Curse

Laylat · May 01, 2011, 05:56 AM // 05:56

Good work. I may actually incorporate a water ele in my team

It's just so sad that this will be dismissed by the majority due to the overusage of a particular single target spell.

Shayne Hawke · May 01, 2011, 05:57 AM // 05:57

Another impressively detailed look into one of the chief aspects of the Water Magic line.

This does give us good evidence that using Water Magic snares to keep opponents contained inside AoE spells is one of your best options, but something that needs to be kept in mind is just how pale the damage from many AoE spells are in some cases. While we can certainly get more bang for our buck with AoE skills by harnessing support from Water Magic, this is not to say that damage from other sources wouldn't be superior anyways.

Imporeino · May 01, 2011, 07:08 AM // 07:08

Woahhh... i was speechless after i read this thread and atleast tried to understand it lol. But here is what i think: yes water snare is maybe the best
but from my experience if a hero is let to cast by itself, it is common that he casts at the wrong target. For exaple it chooses 1 meele on low hp that balled casters on full hp. Also water skills take a long time to cast and usually get cancelled due to the death of the foe (plus they don't do much dmg, especially in HM). For me a ranger with crippling shot, epidemic and some rupts and poison spam would be more useful than the ele.

noneedforclevernames · May 01, 2011, 07:23 AM // 07:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shayne Hawke

Another impressively detailed look into one of the chief aspects of the Water Magic line.

This does give us good evidence that using Water Magic snares to keep opponents contained inside AoE spells is one of your best options, but something that needs to be kept in mind is just how pale the damage from many AoE spells are in some cases. While we can certainly get more bang for our buck with AoE skills by harnessing support from Water Magic, this is not to say that damage from other sources wouldn't be superior anyways.

I still don't think its really worth it unless you have a 90% slowdown skill. But all the 90% slow down skills are single target. So in PvE its probably not worth it. Something like Deep Freeze probably won't give you much damage with the actual skill, depending on the bar you use on your eles. It requires 25 energy so probably isn't a good option on any other profession. In a balanced team I still don't think its worth it.

Olle · May 01, 2011, 07:48 AM // 07:48

" Water sucks, it really really sucks" ^^ (take a laugh mods, not trying to flame)

My brain hurts when i try to understand this, but after i read the whole post my idea is this:

Water IS good?

Mouse at Large · May 01, 2011, 08:42 AM // 08:42

This is soooooo impressive

However, and I apologise if I have missed it, another factor that might be taken into consideration is the total damage dealt.

Let me explain - if you are running a water ele for snaring, then you are, in effect, lessening your teams damage output as (in general) the direct damage from the spell is small. Therefore, the TOTAL damage dealt during the snare/DoTAoE event is potentially less (by some unquantified amount) than say two DoTAoEs which may not hit so many targets due to scatter, but over their duration will provide more total damage than a snare/DoTAoE combo.

This may never be amenable to the sort of analysis carried out in this thread, as there would probably have to be too many assumptions made re. the variables, but it's a thought

Coast · May 01, 2011, 08:59 AM // 08:59

old news, we alrdy know deepfreeze is the best non pve snare around for large mobs

FoxBat · May 01, 2011, 09:01 AM // 09:01

Deep freeze + auspicious incantation, no water spec required. It has been staple in certain tank/spank "SCs", including whoever put up the current PvX trenchway,

I'm surprised that there is such a huge difference between 50 and 66% though. Excessive math does pay...

Would be interested to see how 3 or 4 second KDs shape up, the former can even be done on eles with earthbind. There's always that old standby meteor shower...

LexTalionis · May 01, 2011, 09:45 AM // 09:45

Given your assumptions, I contest your proposition about Water Hexes reigning supreme.

Please consider the combination of Binding Chains + Anguished was Lingwah + Ghostly Haste and/or Weapon of Quickening. (ceteris paribus)

Edit:
Other areas where your logic is flawed: Consider snare efficiency versus Churning Earth (Hard Mode) and Meteor Shower.

AndrewSX · May 01, 2011, 01:10 PM // 13:10

Ok, nice work, congratulations, but.....what's the difference with the other thread already existing?

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...t10429696.html

Also, i see the point, but all this numbers won't make me run a full water build anyway. Eles sucks enough w/o use the weakest line (in pve at least). One correct-used snare in the whole party is enough imo(and i prefer it come from Shared Burden, which carry more utility).

Jeydra · May 01, 2011, 05:03 PM // 17:03

I thought I showed that it is possible, even easy, to get monsters to stay in AoE without a snare ... aka. your empirically derived times for monsters running out of AoE are inaccurate ...

LifeInfusion · May 01, 2011, 08:05 PM // 20:05

People need to stop drinking the hater-ade.

My problem with water magic isn't the snares, it's the AoE snare size other than deep freeze (which is the only one that is bigger than nearby). Deep Freeze is awesome, but it doesn't need any water magic spec, honestly.

The rest: Ice Spikes is adjacent; Frozen Burst is PBAOE so it's not practical

Increasing AoE efficiency is only useful if the spell affects more than one foe, otherwise it's just +1.

Other than that, the only AoEs that truly benefit from snares are DoTs. AoE cripple gets the job done easier but can be removed quicker (more low recharging condition removals), see Hidden Caltrops. If you're willing to dump your elite and still have a decent skill line, Shared Burden is almost as good.

In water magic, the only damage AoE is Rust (Maelstrom is impractical as a damage option), which does crap damage (70 armor-reduced @15) ...so you need to dual spec. You get Blurred Vision for utility though.

LexTalionis · May 01, 2011, 11:50 PM // 23:50

I just get the feeling that you've missed the point completely by trying to reduce everything to a single equation. You're not even factoring in monsters that run out of the AoE in the opposite direction from your party - and then run back into the AoE again in the base calculation (this happens more than you'd think).

Of course, we're speaking specifically with regard to AoEs that cause monsters to flee (otherwise everything we're talking about is moot and to be honest, with Mesmers, only one skill causes any fleeing whatsoever and as the guy above mentioned, it's a bit beyond my reasoning to figure out exactly what you're AoE nuking things to death with in the first place in Water Magic), but trying to reduce the entire thing to an equation is like using the fallacious logic that if it takes 1 man 1000 minutes to dig a hole 10m deep, it would take 1000 men 1 minute to dig the same hole.

In this particular case, practical experiment is far more valuable than theory because there are too many variables; as you yourself admitted - hence you should be using empirical data and not theoretical reasoning. It's perfectly viable for you to come up with your hypothesis and reasoning as you have here, but you can't expect it to be useful nor taken seriously without a comprehensive practical.

Set defined limits (i.e. are you testing this AoE efficiency with Rain of Fire, or say, Eruption?) You could do both.

Just to highlight what I mean by using my previous comment: If we're to take everything you spent so much effort to write out at its face value, in the case of Eruption (5 seconds), every single water magic nuke, including Deep Freeze, is grossly inferior to Binding Chains with Anguished with Lingwah (4 seconds, 90% snare, nearby, does additional untyped damage if they attempt to flee, costs much less energy) - especially because enemies only start scattering on the third tick of AoE damage.

And that is why you need empirical testing.

Chthon · May 02, 2011, 01:33 AM // 01:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

I thought I showed that it is possible, even easy, to get monsters to stay in AoE without a snare ... aka. your empirically derived times for monsters running out of AoE are inaccurate ...

That's really the crux of it. What kind of testing went into that "how long monsters naturally stay in AoE" figure?

BTW, I have a feeling that the answer to that question is going to be hopelessly tied up with the monster AI's internal state, which is an absolute bugger to decipher working backwards from behavior to rules.

Frozen Ele · May 02, 2011, 03:11 AM // 03:11

Hey everyone, just popping my head in for a sec. I'll have flushed out answers for everyone (hopefully) tomorrow, most of them have been prepared, just finishing them up. Thanks for everyone's nice remarks and compliments

Here are two super-quick answers:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

That's really the crux of it. What kind of testing went into that "how long monsters naturally stay in AoE" figure?

BTW, I have a feeling that the answer to that question is going to be hopelessly tied up with the monster AI's internal state, which is an absolute bugger to decipher working backwards from behavior to rules.

There's quite a few flaws with what Jeydra's posting (more of that later), but to answer your specific concern, I did my best to conduct a stratified random sample, blocking by location. After selecting location, I randomly selected AoE to use, using that AoE on different groups within that area. I ultimately looked at a variety of different AoE in a variety of different places.

I did my best to record the average time that the foes stayed within that given AoE. Then using all of my averages, came across the value listed in the investigation.

Is it perfect? No. But then again all empirical testing in GW will have flaws.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LexTalionis

I just get the feeling that you've missed the point completely by trying to reduce everything to a single equation. You're not even factoring in monsters that run out of the AoE in the opposite direction from your party - and then run back into the AoE again in the base calculation (this happens more than you'd think).

Monsters that behave in such a way were factored into the averages I sumbitted.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LexTalionis

Of course, we're speaking specifically with regard to AoEs that cause monsters to flee (otherwise everything we're talking about is moot and to be honest, with Mesmers, only one skill causes any fleeing whatsoever and as the guy above mentioned, it's a bit beyond my reasoning to figure out exactly what you're AoE nuking things to death with in the first place in Water Magic), but trying to reduce the entire thing to an equation is like using the fallacious logic that if it takes 1 man 1000 minutes to dig a hole 10m deep, it would take 1000 men 1 minute to dig the same hole.

1. I defined AoE as DoTAoE in the abstract/intro; the reason I only typed AoE instead of DoTAoE (or some other variant) was because I didn't want to type that many letters.

2. You're not trying to nuke the foes with Water Magic, you're using snares to increase the nukage from other souces (which, if you wanted could be Water Magic, but I never suggested it). You could go zero spec into Water and bring Deep Freeze. Or you could bring Deep Freeze + Ice Spikes and really see how much more efficiency you could get.

3. Tell me exactly what fallacious logic I used and why it's invalid.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LexTalionis

In this particular case, practical experiment is far more valuable than theory because there are too many variables; as you yourself admitted - hence you should be using empirical data and not theoretical reasoning. It's perfectly viable for you to come up with your hypothesis and reasoning as you have here, but you can't expect it to be useful nor taken seriously without a comprehensive practical.

All of the variables in the variables chart are related (if that's what you're referring to). You can't differentiate slow-down percentage from how many times slower a foe is moving, for example. In terms of factors, I identified the relevant ones and explored their affect. Without re-reading the study the only time that I can think of where I said that there are too many factors is when I was talking about minions and body-blocking. To that point, I used the fact that there are so many factors concerning minions (factors which make them too variable in use) to support my own conclusions, so I don't see the problem here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LexTalionis

Just to highlight what I mean by using my previous comment: If we're to take everything you spent so much effort to write out at its face value, in the case of Eruption (5 seconds), every single water magic nuke, including Deep Freeze, is grossly inferior to Binding Chains with Anguished with Lingwah (4 seconds, 90% snare, nearby, does additional untyped damage if they attempt to flee, costs much less energy) - especially because enemies only start scattering on the third tick of AoE damage.

And that is why you need empirical testing.

I'm not talking about water magic nukes, but rather snares. I have a detailed post on your Rit combo coming tomorrow, so stay tuned.

BUT... Congratulations! You've just theorized! Don't be a hypotcrit or create double standards.

All-in-all, I never said empirical tests don't have power - they certainly do. But if you want to go ahead and test everything that my study can indicate/reveal/explore, I hope you've got a few million millenniums on your hands.

LexTalionis · May 02, 2011, 06:26 AM // 06:26

Now now, there's no call to get all prickly and bust out the tu quoque defense. I wasn't casting aspersions on your character, I just said your theory is insufficient in of itself to be conclusive. Posting your theory was completely fine, but your conclusion was not. You can't make a proper conclusion without empirical testing.

Just in case you're forgetting what you said:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frozen Ele

Conclusions

Here are some highlights of the investigation:
(snip)

Water Magic snares are the best mechanism for increasing the number of times an AoE skill hits:

Water Magic snares increase AoE efficiency more than crippling, both “guaranteed” and “happenstance.”

Water Magic snares increase AoE efficiency more than knock-downs, both “guaranteed” and “happenstance.”

Water Magic snares are better than using minions to increase AoE efficiency because of snares’ increased reliability and controllability.

[/LIST]

You're not investigating! You're theorizing! It's too early to form your conclusion!

Anyway, don't forget when you do your math tweaking to show how superior Water magic is that you can Binding Chains > drop Lingwah > recast Lingwah > Recast Binding Chains (another 4 seconds) > drop Lingwah > cast Binding Chains. That's a 4 + 4 + 3 = 11 second 90% snare!

(If you believe I seriously think this is viable, here's a hint: I was being sarcastic)

I don't really believe empirical testing is more flawed than complete theory in Guild Wars. The entire point of empirical testing is to devise something which is easily reproducible by anyone. Even a negative result is an important clue and you can also use statistical data - for example, find a convenient monster pack near a zoneline, duplicate the same few actions on it with and without a water magic snare (don't forget your zero hypothesis), with minions, with Meteor Shower. Granted that once repeated enough times, you get enough data points to form a solid hypothesis and present a compelling case - even if all you end up proving is that "monster behaviour is too unreliable to form any solid conclusions whatsoever". Don't forget you have to do tests on different monster types because ranged and melee monsters behave differently.

If anyone disbelieves any theory you form, they are welcome to repeat exactly the same empirical test. It's entirely measurable, statistically, and removes nagging questions like "Doesn't the 2 second cast time of Deep Freeze affect its ability to snare? - Wait, when are we casting this anyway?".

This is more or less how science works (minus the sophomoric drama, although you can have that if you want; but I'll go somewhere else, thank you).

Jeydra · May 02, 2011, 11:50 AM // 11:50

Just read the sections on KDs and minion bodyblocking.

Very inaccurate.

Needless to say the king of KDs in the Elementalist profession is Meteor Shower, which you always run Glyph of Sacrifice and Assassin's Promise. So up to the limit caused by exhaustion (which isn't severe, if you don't use Metoer Shower when you don't need it) there is no downtime. The real drawback of using Meteor Shower is the energy cost, especially since Glyph of Sacrifice conflicts with GoLE. Churning Earth would be excellent if it weren't 3s cast, which it is, but once again if you're going to use Churning Earth do it with AP. Recharge is no argument against relying on KDs as your pseudo-snares.

As for minion bodyblocking, if you're good with controlling aggro it's simple enough to get the monsters to latch onto minions. It's actually really easy. A Longbow pull with the MM flagged in front will get the minion wall in place. Know that when minions "bodyblock", they aren't actually bodyblocking. They're taking aggro. Monsters attack targets which have low health, low armour, etc. Minions fit this bill. In other words, relying on minions as your pseudo-snare is very reliable. Same applies to spirits. Saying that minions aren't reliable pseudo-snares is like saying that AP-based builds aren't reliable damage, aka. just plain wrong.

My $0.02. I'm probably done with this highly theoretical thread, too. Although it is true that theory can point you in the right direction, it's easy to see here what the best alternative is (run Deep Freeze at 0 spec, if you really care about the snare), which removes the need to analyze Winter's Embrace and Shard Storm and Freezing Gust and *gasp* Mind Freeze. Furthermore, it's easy for experienced players to quickly spot which ideas are worth pursuing and which are not, and in general snares are in the "not worth pursuing" category. Math can be useful in a more closely contested problem e.g. SoS vs. SoGM, but here it's simply irrelevant.

Mashiyu · May 03, 2011, 02:51 PM // 14:51

I may be missing a point in your study, but have you considered the loss of AoE efficiency when using a snare which has a smaller AoE than the AoE damage (or even when using a single-target snare)?

Chthon · May 03, 2011, 04:13 PM // 16:13

Additional question: Aren't you sometimes going over 5 AoE pulses? To ever get more than 5 hits, snare or no snare, you'd have to either be running Firestorm (yuck) or chain casting DoTAoEs. While not impossible, that's probably not the default case. What happens to the benefits from various snares if you cap the total number of pulses at 5?

Frozen Ele · May 06, 2011, 08:10 PM // 20:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Additional question: Aren't you sometimes going over 5 AoE pulses? To ever get more than 5 hits, snare or no snare, you'd have to either be running Firestorm (yuck) or chain casting DoTAoEs. While not impossible, that's probably not the default case. What happens to the benefits from various snares if you cap the total number of pulses at 5?

If the number of pulses is 5, you just won't be able to exceed this value with your total hits. This means that the maximum additional hits would be:

(Total Number of Pulses - H0) = Maximum Additional Hits

You can then compared the maximum additional hits to the "guaranteed/happenstance" number of additional hits (the valeus found in the tables; calculated from the "happenstance" and "guaranteed" formulas). If the maximum number of additional hits exceeds the "guaranteed/happenstance" additional hits, use the "guaranteed/happenstance" additional hits in calculating AoE efficiency. If the maximum number of additional hits is smaller than the the "guaranteed/happenstance" additional hits, use the maximum number of additional hits to compute AoE efficiency.

For example, if I want to look at the "guaranteed" AoE efficiency of using Deep Freeze with Eruption:

Maximum number of additional hits = (5 - 2.39) = 2.61
"Guaranteed" number of additional hits = 0.76

As maximum > "guaranteed," I use "guaranteed," yielding an AoE efficiency of 131.68%.

If I wanted to look at Mind Freeze with Eruption, however, the values are:

Maximum number of additional hits = (5 - 2.39) = 2.61
"Guaranteed" number of additional hits = 3.51

As "guaranteed" > maximum, I use the maximum number of additional hits, yielding an AoE efficiency of 209.21% (versus the listed "guaranteed" AoE efficiency of 246.86%).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mashiyu

I may be missing a point in your study, but have you considered the loss of AoE efficiency when using a snare which has a smaller AoE than the AoE damage (or even when using a single-target snare)?

All values are expressed on a signle foe basis. You can adjust them accordingly based off the number of foes effected, etc.