Curse

HigherMinion · Oct 04, 2012, 08:48 PM // 20:48

The new elementalist is here. It's been here for a few weeks now, but I haven't heard much comment about it. Has it solved the problems? Is it powercreep or are the new mechanics/skills worse than before?

ANet want eles to now dip into two elemental attributes, which inherently means worse energy management and lower damage. Was this not the issue in the first place? I seriously think the devs thought eles were bored of nuking/supporting and wanted new skills that were wacky and did cool stuff like flash enchantments. Buffing Flare is funny to a vet, but it doesn't make it usable still.

I checked PvX and there were no new build ideas. Was this a pointless update?

DiogoSilva · Oct 05, 2012, 04:01 AM // 04:01

PvX is kind of dead right now.

From what I've seen, this update was more about tweaking skills or giving elementalists more options, and less about revamping them. There's almost no powercreep here, imo, which is both a good and a bad thing. A bad thing in the sense that mesmers will still dominate too much.

From what I've experimented, air builds are now viable in pve with Elemental Attunement, or the slightly weaker Evoke Lightning variant for heavy enchantment-stripping areas. Fast activating skills, fast recharges, and allows you to focus on really good single-target damage without sacrificing your aoe. Some people don't give much value on the blinding elites, but they're spammable, the entire attribute is spammable spike damage now, and I wonder how blinding air compares to illusion mesmers.

Fire builds are slightly better. Especially one-man Searing Flames builds, now that you can rupt while dealing good spammable damage with some investment in air (over energy storage, so no damage reduction).

Water builds are viable, but questionable. With Shatterstone + Icy prism, you have a good source of spammable nearby area damage, but they are not enough by themselves. Ice Spike is cool to fill in, doubling as a snare but being adjacent area only. Someone at pvx seems to believe Rust is a good filler skill, but honestly I have my doubts. Blurred Frenzy is good anti-melee, bue deals no damage and is adjacent range too. You'll almost always need the water skill to give you energy. And the new aura is cool for extra party support with no additional investment. Overall, I'm not sure how they are comparable to illusion mesmers, but lasting melee control + snaring within the same build can always be a good option for nuking team builds. Haven't tested the effectiveness of Chilling Winds. Slippery Ground (+ Water Trident) might have potential for spammable adjacent range KD, especially for nuking team builds that make foes spread, but I haven't tested it.

Earth continues to have the same problem as it did when it came to nuking. High recharges. However, the utility is pretty nice now (I like the snare + nearby-area weakness), so it has potential when specced as a secondary attribute. I believe it works best on a EA Fire+Earth hybrid. I don't know how effective Bed of Coals is, but is a spammable, fast-casting nuke that keeps foes burned while earth could theoretically snare foes. Magnetic Aura seems stronger than Magnetic Surge (faster recharge, faster activation, overall more damage, but I suppose spiking with Surge is better for pvp.

The new intensity is strong. Coupled with the right spell, and it's basically an instant-cast, armor-ignoring 70-100+ area-range damage every 10 seconds. Goes really well with Invoke Lightning/ Rodgort/ Searing Flames/ Meteor for aoe spikes, or Lightning Hammer/ Orb/ Vapor Blade to make sure your strong single-target spells also hurt everything else. This really helps making several builds more viable, imo.

When it comes to PBAoE, I don't know, haven't tested it enough. There's overall more range, but the defense is still a problem.

For pvp, Lightning Strike is overpowered.

HigherMinion · Oct 05, 2012, 06:36 AM // 06:36

If eles are looking better now but still inferior to mesmers, it can't have been too successful. I think mesmers' interrupts and other domination AoE damage skills need weakening. Maybe just tweaking mesmer numbers will make eles shine.

I think the problem is down to mesmers having both high damage numbers (AoE and single-target) and utilities built in which make eles superfluous. If eles are going to have no real utility than damage, they need higher numbers.

That or mesmer damage being nerfed. It's been needing to happen for months.

Highlander Of Alba · Oct 05, 2012, 01:02 PM // 13:02

Although as you put it inferior to mesmers, I have to point out it took years to get a Mesmer (pve) to become acepted and I can even post when anet even stated prior to GWEN the mesmer needed to be rebuilt..

Back to the topic you cannot start by saying or comparing to another class as we are talking about Elementists not comparisons.

I have not tried the Ele as yet in the Foundry to see what the AI have been done since this as although it could be done h/h before with a little planning
Have any of you tried the foundry as yet with H/H

I have been a little busy on GW2 to backtrack but still love GW1 better just have to go on one of my alts and give it a go to see what its like without comparing to any other class

Bristlebane · Oct 05, 2012, 02:47 PM // 14:47

I put some efforts experimenting with the new ele skills, mainly to see if I could find new hero builds or fun new player builds.

Any good idea how to abuse the new Phoenix/Magnetic skills?

Magnetic Aura or Magnetic Surge. Surge have the advantage of affecting allies, including minions.
Phoenix for a Fireball effect while healing melees near target. Either for parties with melees, or with minions. A Necro MM could then take a more offensive skill instead of Blood of the Master.

First that came to mind was a Master of Magic build which I tested on a hero. Sadly, heroes don't prioritize MoM and casted these enchantments at 0 attribute sometimes.

Swirling Aura is also interesting, but it's also purely defensive in contrast to the above mentioned skills.
Stone Daggers could be good for covering up other conditions like Deep Wounds and what not.
Ice Spear could work well for being less vulnerable to enchantment stripping foes.

DiogoSilva · Oct 05, 2012, 04:13 PM // 16:13

Master of Magic and Glimmering Mark was pointless on heroes before the update, and if the former was not fixed, I doubt the later was too. I'll try it out, though, because the idea of putting Mark on one target and then focusing on another adjacent to the former seems pretty brutal. Mark deals great damage over time in addition to constant blind, so outside of hex removal it's basically a fire-and-forget skill that gives you all the time to spam your other skills for damage, while keeping melee groups in check. I personally prefer it over Blinding Surge.

So Magnetic Surge affects allies? I've missed that part. Phoenix is cool as a weaker (but cheaper) fireball that helps keeping melee alive, I could see it as an optional slot for dual elementalist team builds with MM necros. Why are minion bombers favoured over other kind of minion masters for heroes, does anyone know? Is it the heroes that can't use the other skills as effectively?

And yeah, the biggest obstacle to elementalists right now are the mesmers. But I wonder if eles can compete already with illusion mesmers or not.

We can probably make a team build with water snaring and spiking (and maelstrom?), or some kind of earth/ fire or earth/ air hybrids to keep enemies snared while being nuked/ spiked, while having one or two other elementalists (+RoJ monks) and melee (Dervishes? Minions for sure) nuking balled foes.

So it would help to see how ele nukers are comparable to smiting monks too. What can eles bring to the table now?

Also, what are the best cross-elemental skills for team builds? Tenai's heat is strong, but what else?

In theory, two-three elementalists can keep foes snared (adjacent with ice Spike, nearby with their 25e skill, short-term nearby with Earthen shackles, churning earth), weakened (Earthen Shackles), KDed (nearby with earth, adjacent spammable with water), adjacent burning + nuking (bed of coals when there's KD available) blinded (adjacent with air elites, nearby with Eruption, or as alternatives, Blurred vision with water), all the while they're nuking or aoe spiking everything (EA air/ fire nukes, savannah heat?). This frees up the curses resto slot for another (hybrid) healer build, with enchantment stripping being doable on Mesmer, and places doubts over the position of an illusion mesmer. With possibly more durable minions (phoenix, magnetic surge which would also double as great extra damage), for better snaring too.

Bristlebane · Oct 05, 2012, 04:31 PM // 16:31

The new Lightning Touch can be useful for melees. At a minimal 3 Air Magic, it still does 2s Blindness and 3s Cracked to all adjacent foes for only 5e.

And for Any/E spellcasters, The buffed Glyph of Swiftness can give you 3 affected spells for a moderate investment of 6 Air.

---
How well could a Mist Form / Rust hero do?
The new Rust are quite overpowered now if you're Overcast. MistForm would then give a hefty damage reduction, block annoying signets like Res/HealSignet, and provide ALLY heals in earshot. While ~26hp earshot heals for 10en spell spammage might not be much, it's enough to counter degen, heal minions and possibly spirits as well.

DiogoSilva · Oct 05, 2012, 07:54 PM // 19:54

Mist Form does not seem to have enough support for pve, imo. I'm not sure how relevant the damage reduction ability is for pve, and for non-water elemental hexes or 25e deep freeze, I can see EA or MoM being more viable. Still, won't know until it's tried.

Mist Form, Water Attunement, Arcane Mimicry for Elemental Attunement from another elementalist.
Blurred Vision (10e), Deep Freeze (25e), Icy Prism (10e), Swirling Aura (10e), Chilling Winds (5e, 9+1 air, 9+1 e.storage, for a total of ~12-ish air magic).
Alternative: Frozen Burst for a more melee-ranged character, considering they have inherent damage prevention.

I don't know how hero's AI deals with this, but in theory, just by going through the non-self-enchantment skills, with 18 in water magic (290% healing), we get:

B.Vision: 29 HP; DF: 72 HP; I.Prism: 29 HP; S. Aura: 29 HP; C.Winds: 14 HP. That's 173 party healing. Only Icy Prism is spammable, though...

EDIT: Better build:
Chilling Winds, I.Spikes, B.Vision, I.Prism, Glowing Ice, S.Aura, M.Form, W.Attunement.
Perma blurred vision, perma snare, questionable party healing, and crappy damage, to the point that I would remove Icy Prism (it's not spiking anything) for, hmm, Rust?
EDIT 2: The AI is so smart at using Chilling Winds before a water hex, that they actually won't use any hex before it. I'm just going to take it away, and I still don't like mainbar Rust for pve.

EDIT 3:
Wow, Water Trident is great! Spammable 95 damage to adjacent foes with a conditional KD every 3 seconds, at no meaningful cost. Here's a potentially good hero build:
Water Trident, Icy Prism, Ice Spikes, Blurred Vision, Chilling Winds, Glowing Ice, Water Attunement, Aura of Restoration.

Heroes seem to spike efficiently with Water Trident + Icy Prism. Chilling Winds does not takes too much away from your DPS (it still deals adjacent-area damage, even if not as much), but heroes know how to use it with Ice Spikes and Blurred Vision, which allows them to last, respectively, ~10 and ~17 seconds. We get good damage with great movement control, and anti-melee as a bonus.

Bristlebane · Oct 05, 2012, 08:05 PM // 20:05

Hero AI is quite good with Arcane Mimicry at least, I tested that part and it's also on wiki. They only copy skills they share a certain amount of attribute points with.

Biggest problem with an Overcast hero I think is to make sure they don't accumulate too much Overcast. That probably means Maelstrom or Meteor as their recharge is on par with recovering from Overcast.

With MoM I guess you could make a fun glass cannon melee ele, as you can take full advantage of Prismatic Insignia and can afford attribute in Command to take advantage of a shield.
60 Base Armor+ 20 Prismatic Insignia + 16 Shield + 5 Shield Unconditional Mod = 101 Unstrippable Base Armor.
Add in extra armor from skills, and I guess you can make fun of some touch or PBAE skills.

* Burning Speed with Fridgid Armor ?
* Conjure, Whirlwind Attack, Whirlwind, Aftershock, Lava Font ?
* Lightning Touch * Lightning Touch
* Ride the Lightning

It might be not be the most elite builds, but I bet it would be a lot more fun to play

DiogoSilva · Oct 05, 2012, 08:31 PM // 20:31

Check my third edit at my last post. Water Trident is great! I might actually end up liking it more than Shatterstone. It hits less foes, but it's so much cheaper, more spammable and has a conditional KD. Going to post it on pvx.

Bristlebane · Oct 05, 2012, 09:18 PM // 21:18

Yeah Water Trident is cheap and spammable.
let's compare it to the new Flare, assuming Overcast and they both hit 3 foes. 16 attr.

Flare can deal 204dmg to 3 foes every 1.75s with aftercast = 117dmg/sec.
Trident can deal 285dmg to 3 foes every 4.00s = 71dmg/sec. (But with conditional KD).
However you can squeeze in a 1.5s spell between Trident's recharge considering aftercast.

Personally I have wanted to make a fun Stoning Build. 109dmg at 16 Earth with an easier met conditional than Trident. While it only hit one foe and cost 15en, it could just be hilarious with a group of stone throwers

But it would probably end up being a sub-par build.

DiogoSilva · Oct 06, 2012, 02:42 AM // 02:42

http://www.gwpvx.com/Build:E/any_Water_Trident_Hero
Swirling Aura is better than AoR here, in my opinion. Energy is not a problem, and so I'd prefer the 60 party healing and projectile blocking every 15 seconds. "Never Surrender!" could possibly be a better option, but there's not enough attribute points left to make it worthwhile.

Considering the build alreasy has a 10s (17s) anti-melee every 12s (6s), not taking into account the snares , anti-projectiles is a nice extra defense.

Blackbirdx61 · Oct 18, 2012, 08:37 PM // 20:37

I've been using an SF Ele, and at R/E Double Dragon build forever, even though Incindary Bonds was caught up in the update I've personally noted no real nerf to that skill or my fire builds... Of course I've made no effort to exploit the Overcast Mechanic with strikes me as missing the point; as noted by a poster above.

IMHO the real problem with Ele's has always been the lack of a Native Hex removal ability so Mesmers can cast counters all day, to no ill effect and jus wait for an Ele to walk into a left hook. What I generally do is run a E/Mes and shield my Ele with Hexbreaker which provides some protection PvE. - Of course this seriously limits ones 2nd Profession options; but at this point a very much doubt the devs will give Eles any Native hex busting abilities.

Besides the Devs have always favored, Hex's, counters, and reposits over directly offensive abilities; its just their bais, look at Pain invertor one of the most powerful skills in the game and its effectively a super counter with no real reply too it; or the Warrior builds for Ascention in the Wiki, Riposte, Riposte, Riposte .. counter counter counter till your doople ganger is dead; forget taking the fight to him and winning. I've never agreed with this design philosophy but it is their world we are just playing in it and we have to accept some things.

HigherMinion · Nov 02, 2012, 02:55 AM // 02:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackbirdx61

IMHO the real problem with Ele's has always been the lack of a Native Hex removal ability ... What I generally do is run a E/Mes and shield my Ele with Hexbreaker which provides some protection PvE. ...

Why not make use of the other characters in your team and let them remove your hexes? Shatter Hex is easy to slot on a dom mes, and hex removal on a monk/ER ele. Seems you're not abusing synergy!