Curse

HigherMinion · Mar 30, 2010, 08:32 AM // 08:32

Is somebody forgetting about Tryptophan signet as an awesome snare? Because it is definitely my favourite.

Doesn't the Summon Ice Imp use DF and IS?

fenix · Mar 30, 2010, 08:56 AM // 08:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Life Bringing

Water magic is bad. Face the facts and quit bitching. There is nothing worth doing that water does better than another element. I have no idea why you would need to snare something in general pve, as it's largely unnecessary. The only exception would be shit like doa, but that uses deep freeze without a spec, so it doesn't count in the favor of running a water build. If you need it for wards, urdoinitwrong. If you're trying to exceed the damage done by earth/fire/air with water, urdoinitwrong.

I really can't figure out why you're so set on defending water magic.

This. This also goes for that horrible E/W bar that people were discussing on page one.

Actually, for the most part, this guide is very misleading. You pretty much say "here is a good fire bar...and a bunch of secondary spec bars!". I'm of the mind that if you have to play E/X with the X being more than 3 skills, then you're playing the wrong class.

HigherMinion · Mar 30, 2010, 09:56 AM // 09:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by fenix

I'm of the mind that if you have to play E/X with the X being more than 3 skills, then you're playing the wrong class.

Then you are of the wrong mind. Sort it out.

Xenomortis · Mar 30, 2010, 12:09 PM // 12:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by fenix

Actually, for the most part, this guide is very misleading. You pretty much say "here is a good fire bar...and a bunch of secondary spec bars!". I'm of the mind that if you have to play E/X with the X being more than 3 skills, then you're playing the wrong class.

Show me one Elementalist bar that can perform a general role better than anything else I would slot into an 8 man human team where the majority (4 or more) of skills are Elementalist skills.
Elementalist skills include the PvE-only skills from the Sunspear and Lux/Kurz titles but not the EotN PvE titles, unless you come up with a convincing argument for them.
If it's clearly an Elementalist bar; 3 Ele skills, 3 PvE and 2 secondary skills would be fine. I suppose that means the largest fraction of skills in your bar must be Elementalist skills (groupings are EotN PvE and by professions).

Before you begin:
The two obvious choices are Water magic snares (not very useful in PvE, Cripple will easily do and a Fevered Dreams bar has more utility) and Earth Magic for knockdown utility and wards (wards are supplanted almost completely by Aegis and the Ebon Battle Standards and if I want knockdown, the way to do it is GDW on physicals and YMLAD).
Air Magic is rather meh - it has Blind and stuff the Curses line does better, Fire Magic has unspectacular damage and some Knockdown that Earth Magic generally does better, AP-MS is perhaps the KD option better than Earth stuff, but the exhaustion starts to bite very quickly.
Edit: Oh yes, and the Snowmen Lair. But honestly, if you argue for such a trivial dungeon as a reason why I should bring such an Ele bar, then I'll just dismiss it out of hand.

AtomicMew · Mar 30, 2010, 07:02 PM // 19:02

Quote:

I suppose that means the largest fraction of skills in your bar must be Elementalist skills (groupings are EotN PvE and by professions).

ER - AoR - Elemental Lord - Life Attunement - GDW - Glyph of Swiftness - Infuse - Infuse

4 elemental skills, 2 PvE, 3 Monk, for a total of NINE skills.

Xenomortis · Mar 30, 2010, 10:54 PM // 22:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by trcvrs

ER - AoR - Elemental Lord - Life Attunement - GDW - Glyph of Swiftness - Infuse - Infuse

4 elemental skills, 2 PvE, 3 Monk, for a total of NINE skills.

And why would I run that over an ER bar that consists of 2/3 Ele skills, 0/1 EotN PvE skills and 3-5 Monk skills?
Namely:
ER, AoR, GoS, Infuse, Prot Spirit, Spirit Bond, Shield Guardian/GDW, Life Attunement

Allamorph · Mar 31, 2010, 12:50 AM // 00:50

Forgive me for asking a seemingly noobish question, but . . . what end, exactly, does the snare serve? By which I mean, once the target's (or targets') movement is slashed, how does that become useful in combat?

I have my own answer already; I'm just curious what yours are.

maxxfury · Mar 31, 2010, 01:16 AM // 01:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Allamorph

Forgive me for asking a seemingly noobish question, but . . . what end, exactly, does the snare serve? By which I mean, once the target's (or targets') movement is slashed, how does that become useful in combat?

I have my own answer already; I'm just curious what yours are.

ermm....takes longer for them to get out of aoe meaning they take more damage, and harder for them to get your your squishies..who can kite then much easier meaning you take less damage..also gives you the positional advantage moving faster than they do.

Perfected Shadow · Mar 31, 2010, 01:25 AM // 01:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Allamorph

Forgive me for asking a seemingly noobish question, but . . . what end, exactly, does the snare serve?

It makes monsters cuss and ragequit faster than you can kill them.

Oh and Mind Freeze... I don't even want to start on that.

Frozen Ele · Mar 31, 2010, 01:59 AM // 01:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Allamorph

Forgive me for asking a seemingly noobish question, but . . . what end, exactly, does the snare serve? By which I mean, once the target's (or targets') movement is slashed, how does that become useful in combat?

I have my own answer already; I'm just curious what yours are.

Not a bad question in any way, but I just want to get what you're asking strightened out before I answer. When you mean "the snare" are you refering to a specific snare, or is your question mainly predicated around "what is the purpose of a snare"? I will answer the latter, but should the former be what you're asking, I'd be happy to answer again.

First off, if you want, you can reference my first post on the second page of this thread to develop how I view snares, but since that is a long post, I'll summarize it here.

Next, there are multiple ways of defining what a snare is. The first is the more conventional definition: that a snare is a skill that decreases the movement speed of a foe; the second is the more literal definition: that a snare is a skill that impedes a foe, be it slowing down to interupting a foe. Based off of your question, I will answer your question in context to the former definition. (I included this paragraph to indicate to reader(s) that there is more than one way of defining what a "snare" is.)

The purpose of slowing down a foe, in my opinion, is two-fold. The first purpose is to increase the effectiveness of AoEDoT (area of effect, damage over time) skills. By causing enemy(ies) to move slower, if they try to escape the area of an AoEDoT skill, it would take it (them) longer to do, so it (they)would take more damage from the AoEDoT skill, making that skill more effective. Second, the purpose of a snare is to slow down an enemy(ies) to prevent it (them) from reaching your party. This purpose more aligns itself with meele enemies, since they are normally the ones to move more. Whether it is to prevent the meele foe(s) from reaching your party after intitial agro or to stop an enemy from chasing one of your party members, namely healers, the purpose of a snare would be to inflict damage, or fatal damage, before the foe(s) reach the group in the first case, or to allow the chased member to resume his or her role, as in the second case.

Snaring foes in this way optimizes AoEDoT damage and allows for efficient killing, as well as allowing other party members to fulfill their roles for a greater percentage of time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Perfected Shadow

Oh and Mind Freeze... I don't even want to start on that.

Does it make you want to ragequit?

I'd love to hear your take on the skill

Allamorph · Mar 31, 2010, 05:31 AM // 05:31

That's pretty well the responses I expected. The practical application of snares, then, devolves to either a means to apply more easily-concentrated damage or to a means of escape and protection.

But what about its use for aggro control? Take this statement here:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frozen Ele

Second, the purpose of a snare is to slow down an enemy(ies) to prevent it (them) from reaching your party.

Per my understanding, you still want enemies to reach your party. If you didn't, the best tactic would be to run the frick away. The snare would then assist you by giving you the opportunity to gain enough distance to break aggro quickly . . . but you'd never kill anything, which defeats the whole purpose of combat at all.

Rather, instead of wanting enemies to not reach your party, you want to make sure the enemies only reach certain members of your party; i.e., the tanks. (Here you're probably going "yes, duh", but trust me, I'm going somewhere with this.)

In my current—although comparatively limited—PvE experience, I have noticed that, although monsters will initially latch onto targets other than my frontliners and tanks and attempt to rush past them, if they are impeded from efficiently reaching their target they will after at most a second or two shift to a closer target and stick on it. Effective tanking already does this by making movement past the tank mostly impossible. But snares also accomplish this goal, by rendering monster movement towards their primary targets ineffective and causing the AI to switch to the melee targets already among them.

I have been using Water Magic for a majority of the time I've been playing—which, granted, has only been since last September, with a half-month off each in December and January—mostly because Fire bores me. It's useful and effective, but it's simple in theory and implementation. And since there are a few skills that synergise with the Water Magic line in both Air and Fire, I found Water an attractive alternative.

I've been playing with a build heavy on snares since about February (mostly after capping MoI and discovering the bug in the skill; armor-ignoring damage is very attractive, even if it is single-target) and in practice with h/h I have consistently been able to channel a guestimated 95% of incoming aggro to my frontline. This allows every AI in my party a high rate of proper function, and stuff gets killed; whereas when I shift to a Fire-based build (which tend to focus around/capitalise on Burning) I have significantly less control over where the enemies go, and spend half of each battle frantically calling targets to get pressure off of my healers and support.

tl;dr The point of this ramble was to say that, although I rely on snares a lot for my gaming, I do not rely on them to prevent the enemies from escaping damage or to allow me and my party to escape damage. I use snares as essentially crowd control (aggro focus instead of retardant/breakage), and I have found it to be rather effective in that regard.

Winterclaw · Mar 31, 2010, 05:56 AM // 05:56

Why are you guys using DPRT instead of DPS? GW doesn't have rounds.

IMO spike damage is good when you've got something that goes down quickly, but when you are facing hardier foes that don't go down quickly, then better DPS is more efficient. However this being GW, most of the foes you meet tend to be of the go down quickly type, especially when you are using one of the better hero builds.

The only good thing I could say about water is snares would keep a group of clustered foes in AoE range, however you can use deep freeze without speccing in water and there's always YMLAD/epidemic.

Allamorph · Mar 31, 2010, 07:12 AM // 07:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Winterclaw

Why are you guys using DPRT instead of DPS? GW doesn't have rounds.

I'm thinking of it more like Damage Per Cast Cycle, which makes a tad more sense in the "round" sense. (Granted, not terribly much more since when you're casting for damage you're throwing spells as soon as they recharge, and really don't have much of a cycle aside from enchant maintaining.)

I don't much care for the nomenclature either, but it's what Frozen liked, so.

Jeydra · Mar 31, 2010, 05:16 PM // 17:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Life Bringing

Water magic is bad. Face the facts and quit bitching. There is nothing worth doing that water does better than another element. I have no idea why you would need to snare something in general pve, as it's largely unnecessary. The only exception would be shit like doa, but that uses deep freeze without a spec, so it doesn't count in the favor of running a water build. If you need it for wards, urdoinitwrong. If you're trying to exceed the damage done by earth/fire/air with water, urdoinitwrong.

Actually I think that's a good reason to use Water Magic. Deep Freeze is a Water Magic spell. So Water isn't completely useless, it's just useless most of the time, and you pretty much never want to spec into it. I'll edit the guide once I find the time to do so (may be tomorrow, may be a week).

Otherwise I did think of how Armour of Mist makes a great running skill - adding armour and movespeed, both of which a runner would love. Then I remembered how you don't need Armour of Mist when you have Shadow Form ...

@Allenmorph -

What is the point of a snare in PvE? Off the top of my head I can think of a few (valid, to me at least) reasons:

1. To stop monsters from running away from your damage. Usually not necessary, unless you're taking the time to ball all the monsters up nicely. Not something you'd do in general PvE.
2. To stop specific monsters from running away (e.g. Moddok Crevice, if you're doing the bonus). Quite uncommon.
3. To stop monsters from chasing you while you're retreating from a near-wipe. If this has happened, then either you made a mistake somewhere or your teambuild / personal skill needs work. In this case I favour working on the mistake / teambuild / personal skill instead of bringing snares just in case I almost wipe.

That's about it. You write that you use snares to channel aggro onto your tanks when H/H'ing, well I do not know how much damage I'm channeling to my tanks when I H/H, but I achieve all that with one snare (You Move Like A Dwarf!), and I don't think it was all that helpful with "channeling aggro". See the topic I posted about it in the Heroes and AI subforum ... also doesn't help that there aren't any options for "tanks" when you H/H as an Elementalist, aside from spirits and minions.

Then there's the so-called purpose that Frozen Ele is so fond of: that by snaring foes you can stop them from hitting you. Indeed, you can, but this "purpose" is almost completely negligible. The flaw is that you simply do not want to / need to. Let's look at the other options available to defend against melee damage:

1. Aegis. This is obviously superior to snares actually. Not only is it easier to use, you cover your entire party at once and you cover against ranged damage and it's one skill that requires ~9 spec in. In this it's far superior to bringing Deep Freeze / Ice Spikes / Shard Storm / Freezing Gust / Winter's Embrace / *cough* Mind Freeze *cough* @ 15 Water.
2. Blinding Surge. This is also obviously superior to snares. It's AoE blind, works even if the melee has already reached a target, works against ranged damage like Rangers and Paragons, does damage, usually lasts longer and is just one skill slot, leaving you space for optionals. If you've played PvP, you'll note that Water Eles are one of the archetypal defensive midliners at the moment (although they seem to be decreasing in number), but the teams that use them know that BSurge provides stronger defense as well as spike support. The major advantage of the snare Ele is tactical control like pushing flags and chasing down splits, which doesn't matter in PvE.
3. Ward Against Melee / Ebon Battle Standard of Courage. Again superior to snares, you cover everyone who's in the ward at once and, in the case of the latter, cover against other forms of damage as well.

Conclusion: you don't need a Water Elementalist.

If you like, I can H/H with you sometime and show you what happens when I play. There's absolutely no need for a Water Elementalist, although of course I don't run Fire Magic. Message me on my IGN if you want.

PS: @fenix - I sure wish there were such builds, but aside from Searing Flames spam in DoASCs, I can't think of any. Elementalists can't deal damage as well as other professions in general PvE, utility is largely useless and ER Infuse bars don't use more than 3 Elementalist skills (ER, AoR, Glyph). What else is there?

Allamorph · Mar 31, 2010, 08:24 PM // 20:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

@Allenmorph -

Well that's a variant I haven't seen before.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

What is the point of a snare in PvE? Off the top of my head I can think of a few (valid, to me at least) reasons:

1. To stop monsters from running away from your damage. Usually not necessary, unless you're taking the time to ball all the monsters up nicely. Not something you'd do in general PvE.
2. To stop specific monsters from running away (e.g. Moddok Crevice, if you're doing the bonus). Quite uncommon.
3. To stop monsters from chasing you while you're retreating from a near-wipe. If this has happened, then either you made a mistake somewhere or your teambuild / personal skill needs work. In this case I favour working on the mistake / teambuild / personal skill instead of bringing snares just in case I almost wipe.

We're pretty well of the same mind on this. But that brings me back to where I mentioned "escape and protection" already—although to be fair I should have specified that snares as a means to more easily concentrate damage includes preventing enemies from escaping. And yeah, only really works well when you have enemies you don't want to run away, or you yourself need to run away, which, again, we're in agreement.

The purpose of the aggro-control is a little more than just maximising damage from my tanks. It basically boils down to this:

Prevention of aggro in undesirable locations — e.g. a running monk isn't a monk.
Party damage output maximisation — the 'clumping' deal isn't as important to me, since (obviously) the important AoE from my part happened at the beginning of the battle to channel in the first place. And casters can pretty well strike anywhere regardless. But a running warrior isn't exactly a warrior, either, until it's hitting something again, so minimising the distance to the next foe means starting damage sooner, means less time spent fighting single mobs.
Damage control — mobs or no, redirecting incoming damage onto the highest AL rating reduces enemy damage dealt, making my monk AI a little more effective. At present I tend to run a monk hero with a heal/prot hybrid and although I like Aegis, it doesn't show up on the bar because I can achieve the same end result with cheaper spells. (I actually had a monk walk me through the theory behind building Mo/ bars since going E/Mo allows me an emanage spread they don't really get.)

As far as what you mean by "limited options for tanks when you're E/", I'm not sure I totally follow. I don't need to be a tank, for certain; I usually let the melees handle that aspect. And minions don't tank so much as they sort of . . . unpredictably clog things. Which is still rather useful, don't get me wrong.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Then there's the so-called purpose that Frozen Ele is so fond of: that by snaring foes you can stop them from hitting you. Indeed, you can, but this "purpose" is almost completely negligible. The flaw is that you simply do not want to / need to.

I agree.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Conclusion: you don't need a Water Elementalist.

If you like, I can H/H with you sometime and show you what happens when I play. There's absolutely no need for a Water Elementalist, although of course I don't run Fire Magic. Message me on my IGN if you want.

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. You find Water useless, and your time in the game would seem to support you; I do not, but the advantage I have in this situation is that I am a fresh face and am not looking at the at the same data I've been looking at for years. I may not find anything new, but at the same time I'm not jaded.

That, and I'm also holding off experimenting with Earth/Air builds until I get the impression I have the ones needed to test things out. But that'll come in time.

Frozen Ele · Apr 01, 2010, 12:14 AM // 00:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Then there's the so-called purpose that Frozen Ele is so fond of: that by snaring foes you can stop them from hitting you. Indeed, you can, but this "purpose" is almost completely negligible. The flaw is that you simply do not want to / need to. Let's look at the other options available to defend against melee damage:

1. Aegis. This is obviously superior to snares actually. Not only is it easier to use, you cover your entire party at once and you cover against ranged damage and it's one skill that requires ~9 spec in. In this it's far superior to bringing Deep Freeze / Ice Spikes / Shard Storm / Freezing Gust / Winter's Embrace / *cough* Mind Freeze *cough* @ 15 Water.
2. Blinding Surge. This is also obviously superior to snares. It's AoE blind, works even if the melee has already reached a target, works against ranged damage like Rangers and Paragons, does damage, usually lasts longer and is just one skill slot, leaving you space for optionals. If you've played PvP, you'll note that Water Eles are one of the archetypal defensive midliners at the moment (although they seem to be decreasing in number), but the teams that use them know that BSurge provides stronger defense as well as spike support. The major advantage of the snare Ele is tactical control like pushing flags and chasing down splits, which doesn't matter in PvE.
3. Ward Against Melee / Ebon Battle Standard of Courage. Again superior to snares, you cover everyone who's in the ward at once and, in the case of the latter, cover against other forms of damage as well.

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.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

1. To stop monsters from running away from your damage. Usually not necessary, unless you're taking the time to ball all the monsters up nicely. Not something you'd do in general PvE.

Could you expand on this claim's warrant?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Winterclaw

Why are you guys using DPRT instead of DPS? GW doesn't have rounds.

A round is how often one is able to use a skill (generaly the recharge + the cast time) and is a variant on DPS. Its main difference is that DPS is generally used to describe a set of skills or a battle, rather than a single skill. Granted, DPRT can be extended to describe a combo of skills, but is most useful when dealing with only a skill or two (to be honest I don't know how one would calculate DPS on a non-AoEDoT skill without factoring in "round time"). In other words, DPRT is a way of factoring in how often one can use a skill to DPS, I can expand on this if it would be in anyone's interest. Also, I use "round time" becuase of its connotations with snares. Efficiency of a snare can be related by the duration of the snare divided by the round time.

I might add more to this post later.

Charlotte the Harlot · Apr 01, 2010, 01:02 AM // 01:02

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.

People need to stop thinking in terms of a "water build" elementalist has some of the best utility skills at low specs so grabbing 1-3 skills from multiple elements usually creates the most effective builds. Also just because you are using water snares as part of your defense doesn't mean don't use something like vanguard ward they can be used in conjunction for even greater effects. similarly GDW and snares work great the snares only make GDW more effective by allowing barrage to hit more targets and the frontline to get to their target more easily.

Frozen Ele · Apr 01, 2010, 05:46 AM // 05:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

2. I've tried to avoid commenting on your study directly, but since you're basically forcing me to, I'll do it. I base my opinions off practical results, not what mathematics may say. In thise case Freezing Gust is clearly the best non-PvE-skill snare in the game if all you care about is the snare. Mind Freeze may last longer etc but it causes exhaustion, you can't maintain it nearly as well and it gimps the rest of your build. End of story. You have to improve your study. Remember what science in general is supposed to do: it should replicate practice. When a model fails to do it, you improve it, not force real life to conform.

I am always open to feedback and comments on the study, which is one of the reasons I have posted it here on Guru, but citing your beliefs do not contribute much. Furthermore, the mathematics in the thread are based on practicality, in that the snare casting configurations are based off of how real people would cast the snares. Next, I’d like you to expand on what you mean by “practical results”; since you don’t use snares, I am wondering how you would have formed “practical results.” Not to sound rude, but could you be a bit more explicit in how I could improve the thread? I can’t tell exactly what you mean in this post.

Also, this is a PvE guide, as you outlined in your first post, so citing your beliefs about PvP is not too beneficial. Regardless, Mind Freeze still trumps Freezing Gust. AoE snares are mainly used against the casters, to keep them in AoE damage, and at the initial agro, for agro control. Single target snares are more likely going to be used against melee foes since they do not move as a uniform group after agro. Thus, the issue becomes, which is better Mind Freeze or Freezing Gust against melee foes? Because melee foes do not have as much energy as casters, even human ones, it would be easy for one to have more energy than a melee enemy, so Mind Freeze would still work (a human caster can easily have 120+ energy – via a +30/-2regen set - with only 12 ES, beating any melee foe’s energy). 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 rather than snaring.

Next, Mind Freeze does more damage than Freezing Gust. If one is using Freezing Gust as a snare and is sure it will act as a snare, rather than doing damage, then it will do no damage, causing Mind Freeze to be preferred since it deals more damage. Even if Freezing Gust does damage, it does the same amount of damage as Mind Freeze. Mind Freeze is preferred because its certainty of damage. Additionally, Mind Freeze is preferred because of the quality of the snare. Freezing Gust is a 66% snare (when active) versus a 90% snare from Mind Freeze, so Mind Freeze is superior to Freezing Gust since it stops a foe more thoroughly.

From my experience, Mind Freeze is better than Freezing Gust because of predictability, damage, and snare quality. At the very least, you’ve conceded that Winter’s Embrace is not the best single-target snare, so be it Mind Freeze or another snare that you still feel is the best, please update your guide.

(I'll probably comment on the other sections of that post within the next few days)

Life Bringing · Apr 01, 2010, 10:02 AM // 10:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frozen Ele

I am always open to feedback and comments on the study, which is one of the reasons I have posted it here on Guru, but citing your beliefs do not contribute much. Furthermore, the mathematics in the thread are based on practicality, in that the snare casting configurations are based off of how real people would cast the snares. Next, I’d like you to expand on what you mean by “practical results”; since you don’t use snares, I am wondering how you would have formed “practical results.” Not to sound rude, but could you be a bit more explicit in how I could improve the thread? I can’t tell exactly what you mean in this post.

Also, this is a PvE guide, as you outlined in your first post, so citing your beliefs about PvP is not too beneficial. Regardless, Mind Freeze still trumps Freezing Gust. AoE snares are mainly used against the casters, to keep them in AoE damage, and at the initial agro, for agro control. Single target snares are more likely going to be used against melee foes since they do not move as a uniform group after agro. Thus, the issue becomes, which is better Mind Freeze or Freezing Gust against melee foes? Because melee foes do not have as much energy as casters, even human ones, it would be easy for one to have more energy than a melee enemy, so Mind Freeze would still work (a human caster can easily have 120+ energy – via a +30/-2regen set - with only 12 ES, beating any melee foe’s energy). 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 rather than snaring.

Next, Mind Freeze does more damage than Freezing Gust. If one is using Freezing Gust as a snare and is sure it will act as a snare, rather than doing damage, then it will do no damage, causing Mind Freeze to be preferred since it deals more damage. Even if Freezing Gust does damage, it does the same amount of damage as Mind Freeze. Mind Freeze is preferred because its certainty of damage. Additionally, Mind Freeze is preferred because of the quality of the snare. Freezing Gust is a 66% snare (when active) versus a 90% snare from Mind Freeze, so Mind Freeze is superior to Freezing Gust since it stops a foe more thoroughly.

From my experience, Mind Freeze is better than Freezing Gust because of predictability, damage, and snare quality. At the very least, you’ve conceded that Winter’s Embrace is not the best single-target snare, so be it Mind Freeze or another snare that you still feel is the best, please update your guide.

(I'll probably comment on the other sections of that post within the next few days)

First question: Why the RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO are you using mind freeze in pve? Second: Mind freeze is a better skill because it's elite, freezing gust is better overall because it's not

Allamorph · Apr 01, 2010, 03:38 PM // 15:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Life Bringing

First question: Why the RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO are you using mind freeze in pve?

Oh you silly person. Statistics aren't used to show practicality. Psshh, no. Statistics are mental orgies for us math people.

We don't get out much.