Curse

Ensign · Mar 16, 2006, 11:14 PM // 23:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rey Lentless

I thought primary necros were the most underpowered, but fixing the blood stained boots largely fixed that.

This doesn't make the least bit of sense to me. Please explain.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rey Lentless

When I think of what eles should be, I think about a glass cannon who's offense should be unmatched.

I agree to an extent. I think that should only be true situationally though or you run into balance issues. I.E., elementalists should have very good damage over very short timeframes (spikes or pressure spikes), or given good battlefield situations (AoE). What you don't want is a ranged damage machine that outpaces everything else because then the game just gets silly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rey Lentless

1. Range. The simplest of advantages is here. A warrior has to run after something (which you can see and plan for.. and avoid in multiple ways), and an ele just has to be within a certain range and sometimes have LOS.

Being able to operate at range can definitely be an advantage, mostly of one of two types. The first is that range lets a character do his thing from a more defensive position, he can pull in to range to cast his spells then fall back while they recharge or if he takes fire. This would in theory play well with an elementalist's front loaded damage character type. The second is the ability to affect a wider area of the battle from any position, allowing for fast target switching and other such tricks.

At the same time there are disadvantages to operating at range. The big one is targeting and LOS. If the other team can move behind a wall or over a ledge they can neutralize several skills entirely. Just kiting or movement at range can cause problems with projectile skills - Lightning Orb, for example, would be an acceptably powerful skill if it didn't miss moving targets with regularity, and look at all the complaints about Water Trident due to its relatively high arc.

The other problems with range aren't really with range itself, but with class balance in general. For instance if elementalist AoE was strong it could punish people reliably for bunching up, either temporarily or strategically. However that really isn't the case. The AoEs they do have are generally too small and too slow to punish opportunistic AoE, which is yet another reason why Energy Surge is the king of AoE damage. Similarly there's nothing scary and wieldly enough to punish people from bunching up on the battlefield - indeed the biggest disadvantage of bunching up is that it makes the other team's warriors much more effective, as it neutralizes their natural disadvantage of having to move between targets.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rey Lentless

2. Less Countered. This is pretty simple too.

Yeah, it's a simple and pretty important concept, warriors are the real driving force in this game so they get most of the focus, so second-tier options that avoid splash damage, like elementalists, are made better by the environment. At the same time, the argument that elementalists are appropriately powered because they are so much worse than the other options that no one bothers countering them is pretty sketchy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rey Lentless

3. Defense. There's a lot of ele specific defense that can be gained from having even one ele (and still be a good offensive threat) in your group.

Agree (almost) completely. Between Wards, Blinding Flash, and Ether Prodigy-powered monk skills an elementalist can be a rather effective if not vital component of a team. They aren't an offensive threat though in any sense of the word. They are a spike threat.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rey Lentless

Warrs do not add to the overall defense of the team

Could not disagree more. The threat of a warrior is a key part of a defense. Putting a supported warrior in anyone's face all but forces them to kite, neutralizing that character's offensive controbution. I have won, and lost, several games because warriors shifted off of the opposing team's monks and onto their mesmers, neutralizing their disruption and removing their ability to get kills. Damage is inherently disruptive. Disruption can be used defensively. There aren't very many teams that can use their warriors effectively for this but they're basically the short list of guilds that I respect in this game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rey Lentless

4. Relic running/altars. Windborne, gale, ward against foes.. staples that are absolutely vital to successfully winning relic maps.

I'll disagree, but I believe that relic is so poorly understood and played in general that I'll leave that for another thread. Not a knock on utility, I like all of those skills, and they're probably very important for pugs on a relic map.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rey Lentless

This is tombs specific and is the biggest reason why eles are more valuable in tombs than gvg.

Your understanding of GvG is clearly so poor that I'd suggest that you avoid the subject completely from here on out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rey Lentless

The aoe is the wild card for the ele, and is a reason I really don't bother with lightning focused eles as part of a balanced build.

What this argument really comes down to is that AoE, even poor AoE like what you get from a fire elementalist, is strong against terrible teams. I will not argue with that in the slightest. I didn't understand why people liked fire elementalists in tombs when I wasn't playing it, but when I dropped in for a bit it was pretty obvious - in your average pug vs pug game, positioning simply does not exist, it's a chaotic mess of people flailing away at each other. The only positioning that does exist, if any, is teams hiding out in Ward Against Melee. I think it's pretty clear that random AoE effects, especially something like Flame Burst, is going to be rather effective against those teams. If you're stuck in the pug scene, random pug vs random pug mirror match tech becomes rather important.

Again that's bad team specific though. Every time I've seen Flame Burst man in tombs he's just exploded in a bloody mess. The bigger problem with fire guy is that he's pretty bad if he doesn't have that AoE clump to abuse. Sure Fireball is still ok against single guys, and Meteor is slow as hell but at least cost efficient, but otherwise that character is awful. Rodgorts is ok but not exactly rockin for your premiere AoE option. There's a reason why the good teams prefer Energy Surge - unlike a fire guy it doesn't cost you a character, the AoE on the skill outclasses everything in the fire line, it's a lot faster so you can hit those situational mistakes more reliably, and even if you aren't getting the AoE it's a perfectly good denial / damage skill that can advance your strategy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rey Lentless

but GW isn't just a game of lining up some simple math (as much as the iQ guys would like it to be)

Please keep the snipes to yourself. You've shown that you're perfectly capable of making arguments with merits so there's no reason to discredit and debase yourself with that tripe.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rey Lentless

but I would say that their potential damage is more important in tombs than gvg.

I would say that you misunderstand HA badly then, at least on a competitive level. Because of how badly the Hall of Heroes is structured, potential damage isn't terribly important at all. Instead, value is placed upon sneaking as much defense as possible into a build. That gives you the best potential for long Hall holds, which are of course how you accumulate massive amounts of fame and sigils. Elementalists are naturally suited for this sort of strategy, though, because of their strong defensive options as already discussed (Blinding Flash, Wards, Prodigy powered-monk spells), and their ability to still contribute something to an offense via 321spike. However right now I'd argue that the Zaishen have the strongest HoH build right now, with enough blood spike to slip onto that dais, and seven monks plus a fertile season spammer once they're there.

However as a lower-tier HA strategy I see the value of AoE, it's good against the random teams you'll face and thus strong for trying to piece together short winning streaks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Unfortunately the warrior is very good at inflicting damage, and the ele is rather bad. This means elementalists simply have no offensive role.

Oh, they have an offensive role, assisting on spikes. I don't mind a bit of long range Lightning Orb archery when the warriors are unloading adrenaline, I curse every time the Orb misses (and it often does) but I still toss it in there because damage during spikes is how you get kills most of the time. Sure the elementalist is still largely a defensive character, but that spike ability is what distinguishes him from just another monk and is an important consideration when designing a build.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

That doesn't mean they have NO role, but it does mean that the bulk of their skills are left by the wayside.

Indeed. I'm writing up a (short?) article on the skills that still are searching for an identity after the last balance update, mostly because they're underpowered but a few because they're just poorly designed. Of the 126 skills currently on that list, exactly one third, 42, are elementalist skills. For those keeping count that's over half of the skills available to the profession. Sure you can, and people do, make solid characters with what's left over, but you're pretty much spot on when you call the elementalist half of a profession.

Quote:

Originally Posted by anduck

So, if you buy this explanation, you can imagine my conclusion; rather than the Warrior taking over the Ele's damage-dealing role, the Warrior has actually taken over the Ele's position-manipulation role.

I think there's an awful lot of truth to that, and it isn't immediately obvious when you look at it from the outside. Stuff like Firestorm would at least in theory be used to push people around on the battlefield, but in practice just having a warrior in the vicinity is an order of magnitude more effective. Have a mesmer annoying your backline? Have a warrior look at him. And so forth. Basically the strength of a warrior lets him push people around and force positional things, while elementalists are really relegated to assisting warriors on a spike.

Peace,
-CxE

Rey Lentless · Mar 17, 2006, 01:11 AM // 01:11

Quote:

This doesn't make the least bit of sense to me. Please explain.

What I mean is the fast cast necros. While primary necros were still used for certain things, the majority of necros were actually primary mesmers because of the fast casting corpse control. Even with a whole bar full of necro skills, they'd still be primary mesmer almost all the time. While a mesmer with high fast casting is still able to out-perform primary necros at corpse control, they at least have to invest more heavily into fast casting to accomplish this. You can't just stick 8-10 points in fast casting and expect to win all corpses over primary necros now, so I believe that's much more balanced.

Quote:

I agree to an extent. I think that should only be true situationally though or you run into balance issues. I.E., elementalists should have very good damage over very short timeframes (spikes or pressure spikes), or given good battlefield situations (AoE). What you don't want is a ranged damage machine that outpaces everything else because then the game just gets silly.

I agree, and I think eles are ok in that way. My real issue with them is with the lightning line and to a lesser extent water.

Quote:

Yeah, it's a simple and pretty important concept, warriors are the real driving force in this game so they get most of the focus, so second-tier options that avoid splash damage, like elementalists, are made better by the environment. At the same time, the argument that elementalists are appropriately powered because they are so much worse than the other options that no one bothers countering them is pretty sketchy.

Well, I wasn't implying that eles were balanced because nobody bothers countering them.. thus making them more powerful.

Quote:

Could not disagree more. The threat of a warrior is a key part of a defense. Putting a supported warrior in anyone's face all but forces them to kite, neutralizing that character's offensive controbution. I have won, and lost, several games because warriors shifted off of the opposing team's monks and onto their mesmers, neutralizing their disruption and removing their ability to get kills. Damage is inherently disruptive. Disruption can be used defensively. There aren't very many teams that can use their warriors effectively for this but they're basically the short list of guilds that I respect in this game.

This is with the best defense is a good offense theory, but it's not defense in the literal sense I was referring to. Yes, warriors put pressure on targets and teams as a whole, and you can focus that pressure on high priority targets.. but you can do similiar things with eles as well. I don't believe their offense is as completely non-existant as you do.

Quote:

I'll disagree, but I believe that relic is so poorly understood and played in general that I'll leave that for another thread. Not a knock on utility, I like all of those skills, and they're probably very important for pugs on a relic map.

There are other ways to win a relic map, but I still believe these skills make the job easier and they're easy to throw in skills.

Quote:

Please keep the snipes to yourself. You've shown that you're perfectly capable of making arguments with merits so there's no reason to discredit and debase yourself with that tripe.

Quote:

Your understanding of GvG is clearly so poor that I'd suggest that you avoid the subject completely from here on out.

Duh? I'm sorry, but too many of your analysis threads have involved relatively simple math that breaks down in any real game environment, yet you seem to think that the numbers are 'end of discussion' proofs that validate any point you happen to be making at the time. I appreciate the use of the equations to help support your points, but strongly disagree with the value you place in them. The lack of respect you show anyone with a differing opinion makes me wonder why you'd bother to ask me to. I'd think you could at least could avoid 'snipes' yourself... in the same post that you ask me to.. if only to avoid the irony.

Quote:

What this argument really comes down to is that AoE, even poor AoE like what you get from a fire elementalist, is strong against terrible teams.

Positioning is not always going to be perfect even with the good teams. It only takes one slip up, and considering that the ele is not usually a high priority, the attention is focused elsewhere, and positioning to avoid the ele can be forgotten about for periods. In tombs, those positioning mistakes can be game ending. In gvg, teams have more of a chance to recover.. and if bad positioning for a few seconds sent a team to their demise, then I expect any decent team to make it a priority not to repeat that as the match goes on. With multiple teams, smaller maps, and with teams usually spread out less than they are in gvg.. tombs is more suited to the home run aoe hit I was referring to. It's not a theory I have, it's something that I've seen win many a games, and against good teams. I just think you're giving people too much credit.

Quote:

I would say that you misunderstand HA badly then, at least on a competitive level. Because of how badly the Hall of Heroes is structured, potential damage isn't terribly important at all. Instead, value is placed upon sneaking as much defense as possible into a build. That gives you the best potential for long Hall holds, which are of course how you accumulate massive amounts of fame and sigils. Elementalists are naturally suited for this sort of strategy, though, because of their strong defensive options as already discussed (Blinding Flash, Wards, Prodigy powered-monk spells), and their ability to still contribute something to an offense via 321spike. However right now I'd argue that the Zaishen have the strongest HoH build right now, with enough blood spike to slip onto that dais, and seven monks plus a fertile season spammer once they're there.

However as a lower-tier HA strategy I see the value of AoE, it's good against the random teams you'll face and thus strong for trying to piece together short winning streaks.

No, that's not what I was saying at all. I wasn't saying that having more offense was better in tombs, or even talking about builds at all. What I was saying was, that the home run aoe hit would do more damage in tombs than it would in gvg, because of the nature of the maps. While this can end games in tombs, teams can recover easier in gvg and make sure it doesn't happen again. Since the positioning is avoidable, the higher priority put on it the second time around would make the likelihood of having this work multiple times unlikely. But it only takes once in tombs most of the time. It's not something to base a build around, it's just something that the eles can bring to the table as an added bonus. Warriors can't get lucky with the other team making a mistake that allows them to dish out 1k damage in a few secs, but eles do have that potential. And after playing as and with eles that were apart of dozens of hoh wins against good teams, I know how often those mistakes are made and that this factor can be important. I don't disagree that it's avoidable and good teams can certainly eliminate that factor, but I do disagree that good teams rarely make positioning mistakes.

Ensign · Mar 17, 2006, 12:19 PM // 12:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rey Lentless

Yes, warriors put pressure on targets and teams as a whole, and you can focus that pressure on high priority targets.. but you can do similiar things with eles as well.

Please explain how you are going to put pressure on a high priority target with an elementalist. Or several elementalists. It is something that I have never seen done, that I've tried to do myself on multiple occasions and never saw a hint of success. Elementalists can spike people out. They can't apply pressure to specific targets. They can't even come close.

Pressure damage is one of the situations where raw mathematics are the most valuable, because the pressure comes from the threat...bah, you've seen the initial post.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rey Lentless

I don't believe their offense is as completely non-existant as you do.

It doesn't have to be non-existant. Any profession has *some* offense, even a monk wanding a target. The question is if a given character is *viable*. Can you plug an elementalist into a build for a warrior and still maintain an offense? The overwhelming evidence is that no, you cannot. The decision does not even become interesting until you start looking at the third warrior. Even then, the decision isn't that an elementalist is any better than a third warrior, but that it's rather difficult to maintain a support structure for that third warrior. The elementalist, then, starts to become attractive because he can be a part of that support structure, that he can help neutralize opposing warriors, and still contribute to spikes - not because he deals damage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rey Lentless

Hero's Ascent Stuff

At one point I wanted to go through this and address specific points, but I've played a good amount of HA in the last few days, had the stereotypes reinforced, and drawn some pretty general conclusions. Conclusions that are important enough that they overshadow all of these little discussions.

There is a single basic stereotype that I hold about HA and its players. This stereotype has only been reinforced the more that I play in that format:

HoH players do not know the first thing about movement, positioning, or the battlefield in general. Battles are gigantic cluster****s where players don't know where their own teammates are let alone where their opponents are, should, and shouldn't be. There are no complicated tactics, no strategies, just very basic 'ball up and beat up on each other until one team dies' "strategies".

If I just wanted to be a prick I'd just dismiss HA as scrubland and not think twice about it, but I don't work that way. I think there are good players in HA, technically tight players who take it very seriously, yet the quality of play is still abysmal. So why is HA so awful even though it's so heavily played.

After playing it and thinking about it for a couple days, I'm convinced that the problem is entirely the Hall of Heroes. That map destroys strategy, obliterates positioning, and rewards teams that manage to survive and thrive in the inevitible cluster****s that define that arena.

Because it's the final map of HA, the 'good' teams and players will play for it. They'll bring skills and strategies that are strong there, and what's good there are characters that are position and movement independent because those things don't matter at all when you're tethered to an unmoving ghost. People prepare for that strategy and their build and tactics remain on the other maps even if it doesn't make a lick of sense for them to.

Part of it is very likely because the players have picked up bad habits, but a lot of it also comes down to build inflexibility I think. The only map that rewards a flexible build with any regularity is relic. Flexibility doesn't matter anywhere else so teams just stick with the gangbang that they're used to. You might make token adjustments to a build for difficult maps (relic) but nothing substantive.

Strategies and tactics prey upon these constraints, such as the fire elementalist. He's a character that really isn't anything special, except HA is full of these huge gangbangs, capped by a 3-way gangbang on the dais, which makes his AoE attractive. No one expects anyone else to have anything resembling lines so he can just run around the mess firing off Flame Bursts and no one thinks twice about it. Same deal with trappers. Just drop 'em in the middle of that mess and watch.

Anyway I'm still working through the implications of all of this, though basically what it comes down to is that HA players are bad, but that they're made bad by the Hall, with a disincentive to get better. Players are pretty much forced into gimmick builds and counter-gimmick junk because there's no incentive to playing something with any degree of flexibility.

My apologies if it brushes aside points, but I really can't think about things like 'is AoE stronger in HA than GvG because of the maps' because it seems so laughably irrelevant compared to the larger factors at work here.

Peace,
-CxE

Bugeater · Mar 20, 2006, 05:25 PM // 17:25

Getting a little back on topic I've been doing a little experimenting and looking at ele's in general. As far as damage goes, right now the only thing they've got going for them is AoE. If they can land a few AoEs on multiple targets, then their damage really shines (sure it costs a load of energy but I don't really have a problem with that since they can outdamage anyone else). And it doesn't take many second and third targets hit by an AoE to power them to the top of the damage table.

By far the biggest issue with the current AoE spells is casting time. A slow casting time is really a two-edged sword for AoE spells. The first way it screws the caster is interrupts. When all of the really devistating spells take 3+ seconds to cast, you might as well light a signal flare over your head asking for an interrupt. This is compounded by the fact that the spells take longer to recharge than the interrupt skills. So you can have 1 interrupt skill shutting down ~1.3 nuke skills. That's a losing battle.

The second way a long cast time screws the caster is positioning. When you see your oppontents bunched up, you want to be able to throw an AoE at them and make them pay for their mistake. But 3-5 seconds from now when your nuke goes off, there's no telling where they'll be positioned. So your awesome AoE damage is reduced to a fraction of what it would have been had you been able to get your spell off faster.

Other than casting time, the range of the AoE could help a lot with a nuker's damage. A larger AoE would force teams to pay closer attention to positioning and increase the consequences for failure to do so.

Wasteland Squidget · Apr 06, 2006, 02:05 AM // 02:05

I think the key point is that spikes != damage. ANY class can spike, whether they are a damage class or not. Mesmers and Monks can do spikes, but you wouldn't really call either of those damage classes.

There is only one class capable of DPS damage and that is the warrior. The elementalist is often called a ranged damager, but in actuality they're no more damage than your average Dom Mesmer. They can contribute to a spike, but that's it.

As for discussion of making Ether Prodigy useless, Ether Prodigy is the only reason why elementalists are used in GvG currently. I don't even remember the last time I watched an Observer Mode match and saw a primary ele using another elite. Glyph of Energy and Elemental Attunement see occasional use in pure ele spike builds (Obsidian Spike and Fast Cast Air Spike, respectively.) However, most of what you see are Flashbots and Heal Party spammers with Prodigy.

If you add extra regen to Eles it either won't be enough and people will still run Prodigy, or it will be enough and people will just put different elites on their high-energy characters.

Byron · Apr 07, 2006, 05:51 PM // 17:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Insanity

This may be naive, but why not just buff elementalist wand attacks to do some small percentage of damage consistently (as Warrior's do) at range (like Rangers) while keeping the large spikes of damage in spells (requiring energy)?

The problem isn't raw damage, IMO, it is the lack of an enhancing attribute. Your typical axe-wielding warrior will have 16 in axe mastery, bringing a huge possibility of critical hits and enhancing inherent damage. Wands don't have that ability, so they can't reach damage over 25 in any given hit. If say, focusing your attribs into a specific elemental spectrum made your wanding with that element more damaging, that would be a slight buff and a pretty logical fix. Using conjure for wanding is a joke, what's more.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrograd

I believe IQ switched to a spike build for their late surge up the ladder after dropping their warrior build.

They certainly did, and it is deadly. I've encountered them several times in HA; if I remember, it's 3 Me/E, a necro, and Ensign as his usual E/Mo. That was a week ago, though, and I think they've changed it around. It was still susceptible to the normal spike counters, ie Mesmers.(CoF ftw, as usual)

That said, nuking still sucks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

There is only one class capable of DPS damage and that is the warrior.

A little off topic, but I saw a Ranger packing RTW, a short bow, and getting help with judges insight. Using Tiger's Fury, that ranger was packing some serious DPS, using hunter's shot and penetrating attack as well as both interrupts. Crippling shot kept them from running away, as well. That's all very conditional though. I only wish I could remember the guild who was running it.

Ensign · Apr 07, 2006, 08:51 PM // 20:51

Yeah, rangers can apply pretty good pressure - not just from bow hits but from conditions that they spread around. I think their raw weapon damage, unmitigated, is something like 2/3 of a warriors, but with a lot more tricks. They're not a bad profession at all though it can be hard to find the right tricks at times.

I've be running with a fire ele in HA the last couple days, and they're situationally very strong there. People love to bunch up on a dais or around a relic carrier and the AoE is rocking. When that isn't happening, you can usually still get good milage out of Fireball and Flame Burst. I don't think people realize how important Flame Burst is. If that skill is playable (it's rocking in HA or 12v12, not playable in GvG) then fire instantly becomes attractive. Ah, the difference a good spammable can make.

Peace,
-CxE

Wasteland Squidget · Apr 08, 2006, 07:00 PM // 19:00

Flame Burst suffers from the same issue as a lot of Ele (and some Necro) damage skills. Basically there's some kind of expectation that PBAoE balances a strong skill, when in reality it just relegates that skill to certain gametypes. PBAoE is perfectly fine anywhere you don't have battle lines and positioning isn't hugely important (Tombs, 12v12, 4v4) and pretty much useless where you do.

As far as Rangers, they've got some decent DPS but as primary damagers they do meet up with some pretty serious issues. For one thing they're very energy-reliant (much more than warriors), which makes them quite vulnerable to denial. This is helped along by the fact that they can't really focus-swap - Malaise actually becomes a pretty irritating hex to be stacked with when you can't just F4 out of it. Of course, you can carry negative energy items, but if you're constantly swapping in and out of your bow then you're able to deal a heck of a lot less pressure as a result.

So Rangers meet a lot of the same counters to warriors (blocks/evades, blinds, ect) and also face some pretty similar counters to casters (interrupts on their preps, energy denial.) As such, they're really not the most reliable DPS. The condition-spreading they can do is helpful, but having poison and cripple on key targets doesn't do any good unless you have enough of a damage threat to make them die while they're dealing with your conditions.

Mysterial · Apr 08, 2006, 08:15 PM // 20:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

Flame Burst suffers from the same issue as a lot of Ele (and some Necro) damage skills. Basically there's some kind of expectation that PBAoE balances a strong skill, when in reality it just relegates that skill to certain gametypes. PBAoE is perfectly fine anywhere you don't have battle lines and positioning isn't hugely important (Tombs, 12v12, 4v4) and pretty much useless where you do.

Since that means they're ineffective in exactly one of all the possible gametypes shown so far, I'm perfectly happy with that. Elementalists serve defensive purposes in GvG where those kinds of spells don't work and can be offensive in the other gametypes where they do. The problem for me is that even in skill sets with hope (like PBAoE fire) there's still far more skills that suck than skills that are good. Really only Flame Burst is an above average skill - Phoenix has some uses with Glyph of Sacrifice now that you can do that every 60 seconds (still, it's sacrificing two skill slots) and Factions adds a couple more (Star Burst is good, as is Bed of Coals in some builds), but other than that there's not a whole lot going on even in the lines that pose a credible threat.

Ensign · Apr 09, 2006, 08:52 PM // 20:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

Basically there's some kind of expectation that PBAoE balances a strong skill, when in reality it just relegates that skill to certain gametypes.

It relegates it to gametypes where the drawback of being PBAoE is more easily compensated for or ignored. Is that really a problem? As long as the skill is situationally very strong, I'm happy. The thing that bugs me about PBAoE, though, is the hidden cast times. All of them have an additional second tacked on after the effect, making them all 2.5 second time commitments. It basically prevents you from pretending that you can chain these things, since even at 1.5 seconds between there's a distinct gap.

So really, if the skill selection wasn't so shallow, the only benefit of PBAoE would be as single, shock value hits, because otherwise it just has a marginal increase in efficiency compared to ranged AoEs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

As far as Rangers, they've got some decent DPS but as primary damagers they do meet up with some pretty serious issues. For one thing they're very energy-reliant (much more than warriors), which makes them quite vulnerable to denial.

Actually rangers are a pain in the ass to stop with energy debilitation. You can't really stop someone when most of his skills cost 2 or 4. Also a lot of their effectiveness comes from their preparations, which only require a bit of energy in spurts.

The character that really hurt us the most in our matches against renO was that ranger - the degen was harsh, and as soon as the Heal Party got turned off the match turned over.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

So Rangers meet a lot of the same counters to warriors (blocks/evades, blinds, ect)

That's the biggest problem I found with running several rangers. People come prepared with lots of hate for warriors and rangers dodge virtually none of it. Hence they aren't really a way around warrior hate and the requirement of a support structure for your offense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rey Lentless

Yah, I saw you guys in there with a fire ele a couple times recently. Nice to see you're appreciating what they can do in HA. Flame burst is definitely the core skill when I run a fire ele there, and often times worth arcane echoing as well.

Basically you're not trying to beat the best teams. You rarely fight the best teams, and when you do it's usually in the HoH where the game has very little to do with whom can beat whom in a fight. Most teams are very likely to bunch up for Flame Bursting and don't do a thing to punish you for it. Similarly Meteor Shower is good in HoH for clearing iWay off of your Ghost - it's remarkably similar to farming Mountain Trolls.

Quote:

Originally Posted by a cadet

Only reason I ask is that before I heard you say that Flame Burst spamming was horrid, so why the change of heart? (or did they change the skill?)

Flame Burst spamming is pretty horrid against good teams. From my experience playing against that character, he was usually a joke because he'd just run in and die. Same with random Consume Corpse teleports into the backline, he's just pop in and promptly explode out of monk range.

What changed is a bit of experience with it and realizations about what exactly you're trying to accomplish with a given build. In HA that does not mean building to beat the best teams you encounter as I once felt - it means bringing the tools to farm the various gimmicks you're going to encounter over and over, and bringing the tools to have an effective game on a dais map.

So, yeah, Flame Burst is not a competitive skill in high level play, but who cares? There are skills that only really shine in PvE or arena and they're perfectly fine. Flame Burst is a core skill in casual, big PvP, and that's good enough for me from a balance standpoint.

Quote:

Originally Posted by angshuman

and the reasoning being used is that a shotgun is not effective in the Grand Prix of PvP settings in the game

It's not that AoE 'shotguns' or single target DDs or whatever are fundamentally bad tools in competitive PvP matches. It's that the tools we have that are actually good at what they're supposed to do are pretty few and far between. The *only* "in the area" AoE an elementalist has is Deep Freeze - which I might add is a great skill. Similarly if you wanted to make a list of fast, energy efficient DDs available you would start and end with Lightning Strike.

AoE isn't bad. The AoEs we've been given are bad.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rustjive

I certainly curse Ensign for naming his thread so poorly, but at least his followup was named correctly.

I didn't know that 'nuke' was universally limited to AoE. What's the right term for non-spike, single target DD? I don't know, and these discussions would be a lot easier if there was one that people recognized.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rustjive

Also, keep in mind this was before the update boosting the damage output of fire.

That update really didn't do anything for high level play, skills that used to deal 119 now deal 127 at 16. The big difference for those is that they're much more effective at very low levels now, instead of being relative jokes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Minus Sign

But people in this thread still insist on trying to make eles pure spikers.

Er, no they aren't. People in this thread are insisting on the elementalist profession having some reasonable damage dealing options that *aren't* pure spike.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mister Furious

As it stands right now, eles aren't good at spiking OR AOE.

They are pretty good at spiking, don't be dishonest about that. The difference is that spiking isn't damage, that being able to throw an Obsidian Flame at someone then saying 'I've got nothing' doesn't do anything.

DDs force people to heal and work their energy. Spikes attempt to kill before healing can arrive. That's the difference.

Peace,
-CxE

Wasteland Squidget · Apr 09, 2006, 11:47 PM // 23:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Actually rangers are a pain in the ass to stop with energy debilitation. You can't really stop someone when most of his skills cost 2 or 4. Also a lot of their effectiveness comes from their preparations, which only require a bit of energy in spurts.

What 2 energy skills are you referring to? On a Marksmanship ranger most of your skills cost 10 energy base. Dual Shot is 10, Savage Shot is 10, Crippling Shot is 15. Hunters Shot and Distracting Shot are both 5 (2 with high Expertise), but while those are good skills they don't make a Ranger's bar by themselves.

Furthermore, Rangers typically need to be able to spam their skills to be really effective, because they all get better the more you can use them. Skills like Crippling Shot have such a short recharge that if you can get the energy to spam them you'll be ridiculously effective on your team.

Its been covered that a warrior without attack skills remains a pretty strong DPS force. However, a Ranger without much use of attack skills isn't the same way. They can get off a few poisons and some incidental damage here and there, but they can't deal any real damage or utilize any of the tricks that make them really worth having on a team.

Add that to the fact that Rangers can't effectively focus-swap and have no skills which give them additional energy and you can see why they're somewhat denial-vulnerable. Energy denial on a Ranger won't completely shut them down, but it will make them much less scary and harmful.

I'm not knocking on Rangers here - I think they can be a really effective addition to a group (as the RenO match showed), but I'm still of the opinon that energy denial hits them pretty hard..

Minus Sign · Apr 10, 2006, 01:33 AM // 01:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Quote:

Originally Posted by Minus Sign

But people in this thread still insist on trying to make eles pure spikers.

Er, no they aren't. People in this thread are insisting on the elementalist profession having some reasonable damage dealing options that *aren't* pure spike.

If they weren’t you wouldn’t have had cause to say what you do next:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mister Furious

As it stands right now, eles aren't good at spiking OR AOE.

They are pretty good at spiking, don't be dishonest about that. The difference is that spiking isn't damage, that being able to throw an Obsidian Flame at someone then saying 'I've got nothing' doesn't do anything.

DDs force people to heal and work their energy. Spikes attempt to kill before healing can arrive. That's the difference.

Not just you, after reading through the thread, people have had to stop and do this regularly: “Stop saying we have no spike! We have spike, we just don’t have good spells.”

So where does this confusion ultimately stem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rustjive

I certainly curse Ensign for naming his thread so poorly, but at least his followup was named correctly.

I didn't know that 'nuke' was universally limited to AoE. What's the right term for non-spike, single target DD? I don't know, and these discussions would be a lot easier if there was one that people recognized.

Term confusion. As long as people aren’t sure which term is the correct one, they’re shooting blind-folded at a dartboard.

Granted. There should be a standard of measure.

There are basically six different types of spells in most RPG games today.

(Utility) Heals: These spells directly effect your health or the health of your team by raising it or raising the amount of damage you and your party can receive. They range from Heal over Time spells like Breeze to stock Orisons giving a little bit back and Endure Pain with one massive chunk of restored health.

(Utility) Prots: Protective Spells, also known as Buffs, are any spell designed to directly reduce the amount of damage you or your team receives. They range from Guardian and Spellbreaker to Wards and Aegis. This includes Anti-Target-Appeal spells or Offensive Prots that make you a less attractive target to attack. The most obvious type of this would be PBAoE. While OProts are capable of being offensive in their damage, even to seeing usefulness in a spike, the designed purpose of this spell is the “get away from me” effect they have. PBAoE are the porcupine’s spines. Now, OProt is my own term, but PBAoE fits the profile of what I mean and is, at its core, a protective measure.

(Utility) Debuff: any skill that is designed to disrupt the heal/prots of the opposition or otherwise prevent the enemy from gaining advantage. These strip enchantments, prevent heals or render them incapable of being cast. Interrupts would also fall into this Utility sub-class, but are steadily gaining their own niche due to games like Guild wars and Classes like Mesmers.

DPS: Damage per Second and primarily non-spike, these skills are designed to hit one target above all others. Any other damage is secondary to this core output of the character. When people say Direct Damage DD, this is often what they mean. “What's the right term for non-spike, single target DD?” DPS.

Spike: a skill that increases the overall DPS of you or your group—fast damage—primarily focused on a single target to take it down quickly. DD can be used this way as well, but its not as accurate because Spike is a DPS increase over the short term with a cooldown, “spiking” for a short period of time in an attempt to overwhelm the enemies utility spells before you burn yourself out. Degen, Damage over Time or DoT spells can often fall into this category but the term DoT has fallen out of use with gamers who consider DoT too weak to be anything more than a minor DPS Buff. More and more gamers are using DoT as an abbreviation for D-Dot described below and simply refer to single target DoT as Degen.

Nuke: Ground Targeted Area of Effect spells are any spell or combination thereof that is designed primarily to spread its damage over more than one opponent. Many of the eles most useless GTAoEs are D-DoT spells (Distributed Damage over Time) aka DoT. Key of note here is that you aren’t fighting the ground. You’re fighting the monsters or opposing players standing on it. While true “old school” nuke is GTAoE, D-Dot can take many different forms. That’s especially true in a game as complex as Guild Wars.

Go ahead and bash how I’m off-topic with this, but clear language is the basis of good communication. These terms have remained relatively unchanged in their description since Dungeons and Dragons and RPGs first gained popularity followed by Nintendo RPGs into the 80s and the advent of EverQuest in the 90s.

But this is only one very small part of what I wanted to talk about when I came in here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

The *only* "in the area" AoE an elementalist has is Deep Freeze - which I might add is a great skill. Similarly if you wanted to make a list of fast, energy efficient DDs available you would start and end with Lightning Strike.

AoE isn't bad. The AoEs we've been given are bad.

This should be the core of any discussion about this class. Right now many of our best weapons are those we use outside the role they are intended. Flame Burst, A PBAoE OProt is seeing play as a Spike spell, putting us directly in harms way to be effective instead of keeping us safe.

Though I’m not upper tier and not qualified to speak as such, I think I know the main reason why PBAoEs don’t see play in Tourney. There are better things a 60 AL castor can be doing than charging the enemy team like a warrior to use his PBAoE on a castor. And a smart warrior is going to wait until his mesmers lock that castor down before he charges in to kill it.

The question I’ve been trying so hard to raise is why are mesmers better at short term Dot—group pressure over a selected period of time—than Elementalists are? Answer: “AoE isn't bad. The AoEs we've been given are bad.”

Mesmers on the other hand have great DoT distributed evenly throughout the entire game. And they can still Debuff and interrupt while they maintain that DoT.

Now I don’t want our DoT to become that of mesmers, but it should reflect what they can do for 10 seconds at least. If it can’t, then we can’t compete. Right now ele D-Dot is the hole in our skillset, the biggest one to me. It has too many restrictions placed on and most severely due to cooldown/recharge. We can’t use it when we need it and by the time we get it off, the situation that we wanted to use it on is already changing.

The counter to spam hexes is their uptime which makes them true D-Dot. They—for the most part—last longer while they distribute damage. That’s what should make them effective as DoT alternatives to ele nukes: their damage is stable (if lower against the whole group) while ours are expensive and fluctuating. It should not be a 3 hit whammy: hexes last longer, do more dispersed damage (even over a short period of time where both of them are hitting) and can be maintained with little difficulty.

That’s what we have right now, and why I make the comparison between these two classes.

EDIT: A solution. Because any extensive cooldown buff has a potential to see PvE farmer abuse, Anet will never sign off on it completely and any buff will be mediocre at best. Also, any reduction in cast time has a similar effect of making the spell harder to interrupt.

The solution: make them easier to interrupt.

Ranger traps have a condition set into them. “While you are casting this spell, you are easily interrupted.” This should be added into DoT ele nukes in addition to the reduced cooldown and spell cast. It adds balance to the PvE game and keeps the AoE DoT situational for PvP players. Failure still results in a large chunk of mana being lost, but it is not a disastrous loss of that mana and one pressure skill for 30 out of 60 seconds. By then cutting the cooldown time of these spells in half we become the “glass cannons” everyone wants us to be but we can still be defeated/countered. 1-hit GTAoE nukes should just have their cast time reduced.

A lot of people will fall back on the concern that PvP would crumble into spell lobbing contests; all ele/me builds with Interupt blocking stances and a backup healer would somehow replace IWAY. I don't see that happening with Wild Blow and stance stripping skills breaking out into the game. They'd become nothing more than the OB ward gimick we already know. Counterable and static with heavy mana consumption issues.

Patrograd · Apr 10, 2006, 06:57 AM // 06:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

I'm not knocking on Rangers here - I think they can be a really effective addition to a group (as the RenO match showed), but I'm still of the opinon that energy denial hits them pretty hard..

When we play ranger spike energy denial is irritating but no more than that. As long as we can get up orders and RTW then you dont need a great deal of energy to fire off that dual shot and under orders and RTW even a spacebar attack is pretty painful, 60 or 70 damage IIRC. I can see e-denial being a pain for a crip shot/poison guy though. I think the biggest pain for a ranger spike team is things like faintheartedness/SOF

Wasteland Squidget · Apr 10, 2006, 07:55 AM // 07:55

Well that's pretty much what energy denial is - an annoyance that decreases your efficency significantly. No character of any class gets completely shut down by energy denial. A good player will focus-swap and use positioning to get the energy they need to cast crucial spells, and then the question just becomes whether the few crucial spells they can get off are enough to save their team.

Rangers are in pretty much the same boat. It doesn't completely shut them down, but it really inhibits their efficency. Put a basic energy denial build (the one in the sticky would work) against a Cripshot guy. If you assume that the Mesmer can get off three denial skills every 20 seconds (Surge, Burn, SoW), then it's quite possible for him to prevent the Ranger from ever getting 6 energy required for a Crippling Shot. He could limit the Ranger to two 10-energy skills every 20 seconds, where the Ranger would usually be able to use five skills of the same cost.

*shrug* I'm not saying that e-denial is the ultimate uber counter to Rangers, just that it's another thing to add to an already long list of counters available. That makes them even less attractive than warriors to run as damage characters.

Ensign · Apr 10, 2006, 09:08 PM // 21:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Minus Sign

So where does this confusion ultimately stem.

I think a lot of it comes from you not understanding what spike means.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Minus Sign

Spike: a skill that increases the overall DPS of you or your group—fast damage—primarily focused on a single target to take it down quickly...in an attempt to overwhelm the enemies utility spells before you burn yourself out.

A definition that's completely incongruous with reality in this game. Spike does not care about your opponent's healing at all. You aren't trying to overwhelm anything. Spike is an attempt to kill a player before *a single reactive spell can land*. A perfect spike will reduce someone from full HP to zero instantly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Minus Sign

Go ahead and bash how I’m off-topic with this, but clear language is the basis of good communication.

I won't bash you for being off topic. I will point out that you're trying to force categorizations and terminology that were designed for other games onto Guild Wars and it simply isn't working. Not only because it isn't applicible, but because terminology already exists. Hence instead of clearing things up, you're just making up your own definitions for words and confusing the hell out of the rest of us.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Minus Sign

The question I’ve been trying so hard to raise is why are mesmers better at short term Dot—group pressure over a selected period of time—than Elementalists are?

Over a short period of time? Mesmers don't really apply compacted pressure. They can set up some decent damage pressure once they've been given some time to set up, but it's anything but frontloaded.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Minus Sign

That’s what we have right now, and why I make the comparison between these two classes.

You're comparing a relatively narrow segment of each profession - degen or degen equivilent hexes versus D-DoT elementalist spells. It's a valid comparison, but it should be acknowledged that it's a narrow one.

It's also one that isn't really in the popular focus, mostly because the D-DoT spells in this game are pretty terrible and haven't been a significant factor in PvP, well, ever.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Minus Sign

Ranger traps have a condition set into them. “While you are casting this spell, you are easily interrupted.” This should be added into DoT ele nukes in addition to the reduced cooldown and spell cast.

I think you're playing a very, very different game than I am if making D-DoTs easily interruptable is an important balance step. Those spells are already irrelevant, 'easily interrupted' by the ubiquitous mesmers and rangers, and would need a massive overbuff before a drawback like that would be called for.

You do understand that the two drawbacks aren't remotely equivilent, right? Traps are supposed to be traps, they are often pre-used before an opponent is even in range to trigger later on. Also a ranger has a wide variety of block stances that can let him use traps aggressively without the danger of a single guy with a wand shutting him down. You want to force elementalists to run a 'can't be interrupted' skill if they want to cast something ever? They can't pre-cast, they don't have block stances, they'd be up there ready to be completely shut down by a guy with a wand.

Dangerous elementalists get shut down hard by sticking a ranger in their face already. The reasons for making them even easier to shut down are inconceivable. To re-iterate, you must be playing a very, very different game than I am if this is actually a concern.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Minus Sign

It adds balance to the PvE game

How can you even say that? Elementalists don't even take hits in the abusive PvE situations of tank + nuke + heal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Minus Sign

A lot of people will fall back on the concern that PvP would crumble into spell lobbing contests

Who are these people? Who's afraid of giving buffs to AoE? I haven't seen that particular concern raised at all in the history of the thread. Again I get the feeling that you're arguing points that aren't being made by anyone, for reasons that no one seems to understand.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

Put a basic energy denial build (the one in the sticky would work) against a Cripshot guy. If you assume that the Mesmer can get off three denial skills every 20 seconds (Surge, Burn, SoW), then it's quite possible for him to prevent the Ranger from ever getting 6 energy required for a Crippling Shot. He could limit the Ranger to two 10-energy skills every 20 seconds, where the Ranger would usually be able to use five skills of the same cost.

That might make sense on paper but that isn't how these things work out in the real world. Basically those Burns and Surges can get a guy zeroed out effectively but they aren't going to do a thing to a ranger once he's there. Stopping him from getting 7 energy for an Apply Poison or Cripshot is nice, sure - but it's not going to turn off the interrupts or anything else he can do, and you can be sure that he'll be spamming the hell out of those. In practice once you zero a ranger, subsequent Burns are going to take away 2-3 energy and set him back a couple of seconds. I'll take that trade any day as a ranger considering how much more effective you could be elsewhere.

Basically any cheap spells that can be cast before those debil skills become effective are great ways of fighting edenial. Word of Healing is particularly good against dom mesmers, as is Restore Condition - it's no coincidence that those two elites are key weapons in a top-notch 3 monk backline.

Peace,
-CxE

a cadet · Apr 11, 2006, 01:03 AM // 01:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by ensign

What changed is a bit of experience with it and realizations about what exactly you're trying to accomplish with a given build. In HA that does not mean building to beat the best teams you encounter as I once felt - it means bringing the tools to farm the various gimmicks you're going to encounter over and over, and bringing the tools to have an effective game on a dais map.

So, yeah, Flame Burst is not a competitive skill in high level play, but who cares? There are skills that only really shine in PvE or arena and they're perfectly fine. Flame Burst is a core skill in casual, big PvP, and that's good enough for me from a balance standpoint.

Something about that tells me you've been playing more tombs (or HA, i'm out of touch) than before

I don't really want to get mixed up in this argument, but I cant resist mentioning: The real fundamental difference between a warrior (or ranger) and an elementalist (or something else) is that as a warrior, you can just double click something and you will automatically chase after it and do significant damage. On the other hand, an elementalist has to work very hard to achieve the same damage/time ratio that the warrior can do because of the whole energy concept.

To me, thats the real problem. The rest is compensating elementalists (and really every other class) for the fact that they need to work to be a crappy warrior.

The reason this clashes so much with elementalists is that they are described, by the game developers (or whoever), as "damage dealers"; and since it was established that they dont do as much damage as warriors, things get all iffy with the introduction of "spikes" and whatnot.

Rangers are like the special case - sort of a cross between a mesmer and a warrior, or something.

I'm pretty sure all of what i said is mentioned somewhere in this massive thread.

Also, hasn't there surfaced the "best" build yet? I mean there are a limited amount of skills (finite number of choices), so has anyone discovered "the best" one yet? I suppose player skill would influence this, maybe thats why no ones found it yet?

Ensign · Apr 11, 2006, 05:48 AM // 05:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loch

Long recharge times on fire skills and the fact that AoE damage is situational by nature implies just how well an Elementalist is expected to time his spells.

If all elementalist damage is not only situationally effective, but uncontrollably so - opponents bunching up for AoE is not something that's terribly reliable - then the profession is fundamentally broken. I have no qualms with skills that are situationally very strong, but sit on your bar unused much of the time, but those characters need strong abilities to use when those situations are not present - doubly so when they aren't controllable situations.

Quote:

Originally Posted by a cadet

Something about that tells me you've been playing more tombs (or HA, i'm out of touch) than before

The ladder season ended. When the ladder is locked 90% of your matches are against henchway or 8 premade paladins. It's basically a colossal waste of your time, so you go into HA if you want to do anything productive that isn't an arranged scrimmage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by a cadet

I don't really want to get mixed up in this argument, but I cant resist mentioning: The real fundamental difference between a warrior (or ranger) and an elementalist (or something else) is that as a warrior, you can just double click something and you will automatically chase after it and do significant damage.

That's definitely the case, and one of the reasons why iWay is so strong. Most other characters are naturally weak and you need to go through special hoops to make them effective - warriors are naturally powerful and the pressure is on the other team to make them less so. When the level of skill goes down it becomes more lopsided.

I don't think that really influences how these professions are used at a high level of play - for example the pressure is on a warrior to remain effective despite all the hate being thrown at him - but it's certainly something to take into consideration.

It's actually funny that you mention this because it came up in HoH tactics earlier tonight. Valor mentioned that everyone needs to stay as far away from iWay as possible, because 'they just c-space' and otherwise just beat on things randomly. If you stay far enough away from them they'll naturally hit the other team. It's ridiculous, but from what I've seen these last few days there's a lot of truth to it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by a cadet

Also, hasn't there surfaced the "best" build yet? I mean there are a limited amount of skills (finite number of choices), so has anyone discovered "the best" one yet? I suppose player skill would influence this, maybe thats why no ones found it yet?

The 'best' build, to the best of my knowledge, is two warriors, two domination mesmers, three monks, and a water ele. There are variations on this theme to deal with different matchups and the mirror, but the core remains largely the same.

It is also an incredibly non-trivial build to design, understand, or play. I'm still learning why it's good myself, and I'm not terribly comfortable discussing individual tweaks because I don't feel that I understand what's really core well enough yet.

But in a more general case some warriors, a dom guy or two, monks, and a reliable snare is the core of the best (GvG) build in Guild Wars.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iskrah

What about a well placed aftershock from an Earth Ele ?

Less killing power than anything that applies a deep wound - though on raw 'big damage' numbers Aftershock does more to soft targets than Final Thrust.

Assuming that you're not buffing your warriors of course. If you bother buffing them they blow everything away on raw damage numbers alone, deep wound be damned.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guardian of the Light

In GvG the archers, bodyguards and the Guild Lord won't run very much form AoE.

Oh, that's an exaggeration. They don't run *at all* from AoE. If you can sneak some good AoE into a VoD situation it'll chew through archers and give you a huge VoD advantage. Especially on Warrior's Isle where NPCs have a habit of getting stuck on the house next to the stand.

Peace,
-CxE

a cadet · Apr 11, 2006, 03:32 PM // 15:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by ensign

It's actually funny that you mention this because it came up in HoH tactics earlier tonight. Valor mentioned that everyone needs to stay as far away from iWay as possible, because 'they just c-space' and otherwise just beat on things randomly. If you stay far enough away from them they'll naturally hit the other team. It's ridiculous, but from what I've seen these last few days there's a lot of truth to it.

Yet another reason why henchman are surprisingly more intelligent than your average player, at least they persistantly run right into one team instead of just going for whats closest.

On another note, if gw was changed so that elementalists had unlimited energy (or a significant number of their skills cost 0 energy to use), they would be as strong - if not stronger, than what warriors are currently.

I guess you could validate the existance of energy in the first place, for elementalists, by having all their "strong" skills cause exhaustion. This would necessitate the use of the "energy storage" attribute. This is really very similar to what warriors are now; they can attack by just swiping their weapon (this would be the equivalent of a 0 energy skill), or they can use an adrenal attack, something that forces them to wait between "stronger" attacks.

The problem with this concept is that another class would gain an unfair advantage by using an elementalist secondary class, and using the 0 energy skills.

The more I think about it the more I like it... what if an inherent elementalist "ability" was that any energy related skill they use costs 10 less energy, with a minimum cost of 0 energy? That way they would be able to do exactly what warriors do by hitting space, and they would also have exhaustion skills that are analogous to adrenal attacks. (any dev reading this?

)

About that best build, i'll take your word for it. The concept sounds right; warriors to do the damage, a water elementalist to let them do that damage, and mesmers because they wear tights. whatever.

oh and...

Quote:

Originally Posted by ensign

The ladder season ended. When the ladder is locked 90%...

I had no idea...

cookiemonkie · Apr 11, 2006, 05:07 PM // 17:07

I don't think anyone here is demanding that the ele out damage and be more powerful than all other classes. Every class has a weaknesss, or skills that simply aren't effective in the arena, HA, or GvG. No one is asking for the ele to have infinite energy to do nearly the same amount of damage as a warrior at range, that would defeat the need to even have warriors. A balanced game would mean everyone running the exact same character build. It is meant to be unbalanced between classes to make the match ups and mis-matches interesting... but not to the point of being unreasonable, which is what much of the ele skills are.

Ka RaTae · Apr 11, 2006, 07:56 PM // 19:56

All I know is I sorely miss Ether Renewal. That skill was a very usefull skill, and IMO it was not overpowered due to the amount of enchants needed to make it insane.

I would also like to see AOE mean something. Right now I feel the ranges for AOE are a joke!!!!! But say that you had a buff that would double or tripple the area effect of your spells.......what then would something as simple as a firestorm mean in a cramped underworld PvP match?

I also feel that way too many spells have exhaustion, and cast/recharge times are insane. This class is supposed to be the masters of magical pain, yet they can't get there spells out fast enuff to kill anything, cause a Monk will eaisly out heal their damage potential, or they run themselfs out of energy thru exhaustion or overcasting to try to kill something.

Anyway...I am sure ANET will never fix anything because it's too big and would cause was too much ANET hate by non-ele players.