Curse

Undivine · May 11, 2006, 04:13 PM // 16:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mysterial

The AoE's (and by AoE I'm referring to Fireball/Rodgort's Invocation/Flame Burst and not Searing Heat/Firestorm/Eruption) are more than people give them credit for in non-positional gametypes, i.e. arenas and HA, where it's usually pretty easy to hit multiple targets and add up the damage even with "nearby" AoEs. In places like GvG, the spells are generally pretty worthless. It's all a matter of AoE size and how the Elementalist spells don't have enough of it.

Exactly! That's the sort of improvement I think the eles need. More and larger AOEs. I think in the utility department, eles are good enough to do something in GvG. Any other situation and we can really see what they're famous for when they pull out these AOE spells.

In fact, some spells don't even really need a range to be AOE. If they had spells more like Chain Lightning (in concept anyways, since I know it technically does have a range) then the ele would have an advantage. Imagine a spell that hits a target, then travels to another target within that target's AOE, then travel to another target, jumping off from its most recent target.

Mysterial · May 11, 2006, 04:19 PM // 16:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Undivine

Exactly! That's the sort of improvement I think the eles need. More and larger AOEs. I think in the utility department, eles are good enough to do something in GvG. Any other situation and we can really see what they're famous for when they pull out these AOE spells.

Well, that's sort of the problem too. I just named about all of them. You could add in Bed of Coals, Star Burst, and stretch it to Incendiary Bonds, but that's about it. 6 good skills. Most of the rest are Searing Heat look-alikes with terrible costs, effects, and recharges. (Churning Earth is particularly amusing - apparently somebody at Arenanet forgot exactly how many hits a "nearby" DOT AoE gets against somebody moving faster than normal. Here's a hint: It's between the positive and negative numbers on the number scale and looks a lot like the letter "O")

Tongloid Tarthwood · May 11, 2006, 06:02 PM // 18:02

One thing that's starting to puzzle me, is how nobody at A-net had noticed that eles are currently under-powered. If they did, they hate eles for some unknown reason, and if they don't maybe this thread will be a wake-up call. I mean, someone put a petition for Role-Playing Districts as a sticky. I feel that this thread should get the same treatment.

Major Balence issue V Player whim? balence every time.

Fred Kiwi · May 11, 2006, 06:26 PM // 18:26

I want to play my ele again

/signed for anet to do something

quickmonty · May 11, 2006, 07:36 PM // 19:36

I still enjoy my ele. All I can say is play around with the different elements and try combos of two different attributes. You might even try using wards to help your team mitigate damage. The AoE thing had to be fixed as it was a little unreasonable for even stupid monsters to just stand there watching a firestorm rain down. They were never meant to do sustained damage throughout a battle but they do quite well at spike damage at a critical point in the battle. There is also a skill for each element that adds damage to wand attacks so you can increase wand damage while waiting for you energy or skills to recharge. Energy managment should not be a problem if you know what you are doing.

Flame away

Mandy Memory · May 11, 2006, 08:01 PM // 20:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by quickmonty

I still enjoy my ele. All I can say is play around with the different elements and try combos of two different attributes. You might even try using wards to help your team mitigate damage. The AoE thing had to be fixed as it was a little unreasonable for even stupid monsters to just stand there watching a firestorm rain down. They were never meant to do sustained damage throughout a battle but they do quite well at spike damage at a critical point in the battle. There is also a skill for each element that adds damage to wand attacks so you can increase wand damage while waiting for you energy or skills to recharge. Energy managment should not be a problem if you know what you are doing.

Flame away

And where is this fabled conjure earth you speak of?

Jestah · May 11, 2006, 08:30 PM // 20:30

Eles are perfectly usable for utility and spiking. Every proffession has strengths and weaknesses. You don't hear people complaining that their Monk can only wand for 10 dmg. It goes without saying that monks aren't made for that but where exactly did you get the idea Eles have to fit your idea of their purpose? DPS just isn't their forte and no one ever said it was supposed to be.

I know they've got a huge selection of offensive skills and what I'm saying may sound dumb, but I doubt Eles will change drastically enough to satifsy your asumption of what they are supposed to be.

Ele skills are perfect for spiking so you've already got "a class that does high damage very quickly", the only drawback is that it isn't sustainable.

Eles get plenty of use for the purposes I've stated already. If you want sustainable DPS then (and I know this might sound crazy) choose a different profession.

Hurricane · May 11, 2006, 08:36 PM // 20:36

Here's a few suggestions.

- New armor penalties.

Basicly, there's going to be different types of armors.

- Cloth Armor (Usually Casters) (Fire and Earth 10% more damage)
- Metal Armor (Usually Warriors) (Lightning and Cold damage do 20% more damage)

- An AoE Buff.

One reason why AoE is so ineffective is because you can see it. I can usually dodge a Meteor Shower without getting hit by the first one. I'm not saying you should make AoE invisible. >_>

Fire Storm being Effective:

Create a Fire Storm at target foe's location. For 10 seconds, foes adjacent to that location are struck for 7...29 fire damage each second. Every second Fire storm moves randomly to a different location in the area.

Cost: 10 Cast: 2s Recharge: 15s

Point blank spells are pretty...useless. Anyone have an idea to make them effective?

- Defensive spells really need work.

Ward Against melee and Foes are fine, but Grapsing Earth and Magnetic Aura are just terrible.

My changes:

Grasping Earth
For 8...18 seconds, all nearby foes move 50% slower but cannot be knocked down.
Cost: 10e Cast: 1s Recharge: 20s

Here's my last suggestion.

Fire Magic: Each time you cause a foe to be hit by fire, that foe has a 5% chance of burning.

Each Magic: While casting Earth spells, there's a 10% chance of damage being halved.

Air Magic: Air spells have a 5% chace of having an extra +20% penetration.

Water Magic:
New condition called "Freeze" If you are Frozen, you cannot move and spells take 66% longer to cast. Freeze usually lasts 2 seconds.

Water magic spells have a 5% chances of freezing.

Feel free to disagree, but no flames please.

Cherno · May 11, 2006, 08:37 PM // 20:37

Let me start by saying that I am an ele sypathizer. I love my ele, he was my first character. I agree that there are improvements to be made, but I don't agree with most of your recommendations.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tongloid Tarthwood

Energy Storage

Give eles a ridiculous ammount of energy so they can cast spells all day long without getting their energy depleted. This works using the warriors-are-great-because-they-don't-run-out-of-energy school of thinking. Basicly, if the ele never runs out of energy, they never stop casting high damage spells. The one flaw I see with this is that every other thing would like high-energy and will therefore choose ele because of their high energy and just use their secondary more than the actual ele. Or how about that as you get more levels in energy storage you can energy pips as well? Then we could meet the 8 energy pips that are "required" to out damage warriors.

Eles already have a very high amount of Energy. Current energy storage abilites are fine. It is silly to think that an elementalist should never run out of energy. They are more studied therefore they have higher amounts, and you are asking to take out an important aspect of playing any class... Energy management. This is not a simple game of god mode/inifinate ammo. All players need to learn to balance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tongloid Tarthwood

Overpowered Spells
This idea is brilliant in its simplicity. Give elementalists high damage spells for very little cost and no exhaustion. Then elementalists fulfill their role of high damage and get lots of ele-hate which is a good things aparently because it means they are causing a huge disturbence.

Nothing should be overpowered. One thing that I disliked at the beginning but have come to respect greatly is the relative balance of the characters. No character can't be countered nor does it overpower another. No one should ever be able to say "X profession just can't stand up against Y profession" Causing a huge disturbance is the quickest way to get something nerfed. See above for balance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tongloid Tarthwood

Better Wand Attack
All this does is bring them up to warrior level DPSwise. That means that the warrior is not beating them with DPS and therefore the wammos with brains (what a parodoxical phrase) will have to find some other statistic to bend to their will.

Don't get hung up on DPS. Elementalist shouldn't really be using their wands. That's not what they are good at. If you are using your wand, there is something wrong usually.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tongloid Tarthwood

Better Armour
Make 'em less squishy. Give 'em more spell time to unleash their fire fury or lightning lashing.

This directly goes against your glass cannon idea. There are already spells to help accomplish this task. Eles make up for their shortcomings by using their skills. As it should be.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tongloid Tarthwood

Shorter Cast Times
Just to stop the whole I-can-beat-your-ele-because-my-warrior-has-a-half-second-cast-time-for-everything people. No-one really likes them so let's kill them all with our 2 second cast time meteor shower and our one second cast time rodgort's invocation.

In flavor of the character, some spells are more powerful and require more preparation to unleash them. Casting times should appropriate reflect the flavor of the spell.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tongloid Tarthwood

Get rid of Exhaustion
We need to get rid of exhaustion. I have tons of spells that would be fantastic if we were to get rid of exhaustion and take the spell cost down a bit. How the hell do you expect me to keep up high damage if I can't get enough energy for standing up straight? (Which is quite funny, because the classes can't stand up straight whilst fighting).

Exhaustion is good. This is where I agree that Anet needs to make some changes. There is too much exhaustion for no real reason related to the flavor of the spell. Reduce/remove exhaustion on some spells. But really with proper energy management exhaustion shouldn't be that big a deal.

I don't really want to spark up the whole DPS thing as it has been more then thuroughly addressed in the other thread. In the Factions guide it describes eles and states that no other class has higher DPS. Period. Their words, not mine.

Eles should be high dmg dealers, that doesn't mean that all their skills should be spammable with no drawbacks.

They have taken steps to work on different builds for eles to compliment some of the complaints.

Many complain about the touch spells or close proximity spells. They have introduced new armor to help those who choose to play those skills. They have made many skills more powerful (granted not the ones that many would like) AoE still is a problem. It is unreasonable to say that monsters shouldn't flee from AoE spells, as human players would as well. Better AI makes for more thoughtful game play. There are many skills, particularly in the fire line that are all but useless because of the AoE scatter.

AoE should be used for short burst high dmg where they get a good amount of dmg off before the enemy scatters. Long duration spells that require the enemy to be inside for a long duration to achieve at least half potency causing AoE scatter are useless to most eles except in defensive positions. Firestorm and Chaos Storm being the biggest examples in my opinion.

Too many spells in a single attribute line causing exhaustion is also a problem (air and earth). Exhaustion seems in flavor to be related to exerting a large amount of force (energy) for big impact (very high dmg or great effect). Meteor and Meteor shower are great examples of this. High cost, long cast, long recharge and exhaustion. Quick cast, low energy don't fit in with that flavor. Exhaustion should not be used as an inhibitor for overusing a spells. Modifications to casting cost, dmg amount should be.

pyrohex · May 12, 2006, 12:02 AM // 00:02

Wait, are people really taking this post seriously?

Montolioo · May 12, 2006, 01:17 AM // 01:17

Do you really think anet is ever gonna change these things though?
I agree with most of them and have an ele myself and know how underpowered it is. Im just skeptical about these changes coming about because i mean look at beastmastery. THe rangers have been complaining about this for a long time, but there are still no weapons tied to the chain, and no way at all to control your pet in battle.

Trylo · May 12, 2006, 01:26 AM // 01:26

They are trying very hard to fix these problems, look at mirror of ice, a high damage spike every10 secs, better than RoF IMO.

Quote:

Or how about that as you get more levels in energy storage you can energy pips as well? Then we could meet the 8 energy pips that are "required" to out damage warriors.

I seriously like this idea, but to many abusable aspects. ele/mo, +8 regen, thats almost 3 energy a second... hmm somethings wrong here. maybe if for every 4 levels you get one more pip, but thats even stretching it, id say every 6.5 levels (7 and 13) you get one more pip. I know thats now realy solving it, but if used properly should be able to help at least a bit.

* i would like to add;
I am an ele/ran. my first char IS a water/geo/aero/BM as i hate fire magic... dotn enough consequences to the enemies. Its very sad when i see how people think that eles AND BM are underpowered and i dont see how this is true. My pet responds quickly when i change targets and will defend me when im dead (literally doing 20 damage+ to any caster in my aggro bubble like normal). He is also as i like to say, My energy. Ferocious Strike {E} at 12 BM gets you about 60 damage to rangers, 72ish to casters and around 45 to wars while gaining a net of 4 energy. Add some snares and a few BM skills that do extra damage while they are running to u, got an unbeatable snare (ice spikes, maiming strike). I also get energy from ferocious strike, amazingly. Lets see another 2 hit combo, (Vapor Blade, Melandru's Strike) this makes the best out of the foes enchantments by doing an extra 35+ damage to foes if they are enchanted, and a good 99+ spike if they arent. Unbeatable no, but high damage from either situation is good. Lets also see Enraged Lunge, im still trying to find a good combo for that, but my favorite so far (yes i know its fire, but very low fire for that matter) is Enraged Lunge, Tigers Fury, Mark of Rodgort and a good snare.

Roupe · May 12, 2006, 01:32 AM // 01:32

First of all, i sense a bit of troll sarcasm from the first Post.

But yes, the elementalist are no longer near its description -and has like many other proffesions a limited scope of operations within a random team

first suggestion
I say that the range of attack for the elementalist spells should be increased - to the entire compase visual range. That way elementalist could act once again as artillery, hitting enemies far beyond the aggro scope

currently only rangers standing on a high altitude could do such things on enemies stadning on a low altitude.

second suggestion
attacking ground to make tactical hinders , perhaps targerting/destroying/triggering traps and bloodwells

G G G · May 12, 2006, 01:37 AM // 01:37

I say just kill some exhaustion in elites, make energy storage 5 points per, get rid of the AoE pussy effect, and make non-elite energy management skillz. Elementals would be kool too. like...

Summon Fire Elemental [Elite]
Cost:25 Casting Time:2 Recharge Time:10
Spell.Summon a level 20........30 fire elemental. all your non-fire magic skills are disabled for 10....7 seconds. If you are suffering from burning at the time you cast this spell, all foes in the area take 30....90 fire damage and beging burning for 3...9 seconds.Otherwise this spell causes minor exhaustion.

Likewise for earth,air,water and energy storage lol. earth is while you are poisoned, water is while you are crippled,air is while you are bleeding, and energy storage is while u are dazed. don't ask why.lol.

Mysterial · May 12, 2006, 01:38 AM // 01:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trylo

They are trying very hard to fix these problems, look at mirror of ice, a high damage spike every10 secs, better than RoF IMO.

I can't understand how anyone can think Mirror of Ice is good. You negate one spell's damage every 10 seconds and do 90 damage. The recast is too long to provide any real defense and the damage is weak even compared to other Elementalist spells. And, as usual with Elementalist defensive spells, it's target self so even if Arenanet reduced the recharge to 2 tomorrow it still would be a bad elite because the enemy will just attack someone else and come after you later.

Trylo · May 12, 2006, 01:43 AM // 01:43

lets see, how is this a bad elite, run into a aoe spell and do a 90 spike to the caster, stop necro hexes, stop mesmer interupts... this is the anti caster spell, and it comes back every 10 secs. i like it.

Yobz · May 12, 2006, 01:48 AM // 01:48

Many of the criticisms are about exhaustion or the high cost of spells. I think some spells that knockdown have too high a cost once you factor in exhaustion, and time knocked down.

My proposed fixes are either:
1. Runes to put in armor or a set of armor that speeds up recovery from exhaustion.
2. Points in energy storage assists reduces time require for recovery from exhaustion.

If we keep exhaustion but link it to energy recovery, we can stop over abuse by classes such as warriors. If we simply reduced energy cost or got rid of the exhaustion altogether it would lead to other classes spamming the spell.

Chilly Ress · May 12, 2006, 02:02 AM // 02:02

I still cant understand how a warrior-the class that is supposed to tank, but yet, do moderate dmg at the same time, can out damage an ele, the class with no armor and supposedly to be able to "deal the most amount of dmg"-almost two fold to three fold.....this is ridiculous, maybe more than a lv 10 ss nec/me being able to do double the amount of a lv20 ele, wtf Anet???!!!!

draxynnic · May 12, 2006, 02:09 AM // 02:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anna Ryan

the fire elite are so laughable, starburst really is funny, wow, 91 damage and 5 energy loose for each other foe you hit with it,

Incorrect - you only lose the 5 energy once for hitting multiple targets (so it's 5 for a single target, 10 for 2 or more). I use it fairly often with Gwenyth.

I'll agree, though, that a lot of the new elites seem better suited for a W/E than for a true ele (three PBAoEs and Ride the Lightning).

Incidentally, on the elementals: level 20-30 is just a leetle high, don't you think? I'd suggest scaling it in level similarly to the Flesh Golem, and probably balance the recharge and the lifetime so you can't have it up permanently - say a lifetime of 30-45 seconds and a recharge of 60 - in order to balance with the Necromancer's requirement to have a corpse.

Hell Raiser · May 12, 2006, 02:09 AM // 02:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tongloid Tarthwood

1.Energy Storage.

Elementalists already have high energy as well as energy management skills. If you are a good player you will know how to conserve your energy and not spend it all, therefor you will have more then enough.

Quote:

2.Overpowered Spells.

Elementalists already have quite powerful skills. If you want skills that do 500 damage I would say this would be unbalancing. All professions were meant to be balanced, while eles have high amounts of ranged damage, they also have low amounts of armor. Wars have high armor and damage, but is very limited because of the Melee ranged attacks. Those are the two professions I see alot of arguement over wich is being better.

Quote:

3.Better wand attacks.

I have to say this is the first time I've seen anyone complain because they can't kill someone with their wand...

Quote:

4.Better armour.

Another part of the Balancing, High damage but low armour.

Quote:

5.Shorter cast times.

Another part of the Balancing, High damage but longer cast times. Longer the cast time the more chance of being interupted may seem like a disadvantage but think how easily a war is disabled by blind, weakness, or anti-war spells.

Quote:

6.Get rid of exhaustion.

You just love trying to get rid of profession balance don't you? Exhaustion is part of an ele, without it they can continue high amounts of damage with no limit but low energy. Those exhausting skills are most likely ones that cause knock down or are powerfull.

Quote:

7.All of the above.

I can see it now...
Elem LFG.
Ele LFG.
Elementalist LFG for mission.
Ele LF Smart G.
Ele spiker needs group.
GLF ANYTHING BESIDES ELEMENTALISTS!!!!shiftone

Elementalists being the Supreme UB3R 1337 Class=Unbalanced and imo boring game. I don't want to see 50 elementalists in one district, I see enough Mo/W.