Curse

Ira Blinks · Aug 20, 2006, 03:19 AM // 03:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

O_o

The _point_ is that eviscerate is already in the running for best skill in the game. Now you want to introduce a non-elite lightning orb that essentially beats it (and not by a small margin) in damage, recharge, and range and somehow that's balanced?

and loses in cast time, insta-hit, armor penetration and overall poor survivability of the wielder... umm yes, pretty much.

Cynn Evennia · Aug 20, 2006, 04:23 AM // 04:23

231 is the new cliché? Please dont fall into easy clichés because the proposal goes beyond the 231.

2-3% extra damage for me is ok. In another thread (Time to fix the elementalist) i posted 3-5% as a first proposal but i havent posted that here, and moreover i changed my ideas there to 3%. So please do me a favor and quote me correctly and in the right thread.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynn Evennia

Extra damage with elements as a primary Elementalist would be really nice to have, for instance +3 energy storage and +3% elemental damage per rank in ES: for me 39% @ 13 ES is acceptable: it would make an ele deal 169 damage with a maxed Obsidian flame if she has 13 atts in ES

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynn Evennia

EDIT: The level 24 ele boss Chung the Attuned hits for 324 damage with his Lightning orb on a 60 armor foe

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynn Evennia

Each Energy storage attribute point should give you 2% of extra damage when using elemental magic (just ele magic)

Lightning orb or Lightning hammer are the most powerful spells we have due to the 25% armor penetration, so their damage MUST be considered as the upper bound, never as standard damage. Here are the figures:

vs 60 armor
Lightning orb or hammer=140 dmg
With 13 attributes and 2% extra damage = 176 dmg
With 13 attributes and 3% extra damage = 194 dmg

vs 80 armor
106 dmg
2% extra = 133
3% extra = 147 dmg

vs 100 armor
83 dmg
2% extra = 104 dmg
3% extra = 115 dmg

Now, well informed, feel free to reply

Symbol · Aug 20, 2006, 04:26 AM // 04:26

Quote:

and loses in cast time, insta-hit, armor penetration and overall poor survivability of the wielder... umm yes, pretty much.

"Poor survivability of the wielder" is neither here nor there when discussing skills.
Eviscerate is not insta-hit. Cast time and armor penetration are the only valid points you've made, and that hardly compensates for the fact that eviscerate is elite.

Cynn Evennia · Aug 20, 2006, 05:00 AM // 05:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spike

As for cyns attemept once again to show how week eles are, shes wrong AS USUAL. Does the ele who has cast Obsidian Flame only have 10 energy in total and therefore is unable to cast anything else during the 30 seconds the exhaustion is wareing off?. Of coure if you compare the damage of ONE spell vs the damage of FOUR spells. The FOUR spells are going to have more. Unless of course you compareing flare with meteor shower. Any ele who can play thier class properley (unlike cynn) would use gyph of energy to counter the exhaustion. Or use other spells while the exhaustion is wareing off.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

It's "wearing" not "waring". And the purpose of that example is that obsidian flame can't dps, which sort of misses the point but still...

Please that post was in another thread, "Time to fix the elementalist". Here i quote myself for the sake of self content and in order remark my point:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynn Evennia

Obsidian flame is the only ranged spell in the elementalist's repertoire that ignores armor, the other one is the PBAoE Crystal wave (it is repeated as Teinai crystals). Its sad that the only armor ignoring spell we have has exhaustion; i quote:

"When Exhaustion occurs, the caster loses 10 maximum energy... Maximum energy is recovered at a rate of 1 pip = 1 point of energy every 3 seconds."

Let me compare Obsidian flame with another armor ignoring spell, Vampiric gaze:

A maxed Obsidian Flame deals 118 damage, but the exhaustion makes it cost 10 energy. You need 30 seconds to get rid of the exhaustion effect, and then you energy is fully recovered.

A maxed Vampiric Gaze deals 63 damage. In 30 seconds you can cast 4 times to deal 252 damage with a cost of 40 energy. But since your energy recovers at a rate of 4 points per 3 second (4 pips, no exhaustion) after those 30 secs you have your 40 energy points back.

118 vs 252 damage !

I insist, why Obsidian flame should cause exhaustion? Better make it cost 10 and recharge in 10 than adding exhaustion.

Of course i know that an ele has more than 1 skill and more than 10 energy. I was trying to remark how aggressive is exhaustion on the only armor ignoring ranged spell an ele has. I took the hypothetical example of "a conservative earth ele that casts Obsidian flame only when she has no exhaustion" versus "a standard necro that spams Vampiric Gaze", ending with the same energy they began before casting, and without regarding any other skills on their belts. If that criterion was not clear enough inside the post my apologies, but sincerely i thought it was crystal clear

Of course that without looking at the exhaustion effect you can cast in that 30 seconds several Obsidian flames, at least *thinking... 2 cast + 5 recharge = 7, in 30 secs...* 4, with total damage of 472. But who can afford 30 energy points exhausted (4x10 net exhaustion - 10 recovered in the 30 secs) when there will be another casting wave?

Alleji · Aug 20, 2006, 05:43 AM // 05:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynn Evennia

Lightning orb or Lightning hammer are the most powerful spells we have due to the 25% armor penetration, so their damage MUST be considered as the upper bound, never as standard damage. Here are the figures:

vs 60 armor
Lightning orb or hammer=140 dmg
With 13 attributes and 2% extra damage = 176 dmg
With 13 attributes and 3% extra damage = 194 dmg

vs 80 armor
106 dmg
2% extra = 133
3% extra = 147 dmg

vs 100 armor
83 dmg
2% extra = 104 dmg
3% extra = 115 dmg

Now, well informed, feel free to reply

First of all, what Chung the Attuned does is as irrelevant as things could possibly get when discussing game balance. That dredge boss in ferndale throws 300+ fireballs and 100+ teinai's heat, bladed aatxe takes down a soft target in 2 hits and spectral agony needs a nerf.

The numbers you posted at +2% IMO are not completely game-breaking, but still aren't a good idea. 3x air spiker with lightning orb would do 528 damage to a soft target, which is enough to clean-spike someone with 1 sup rune and only 312 damage to a ranger. 4 spikers would do 704 damage, which is enough to wipe anything.

Alright, orb can be dodged (although how often are you gonna do that when they can spike every 5 seconds?) interrupted and obstructed. Not to mention infusing bad spikes and pre-protting the target. How about chain lightning? 162 damage to up to 3 targets times 4 spikers = 648 damage. Lightning hammer does 704 damage that goes through walls and can't be dodged.

A follow-up of lightning strike from 4 spikers does 382 damage to a soft target, almost enough to kill something on its own.

Add a 2-monk and a (now mandatory) rit backline into this build and you still have one full slot to hate out opposing shelter, which is basically the only defense currently available against that kind of spike. Doesn't look pretty.

Xpl0iter · Aug 20, 2006, 07:47 AM // 07:47

do i sound awkward by saying that we are comparing the entire damage idea with only air spells here?
If so, reduce the damage on those air spells and implement this idea. It will help buff other elements while buffing the regular air spells to do the same amount of damage that they used to do.

That way, no one will argue about lighting hammer, orb and chained strike being over powered, right?

I still don't see how you compared 3 eles with orb when compared to rangers doing spike with b/p builds? shall we re-do our numbers here Alleji? Or how about 3 warriors slashing through mobs?

And while doing that, how about we fix the landing of orb a bit better? i mean i dont want my foe to just straff to miss my orb u know?

Isn't that what people call spike? Isint why so many necros and mesmers and rangers or iway warriors go certain builds?

seriously 2% extra damage per attribute... max i have seen eles running is level 13 attribute in ES.
26% extra damage on top of your orb?
3 eles with orbs made u yelp in ur seat? Comon. Atleast rangers and wars have a freakin better armour compared to us isin't?

And not to mention, do you really think that such buff will force people to leave their ranger and warrior spikes to play ele spikes because ur doing more damage than them? I see alot of interuption when i am spiking with a caster here. ORB cant go through walls, easily missed, and Lighting Hammer, can't be buffed, + has a recharge time. Unlike those other spikes your running. Addition of another spike build, so what? It has its own weaknesses.

Regular HOH spike Build for rangers, you know how it rolls?
U cant interupt a ranger doing it, but can only defend the person being spikes

Warriors can MOVE while spiking their way through, they dont need to stand there and kill u. They Chase u.

Eles, IF this update takes place?
Still stand at one place. Interupt one caster, and spike was unsuccessful

I won't even touch other professions here.

PS: If any one has issues with how i am typing while using short words, let me know, and i shall do it properly next time.

wren e · Aug 20, 2006, 12:54 PM // 12:54

While it is easy to argue about HOW Ele's need to be changed, I do believe that most of us can agree that Ele's do need a change with the upcoming chapter. While some of the other classes could use a little love as well *cough* rit and assassin *cough*, none of them have as many issues as the Ele does. There have been many opinions given on what could be done to improve the Ele, hopefully Anet is listening and decide to do SOMETHING about it.

stiffler · Aug 20, 2006, 01:03 PM // 13:03

I agree with the others saying to wait until Nightfall is released, no doubt new ele skills will be introduced to counter the Dervish.

Ira Blinks · Aug 20, 2006, 01:56 PM // 13:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

"Poor survivability of the wielder" is neither here nor there when discussing skills.

who said so? you?
Allow me to disagree. We discussing game ballance of one class to another (all others) and not just skills of one class to skills of another.

Quote:

Eviscerate is not insta-hit.

oh yes, but how realistic is it to interrupt an attack? If you dont have evade/blocking stance or blind condition (which are very specific warrior hate things) you *are* going to get hit. Compare to that LO is a joke.

Quote:

Cast time and armor penetration are the only valid points you've made, and that hardly compensates for the fact that eviscerate is elite.

it is a warrior elite. It does what is supposed to be ballanced with the rest of the class. LO doesn't.

Ensign · Aug 20, 2006, 07:41 PM // 19:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynn Evennia

Does that mean "i agree" or a "i disagree" ?

I think the 'extra damage' idea is insane.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynn Evennia

Not so true. Just dont let dervishes abuse Contemplation of Purity (like making it have a 50% failure when divine favor is under 4).

Holy Veil is kinda good on a dervish. Hell, monk skills in general are kinda good on a dervish. Unstoppable, unremovable energy engines combined with monk skills tend to break things in this game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ira Blinks

ANet has the same problem as you do. You both look at the number an say zomg thats overpowered... But this is against 60 armor target, for the two seconds cast time, 7 seconds total interval and a good chance to miss. Does it still look ridicilous for you?

Yes. Yes it does. Have you ever played a minute of PvP in your life? Hi, I'm a 60 armor target, how are you today!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Gah, i cant help but split hairs here, but even with a shorter recharge the only real benefit would be to create the possibility for more than one malestorm effect from a single caster at the same time. Otherwise you are merely creating more exhaustion with no real effect.

I feel that the exhaustion mechanic should be the ultimate limiter on how often these sorts of spells can be cast, as that's largely the point of it. In general, skills with 30 second recharges that also cause exhaustion really rub me the wrong way. It's like, the exhaustion is on here why? If someone wants to spam cast an exhaustion spell to really frontload his effectiveness, I think he should be able to.

I agree that small AoE DoTAoEs are pretty sad. However I am hesitant to buff those AoEs up universally, as some of them are extraordinarily dangerous to be caught in. Meteor Shower, for starters - the AoE on the thing makes it a PvE skill, but I think a larger AoE would make it far too dangerous. Maelstrom, I'm more on the edge. Perhaps part of my worry is that the visual on the skill is still a dime and giving it a largish AoE would just make that even more silly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Furthermore it would blur the distinction in cost vs effect between meteor shower and the earthquake clones.

Earthquake is much more spammable (15s recharge), and has a significantly more dangerous AoE (240 vs 156). Earthquake also hits instantly, not a second later. I do feel that Earthquake needs a buff as well, FWIW.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Considering most skills with cast times above 2s never get used if there is a chance for interuption, i would argue that anything over 2-3s is unreasonable for anything other than resurection and some spirit creation effects.

It's not really risk of interruption - once something has a two second cast time, it's going to get hit by attentive interrupters if they're looking at you. The difference for ele skills is that you neeed to aim them, and the longer the casting time the harder they are to aim. People can move from adjacent to you completely out of your aggro bubble in three seconds.

Peace,
-CxE

0mar · Aug 20, 2006, 08:27 PM // 20:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

It's not really risk of interruption - once something has a two second cast time, it's going to get hit by attentive interrupters if they're looking at you. The difference for ele skills is that you neeed to aim them, and the longer the casting time the harder they are to aim. People can move from adjacent to you completely out of your aggro bubble in three seconds.

Peace,
-CxE

That's the biggest problem for ele's in PvP. 2 second cast times is almost a guarenteed interuption, which is why Mesmers do the job of eles better. Fast cast for the spells you need and still keep some sort of caster hate in your bar. A Me/E can do more damage, more consistently than a E/Me can. With decent energy management skills, a Mesmer will almost never run into an energy crunch. The only thing an Ele can do better is be a flashbot/heal party spammer.

Cynn Evennia · Aug 21, 2006, 12:46 AM // 00:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by 0mar

That's the biggest problem for ele's in PvP. 2 second cast times is almost a guarenteed interuption, which is why Mesmers do the job of eles better. Fast cast for the spells you need and still keep some sort of caster hate in your bar. A Me/E can do more damage, more consistently than a E/Me can. With decent energy management skills, a Mesmer will almost never run into an energy crunch. The only thing an Ele can do better is be a flashbot/heal party spammer.

Ouch! it hurts

Personally i dunno whether Me/E or E/x should be better build for elemental damage. I would say Me/E without hesitating before the mods on Elemental attunement but now im not so sure. Let me mention my personal experience on PvE.

As an E/x i can keep casting all the time using twin attunements. The extra energy pool lets me recast both attunements and Aura of restoration as soon as they are available, and also i can spam Gale as an inter

As a Me/E i cast elemental spells as soon as they are available 36 of 45 secs, the time Elemental Attunement is on. Those 9 "non-casting" seconds i use them to get energy back via Inspiration, a tap or a removal or an inter, and i slow down the casting frequency, all for the sake of the upcoming 20 energy cost of the two attunements and the second casting wave. And i do not run Gale.

The lesson i learned is that the ele can cast and KD without regarding the energy management but the mesmer needs e-management. Moreover the damage difference between 12 and 16 ranks is very noticeable and the heals via Aura or restoration gives me the chance to face some hits before running away. Nevertheless the gap on casting times is gigantic: using air, when i see a Blessed Griffon casting Spell breaker i just say "ok then just eat this last Lightning strike" before saying "non-casters your turn". That would be impossible as an Ele, you hear the SB click and lose 5 energy irremediably.

So as far as i see they tie, and even if when theres a tied game the visitor has a non-official win i give the victory to the ele... but im afraid it is only because im not used (should i say "afraid"?) to have my twin attunements off.

Id love to hear your experience about Me/E vs E/x ,of all of you guys, thx

PS Since in TA or HoH i only play Earth (warder) and sometimes the classical blind-HP E/Mo i can compare my damage builds of ele and FC ele only in RA context. Id love to say a word or two but since people here do not consider RA as PvP...

Ensign · Aug 21, 2006, 01:07 AM // 01:07

Interruption really has very little to do with why Mes/Eles were more popular than Ele/Mesmers for straight ele builds. It had everything to do with damage compression and synergy with attunements. Energy Storage was largely useless with double attunements, since your energy is going to be effectively infinite with those up anyway. Who cares if the max is 40 or 70? Similarly, for compressed damage a Mes/Ele could Gale -> Orb -> Strike, and actually have the Strike land before his target could respond. An ele primary, on the other hand, only has his Orb land before the knockdown expires if he fires it from about half range, and the Lightning Strike lands so much later that you're really gambling on them not getting a response.

Interrupts are a concern but the answer is Blinding Flash. You shouldn't be getting all freaked out about it.

Peace,
-CxE

Ira Blinks · Aug 21, 2006, 01:41 AM // 01:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Yes. Yes it does. Have you ever played a minute of PvP in your life? Hi, I'm a 60 armor target, how are you today!

http://ebaumsworld.com/forumfun/misc15.jpg

Phades · Aug 21, 2006, 04:14 AM // 04:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I feel that the exhaustion mechanic should be the ultimate limiter on how often these sorts of spells can be cast, as that's largely the point of it. In general, skills with 30 second recharges that also cause exhaustion really rub me the wrong way. It's like, the exhaustion is on here why? If someone wants to spam cast an exhaustion spell to really frontload his effectiveness, I think he should be able to.

You have a point about the concept about frontloading effectiveness, but its pointless unless the skill is actually worth using realistically in the first place. The problem with exhaustion is the associated downtime with the frontloading that can not be duplicated in any fashion in any other profession. For example, the closest thing to exhaustion would be adrenalin extinguishing skills like hammer bash. Even then, the drawback from that skill can be worked around, while exhaustion is ruled by pure mathmatics and only has 1 way to be worked around which requires a eliete skill. I mean seriously, its not like warriors get capped at a 4-5adrenalin limit for 30s after using it once. Also, many of the skills that are 30s recharges seem to want to build exhaustion on top of the other more spammable exhaustion causers. For example any 30s exhaustion causer with ether prodigy can build up exhaustion, just like any other skill used with gale or the other select few playable exhaustion builders. Its more like insult to injury of a bad skill.

Many of the exhaustion skills are not even static shut down or easily applied. The few that are just feel wrong in how other classes ability to use them. Sure the energy storage gives more room to play, but seriously its like tacking on a +40 energy cost on top of every skill with exhaustion. If skills like shock were 45e, warriors simply could not abuse the skill. At the same time it would be too unweildy for anyone not using dual attunements or other stackable cost reduction methods. I think the real problem is that ANET just seemed to randomly place exhaustion on skills that were AOE with any additional effect, or single target suppression skills. By comparison to other professions, there is no such limiting mechanic for similar skills. Even the blackout tradeoff is favorable due to when its applied and the tradeoff limitation is minimal by comparison to exhaustion.

I think the tradeoff between frontloading and downtime really needs to be analyzed further, because that really is the crux of why elementalist damage skills in general are so poor. The up front application is being outweighed by the ability to sustain. It would be a different sitaution if eles were soloing monks of equal compotence, but that simply is not the case. On the other side of the coin we have warriors doing exactly that in some instances, due to the ability to cause pressure and spike damage effectivly. With the current skill sets, i doubt that elementalists will ever achieve a pressure with spike situation. I do think that the elementalist could be turned into a more spike with shutdown character, if the skills were more manageable to only elementalists.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I agree that small AoE DoTAoEs are pretty sad. However I am hesitant to buff those AoEs up universally, as some of them are extraordinarily dangerous to be caught in. Meteor Shower, for starters - the AoE on the thing makes it a PvE skill, but I think a larger AoE would make it far too dangerous. Maelstrom, I'm more on the edge. Perhaps part of my worry is that the visual on the skill is still a dime and giving it a largish AoE would just make that even more silly.

I dont see why meteor shower would be more dangerous. You can not get trapped in it currently even if you get knocked down once, even when snared. It will k/d 2 times if the target was aware and was able to move out of the center on the first strike. Altering it to land within the first second does help this, but it would still require a snare to be employed to any hope of full effect. It is also a DOT skill, so its not like its compressing ~300 damage into that first 3s. It allows people to react, but makes it difficult for the intended target to react properly after being hit. The same is true for malestorm. I do agree though that its animation size is puny for malestorm, but i am fairly confident that if the reasoning behind the aoe size was that alone it would have been altered by now considering how simple the graphic is.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Earthquake is much more spammable (15s recharge), and has a significantly more dangerous AoE (240 vs 156). Earthquake also hits instantly, not a second later. I do feel that Earthquake needs a buff as well, FWIW.

The earthquake clones are more spammable by themselves, but that can be worked around with glyph of renewal for meteor shower. Even when working with meteorshower on a virtual 20s clock, the exhaustion isnt that bad. Only when combined with other exhaustion causers while filling in the time gap does it really hurt. Then again even the first wave of meteor shower does more damage potentially than the earthquake clones.

Umm, i dont know much about the actual aoe range number calculation, but in application the earthquake clones typically have a very real possibility for striking more than one target reliably. The 156 range aoes do not. Furthermore when considering DOT aoe skills, it feels backwards that the instant hit aoes have larger effect areas, while the DOT skills have smaller ones. If anything the instant hit ones will guarentee their full effect to at least one target, while the small aoe dots will rarely even get one wave off due to their pitiful size. The DOT aoes should be suppression skills, but they fail miserably at it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

It's not really risk of interruption - once something has a two second cast time, it's going to get hit by attentive interrupters if they're looking at you. The difference for ele skills is that you neeed to aim them, and the longer the casting time the harder they are to aim. People can move from adjacent to you completely out of your aggro bubble in three seconds.

2s with sprint, but if you cant get the skill off, its pointless regardless of what the actual targeting range of the skill is. Also considering that skills will follow targets out of range, i think the focus should be more on making them more playable within the targeting area. This is partially due to the interuption factor that can happen from many different methods, but it is also partially due to the amount of motion that takes place durring the cast time as you stated. Granted it can be covered with some forms of interupt protection, but its impossible to stop all of them. Then again it would seem that we have come full circle on casting time discussion, since i recall you stating that convert hex is too unweildy even on a ele primary, since it will be beat in reaction time from other multiple sources. The same is true for the AOE dot skills, since they are not only being beat in damage up front, but also pressure over time due to cast time and meaningless aoe size.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Interrupts are a concern but the answer is Blinding Flash. You shouldn't be getting all freaked out about it.

This would also assume that air is the manditory element, instead of allowing for diversity.

Xpl0iter · Aug 21, 2006, 09:08 AM // 09:08

And not to mention, we have stood against the idea of Extra damage depending on the ES Points Spent just becuase our air skills seems to cause way more damage?
I seriously argue against it, since the orb, as mentioned, is easily interuptable. One orb is interupted and spike percentage drops by alot. I won't speak of hammer since it has a higher recharge, and time does matter in PVP for spiking purposes.
As i suggested above. The skills which have been identified as skills for high spiking capabilities, i suggest a reduction in damage on them, while implementing the idea of adding more damage % to ES when points are contrinuted in that attribute.

Cynn, by the way, me/ele still is better for air spiking in general. 35 (Along with 20% enchantment mod) seconds are enough for ele attunement.

I have done that for a while even after ele attunement was moved to Energy Storage.

Ensign · Aug 21, 2006, 07:13 PM // 19:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

I think the real problem is that ANET just seemed to randomly place exhaustion on skills that were AOE with any additional effect, or single target suppression skills.

That's a general problem with exhaustion, definitely. There are a few skills that use it well (Prodigy, Gale, Shock, Obs. Flame, even Earthquake really) and those tend to be emanagement or knockdowns. After that, exhaustion seems to be randomly tacked onto a lot of skills, particularly elites. It's almost like exhaustion isn't used as a limiting mechanic, as much as something else to tack onto a spell to say to players 'this is really expensive!' Double Dragon? Ride the Lightning? I would seriously like to know what they were thinking when they decided to put exhaustion on those.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

I think the tradeoff between frontloading and downtime really needs to be analyzed further, because that really is the crux of why elementalist damage skills in general are so poor.

Or why caster damage skills in general are so poor. I think it's a consequence of Guild Wars being relatively slow compared to 'twitch' games, and much more strategic, with a high value placed on death. What I mean is, if you look at wizards historically through the genre, they used spells that had ridiculous damage outputs or crowd control effects. This was fine in PvE (endurance contests), but in PvP things broke messily. So the archtype had to be reworked to avoid the WTF Blowout factors. The trouble is, once you start pulling the pure frontloaded aspect away from the archtype, it naturally turns into a DPS archtype. While the nuking archtype is being chopped up and reworked, the standby DPS archtype - physicals - are effectively untouched. So what you have is a poor shock-and-awe archtype (because that breaks games messily) which is forced to play the DPS game (which it is terrible at) because blowing people out with huge spells isn't good for games.

Another way to look at it is to compare the game to a first person shooter. Most of those games are very fast paced (so execution is usually haphazard) and put a very low price on death - respawn, lose 15-20 seconds of position and some powerups (varies by game and type). So in that sort of environment you can easily have very powerful but very balanced weapons, sniper rifle style. It'll miss often enough just because of the nature of the game, and when it does hit it isn't a huge deal.

Now take that sort of gametype and give everyone an aimbot. The balance instantly goes to hell because those crazy frontloaded, one hit weapons just blow people out instantly. So you have to drop the rail damage on 'em to make 'em multihit. Ok, that's reasonable. Now slow down gameplay so that teams can coordinate better, link up with each other reliably, etc. Now rail weapons are ridiculous again, as teams can coordinate to blast opponents together and reproduce the instakill effect. So those effects get nerfed further. Ok, now put a very high price on deaths. That makes all of the instakill effects very dangerous from a balance standpoint, so they need to be made very unreliable or situational. So those get scaled back as well.

So you go through all of these changes, and you have a reasonably balanced game from where you started, albeit a very different one. But then you start playing it and notice that all people use are hitscan weapons (machineguns, etc). Those don't break anything...except they're the only good weapon left, because everything else has been nerfed to hell.

Warriors are machine guns. Elementalists are nerfed sniper rifles that can't headshot, and need 5 shots to the chest to kill anything.

This isn't to say that elementalists need to be able to one shot people. But it is an argument that if elementalists cannot one shot people (or equivilent blowout mechanic), then they shouldn't continue to be designed as a really shitty blowout character. If they need to play the DPS game, find a way to make them unique and good at it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

I dont see why meteor shower would be more dangerous. You can not get trapped in it currently even if you get knocked down once, even when snared.

You can't get trapped in it currently because it doesn't knock you down until second 3, and it has the small AoE. If it knocked down from the beginning, it would always get that first hit, and the second one might be difficult to avoid as well (you only have one second to get out of the way). With a medium AoE, I don't think you could ever get out of the way of the second meteor, and the third would be a real threat. I am really scared of that sort of self-contained knocklock from a PvP perspective. If you want to work to hold someone in a met shower, that's great, but the skill shouldn't hold them in it alone.

I think the AoE could be bigger if the meteors didn't start to hit until the 3rd second. But I feel that the first hit is more important to the skill than the larger AoE, making it more reliable, but harder to outright break games with.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

The same is true for malestorm.

Maelstrom doesn't hold you in the effect by itself, you need to snare someone otherwise to keep them there - and the snare effect is usually slow enough that you could largely get out of the AoE in the time given. It's much less dangerous than knocklock storm as well, because, well, no knocklock. I could see increasing the AoE on this one, if other costs wanted to be altered as well. The difference, again, is that you can escape.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

I do agree though that its animation size is puny for malestorm, but i am fairly confident that if the reasoning behind the aoe size was that alone it would have been altered by now considering how simple the graphic is.

I'm pretty sure the reasoning behind the skill has more to do with Ice Imps than anything else. The graphic is pretty much set in stone at this point - a majority of elementalist AoE effects have misleading AoE graphics, and I expect those to be fixed about the same time they fix the animation on Reversal of Fortune. If they won't even bother to fix graphics on the most used skill in PvP, you can guess where on the priority list an unused skill is.

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Originally Posted by Phades

Furthermore when considering DOT aoe skills, it feels backwards that the instant hit aoes have larger effect areas, while the DOT skills have smaller ones.

I think this was a PvE thing. I agree entirely.

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Originally Posted by Phades

2s with sprint

It's closer to 3 seconds with sprint up. You can land an Ice Spikes on a warrior cast at maximum range, and still prekite.

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Originally Posted by Phades

This would also assume that air is the manditory element, instead of allowing for diversity.

Not really, there are other counters to interruption as well. However, the elementalist only has two really awesome skills besides his energy elite (Blinding Flash and Deep Freeze), and one of them happens to also be a very strong counter to interruption, so I really don't see a need to dig any deeper.

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Originally Posted by Xpl0iter

we have stood against the idea of Extra damage depending on the ES Points Spent just becuase our air skills seems to cause way more damage?

It would likely break the spike capabilities of fire, water, and earth spike skills as well.

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Originally Posted by Xpl0iter

I seriously argue against it, since the orb, as mentioned, is easily interuptable.

Arguing that a skill can be made overpowered because it still has an obvious counter is retarded. The counter is not always going to land. It isn't always going to be some sort of awesome trade. Sometimes the counter gets countered, and then what happens? Oh, right, overpowered skill smashes people.

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Originally Posted by Xpl0iter

The skills which have been identified as skills for high spiking capabilities, i suggest a reduction in damage on them, while implementing the idea of adding more damage % to ES when points are contrinuted in that attribute.

This would basically mean nerfing every attractive elementalist damage skill, then giving the damage back through dual-linking the skill. What is the point of that change? To make elementalist skills less attractive to elementalist secondaries? It's not like you can just whittle off the current high end, every skill would have to be re-evaluated because of the change to maintain balance between them. You can't just say 'oh, 140 is the limit on Lightning Orb, but Fireball can be affected more because it only deals 119'. Fireball has to be scaled back as well to be balanced against the new Lightning Orb. And so forth.

This idea keeps getting worse.

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Originally Posted by Ira Blinks

http://ebaumsworld.com/forumfun/misc15.jpg

RIP Oolong.

Peace,
-CxE

Ira Blinks · Aug 21, 2006, 09:04 PM // 21:04

funny thing... people keep telling me things are balanced because they have obvious counters. Touch rangers are balanced because they can be snared and degened to death. Warriors are balanced because they can be blinded. EoE balanced because it can be killed. SS balanced because it is elite... bla bla bla...

But who are we to argue with mighty Ensign when he says that making by far easiest to counter class in GW to deal more damage would make it overpowered... puny mortals with standard color of the nickname...

falling demon · Aug 21, 2006, 10:06 PM // 22:06

hows about 1.5% armor penetration per rank in ES?
i dont know what the argument about Warriors not beating Eles if damage increase was introduced, warriors arent MEANT to beat eles in damage, Warriors are meant to be the guys who soak up the damage, Eles are meant to DEAL most of it

Cynn Evennia · Aug 21, 2006, 10:16 PM // 22:16

Any change on elementalists would mean a re-evaluation of all skills, and even if mandatory it is unlikely because should it occur ANET would be accepting their mistake in making Eles a lower class... and pride is in game.

Personally i think that in order to become a decent alternative in our very own terrain, ele magic, now owned by Me/E, the eles need a plus, and urgently. I still think that some sort of extra damage related to ES is necessary.