Curse

Yawgmoth Kg · Aug 25, 2005, 09:38 PM // 21:38

ensign i don't know if you missed it in my post but i agree with you 100% that this new version of natures renewal is the most accurate reflection of what it should be and probably what the devs wanted it to be from the start.

and yes... i remember when the spirits were nature rituals and there was that mesmer skill to remove it

I'd carry it to arenas (good old days...)

Elythor · Aug 25, 2005, 10:19 PM // 22:19

With the changes to Spirits and Fertile Season...I wonder how the FS death we usually encounter in PvP work. Just a reminder to those who are not familiar with FS death...basically when the last FS spirit gets killed/dropped, everybody's life gets decreased to the normal level. However, if your life is already low while under FS, you'd die immediately when FS gets taken out.

Now, lets talk about a theoretical situation with the Spirit killing another Spirit issure. If Ranger 1 drops a FS, then Ranger 2 of the same team drops another FS. FS-1 will be destroyed and FS-2 will be put up. However, will the players experience a sudden drop of health (and thus die) before coming HP comes back up?

Neo-LD · Aug 26, 2005, 12:01 AM // 00:01

I wasnt around for the earlier versions of NR, but all I can say is that spirit groups are certifiably dead. *Hopefully* The undisclosed changes include buffed enchantment removal, so it may prove interesting to watch the tombs metagame develop. Then again, if they didnt, it may not.

Ensign I dont know if you missed my post or simply had no comment, but I spoke directly to one of your earlier points (elementalist balance) and though it was a general post to everyone, it was more aimed towards you than anyone else since you were the one who brought it up. I was looking for some input.

Ensign · Aug 26, 2005, 01:20 AM // 01:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Ensign I dont know if you missed my post or simply had no comment

I really didn't have anything to add at the time since I was on a different topic entirely. I'll look over it now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

What they could do is mod some spells so they deal increased damage upon hit, but have after effects that make spiking with similar spells less effective.

Terrible idea. Elementalists are already the kings of one-hit kills, and this sort of change would turn them into a 'one hit kill or bust' character class. You'd basically have one of two scenarios - one, that the one hit kill skills are good enough to base an instakill build around, or two, those skills are completely unplayable. Because, really, that's all they're good for - you get your one good hit, and after that's up you'd have virtually your entire build neutered until the temporary buff fell off.

The trouble, overall, is that one hit kills are fundamentally unfair and thus undesirable, but once you start looking at the two hit kill timeframe, say Orb into Strike, Rangers and Warriors have stepped in with builds that just deal more damage over the course of ~2 seconds than an Elementalist can. So all the Elementalist has going for him is that one hit kill, which can't be allowed, which leaves him with, what? In the game as it stands, Elementalists are 3rd string damage outside of that one spike. Then you look at how bad their energy is, how they're designed as a burst class, and the horrendous lack of depth their skill lines have - they're just not playable damage dealers unless the better options are seeing too much hate.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Also, exhaustion needs to toned waaaayyy down.

I personally don't have a problem with Exhaustion - I think people really fear Exhuasting themselves down to 20-30 max energy and I really don't know why. It's a much smaller drawback than a lot of people think it is. The only skill that it's really problematic on is Obsidian Flame, which is priced like a spam nuke but can't be used that way because of the Exhaustion. I don't think it's nearly as big a problem as each line being composed heavily of expensive, underpowered crap that we're supposed to care about because we have Energy Storage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Water needs to be fixed somehow.

The problem with Water as an offensive line, is that it only has a grand total of eight skills that can deal damage, two of which are elite, and four of which are complete and utter shit. Of the four playable ones, you only have two that you actually want to use - Water Trident and Maelstrom. After that you can run Ice Spikes, which is weak but, hey, you need *something*, and Shard Storm, which, bluntly, is awful, but it's just on this side of the Conjure + Wand standard so you could run it if you're desperate. That's it. Try and make an offensive build out of that. Guess what - you can't. A 'good' Water build isn't really a nuker, but a hybrid Mesmer that can't run Energy Drain. I like the character thematically but it just doesn't have the power neccessary to cut it in PvP. Not when the competition is a Quick Shot Ranger that spikes like an Air Elementalist, and also has access to snares, interrupts, and outstanding energy debilitation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Lastly, there needs to be some more cross element combos that people would actually take advantage of.

I don't think that's possible. They're really driven themselves into a corner with the 'all into one attribute or bust' character models so anything that's supposed to work cross attribute has to really shine and not just be some dumb trick. I really don't like those sorts of skills anyway because if they're any good they feel like we're being force-fed builds, and if they're awful they just look even worse.

What Elementalists need, bluntly, is a reason to run Elementalist skills. I can't stress this enough - Elementalist damage is *terrible*. The skills I want from the Elementalist in my builds are disruptive or defensive in nature (Gale, Blurred Vision, Wards), and I'd rather stick those on a Smiter than actually pump up Elementalist lines.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

But there needs to be lightning spells that deal TRIPLE damage if the target is doused by water

Bah, I don't want a class full of unwieldly, conditional combos. I just want an Air skill that can deal damage comparable to what you get from Dual Shot, or, heaven forbid, Eviscerate. Somewhere along the lines Elementalists stopped being the glass jawed, energy intensive damage machines, and they just need to get back to that.

Peace,
-CxE

Aracos79 · Aug 26, 2005, 01:27 AM // 01:27

Maybe something that would help would be to give the ele some AoE attacks that are not DoT in nature. Something akin to Fireball perhaps but with a larger AoE and an energy/recharge along the lines of Fireball's old stats.

I totally agree about the weakness of ele skills though. Once I turned my PvE E/Mo into a smiter I never looked back. Give me an intelligent warrior to smite off of and I'll put any ele skill based "nuker" to shame. Monks are overpowered straight across the board now that I think about it. :P

Ensign · Aug 26, 2005, 01:43 AM // 01:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aracos79

Maybe something that would help would be to give the ele some AoE attacks that are not DoT in nature.

I don't think there's any real problem with the DoT nature of Fire skills. The problems are simply that said DoT is too much energy and too long of a cast time for too little damage. I'd happily play Firestorm in PvP if it did, say, 33% more damage and had a 3 second cast time. Ice Spikes would be great at 10 energy and a 10 second recharge. Strike would be outstanding if it did 85 instead of 70 - Orb would be solid (but still dodgable) at 170 per hit and 10 energy to cast. Why do you expect someone to pay 25 for an Earthquake? Are we supposed to get excited by Deep Freeze when it has a pathetic AoE? It's clear that packs of Elementalists are something that they fear taking over in PvP with lots of huge frontloaded nukes, but right now they're just a joke.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aracos79

I totally agree about the weakness of ele skills though. Once I turned my PvE E/Mo into a smiter I never looked back.

Isn't playing an Elementalist so much more rewarding once you realize that you don't have to use Elementalist skills? An Elementalist / Monk can crank out the Smiting and Protections like no one's business - an Elementalist / Mesmer can power out top Mesmer harassment all day. Just splash in the broken skill and a few of the better pieces of support (Gale, Wards) and you've got a top notch Elementalist ready to go.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aracos79

Monks are overpowered straight across the board now that I think about it. :P

I wouldn't go that far. The damage being dealt by Zealot's Fire is a bit extreme, but it isn't that far out of line with what Warriors and Rangers are dishing out. It just looks overpowered compared to what an Elementalist can do...but so does just about everything, really.

Peace,
-CxE

Neo-LD · Aug 26, 2005, 01:53 AM // 01:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

What Elementalists need, bluntly, is a reason to run Elementalist skills. I can't stress this enough - Elementalist damage is *terrible*.

Well thats what I was going for... trying to fix eles so they can deal more damage without having 1-hit kills. Like you said, there arent alot of solutions.

The thing which makes rangers and warriors deal so much more damage is that their skills are cheaper and recharge faster. Good elementalist skills dont recharge fast and arent cheap. Maybe if they buffed more basic spells like stone daggers or lightning strike (or maybe even flare) they would have a re-usable attack that, while not comparable to a war/ran in a damage chain, would be able to fill in and provide daage equivilent to normal attacks from wars/rans.

Or perhaps the design of damage king is flawed fundamentally. Elementalists could be modded to fill a more supportive role: adding their damage when needed, but having numerous defensive and supportive spells to use too. ELementalists have some of that already: wards, elemental armors, etc. but additional spells like

"fierce wind" (for lack of a ore imaginative name) could cause all nearby arrows have a %chance to miss.

"Flameskin", which grants the enchanted person +25 AL vs Fire and sets any foe the enchanted person is near on fire.

Im sure ANET could coe up with better, but those are just examples. Elementalist could fil a supprot role. But if that happens, the problem is we have 2 damage classes, 1 healing class, and 3 support classes (ele, necro, mes) Seems like overkill.

Aracos79 · Aug 26, 2005, 01:55 AM // 01:55

Perhaps this is just my perception, but I think that a related problem is the underpowered nature of the "primary attributes" of the other casting classes. Divine Favor is something only a healing monk REALLY cares about, a prot or smiter can live without it. Fast Casting has done very little to impress me. I've looked at the charts, I see the difference... but does it really help a mesmer more than Energy Storage? Soul Reaping is potentially powerful, but conditional by its own nature. ES always gives you more energy, no strings attached.

Granted none of this directly addresses the problems with elementalist skills and their damage potential. But maybe if these attributes were more powerful/useful, people would play those classes and the elementalists could find their own place in the game. Or more likely... disappear entirely I suppose. :P

Morganas · Aug 26, 2005, 02:01 AM // 02:01

Elementalist spiking can be useful without being a potential one hit kill. You're ignoring its most obvious use as a finisher... Say you have some guys apply mass degen, monk has to make some choices and now a few guys are at half health, THEN you spike to death.

Spiking needs to take more of a support role rather then being the sole killing method of a team build, and for the moment it does this fine. It will still do it fine after chain lightening gets nerfed.

Calibretto_9 · Aug 26, 2005, 02:46 AM // 02:46

Ensign has hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately, his points about elementalists and their lack of productivity is showing through to other classes. I recently made a post about this in the strategy discussion board called "Elemental Necessity." Elementals (And I use the term elementals referring to pure elementals, not beefed up smiters) no longer hit hard like the glass cannons they're described to be. Necromancers are even worse, because they've been stuck with soul reaping. If you want to see a gimped PvP attribute line, look no further than soul reaping. It has absolutely no skills in it, and unlike what it was intended to be, is a pitiful excuse for an energy battery outside PvE. With Putrid being nerfed (And a well deserved nerf at that), what is the reasoning behind bringing a necro? A BiPer? That's all I can think of. It's not the necromancer skills that suck so much as it is they cast a few skills and sit there and wait for their energy to recharge.

Now let me finish with my point. The point is that we currently have 2 classes out of 6 that are arguably doing a pitiful job of doing what it is they do. So we're left with 4 classes to play, and some of these classes are only effective in a handful of builds. I, personally, can't see a greater need to be corrected in such a great game.

P.S. - Please, don't get off topic with rants about the effectiveness of elementals or necromancers, as there are plenty of other threads to agrue that.

-z|o- · Aug 26, 2005, 03:51 AM // 03:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I don't think that's possible. They're really driven themselves into a corner with the 'all into one attribute or bust' character models so anything that's supposed to work cross attribute has to really shine and not just be some dumb trick.

There is also an option to run 2 eles spected in diferent lines instead of 2 eles spected in the same one.

Quote:

I really don't like those sorts of skills anyway because if they're any good they feel like we're being force-fed builds, and if they're awful they just look even worse.

Isnt the way all conditional combos work anyway?

Quote:

What Elementalists need, bluntly, is a reason to run Elementalist skills. I can't stress this enough - Elementalist damage is *terrible*.

Air dmg still looks good. What drove air spike out of metagame was the energy managment, NR/QZ completly raped eles. AoE spells could probably use some buff though to make them more usable (reduction in recharge/cast time perhaps).

Quote:

Strike would be outstanding if it did 85 instead of 70 - Orb would be solid (but still dodgable) at 170 per hit and 10 energy to cast.

Buffing up dmg this much would drive everyone into using ward stacking or winter/mantra of frost combo. Prot monks wont be able to keep up with target switching or count down spike+lingering. Not to mention how insanely good these skills would be in combination with Echo under Attunement.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calibretto_9

Necromancers are even worse, because they've been stuck with soul reaping. If you want to see a gimped PvP attribute line, look no further than soul reaping. It has absolutely no skills in it, and unlike what it was intended to be, is a pitiful excuse for an energy battery outside PvE.

SR servers its purpose when you got corpse targeting skills, such as wells or self heals in some cases. Speaking of which, im hoping to see some changes in corpse targeting skills in this new patch. Casting time in particular. All the spells that target corpses should have the same casting time to give a chance any of those skills be included into a skill bar.

Zeru · Aug 26, 2005, 03:51 AM // 03:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Morganas

Elementalist spiking can be useful without being a potential one hit kill. You're ignoring its most obvious use as a finisher... Say you have some guys apply mass degen, monk has to make some choices and now a few guys are at half health, THEN you spike to death.

Spiking needs to take more of a support role rather then being the sole killing method of a team build, and for the moment it does this fine. It will still do it fine after chain lightening gets nerfed.

Frenzy+Eviscerate+Executioners will spike better if buffed with JI/SoH than what the ele can offer without using lightning surge, and surge has its own problems.

As far as damage goes, yeah Eles got the short end of the stick. Not only are they very weak to energy denial (ether renewal can be countered) but their damage doesn't make up for it as has been said a number of times.

Besides wards and a few disruption stuff, their only real good use is for ether renewal abuse with other classes skills and water eles. Water eles don't exactly do good damage but they are the best attribute line by far at controlling the battlefield. Some amount of mobility control is practically mandatory for any gvg and water eles provide the best amount of it.

Ensign · Aug 26, 2005, 03:54 AM // 03:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Well thats what I was going for... trying to fix eles so they can deal more damage without having 1-hit kills. Like you said, there arent alot of solutions.

They need to approach the other angles, to make sure that Elementalist damage is 'better' damage than Warrior or Ranger damage. Fire damage, for example, is both AoE and DoT, meaning that while they can potentially put a huge amount of damage into a single spell, it won't neccessarily spike harder because the total damage dealt is so diffuse. Something like Ice Spikes or Water Trident could deal excellent damage, but also has those slows and knockdowns tacked on that pushes it over the edge.

Air is harder in this regard, because it's supposed to be 'single target' nuking but it simply isn't very good at it - only Chain Lightning was really any good in the line, and now that's gone. Air skills should probably have higher armor penetration, and they need secondary effects as well - interrupts and conditions are good in this regard.

At least that's the way I can see them being competitive. Just trying to do raw damage isn't going to cut it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

The thing which makes rangers and warriors deal so much more damage is that their skills are cheaper and recharge faster.

I'm not really concerned with that for spikes - I'm concerned with how much damage I can pack into, say, 2 seconds. Warriors and Rangers just have great attack speeds and attack speed boosts, while Elementalists are stuck having to go through the entire cast animation every time. Give Elementalists a Tiger's Fury for casting speed and I'll shut up on this argument right now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Im sure ANET could coe up with better, but those are just examples. Elementalist could fil a supprot role. But if that happens, the problem is we have 2 damage classes, 1 healing class, and 3 support classes (ele, necro, mes) Seems like overkill.

Right, then you have that sort of breakdown when what you really want is somthing like 3 damage classes, 2 healing classes, and 1 support class. Support tends to just get splashed in so you'd end up with a bunch of builds that were really just Warriors, Rangers, and Monks, with a few Mesmers for support.

Not all that different from what we have now, really.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aracos79

Perhaps this is just my perception, but I think that a related problem is the underpowered nature of the "primary attributes" of the other casting classes.

Certainly. Smiting Monks don't care about Divine Favor much, and a lot of Mesmer skills cast fast enough that Fast Casting really doesn't matter. Necro is really splashable. You'd happily run any of those as a secondary to an Elementalist - unfortunately your character just happens to continue to get better the less Elementalist skills you run.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aracos79

Granted none of this directly addresses the problems with elementalist skills and their damage potential. But maybe if these attributes were more powerful/useful, people would play those classes and the elementalists could find their own place in the game. Or more likely... disappear entirely I suppose. :P

I don't think they'd ever disappear entirely - there's still great stuff like Wards, and Gale, and Ether Renewal is still retardedly overpowered. But there's not a lot to 'em so if the perks of running some of the Elementalist secondaries weren't there anymore they'd be reduced to niche secondary professions. Still present, but not really.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Morganas

Elementalist spiking can be useful without being a potential one hit kill. You're ignoring its most obvious use as a finisher... Say you have some guys apply mass degen, monk has to make some choices and now a few guys are at half health, THEN you spike to death.

Sure, it's still useful as a one hit spike to finish then. The point is still the same, I feel - that Elementalists are good when they only have to cast one spell to finish off the opponent, not two.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeru

Frenzy+Eviscerate+Executioners will spike better if buffed with JI/SoH than what the ele can offer without using lightning surge, and surge has its own problems.

You're adding a whole lot more to that than you need to. An average Eviscerate / Executioner's Strike at 16/10 Axe/Strength will hit for 81 damage. Two of those back to back, without a speed buff, hits for 162. That's over one and a third second, for a spike DPS of 122 - just over the 120 a one-two Air punch can deliver. Forget Frenzy, forget JI, and forget SoH. Eviscerate/Executioner's hits harder than Orb/Strike, unbuffed. And no, that isn't counting the Deep Wound.

Peace,
-CxE

Dead Panda · Aug 26, 2005, 04:48 AM // 04:48

With NR out of Enchent removal, and Putrid down to 5 second cooldown....

Maybe, just maybe.... People would start to like Well of Profane =O

Zeru · Aug 26, 2005, 04:48 AM // 04:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

You're adding a whole lot more to that than you need to. An average Eviscerate / Executioner's Strike at 16/10 Axe/Strength will hit for 81 damage. Two of those back to back, without a speed buff, hits for 162. That's over one and a third second, for a spike DPS of 122 - just over the 120 a one-two Air punch can deliver. Forget Frenzy, forget JI, and forget SoH. Eviscerate/Executioner's hits harder than Orb/Strike, unbuffed.

Peace,
-CxE

You are right, I overcompensated. The sad thing is that when you add in the other 3 skills you realize how much of a joke air is compared to buffed warriors. Warriors are only kept in check (barely) by the fact that there is such a depth of warrior hate, especially the absurdly good ward against melee. Eles are already kept in check by energy denial, and while a fair portion of warrior hate works on rangers, you usually don't want to overload on it because heavy offensive warrior/ranger teams are not too common (I bet they will be if ER stays the same though). Edenial on the other hand severely cripples 5 classes and hurts the 6th moderately, so its not like its specifically ele hate.

If eles could buff their spells at the expense of energy or something, perhaps an enchant like the boon effect, and signet of humility couldn't completely lock any good energy management down with QZ, then air and maybe fire eles would be useful. Till then, I'm taking an ele only for Ether Renewal, wards/earth defense, or water snares.

Vermilion Okeanos · Aug 26, 2005, 04:54 AM // 04:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Give Elementalists a Tiger's Fury for casting speed and I'll shut up on this argument right now.

LOL, I would love to see a caster version of tiger's fury for casting.

Aracos79 · Aug 26, 2005, 04:55 AM // 04:55

I'm thinking that there's a nerf in the offing for Ether Renewal though. Don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly in favor of that, but I think when we see the full list of changes... we just might find that it got whacked by the nerf bat too.

From the looks of things right now, it looks like I'll be going back to playing my warrior a lot more after this weekend.

arredondo · Aug 26, 2005, 05:04 AM // 05:04

Interesting debate. However I don't see defense being factored into the discussion much. Doesn't that affect the comparisons? I mean there are a lot of anti-Warrior defenses in the game, as there are anti-caster. It would be a complex analysis, but in general how frequently can each of these compared classes get the optimal results?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

You're adding a whole lot more to that than you need to. An average Eviscerate / Executioner's Strike at 16/10 Axe/Strength will hit for 81 damage. Two of those back to back, without a speed buff, hits for 162. That's over one and a third second, for a spike DPS of 122 - just over the 120 a one-two Air punch can deliver. Forget Frenzy, forget JI, and forget SoH. Eviscerate/Executioner's hits harder than Orb/Strike, unbuffed. And no, that isn't counting the Deep Wound.

Peace,
-CxE

Sure, Warriors are an afterthought target most times, but if enough are doing this kind of damage regularly (while Air eles are nerfed a bit) they may get more attention early on and there are a lot of generally unused tools that can keep their DPS in check. Especially now that NR is toned down... players will slowly work enchants and hexes into their builds, and many of those affect Warriors. Still, barely any Warriors maximize the damage in ways like you've described, so the need to control them isn't yet an issue.

Also, skill access convenience is an issue here it seems. To get those Axe combos to work, the Warrior must get to a target, work up the adrenaline, and then unleash the damage. The Ele only needs to aim from a distance and fire. Not saying that this dismisses any of the arguments so far, but I think these issues do have some kind of affect on the field of play.

Calibretto_9 · Aug 26, 2005, 05:33 AM // 05:33

The use of 16 points in your weapon's attribute is becoming more and more talked about, and I think you'll find that any warrior worth his salt (Most especially axe warriors) has kicked his weapon skill up to 16. So yes, I think you most definitely should expect the kind of damage Ensign is posting, because that's the realistic expectation of what your enemy will bring to the table. On the other hand, you're heading in the right direction when you assume warriors are going to start drawing more attention.

Here's the catch - In the past, monks were forced to mass heal their elementals to keep them firing. Now, they'll just bring hex removals to have the same effect on their newly discovered damage dealers, the warrior. The warriors aren't going to require the degree of healing that soft targets will, so there ya have it. No team is going to let such a valuable asset be hindered, so you're going to see a "behind the lines" fight between teams, with one team trying to hinder the enemy warriors and the other team keeping their warriors cooking. But remember, this is only my opinion and a prediction on what I see is to come.

And yes, eles need only to aim and fire, but so do rangers. But the trick is, rangers deal more damage in the long run and are harder to kill. So what I see happening is teams composed of warriors, rangers, monks, and a mesmer. I believe the rangers will provide the steady stream of damage while warriors will be running around spiking the called targets. This is all hypothetical though and only my opinion. We'll see what happens as time unfolds.

Ensign · Aug 26, 2005, 05:35 AM // 05:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by -z|o-

Air dmg still looks good. What drove air spike out of metagame was the energy managment, NR/QZ completly raped eles.

I can't say that I agree with this. Air Spike fell out of the metagame once people started preparing for it - it is not a strategy that deals with even a token amount of resistance well at all. Drop a Fertile Season in the back, GG. Stick a Mesmer on one of your spikers so he can never get his part of the spike in, GG. Run something like Elemental Resistance on your Monks and Mesmers, GG. The damage over even short periods of time from Air Spike was really pathetic. Playing against it was pretty simple, really - either you were prepared for it, they can't one hit kill you, and you cruise to victory, or you didn't prepare for it, you get instakilled by Chain Lightning, and you go back to the staging area. There wasn't any in between.

Quote:

Originally Posted by -z|o-

Buffing up dmg this much would drive everyone into using ward stacking or winter/mantra of frost combo.

Buffing up damage that much (around 20%) would put Air Spike on par with what a buffed Warrior can do. Ok, not really, the buffed Warrior would still be a bigger threat. I really don't think a lot of people have an appreciation for just how much damage a good Warrior or Ranger will kick out.

But let's just follow this train of thought. If Air Spike did enough damage to potentially one-hit kill an unprepared target, then teams will have to prepare for it and bring proactive defenses and plans of attack for Elementalist teams. To that I ask, what's the problem? Teams already have to bring plans for the Warrior and Ranger spikes they already see. Would making Elementalists dangerous enough to bring into the equation really be a problem? Making teams bring a copy of Fertile to diffuse the first couple spikes, or a Mesmer that can take out a spiker to let the Monks keep up, to a Ward, or a bunch of other things you can do to beat up an Elementalist spike group - is forcing a team to bring at least one of those answers too much to ask? It would seem so, because Elementalist gank teams appear to be balanced around not being able to kill unprepared enemies. That's really a shame, because most people do bring the defenses they'll need, and while Elementalists are going to start hurting to spike out an unprepared team, Warriors and Rangers don't seem to be having much problem taking out even prepared teams these days.

Quote:

Originally Posted by -z|o-

Prot monks wont be able to keep up with target switching or count down spike+lingering.

Well putting Protective Spirit on after the initial volley was never an effective plan against Chain + Lingering, or even against Warrior or Ranger spikes these days. You need to get it up before then, you need a proactive defense like Aegis or a Ward or a Fertile. In the case of an Elementalist spike team, *one* Mesmer can almost singlehandedly beat their build. They need everyone functioning properly to instakill, and if you lock down even a single opponent, it's GG.

Quote:

Originally Posted by -z|o-

Not to mention how insanely good these skills would be in combination with Echo under Attunement.

Honestly, I don't think either of the proposed skills would be worth echoing. They aren't anything special like Chain Lightning was (the big draw of that skill wasn't just that it spiked hard, but it spiked hard on *several targets*), and don't deal damage that any experienced team hasn't seen already. Attunement is decent but nothing to really write home about - it's comparable to the other energy management options available.

Peace,
-CxE