra utility can be rather useful. But there's a difference between being useful, and being a star.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Glasswalker

Are you prepared to say that it is done shifting?

Of course not. But I am prepared to say that given the current skillset, running without Warriors is the equivilent of running without Monks. You're trying to win with a gimmick and everyone knows it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Glasswalker

But I didn't know going into this battle that you wouldn't have Warriors, and these are therefore two wasted slots. Even with no Warriors on your team, the threat of warriors is potent enough to cause issues. That's two skill slots I'm not spending against your Elementalists.

My point is that it doesn't matter because you're not running Warriors.

This isn't a situation where Warriors are slightly better, but because people know that and bring Warrior hate, Elementalists have a place dealing damage. That's not the case. The case in reality is that Elementalists are *so much worse* than Warriors at dealing damage that I would refuse to cut Warriors from my build in favor of Elementalists.

Let's say for instance that I knew going into a match that it was going to be on the ice map, and that the other team was going to include a Crippling Shot guy, an Ether Prodigy powered Blinding Flash spammer, and an anti-Warrior Necromancer. In that situation I would still run at least one Warrior, and possibly two depending upon my infrastructure. I would bring the tools to power through all of that hate, even devoting a character entirely to keeping my Warriors clean if neccessary. I would do this because even in the face of that much hate, Warriors are so much stronger than any alternative that I do not feel you have a choice in the matter. I feel that if you pulled your Warriors for Elementalists you would only be hurting your chances of winning. Because Warriors kill people and Elementalists do not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Glasswalker

There is some value in this game in doing what's unexpected, because that means unprepared for.

There is indeed value in doing things that are unexpected, or things that the other team is unprepared for. However surprise value is never a substitute for actual strength. It doesn't matter if your opponent doesn't see your strategy coming if they're just going to roll right over you regardless.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Locust

This is unfortunately a very true story. The odd time that I play an "offensive" air elementalist, what do I find myself running? orb, strike, and a list of utility + energy management spells.

There's nothing wrong with that character and he's particularly strong right now, because Blinding Flash is one of the few viable answers to Gale Warriors. You use the solid energy engine that Ether Prodigy provides to power out lots of Heal Parties and Blinding Flashes, and assist your Warriors on adrenal spikes with Lightning Orb. It's a great utility character with a bit of spike potential. I've run him in the past and will continue to use him in the future.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Locust

But ultimately, it's always the warrior that's running around deciding who lives and who dies. There are obvious exceptions (ranger spike, obsidian spike, some other gimmick spike), but in most builds you'll find the above to hold true.

That's the truth that I've learned more clearly than ever last week, and this thread was largely a result of the frustration that came from that process. I'm not terribly happy about that conclusion, but it really doesn't matter, a game that's about melee professions beating the crap out of each other is more appealing than AoE nukefests anyway.

Peace,
-CxE

JR · Jan 31, 2006, 11:17 AM // 11:17

Slightly off topic, but as a tribute to this thread we ran Ensignway in GvG earlier. 7 W/E Gale Axe warriors, and an orders necro with party. It was quite honestly the most brutal experience I have had in guild wars pvp. From the perspective of someone who is usually playing a monk, the speed at which 7 warriors with orders could drop people was truly frightening. Against teams with only a mediocre amount of warrior hate, we tore through them with relative ease at the flagstand. Against teams with lots of warrior hate, we were still able to clear out their base with tremendous speed through split squadding and outmanouvering them, normally pulling off a gank.

Admittedly gimmick builds are gimmick builds, and this doesn't really prove all that much. It was quite an experience though.

wheel · Jan 31, 2006, 11:22 AM // 11:22

GaleWAY FTW. We later changed the build to my suggestion of including 2 Orders necros. Blood ritualing each other constantly was pretty sexy, I have to admit.

glountz · Jan 31, 2006, 01:11 PM // 13:11

And what is your point here exactly Ensign?
Are you claiming for a Damage boost or a recharge time/casting cost/casting time decrease of the elementalists?
It would be, IMO, overpowering them.
First, as it was said before, "spiking" with warriors is a lot more difficult than with Eles.
With "spike", I mean do simultaneous damage at one target so he can't heal before dying.
Warriors adrenal chains are far more conditionnal to synchro them correctly. A SV/blind/SS/stance can ruin it really easily. In addition but it has already been discussed you can't apply DWound more than one time. The best warrior "damage" team (Using the spike term is not correct as the adrenal attacks are rarely synchro) I found were actually a 3 hammer/axe/sword combo. The Sword cripple, then the others build their adrenalin and wait to be full. Then They choose a target to kill. The hammer chain KD to prevent her to kite/evade/ etc.. The axe eviscerate-Exec-Penet, the sword use sever to cover the Dwound and use galrath then Final. Generally the target dies in the adrenal release, with 16 in weapon mastery.
Indeed, warriors make more raw damage. And so? There is so much ways to mitigate their damage it is not even funny. Some of them, like SV, are really difficult to overcome, since if it's casted on the "warrior spiked victim", even if it gets removed after, no one is able to prevent the loss of adrenalin.
In addition, it is so easy to know who will be the "spiked target"! As warriors have to move to their target, it is easy to guess what will be their victim, whereas when you know who the Eles were targetting it's generally too late to protect him.
The ways to prevent eles to do their damage are reduced to very few options. Kill them, or interrupt them. An ele with mantra of concentration/resolve can overcome the last point. Draining an ele from its mana is also a viable option, but you won't be able to prevent him from performing its first spike due to his huge energy pool, only be able to make sure he doesn't do it again.
I sincerely agree about the long term damage that the warriors can do. In fine, Eles will eventually run out of energy/ have recharge problemes.
And it is a core problem in long lasting battles such as GVG. In CA/TA, and many short-paced fights, no.
As you said, Eles have many utility skills. Warriors have not. Or at too high cost to afford, like Skull Crack. The only utility skills warriors have is to overcome mainly counters to their attacks, like wild blow, warriors cunning, Sprint to avoid kiting, etc... But if a warrior take those, he finally fall into the elementalist syndrom you spoke of: he choose to bring utility skills instead of making damage.
Eles have tactical advantages that overcome the simple numbers calculated on a dummy who don't kite, evade, cast SS/SV, etc...
I think a more accurate approach (but actually impossible to do without implementing in the game a powerful battle stats program) would be to take many Top GVG and to calculate the total average damage effectively done by a warrior Vs the average total damage effectively done by an ele. To my mind, Eles would gain the final count because there is too few ways to mitigate their damage, on the contrary of the warriors.
By using such a provocative title 'Why Nuker sucks!", you can't hide behind the fact that you actually despise Eles ability to do damage. Or you chose a very bad title to your thread. On a dummy, yes warriors win. On a kiting/ evading/ hexing/ enchanting/ crippling player I'm sincerely less convinced.
Even if the warrior win the damage challenge in the long lasting battles, I would say that the Ele have so much utility spells in their pocket aside that they don't "need" to do more damage.
The only rant I could have on Eles are the lack of defensive/healing spells in fire/air.
A burning armor or a wind armor (to avoid most nasty interrupting projectiles) would be a good thing to implement.
Because where the warrior is really truly sincerely superior to the ele, so much that I'm really frustrated when playing an air/fire ele, it is his ability to stay alive and reduce/avoid/absorb damage, and only by its armor, I don't even speak about skills, while still doing brutal damage to others.

JR · Jan 31, 2006, 01:54 PM // 13:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

Even if the warrior win the damage challenge in the long lasting battles, I would say that the Ele have so much utility spells in their pocket aside that they don't "need" to do more damage.

And that is exactly what Ensign was saying, Eles are decent utility characters, with a bit of damage on the side.

However, that is beside the point. Your entire argument was made largely invalid by the stupidity of your last paragraph.

Mysterial · Jan 31, 2006, 02:28 PM // 14:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

To my mind, Eles would gain the final count because there is too few ways to mitigate their damage

What? Elementalist damage is the easiest to block in the entire game. It is the only damage that is 100% affected by armor (except Obsidian Flame), it comes in large packets so Protective Spirit is insanely powerful against it, and of course you can always rely on the old standbys of interrupting them, draining them, or just plain killing them with Warriors first. Elementalists are the easiest class to shut down in the whole game - one mesmer or ranger with the task can spend only a fraction of his attention and prevent an Elementalist from doing much of anything.

Bugeater · Jan 31, 2006, 02:50 PM // 14:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

Bunch of stuff, but to summerize: Warrior spikes are hard to coordinate. Adrenaline skills are what end up killing people. It's easy to shut down warriors, especially with SV and harder to shut down eles. It's easy to tell who a warrior's spike target is. If a warrior just takes "utility" skills then he's in the same boat with the ele. If you looked at the top guild battles you'd see eles probably do more damage. Ele's need armor buffs since warriors do so much damage.

Wow I don't really know where to start, but I'll take a crack at it.

First lets talk about adrenaline and SV. If you read Ensign's first post you can see that even with no skills on his bar whatsoever, a warrior does comprable damage to a full-out damage dealing ele. So even if you kept SV on the warrior all the time, he still is hardly worse off than an unhindered ele (trying to deal damage). And it's not that it's harder to shut down eles (it's not) it's that people don't care enough to shut down eles when there are warriors around.

The meat of this discussion isn't about spikes it's about DPS, but since people like to talk about spikes it was shown that a single warrior can out-spike any other single class. If you ignore deep wound it's still right at the top and with deep wound it's gross. So you can't have more than 1 warrior deep wounding, and it's hard to coordinate all the adrenaline attacks - it doesn't matter if you have that many warriors, you're killing the other team without needing to "spike". With that being the case it doesn't really matter if you know who the "warrior spike" target is.

Watch some of the top rated guilds in Observer mode. Read the writeups of the world championship matches on guildwars.com. Top guilds win using warriors. Or we could ask someone who's in a top guild (does anyone know anyone like that?)

Lastly you say that ele's need more armor skills since warriors give them the beat down. That's from the point of view of the ele. If you play a warrior for a while you realize that ele's are not unique - you give the beat down to everyone.

glountz · Jan 31, 2006, 03:27 PM // 15:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR-

However, that is beside the point. Your entire argument was made largely invalid by the stupidity of your last paragraph.

Thanks a lot for the insult. And after, Mods wonder why there are flame wars.
What I meant is that the best way to counter an ele is to kill him. And that is a lot more easy than to kill a warrior. Or even a ranger. Or a monk. In addition, a fresh resurrected ele can't use his skills right now.
A warrior can.
My "argument" was that Ensign seemingly would want the Eles to be boosted because as he said himself "nuking sucks". Something I don't agree especially if that means boosting their damage..
The big issue here is that warriors can deal their damage almost indefinately. Not the eles, because of the casting costs/ recharge time.
In long lasting games like GVG that matters a lot. A -60% DP warrior will deal the exact amount of damage than in the beginning. A -60% DP Ele will have energy problems. I admit that I'm not a top rated PvP'er. I just give my point of view, that's all. I see the issue, but boosting the ele would be an incorrect answer to my mind.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mysterial

What? Elementalist damage is the easiest to block in the entire game. It is the only damage that is 100% affected by armor (except Obsidian Flame), it comes in large packets so Protective Spirit is insanely powerful against it, and of course you can always rely on the old standbys of interrupting them, draining them, or just plain killing them with Warriors first.

You know what? Protective spirit is good against warriors "spikes" too. But inefficient against DPS, where the warrior owns.
And if you read my posts, I talked about interrupts.
Using protective is good when you know which target will die. Which is somewhat difficult against synchro obsidian spike eles (I use spike in these terms, not talking about DPs).

Burakus Lightwing · Jan 31, 2006, 03:44 PM // 15:44

Thank you for this thread. I have found it very interesting. I am saddend by the lack of "constant damage" from the elementalist class-which I still enjoy playing. Has anyone ever thought of adding more pips of energy regen to the Elementalist? Their main attrbute is energy storage. So yes we can get that energy pool higher. So then, why hasn't Anet increased pips of energy regen as well?
IMO- at a 'pool' of 60 energy = 5 pips of regen, at 80 = 6pips, 100 = 7pips.
I believe that based on this thread and the work done to figure damage, energy is the biggest issue in consistant damage done for this class. So why not increase energy regen based on points put into energy storage? I would think I a higher pool should offer a higher regen rate.

forever · Jan 31, 2006, 04:53 PM // 16:53

Very interesting thread, and lots of insightful arguments. I think Koreans figured this out long time ago, that's why War Machine ran warrior heavy for ages.

Bugeater · Jan 31, 2006, 05:05 PM // 17:05

If anyone still disagrees that "Nuking Sucks" you need to re-read the data and the arguments presented here. This is not to say that Ele's suck, just ele's trying to do consistant damage: they're better off as utility/spike support.

So the question I see is A) does this need to be fixed? and B) what would be a viable fix? Since many successful builds still incorporate utility eles, one might argue that just because they can't really deal out the damage doesn't hamper the class that much. This might be true, but it seems a waste of a class to have so many skills that are clearly unusable for their intended purpose.

So assuming that you want eles to be able to at least be on the same playing field as warriors in terms of damage, what's a good fix?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burakus Lightwing

why hasn't Anet increased pips of energy regen as well?

That was my first reaction too, but I think it's the wrong one. In order to just keep up with warriors, ele's have an 8 or 9 pip energy requirement. So increasing their regen to that would help them stay close to warriors. But I think more likely it would mean all the other utility classes would just become ele's using secondary class skills. Who wouldn't give up a few attribute points for a constant +4 energy regen?

Personally I think increasing the damage and decreasing the casting time would be at least a good start. Ele's still wouldn't have the longevity of the warriors, but they could come out with a punch greater than a warrior's. I might like to have ele's be able to unload all their energy and maybe be able to solo kill an enemy team memeber and severly pressure another. Sure they'd be pretty much spent for a while but it could arguably be worth it.

I don't know if I'm sold on that idea but at least it could give ele's a role other than utility.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

Thanks a lot for the insult. And after, Mods wonder why there are flame wars.

I agree it was a little harsh (ok, my last post was kind of harsh too). This is a good discussion, let's keep it civil.

Phades · Jan 31, 2006, 05:14 PM // 17:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

And what is your point here exactly Ensign?
Are you claiming for a Damage boost or a recharge time/casting cost/casting time decrease of the elementalists?
It would be, IMO, overpowering them.

No it wouldnt actually. They would still be doing the same damage packet per hit, just repeating it more often which adds pressure not increasing the spike value. Given the existing hp limits, a monk still can wipe out all damage dealt from any source(s) with 1 .25s cast time spell effectivly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

First, as it was said before, "spiking" with warriors is a lot more difficult than with Eles.
With "spike", I mean do simultaneous damage at one target so he can't heal before dying.

Yes but wars are also applying constant pressure in addition to spiking, which eles simply cant do. There is a difference between reacting to being in an energy crisis and not being able to effectivly react to a damage spike opposed to simply not reacting to a spike quickly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

Indeed, warriors make more raw damage. And so? There is so much ways to mitigate their damage it is not even funny. Some of them, like SV, are really difficult to overcome, since if it's casted on the "warrior spiked victim", even if it gets removed after, no one is able to prevent the loss of adrenalin.

Nothing owns damage like prot spirit or shelter does to elementalist damage packets, except maybe dazed and powerblock. Hell even migraine and conodrum hurts more than faintheartedness hurts a war. The only thing closely comparable would be weakness on a warrior, but the +damage from the skills still go through. Even then prot spirit and shelter turn ever spell into a slow and overpriced flare. Yeah the spirit can be killed which would be similar to hitting the target of the spike with a rend or expunge enchantmnets, but prot spirit can and does see quick reuse unlike what you mentioned with sympathetic visage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

In addition, it is so easy to know who will be the "spiked target"! As warriors have to move to their target, it is easy to guess what will be their victim, whereas when you know who the Eles were targetting it's generally too late to protect him.

That will stand to change with assasin teleports, if they are found to be more useful than gale locking the target.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

The ways to prevent eles to do their damage are reduced to very few options. Kill them, or interrupt them. An ele with mantra of concentration/resolve can overcome the last point. Draining an ele from its mana is also a viable option, but you won't be able to prevent him from performing its first spike due to his huge energy pool, only be able to make sure he doesn't do it again.

Spiking is not a long term affair. If the spike fails at any point for any reason then it will never suceeede. Prot spirit and shelter are the death of the spike of that nature. There were also other simple methods such as fertile season putting the hp count out of reach of the spike. If you zero out 1-2 eles in a prepared spike setup of energy, their team is effectivly finished unlike shutting down 1 warrior in a more balanced team. Sure he can focus swap to squeeze out one more, but the time between spikes just increased dramatically.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

I sincerely agree about the long term damage that the warriors can do. In fine, Eles will eventually run out of energy/ have recharge problemes. And it is a core problem in long lasting battles such as GVG. In CA/TA, and many short-paced fights, no.

Given how deep wound works, warriors are sustained and spike damage at the same time. Sure it doesnt stack, but a individual can only die once at a time as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

As you said, Eles have many utility skills. Warriors have not. Or at too high cost to afford, like Skull Crack. The only utility skills warriors have is to overcome mainly counters to their attacks, like wild blow, warriors cunning, Sprint to avoid kiting, etc... But if a warrior take those, he finally fall into the elementalist syndrom you spoke of: he choose to bring utility skills instead of making damage.

Ufortunatly there is nothing that the ele can do to amplify the damage currently unlike the warrior who has a choice. If you want a "disruptive" melee character you go with a hammer or use an assasin.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

Eles have tactical advantages that overcome the simple numbers calculated on a dummy who don't kite, evade, cast SS/SV, etc...

Idiots come in all flavors, you cant skew in favor for one without aknowleding the other.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

... Eles would gain the final count because there is too few ways to mitigate their damage, on the contrary of the warriors.

When 1 skills reduces all effects dealt from a ele into relative garbage, i dont see how you are comming to that conclusion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

By using such a provocative title 'Why Nuker sucks!", you can't hide behind the fact that you actually despise Eles ability to do damage. Or you chose a very bad title to your thread. On a dummy, yes warriors win. On a kiting/ evading/ hexing/ enchanting/ crippling player I'm sincerely less convinced.

As the wise player would change targets and wait for condition/hex removal opposed to chase the guy kiting, in order to continue to apply pressure or spike in the near future.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

Even if the warrior win the damage challenge in the long lasting battles, I would say that the Ele have so much utility spells in their pocket aside that they don't "need" to do more damage.

Not neccarially more damage as a whole, but be able to deliver it more regularly and do more than just "damage" with one skill and not be detrimental to the user over time. As illustrated with ranger spike eles are easily outclassed even in the single cast time frame, never mind over time or potential other effects that can be delivered in that manner. If you really want a comparison of "more than just damage" contained within one skill, but damage being the focus, you can observe the channeling line from ritualists. It has self contained augmentations, energy recovery, and sane cast and recast times. Sure there is no flare equivilant, but i dont see why anyone would really want one. The only thing the rit isnt optimised for, is just dealing directed damage like that, while the elementalist is "supposed" to be given the skill sets.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

The only rant I could have on Eles are the lack of defensive/healing spells in fire/air.A burning armor or a wind armor (to avoid most nasty interrupting projectiles) would be a good thing to implement.

You cant cast while moving, so unless you are suggesting devoting yet another spot towards utility in order to just nuke relativly unmolested like how warriors or rangers operate, which doesn't solve anything i do not see what you are getting at here. Its like trying to compare an attunement to 14 skill in expertise. You simply cant, because expertise is passive, acts like energy storage and a 166% increase in innate energy regeneration by comparison to any character that does not have it. To have a "fair" comparison would be like having ether prodigy and elemental attunement blended into one skill. Elementalists start off at such a disadvantage, you would expect that their self contained nukes would be without peer even through multiple augmentations from many different sources. Especially when you observe 25e costs, 5 second cast times, 60s recast times, and exhaustion. While the next nearest comparison for damage has half the cost or less, refreshes in roughly 10/th the time in many cases, does not cause exhaustion, and typically does not have any drawbacks that casting a spell would cause.

Goonter · Jan 31, 2006, 05:33 PM // 17:33

I agree a lot of what Ensign says here.

I like every force to be threatening, but elementist have not really been able to shine ever since they stop smiting.

And though I’m glad they don’t smite as often, I don’t like the fact that they are easily out shined (in dealing damage) by other classes.

I recognized the problem myself, but in a slightly different fashion. What I noticed..
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=96451

Momentum
Elementist have a momentum that I feel fits their class description. Its slower, sometimes its costly, but it should be worth the patience. (should be) When its time for an eley to pressure, it should come hard and furiously. But they shouldn’t be able to keep it up unrelentlessly. In longer matches, (GvG is almost always longer matches) this momentum is does not work well because…

Brake away
Something WM has taught me and probable a lot of other people.
If the opposition can brake away, they reset your efforts. Everybody recharges health and energy, and we try again. (This is where the water utility would be great. But crippling shot rangers have taken up the role to create a solution to this problem.) When this problem is not fix, fast momentum teams have a large upper hand. While elementist are waiting for that next big bang, the other team is back from their brake away to push their offence and they never suffer from the elementist big bang.

Hexing
Mostly water, but there are a few other hexes that elementist rarely use.
One - Its tell sign, two - they get removed a lot.
I’ve noticed that when a team decides to use nec and mesmer hexes, the pressure is solid. What happen?
From what I can tell, elementist rarely get hexes covered and warriors have a helm that discourages hex use completely. That helm is just wrong.

Enchanment
Why isn’t IW popular? - Because it’s fragile.
Any enchantment that takes 30 seconds to recharge is. Attunements are the elementist bread and butter, but rarely have Ive notice elementist coving their enchantments with Aura of Restoration because it’s considered a waste of a skill slot. When I see elementist get their one attunement feed to drain enchantment I know that eleys momentum has just been cut in half.

You did bring to my attention about what deep wound can do.
Even as I knew about the virtual damage that deep wound do, I had not drawn the comparison to its spike potential vs. an elemenist spike potential. It feels unfair, but I don’t know what can be done about it.

I think all DotAoEs (except smiting) should have an increased range.
Well,…just a general skill rebalancing to favor elementist. I’m glad that this game isn’t a nuke fest, but I’m not happy that one option strongly outweighs the others.

One question - What is the base damage per minute of a staff or wand attack?
Even thought that this is not practical in many cases, when it is practical it should be considered a method, no? And it does seem like a fairer comparison to base warrior damage.

Symbol · Jan 31, 2006, 08:58 PM // 20:58

Having utility is not a reason for elementalists to be underpowered in the damage department. The class was billed as a damage class. People (in general) play the class to do damage. If people want the elementalist to remain utility, then a.net should change the class description so that people who are looking for damage don't waste their time.

Neo-LD · Jan 31, 2006, 10:13 PM // 22:13

First, I completely agree with Ensign on the matter of eles being unable to be "damage dealers". I also agree that ele's most valuable uses are as a utility man, and that he can be a spiker, albeit a substandard one.

One thing that I think has been largely left out of this discussion, thus far, though, is classes besides wars and eles. Specifically, Im thinking of quick shot rangers. Ensign said that warriors are miles above *any* other form of damage, but only really compared to eles. In my experience, qs rangers make HP bars go down just as fast, but lack the deep wound. In fact, many members of this forum, including ensign, supported qs rangers as powerhouse "damage dealers" in a similar thread featuring the ineptitude of elementalists, some weeks ago.

Certainly I would not make a build without warriors, for the deep wound is too powerful to pass up. However, in leu of additional warriors beyond the first, would it be unwise to use qs ranger(s) instead? The range, interupt, energy denial, and snare utility provided by a qs is very appealing, and there is no sense in doubling up a deep wound...

CKaz · Jan 31, 2006, 10:29 PM // 22:29

There's a big difference between damage dealers and sustained damage dealers. I'd love you to meet and handle 4 coordinated eles with obsidian flame, with a little warding and frozen soil in tow in pvp (and maybe a little lead stripping if a green up arrow exists). Eles may have other spike challengers but there's no issue of pointless stacking (ie hex, deep wound) so I'd argue they may be the best spiker at range, hardly substandard, with only rangers possibly exceeding (and there terrain can be an influence).

As for why rangers have been left out and comparing rangers with warriors... well this thread is called 'Why nuking sucks' and you mention another thread already pointing out eles vs rangers.

[I think you want a new thread, warrs vs rangers?]

So if the focus here is how eles just dont seem to have the umph other classes do HoH/GvG I'll bite. The best weapon the ele had there was air and it received a nerf in the process. 4p teams or random I still think you're OK and I've never had a problem PvE for damage. It is true though that'd I'd also argue the other lines don't hold up in PvE (generally) as well as Fire for offense.

I think its ok some ele lines are more utility, heck the monk got nukes. It is a shame though other classes arguably got some of the best nukes, it's still not entirely clear especially in the late metagame how monks and necros get DD skipping past armor entirely in such number and the monk overly well suited to stay alive and burn enemies off indefinetly before the nerf bat.

Why not any water skill slow ATTACK SPEED, and have a ward or two non-elite, perhaps one like that?

Why not earth have an effect to add to an attack say like knockdown or interrupt without its own conjure? Regarding conjure why not let the elementalist drop it on an ally's weapon (maybe at half the damage if this was a concern)? Of course maybe then they'd have to add /E reasons...
It's also missing it's 'mind-XXXX', damage, and > energy knockdown (3sec maybe) + damage again

Why not air have some DD totally ignoring armor? It has very little AoE, make it the single target king.

Why not fire have some kind of self burning shield - still sticks to not really providing defense but adds a bit of a price if you want to get within melee range.

Make it more interesting, make it a bit more viable than what it is.
Kind of break the model of attributes but how about even a couple lines working together for skills.

But again more to the OPs point, they should do more DPS, period. Skills cost less energy, take less time, do more damage, a way to avoid the after cast delay, whatever combination can help.

Otherwise it is true, they'll never be what they should be in GvG/HoH, targets of normal concern. They can be out healed and healing practices can beat out their energy stores. In regular PvE or smaller 4v4 pvp scenarios however its much less of an issue, but in the protracted fights it does wear on an ele more than other classes. Again not a horrible thing, but since their damage has been toned down to make them not overly uber PvP, isn't it fair that their energy drain also be similiarly tuned without tossing elite and a chunk of the toolbar to mitigate the problem?

Only thing I feel remotely likely though is that they get caster armor in chp2 (ironic aint it...)

[Even goofier, still surprised an assassin with melee daggers = caster energy pips, a/mo >>> w/mo]

Symbol · Jan 31, 2006, 10:33 PM // 22:33

Quote:

As for why rangers have been left out and comparing rangers with them... well this thread is called 'Why nuking sucks'

That's idiotic. Do warrior's nuke? No. Yet here we are comparing warriors and eles. You can't just arbitrarily ignore comparisons you don't find favorable.

draco inferno · Jan 31, 2006, 11:10 PM // 23:10

ok, ive been out of the argument since about page one (had a lot of work to do). but basically im gonna go back to the reason i brought up the 1v1 scenario. essentially, my point was that warriors rely on other players/their team to help them out and keep them alive (especially with all the warrior hate). which means that the warrior has higher upkeep requirements than an ele. an ele can stand alone with very little help from the rest of his/her team (with the standard healing from the monks, but even that can be minimized via aura of restoration). basically, it takes a mesmer to shut down an ele, but almost any class can shut down a tank with one skill (blind of some sort). so if your team is coordinated enough, you can keep a constant blind on said warrior, regardless of how many times the monks remove it, thereby efficiently shutting down said warrior.
yes, i know that this is a thread started about standard damage output. but in terms of efficiency, warriors may not be the best option. i will submit that in a standard situation, warriors have more damage output than eles. but in the overall scheme of things, eles should be considered when building a team.
now, im not going to contradict what i said earlier. i still think that the eles have been nerfed down way too much and need some sort of pick-me-up in order to make them standardly efficient again. but when it comes to bashing the eles and saying they aren't very useful for dealing damage, then i think more needs to be taken into consideration, particularly secondary classes. ele skills now rely a lot on skills besides direct damage dealing. but imo, eles are one of the most useful and versatile classes out there.