Curse

Ensign · Apr 11, 2006, 09:10 PM // 21:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by a cadet

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.

Yeah, henchmen typically perform as well as an iWay team with a basic amount of organization - they follow and train a called target instead of attacking things randomly. If only their skill sets weren't so terrible.

Quote:

Originally Posted by a cadet

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.

Almost certainly - that'd happen if you took any of the brakes off though. Elementalists above all else are an energy-limited profession. Sure certain lines and skills have issues with recharges or cast times but generally eles can cast as fast as they have the energy for. Taking the biggest limitation off would probably break the class. =)

Quote:

Originally Posted by a cadet

I guess you could validate the existance of energy in the first place, for elementalists, by having all their "strong" skills cause exhaustion.

Exhaustion is yet another check on the profession. Even if the cast times, the recharges, and the sheer energy costs are worked around, you're still going to run into an exhaustion wall. I don't think this is neccessarily a bad thing, except they didn't take it to the logical conclusion, that because these skills are naturally going to be limited by exhaustion even if all else fails, that you could price them much more aggressively, in terms of energy, cast time, and recharge, than you would otherwise be comfortable doing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by a cadet

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's just a really broken version of Expertise. If it worked on any spells it would be nutso - if it only worked on elementalist spells, you'd see the same sort of hole developed where every ele skill is designed with that reduction in mind, making a majority of them useless for anyone who wasn't a primary.

Quote:

Originally Posted by a cadet

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.

Yeah, it's pretty basic - on offense, warriors deal the damage, mesmers prevent the opponent from resisting the damage, and the ele keeps a target from kiting to get more damage out of the warriors. On defense the monks prevent and heal damage, mesmers disrupt the opposing offense, and the elementalist spreads miss chance and pumps Heal Party if neccessary.

The details get complicated on how best to do that, but the theory is pretty basic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cookiemonkie

I don't think anyone here is demanding that the ele out damage and be more powerful than all other classes.

Yeah that's not the intent at all. It's that eles should be good enough at dealing damage that while they shouldn't replace warriors, they should at least be an alternative. Right now every offense is channeled through the warriors - if they don't have warriors you're going to spend a match breaking up and infusing spikes. I don't think the game is anywhere near potential when there's exactly one strategy that's viable at a high level of play.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cookiemonkie

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.

Right, you don't want to obsolesce warrior damage - but elementalists should *situationally* be better as damage dealers, and should have enough unconditional tools available that they aren't jokes in between those situations.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ka RaTae

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.

Er, you're joking right? The number of enchantments needed to make the old Ether Renewal insane was 3. Ether Renewal itself was one of those. Add in two enchants of your own and your energy went infinite - not only giving you a full clip after the Renewal finished, but making all the spells you cast for those 12 seconds effectively free. During the smiting days I'd be getting a good 10-12 pips out of a cast of Ether Renewal - 6 pips of raw energy, and another 4-6 from free spells cast during it. It was insane, and while the nerf might have been a bit too harsh it was definitely well deserved.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ka RaTae

I would also like to see AOE mean something. Right now I feel the ranges for AOE are a joke!!!!!

Agreed. A majority of the time, any Meteor Shower cast on my team hits exactly zero people - the AoE is just too small. Nothing in fire has the largest AoE in the game. If fire is supposed to be a line that gets a lot of milage out of AoE, it'd be nice if the AoEs were more than jokes.

Peace,
-CxE

a cadet · Apr 11, 2006, 10:01 PM // 22:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by ensign

That's just a really broken version of Expertise...making a majority of them useless for anyone who wasn't a primary

That is something I hadn't thought of, but if you think about it ranger bow attacks are really never used on a secondary ranger for exactly that reason; I guess the only exception was when I was bored and made a warrior/ranger that tried to use penetrating attack in the hope the armor-piercing (or something equivalent) would stack... but without expertise I couldn't use it more than once a couple of hours.

To be honest, the only way to allow elementalists to straight damage on par with warriors is if you give them some way of doing damage "for free", similar to the way warriors can swipe at targets. If you don't do that, then I really don't see a way to balance warriors with elementalists as equivalent straight damage dealers.

Ofcourse you could just add more "tricks" for elementalists and hope that whatever extra junk you add isn't totally out of balance, but at the same time isn't garbage either. (Thats actually not as easy as it sounds, at least not in my opinion.)

And as a joke, while we're on the subject of angry warriors, has anyone been bored enough to try sticking PbAoEs on a warrior? I really have no idea how that would work (the aftercasts sound like hell), but it would be fun. Heck you can even give them a glyph to make it easier on the energy.

When the second chapter comes out (isn't it in April?) all my advice will be outdated, so i'm trying to spread as much as I can before then

Ensign · Apr 11, 2006, 10:30 PM // 22:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by a cadet

To be honest, the only way to allow elementalists to straight damage on par with warriors is if you give them some way of doing damage "for free", similar to the way warriors can swipe at targets.

Well it's impossible to make the equivilent damage dealers - they deal damage in different ways - and likely undesirable. We don't want degeneracy here, we want distinction. I think 'free' damage would narrow the power gap, but would make the professions a lot less distinct.

You just need the offense, while different, to at least be an offense. The situation right now is bad because warriors are so much better than everything else at dealing damage that distinctions and diversity simply don't matter. You just take the biggest hammer available and find a way to use it in every situation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by a cadet

And as a joke, while we're on the subject of angry warriors, has anyone been bored enough to try sticking PbAoEs on a warrior?

Try it on an assassin, their energy is a lot better. You're right that the aftercasts really murder these skills - they're only useful at the end of an attack chain, because you're going to be standing around for a couple of seconds after using it.

Peace,
-CxE

Loch · Apr 12, 2006, 04:15 AM // 04:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

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.

Not only are the situations extremely uncontrollable, but think about what a Domination Mesmer gets to help him with his well-timed spells even more - Fast-Casting. To the contrary, the Elementalist's "powerful" spells not only require uncontrollable situations, but you're sitting there for three to five seconds hoping that this uncontrollable situation doesn't change. That right there is a fundamental flaw. Not to mention that most AoE's aren't even that large - Rodgort's Invoc and Searing Heat both cost a whopping 25 energy and only hit target + nearby foes.

Let's assume for a moment that, when skills are rebalanced, Fire nukes will never get a single buff in damage out of fear of spike abuse. In order to make the "big" nukes useful, they simply need to encompass a larger area. Firestorm and Meteor need to encompass at least "nearby" radius, and the 25 Energy spells need to hit the full "in-the-area". In addition, these spells cannot take more than 2 seconds to cast - for the pressure you'll be smacking the other team with, 2 seconds sounds fair, but anymore than 2 seconds means the other team has lots of time to move out of the way. Then give Fire Ele's some decent utility to throw around between AoE's - Fireball and Immolate seem like nice candidates, but may require some tweaking (Immolate needs some tweaking for sure). If fire magic changed in this way, we'd see a different kind of pressure than the pressure that a Warrior applies, so Warriors would still be necessary, but at least Fire Eles would have their role. When a Fire Ele uses his skills right, I want to see the enemy's E/Mo enter into Heal Party mode - I don't want to see some tiny AoE's that hit 2 people followed by an empty, half-exhausted energy bar.

Ka RaTae · Apr 12, 2006, 11:24 AM // 11:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Er, you're joking right? The number of enchantments needed to make the old Ether Renewal insane was 3. Ether Renewal itself was one of those. Add in two enchants of your own and your energy went infinite - not only giving you a full clip after the Renewal finished, but making all the spells you cast for those 12 seconds effectively free. During the smiting days I'd be getting a good 10-12 pips out of a cast of Ether Renewal - 6 pips of raw energy, and another 4-6 from free spells cast during it. It was insane, and while the nerf might have been a bit too harsh it was definitely well deserved.

No..I'm not. IMO..that is what this one of the things this class needs...the abiliity to cast and cast and cast. That's how they do damage, unlike a warrior who can just swing his sword forever and do good damage. ER was one of those things that was great while it was up, but you had to bring several self-enchants to make it work, which limited you on how many attacks you could use. So if you were limited on attacks then you had to balance what you brought or else you would end up waiting for spells to recharge. Another fear you always had was enchant strips or interuptions. So while yes it was insane how you could fill up and heal, it was really only the combo of ROF/DRAW/Zealots Fire that made it overpowered. I think that if ER was used with just ELE skills it was not overpowered.

Going back to AOE ranges....maybe they could come out with a new glyph in the future that would act as a Range Enhancer for you next spell or for all spells cast in the next x seconds. If the glyph was tied to EStorage, then only Primary Ele's could get any real benefit out of it.

All I know is THEY HAVE TO CHANGE...it's pretty sad that 85% of what you see ele's used in PVP for is Wards/Windbourne/Heal Party/Gale/Blinding Flash. You hardly ever see any teams that are any good using ele attack skills for anything other then joke builds or some kind of spot attack to fillout a rainbow spike. It's also sad that if you want to run an all ele team your better of doing it as a Primary Mesmer for the fast casting. As long as you can keep up the dual attunes you can bring down the hurt with multiple metorshowers and rodgorts. Since you can actually get these spells to cast fast enough to hit as a mesmer.

JR · Apr 12, 2006, 12:30 PM // 12:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ka RaTae

No..I'm not. IMO..that is what this one of the things this class needs...the abiliity to cast and cast and cast. .

They had that ability, so people used it for Smiting.

The problem is the Elementalist skills, not energy.

Ensign · Apr 12, 2006, 08:14 PM // 20:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loch

To the contrary, the Elementalist's "powerful" spells not only require uncontrollable situations, but you're sitting there for three to five seconds hoping that this uncontrollable situation doesn't change. That right there is a fundamental flaw.

Agreed. It's pretty clear that they wanted to use casting time as a control mechanism for elementalist spells, but that backfires by making those same high-investment skills unwieldly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loch

In order to make the "big" nukes useful, they simply need to encompass a larger area.

Agreed, fire is in good shape for potential rebalances because of that. Also, burning duration. If they're worried about these skills hitting too hard, lengthening burning durations will increase the damage they deal without making the skills more dangerous as AoE spikes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ka RaTae

I think that if ER was used with just ELE skills it was not overpowered.

If every skill on your bar was elementalist? Maybe it wasn't. But ask yourself why that's the case if it's true - why was Ether Renewal ridiculous with monk and necromancer skills, but not with elementalist skills? In my mind, the reason that would have been the case (and I'm not convinced that it was) is because what the elementalist can do with that energy and those enchantments is significantly worse than what other professions can do with it. In other words the only justification for Ether Renewal being ok for an elementalist is that their skill set is so much worse than everyone elses that they need something ridiculous to be considered.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ka RaTae

Exactly...which just proves that ER wasn't a problem...the problem is that ELE skills are not usefull enough.

I don't understand the logic of this at all. Is it that Ether Renewal was ok because elementalist skills aren't good? Doesn't the previous version of Ether Renewal, specced for elementalists only, basically say, 'elementalist skills *have* to suck otherwise Ether Renewal would be overpowered'? I'll admit that broken Ether Renewal + bad spells doesn't exactly equate to a killer combo, but that's not a status quo that I'd be comfortable with.

Peace,
-CxE

- Tain - · Apr 17, 2006, 02:12 PM // 14:12

Just a note to the OP:

You did your testing on the 60 armor dummy - try these again on the 100. Higher armor levels greatly decreases physical damage, and the warrior falls from grace in damage dealing capacity. I'm not denying what you're saying, but vs. high armor enemies the warrior is NOT the best way to kill. Mes would come out on top with spike damage, but this is what the armor penetrating/ignoring ele spells were made for. Try it with a Me/E fastcasting air. Strike, e. charge, and echo'd orb - its not exhausting, and with dual attunement you can keep it going. Its not a spike, its constant damage. Dual attunement may be fragile, but COVERING enchantments is a very basic concept. High damage on anything, plus armor penetration on every spell makes this a beautiful way to nail the high armor targets. Of course what I'm saying is very situational, and overall I agree with everything you've said.

Blame the Monks · Apr 17, 2006, 07:39 PM // 19:39

On our private forums we had a discussion some of you might find interesting. This is on the "threat" level of dom mesmers. (Note I am snipping this out of context so some of it might not be OnT).

Quote:

An unhated, unkited warrior is often estimated to do 3400 dpm (or 50 dmg per average hit, full time attack speed boost), which is extremely high. This is why everyone kites, brings warrior hate, etc. In reality, a warrior will do much less, perhaps as little as 800 (using ensign's estimate) but the principle remains - because warrior DPS is a serious threat, the team plans counters both on a build level (warrior hate), an individual level (everyone kiting), and a priority level (if you can kill them, you do. If not, you scare them into not extending).

Let's compare this to a dom mesmer. An unbuffed mesmer can burn 80 epm (surge, burn, signet) plus an additional waste of energy from having to reapply enchantments (lets say this is 15 per minute, recasting boon 3 times per minute). This would cost the mesmer 60 energy per minute not counting the cost of the enchant removal (assuming drain enchant mostly), well within the mesmers available energy.

Of course, Dom mesmers typically bring several faster recharge items, including serpent's quickness, rockmolder, etc. This means the average mesmer rather than burning 80 epm is probably closer to 100 epm plus the additional 15 energy wasted from reapplying enchantments. Once again, this is well within the mesmer's available energy and the mesmer could actually easily sustain other costs, such as hard res, hex removal, etc. Again, pretty standard stuff.

If the average monk heals for 30 hpe (a fair assumption with boon prots), this 100 energy burn would translate to 3,000 damage per minute the monk is no longer able to heal. The 15 in wasted enchantments would be another 450 in raw unhealed damage, however, the boon would heal the monk for 150 when it was going up so lets count this as only 300. If the mesmer's burns do damage, the mesmer is doing an estimated 800 damage per minute from the surge/burns plus additional damage from shatter enchants (lets say 200 per minute) plus additional damage from however else the mesmer uses its energy (since this is unknown, I will leave it out).

Adding it all up, the mesmer's battlefield presence or "threat level" is a crushing 4,350 "damage" per minute. (Of this 3350 is lost healing and 1000+ is true damage). As you can see, by the math the mesmer is a bigger threat than a warrior by far. (BTW, on a related note can anyone see why I favor ether prodigy air eles, 1-2 warriors, and dom mesmers? On paper and in the metagame, you can see why these builds shine.)

Of course, not all that denial will hit you if you swap well, but some will. Similar to how kiting reduces warrior damage without reducing "threat," this will reduce the "actual" denial but the threat level will stay the same. Let's guesstimate and say 1/3 of the denial actually does something to the monk. Even still the mesmer is outputting ~1,000 in lost healing, ~300 in wasted enchantment recasts, and ~430 in real damage, for a total of ~1700 dpm even after swapping.

As you can see, swapping alone does not eliminate the actual killing power or the threat level of a dom mesmer. Accordingly, build designers and match leaders need to realize killing or negating that mesmers is VERY important - probably more important than negating the other team's warriors. (Ask your favorite monk who he fears more - a good warrior or a good mesmer).

DieInBasra · Apr 17, 2006, 09:11 PM // 21:11

Yes, but you can kill without mesmers, you can't kill without warriors. Stop the warriors and you've stopped their ability to kill, stop the mesmers and it's just a bit harder.
You only have 64 skillslots, and with Focus Swapping and a single BR often being enough to help considerably with E-denial mesmers, negating those mesmers through other skills isn't as important as negating warrior damage.

Ensign · Apr 17, 2006, 09:27 PM // 21:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by - Tain -

You did your testing on the 60 armor dummy - try these again on the 100.

It doesn't really change much TBH, normal (affected by armor) damage sucks against targets with 100 AL. Air performs a bit better on normal attacks because of the natural armor penetration, but not that much better (you do 60% damage instead of 50% like a warrior autoattacking). Neither character is very effective for beating on high armor targets though, as should be expected.

Of course you could point to Obsidian Flame and say you have an armor ignoring spike, but warrior spikes have a significant armor ignoring component as well, and spiking has very little to do with dealing damage - we've gone over this too many times already.

Quote:

Originally Posted by - Tain -

Higher armor levels greatly decreases physical damage, and the warrior falls from grace in damage dealing capacity.

I wouldn't say that, because there's nothing that's terribly good at dealing damage to a warrior. The characters that do deal sustained, armor ignoring DPS are pretty popular in arena (touch necros, IW mesmers) but both are far too narrow and fragile for serious PvP play.

Quote:

Originally Posted by - Tain -

I'm not denying what you're saying, but vs. high armor enemies the warrior is NOT the best way to kill.

You can't kill a team by putting damage on its warriors. Period. It's trivially easy for any competent backline to keep up with damage being reduced that heavily. The way you kill a warrior is to separate him from his backline and spike him down before he can get back into range.

25% armor penetration on air skills is largely irrelevant because it's not anywhere near enough to make hitting anything but the softest target attractive. Outside of spike situations you still want to hit the softest target you can find. Armor penetration reduces the effect of armor, but it doesn't stop it from reducing your damage output significantly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by - Tain -

Try it with a Me/E fastcasting air. Strike, e. charge, and echo'd orb

I've run guys like that before, and played against them as well - you're crazy if you use them to attack warriors. From playing against the rifts air build, I can say that an additional 24 armor from Ward Against Elements on a caster (raising his AL against elemental to 84) renders the character next to useless - *five* of those guys cannot kill a single squishy inside of a Ward. Warriors naturally have more than 84 AL against elemental (96 with some damage reduction on top, actually), making them virtually invulnerable to this sort of assault if there's any monk support at all.

I guess the real result of these thought experiments is a recognition of just how good armor is against the types of damage that is affected by it. If high armor targets are the norm you need to invest highly in armor ignoring damage if you want to be effective.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blame the Monks

On our private forums we had a discussion some of you might find interesting. This is on the "threat" level of dom mesmers.

I agree absolutely, an unchecked mesmer is incredibly dangerous from the level of disruption that he is able to kick out. EDenial on a monk does a lot of virtual damage on its own, as you pointed out, and well timed and placed mes effects (strips and disruption) are outright invaluable. While they won't kill you (that's what the warrior is for), they certainly are some of the most dangerous character on the battlefield and are definitely deserving of all the attention being put into stopping them.

This game is about warriors, mesmers, and monks at a high level, and every one of those components is absolutely vital.

Peace,
-CxE

Cirian · Apr 21, 2006, 08:03 PM // 20:03

*huff* Well, I have finally read all 21 pages and it's been really entertaining!

"Shouldn't elementalists be able to apply pressure damage?" Is the core question I'm seeing here, something that Warriors do well, Rangers do less well, and Elementalists don't, but the expectation is they should, because that's why people rolled them in the first place.

The problem is that Elementalists can't throw junk spells while recharging the money spells, because any spellcasting is draining. In order to maintain pressure, the Elementalist would need 0e spells to function as regular attacks that were equivalent to a Warrior swininging away without skills.

Using 0e spells, energy used casting the money spells can be recharged in a similar fashion to the Warrior building adrenaline for their own money attacks. Good candidates for 0e spells would be the likes of Flare, Ice Spear, Stone Daggers and Lightning Strike. These are what I have always felt to be the base elemental attack spells of each line, the true cost of which is that it occupies a precious skill slot.

Single target pressure damage isn't however, what I think is appropriate to mages in RPG's. The Elementalist is synonymous with AoE, the fragile destroyer of armies. The long casting time of an AoE I feel is the key balancing feature of Elementalist AoE, because it's just asking for a Distracting Shot right in the face to stop it. The additional characteristics of huge energy costs, long recharge times and area of effect are, I think, up for grabs when it comes to making changes. I like linking huge areas to long recasts, providing the effect is there.

However, long recasts do not allow for pressure damage, and this is the core issue Ensign brought up. So, I think some of the 'adjacent' and possibly 'nearby' AoE spells or bigger should be able to be tagged back-to-back as long as the elementalist can support the energy and doesn't get a Ranger or Mesmer sat on their face. I'm going to use Fire for two fictional examples:

Lava Font - 10e, 2s Cast, 3s Recast, 5s Duration, AoE:'adjacent enemies'
Firestorm - 15e, 4s Cast, 6s Recast, 10s Duration, AoE:'in the area'

Now, the idea is that pressure damage can be maintained by having the cast+recast = duration, and there will probably still be a need to use snares to a certain extent (although napalming an area with multiple 'in the area' Firestorms could make that somewhat moot). If the pressure from the AoE puts the opponents into a backbreaking position, then that's the time to let fly with the 60s recast monsters, the money spells that finally break through and kill people.

I'm not going to attempt to guess a balanced damage rate, I'm just going to propose that an Elementalist should be able to maintain a non-trivial flood of AoE elemental pain until someone takes notice and sits on their face with Ele hate.

Wasteland Squidget · Apr 25, 2006, 01:17 AM // 01:17

0e spells are not the solution for two reasons.

1. They have the same issue with Elementalist energy management skills, in that they force you to sacrifice important skillslots for something a warrior can do anyway. One of the big advantages of a warrior is that they can do great DPS even with no skills on their bar, so every skill on a warriors bar is something that just adds on to the basic goodness they already have.

2. Shutdown. If an elementalist's damage relies primarily on spamming a single spell, they become incredibly vulnerable to skills like Diversion. You can remove conditions and hexes to keep your warrior attacking, but you can't remove a Diversion or Distracting Shot once it hit the skill you were spamming. Basically, you just take the hate necessary to disable a single skill and you can completely shut down elementalist damage.

Elementalists should have spammables, but they shouldn't be totally reliant on those spammables. Skills with equivilant recharges to Fireball and Flame Burst (though perhaps with lower cost or higher utility) are the key to building a strong damage elementalist, IMHO. A Flare signet would just serve as a poor band-aid to a serious balance issue with the class.

Mandy Memory · May 21, 2006, 04:05 AM // 04:05

Lets really update this table:

Quote:

Primary uses:

Mesmers and Necromancers = Pressure and Spike (plus the fact that they have the best methods of powering the other classes if used as secondary...but they can also support decently...Especially necros)

Warriors = Pressure and Spike. (Plus a few supports which can often make a decent difference)

Elementalists = Support and Spike. (Thats all folks.)

Rangers = Pressure and Spike. (Also, rangers have supportive spirits and traps get thrown in many places...)

Monk = Support and Spike. (With smiting. It could even be concidered to do decent pressure as well)

Byron · May 30, 2006, 05:16 AM // 05:16

LOL @ Zui's "translation."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mandy Memory

Lets really update this table:

Here's how I feel about the classes:

Warrior = Damage pressure and killing power with survivability.

Assassin = Damage pressure and killing power with mobility.

Monk/Ritualist = Prevent death (and DP), clean up enemy hate(hexes, conditions, etc) that affect killing power and/or death prevention. Also some nifty damage or spike support.

Mesmer = Energy Pressure, enemy hate(hexes, snares, CoF ftw).

Necro = Enemy hate, spike support, some death prevention. Spike possibility.

Elementalist = Killing and death prevention support, enemy hate, running. Spike possibility.

Ranger = Killing support, enemy hate, running. Spike possibility.

Symbol · Aug 03, 2006, 08:11 PM // 20:11

You know it's odd that this issue never came up in the WoC interview with Izzy.

Phades · Aug 04, 2006, 12:50 AM // 00:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

You know it's odd that this issue never came up in the WoC interview with Izzy.

It could be that they abandoned the idea for the profession, or the profession entirely. It could also be a byproduct of time and space constraints to include it. The possibility also exists that the interveiwer is not that aware of specific class issues like this one. Of course, it could be none of these as well, but only the people involved directly with the interveiw really know.

Ensign · Aug 04, 2006, 10:54 PM // 22:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynn Evennia

but we were just quoting "ways to shutdown an ele" and definitely Backfire, Migraine and Arcane conundrum are among the best.

Er, no they aren't. The best way to shut down an ele is to park a physical in his face. Make 'em kite. If you want skills that eles have to play around, Distracting Shot is the one I worry most about, and Diversion is vicious as well. After that, either Shatter/Drain Enchantment, or EDenial, depending on how I'm managing my energy. Migraine and Conundrum are annoying but not something I'm really afraid of. Backfire is a pile.

Peace,
-CxE

JR · Aug 08, 2006, 12:31 PM // 12:31

When I think of Elementalists in a pressure role there are two skills that instantly come to mind; Deep Freeze and Fireball.

Deep Freeze because of the huge AoE, and obvious snare side effect. Rodgort's Invocation for the damage and pleasant bit of burning. Both of these strike me as decent pressure on the opposing team.

The Water line in general is obviously fine, I certainly wouldn't suggest further buffing. However in the context of pressure it is fairly weak due to low damage (and rightfully so, given the already strong snare effect).

Fireball is great, large straight up damage with a nice little AoE. I certainly think it would be ridiculous to ever have a Fire Elementalist without it. Meteor is simmilar, although suffering from a horrible cast time which obviously makes it very prone to interrupts. However this really isn't the problem with the fire line; the problem is lack of utility. You can out-spec into Earth and take a Ward Against Melee, and you can certainly take a Heal Party or Extinguish, but that doesn't quite cut it. What it lacks to make it more viable at the moment is some hardcore hate like Blinding Flash or snares.

Elementalists excell in 'balanced' builds because they have the ability to play offensively and defensively, which is truly the strength of a balanced build. As I think Kriegar once gave a description for one of Te's builds something like the following; 'Every single character can play offense or defense, depending on the situation.' And this has to be where the Fire Elementalist is a let down in the general sense, outside of the actual 'Nuking Sucks' debate. It just isn't as flexible and versatile as the Water and Air lines. Then again Earth suffers from exactly the opposite problem; it is very hard to make an Earth Elementalist who can do much else other than occasionally throw out an Obsidian Flame.

So if Fire Elementalists are the damage dealers I describe them as, why don't we see more of them in a damage dealing role? Well because a Warrior can do it better, as Ensign has already covered. So what do you do? Buffing the damage is the obvious choice, but doing so in a way that doesn't simply encourage caster spikes isn't easy.

I personally would be perfectly happy with a world in which the Fire Element was the only decent damage Element. The others are already strong enough in certain ways to make them immediately attractive. There is also one really very simple way to cover that with the Fire Element; Burning. As interesting sidelines go, that really has potential. It also gets around the problem of 'buffing without encouraging spike'. Add a skill simmilar in nature to Fire Attunement that adds a second of burning to every spell for every 5 points you have in Fire Magic, or something along those lines.

However, I am rambling...

JR · Aug 08, 2006, 01:45 PM // 13:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

I wouldn't call either of those lines "flexible". Air basically has two utility skills, gale and flash. The rest of the line is...mediocre. Water is a little better, but it's still pretty much one dimensional (snares).

What I meant to say is that they make for flexible characters. Take a fairly standard Air E/Mo for example:

Blinding Flash - Warrior Hate
Lightning Orb - Spike Assist
Lightning Strike - Mediocre Spammable Damage
Gale - Snare
Draw Conditions - Utility
Heal Party - Utility
Ether Prodigy - Engine
Res Sig

The Water line is more one dimensional as you say, yet the had the ability to serve multiple purposes with that one dimension. Take Ice Spikes; as a snare it is decent Warrior Hate, and it is decent to stop a target kiting an adren spike. It also has a bit of damage which contributes to the spike.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

I'd make this an enchantment myself. If it were a stance it'd probably deserve elite status.

Then it would have basicly the same problem as Attunements do, which doesn't appeal to me. I don't honestly think it is strong enough to merit being an enchantment or being an elite. Not to mention elite status would make it complete garbage anyway; if you can't use Ether Prodigy why are you even using an Elementalist?