Curse

Akathrielah · Aug 27, 2005, 05:17 PM // 17:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jake

Ok I was too vague with what I said, I assumed too much. Warrior's have to put themselves in a much more dangerous enviroment in guild wars I basically meant --> you have to charge your opponents, you have to be in their wards, you have to be inside their pbaoe ranges in order to beable to attack, you have to beable to chase your opponent down. Guild wars takes care of this by having a large amount of skills that affect melee only as opposed to ranged damage. Warrior's have the highest potential but are kept in check by all the danger they have to put themselves into (in this case, the many melee only counters that exist). If a warrior is snared, he can't do any damage. If AoEs weren't so terrible in this game, someone standing inside their own firestorm or eruption or something should make warriors pay for doing so as well which is the main argument for me saying "putting yourself in danger in order to beable to do damage". Right now the only skill that seems to really beable to do that is balthazaar's aura but that's because it ignores armor (which means the damage is threatening enough) and can move around with the target. An ele isn't gonna care about BA on someone, he can just run off for a bit then blow his energy as soon as he's safe, losing not much potential dps, warrior on the other hand... every second he isn't doing shit counts (lack of adrenaline gain makes this worse.)

I don't know why I'm saying all this crap, all I'm saying is ranged damage is safer and less prone to being countered which it is.

People who espouse all of the warrior counters there are, seem to forget all of the wonderful anti caster abilities out there. Coupled with the fact that many Elementalist spells, especially the air and fire line all have 2+ second cast times making them painfully easy to interrupt, add that to grossly inefficient energy costs and elementalist are relatively the easiest class to counter while offering little other than second rate dps when compared to a dps build ranger or warrior.

Lets put it this way, if a warrior gets blinded or has a hex placed on him, say Soothing Images, or attacks a target with sympathetic visage on, etc. He loses a few swings, and/or adren, after which the condition or hex is removed or he switches his target. He can go back to dealing damage and building up adren (if he lost any).

However if an elementalist throws an lightning orb at a target that happens to be protected in some way (prot spirit, whatever) he just blew 15 energy for nothing. Worse yet if he gets interrupted, or fired through a hex that a mesmer dropped on him w/ fast casting, he just lost 15 energy and now suffers the effects of whatever the hex has on him. That is not even counting energy denial in this game, which may not seem to impact as heavily on the elementalist because of his larger energy pool, but once you start factoring the ridcoulous costs (and the near worthlessness of Attunements vs anti casters) of elementalists spells, they are in as much trouble as any other caster. While an elementalist can sit around building up energy, energy regens relatively slowly and enchantments and skills that increase regen or energy pale to the rate at which a warrior can build and rebuild up his adrenaline especially if has buffs that enable him speed that process up (Dark Fury, FGJ, Attack speed buffs, etc.)

The point im trying to make is, a warrior can be targeted with conditions that are easily removed or with hexes that have to remain on him to be effective, after which he can go back to doing his dps. While an elementalist can be completely shutdown preventing him from doing anything but fire his silly wand or staff.

Also to add - every second any damage dealing build isn't doing anything is a second wasted, so your point about elementalist being able to manuever around to avoid that BA doesn't count for much.

Jake · Aug 27, 2005, 08:46 PM // 20:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Akathrielah

People who espouse all of the warrior counters there are, seem to forget all of the wonderful anti caster abilities out there. Coupled with the fact that many Elementalist spells, especially the air and fire line all have 2+ second cast times making them painfully easy to interrupt, add that to grossly inefficient energy costs and elementalist are relatively the easiest class to counter while offering little other than second rate dps when compared to a dps build ranger or warrior.

I said earlier that AoEs that do not hit a single target hard can be given unique energy cost/cast time/recast numbers, which means they should be much more efficient and cast much faster meaning much harder to interrupt. Anti-caster abilities are usable against 4 professions in the game, anti-melee is basically used against W primaries and R/Ws only for the most part. Lets not forget that there's methods to making your spells uninterruptable outside of a knockdown too. But yes eles need a buff to their damage dealing methods. I never said they were fine as is right now, I'm just saying they need a buff to their AoE/Rain lines instead of being single target nukers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Akathrielah

Also to add - every second any damage dealing build isn't doing anything is a second wasted, so your point about elementalist being able to manuever around to avoid that BA doesn't count for much.

No not necessarily... a warrior has no drawbacks to attacking, he should be attacking at ALL times there's no reason not to (unless you are killing yourself by attacking because of like a hex). An ele on the other hand, is limited by his energy pool, this means he can run around, unload his damage in bursts, run around some more rebuilding his energy pool, unload his energy again in another burst, etc. This would be much easier to see if ele cast times weren't so terrible.

tastegw · Aug 27, 2005, 09:19 PM // 21:19

didnt take the time to fully read this entire thread,

but for those who say enchanters will rule us all, this isnt true.
there are many ways to counter enchanting heavy teams.

what wer are going to see are people actually taking advantage of the maps themselfs and using the terrain wisely to fit their teams needs.

what i like best about this patch is the use of wells can now be effectivly used in pvp.

well of suffering = -6 health pips for 30 seconds at high death magic.
thats 360 massive aoe dmg over time.

and at the same time, the use of well of power and well of blood to help your healing balls without the need of massive enchants.

a good team will allways be able to get their wells down.

if its not blackout + energy denail on opposing teams necro, its him being first target, and when he is rezed, kill em again.

Akathrielah · Aug 27, 2005, 10:19 PM // 22:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jake

I said earlier that AoEs that do not hit a single target hard can be given unique energy cost/cast time/recast numbers, which means they should be much more efficient and cast much faster meaning much harder to interrupt. Anti-caster abilities are usable against 4 professions in the game, anti-melee is basically used against W primaries and R/Ws only for the most part. Lets not forget that there's methods to making your spells uninterruptable outside of a knockdown too. But yes eles need a buff to their damage dealing methods. I never said they were fine as is right now, I'm just saying they need a buff to their AoE/Rain lines instead of being single target nukers.

No not necessarily... a warrior has no drawbacks to attacking, he should be attacking at ALL times there's no reason not to (unless you are killing yourself by attacking because of like a hex). An ele on the other hand, is limited by his energy pool, this means he can run around, unload his damage in bursts, run around some more rebuilding his energy pool, unload his energy again in another burst, etc. This would be much easier to see if ele cast times weren't so terrible.

Problem being is that all of the skills that make spell casting uninterruptable is the single fact that you are tacking on more energy and adding more casting time to elementalists dismal dps, casting time and gross mana cost. If you are going to use glyph of concentration for example, you are tacking on another 5 energy and 1 second to your cast time, plus the skill itself can be interrupted or distracted and then you are back to square one.

And the problem with buffing Elementalists by giving them "better" aoe spells is the mere fact that fire is supposed to be the main AoE line leaving the Air Line, which is purposely dedicated to single target nukng, behind. Unless you are to collaspe the skill lines into one or alter the purpose of the air line altogether.

Also the problem with giving Elementalist more aoes for damage is the mere-fact that human opponents simply aren't just going to stand in your aoe taking damage, which will restrict said spells to altar maps. Aoe spells are far more suited to a pve environment where the mob merely stands in one place taking full brunt of the aoe, in pvp you will need the elementalist to have powerful single target spells if they are to remain competetive damage wise.

The problem has already been said that the said "bursts" that elementalists can put out is already pitiful compared to what a ranger can spike for, much less a warrior, and neither nearly has a much downtime as the elementalist.

Ensign · Aug 27, 2005, 11:40 PM // 23:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Even if they start giving elementalists stronger up front spells, you know they are going to be countered by a 25ish cost and a 5 second cast (or more) time with a 30-60 second refresh

Yeah, they'll probably keep on giving the Elementalist more and more crap until the mindset about the class changes. No one gets excited by a 3 second cast time except the kiddies. Competitive players look at those and reject anything that doesn't have a potentially game-breaking effect. It's just an ugly cycle.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

This is part of the problem with all the elementalists lines. Sure a couple of them are good, but the elementalists is forced to wait a long time before they can use them again and are typically rather vulnerable while they do compared to every other class in the game.

That's the biggest problem, definitely - a serious lack of depth. You only have 2, maybe 3 offensive skills worth playing per line, and the vast majority of those have recharges of 15 seconds or more - giving you lots of dead time to fill.

I'm not even talking about utility lines like Water which don't have a lot of offensive skills to begin with. Look at Fire Magic, for instance. You have a line with fourteen attack skills, yet you rarely if ever see a Fire Elementalist in PvP. Why? Well just look at what you have. You have 3 PBAoE attacks, two of which have you running around like a Warrior but not dealing nearly as much damage, and one that's really just a bad Symbol of Wrath and only works if you're standing in place tanking a bunch of melee guys anyway. Then you have the pseudo-PBAoE in Phoenix that's fine in PvE when you're trying to solo but in PvP is just a long casting joke. You have a couple of over time storms, neither of which deals useful amounts of damage, and while Firestorm is at least relatively cheap Searing Heat is a horrendous joke. Then you have Rodgort's Invocation, the Fireball with the seven billion second cast time. You have Flare, which is really just an energy intensive, slow, low damage version of a Ranger with normal bow attacks.

Of everything in that line, the only skills that you really *want* to use are Meteor Shower, because of just how scary that skill can be, and Fireball, because after all the buffs it's just efficient. Meteor is still acceptable, though the 'buff' really doesn't matter as the issue with that skill is the recharge. Immolate is still playable single target damage but it just isn't anything special - especially when you look at the new Fireball. So four playable skills in the entire line, plus a Conjure to fill in the blanks. Is that the foundation of a solid PvP build? I don't think so.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

The aftercasts never bothered me as much as the overly long cast time and refresh times.

The aftercasts bother me because of what they do to the few fast skills that the Elementalist has. Just look at something like Strike or Orb without an aftercast - they're just great spells. But you tack on that .75 seconds to every single spell and it just slows everything down, while Warriors and Rangers blaze on ahead. Sure, the retarded cast and recharge times are are a bigger problem, but even if they make a skill that doesn't have those problems it slams into aftercast and gets neutered.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Actually only spirit shackles would be close enough to ranger specific.

Warriors and Rangers share a lot of hex hate. I consider this a good thing, as flexible hate is better hate. Still, having something that viciously wrecks Ranger strategies, like Ward Against Melee does to Warriors, would be a nice failsafe.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

I am starting to see a pattern here.

My argument might be getting lost in the details. Here it is in simplest terms:

Ether Renewal is so good that you don't even really have to try to make it one of the best energy management skills in the game. If you actually do try and combine it with good, fast skills (like what the Monk has available), it is elevated to a brand new level of insanity that isn't even comparable to anything else in the game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

elementalist skills are bad, but ether renewal shines with good (read monk) skills.

This isn't an argument specific to Ether Renewal. Energy management is better when it is combined with good skills. Most Elementalist skills are terrible, and good energy management skills won't help with that at all - combine good energy management with good spells, such as what the Monk has, and the whole just hums.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Also, stating that the total energy regain possible is out of line by making the ~6 pip comparison doesnt really wash either as prodigy, while having side effects, does a regen of 4

Ether Prodigy is realistically a 3.5 pip spell, as it does cost 5 to cast. On energy alone that makes it nothing special when compared with Offering of Blood (~3.2 pips @ 16) or Glyph of Energy (~3 pips). Of course then they started piling drawbacks onto it - the damage was never really an issue, but the Exhaustion pretty much kills it as an energy engine for Elementalists. An El/Mo with high Energy Storage is going to pretty much ignore the Exhaustion as a drawback, since he'd only cast it every 30 seconds or so, but for an Elementalist it pretty seriously hedges out any other Exhaustion skills.

So on some level it's yet another Elementalist energy management skill that's only really good when not used with Elementalist skills. How awful. It's really funny, too, because Exhaustion was added to the skill because it was a popular El/Mo Protector energy management option. It was a change that didn't nerf what it was supposed to nerf, but did destroy the skill for legitimate uses. Good job.

But I think the standard is clear - good, elite energy management skills do a bit better than 3 pips of regen. Ether Renewal does twice that without trying, and on something like an El/Mo Smiter or Protector it'll give in the neighborhood of 20 pips of regen, or more than you could even dream of spending. You have to balance skills around their grossest abuse, and, well, we know what Ether Renewal can do. Have fun.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

The two do parallel each other, so if one is out of balance both of them are.

Well given that one of the two is the most broken energy engine in the game, and the other is a piece of shit that no one runs, I think that this comparison is a *little* bit of a stretch. Take the 'per enchantment' clause off of Ether Renewal, and perhaps extend the duration to compensate. Then take Exhaustion off of Ether Prodigy so that the skill is at least on level with Offering of Blood / Glyph of Energy, and we can talk.

Oh, and for the record, I *would* run Flare in a build with Ether Renewal and 2 other enchantments. 50 energy every 30 seconds, plus free spam-casts of Flare, is an entirely acceptable use of two skill slots from where I'm sitting. Sure, spamming Flare sucks at 5 energy per cast, but when it has an energy cost of -10?

Peace,
-CxE

Jake · Aug 28, 2005, 12:05 AM // 00:05

I don't think you're quite getting it... you're too fogged up by the fact that eles aren't good now, too cynical.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Akathrielah

Problem being is that all of the skills that make spell casting uninterruptable is the single fact that you are tacking on more energy and adding more casting time to elementalists dismal dps, casting time and gross mana cost. If you are going to use glyph of concentration for example, you are tacking on another 5 energy and 1 second to your cast time, plus the skill itself can be interrupted or distracted and then you are back to square one.

It's already understood ele dps is sub-par, if they're buffed a bit, it should be up to par so get that outa the way. Ok, yeah the problem with eles is their long cast times, easy to interrupt, yet you're worried about interrupting a 1 second non-spell (glyph)? What's next? At the rate you're going, you're gonna say there's gonna be a warrior out there to wild blow your anti-interrupt stances every time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Akathrielah

And the problem with buffing Elementalists by giving them "better" aoe spells is the mere fact that fire is supposed to be the main AoE line leaving the Air Line, which is purposely dedicated to single target nukng, behind. Unless you are to collaspe the skill lines into one or alter the purpose of the air line altogether.

Also the problem with giving Elementalist more aoes for damage is the mere-fact that human opponents simply aren't just going to stand in your aoe taking damage, which will restrict said spells to altar maps. Aoe spells are far more suited to a pve environment where the mob merely stands in one place taking full brunt of the aoe, in pvp you will need the elementalist to have powerful single target spells if they are to remain competetive damage wise.

Ok, please get this whole PVE thing out of your head, no one gives a shit about PVE, I never was referring to PVE at all in my posts. PVE in this game is a joke and the people who actually play this game for the PVE are just casual players who use it to kill time since it has no monthly fee.

You can make AoEs strong enough to have an impact, I guess you really didn't even bother reading my first post, or were just too cynical about elementalists as a whole to comprehend it fully. If there were AoEs that have ward size radii, you think you're gonna be hitting a single target the majority of the time? Not saying there needs to be ward size rains because that'd be insane, but the target based direct damage AOEs like rodgorts invocation can be made to be weak to the target, but devastating to those around it. You can balance it to be moderate damage to a ward size range, to major damage to a much smaller radius.

Rains need to be more efficient and need to do more damage, but they should basically say "You better move or you'll pay". Right now only shower and maelstrom do that because of their side-effects, but they should say that because of their DAMAGE. The side effects should be a mere bonus. Looking at the damage/efficiency of most of the target based rains... eruption, searing heat, etc.. can't help but laugh at them. It's like these skills were balanced with PVE in mind when no one should really give 2 shits about it, this is not a PVE game. If they become stronger, the rains WILL find uses.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Akathrielah

The problem has already been said that the said "bursts" that elementalists can put out is already pitiful compared to what a ranger can spike for, much less a warrior, and neither nearly has a much downtime as the elementalist.

Just because their damage isn't as good doesn't mean what I said was wrong, they can still do that, while a warrior would be running away and thus not building any adrenaline at all and missing out on a solid chunk of potential damage due to not meleeing + no adren whereas an ele loses barely any. So the ele current spike potential isn't that good, but I said earlier their single target damage should be on par with rangers with their advantage coming from AoEs. Think for a second with the future elementalist in mind and not the current ok?

Mysterial · Aug 28, 2005, 12:20 AM // 00:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Akathrielah

Also the problem with giving Elementalist more aoes for damage is the mere-fact that human opponents simply aren't just going to stand in your aoe taking damage, which will restrict said spells to altar maps. Aoe spells are far more suited to a pve environment where the mob merely stands in one place taking full brunt of the aoe, in pvp you will need the elementalist to have powerful single target spells if they are to remain competetive damage wise.

I disagree that the damage over time spells are useless in PvP; besides altar maps, there's lots of ways you can force people to stay in the area of effect for long durations. The problem is that even if you stand in the thing for the entire duration, the damage STILL sucks. Even when I was a newbie playing PvE I wasn't stupid enough to take something like Searing Heat. Speaking of which, the end effect on that is hilarious. If for some reason you're still there at the end you get an amazing 3 seconds of burning which basically amounts to it having another second of duration. If the thing did burning the entire time it was on the field of play I still wouldn't take it. These spells should HURT if you're unable or unwilling to leave the area. Meteor Shower is the only one that does.

And speaking of Elementalists not having any damage buffs, it's a sad irony that there are three Conjure spells that so nicely could have done that, and instead they're weapon skills sitting there insulting the Elementalist primary who can't use them for anything meaningful while the Warriors and Rangers who can get yet more damage.

Akathrielah · Aug 28, 2005, 01:33 AM // 01:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jake

I don't think you're quite getting it... you're too fogged up by the fact that eles aren't good now, too cynical.

It's already understood ele dps is sub-par, if they're buffed a bit, it should be up to par so get that outa the way. Ok, yeah the problem with eles is their long cast times, easy to interrupt, yet you're worried about interrupting a 1 second non-spell (glyph)? What's next? At the rate you're going, you're gonna say there's gonna be a warrior out there to wild blow your anti-interrupt stances every time.

Ok, please get this whole PVE thing out of your head, no one gives a shit about PVE, I never was referring to PVE at all in my posts. PVE in this game is a joke and the people who actually play this game for the PVE are just casual players who use it to kill time since it has no monthly fee.

You can make AoEs strong enough to have an impact, I guess you really didn't even bother reading my first post, or were just too cynical about elementalists as a whole to comprehend it fully. If there were AoEs that have ward size radii, you think you're gonna be hitting a single target the majority of the time? Not saying there needs to be ward size rains because that'd be insane, but the target based direct damage AOEs like rodgorts invocation can be made to be weak to the target, but devastating to those around it. You can balance it to be moderate damage to a ward size range, to major damage to a much smaller radius.

Rains need to be more efficient and need to do more damage, but they should basically say "You better move or you'll pay". Right now only shower and maelstrom do that because of their side-effects, but they should say that because of their DAMAGE. The side effects should be a mere bonus. Looking at the damage/efficiency of most of the target based rains... eruption, searing heat, etc.. can't help but laugh at them. It's like these skills were balanced with PVE in mind when no one should really give 2 shits about it, this is not a PVE game. If they become stronger, the rains WILL find uses.

Just because their damage isn't as good doesn't mean what I said was wrong, they can still do that, while a warrior would be running away and thus not building any adrenaline at all and missing out on a solid chunk of potential damage due to not meleeing + no adren whereas an ele loses barely any. So the ele current spike potential isn't that good, but I said earlier their single target damage should be on par with rangers with their advantage coming from AoEs. Think for a second with the future elementalist in mind and not the current ok?

The point about the glyph of concentration was the fact that elementalist spells already cost enough energy and take long enough to cast, now you want to tack on another 5 energy and another 1 second to casting? And a 1 second cast time is certainly interruptable. The final point being is the fact that you have to bring an extra skill just to make many of the elementalist skills usuable in is silly.

Your suggestion about DD AoEs is a fine idea, but would be tricky to balance, but if it were to be implemeted corrected it would be a nice addition to the fire line of elementalist spells. What about the air line?

Elementalists damage-wise should be top rated dps, exceeding any class or at the very least on par with the best, with their primary drawbacks being high energy costs (low endurance) , low defense and a lack of flexibility. At the moment all of the drawbacks are there but none of the dps.

Ensign · Aug 28, 2005, 02:16 AM // 02:16

Glyphs tack on 1.75 seconds, not 1 second. Makes most of them pretty useless, really. I have been and still am of the opinion that they need to be .25 second cast skills with .75 second aftercasts. At least then they aren't huge time hogs.

Peace,
-CxE

Phades · Aug 28, 2005, 12:45 PM // 12:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

That's the biggest problem, definitely - a serious lack of depth. You only have 2, maybe 3 offensive skills worth playing per line, and the vast majority of those have recharges of 15 seconds or more - giving you lots of dead time to fill. ... Of everything in that line, the only skills that you really *want* to use are Meteor Shower, because of just how scary that skill can be, and Fireball, because after all the buffs it's just efficient. Meteor is still acceptable, though the 'buff' really doesn't matter as the issue with that skill is the recharge. Immolate is still playable single target damage but it just isn't anything special - especially when you look at the new Fireball. So four playable skills in the entire line, plus a Conjure to fill in the blanks. Is that the foundation of a solid PvP build? I don't think so.

Heh, you basically outlined a build that i run occasionaly in random arenas just to see if i can make it work. The only thing missing out of it is the situational phoenix use for the anti-spammer combination shower casts. Phoenix lands as the first meteor lands from shower, which is a sad commentary of how long it takes for the first meteor to hit and cause the spell to do anything. It is beatable and not godly by any streach of the imagination even if you try to make it more durable with renewal(rangers own it in a very non-humorous way). It does shine if i ever manage to hit more than one target at the same time though as i have been able to break 2 monk cycle teams with it, but requires good timing and conditional positioning/coordination with the other damage dealers in the event that no interuptor/disruptor is available. I would not say it is reliable in this endevor though and you can argue that the other team's play ability was not up to spec or made a mistake, but that kind of thing varies.

More to the point though, the fireball change is nice, but it made it more efficient than immolate, making immolate fall more into the overpriced flare catagory. Of that spell line, running something like ether renewal actually can detract from the build as it gives you fewer spells to use while in uptime and still get locked into waiting for a full skill reset. Air for damage, for me anyway, has always been that the entire line has shorter refresh times requiring fewer different copies of spells to actually do something appriciable with.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

The aftercasts bother me because of what they do to the few fast skills that the Elementalist has. Just look at something like Strike or Orb without an aftercast - they're just great spells. But you tack on that .75 seconds to every single spell and it just slows everything down, while Warriors and Rangers blaze on ahead. Sure, the retarded cast and recharge times are are a bigger problem, but even if they make a skill that doesn't have those problems it slams into aftercast and gets neutered.

Perhaps if the aftercast was more scalable towards the actual cast time it would make more sense. A .75 aftercast is not terrible when looking at a 5s cast time (assuming effect was worth the 5s), but against a 2 second or less cast time it does put a cramp on things. It is an uptime versus downtime argument. Yeah, an idea like that would just break the monk line and possibly tilt more power towards mesmer interupts and fast casting, but it has some sense in it for many necro or elementalist spells.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Warriors and Rangers share a lot of hex hate. I consider this a good thing, as flexible hate is better hate. Still, having something that viciously wrecks Ranger strategies, like Ward Against Melee does to Warriors, would be a nice failsafe.

I would say neccacary considering how many options to stop rangers are bypassed by other ranger skills making bringing those skills pointless. There arent a whole lot of other hexes that actually hurt rangers. The 2 "of failure" spells are ok at best and then the -attack speed curses help too, but it doesnt take much to remove 1 hex from 1 guy, especially when the aoe version of -attack speed will never catch more than 1 ranger, while it has a better chance of catching more than one warrior, just like blurred vision. Then again, people do stand in meteor showers occasionally, so i dunno, maybe rangers will take to holding hands since they dont have the company of thousands of spirits anymore.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Ether Renewal is so good that you don't even really have to try to make it one of the best energy management skills in the game. If you actually do try and combine it with good, fast skills (like what the Monk has available), it is elevated to a brand new level of insanity that isn't even comparable to anything else in the game.

The point i have been trying to make is that situation is not as easily duplicated in the other lines and does not create the same effect that it does when combined with the monk skills. Like my necro example, for instance, merely duplicates what a monk can do with sustained enchantments and not be forced to spend all of his uptime casting. My mesmer one was garbage and probably could be done better, but i couldnt think of anything that would really do anything appriciable together with renewal in those skill lines. Elementalist lines merely create a 10-12s burst damage effect, while not draining out half the energy pool. This kind of argument would be like stating the corpse exploitation spells are out of line due to how soul reaping works to power them. Yeah putrid chains are effective, but i wouldnt say more effective overal than a sucessful smite build helping create the corpses in the first place.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Ether Prodigy is realistically a 3.5 pip spell, as it does cost 5 to cast. On energy alone that makes it nothing special when compared with Offering of Blood (~3.2 pips @ 16) or Glyph of Energy (~3 pips). Of course then they started piling drawbacks onto it - the damage was never really an issue, but the Exhaustion pretty much kills it as an energy engine for Elementalists. An El/Mo with high Energy Storage is going to pretty much ignore the Exhaustion as a drawback, since he'd only cast it every 30 seconds or so, but for an Elementalist it pretty seriously hedges out any other Exhaustion skills.

I dont see how you are comming to that conclusion as prodigy lasts three times as long as renewal and the "blood is power/ritual" series. During that time frame the exaustion sorts its self out. Against offering or glyph you fall to the similar problems as energy tap/drain or mantra of recall, where you are not getting a passive benefit and taking time out to initialize the gain (mantra excluded of course). This goes back to uptime versus downtime arguments, but the glyph would still rank better than offering of blood as it requires no skill to get the benefit, even though the benefit only occurs at that level with 15/25e cost spells. Like say for instance a mo/e that uses it to power balthazar's aura, which in effect changes balthazar's to a 3s cast time 10e spell. It would be a unique idea if the glyphs actually modified instead of boosted spells though, as a kind of meta enchantment similar to mesmer spell copies.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Well given that one of the two is the most broken energy engine in the game, and the other is a piece of shit that no one runs, I think that this comparison is a *little* bit of a stretch. Take the 'per enchantment' clause off of Ether Renewal, and perhaps extend the duration to compensate.

Divine spirit, ftw i guess.

If you were running elementalist skills you would just take elemental attunement instead of renewal or prodigy. (Let the necro do the + pips...)If you wanted to run necro line of skills, you would be better off running a mesmer primary instead of an elementalist. Then all monk skills would only be good with a monk primary, ignoring tactics involving resurection skills of course. What needs to happen is a cap on the total number of enchantments able to be active on the same character at the same time, which also helps with current enchantment removal options. Renewal could stand a third control on skill say effect is triggered by 1-3 enchantments on the 0-15 scale, to help prevent some of the abuse, due to the 5/19 at 13 skill cutoff currently.

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Originally Posted by Ensign

Oh, and for the record, I *would* run Flare in a build with Ether Renewal and 2 other enchantments. 50 energy every 30 seconds, plus free spam-casts of Flare, is an entirely acceptable use of two skill slots from where I'm sitting. Sure, spamming Flare sucks at 5 energy per cast, but when it has an energy cost of -10?

Would be about as dangerous as a sword w/mo tanking paladin. There is nothing in the fire line that hits fast enough, hard enough, and regularly enough that justifies it. If you were using that to power something else like lingering curse or chillblains, then maybe, but it would be rather situational. Oops cant use curse with renewal, but meh you get the idea. For reference ill use your words to emphasise why.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Look at Fire Magic, for instance. You have a line with fourteen attack skills, yet you rarely if ever see a Fire Elementalist in PvP. Why? Well just look at what you have. You have 3 PBAoE attacks, two of which have you running around like a Warrior but not dealing nearly as much damage, and one that's really just a bad Symbol of Wrath and only works if you're standing in place tanking a bunch of melee guys anyway. Then you have the pseudo-PBAoE in Phoenix that's fine in PvE when you're trying to solo but in PvP is just a long casting joke. You have a couple of over time storms, neither of which deals useful amounts of damage, and while Firestorm is at least relatively cheap Searing Heat is a horrendous joke. Then you have Rodgort's Invocation, the Fireball with the seven billion second cast time. You have Flare, which is really just an energy intensive, slow, low damage version of a Ranger with normal bow attacks.

Symbol of wrath is actually more effective than inferno, flame burst, or lava font, in terms of cost vs damage even ignoring the holy damage angle. Oddly though, i did find phoenix to be more useful in pvp, due to mob behavior in close proximity and the actual aoe of the fireball it shoots (ie only gets things in front instead of everything around you like the pbaoe element hits).