Curse

maxxfury · Apr 01, 2010, 04:14 PM // 16:14

No matter how much better mind freeze actually is as a snare, if it doesnt fit into a good bar....then its of no real use.

Thats why stuff like deep freeze, ymlad ect are all better, as they fit well into good bars that dont over sacrifice their general effectiveness to get a slightly better snare ect at the expense of the rest of the bar.

Personally ill run ymlad+FD or Deep freeze+AI as they synergise together and actually add to the bar without taking way its general effectiveness and decent elite.

I Just cant in any rational way justify taking mind freeze over deep free et al. whether or not its a better snare. It just doesnt work in play as well.

Frozen Ele · Apr 01, 2010, 09:24 PM // 21:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by maxxfury

No matter how much better mind freeze actually is as a snare, if it doesnt fit into a good bar....then its of no real use.

Thats why stuff like deep freeze, ymlad ect are all better, as they fit well into good bars that dont over sacrifice their general effectiveness to get a slightly better snare ect at the expense of the rest of the bar.

Personally ill run ymlad+FD or Deep freeze+AI as they synergise together and actually add to the bar without taking way its general effectiveness and decent elite.

I Just cant in any rational way justify taking mind freeze over deep free et al. whether or not its a better snare. It just doesnt work in play as well.

The discussion was what the best single-target water magic snare is.

maxxfury · Apr 02, 2010, 02:59 AM // 02:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frozen Ele

The discussion was what the best single-target water magic snare is.

No matter how much better mind freeze actually is as a snare, if it doesnt fit into a good bar....then its of no real use.
Unless you taking the skill out of a bar and purely crunching numbers.then fair enough, if its just for the maths..but then it still has no practical use on any half decent bar..

Sadly snares like that just arent needed, especially when they hog your elite skill and suck your blue bar with exhaustion..

Jeydra · Apr 05, 2010, 05:31 AM // 05:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frozen Ele

The discussion was what the best single-target water magic snare is.

Not it wasn't. Read it again. It was what the best single-target Water Magic snare is assuming you only care about the snare.

I'll also highlight some utterly ridiculous things in your posts:

Quote:

Even assuming a foe has 70 energy and you 120, you can cast Mind Freeze at least 5 times. Because of the duration of the snare (10 seconds at 15 water magic), one would burn off 3 exhaustion by the time he or she would cast the snare again, meaning that he or she can cast the snare 7 times. Add in a mesmer energy denial skill and one (with decent energy management, which most people have) does not have to worry about the “more energy than foe” requirement. The requirement of Freezing Gust is more worrisome. Depending on who the foe is, it may or may not have an additional water hex on it. For example, against warriors, because of the high frequency of Healing Signet, I am going to use Rust against them. With that, even if one wants to use Freezing Gust, because of a stray AoE snare or a using a distinct water hex against a foe, Freezing Gust could do damage an snaring.

Facts:

1. If you burn yourself dry from Exhaustion on your +30 energy set, you'll have quite a long time to wait before you can aggro the next mob. Well done mate.
2. Energy denial isn't an effective strategy in PvE. Even the developers know that; that's why they buffed Energy Surge for PvE.
3. If you can't snare targets because you put Rust on them, you're bad. I used to do it all the time in PvP. Of course in PvE, I don't run Water in the first place, lol.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlotte the Harlot

My uses of snares are

1. keep enemies in a cluster
2. give frontline and minions time to get in front and take the aggro (this works with the first function very well)
3. slow down attackers so backline can run less
4. prevent enemy kiting
5. prevent additional aggro or stop a monster from getting somewhere

Something that is overlooked in this thread is that snares do all of this at once where as b surge, aegis, ward mellee, ebon ward, etc only serve the purpose of damage mitigation. Water magic in particular has aoe snares something that ymlad cannot do. If deep freeze is executed properly on mobs they will often end up surrounded by the your frontline especially useful with an mm.

1. You are sacrificing damage to keep enemies in a cluster. Most of the time it's not worth it and you can substitute simply by playing better and using aggro techniques. The few times it is worth it happen with DoASCs for example; you can ask Life Bringing about that (I'm no expert).
2. This is easily done by proper aggro techniques.
3. This is easily compensated for by Aegis, the Ebon Ward and Blinding Surge. Also backliners should be able to cope even if they take damage and stop living on luxuries; heck I've coped with the hardest H/H'able areas with Mhenlo, one Aegis + Prot Spirit and one Spirit Light + Kaolai. Get better backliners.
4. This is the same as #1.
5. How many monsters run from you even after you've aggro'ed them? Even if they run momentarily, how long does it take before they turn around?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frozen Ele

I don't think you understand my proposed purpose. The idea is that if it takes 3 times the melee foes to cross one's agro bubble - or to reach the tanks at half-agro range, or to what place the tanks are at (because of a 66% slow down from a snare) then one's party will not be taking damage from those enemies during that time, but rather, the party can be inflicting damage on those foes (via ranged damage). Furthermore, I don't think I've expressed specific "fondness" for this possible purpose, but was rather something to consider.

Next, to the skills. With debate jargon, "perm them, there is no competativeness." In other words, snares and what the skills you listed do different things. Snares slow down foes, while the ones you listed range from party members blocking to foes missing. There is no reason why one can't do (take) both, especially since Deep Freeze doesn't have to have any points invested in it.

Fact: no one cares. Yeah maybe if the melee foes aren't snared they'd be moving at normal speed and can deal damage. So what? Are you going to wipe if they move at normal speed and can deal damage? If you answer yes, your party sucks. If you answer no, water magic is something that looks nice but is inefficient.

And then you want to take snares, Aegis, BSurge and the Ebon Ward. Thereby tanking up nicely and filling your team with multiple defensive characters. That's fine, you can do whatever you want. But don't pretend that you deal equal damage as a more offensive team, and because you don't deal equal damage, don't pretend that you do things nearly as efficiently / quickly. And don't comfort yourself with the idea that "but I don't wipe" because, like I said, I've dealt with the toughest areas in the game with the less pure defense than most players are comfortable with and I can do it without wiping.

In short: using Water Magic is more of a personal aesthetic choice than anything based on efficiency.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Allenmorph

Well yeah, you don't need a water elementalist; you don't need an elementalist at all, really, any more than you need a necromancer. Warrior and Monk could get the job done just fine.

The point is, though, that we're playing elementalists, so the "need" aspect is pretty well moot, and so the argument basically devolves to player preference after that.

If you don't need defense, why not bring more offense?

Allamorph · Apr 07, 2010, 01:01 AM // 01:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

If you don't need defense, why not bring more offense?

The reverse is also true; especially when using monk AI who emanage like Tiger Woods stays monogamous.

I don't really need more of either. So I bring both at the same time. Just for kicks.

Winterclaw · Apr 07, 2010, 03:26 AM // 03:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frozen El

From my experience, Mind Freeze is better than Freezing Gust because of predictability, damage, and snare quality.

I'd rather have a good elite and freezing gust than mind freeze. I'm sorry but the cons to mind freeze and its elite status means it's a bad skill if you ask me. IMO unless you are running with 8 hexes and scattering them all over the place you should be expected to know when you can use freezing gust again. Another thing you can do is lead with freezing gust.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

In short: using Water Magic is more of a personal aesthetic choice than anything based on efficiency.

QFT.

Allamorph · Apr 07, 2010, 03:52 AM // 03:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Winterclaw

IMO unless you are running with 8 hexes and scattering them all over the place you should be expected to know when you can use freezing gust again. Another thing you can do is lead with freezing gust.

IMO if you're running 8 hexes you have crap for emanage and so you're a damn fool.

I run with four, scattering them as needed, and I can pretty well remember who's got what in mobs, enough so I don't expect FG to damage and it hexes instead. It's not that terribly complicated to remember when to lead with it and when not to.

Zena Starlight · Apr 11, 2010, 03:13 AM // 03:13

Jeydra, could you post some of the other builds that you use? Or is it mainly the sample builds posted. I'm fairly new to playing an ele in HM , and I'd like to be as efficient as possible. Thanks

Jeydra · Apr 15, 2010, 04:49 PM // 16:49

There aren't really many other builds to be honest. AP calling for general PvE, SF for when I can reliably hit multiple foes (e.g. Snowmen, Unwaking Waters with 16-man teams, etc), ER for when I'm playing with other humans, and ... um ... that's about it. Actually I've not used any build other than AP calling and ER Infuse regularly for years.

I think it's fair to say that these few builds are the only ones you'll need as an Elementalist, although if you have better build suggestions I'm all ears

WhiteAsIce · Apr 15, 2010, 08:56 PM // 20:56

What does Energy Storage mean to me?
It means that Eles are good at spamming high-energy spells with low recharges. Attunements feel like Expertise for Ele spells because it technically lowers the cost of spells. You go into a battle with full energy, and spam away, and hopefully by the time you run low on energy, most of the foes are dead. As such, when I make builds for my Ele, I am now considering what I can spam and what I can't. If I'm not constantly casting, then I'm not doing my job as an Ele.

It takes 3.75 seconds to recover 5 energy.
It takes 7.5 seconds to recover 10 energy.
It takes 11.25 seconds to recover 15 energy.
It takes 18.75 seconds to recover 25 energy.
If my spells' activation+recharge times are more than the above amounts, then I'm not getting the most out of my Ele. Specifically, I don't even need an Attunement spell if I'm using spells that exceed the above amounts.

That said, this is why I love Searing Flames as a general build. Even in HM, I can maintain my energy for a long time while still doing decent damage. Sure it's not the powerhouse that a SS Necro can do, but it's still nice to see direct damage being dealt, as well as burning. This reminds me of when I was in a PuG for Arachni's Haunt - I was spamming at a backline mob on the other side of a wall, while the rest of the party handled the frontline. I held this up for a good two minutes because the mob had too many Cave Aloes, but my energy stayed good the entire time.

With the exception of ER builds, I think that Eles are best with their own spells and should not rely too heavily on secondary skills.

Just my 2 cents. I'm positive not everyone agrees with me.

Jeydra · Sep 09, 2010, 03:34 AM // 03:34

Guide updated acknowledging the effectiveness of Earth Magic. I think Earth Magic gives Fire a run for its money in many areas of HM (almost all the areas where Fire is reasonable, anyway) now.

@Above - with the appropriate build you can spam forever (you'll never run out of energy if you have Fire Attunement, Elemental Lord, Aura of Restoration and are spamming Flare). I just think that to be effective, you need to be able to deal reasonable damage at the same time. Arachni's sounds like a bad place for Searing Flames to be honest; aren't most of the foes there Rangers?

Jeydra · Dec 29, 2010, 12:39 PM // 12:39

29 December 2010 - minor rewrites in many areas, note on Invoke Lightning change.

More accurately I updated the guide some, it wasn't very outdated but some things certainly warranted changing. I included Ensign's Lightning Orb + Eruption + AP quadspec build and did a fair bit of guide cleanup. Also now that I read the guide again, I noticed that the original tone was not only arrogant, it was also borderline hostile. I must've been quite angry for some reason when I first wrote the guide. This edit should remove most of that edge.

Frozen Ele · Dec 29, 2010, 10:35 PM // 22:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

I have an effective Water Magic build. Show me. If you can show it fills a niche, no matter how small, and is better than any other option available to Elementalists for that niche, I’ll put it into the guide. Otherwise though I probably won’t be impressed.

The niche this build fills is increasing AoE efficiency with the secondary purposes of providing some AoE and non-AoE damage and other support.

12 + 1 + 3 = 16 Water Magic
12 + 1 = 13 Energy Storage

Glyph of Energy
Maelstrom
Deep Freeze
Ice Spikes
Blurred Vision
Ebon Vanguard Assassin Support
“You Move Like a Dwarf!”
Water Attunement

Variants Include:
1. Replacing Blurred Vision for another PvE skill (notably Ebon Vanguard Standard of Honor to boost AoE damage).
2. Replace Glyph of Energy with Mirror of Ice and Blurred Vision with Glowing Ice.
3. Spec 10 in Illusion Magic (15 Water Magic, 11 Energy Storage) and replace Glyph of Energy with Shared Burden and replace Ice Spikes with Blurred Vision for increased snaring. You can then also replace Blurred Vision with another PvE skill or Ice Spikes (although the latter can be highly redundant with Deep Freeze and Shared Burden). This variant provides the greatest increase to AoE efficiency.

By snaring foes with Deep Freeze then Ice Spikes (94% snare efficiency) (using “You Move Like a Dwarf!” for snaring important single targets), you can keep foes in AoE longer, increasing the efficiency of AoE. The build provides sources of AoE damage (Deep Freeze, Ice Spikes, and Maelstrom), non-AoE damage (Ebon Vanguard Assassin Support, and “You Move Like a Dwarf!”), and other support (including Maelstrom interrupts and Blurred Vision misses).

There are only two skills in the Elementalist arsenal that can provide any sort of increase to AoE efficiency, so thus only two skills that can compete with this build's niche: Churning Earth and “You Move Like a Dwarf!” By comparing these two skills with just Deep Freeze (the primarily snare of the build), let alone Deep Freeze + Ice Spikes, we can determine which skill/build is best for fulfilling the niche.

Deep Freeze vs. Churning Earth

Just comparing escape from AoE:

Foes start running after Churning Earth starts (delay in movement): 3 hits, 1 knockdown
Foes start running when Churning Earth starts (no delay): 1 hit, 1 knockdown
Foes start running before Churning Earth starts: no hits, no knockdown

That means in best case (there’s a delay in enemy movement), you’re only keeping the foes in the AoE range for an extra two seconds (it would already take one second for the foe to move out of AoE range). This best case isn’t too likely since if there’s already AoE out in the field, the foes are already trying to escape, meaning the worst case (Churning Earth does nothing to increase AoE efficiency) is most likely.

Now take Deep Freeze. It will always cause foes to take three times to move out of AoE range, so foes under the snare will always take three seconds to move out of AoE (keeping them in it for the extra two seconds).

Thus:
Best Case Churning Earth (Uncommon) = Standard Case Deep Freeze

But that’s not where it ends. When you factor in casting time, the whole picture changes. Foes generally stay in AoE for three seconds, so they’ll stay in long enough for aftercast from the AoE + Deep Freeze casting, but they won’t stay in long enough for aftercast from the last AoE + Churning Earth casting, making Churning Earth worst case. Plus, Churning Earth won’t actually hit for the first time until one second after casting so the foes will be long gone before Churning Earth starts working.

What happens if you cast the efficiency-increasing measure before any other AoE (so there isn’t any AoE in the field and Churning Earth is more likely to be best case)? Churning Earth will cause scatter, actually preventing any subsequent AoE from having any efficiency. Deep Freeze, on the other hand, doesn’t cause scatter on it’s own, so using it as a preemptive measure works.

Lastly, Deep Freeze has a much shorter recharge, so it can be used more frequently.

Any way you slice it, Deep Free > Churning Earth for increasing AoE efficiency

Deep Freeze vs. “You Move Like a Dwarf!”

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

But Water Magic has the best snares in the game! Yes. But The next time you catch yourself wanting a Water-magic snare, try bringing “You Move Like A Dwarf!” instead.

First and foremost, use both (like the presented build). The knockdown from “You Move Like A Dwarf!” can aid to snaring foes who’re already under Deep Freeze. There’s no reason why you can’t use both.

If you’re making me pick, Deep Freeze wins. Deep Freeze is AoE, “You Move Like A Dwarf!” isn’t; if three foes are moving out of AoE, “You Move Like A Dwarf!” can only snare one of them, but Deep Freeze can snag them all. Also, 66% reduction is better than 50%. When you boil that down, Deep Freeze will keep foes in AoE an extra two seconds. You Move Like A Dwarf!” will only keep the single foe in for an extra one second:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frozen Ele

66% snare >>> 50% snare anyday. With a 50% snare, the target takes twice as long to move from place-to-place (from initial agro to your backline/frontline, etc.), whereas with a 66% snare, the foe takes three times as long (a 90% snare causes the foe to take ten times as long). When it comes down to x2 vs. x3 or even x2 vs. x10, x3/x10 wins.

Deep Free > “You Move Like a Dwarf!” for increasing AoE efficiency, but there’s no reason to not bring both.

Conclusion

From these two comparisons, we can see that Deep Freeze, and thus this build, is best at increasing AoE efficiency.

Xenomortis · Dec 29, 2010, 10:48 PM // 22:48

I don't think I would ever run this, but:

E/Me
Fevered Dreams
Fragility
YMLAD
Ash Blast
FH
CoP
Drain Delusions
Energy Tap/Arcane Conundrum

Yeah, Deep Freeze is good at increasing AoE efficiency, but it's not amazing enough to really merit the effort.

LifeInfusion · Dec 29, 2010, 10:56 PM // 22:56

Going to have to agree with Frozen ele on this one. Deep Freeze is better than Churning earth. Churning earth does damage sometimes, maybe 150 total if you're lucky. Ice spikes is meh though, since it has adjacent range and mediocre damage for 10 less energy. The only AoEs I use are eruption, Unsteady ground (after churning earth) but I do notice foes running out of churning earth. If you have your choice of AoEs, I'd probably go Deep Freeze + Unsteady Ground + Eruption (with Unsteady ground swapped out for AP on an AP bar).

Frozen Ele · Dec 29, 2010, 11:30 PM // 23:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

Yeah, Deep Freeze is good at increasing AoE efficiency, but it's not amazing enough to really merit the effort.

The purpose was to present a Water Magic-based build that "fills a niche, no matter how small, and is better than any other option available to Elementalists for that niche." Arguing whether Deep Freeze should or should not be run is a different issue and can be largely situational.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

Going to have to agree with Frozen ele on this one. Deep Freeze is better than Churning earth. Churning earth does damage sometimes, maybe 150 total if you're lucky. Ice spikes is meh though, since it has adjacent range and mediocre damage for 10 less energy. The only AoEs I use are eruption, Unsteady ground (after churning earth) but I do notice foes running out of churning earth. If you have your choice of AoEs, I'd probably go Deep Freeze + Unsteady Ground + Eruption (with Unsteady ground swapped out for AP on an AP bar).

I use Ice Spikes because it dramatically increases the snare efficiency of Deep Freeze from around 60% to around 95%, meaning that foes will be snared for a larger percent of time. The advantage to this is that after they run out of one AoE spell, you can keep using AoE on them and always (95% of the time) have the extra efficiency.

With Unsteady Ground in HM especially with increased scatter, is that enemies are often more concened with leaving the area rather than attacking so the knock-down aspect of Unsteady Ground isn't too efficient. Of course, that always depends on why you're running it (if you're running it for the damage, that's another story).

Using Eruption and Deep Freeze can be taxing on an AP build, since the two former skills are 25e each (so you'd need to have Glyph of Lesser Energy for them and then an attunement or two) and take a decent time to cast relative to most AP builds (casting the chain of GoLE + DF + Erupt = 7.25s). Plus when you factor in PvE skills, the PvE skills tend to take dominance over DF + Erupt because of their lesser energy cost, shorter cast time, and armor penetrating damage. Of course, none of these things prevent the build from working, but are just things that I notice when I run the build.

LifeInfusion · Dec 30, 2010, 12:18 AM // 00:18

Frozen Ele, yes it's expensive. GoLE--> Deep Freeze --> eruption is 25+ energy. (assuming 15 energy reduced from GoLE)

If things don't die in 10 seconds then Deep freeze --> ice spikes might be usable. I don't see a reason to use ice spikes otherwise. Sure it's better damage than Rust and has more utility, but it seems like a waste of a slot regardless.

With deep freeze, you need GoLE. So that's 2 slots. Slap a water attunement and you're at 3 slots. If you run Blurred/Eruption to deal with melee, that's 4. 3 PVE skills + res and we're done.

See the problem with Deep Freeze is other than to get mileage out of DoT AoEs, it really doesn't warrant investment in Water Magic. 40 (7 spec) or 80 damage reduced by armor in HM means the difference is very low (10-20). You could run Maelstrom, but that's adjacent range so you might as well just use Ice Spikes and for damage, Snow Storm does more.

Frozen Ele · Dec 30, 2010, 06:26 AM // 06:26

I apologize for the wall of text. I don't want to seem hostile by it, but rather to fully explain what I'm thinking so there isn't any confusion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

If things don't die in 10 seconds then Deep freeze --> ice spikes might be usable. I don't see a reason to use ice spikes otherwise. Sure it's better damage than Rust and has more utility, but it seems like a waste of a slot regardless.

I don't know if you're talking about AP builds (since the recharge is often around 10s) and that you're saying because of the recharge you don't need more than a snare that lasts 10s or if it's just in general (because of the duration of Deep Freeze).

Either way, I think I see what you mean, but I was thinking (with the latter, more general sense) on more of an AoE/multi-foe level. If you're only snaring one foe and it dies in <10s, then I'd definately agree that you only need Deep Freeze (or really any single target snare), but if you're snaring 3 foes, you might not be able to kill them all in 10s, so it's useful to have the second snare to keep 'em slowed. With AP, again, having Deep Freeze can be highly taxing, so you might tend to rely on the PvE skills for damage and forget about Deep Freeze. But yeah, if you're running AP then you should only need Deep Freeze as an AoE snare.

I chose to not present an AP Water build because of the taxation and distraction, but also because of the recharges on the skills aren't begging for super-recharge. Deep Freeze, Ice Spikes, Blurred Vision, and "YMLaD!" are all <15s recharge (most right at 10s) so AP would only shave off a second or two. Arguably, only Maestrom and EVAS could make use of AP, but because of Maelstrom's exhaustion (you'd accumulate 6pts exhaustion casting every 10s) that can build up fast, the fact that you're not damage focused (so you might not need EVAS to recharge super fast), and the respective durations (10s and 15s) they don't need to be recharged quickly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

With deep freeze, you need GoLE. So that's 2 slots. Slap a water attunement and you're at 3 slots. If you run Blurred/Eruption to deal with melee, that's 4. 3 PVE skills + res and we're done.

That's really how I built the build I presented earlier: using Water Magic's most notorious skills (Maelstrom, Blurred Vision, and Deep Freeze), adding Ice Spikes for increased AoE snare efficiency, 2 PvE skills, and Water Attunement. Thus far, the build is without an elite, so instead of adding GoLE, I added it more powerful brother, Glyph of Energy (which takes care of exhaustion too). I chose GoE over Elemental Attunement because of the two PvE skills that wouldn't benefit, the fact that it's an additional enchantment to be stripped, and that with GoE, you need at least 5e to cast the big 25e spells, whereas with Ele Attune you'd need the 25e (so you can still cast big energy spells when depleted of energy with GoE, but not with Ele Attune).

Quote:

Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

See the problem with Deep Freeze is other than to get mileage out of DoT AoEs, it really doesn't warrant investment in Water Magic. 40 (7 spec) or 80 damage reduced by armor in HM means the difference is very low (10-20). You could run Maelstrom, but that's adjacent range so you might as well just use Ice Spikes and for damage, Snow Storm does more.

Snaring has other benefits than just increasing AoE efficiency, so using Deep Freeze can help you get mileage out of other things as well (I can list some of the other uses if you want). You really don't have to spec in Water at all if you're just using Deep Freeze for its snare, but if you're taking that route then you'll have issues with snare efficiency (you'll need Ice Spikes or Shared Burden get near 100% efficiency). You need spec in Water for Ice Spikes or spec in Illusion for Shared Burden. Having both Deep Freeze and Ice Spikes yells for dual Attunement or GoLE if you're not fully specing in Water. If you're doing a dual element build, you're likely going to have more energy issues (especially if going Earth with Eruption or Fire) so the dual element thing doesn't work out. Shared Burden eats up an elite and if you're not fully specing in Water, then the elite generally comes from the non-Water element, so you're going to have problems there.

Using AP only calls for Deep Freeze, but with taxation, distraction, and recharge times, this isn't the best route.

I brought Maelstrom mainly as interrupt support, so Snow Storm wouldn't fill that niche, and the problem with just using Ice Spikes is that (1) it has a short duration, so using it as a preemtive snare doesn't work and (2) if you're using other AoE (esp. "nearby" AoE), Ice Spikes won't cut it.

Jeydra · Dec 30, 2010, 08:51 AM // 08:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frozen Ele

The niche this build fills is increasing AoE efficiency with the secondary purposes of providing some AoE and non-AoE damage and other support.

12 + 1 + 3 = 16 Water Magic
12 + 1 = 13 Energy Storage

Glyph of Energy
Maelstrom
Deep Freeze
Ice Spikes
Blurred Vision
Ebon Vanguard Assassin Support
“You Move Like a Dwarf!”
Water Attunement

Give me some reasons why this build would be superior to this one:

12 + 1 + 3 = 16 Fire Magic
12 + 1 = 13 Energy Storage
3 Water Magic

Snow Storm
Tenai's Heat
Searing Heat
Ether Prodigy [E]
Deep Freeze
Glyph of Lesser Energy
Ebon Battle Standard of Honor
"By Ural's Hammer!"

This build is very ad hoc (I just made it up) so it might have a lot of problems, but give me some reasons why the idea isn't worth pursuing. The idea is that spec'ing into Water Magic with multiple snares is inferior to spec'ing into Fire Magic [or some other damage line] and bringing Deep Freeze. Before you mention "100% efficiency of snares", I'll have to ask you for more thorough reasons why you need more than 10s of snares: why, if all the monsters are caught in AoE, aren't they all dead before the 10s are up?

PS: If non-AoE damage and "other support" are all that important to you, drop EBSoH and BUH for YMLAD! and 9-spec Aegis, or screw Fire Magic and go Earth with Churning Earth and Eruption.

PPS: In addition to comparing Churning Earth and Deep Freeze, consider Glyph Sac + Meteor Shower.

LifeInfusion · Dec 30, 2010, 01:19 PM // 13:19

I'm not a big fan of meteor shower because it's in a line with little to offer without the elites. 3 unconditional knockdowns is all it is good for since the 100+ damage is reduced to a pitiful 30-50 most of the time.
Rodgort's Invocation? Need Mind Blast or Ele attunement to fuel it (GoLE isn't really enough).
Searing Flames? Elite.
Fireball? It's terrible given all the buffs to other classes and is a projectile. Liquid Flame? 15 recharge.
Flame Djinn's Haste is semi-useful, less in PvE.
Glowing Gaze, Immolate are not worth writing home about and aren't damage. Incendiary Bonds is lame also, since if the hex is removed you do 0.
Meteor with Meteor Shower would be pretty much redundant.

All of the Fire AoEs do the same damage as Earth ones and/or Snowstorm, so there's no reason to run them. Double heats aren't really more damage than say, MoP or Splinter unless you hit 4 targets.

Eles are utility based and fire has little to no utility.