Curse

AndrewSX · Aug 10, 2011, 11:42 AM // 11:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

very old news, discussed and calculated to death

I think that this is the only answer to give at any new "Ele buff for HM" thread.

Is a well know thing, community is asking for buff since HM introduction, and Anet didn't do anything so far. Is too late now to see something happen imo.

Don't get me wrong, i'm all for an ele buff (GWAMM on a ele main here) but is very unrealistic.

LifeInfusion · Aug 10, 2011, 04:54 PM // 16:54

The reason why people that don't play eles think eles are fine is they get hit for 300-400 (or more due to double damage from bosses) from HM ele bosses. I was monking for fun yesterday after getting the news that this week is Sylvari week, the Elementalist in my team said they were hitting 25 damage in HM with their fire build (in Consulate Docks, which is really early on in the game). [It would be a] Waste of a party slot if I was playing for speed, seriously. Since I saw their build had 12+fire (minimum via their template code) and the lowest damage fire spell is ~60, that means a 40-50% damage reduction even on Istan.

DiogoSilva · Aug 10, 2011, 07:57 PM // 19:57

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Feedback_talk:Robert_Gee
Check the bottom of the page.

The good thing is that there are plans to fix the elementalists and to tone down the AR-ignoring damage. The bad thing is that it probably won't come anytime soon due to the staff team's size and other projects.

pakhavit · Aug 11, 2011, 04:04 PM // 16:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by bhavv

Just because you can complete the game with any build, doesnt make your build good.
Well you used cons. Try it again without cons and let me know how it goes.

Consumables are cheating to me in PVE, I never use them plus they cost too much.

I did HM kathandrax easily with an Elite Skill known as ward against harm, plus either mantra of flame or frigid armor on my heroes and completed each level with party wide morale boost and barely any deaths.

If you are using consumables to remove death penalty, then obviously your team is bad. If you didnt have consumables in your inventory, then how fast would you have failed the dungeon?

Heck, I have 3 heroes and Ranger main. I beat all dungeon on hm almost right after it came out. Nobody knows what the is inside the dungeon. Try again without con? Sure I have 4 more heroes instead of 4 henchman. I can easily use 4 fire heroes in the party. Is it effective? No. Why? Not enough enemy for aoe damage to be effective.

Fire damage is AoE for a group of enemy just like RoJ. Try WoC last mission with 3 fire ele and learn to body block choke point. It's the same as MoP hb or RoJ spam. I aggro the entire 3 group of Brotherhood at the bridge and the small choke point, chain the SoA, and nuke them with 3 fire ele easily.

If you use fire damage for single target, you're doing it wrong. Ooo why my rodgort hit for only 40 damage ( x 8 x 10 enemies?) searing heat 20 damage x 5 second (x 8 enemies?) and a permanent burn -7 = 14 damage x 5+ seconds?

cause rapid scatter meaning less damage from the skills
Meteor shower doesn't cause scatter when you have 2 of them.

Now stop using fire spell on 1 enemy.

DiogoSilva · Aug 11, 2011, 07:40 PM // 19:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by pakhavit

If you use fire damage for single target, you're doing it wrong. Ooo why my rodgort hit for only 40 damage ( x 8 x 10 enemies?) searing heat 20 damage x 5 second (x 8 enemies?) and a permanent burn -7 = 14 damage x 5+ seconds?

Why use 25-energy Rodgort for 40 AoE damage, when you can spam cheap 5/10-energy skills for 100+ AoE damage with mesmers and necros, AND still have more utility and rupting power, or a wall of minions and cheap healing, with no sacrifice in aoe damage?

Elementalists suck. Mesmers can deal two-times (!!) more damage to all nearby foes with skills that not only cost half the energy but still disrupt the enemies.

Yes, you can beat the game with fire ele heroes. You can also beat the game with an empty bar. But that doesn't makes the eles as strong as the other professions.

Mouse at Large · Aug 11, 2011, 10:47 PM // 22:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiogoSilva

Yes, you can beat the game with fire ele heroes. You can also beat the game with an empty bar. But that doesn't makes the eles as strong as the other professions.

I did most of my vanquishing and guardian titles as a fire ele (MB, twin heats ad MoR), but that doesn't hide the fact that I could have done it quicker and more efficiently with another class that did either armour ignoring damage or bonus damage.

Sadly the above quote is all too true

bhavv · Aug 15, 2011, 03:51 PM // 15:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by pakhavit

Heck, I have 3 heroes and Ranger main. I beat all dungeon on hm almost right after it came out. Nobody knows what the is inside the dungeon. Try again without con? Sure I have 4 more heroes instead of 4 henchman. I can easily use 4 fire heroes in the party. Is it effective? No. Why? Not enough enemy for aoe damage to be effective.

Playing a ranger primary class and using elly heroes =/= playing an elly. You dont see the damage numbers at all and remain completely unaware of how ineffective fire damage is.

Where you are using 3 fire ellys, I would much rather use 3 mesmers or even 3 roj monks and have my party dealing over double the amount of damage compared to yours.

Mesmer, necro, ritualist and even monk heroes all deal more than double the amount of damage that elly heroes can. I really have no idea why you continue to use elly heroes, and in using them you do not prove that they are equal to other classes at all, only that you simply do not realize how underpowered elementalists are compared to other casters in HM.

I can steamroll all the content that you are playing using elly heroes with an empty skill bar and mes, necro and rit heroes. In places where you are relying on Consets to complete the content, I am completing them without cons and 10% morale boost, so no your ideas and opinions on elementalist skills / heroes are not any good.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pakhavit

Fire damage is AoE for a group of enemy just like RoJ. Try WoC last mission with 3 fire ele and learn to body block choke point. It's the same as MoP hb or RoJ spam. I aggro the entire 3 group of Brotherhood at the bridge and the small choke point, chain the SoA, and nuke them with 3 fire ele easily.

Why would I bother doing that if mesmers / rits / necros would steamroll it all a lot faster while I spam prots?

Quote:

Originally Posted by pakhavit

cause rapid scatter meaning less damage from the skills
Meteor shower doesn't cause scatter when you have 2 of them.

Well for me everything is usually dead within the 6 seconds it takes to cast meteor shower. While you have two elly heroes wasting 6s each to cast a meteor shower, my mesmers + necros have already killed amost everything in sight. Meteor shower also has too long a recharge and is far to prone to being interrupted. Another major problem for ellys in PVE is enchant removal, which there is lots of rendering a lot of builds useless while your attunement / aura are being stripped all the time. OFC your heroes are never going to complain about this, and you are going to be completely unaware of it as you play a ranger.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pakhavit

If you use fire damage for single target, you're doing it wrong. Ooo why my rodgort hit for only 40 damage ( x 8 x 10 enemies?) searing heat 20 damage x 5 second (x 8 enemies?) and a permanent burn -7 = 14 damage x 5+ seconds?

Now stop using fire spell on 1 enemy.

Ineptitude does over double that on everything. I wasnt using or focusing on single targets, I was comparing fire damage from the spell with the most damage (Rodgorts Invocation - 127 fire damage) to mesmer / necro / rit damage.

Your damage numbers of 40 from RI, and 20 from searing heat, which while they do appear to be true, is nothing compared to an Ineptitude / clumsiness / wandering eye, Mistrust, Unnatural Signet or even an Energy Surge. Triple discord would also kill things a lot faster while only being a single target spell. Defile and Desecrate Enchantments are also a lot more reliable for their armor ignoring AoE damage than any elly skills are.

bhavv · Aug 16, 2011, 08:57 AM // 08:57

Ok, I felt like going through the elly skills and coming up with a full rework of many of the skills even though they wont ever get read. Changes are for designed entirely for PVE only using the skill split.

Quote:

Ideas for Elementalist skill updates for PVE only. Skill effect numbers based on an attribute level of 16.

Air Magic (Armor penetration not mentioned, but is meant to be left unchanged).

Arc Lightning 5 / 1 / 8

Deals 53 lightning damage. Deals 79 damage to one nearby foe per elemental hex on target.

Chain Lightning 10 / 1 / 5

Deals 106 lightning damage. Hits one additional nearby foe per 4 ranks in Energy Storage.

Chilling Winds 5 / 1 / 8

Hex spell (30 seconds). The next elemental hex on target and adjacent foes lasts 105% longer. Initial effect: hits these foes for 79 cold damage.

Enervating Charge 5 / 1 / 8

Deals 79 lightning damage. Inflicts Weakness condition (21s) to target and adjacent foes.

Gust 5 / 1 / 8

Elite Spell. Deals 79 cold damage to target. Knocks down any foes within the target's area with an elemental hex for 3s.

Invoke Lightning 10 / 1 / 5

Deals 122 lightning damage. Hits one additional nearby foe per 3 ranks in Energy Storage.

Lightning Hammer - Reduced energy cost to 15

Lightning Orb - Reduced energy cost to 10

Lightning Touch 5 / 3/4 / 10

Deals 79 lightning damage to target and adacent foes. Deals an additional 79 lightning damage damage and inflicts blindness condition (8 seconds) on any of those foes also hexed with water magic

Shell Shock 5 / 1 / 8

Deals 79 lightning damage. Inflicts cracked armor condition (21s) to target and adjacent foes.

Earth Magic

Armor of Earth 25 / 2 / 15

Enchantment Spell (30s). All party members within earshot gain +42 armor. Ends early if any of these allies use an attack skill.

Dragon's Stomp / Earthquake - Reduced casting time to 1s

Magnetic Aura - 10 / 1 / 30

Enchantment Spell. All party members within earshot gain 5 damage reduction for 5....21s

Magnetic Surge - Reduce energy cost to 5.

Obsidian Flame - Remove exhaustion, increase recharge to 10s.

Stone Sheath 5 / 1 / 15

Elite Skill (5...21s). Affects party members within earshot. Converts all elemental and physical damage dealt and recieved to earth and gives immunity to critical hits.

Energy Storage

Energy Boon 5 / 20

Elite Skill (20 seconds). You have double maximum energy and +10 health regeneration. No end effect.

Ether Renewal - Ends if you use a non elementalist skill (ONLY if all the other skill changes in this list are made).

Glyph of Energy - affects your next two spells

Fire Magic

Double Dragon - 5 / 1 / 15

Deals 119 fire damage to nearby foes. You have +2 fire magic (26s) and your next 2 fire magic spells deals double damage.

Elemental Flame - 5 / 1 / 10

Hex Spell (5...21s). Also hexes nearby foes. Inflicts Burning condition (5s) whenever an elemental hex is applied to, or ends on these foes.

Fireball - Reduced cast time to 1s, reduced recharge to 5s.

Immolate - 10 / 1 / 3

Deals 119 fire damage and causes burning (3s) to target foe.

Incendiary Bonds 15 / 1 / 10

Hex Spell (5s). Also hexes foes near your target. End effect: deals 119 fire damage and inflicts Burning (3s).

Meteor - Reduced recharge to 20s

Meteor Shower - Reduced cast time to 3s, recharge to 30s

Searing Flames 15 / 1 / 15 Changed functionality to:

Elite Hex Spell (3s). Deals 127 fire to target foe. End effect: Inflicts burning condition (6s) and hexes nearby foes.

Smoldering Embers 10 / 2 / 8

Hex Spell (3s). Deals 119 fire damage. End effect: deals 119 fire damage and inflicts burning (3s)

Star Burst 5 / 3/4 / 10

Elite Touch Spell. Deals 119 fire damage. Also hits nearby foes. Recharges 66% faster if more than one foe is hit.

Water Magic

Blurred Vision - 10 / 1 / 8

Hex spell. Deals 74 cold damage to target and adjacent foes. Hexes target and adjacent foes (10s). They have 50% chance to miss.

Deep Freeze - reduced energy cost to 15, reduced recharge to 10s.

Frozen Burst - Reduced recharge to 5s

Ice Spear - remove half range

Ice Spikes - reduced energy cost to 10

Icy Prism - 5 / 1 / 2

Deals 74 cold damage. Deals an additional 74 damage if target foe is activating a skill and you lose 5 energy.

Mirror of Ice - 5 / 1/4 / 20

Elite Enchantment Spell (62s). Your hostile water magic spells deal an additional +37 cold damage and gain 25% armor penetration.

Rust 10 / 1 / 8

Hex Spell. Deals 74 cold damage to target and adjacent foes. Hexes target and adjacent foes (10s). They attack 50% slower.

Shard Storm 5 / 1 / 10

Hex Spell. Deals 90 damage. Target foe moves and attacks 50% slower (10s).

Shatterstone 15 / 2 / 8

Elite Hex Spell (3s). Initial effect: deals 79 cold damage. End effect: Deals 143 cold damage and inflicts cracked armor (21s) on target and nearby foes.

Vapor Blade 15 / 2 / 8

Deals 143 cold damage. Inflicts Deep Wound condition (21s) if target foe is hexed with elemental magic.

Ward Against Harm 10 / 1 / 20

Elite Ward Spell (21s). Allies in this ward have +25 armor against physical damage, +63 armor against elemental damage and immunity to burning.

Water trident 5 / 1 / 3

Elite Spell. Fast Projectile: Deals 74 cold damage and knocks down moving foes. Shoot an additional trident which hits a nearby foe per 3 ranks of energy storage.

PVE Skills:

Elemental Lord 5 / 1/4 / 20

Your elemental attributes are boosted by 1. Each time you cast a spell you gain 1 energy per 6 ranks of Energy Storage and are healed for 50%...500% of the spell's energy cost (50% per kurz / lux rank).

Intensity 5 / 10

Skill (10s). Your elementalist spells gain +1 additional damage and +2.5% armor penetration (per sunspear title rank, rounded down).

Reasons behind the ideas:

- Makes each elemental line viable for HM PVE and attractive to use over other caster classes, while not actually being any more powerful.

- Earth Magic would gain some party wide buffs to allow elementalists to play a larger party protection role using these buffs and wards without having to use secondary class skills. This also justifies destroying the E/Mo build and UWSC with a nerf to Ether Renewal (I am fully for destroying the UWSC build and perma prot bond lameness. In PVE ellys can still use secondary class skills fueled by either Ether Prism, or Energy boon's new powerful, but far less OP change).

- The skills, particularly ones related to 'elemental hexes' within Air, Water and Fire magic are largely reworked to promote the attractiveness of using several elementalists with different attribute lines. Searing Flames is reworked to fit with these changes and removes the desire to use multiple searing flames ellys (which was always weaksauce compared to other stuff anyway). The new searing flames idea is a powerful hex spell that reapplies itself on nearby foes when it ends, making it powerful on its own, but useless with multiple fire ellys. Burning will be much easier to apply using hex spells combined with the AoE elemental flame, promoting the use of a fire, water and air magic elementalist in the party, and also an earth magic elly with either prots, or damage skills (The idea for glyph of energy and dragon stomp / earthquake changes is to make these three spells very viable on a PVE earth bar).

- To offset the loss of Ether Renewal for PVE healing builds for people who would still want to use them, Elemental Lord is changed to provide +1 energy per 6 ranks of ES, which could still be stacked with Aura of Restoration to reduce energy costs on spells by 3 energy. Combined with either Ether Prism or Energy Boon, this would still allow elementalists to play their previous E/mo or E/Rt builds, but minus being able to maintain permanent prot bond.

- Intensity is reworked to apply +10 damage and +25% armor penetration at maximum sunspear rank to all elementalist spells. Simple change for player elementalists.

Xenomortis · Aug 16, 2011, 11:19 AM // 11:19

Net effect of change:
ER has been killed (I would much prefer the healing on the skill being removed than this).
Deep Freeze is now even more attractive to stick on someone with 0 spec.
AP-Meteor Shower is more viable due to the reduced cast time (the reduced recharge makes it viable on its own but there's little reason to not use AP).
PUG Eles do more damage, perhaps even enough that they actually help.
Intensity is broken as hell.

Go go gadget power creep!

DiogoSilva · Aug 16, 2011, 07:42 PM // 19:42

Oh god, so much power creep. You know, fix the HM armor level of monsters, and the ele's best skills would be fine. Other than that, all you would need is to buff the underused skills to give them more options, and especially lower the damage of armor-ignoring skills (which is on their plans for sometime).

Double-Dragon from a HM foe would obliterate your entire team.

Outerworld · Aug 16, 2011, 09:29 PM // 21:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiogoSilva

Double-Dragon from a HM foe would obliterate your entire team.

Only if you're dumb enough to ball up in it.

Wenspire · Aug 16, 2011, 09:54 PM // 21:54

I would just suggest giving +1% ArmorPen per point invested into EN Storage. Air skills would be pretty nasty at 38% ArmorPen; even-more-so on a target with Cracked Armor.

Mouse at Large · Aug 17, 2011, 07:05 AM // 07:05

Some nice ideas, but given the lack of resources in the Anet team, I very much doubt we are going to see a redical rework of skills. As I've speculated before, I think the best we can hope for is a rework of a PvE skill - Intensity comes to mind - that will give either +damage and/or +% AP based on ranks in ES. To be effective the rework should be maintainable as an enchant or (gasp) a stance.

Quick, simple and will avoid PvE/PvP splitting or QQing about ele mobs being op.

bhavv · Aug 19, 2011, 08:39 PM // 20:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiogoSilva

Oh god, so much power creep.

Not really, its still weaker than Mesmers and DWG Rits. The only major power creep was Double Dragon + Searing Flames, but hello, fire magic? Its like meant to burninate and explode things, not do 20-40 damage compared to mesmers with 100+ damage armor ignoring AoE.

Chain and Invoke lightning, and Shatterstone were made a bit more powerful and more viable for HM PVE, but again, DWG rits / Ineptitude mesmers would still be stronger.

Also dont forget that Elementalists were meant to be the highest damage class in the game according to the manual, not the lowest.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiogoSilva

Double-Dragon from a HM foe would obliterate your entire team.

Wow, I never thought about that! I like it, the game would be a bit more difficult (the Armor of Earth / Magnetic Aura / Stone Sheath / (Mantra of Earth) / Ward Against Harm ideas dont sound like good enough defense to you or something?).

Mesmer heroes / Pain Inverter would also be more than enough to still breeze through any AI with the changed Double Dragon.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

Net effect of change:
ER has been killed (I would much prefer the healing on the skill being removed than this).

I want perma prot bond and UWSC killed, not the self healing or ability to use normal heal / prot spells on ellys (the infinite energy healing builds are as stupid as elementalist skills currently are).

You dont even need Ether Renewal to secondary heal / prot on elementalists with anything other than Prot Bond / Infuse Health - Ether Prism is already completely fine for a standard secondary heal bar. The ideas in earth magic would also be a more attractive alternative to prot spirit and spirit bond spamming, which is a completely stupid way of playing the game for an elementalist anyway (Ritualists have soul twisting + shelter, and they are easy to micro on a hero).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

Deep Freeze is now even more attractive to stick on someone with 0 spec.
AP-Meteor Shower is more viable due to the reduced cast time (the reduced recharge makes it viable on its own but there's little reason to not use AP).
PUG Eles do more damage, perhaps even enough that they actually help.

All good reasons for the ideas, not bad ones.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

Intensity is broken as hell.

Its just +10 damage and +25% armor penetration, theres nothing more broken about that than DWG + Ebon damage ward. It would simply allow Fire / Earth / Water spells to do more damage in HM which is exactly what is currently wrong with elementalists in HM.

Double Dragon / Searing Heat / Tenais Heat / Intensity / Ebon damage ward would become a bit more powerful than Arcane Echo RoJ. Big deal that elementalists will actually be able to do what they are meant to - damage things, and not able to do what they werent meant to - Perma prot bond + infuse spam.

DiogoSilva · Aug 20, 2011, 08:06 PM // 20:06

It's already confirmed that armor ignoring damage is going to be toned down someday, so no need to make elementalists that broken.

And I welcome more difficulty, but I prefer the kind of difficulty that is, you know, tactical or strategical. You can get it by nerfing the OP shit, not making everything OP and have enemies spamming one-hit aoe kills and entire hero builds half-loading anti-fire skills. That would only make the game more linear than it already is, strategy-wise.

Anaraky · Aug 21, 2011, 06:59 PM // 18:59

I agree that elementalists are underpowered in general in PvE at the moment, but I don't think a huge rework are needed to change that. Give elementalists some way to penetrate or partially bypass armour and tweak the energy cost and CD on some of the more underutilized skills. The cast-time/reward and energy-cost/reward ratio on many elementalist skills are really low compared to other casters.

But honestly, the best course of action would be boosting the HP of mobs while nerfing armour in HM. That would reduce the overall power of armour-ignoring damage as well as making it more fun to play classes that rely on damage that respects armour without nerfing the EHP of the enemies. Hitting for 80-90~ in NM but only 30-40~ in HM feels really really crappy.

My 2c.

Mashiyu · Aug 22, 2011, 09:08 PM // 21:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by bhavv

Searing Flames 15 / 1 / 15 Changed functionality to:

Elite Hex Spell (3s). Deals 127 fire to target foe. End effect: Inflicts burning condition (6s) and hexes nearby foes.

Hm... do you realize, that you can basically wipe any group (all but one monster) with one cast of Searing Flames, if:

- all foes stand nearby to at least one other foe AND
- the group doesn't have a group-wide hex-remove to remove all instances of Searing Flames at once (or at least in the 3 second time window) AND
- the healers cant heal fast enough?