Curse

Symbol · Jan 30, 2007, 08:19 PM // 20:19

I never see these skills used anywhere which is a shame since I always thought they were interesting. So why is it that they suck and what should be done to fix them?

Mind Burn:

I think the problem here is simple. It causes exhaustion. Compare this skill to mind shock. Mind shock does more upfront damage (140 vs 126 at 16 spec) and its conditional effect is a KD as opposed to burning.

The thing is, KD is much, much, much more powerful than burning. Burning is just some degen. KD is imposed helplessness for 2-4sec. So why are these two skills priced the same?

IMO there's not much scope for improvement. The cost (5E) and cast time (1s) are both attractive, so there's not much point changing them. No one cares about burn length since it will just get removed eventually and you can't reapply it without shooting yourself in the foot. You can't improve the damage much because then it would become too much of a spike threat (1s cast, instant hit)-and it would take a _large_ improvement in damage to make it worth taking over shock.

So IMO there's only one real option here, which is to remove exhaustion entirely-with possibly a price hike to compensate. Originally I thought 10E no exhaustion would be fair, but if GG is going to stay at its 8 sec recharge from the test weekend then burn should remain at 5E, since GG and attunement are the only non-elite energy management options an elementalist has (GoLE is suboptimal for <15E spells).

Mind Freeze:

This one is more difficult. My theory is that no one uses this because, fundamentally, there's not much difference between a 66% snare and a 90% snare. 66% is harsh enough that whoever you're snaring is functionally immobile. Certainly I don't think there are many situations where you'd care about the difference between really slow, and really, really slow enough to use your elite slot for it. Perma 66% snare with freezing gust is IMO better than a 90% snare some of the time with mind freeze, and one of these skills isn't even elite!

So how would you fix this? IMO the answer lies in the question, "what is water missing as a line?". You have your snares (most of the line), you have some utility (blurred vision, ward vs harm, armor of mist, etc), but you really don't have much in the way of damage. Maybe you should have an elite that combines two of these mechanics-snare+damage for example-but balanced by exhaustion.

Mind Freeze
5e 1s 8r
Target foe is struck for 10...82..106 damage. If you have more energy, target foe is also slowed by 90% for 1...5...6 seconds. This spell causes exhaustion.

Patccmoi · Jan 30, 2007, 08:37 PM // 20:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

I never see these skills used anywhere which is a shame since I always thought they were interesting. So why is it that they suck and what should be done to fix them?

Mind Burn:

I think the problem here is simple. It causes exhaustion. Compare this skill to mind shock. Mind shock does more upfront damage (140 vs 126 at 16 spec) and its conditional effect is a KD as opposed to burning.

The thing is, KD is much, much, much more powerful than burning. Burning is just some degen. KD is imposed helplessness for 2-4sec. So why are these two skills priced the same?

IMO there's not much scope for improvement. The cost (5E) and cast time (1s) are both attractive, so there's not much point changing them. No one cares about burn length since it will just get removed eventually and you can't reapply it without shooting yourself in the foot. You can't improve the damage much because then it would become too much of a spike threat (1s cast, instant hit)-and it would take a _large_ improvement in damage to make it worth taking over shock.

So IMO there's only one real option here, which is to remove exhaustion entirely-with possibly a price hike to compensate. Originally I thought 10E no exhaustion would be fair, but if GG is going to stay at its 8 sec recharge from the test weekend then burn should remain at 5E, since GG and attunement are the only non-elite energy management options an elementalist has (GoLE is suboptimal for <15E spells).

Mind Freeze:

This one is more difficult. My theory is that no one uses this because, fundamentally, there's not much difference between a 66% snare and a 90% snare. 66% is harsh enough that whoever you're snaring is functionally immobile. Certainly I don't think there are many situations where you'd care about the difference between really slow, and really, really slow enough to use your elite slot for it. Perma 66% snare with freezing gust is IMO better than a 90% snare some of the time with mind freeze, and one of these skills isn't even elite!

So how would you fix this? IMO the answer lies in the question, "what is water missing as a line?". You have your snares (most of the line), you have some utility (blurred vision, ward vs harm, armor of mist, etc), but you really don't have much in the way of damage. Maybe you should have an elite that combines two of these mechanics-snare+damage for example-but balanced by exhaustion.

Mind Freeze
5e 1s 8r
Target foe is struck for 10...82..106 damage. If you have more energy, target foe is also slowed by 90% for 1...5...6 seconds. This spell causes exhaustion.

I like the suggestions really. I think that Mind Burn will never be used much in competitive PvP as long as it causes exhaustion because as you said Burning isn't a reason for exhausting yourself. Mind Burn without the exhaustion clause would be a good way to DPS as an Ele. 10E without exhaustion could actually be fine, or a slight recharge nerf (8-10s). So i'd see it either as 10/1/5 or 5/1/8. It's honestly just a buffed Immolate that is conditional, and with 3s recharge on Immolate i have no clue why you'd run Mind Burn.

As for Mind Freeze i like the suggestion too. If the damage is significant, it might be interesting. It's still nothing comparable to Shatterstone (which it shouldn't be) but it's more in line with a nuke with over 100 damage, and keeping all the damage unconditional would be great. Atm i can agree that i'd take Freezing Gust over Mind Freeze anytime to keep a target snared.

Thomas.knbk · Jan 30, 2007, 09:22 PM // 21:22

True. Pure damage is relatively weak, which is why pure dmg has to be extremely high or extremely efficient in order to be worth it. Especially if it's elite pure dmg. Extremely high is not preferable, as it promotes spiking, so extremely efficient is the best option. 5e+exhaustion is not extremely efficient. Rather quite inefficient. Removing the exhaustion and bumping it back to 15e would be the perfect balance for Mind Burn in my opinion.

Symbol · Jan 30, 2007, 09:37 PM // 21:37

I think at 15E I would never take this skill over searing flames. Keep in mind that the dps (~35) of mind burn sans exhaustion is not terribly high. You'd then have the same reliance on fragile energy management that searing does, but without the AoE. Considering that the conditional damage depends on your energy staying high that's an extremely bad thing.

Wasteland Squidget · Jan 30, 2007, 09:46 PM // 21:46

I'm not sure you're thinking along the right lines with Mind Burn. The problem with Mind Burn isn't the skill itself, it's that the rest of fire is so bad. Basically, any fire elite you take has to be a character in and of itself, because the non-elite skills really aren't going to do anything you care about.

Mind Burn is a situational skill by nature, and Mind Burn man isn't a character that's meant to spam for long periods. He's fairly strong in skirmish (but not as good as a Mind Shocker) and he can contribute to pushes at the flagstand by punching people in the face with Mind Burn, all at the cost of his exhaustion pool.

If you take out exhaustion, what can Mind Shock man do that he couldn't already? Eles have a pretty large exhaustion pool, and there aren't a lot of plays you can make that will run them out before the play is completed. I guess he could go straight from a duel to punching people at the flagstand without stopping, but is that really going to make the skill worth bringing?

If you want to buff Mind Burn itself, I'd look at removing the energy conditional, since I think exhaustion is much more important method of keeping the skill in check. After that, start buffing some of the fire lines' non-elites, so it's possible to have a viable character without a commited elite skill.

Once you have a viable character without the elite, Mind Burn becomes a lot more attractive. The guy can do his job without it for the most part, but when he needs to duel or push he can temporarily get a lot stronger by spamming Mind Burn everywhere. Pretty much how Gale is used on air eles now.

Symbol · Jan 30, 2007, 09:58 PM // 21:58

But you've summed up the problem right there. No one cares about mind burn in skirmishes, because mind shock is (hugely) superior. Especially with the prevalence of strong condition removal (Signet of Malice, mending touch), spamming mind burn is just counterproductive because the burn won't last long enough to make the skill efficient, and you can't keep reapplying it without crippling yourself.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

I guess he could go straight from a duel to punching people at the flagstand without stopping, but is that really going to make the skill worth bringing?

Why not? Presuming that the rest of the line is buffed enough so you have at least a couple of decent nukes running alongside burn this seems like a perfectly viable option to me. You get very solid dps that's hard to mitigate, you get a nice spike assist, and if the cost is kept reasonable you have enough slots left to take some utility from your secondary.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

The guy can do his job without it for the most part, but when he needs to duel or push he can temporarily get a lot stronger by spamming Mind Burn everywhere. Pretty much how Gale is used on air eles now.

I don't see how mind burn spam is going to make that character "a lot stronger", esp if the line is buffed to the point where it becomes attractive to run without an elite.

stueyman2099 · Jan 30, 2007, 11:06 PM // 23:06

The problem with fire in general is it's designed mainly around dealing damage, with 2 skills which also include a kd, and 2 that gives you a run speed buff. Every conditional in the fire line revolves around setting the enemy on fire, thus dealing more damage (except glowing gaze, which remarkably sees LOTS of play on fire guys). So, the point just comes down to why bother with this at all when you can just run a warrior/dervish for a better effect, and have better versatilty built in.

Simply put, fire doesn't do anything you really want to do. Compare it to the other elements we have. Earth has wards, which provides an excelent source of defense, but isn't good for much else, save maybe obs flame and, recently, sandstorm in HA cluster****s. Air has blinding flash/surge, gale/shock, mind shock, strorm djinns haste/windborne speed, and orb. Again though, not much else to offer really. Water has a nice selection of snares, which do somthing you actualy want to do, so that can make a good strong character. Fire has... Searing Flames? Even that is only worth mentioning becuase of its broken state.

You just can't make a good build out of fire skills. Even if you did buff the crap out of fire skills, they still won't be used until they can be compared with a warrior as far as damage output is concerned (Searing Flames), becuase thats all fire does.

rii · Jan 30, 2007, 11:07 PM // 23:07

I haven't thought about it a great deal but if I was given the opportunity to rework mind burn I'd change it to a heavy duty burning inflicting skill.

Remove exhaustion, 10energy/1casttime/5recharge, target foe takes z damage (roughly immolate scale) and is set on fire for x...y. Then, make the burning duration long. Perhaps a 20s-ish max duration.

The skill would be useless as a spike skill, with a bit of DD just for the hell of it, but be a decent pressure skill. Combined with GG and attunement, you should be able to spam it fine (probably even with the 8s recharge) - with a little left over for w/e. Your DPS should be reasonable, keeping burning on around 3/4 guys at 14dps is a base of 42-56dps (barring removal) with whatever from the additional damage of the skill and GG, plus whatever crappy fire skills you might tag on.

Frankly though, even though fire on a whole is poor, it doesn't make much difference. Most bars can easily go /Mo and be filled out with draw, veil, aegis, sac/chant, shower, etc, so that as long as you create an elite which runs on it's own steam you don't need to have a line packed with other nukes which are pretty much competing for the same slot. Frankly, that kind of a build is better than one that is crammed with quite-good nukes, forcing me to run lots of 'em. SF does that as the aoe nuke pressure/spike, and a Mind Burn structured in this way could too as a pressure skill. However, SF got overly better from having masses of copies, encouraging farm/'gimmick' builds. This wouldn't, because... burning doesn't stack. It may look like an elite immolate but I quite like it.

As for mind freeze I agree with the 66~90% debuff thing. The only think that would make me want to run it is if it stopped them moving all together, which would be hilarious.

Ensign · Jan 31, 2007, 12:27 AM // 00:27

Warriors aren't just pressure DPS machines, they spike, Deep Wound, knock down, interrupt, and are rather durable for overextension and splits. Casters can get different, more relevant utility, but it's hard to support that and spike/pressure/split like a Warrior does. Air and Water have enough toys to provide needed utility while still dealing respectable damage...Fire doesn't have any utility besides AoE (Searing Flames), and its AoE options aren't exactly exciting...leaving it as a one-dimensional attribute that really isn't worth playing.

I think that Mind Burn is fine, though it needs better supporting skills in the line...Mind Freeze needs more oomph, which it got over the weekend.

Peace,
-CxE