Curse

HigherMinion · Feb 24, 2011, 10:37 PM // 22:37

My idea on fixing elemental damage: Remove enemy AL and make it all 60, for every hit Armour level removed to get to 60, they have +50hp or so. Makes nuking look profitable and armour ignoring not as necessary. gg?

UnChosen · Feb 25, 2011, 12:25 AM // 00:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

My idea on fixing elemental damage: Remove enemy AL and make it all 60, for every hit Armour level removed to get to 60, they have +50hp or so. Makes nuking look profitable and armour ignoring not as necessary. gg?

This is THE very first idea I wrote on this forum...

Then I realize that mesmer/rit mains will blow a fuse over this because it'll put them right back to the beginning, where they are a support class in nm. Right after mesmer and rits got their buff I doubt they'll support this at all.

Its kind of ironic that two classes that were filled with support skills both managed to get huge damage revamps while the class with 99% damage skills got...Ether Renewal back, I guess.

LifeInfusion · Feb 25, 2011, 02:08 AM // 02:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cuilan

Many miss the days of being viewed by players as the damage profession.

Let's be serious here. Invoke + chain lightning + intensity... Invoke needs to do 190 damage (comboed with Intensity) for it to match Keystone on 5 targets.

Let's assume there's 3 targets, the "best" situation for Invoke/chain lightning.

X targets hit by Illusion mes, Y targets hit by Intensity=X-1, Z melee buffed set to 0, D=Damage multiplier needed for damage done by Invoke to equal Keystone
33.48*(X-1)+10.48*X+6.911*(X-1)+10.44+4.7+3.97+16Z=(3*106*D)/(6.56+0.82+0.75)+(3*90/106*106*D)/(4.92+1.64+0.75)+(106*D*(X-1))/10

assume they're in adjacent.
33.48*(3-1)+10.48*3+6.911*(3-1)+10.44+4.7+3.97+0=(3*106*D)/(6.56+0.82+0.75)+(3*90/106*106*D)/(4.92+1.64+0.75)+(106*D*(X-1))/10

0.64 multiplier for 40/40 set on cast and recharges is a bad approximation here

131.332=76.05*D+10.6D*X-10.6*D
we are assuming 3 targets, X=3
131.332==76.05*D+10.6D*3-10.6*D
131.332=97.25 --> Damage multiplier "D" of 1.35

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...6&postcount=52

If we're talking about mob spike-ability, 57*6 over 10s from the Mesmer's Keystone + 57*2 from Sig of clumsiness and +47*2 from Unnatural signet + 2 other signets is 550 AoE over 10seconds. Even assuming Invoke + Chain Lightning recharge in half the time... I doubt you'll get that. Right now you'll only get Intensity once every 10s, Invoke every 9.75.

Spike-iness with damage multiplier "D": 2*(106*D+90*D)+106*0.5*D=445*D

550=445*D --> D=1.236

48 effective armor= 1.2311

...so only on 64 armor or below, with 3 target maximum

Unlike the searing flames example I quoted in the above post, you can't just assume best case scenario 1recharge and 1 cast (EBSOW+ Stolen speed or something = 2.75 effective recharge).

Kaida the Heartless · Feb 25, 2011, 02:53 AM // 02:53

I think a large issue for the lack of damage by Elementalists is that they are the easiest to stack damage with, and the more damage goes up, the less utility becomes relevant. Check this out:

Essentially, Illusion Mesmers and Spirit Rits don't stack. Keystone Mesmers and Channeling Rits do. Illusion Mesmers and Spirit Rits bring the most utility with the "lesser" damage. Keystone Mesmers and Channeling Rits bring stackable moderate (high damage atm, give me a sec here) with moderate utility. So the Elementalist would need to be the character that does superb damage with little utility. The issue is when you throw multiple Elementalists on a team under "buff update" conditions to fill that role, all the other classes become useless again (why utilize when your can DECIMATE *evil laugh*). It's the whole reason they had to buff Mesmers and Rits in the first place.

It's a vicious cycle and Ele's are currently on the dark side of the rotation.

The big question is:
What role can Elementalists play that won't result in indirectly "nerfing" other classes?

LifeInfusion · Feb 25, 2011, 02:59 AM // 02:59

Searing Flames doesn't stack, actually. The burning does fixed damage, so all you'd be doing is pumping out max 106 damage every 2.25+ seconds = 47DPS AOE (1 recharge+0.5 cast+0.75 aftercast=2.25) - 106 every 7 seconds due to burning reapplication = 32DPS+14DPS burn=46DPS.

The second one will do the full 106/2.25=47DPS, but no added burn.

Anything that is spammy (i.e. Flare) will be bad due to aftercast. Flare does 68 listed and has 1 cast and 0 recharge, but go to Master of damage and spam Flare. You will do 40 DPS, even with a "40/40" set that makes the casts effectively 0.82seconds you will do 43 since 68/(0.82 seconds+0.75 aftercast). You lose 36.8% to aftercast if you spam, before armor reduces that by another 29.3 (100+cracked) to 50% (120+cracked) or more.

Illusion mesmers stack unless the skills are on <4 recharge.

Wandering eye = 12 *0.667 (11 Fast cast)=8
Ineptitude=15*0.667 =10
Clumsiness=8*0.667=5.336
Sig of Clumsiness=8 (FC doesn't reduce signets)

1/8+1/10+1/5.336+1/8=1/1.86

1.86= effective recharge ; 2.424s if no sig of clumsiness

So you can run 2 of them. Keep in mind every spell has a 0.75s+ window (aftercast) and hard mode mobs will be eating up autoattacks easily due to increased attack speed.

The keystone mes will be casting signets at 58% speed due to fast casting and since at most the signets are 1 cast, 0.58+0.75=1.33. It doesn't matter since you have 6 procs every 10seconds so you have 1.667s to pull off each sig...with sig of clumsiness as 0.145 cast (giving you 3.044 second leeway on your other 4 signet casts or 1.544 if you count aftercast).

sig of clumsiness --> unnatural --> 2 other sig --> sig of clumsiness --> unnatural

What to do? Look at the illusion mesmer. It has aftercast too, my approximation is off by 3DPS (lol).

Quote:

Realistically, 16 Illusion, 11FC, 9 Inspir
115 on wandering eye with 8 effective recharge, 1.34 cast = 12.31DPS/mob
97 Clumsiness with 5.34 recharge, 1.34 cast = 14.52 DPS/mob
142 Ineptitude with 10 recharge, 0.67 cast = 13.31 DPS/mob
63 Signet of Clumsiness with 8 recharge, 0.167 cast (only reason why this is decent is because it doesn't tap into energy, casts in <1/4, and it knocks down; FC doesn't affect signet recharges) = 7.71DPS/mob

47.85DPS/mob x 5= 239.25 DPS vs 5 mobs , plus utility of interrupts and blind/KD.

115/(8+1.34+0.75)=11.40DPS/mob ... 0.91 DPS loss
97/(5.34+1.34+0.75)=13.05DPS/mob ... negligible -0.26DPS
142/(10+0.67+0.75)= 12.43DPS/mob ... 0.876 DPS loss
63/(8+0.167+0.75)= 7.065DPS/mob ... 0.645 DPS loss

=2.691DPS/mob difference (5.6% of 47.85DPS/mob)

Factoring in aftercast it's 44.6DPS, which again ... rivals Searing Flames on 60 armor targets.

What to do? Other than buffing Intensity

Intensity, if kept in its current state, doesn't help things because it is 1 spell and 10 recharge and requires the equivalent of 114 damage after armor reductions (insane because even Rodgort's [email protected] only does 127 so only Invoke/Orb @16+ are candidates given they put out 140 to 60 armor or 80 armor with cracked armor). If it was 2-3 spells buffed and +40% damage (same as cracked armor but stacking with it) or +15% armor penetration every 10 seconds maybe that'd be plausible.

What the ele needs then, is more PVE splits that give adjacent/nearby range AOE with respectable damage ~90-100 (after armor). 4 skills in each line with <15 cast+recharge and <10 energy is enough (unlikely) (1/15*4=4/15=1/3.75) if they have 1-2 cast then 12 recharge is okay. 4*(2+0.75 aftercast) =11 seconds. 3 skills with a combined 1spell/3.75seconds on average would work too (8.25 total of cast time and aftercast assuming 2 cast on each). The energy-imposed limit is one 5 energy after attunement+Aura of Restoration =3.75 seconds recharge after all.

Hypothetical: 12+1+3 air, whatever else (6 restor for DP Sig?)
Orb (2 cast 5 recharge) = 106 * damage multiplier
Chain Lightning (2 cast 6 recharge) = 90 * damage multiplier
Invoke (1 cast 8 recharge) = 106 * damage multiplier
Intensity (3 or 4 spells buffed /10s) = +50% on nearby (45-53 * damage multiplier)
Aura of restor
Attunement
Glyph of lesser energy (due to Orb, this is needed)
[Optional]

Let D= damage multiplier for the spells
(106+90+106)*1.5*D=450 (Illusion mesmer =45DPS*10seconds = 450)
even vs 80 armor + cracked armor

Re: 450 damage this is because air needs these 3 spells to cycle in 10 seconds. In reality, this is a baseline since Keystone pumps out 57*6 over 10seconds, minimum + 57*2 from signet of clumsiness and 47*2 fro unnatural signet = 550 over 10 seconds.

vs Keystone:
Let D= damage multiplier for the spells
(106+90+106)*1.5*D=550
D=1.21x listed damage

For non-air: Cracked armor lowers 100 to 80.
1/0.707=1.41 damage boost from Intensity + 50% nearby AoE

Diversifying Attributes:
Fire: Fireball (2+7) + Liquid Flame (1+15) + Incendiary Bonds (2+15) + Rodgort's Invocation (2+8)
Water: Deep Freeze (Glyphed... 2+15) + Ice Spikes (2+10) + Rust (1+8)
Air: Chain Lightning + Invoke
Earth: 3 cast Earthquake???? (+15 recharge) (no viable AOE other than Eruption DOT + 3 cast Churning Earth + 2 cast Unsteady Ground... Sandstorm is pretty unreliable)

The alternative is DOT AOEs, with Deep Freeze. Deep Freeze is a 25 energy (before any help from glyphs and stuff), 2.75 second time investment.

We could make EBSOH boost ele damage by another +5 to boost DOT to RoJ levels vs 100 armor w/ cracked armor. (48/sec armor ignoring versus 42/sec armor-reduced @16 in respective attributes +15+5)
42*0.707=30+20=50 ~48 at cost of PVE slot.

Unsteady Ground has plenty of utility and as a 5 energy skill after attunement + Aura of Restoration has plenty of potential. It could be reduced to 15 recharge instead of 20 in PVE, so it could be glyph of swiftness-ed for 11.25/15 uptime unassisted. Half recharge would just mean you can put it up once it finishes (7.5 recharge vs 5 duration+2 cast.).
42*0.707=30+15=45DPS*5/(11.25+0.75+1+0.75) =16.36DPS (including Glyph cast)

Candidates:
Arc Lightning --> all nearby if hexed with water hex.
Conjures add their armor ignoring damage to elemental damage spells while under an attunement
Incendiary Bonds --> Rising Bile does damage on ending, why doesn't this? Doesn't even need a PVP split since people can see it coming a mile away like Lightning Surge
Sliver armor (PVE) --> reduce damage by 50% .. only sins and farmers use it
Thunderclap --> reduce daze to 1-5s, recharge to 15 instead of 20 (glyph of swiftness to 11.25)
All the PBAOE crap : Flameburst, Inferno, Crystal Wave, Phoenix, starburst,double dragon, lava font, aftershock, shockwave, etc. needs to be reevaluated Phoenix could do ~200 armor reduced damage if you're standing there in adjacent range. You just need Armor of Earth @12 to pull it off... so that you have 113 or so armor. That leaves you with 6+1 Energy Storage (12+1+3 Fire, 11+1 Earth, 6+1 Energy storage).

Kaida the Heartless · Feb 25, 2011, 05:51 AM // 05:51

@LifeInfusion:
I'm not speaking at current SF damage, I'm speaking at future "buffed" SF damage, or any Ele skills for that matter. It's pretty safe to say the Elementalist isn't going to match Mesmers or Ritualists for utility, so in order to compete, they would need increased damage. Stack enough Ele's and mobs are going to explode. At that point, who cares if you are interrupting/blinding/knocking down the mobs. This would make Rits and Mesmers useless again, starting the cycle over.

Jeydra · Feb 25, 2011, 11:54 AM // 11:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaida the Heartless

@Jeydra:
What are your thoughts on why Intensity's shouldn't be used with AP builds?

Because YMLAD, FH and EBVAS backed by AP are way too powerful to give up ...

Kaida the Heartless · Feb 25, 2011, 06:22 PM // 18:22

Surely the Ele has something that, when combined with Intensity, will beat 31 DPS...

Jeydra · Feb 26, 2011, 12:02 AM // 00:02

EDIT: What Xeno said. And of course you can have more than one EBVAS on the battlefield at a time, not to mention the other tactical benefits you get from EBVAS.

Xenomortis · Feb 26, 2011, 12:12 AM // 00:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaida the Heartless

Surely the Ele has something that, when combined with Intensity, will beat 31 DPS...

Those PvE skills, combined with Lightning Orb (and Chain Lightning to a degree) make for a pretty potent spike. Combined with stray damage from your H/H (or focused if your henchmen are on the ball) or even human team, you get a pretty reliable kill and AP means you're ready to repeat.
Intensity doesn't fit into it - YMLAD and FH are better on a spike and EVAS is an excellent skill for both spike assistance and damage mitigation.

You asked specifically for AP builds. The only two other AP options where AoE damage is significant are the AP Earth variants and AP-MS. With AP-Earth, the same principle as above applies - the loss of a reliable spike hurts and the small AoE boost for Eruption isn't worth it.
AP-MS might have something going for it with Intensity, but Meteor Shower is a horrible skill to build around and space on that bar is cramped.

Jeydra · Feb 26, 2011, 01:02 AM // 01:02

Apparently ANet doesn't think the Intensity bug is a bug ...

Quote:

02/25/2011 01:57 PM
Hello again,

I appreciate your patience. After in-depth investigation and discussion about this issue, we have determined that it is not a bug, and that the game is working as designed. While it is true that the damage listing for Intensity favors the left side, the damage itself as regards the location of the enemy and the amount is consistent and correct.

If you would like to get feedback from other players, I encourage you to consider posting your suggestions on the Guild Wars Wiki. You can post feedback, bug reports and suggestions, and the information is reviewed frequently by our Development Team.

Guild Wars Wiki: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page
Guild Wars Feedback: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Feedback:Main

Please contact us if you need further assistance.

Regards,
GM xxx
The Guild Wars Support Team

This is going to make Intensity rather more difficult to use.

Xenomortis · Feb 26, 2011, 01:13 AM // 01:13

Intensity is bugged?
Edit: Just read one of your previous posts; might look into it myself.

Edit 2:
Target used was "Adjacent to Foe" on the AoE target set in the Isle of Nameless. First screenshot is Immolate under Intensity, the second is of Rodgort's under Intensity.
Notice that the far left In the Area target was struck, but the closer one on the right was not.
Also notice that the "Nearby" target east of the target (closest the player) is not struck by Intensity.

http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/4...tyimmolate.jpg
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/510...tyrodgorts.jpg

Same thing you had earlier. A little weird, but at least the inconsistencies are consistent (?). To really see what's happening you'd need a denser set of targets.

Arena Net, this is not working as designed if it was designed as per the skill description. If it was not designed as per the skill description then the description is totally misleading and unhelpful and that itself is bad design.

Edit 3:
The results above do not change depending on my position relative to the targets and it happens for other AoE spells (tested ones were Ice Spikes, Rodgort's Invocation and Deep Freeze).

Life Bringing · Feb 26, 2011, 01:55 AM // 01:55

It has to do with how the game calculates who gets targeted by the aoe attacks. Im not sure if you have any programming background, but if you can picture gws as a 2d array, the targeting makes a bit more sense. I would guess that the game searches through the affected area from the upper left hand corner to the lower right. Therefore, even though rodgorts and the like technically are hitting all the targets at the same time, the game triggers the damage on the one closest to the upper left hand corner first, and triggers the rest as it gets to them. Thus, even though you cast the spell on the middle target, intensity triggers off of the one to the left because it believes that that target was the first to be hit.

Xenomortis · Feb 26, 2011, 02:00 AM // 02:00

That's fine, but what determines the order in which the targets are entered into your conceptual array? I would guess their position in the map and from what I've seen, I would say bottom-left corner (south-west) as the starting point.
More tests seem to support that idea.

Regardless, from the player perspective it is ridiculous that this is the case.

Chthon · Feb 26, 2011, 02:58 AM // 02:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Life Bringing

It has to do with how the game calculates who gets targeted by the aoe attacks. Im not sure if you have any programming background, but if you can picture gws as a 2d array, the targeting makes a bit more sense. I would guess that the game searches through the affected area from the upper left hand corner to the lower right. Therefore, even though rodgorts and the like technically are hitting all the targets at the same time, the game triggers the damage on the one closest to the upper left hand corner first, and triggers the rest as it gets to them. Thus, even though you cast the spell on the middle target, intensity triggers off of the one to the left because it believes that that target was the first to be hit.

That would be a very inefficient search.** My guess would be that it iterates through every creature object, asking first is_hostile?, and, if so, next asking is_in_range?, and it just so happens that the creature vector gets populated in a way that favors the left side first. It would be interesting to see whether we're seeing a left-bias or a cardinal direction bias, and also whether creature age has effect on it.

(** more explanation: you'd be going through every X/Y pair in the target area and looking whether something is at that position. Under my hypothesis, you'd be looking at every creature object (far fewer in number than X/Y pairs) and doing a simple pythagorian theorem application to see if it's in range. You're looking at polynomial time; I'm looking at linear time. Also, it's kinda hard to raster through a [u]circular/u] field.)

Xenomortis · Feb 26, 2011, 03:11 AM // 03:11

Given what I've seen with this skill I'd say:

Every object/entity has a position vector relative to some origin (assumed to be bottom left corner).
The list of objects the engine checks through is ordered depending on one of:
1. Position at creation
2. Position at current time
3. Some other factor

I would assume that from a programming perspective (I'm not a programmer), it would make sense for the first option to be true over the second. In the case of the Isle of Nameless it doesn't matter which of 1 or 2 is true (if either is) and it's nigh impossible to test. This would make the behaviour of Intensity on moving targets (and hence in practice) very unpredictable
That said, I would be sort of surprised if this was how such a list were ordered (I would expect option 3).

Checking if an object is in range of some spell is a simple matter of calculating the distance between the object's position and the position vector of the centre of the spell.

Calista Blackblood · Feb 26, 2011, 03:38 PM // 15:38

I can't fault your ability to do calculus and dedication/time but I feel that posts as such perhaps exclude some other users from discussion and can be quite disruptive,which isn't fair. Nor is it fair to ask many of you who create these posts to stop doing it,perhaps a workaround is in order?

I'm thinking,simple easy to understand short version and the heavier bulk of calculations in [spoil]Spoil tags[/spoil]

You can then build your quoted replies inside spoil tags

Kaida the Heartless · Feb 26, 2011, 06:22 PM // 18:22

Simple version drawn by yours truly in paint:

It's hard to say what is causing the left side error. It could be many things.

Also, 3d Animation Bachelor's. Just for anyone that needs the credentials.

Cuilan · Feb 26, 2011, 07:11 PM // 19:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

Illusion mesmers stack unless the skills are on <4 recharge.

They don't stack at all and the ones you mention often aren't triggered from death, kick down, slowed attack speed, and poor choice of targets. Yes foes spam attacks and spells but your math is misleading.

Kaida the Heartless · Feb 26, 2011, 07:20 PM // 19:20

In his defense, it is kind of hard to measure the overlap on the Mesmer hexes. I'd rather not run two, because there is the off chance that you will lose a chunk of DPS here and there from mixup.