Curse

Phoenix Arrows · Apr 10, 2006, 05:26 PM // 17:26

Would the Energy Storage attribute be for something like this?

Exhausting Removal [E]
Cost: 10 energy Casting: 2 seconds Recharge: 90 seconds
Energy Storage
You lose all exhaustion. For each point of exhaustion removed, you take 7...3 damage.

Maybe change the name to Exhausting Pain?

cookiemonkie · Apr 10, 2006, 05:37 PM // 17:37

This would not work, because its an extra skill slot that the ele does not have the luxury to spare.

What it should be based on is that for every point in energy storage exhaustion is reduced by 4-5%.

Sha Noran · Apr 10, 2006, 08:31 PM // 20:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by cookiemonkie

This would not work, because its an extra skill slot that the ele does not have the luxury to spare.

Um, not really true; a skill like that would most likely replace Ether Prodigy, etc. Sort of like an OoB for Eles.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cookiemonkie

What it should be based on is that for every point in energy storage exhaustion is reduced by 4-5%.

Yes, this is what I agree should be done, though not necessarily that rate. Something like that though...

cookiemonkie · Apr 10, 2006, 08:45 PM // 20:45

Its an extra slot that does nothing little for energy efficiency overall, the 90 second cycle and dmg just doesn't work. Ele's already have to use at least 2 energy management skills. Any good ele build will also have 2 defensive/ward skills since it is more effective than this offensive skills overall. Now we are asking for yet another slot to manage exhaustion? Just won't work.

Sha Noran · Apr 10, 2006, 09:16 PM // 21:16

Well... the idea would be that this skill enables the use of more Offensive minded Eles, and therefore this could very easily replace one of those E-management skills.

And the recharge would be doable at 60 seconds... though you shouldn't need to purge your EX more than every 90 seconds really.

Kyune · Apr 10, 2006, 10:35 PM // 22:35

To get something likable (and balanced) I think an exhaustion removing skill would have to have some kind of tactical context. Just to illustrate the notion, here's an example I came up with (no claim as to conscious effort in trying to balance #s, seeing as I've been awake for at least 40 of the last 48 hours...)

Name: Etheral Floodgate
Attribute: (Energy Storage)
Type: Skill
Energy: 5 time: 2s Recharge: 30s
Desc: Lose 6...30 points of Exhaustion and gain 6...30 points of Energy. For the next 14...8 seconds, all of your spells cause exhaustion.

I'm too tired to speculate on the angles that can be looked at, and they are many :P

cookiemonkie · Apr 11, 2006, 01:42 AM // 01:42

That skill defeats the whole point of exhaust and energy. You lose an amount of exhaustion.. but yet have to wait for the enchantment to work itself off. In that case its just better to not use the skill and just run around until energy is recharged or exhaustion is gone, saves the skill slot. There is little advantage to ele's using ele's skill, yes you have the additonal attributes from runes at the cost of the longest aftercast time... everything that has to do with lack of energy management or exhaustion should be tied to the ele's energy storage line.

Phoenix Arrows · Apr 11, 2006, 03:22 AM // 03:22

Exhausting Extermination [E]
Energy Storage
10e 2c 45r
Lose all exhaustion. For each point lost, you have one second of -4 energy regeneration, maximum 30...15 seconds.

How's that?

BTW purging of exhaustion could allow for spam of Obsidian Flame or other stuff like Shock.

LifeInfusion · Apr 11, 2006, 04:19 AM // 04:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by trialist

Also, whats up with them adding all the pbaoes? They want us to play suicide bombs? Righhttt...

That's my MAJOR gripe with ele's. Most of the skills end up on W/E's. instead of E/*

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vel Satis

One thing that gets me about eles (please correct me if i'm wrong about this

) is that they're the only class whose primary attribute is worsened by using their own skills. For example, you don't get mesmer skills that make you cast slower for X seconds or monk skills that reduce your divine favor effect for X seconds so why should eles have their energy storage reduced by exhaustion?

I concur. I generally avoid fire magic for this reason: high energy + high recharge = unhappy bored flare/immolate -spam elementalist.

cookiemonkie · Apr 11, 2006, 04:43 PM // 16:43

The pbaoe's were meant for ele's using kinetic armor and armor of earth.

Ka RaTae · Apr 12, 2006, 12:30 PM // 12:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rieselle

What I often wonder is, why are long-cast time Elem spells given such a huge recharge as well? Surely it should be one or the other, unless the spell is very special indeed. Witness the necro spell Deadly Swarm, it has a long cast time but a very short recharge. I would have thought that a majority of Elem damage spells would be similar in design - easy to interrupt, but spammable and useful.

Why...because ANET is affraid of what a primary mesmer could do with that spell if it only had a long cast time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tafy69

Wouldnt it be easier to reduce the cost of Ele spells across the board, hardly any other class can afford to use Ele skills atm.

That's the point...ANET did that so that it would mean something to be a Primary ELE. That's why ele's have slow casting/slow recharge/high energy costs. To make it unattractive to other classes to use what ANET feels are key ele skills.

I think they totally scrwed the pooch however. All they did was make ele's not fun/not effective/not efficient to play in PvP.

Mister Furious · Apr 12, 2006, 07:01 PM // 19:01

There's been a few people saying things like "Arena Net never said that Elementalists were made for damage, you just assumed," so I checked around and found these:

First off, there's a link on the official Guild Wars website that goes to the Elementalist preview on Gamespot which starts off thusly:

The Elementalist
Elementalists are powerful wizards that command the very forces of nature to deliver devastating, damaging magics. Elementalists are quite possibly the most powerful damage-dealers in the whole game thanks to their command of the four elements: fire, air, earth, and water. Fire magic is the most obvious magic, and it includes the ability to conjure flames within an area, which leads to the damaging of groups of enemies all at once. Air magic, instead, focuses on individual targets, and it deals concentrated amounts of damage with lightning and electricity-based attacks. Earth magic is defensive in nature and can conjure up additional armor, while water magic can slow or even stop enemies in their tracks by freezing them.

Here's what it says on the offical site:

Elementalist Essay 28 October 2004
The penultimate article on the Guild Wars Professions — The Elementalist — is now available on Gamespot. A profession description, skill listing, images, an interview, and an in-game movie are part of the feature, which is located on this link.

Here's the addresses to the articles:
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/guild...w_6111466.html

http://www.guildwars.com/aboutgw/new...es/2004-10.php

Arena Net clearly endorses GameSpots preview which clearly describes Elementalists as being great damage dealers. I know that may not be enough for some people, so I found more.

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/guild-wars/560661p1.html

That's the GameSpy preivew which states:

Elementalist Overview
Nature is yours to command with the Elementalist profession -- and that means you can hurl it at people you don't like. Elementalists specialize in magical ranged attacks that dish out damage.

You can do more than just hurt your enemies, though. Certain elements have other effects as well. If you specialize in ice magic, for example, you'll have several skills that will slow enemies down (good for holding them in place while your Warriors or Rangers finish them off.) The Elementalist is also one of the only classes who can create a lot of damage across a wide area. Ah, the power!

Now, both of those are previews from video game sites, not from Arena Net directly. So, I went looking for some interviews from Arena Net developers themselves and found these:

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/guild-wars/561039p2.html

That is a link to an interview with developer James Phinney where he says:

GameSpy: How about the elementalist?
Phinney: The elementalist's high energy level makes it a wonderful primary profession. Elementalist monks are popular in the Alpha as they have large pools of energy with which to heal themselves and allies.

Elementalists have a number of direct-damage attacks and large area-of-effect spells, allowing them to deal insane amounts of damage in combat. They also have wards, which make them great for defense; throwing down a few protective ward spells can quickly turn the battle in your favor.

And I saved the best for last:

http://gamesnews.yahoo.com/gamevideo...&page=0&eid=-1

That address leads to a collection of video interviews and movies on GameSpot. If you scroll down a bit, there's a video entitled "Guild Wars Developer Interview 6." Here's the direct address to the video.

http://media2.yahoo.com/player/games...ldwars/6111427

The interview is with Arena Net developer Isaiah Cartwright in which he describes the elementalist class. He states that Elementalists are "basicly the damage dealer" and that fire and air are "very nasty at doing damage" and that "Elementalists are really good for someone that wants to do a lot of damage in combat" and they are "one of the most damage oriented class that they have" and that "people that would like to play the elementalist are people that really like to get in there and do tons of damage." He also talks about Energy Storage allowing elementalists to do more damage longer.

I did a lot of research on the classes before Guild Wars came out and it was very clear that Elementalists were intended to be the damage dealing class in the game. They're nothing of the sort.

Ka RaTae · Apr 12, 2006, 07:39 PM // 19:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mister Furious

Phinney: The elementalist's high energy level makes it a wonderful primary profession. Elementalist monks are popular in the Alpha as they have large pools of energy with which to heal themselves and allies.

LOL...were they doing Heal Party spammers even then or did they actually think a non-divine spirit Monk could heal effectively.

Loch · Apr 12, 2006, 09:10 PM // 21:10

Can't argue with that, Mister. I also realize that Eles were quite different in alpha and beta. In the end, perhaps ANet preferred to have Warriors be the real damage threat on the battlefield - Ensign's comment on Flare can be extended somewhat to Fire Eles in general.

I got the game last June. In the game I played, I quickly realized how crappy fire nukers were in PvE. I noticed just how quickly mobs died, no matter how often I cast spells - mobs died quickly because of Stefan, and later on Little Thom. After calling my target, I'd cast a 2-second Fireball, then notice that by the time it landed, Stefan had already dealt much more damage than I had. In fact, the only reason fire eles were somewhat useable in PvE was because of the AI. Nevermind the fact that fire eles could do jack in PvP. Now that the AI is slightly better in PvE, we see fire eles for what they really are - mediocre at everything.

My opinion about fire eles were that they weren't meant to simply damage, but were meant to pressure groups by using AoEs at opportune times. Since all fire eles have are damage spells with no utility (blind, weakness, snares, and defense offset the lousy damage in the other lines), they MUST have useful AoE's, simple as that. But AoE's are only mediocre at the moment, so there's no use in investing 16 points into fire. This needs to be fixed.

Falconer · Apr 12, 2006, 11:25 PM // 23:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ka RaTae

LOL...were they doing Heal Party spammers even then or did they actually think a non-divine spirit Monk could heal effectively.

Because they could at the time. Threads used to predominate about how el/mos made better monks than monks. Stop and think that the game has changed and evolved over time before stopping to make snide comments like this. Divine favour gained it's current status as the heal efficiency king based primarily on this aspect of monk being a better secondary than primary for a long time. Even now, a prodigy powered el/mo packing heal other and similar skills can be a powerfull healer. This is primarily a PvE role now though (where monks can be in short supply). Though for GvG purposes... healing is not this characters principal job... just his alternate support role, but even at that it's not out of the question to see a el/mo support half/monk runner packing heal other and healing breeze.

Now to the thread at hand.... a bit late in the reply but better late than never.

The thing about all these comments about energy is put simply... energy is a miscible resource. It doesn't matter where it comes from. A primary can use it almost as effectively as a secondary provided runes/attribute points aren't a problem. Divine favour changed monks from being sub-compacts to hybrid cars of guild wars in terms of milage per point of energy. (I've argued in the past that monks are the single most energy efficient class in guild wars, and it's one of the prime reasons that broken energy engines pop out most involved with them... they're the tip of the iceberg). Since elementalists have boasted some of the best energy engines in the game... they have a long history of being played to the secondary... and simply giving them more energy only makes this trend stronger.

Regards Mark of Rodgart. I think a principal mistake many make when looking at skills like this or even spinal shivers is that they're tag team skills. Mark of Rodgart works best when you have a elemenalized warrior or ranger spamming ignite/kindled arrows on the same target. Put simply... the ranger is pumping out 30-50+dps sustained on the target on his own... this is a 'cheap' way to get an extra 14dps going for him. I'm in no way stating this is the best pick in the current game. Fragility similarly works best, when you're helping out your team with it... not when you're the primary source of conditions. Just that this was the role that was most likely in the dev's mind when they brought it up. Also pairing it with flare is just bad form... if anything just wand the bloody target it takes no energy and inflicts the necessary flame damage to trigger the burn. That much said... 25 energy is too much for it's effect... and one of the big problems with fire is it lacks for anything else with which to produce a cover hex... so you can't make it stick even with it's 5s recycle now. (25 energy hex or 5 energy removal every 10s... 2 spells enter... one spell leaves)

As others have pointed out... if I'm going to spend 25 energy for a degen... why spend 25 for this when I can just spend 25 for outright non-conditional degen from conjure nightmare. Given the typical length of hexes in play... they'll both last roughly just as long. Also given that mark of rodgart similarly plays against both hex AND condition removal... it's too many weak points.

It has long been known that elementalists make a solid base class to play to any secondary which can take advantage of their energy engine to power their class skills at 10-12 rank investment to acceptable levels of playability.

Though arguing that elementalists have no damage when not casting is wrong as well. Keep in mind that wands/staves attack and do full damage even if you only barely meet the requirements... They also natively attack faster than bows. There is nothing wrong at all with wanding targets between spells... if you're not getting beat upon, it's probably currently the best use of your time outside of pre-positioning or similar. I've pointed out in the past that if the conjures were easier to replace and/or did better +dam... that they could be used to buff wand/stave damage to roughly base sword levels. Again, I don't argue this as the best use of them... but as a way to make sub-par skills more usable and a bit more palatteable. Personally I can see no good reason why conjures shouldn't be up at OoP +dam levels given their weaknesses (lack of vampiric buff... ease of stripping... elemental damage isn't armor ignoring... etc. dealing damage as an extra packet works against you when you have warriors with damage reduction... works against a lot of triggered effects such as healing seed).

Stuff I'd like to see... warrior damage reduction only apply to physical damage as well. They're all over the place... I'd like to see warriors become relatively weak to elementalists just as elementalists are weak against rangers. They were at one point... but warriors were then badly overbuffed... and I feel this is a primary reason for their current predomidance. Unlike Ensign, I don't feel this is a problem that can be simply addressed by only buffing the class, as I feel warriors have warped the game around them and distorted the entire metagame.

I do think that elementalist skills are badly overcosted... but this is largely compared to warrior effects... compared to mesmer and necro effects the discrepency isn't as bad... (really base weapon damage + then 40 armor ignoring for 5 energy from some skills... if you only have 2 pips regen or a zealous to switch to... for those kinda returns who cares if you only have 20 or 27 base energy). Though compared to necro/mesmer costs it's still not that great at all. One of the items I feel which badly hinders elementalists is the lack of solid DoT skills. Mesmers have some exceptional ones in illusion, and some good conditional ones in domination... necros have them as well. And the necros armor ignoring properties in the current metagame make them far more usefull for direct damage... especially the way their steals won't trigger monk enchants (and double up by healing a soft target who probably needs the healing anyhow).

Loch · Apr 13, 2006, 01:06 AM // 01:06

The thing is, I don't have a problem with Warriors being the big offensive threat in the game. As Ensign put it, Elementalists simply need the ability to deal damage effectively in their own way. With air, earth, and water, the ability to damage isn't always a big deal - with 16 points in air, earth, and water, the sheer amount of utility at your disposal offsets your inability to constantly dish out damage. But Fire Eles need the ability to do two things before they can be considered a threat:

1) Pressure groups of enemies with well-timed AoE.
2) Throw around smaller packets of fire damage between AoE's.

I agree that increasing Burning duration would help out with fire spells. In general, though, I think the bigger problem is that AoE's just don't cover enough area to be considered a threat. When you see a Firestorm raining down on you, just walk three steps to the side to dodge the majority of the damage. There, threat gone. And what about Rodgort's Invocation? I stand there for three seconds and waste a good third of my energy just to hit target and "nearby" foes with damage that's not even double that of Fireball?

Most of this stuff has already been mentioned, but my point is that Fire eles could have a very comfy niche - the mage that throws around decent damage while waiting to punish the enemy's formation using large, threatening AoE's. The Ele already has the necessary tools for this, they just need some tweaking. For this to happen, the AoE's need to get bigger, the energy costs need to match these threats, and hell, even if these are situational spells, they still shouldn't take much more than 20 seconds to recharge. You know what, let's also go with what Ensign suggested and increase Burning duration a little if the damage still doesn't seem worth it, it sounds like the perfect way to pressure a team without turning fire into a "3 2 1 spike" line.

BahamutKaiser · Apr 13, 2006, 08:46 PM // 20:46

The problem with elementist spiking is that they can't do it, it is that they don't do enough, if you compare the cost and damage along with the recast to other classes spells, and then add the unwritten faction that half of the damage is going to get resisted, and even 25% armor penetration only improve the damage to 62.5% of the damage listed, you realize your spending more energy for a less effective spike spell.

PvP isn't about whether you can contribute, it is about whether you can compete. Spiking alone doesn't do half as much as ranger spike + disrupting + degen, or Necro spike/lifesteal, or Monks smite which can easily do alot more damage for less energy if you hit them during certain intervals, not to mention using zelots fire with extremely fast casting protect and heal spells ensures teammates will live wile pealing out several hits on the enemy.

Doing damage by itself, at that pace, with no added improvement, isn't special, it is basicly a fluctuation ranged attack with energy requirement, rather then something like a ranger attack which will do more damage or special effects with the addition of skills.

Elementist arn't all about spiking, and the damage doesn't need to be improved that much, but since the damage does face significant damage reduction due to normal amounts of armor, it should be improved in some way or another. There are dozens of spells available to protect teammates from strong elemental damage, as well as armors and weapons with elemental armor that can be utilized to protect from elemental damage. The fact is that they arn't needed because elemental damage gets resisted naturally, compared to Warrior melee attacks, which come with the Strength attribute and improved weapon damage to compete with armor, players must use statuses like blind and counter effects to survive them, they don't need specific, often even general skills to survive elementist attacks, and they should. Defense against an elementist should not be a given, it should be a preperation.

Ensign · Apr 13, 2006, 08:51 PM // 20:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

As others have pointed out... if I'm going to spend 25 energy for a degen... why spend 25 for this when I can just spend 25 for outright non-conditional degen from conjure nightmare. Given the typical length of hexes in play... they'll both last roughly just as long.

Sure, that's a valid comparison, but it isn't like Conjure Nightmare is terribly good either. Couple different big strikes against these sorts of skills in general. First is just how vulnerable to removal expensive degen hexes are. If I use, say, Conjure Phantasm on someone, it often won't last until duration - removal is going to come in at some point and strip it off. But even when that happens it's usually still a good trade. If their removal is fast and Conjure Phantasm only lasts, say, 5 seconds, that's still 50 damage dealt for a net 5 energy (since it costs them 5 to remove it usually), and you gain some time on them as well from Fast Casting. Using removal to fight Conjure Phantasm doesn't get you terribly good trades on efficiency, unless you're using Inspired Hex since that turns the energy over. Parasitic Bond is even better in this regard - Assuming they spend energy to remove it, you get some free damage out of the skill for an energy and time-neutral trade, plus the health comes in more quickly - and the recharges on PBond vs. hex removal are pretty favorable too.

Compare these same situations with Conjure Nightmare instead of Phantasm. If Nightmare only lasts 5 seconds you get 80 damage out of a trade that costs you a net *20* energy. In this particular case, that's 300% more energy for 60% more damage. If there's any threat of removal Conjure Nightmare turns into complete garbage very, very quickly.

The other problem with these skills is that they're hexes that need to stick a long time to be effective, but because they cause so much degen they don't play very well with most clutter hexes. If you want to get hexes to stick you need to overload the other team's removal and that usually means a lot of cheap, efficient hexes. The type that's universally useful for this job, though, is spammable degen, since you can put it everywhere. Conjure Nightmare doesn't play well with other degen though because it nearly caps degen by itself. The extra 3 pips would, in many cases, be wasted.

Of course, is an 8 pip degen hex *really* the kind of effect that you want to try and force onto a player?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

Though arguing that elementalists have no damage when not casting is wrong as well.

Not zero damage, but the damage from wands is pretty minimal, especially once movement and miss chances come into play. You can wand down spirits given enough time, but wands aren't going to kill anything otherwise.

It's the difference between a very literal deal damage and the kind of deal damage that teams have to react to. The threat of monks wanding is not part of anyone's gameplan.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

Personally I can see no good reason why conjures shouldn't be up at OoP +dam levels given their weaknesses

Actually they are over the ranges that people care about - 13 at 12, 17 at 16. Both Orders and Conjures max at 17, but Conjure starts at 1 while Orders start at 3.

The bigger strike against Conjures on a caster is how little milage they get out of them compared to a physical profession. A caster stops attacking to cast spells, and if he's pulling his weight as a caster he's probably casting quite a bit - leaving little time for wanding, and giving you little milage out of attack damage buffs. On the other hand, physical attackers attack as part of their skills, so they never slow down (and often speed up). So while a warrior will get a lot of milage out of even a low spec Conjure (say, 30 hits over the course of a minute) a caster is unlikely to get 10, and if he gets even 15 in something is likely very, very wrong.

Of course block and evade is prevalent because of how strong warriors are, but that affects wanding as well. Caster buffs that run into lots of splash damage from existing trends really don't change a lot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

Stuff I'd like to see... warrior damage reduction only apply to physical damage as well.

Only trouble with this is that it would just encourage everyone to use elementalized weapons to completely negate a warrior's armor. Because of those weapon parts you can't simply address elementalists by making elemental damage as a type more attractive, warriors will just switch over and become damage machines with the more attractive type.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

I'd like to see warriors become relatively weak to elementalists

Well they technically are when played properly, due to blinds and snares...though it's not really fair because an elementalist can't really kill a warrior with Healing Signet unless he's a pro with the knockdowns.

What's problematic in general is how badly elementalists get crushed by armor - they're affected more by small boosts in an opponent's AL than any other profession. Mesmers and necromancers ignore armor entirely for the most part, while warrior and ranger damage adds similarly ignore armor - rangers get a lot of their damage out of degen conditions as well. Elementalists just have to suck it up when the opponent has high armor. Even when attacking a warrior an elementalist is the worst tool for damage.

I don't see any sort of easy solution to this, either, it would likely require a complete overhaul of how elementalist damage interacts with armor.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

They were at one point... but warriors were then badly overbuffed...

The only change that I can recall being made along those lines was to make it so warriors did not die instantly to lightning damage - a change that made the profession actually playable IMO. Before that change warriors died pretty much instantly to *any* offense, because every player who knew anything carried a lightning weapon.

If I recall correctly the only public event with that armor in place was E34E, which was dominated by elementalists - not using elementalist skills for damage, mind you, but elementalist/rangers with lightning bows for damage (expertise was not yet in the game) and elementalist/monks to heal (divine favor was not yet in the game). There was gross Vibrant Winds exploitation going on as well.

Anyway that specific penalty is awful as a balance mechanism because not only would it narrow elementalists into a single line no matter what, but the penalty would effectively be global because every profession that cares about armor can change it's damage type - except elementalists, of course.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

as I feel warriors have warped the game around them and distorted the entire metagame.

Sure they have - when only one profession is a reliable source of damage, why wouldn't things warp around that? My concern is that if you significantly nerf warriors that it will become impossible for teams to kill anything. If warriors can't pressure and break an opposing team then nothing can, and you're left with a really stupid environment where the only way to get a kill is with 321spike. I don't think the game can remain healthy with that sort of environment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

I do think that elementalist skills are badly overcosted... but this is largely compared to warrior effects... compared to mesmer and necro effects the discrepency isn't as bad...

It's not too bad when compared to necromancer skills - actually the really maddening thing about comparing, say, the air line to the necro's blood line is just how much deeper the necro line is - and it's going to get maddening when the expansion comes in. Sure elementalists have to pay more for comparable effects for the most part, but when you look at the depth of DDs available to a necromancer, or even an incoming ritualist...it's just insulting that an air ele has to scrape to find DDs while other professions get to pick and choose.

Mesmer skills I disagree with you completely - mesmer skills are some of the most efficient in the game. Energy Burn blows every elementalist DD away on efficiency, for example - controlled by recharge, of course - and there's the very obvious comparison between Conjure Phantasm and Immolate. The professions do play out very differently - domination mesmers are strictly recharge limited while elementalists are, well, energy, cast time, and recharge limited. I don't feel that mesmer and elementalist are similar enough to be directly comparable, while necromancer and elementalist makes for some good comparisons.

Peace,
-CxE

Falconer · Apr 14, 2006, 01:03 AM // 01:03

Hmm... a bit of a restatement of some old stuff which many folks won't necessarily realize.

I sincerely believe that warriors have warped the game heavily around them. Not because they're the single best source of damage on the field right now (sans mitigation). I think it's undeniable that they're the sine qua non of a majority of baseline builds. But also because they're hands down the most hardened targets on the battlefield. Right now there is effectively no oppurtunity cost which warriors bring to the table for their armor. To say they only bring damage is wrong... they have quite a few utility skills, some of which are fairly popular. (shields up anyone?, charge... tactics has a nice selection). And many warriors bring their utility not from the primary but from well chosen cherry picked secondary skills. Also their in their face nature means that they hands down own the +speed/mobility racket. Something of critical importance in GvG... where guerilla style fights have become more in vogue as the ability to outmaneuver your opponent.

Lets take a hypothetical, you want a 100+ AC warrior you'll be stuck at 80% move speed. Now that would get some eyes (and some massive flames)... as suddenly people would be forced to eye lighter gladiatorial type suits. The big suits would still be monstrously popular for PvE of course... and with armor switching for gank builds (a problem in it's own right, not discussed). But at the same time, this would be a MEANINGFULL tradeoff in terms of the warriors ability to stay in the targets face and do damage as opposed to be the undisputed king of the damage sponges.

At the same time... if suddenly now this was. Warrior armor has -20 against elemental damage spells. That opens up the door to quite a few things... death necro spells dealing cold damage as well as the entirety of the elemental line become quite tasty and open up the doors to less of a this build does everything. (which fits very neatly with necros being to anti-physical as mesmers are to anti-caster roles in the original 'game blueprint').

Look at all the matches where you have one warrior who goes around ganking solo for example... nothing wrong with a solo build... but any other class would be hard pressed to get both resiliency and damage into the same package without being overspecialized or using an obvious AI exploit. Also to argue that things don't degenerate into spike against good opposition now is also something of misnomer as well. Against good squads, one of the few ways to get kills is use of well-coordinated damage surges. EG: all the warriors unload on their targets at once... this while not a 'pure' spike is definately a form of spike. Kills have always and will still revolve around the well-coordinated application of damage.

This pertains directly to the elementalists. Put simply.. if the game was caster heavy... elementalists wouldn't see nearly so many issues in PvP play. As many of their spells would deal significant levels of damage for their costs. Mesmers and necros armor ignoring properties are key reasons why their damage is so critical to the current game.

Though I have to disagree, on one point... I find it very easy to go broke with a domination mesmer, their costs can be expensive... the catch is it's very easy to make up for it with a side investment in the in-class inspiration skills. (EG: your energy management need not be elite or exhuastive). I find domination mesmers to be both energy and recharge limited. The catch is that domination (and illusion as well) bring a lot more than damage to the table with it. The ability to shutdown while inflicting damage, as a good deal of utility options in and of it's own right without needing to invest attributes elsewhere.

The logical extreme of that position regards domination and illusion is that somehow the elementalist needs to pack more utility into his skills. Or his skills need to be able to function better in a dual role. Doing so is not a trivial proposition though. Easy to say, hard to do.

The last bit, also needs a bit of clarification. I've argued in the past and still do, that I think the system of completely changing a damage types is bad. If the purpose of warrior armor is to be strong against physical attacks... I have issues with someone simply grabbing an flaming axe or similar to bypass it. A clear case of this is that the original game... the warriors armor bonus applied only against themselves and rangers. It means that every classes armor is effectively it's minimum armor against any well-accoutred character with a brain behind it. Allowing kindle or a cheap mod to completely bypass this was a bad move. The arrow should have been kept physical and only the kindle damage made flame... (or the arrow should have been tinged with both flags triggering both armor buffs, while the kindle packet only had the fire buff). But this is again simply my view of how to improve the system... and not a reflection of the system at hand.

Yes there's a clear problem in the old system of someone just taking a lightning sword and beating warrior to a pulp. But look at other aspects of the system... 25% armor penetration only applies to air spells. This isn't used to beat warriors senseless... as their 'weakness' no it's used to make the spells hit even harder against softer monks and mesmers primarily. Not to elementalized weapons. There's nothing wrong from a construction standpoint of giving a class a weakness... the problem is when the weakness is too trivially arrived at (simply grabbing the right elemental mod). But to put another view on this... lightning spells now are even better against light targets and have lost a lot of their edge against the metalized warriors who still only take roughly equivalent damage to them as rangers do with explicitly anti-elemental armor.

I sincerely believe that quite a few of the problems with the elementalist can come down to the view that the devs haven't tried overly hard to follow their original class blueprint.

Apologies for wandering a bit... I got a bit off target. But I do sincerely believe that one of the biggest reasons for the game in it's current state is because the paper rock scissors aspect of the class balance was knocked off kilter early... and the game never quite recovered from it.

Ensign · Apr 14, 2006, 07:35 AM // 07:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

But also because they're hands down the most hardened targets on the battlefield.

No one cares how hard a target is unless he's the person you most want to kill. Just look at all the jokes made about W/Mo "paladin" builds - the characters are non-threatening and can safely be ignored in favor of actually dangerous targets.

Don't put the cart before the horse - damage is what makes warriors the key to PvP. If the damage wasn't there they'd be jokes. The armor just makes them even better at their jobs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

To say they only bring damage is wrong... they have quite a few utility skills, some of which are fairly popular.

Warriors have quite a bit of room for utility as well, because they're so naturally compact (a warrior, even without skills, is still a significant threat) and efficient (auto-attacking does a lot of damage and doesn't take any energy, and adrenaline gives you lots of effectiveness that accumulates over time instead of depletes). As the drivers of an offense they're usually in the best positions to use a lot of aggressive utility as well.

Don't underestimate the costs of a warrior's support structure, though. Warriors actually do take a lot of energy and skill slots to make work, but that energy and those skills are on other characters, not the warrior.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

At the same time... if suddenly now this was. Warrior armor has -20 against elemental damage spells.

They'd still be really durable against elementalist spells - they'd have the 60 AL base, plus the shield in many cases, plus absorption / knight's boots / shield mods. You're going to get more milage out of hitting a caster with your spells in any case. You'd have to drop their base AL vs. elemental down to unrealistic levels to get reasonable amounts of damage onto to from anything that doesn't ignore armor - they just have far too many natural armor buffs that hose elementalists.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

any other class would be hard pressed to get both resiliency and damage into the same package

Well only the ranger gets close on resiliency, and no other profession has damage...so yeah, not a lot of alternatives there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

Against good squads, one of the few ways to get kills is use of well-coordinated damage surges.

It's actually more in the coordinated mes effects than the coordinated damage. But the gameplan fundamentally changes when you have warriors available. With warriors you're able to pressure the other team, potentially beat energy out of them, and use well timed mes effects to break a backline. It might surprise you but top teams don't count down spikes. They just understand how to break a team and when to do it, and they don't have to resort to trickery to get a kill.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

Put simply.. if the game was caster heavy... elementalists wouldn't see nearly so many issues in PvP play. As many of their spells would deal significant levels of damage for their costs.

I can't agree with that, strictly, because elementalists can choose their targets to get better damage out of them - but unfortunately even on soft targets their damage isn't terribly impressive. I don't think that suddenly dropping everyone's base AL to 60 would solve the issues with the profession. That said, conceptually you're right, that the other team's offense being virtually immune to elementalist damage does cut significantly into their utility.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

Mesmers and necros armor ignoring properties are key reasons why their damage is so critical to the current game.

Er, the damage from neither of those professions is critical in the current game. Getting a fat Energy Surge is nice but it's not exactly breaking anyone. The milage you get out of a mesmer is virtual damage, damage in the form of heals that don't come, or the extra damage that shows up because defenses were stripped away. Sure you get a bit of damage in the process and that's always nice but that's not why the character is there. As for necromancers - they aren't critical in the current game at all. Sometimes they slip in as a useful utility character (they're good Draw Conditions turrets and have some nice anti-warrior hexes) but they're even less key in this environment than elementalists are.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

Though I have to disagree, on one point... I find it very easy to go broke with a domination mesmer, their costs can be expensive... the catch is it's very easy to make up for it with a side investment in the in-class inspiration skills.

Maybe we're just playing very different forms of domination mesmers, but generally I never run into energy issues with a domination guy. Surge + Burn chews up around 3 pips of your regen, while Signet of Weariness is free - Drain Enchantment pays for Shatter Enchantment, and Blackout feels like emanagement even if it strictly isn't.

Sure you can piss away a lot of energy with Shatter Hex or something, but most of the domination guys you see at the top of the ladder only consume around 6 pips of energy doing their jobs - easily made up with a Drain Enchantment and the natural efficiency of taking fire. Sure the Inspiration line is part of it, but as far as offensive casters go mesmers are just really efficient on the energy. Necromancers on the other hand usually feel like they want around 8 pips of energy regen, and elementalists would happily take 10 pips and get milage out of every drop.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

somehow the elementalist needs to pack more utility into his skills.

Many of their skills, or at least lines, do - water snares are naturally dual role, and air has a lot of utility as well. The thing is that while incidental damage is nice and all you still need some hammers to really break the other team - and that hammer has to be a warrior because nothing else even comes close.

I certainly appreciate the virtual damage that a mesmer sets up and the extra damage that comes through from enchantment removal, and water snares or Crippling Shot similarly enhance the damage that you're getting out of your warriors - it's certainly not a one profession show by any definition. But as far as putting up the numbers go, the warriors are dishing out the vast majority of the damage on a team, everyone else is just setting up an environment to make it happen in.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

But look at other aspects of the system... 25% armor penetration only applies to air spells. This isn't used to beat warriors senseless... as their 'weakness' no it's used to make the spells hit even harder against softer monks and mesmers primarily.

Indeed. One of the fun parameters of armor penetration is against which AL it gives the biggest raw increase in damage - against low ALs penetration has little benefit from a small reduction, while against higher ALs the effect becomes minimal because the target is taking so little damage anyway.

The armor level against which 25% AP gives the biggest raw boost to damage is 66.

The other interesting consequence is that over the range of ALs that one regularly sees the additional damage from AP doesn't change all that much - It scales down from 30% listed against 60 AL to 27% against 100 AL. So for all practical purposes AP gives those skills an effective armor-ignoring component.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

I sincerely believe that quite a few of the problems with the elementalist can come down to the view that the devs haven't tried overly hard to follow their original class blueprint.

Well you probably have a better idea of what that original class blueprint is. I like to think that they were intended to be a profession that dealt damage, what from the fire line and all. At the same time you can look at the air line and the two single target damage spells there, and have to wonder if it really was their intent to make that the single target damage line. We only have the results to analyze and guess at intents from - if the reality doesn't match their vision, they're the only ones who can say it.

Peace,
-CxE