Curse

unholy guardian · Aug 03, 2006, 03:40 PM // 15:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by BahamutKaiser

If you agree with Yichi than you are wrong with him.

Lightning Strike is exactly half as powerful as Lighting Hammer, they do the exact same thing, cannot be dodged, and 25% armor penetration, the only difference is twice as much damage on Lightning Hammer and Lighting Strike is 3 times faster recharge (as well as half the cast time).

In 15 seconds Lightning Strike can rechare 3 times, and deal 123 damage with 25% armor penetration. Lightning hammer will recharge once and deal 82 damage with 25% armor penetration in a single hit. Even though dealing more damage in a single hit is worth more cost, with a 15 second recharge, it is a straight trade off of more damage in a single hit vs more damage over a period of time, and the difference in cost is 5X. 5X for a skill that is only twice as powerful.

Honestly, if you include the fact that orb can miss, it should really only cost 10 energy, and Lightning Hammer should only cost about 15 energy, twice as powerful, 3 times as expensive as Lightning Strike. But reducing the cost of Orb is a bit too cheap, it is effective because of it's strength and spamability.

I say that Orb should deal 12.5% more damage, and stay at the same cost and recast, and Lightning hammer should be reduced to a 10 second recast, and cost 15 energy.

As said before, I think Anet has some serious flaws in calculating the significance of recast values, making many skills extremely deficient.

that seems the most resonable

JR · Aug 03, 2006, 04:21 PM // 16:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by BahamutKaiser

If you agree with Yichi than you are wrong with him.

Lightning Strike is exactly half as powerful as Lighting Hammer, they do the exact same thing, cannot be dodged, and 25% armor penetration, the only difference is twice as much damage on Lightning Hammer and Lighting Strike is 3 times faster recharge (as well as half the cast time).

In 15 seconds Lightning Strike can rechare 3 times, and deal 123 damage with 25% armor penetration. Lightning hammer will recharge once and deal 82 damage with 25% armor penetration in a single hit. Even though dealing more damage in a single hit is worth more cost, with a 15 second recharge, it is a straight trade off of more damage in a single hit vs more damage over a period of time, and the difference in cost is 5X. 5X for a skill that is only twice as powerful.

Honestly, if you include the fact that orb can miss, it should really only cost 10 energy, and Lightning Hammer should only cost about 15 energy, twice as powerful, 3 times as expensive as Lightning Strike. But reducing the cost of Orb is a bit too cheap, it is effective because of it's strength and spamability.

I say that Orb should deal 12.5% more damage, and stay at the same cost and recast, and Lightning hammer should be reduced to a 10 second recast, and cost 15 energy.

As said before, I think Anet has some serious flaws in calculating the significance of recast values, making many skills extremely deficient.

Your logic is flawed.

As covered by countless threads, Ele damage is good for one thing, Spiking. If you are running a mixed adren spike build with Eles assisting the chances are you can only afford one slot as a spike assist, and that is going to be Orb every time. There is no need to buff that further.

This is also why Lightning Hammer is 25 energy, any less and you would see it used instead of Orb. At the moment it fills a nice niche in pure spike build, and it is fine right there.

Lightning Strike fills a very weak roll, despite looking strong on paper. It is usually either a spike follow up, or... just not there.

BahamutKaiser · Aug 03, 2006, 08:24 PM // 20:24

My logic isn't flawed, and your statement proves you don't know jack about elementist as well. Elementist most effective roll isn't spiking, it is his diversity in damage types, from spike, to AoE, to Imparing. The fact that you would actually assume Elementist is only good for spiking only proves you don't know how to use one effectively.

Lightning Strike is very effective, it's low recast and cost make it an easy spam skill, often when enemies use protective spirit 15 energy for an orb is a waste, but you can still put a steady 40+ damage on the enemy making it difficult to maintain that enemies health, and absorbing a great deal of energy and attention from the monks, leaving them vulnerable. In combination with 2 other Lightning spams, you can put just as much damage on the enemy as they can put healing, with dual attunments you will break their energy long before you run dry.

Lightning Orb can be cast every 5 seconds as well, that is a significant cost value which makes it a spamable skill. Reducing Lightning Hammer at 15 seconds is only 1/3 of the damage over a period of time, with 10 more energy cost, outside of the advanced enemy or bad cast which misses on orbs, Orb outstrips in damage greatly. 3x the recast and 10 more energy is useless, it cannot be used enough to outweigh the value of Enervating Charge or even Lightning Javalin for damage over time plus added defensive effects for still under half the cost and only a fraction of the recast.

As for other Elementist uses which your too blind to recognize, Fires ability to dominate an area with repeated knockdown at a location, Burning damage which overcomes Damage blocking enchantments, and general group damage which can put out high figures on groups and packed units like melee and Ritualist with spirits, as well as minions, Waters ability to snare groups of units keeping melee fighters at a safe distance, slowing them more than any other skill making it possible to escape even if crippled, and Earths defensive strength and ability to deal group damage, knock down, armor ignoring damage, and unremovable location defense making it easy to survive certain attacks. And lightnings ability to shutdown melee as well as hit for high figures.

If all elementist was good for is spiking, they would have been totaly replaced by Necro Spikes. I have alot of grievances about Elementist, but they are good for more than spiking, and JR doesn't know jack.

Symbol · Aug 03, 2006, 08:37 PM // 20:37

Quote:

As covered by countless threads, Ele damage is good for one thing, Spiking. If you are running a mixed adren spike build with Eles assisting the chances are you can only afford one slot as a spike assist, and that is going to be Orb every time. There is no need to buff that further.

Irrelevant. The fact that you always take orb doesn't necessarily mean that the skill is costed fairly. In fact looking at the rest of the air line it's obvious that you take it because it's your only option.

Quote:

This is also why Lightning Hammer is 25 energy, any less and you would see it used instead of Orb. At the moment it fills a nice niche in pure spike build, and it is fine right there.

Wow, that's infinitely worse than orb being used in place of lightning hammer now. At worst you're continuing the status quo, but at least with Kaiser's changes we have a chance of injecting some sanity into the balance of these skills.

For the record I wholeheartedly agree with the OP's changes.