Curse

Xenomortis · May 31, 2010, 07:38 PM // 19:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arato

Even when single targetting though, in pve anyway, you're best off not even really using air skills, but just pve skills and AP with discord heroes. AP, YMLAD, FH, and PI for bosses. The rest of your bar is almost insignificant.

Single target spiking is best achieved with YMLAD, FH and EVAS - preferably used with AP. Air Magic fits in best with such a combo (even if it is just Lightning Orb) - it's not great but it's seriously all you have.
Discord heroes aren't that great though so you don't need to bother with them.

Arato · May 31, 2010, 09:22 PM // 21:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

Single target spiking is best achieved with YMLAD, FH and EVAS - preferably used with AP. Air Magic fits in best with such a combo (even if it is just Lightning Orb) - it's not great but it's seriously all you have.
Discord heroes aren't that great though so you don't need to bother with them.

I prefer PI for mobs with aoe attacks

getting them out of the picture in 1 attack helps a lot.

If I had to replace a pve skill with Evas, I'd replace FH.

EwolxNavi · Jun 01, 2010, 05:22 PM // 17:22

I'm actually pretty happy with the ele. I've played one as my main for 3-4 years now, and he remains my best character. I've done the Spirit Spam rit, various necro's, a couple assassins and a warrior, but my ele is my most reliable character for getting almost any job done.

Even in HM (which I've been doing for about a year now) I don't have much of a problem with doing my job. I don't play with any specific group of people, but in most PUG's I am rarely out damaged. I've met a handful of sins that kill faster than me, and the only class I've seen that consistantly brings down single targets faster is the the SoS rit. With most of the warriors out there running Defy Pain + Endure Pain tank builds, more often than not it comes down to us eles in the team to really bring the rain.

I know that other classes are capable of dealing more damage faster than us, but it seems to me there's a difference between capabilities and how the game actually works out.

Would a buff be nice? Yes. I'm tired of seeing my 15-25e spell do 15-50 dps against a boss, or otherwise being forced to carry a half-bar of supporting skills just to make my spell do the kind of damage its description says it should do anyways. But it's not like we're a badly broken class, or at least it doesn't seem so to me. I feel that we provide a very valuable service, which is that while everyone else is busy laying down hexes, keeping up enchantments, running interrupts and managing aggro, we provide a steady stream of uninterrupted artillery that pounds the enemy into the ground.

Jeydra · Jun 02, 2010, 02:22 PM // 14:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arato

Depends on how many you can pull together and kill all at once.

Not something to use H/H though, you are right there.

Even when single targetting though, in pve anyway, you're best off not even really using air skills, but just pve skills and AP with discord heroes. AP, YMLAD, FH, and PI for bosses. The rest of your bar is almost insignificant. You might take some fast, semi-spammable cover hex (chilling winds maybe), GoLE, I suppose maybe lightning orb, and I dunno blinding flash. You're hardly using Ele skills really, but expecting to take the time to cast ele damage skills when discord users will kill them faster than you can get them off is silly.

I don't use Discord because it's pretty bad, I don't use PI because it's also pretty bad (reactive hexing, requires you to take damage, KD'ed / interrupted / dead monsters don't attack, blah blah blah), if you REALLY want a cover hex for AP you've got Enduring Toxin, and Elementalist damage sucks.

End of this thread, really. I'm tired of reading stupid things like "but I have no problems doing HM with my Ele! Elementalists can't be underpowered!". Yeah, I have no problems doing HM with an empty skill bar, therefore empty skill bars aren't underpowered. What kind of logic is that ...

Myotheraccount · Jun 02, 2010, 02:32 PM // 14:32

Eles don't need damage increase. Would be crazy if they do. Best solution is to reduce elemental resistances of the mobs. but

Damage boost won't change anything. People still going to carry on using Discord and Spirit because of support and defense they can carry.

AoE pulses won't become more popular either because there is scatter that throws them out of the window as far as damage is concerned in H/H or byobs. In SCs they deal massive damage already.

So to conclude, Eles aren't broken.

Arato · Jun 02, 2010, 08:25 PM // 20:25

Yeah it's not really ele aside from some tweaks maybe, but something that needs to be done to mob balance in hard mode to tweak the difference between armor ignoring damage and elemental damage.

Physicals don't get hit as hard by it because most of their skills use bonus damage that is armor ignoring. Eles are quite simply hit the hardest by armor stacking.

Countess Marie · Jun 03, 2010, 05:32 AM // 05:32

I was talking to my friend about this because he disagreed with me using meteor shower on my ele hero in HM...

Ele is still one of the best classes. I just think it's good to switch it up a bit. I dunno if nec does more damage, but even if it does, the KD from MS is the important part. If you are a human ele, you should be able to fire nuke a group and kill them before they break aggro even in HM. Deep Freeze, earthbind... whatever.

If you've done FOW lately, you know that deep freeze + maelstrom owns GW AI (watch your hero monk spike to his death...)

And yes, the damage is really lame vs warriors and rangers, but if you nuke monks (as you should be doing, imo) or other casters, you will find that they go down pretty easily.

-CM

Arato · Jun 03, 2010, 12:38 PM // 12:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Countess Marie

I was talking to my friend about this because he disagreed with me using meteor shower on my ele hero in HM...

Ele is still one of the best classes. I just think it's good to switch it up a bit. I dunno if nec does more damage, but even if it does, the KD from MS is the important part. If you are a human ele, you should be able to fire nuke a group and kill them before they break aggro even in HM. Deep Freeze, earthbind... whatever.

If you've done FOW lately, you know that deep freeze + maelstrom owns GW AI (watch your hero monk spike to his death...)

And yes, the damage is really lame vs warriors and rangers, but if you nuke monks (as you should be doing, imo) or other casters, you will find that they go down pretty easily.

-CM

Lots of groups are really warrior/ranger heavy though, so you really feel the loss of damage.

Jeydra · Jun 04, 2010, 04:19 PM // 16:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Countess Marie

I was talking to my friend about this because he disagreed with me using meteor shower on my ele hero in HM...

Ele is still one of the best classes. I just think it's good to switch it up a bit. I dunno if nec does more damage, but even if it does, the KD from MS is the important part. If you are a human ele, you should be able to fire nuke a group and kill them before they break aggro even in HM. Deep Freeze, earthbind... whatever.

If you've done FOW lately, you know that deep freeze + maelstrom owns GW AI (watch your hero monk spike to his death...)

And yes, the damage is really lame vs warriors and rangers, but if you nuke monks (as you should be doing, imo) or other casters, you will find that they go down pretty easily.

-CM

I can't believe I'm reading posts like this one only a few posts below the one where I outlined why "but I can do FOW with Deep Freeze and Maelstrom" is a stupid argument. Or "if you nuke monks or other casters you will find that they go down pretty easily", for that matter. I can wand casters and they go down pretty easily. Man, wanding sure does big damage.

This is getting really frustrating, I don't know why I'm even posting ...

Ensign · Jun 06, 2010, 07:33 PM // 19:33

The 'fix' is making Guild Wars 2. A whole bunch of core mechanics need to be changed to make caster damage relevant in a general sense; it's good enough for spikes, but needs specialized skills to do any more than that.

In PvE you're really constrained by how good the physical force multipliers are. I suppose you could make comparable PvE multipliers for Eles, though that'd make them 2-3 shot everything on their own.

Mashiyu · Jun 06, 2010, 09:34 PM // 21:34

I really hope that we do not need to wait until GW2 for an ele fix. And as already pointed out in that thread, eles are not completely broken - they just suffer from armor buffs in HM. (And if someone says that the +3 levels give only 12 armor which is not a great buff: +12 armor = -19% dmg - you need Ural's Hammer to do NM-reduced dmg again)

I think the 3 best solutions would be:

* make Intensity an armor penetration buff - this cannot lead to balancing issues in PvP or ele monsters. Everyone who used air knows how awesome 25%penetration+cracked armor is - it deals nearly 75% of the dmg in the skill description to lvl28 rangers (calling that awesome shows my high expectations in ele dmg)

* nerf physicals - they should also suffer from the armor (there are games where armor affects physical dmg only - quite exotic i suppose ^^)

* make elemental weaknesses of monsters stronger. Personally, I do not see an advantage to use water against destroyers - a non-SF firebuild deals nearly the same (lame) amount of dmg (except for armor-ignoring MoI (yay, nested parenthesis)))

* brainless powercreep - let eles have fun for one month (not a solution, so I did not count it)

@Ele 2-3hits: If I could 3hit a single monster only, i would not consider that OP. 3 air spells take 7,5 seconds (3x2sec casting, 2x0.75sec aftercast), which is quite a long lifetime for a foe. Sometimes I'm even happy if I am able to finish the second spell on a monster.

Xenomortis · Jun 06, 2010, 09:50 PM // 21:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mashiyu

@Ele 2-3hits: If I could 3hit a single monster only, i would not consider that OP. 3 air spells take 7,5 seconds (3x2sec casting, 2x0.75sec aftercast), which is quite a long lifetime for a foe. Sometimes I'm even happy if I am able to finish the second spell on a monster.

But you should be hitting more than one enemy unless you're using Air.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mashiyu

* nerf physicals - they should also suffer from the armor (there are games where armor affects physical dmg only - quite exotic i suppose ^^)

This is not so trivial a solution. The changes to core mechanics would become very necessary if physicals were to be significantly nerfed (and they would have to be nerfed a lot for casters to be meaningful).

I myself don't see to much of a problem with this. A game where physicals dominate at damage dealing is much more interesting than one where casters can achieve the same results. If casters were the best damage dealers, then there would be no reason to run a physical and all the support that revolves around them would disappear.

Caster teams do work in PvE and for PUGs, can be more stable than one that has a couple of physicals rushing forward to their deaths with a monk who doesn't know what pre-protting is.

The disparity is however, very large and I appreciate the sentiment that it's too much.

Desert Rose · Jun 07, 2010, 07:48 AM // 07:48

Despite common belief armor penetration become weaker the higher the armor rating of the foe is; that's because the base damage decreases faster than the bonus damage due to armor penetration increases.
Giving i.e. Intensity armor penetration would make eles far stronger against "low" level mobs, but won't change much against high level mobs.

Also, casters were always weak direct damage dealers and easily overshadowed by physical damage dealers in non tank'n'spank teams; however, casters were always the top damage dealers in tank'n'spank teams.
I don't see a reason why suddenly eles need to be top tier damage dealers in a balanced team.

Ensign · Jun 07, 2010, 08:18 AM // 08:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

I myself don't see to much of a problem with this. A game where physicals dominate at damage dealing is much more interesting than one where casters can achieve the same results.

Well the way this works 'traditionally' is that your physicals deal moderate but reliable damage, while casters deal heavy but fragile damage, typically in bursts.

In Guild Wars, the physicals deal heavy continuous damage that's fragile, while casters deal moderate damage reliably in bursts. The reliability is shifted. Physicals have to deal with block, blind, weakness, a ton of different hexes, as well as snares in the case of melee, any one of which can cripple them; beyond interrupts, there's very little that stops a caster's damage from landing.

Consequentially, you end up with these complex support structures to make sure that your physicals are able to deal damage, while casters instead focus on shutting down physicals and delivering their burst when an opportunity presents itself.

You get the same sort of situation in PvE, where physicals dominate where they aren't covered in garbage, or when you can build a support structure; casters are superior when you don't have that support structure and fall back on the reliable burst casters give you.

That's why I say you'd need to turn the entire paradigm on it's head; the Eles would have to be the fragile offense. That would require a total reworking of the skillset and mechanics of the game.

I don't think it's more interesting this way than the traditional way; I think it's perfectly fine to be playing the shutdown and cleaning game on the casters while the physicals present a steady front. It's just odd that it's reversed in this game and that throws a lot of people off.

Making the Warriors also the 'glass cannons' of Guild Wars does make the game extremely physical focused, however, instead of spreading the emphasis around. That is a pretty substantial negative that isn't apparent until you've taken several hard looks at what is going on.

Mashiyu · Jun 07, 2010, 04:05 PM // 16:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

But you should be hitting more than one enemy unless you're using Air.

Ok, I only thought of Air as the "spike element" when we talked about 3hitting monsters. 3hitting with AoE would be OP.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

If casters were the best damage dealers, then there would be no reason to run a physical and all the support that revolves around them would disappear.

I see a reason to play physicals: survivability.
Also, the support would not disappear - it would just change to some other kind of support.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Desert Rose

Despite common belief armor penetration become weaker the higher the armor rating of the foe is

Speaking in abolute numbers - yes. But when you compare the relative dmg increase, armor penetration gets stronger with increasing armor. Armor Penetration would be broken if it helped to deal more dmg to a 120AR foe than to a 100AR foe - so the absolute comparison doesn't make sense.

EDIT: Ah, the low lvl mob argument. There are two reasons why air deals (too) high dmg to low lvl mobs: Firstly, Armor Penetration reduces armor below 60 (bug or feature?). And secondly, the buffed dmg gets increased by the bonus against foes with lower lvl than you (that makes ele bosses so dangerous)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

In Guild Wars, the physicals deal heavy continuous damage that's fragile, while casters deal moderate damage reliably in bursts.

I've never seen it that way before... but you're right.

Dusk_ · Jun 07, 2010, 10:41 PM // 22:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mashiyu

I see a reason to play physicals: survivability.
Also, the support would not disappear - it would just change to some other kind of support.

Survivability is meaningless. No one cares about survivability, unless it involves pre-protting, redbarring, or aggro walls (okay, or SY!).

Besides, the only tanks that people care about are the ones that can ball enemies and are immune to spells. Which means...Assassins. Or Eles. Yay for survivability!

wizazz · Jun 08, 2010, 12:22 AM // 00:22

OMG.. I havent Read thru this whole Thread... Limited Time.. But the Latest Nerf on the Ele.. ( Sliver Armor ) has pretty much made the Ele a Useless Profession now. Especially if your a Veteran GW player that likes to simply Farm for Fun because you done evereything in the game and farming is the only thing left... lol.. NCsoft really need to stop nerfing so many skills that arent broke.. and ones used so much ect..

Mashiyu · Jun 08, 2010, 03:43 PM // 15:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dusk_

Besides, the only tanks that people care about are the ones that can ball enemies and are immune to spells. Which means...Assassins. Or Eles. Yay for survivability!

You forgot monks. And everyone can go /A and have shadow form maintained all the time - energy is the only issue.

And apart from Speed Clears and organized Tank'n'Spank groups - who uses SF, Obsi Flesh or Spell Shield? In PuGs, Defy/Endure Pain, blocking stances, and the (small) inherent armor buff etc. are more useful - and you don't need to sacrifice the whole skillbar or energy pool for it. Yay for survivability.

Another Question is, was GW designed to have strong physical and moderate
caster dmg or is it just the current best practice because of OP PvE skills.

Edit: oh sry... Spell Breaker is the Elite Skill.

Desert Rose · Jun 08, 2010, 06:57 PM // 18:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mashiyu

And apart from Speed Clears and organized Tank'n'Spank groups - who uses SF, Obsi Flesh or Spell Shield?

Why does every skill has to be equally useful for every play style?

Quote:

Another Question is, was GW designed to have strong physical and moderate caster dmg or is it just the current best practice because of OP PvE skills.

I guess you haven't played pre Nightfall or haven't bothered much about the game mechanics back at that time.
The damage over time of eles was awful, it greatly increased with Nightfall release and afterwards due to of skills like Searing Flames or buffs to existing skills like Rodgort's Invocation or Immolate.

Two of the main reasons why GW PvP is so amazing compared to other RPGs and why PvE could have been amazing if the AI and builds of the mobs would have been good are:
1. A dedicated tank profession was replaced by Protection Prayers.
2. Pysical (melee) characters can deal far more damage than non pysical characters.
Casters deal way too much damage already, and giving them comparable damage to physicals would completly break the game unless you rebalance even the most basic game mechanics.

Countess Marie · Jun 10, 2010, 11:50 PM // 23:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

I can't believe I'm reading posts like this one only a few posts below the one where I outlined why "but I can do FOW with Deep Freeze and Maelstrom" is a stupid argument. Or "if you nuke monks or other casters you will find that they go down pretty easily", for that matter. I can wand casters and they go down pretty easily. Man, wanding sure does big damage.

This is getting really frustrating, I don't know why I'm even posting ...

Actually I meant that when you get deep freeze'd and caught in a maelstrom (or your monk) that you go down really fast (proof in general that all forms of GW AI are owned by snare + nuke). No doubt, they have higher attributes and are attacking you from their level down to yours (which equals more dmg, too.) And it goes backwards as well.

Eles have never done dmg to wars and rangers. There are so many ways to own wars and rangers in this game, you should focus on hitting the casters. And your wanding comment is definitely hyperbole. You can kill a whole group of casters at once. No other single character caster can do that.

Every other attack in the game except for armor ignoring damage also takes a huge hit vs high armor level (or + elemental armor level) HM enemies.

I don't see the problem. Sorry you're angry though...

Edit: I wasn't even taking into account all of the pve buff skills. Maybe like Feast of Corruption or Rit spiker could hit for similar damage, but if you factor in burning and knock downs... it's no comparison.

Also, I don't agree that physical characters deal more damage than casters. They might be complemented better by buffs and hexes... so maybe that's your problem... not enough (or powerful enough) buffs/hexes that complement ele's dmg? That could be fixed much more easily than rebalancing the whole class.

-CM