Curse

TheGizzy · Jan 15, 2011, 06:41 AM // 06:41

I was reading this thread a bit, and saw people mentioning using Weaken Armor (necro skill) as elementalists to help our other spells do a bit more damage.

It made me curious about the Weaken Armor skill, so I looked it up on Wiki, then went and looked up other spells that inflict the cracked armor condition. I noticed two elementalist skills listed - Lightening Orb & Shell Shock. These seem like they're decent in a primarily air build... but without having the pips in air to make the duration worthwhile, they don't seem like good alternatives in anything but a straight up air build.

And of course, both of these are only good on a single target... whereas Weaken Armor gets target and adjacent.

So I'm curious... when playing HM... do elementalists just regularly make necro their secondary and carry Weaken Armor with them? Or are you equipping a hero with it and counting on them to cast it? Or micro-managing it? Some variation of the above?

I started playing around with using Deep Freeze as a snare (don't need any pips in Water to use it), and though the energy cost is high, I can generally "afford" it. I don't find myself running out of energy on a regular basis, though it's been known to happen if I'm not paying attention to what conditions and hexes are being tossed on me and I blithely keep casting. Pretty rare, though.

But thinking all this through, it seems like if I did Deep Freeze, Weaken Armor, and then followed with my heavy damage dealers (say Searing Flames with Glowing Gaze) - I could be taking out a balled group pretty fast. If I'm keeping them adjacent with the snare, cracking the group's armor with WA, and then hammering the entire group with over 100+ damage each with SF a few times (tossing in a GG against the toughest of the mob each time it recharges)... it just seems like they'd go down quickly.

But only IF I go necro secondary.

So is that what you guys do? Almost always go out as necro secondary and rely on Weaken Armor? Or is there something else to use? Some other way to manage this that is more effective for an elementalist? We seem to kind of get screwed on the whole armor thing, coming and going... lowest armor in the game, and foes armored well against our damage unless we rely on air - and then our AoE potential seems much less.

I'm just wondering how others handle this, and how they decide what to take?

Defiling Treekiller · Jan 15, 2011, 07:24 AM // 07:24

i run an SS nuker build and carry weaken armor myself it totally helps in HM if your running a MM plus it sets an AoE condition for 5e so it works well for discoway. I believe that under sabway builds the curse nec hero
runs it

Lord Dagon · Jan 15, 2011, 07:28 AM // 07:28

perosnally i dont bother weakening my enemies. im an ele, i have heros that can heal me and inflict more damadmge. really cracked armor sint that big of a difference(at least to me)

and the idea of using lightning orb as a crazed.. snareing with water and then nukeing for fire.. its kinda a bad idea. at that point you are point pips into air for condition, water for snareing, fire for nuking and energy storadge to fund it. at that point its better to just run something like Searing flames glowing gaze and PI or snow storm and some aoe and fire attuenment+aura of restoration.

yes we do get screwed over armor wise but usually you aren't going out alone and have heros to buff you and heal you and to give you general support. so its really not a big deal imo.

expugnare · Jan 15, 2011, 07:30 AM // 07:30

Necromancer heroes are very much in the vogue--as they should be, considering how powerful they are in terms of energy management and utility. As such, in Hard Mode, most Ele's who don't run an Air build will bring it on a hero. Its simply not worth the investment unless you go a curses build on Ele, which I would personally never do. Things like Deep Freeze and SF could be better supplemented by PvE skills like Ebon Vanguard Standard of Honor/By Ural's Hammer than the mediocre Weaken Armor a non-Necro could provide. Bring those PvE damage boosts, let a hero bring Weaken Armor. In the end, you will be doing more damage for it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Dagon

perosnally i dont bother weakening my enemies. im an ele, i have heros that can heal me and inflict more damadmge. really cracked armor sint that big of a difference(at least to me)

On armor values = or > 80, the vast majority of mobs in Hard Mode, the increase from Cracked Armor is always 41%. Always. That's more than just about any other damage increase available to Eles. Its essential for anyone that uses Elemental damage, as Elemental damage is reduced by armor.

Xsiriss · Jan 15, 2011, 11:01 AM // 11:01

I usually just slap it on a necro hero, I usually play air because it's pretty leetsauce with the new invoke and so take orb and usually shock anyway to make sure them monsters get downed quick.

gremlin · Jan 15, 2011, 12:25 PM // 12:25

Master of Magic elite in Energy storage would let you do what you want.

All elements to 12 for 65 seconds, unless they nerved it since my last use.

Its not widely used any more but I sometime use it in experimental builds.

LifeInfusion · Jan 15, 2011, 02:13 PM // 14:13

go Assassin's Promise + Vanguard Assassin support + Finish Him! and give elemental damage the finger.

Seriously, even with cracked armor, there's quite a few mobs that have >100 armor so you're better off just not running elemental damage in Hard mode. In fact, I have proven it by testing out Lightning orb on a variety of mobs. Sometimes I get 140s (on 60 armor or less basically), sometimes I get 37s (prophecies bosses I think) or 70s.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...60&postcount=7
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...2&postcount=13

EDIT: If you look at the above links, on anything that orb hits <106 damage (<100 if 15 air, <94 for 14 air), the mob has >100 armor. Cracked armor isn't as powerful as 25% armor penetration. Cracked armor can't push damage past the listed damage. 25% armor penetration on 100 armor is 25 armor reduced, which is more than Weaken armor.

25% Armor penetration wins out on targets with <60 armor and >80 armor.

Now, if you run both (i.e. Lightning Orb), all that means is that targets with <100 armor have effectively 60 armor. Lightning Orb is powerful only because Cracked armor gets applied directly before the hit, ensuring you always get the cracked armor effect.

Chthon · Jan 15, 2011, 03:49 PM // 15:49

1. If I'm playing Ele in HM, I'm probably the healer.
2. If I'm not the healer, I'm probably trying to exploit PvE skills to get decent armor-ignoring damage.
3. If I'm not exploiting the PvE skills, then, yes, I'm probably running Cracked Armor, either from Air skills or Necro secondary. No, I don't trust heroes to put Cracked Armor where it needs to go.

AndrewSX · Jan 15, 2011, 05:37 PM // 17:37

Still, for HM Air is the way imo. With or without Creacked Armor.

Kunder · Jan 15, 2011, 07:47 PM // 19:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

1. If I'm playing Ele in HM, I'm probably the healer.
2. If I'm not the healer, I'm probably trying to exploit PvE skills to get decent armor-ignoring damage.

This. Ele's just can't deal damage at PvE levels. Even if you decreased all enemy armor to 100 or less you are better off putting a hundred and one buffs on physical characters and watching them practically instagib enemies. The rare times I'm playing an ele I am running some kind of ER prot/smite.

Bandwagon · Jan 16, 2011, 12:40 AM // 00:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Dagon

perosnally i dont bother weakening my enemies. im an ele, i have heros that can heal me and inflict more damadmge. really cracked armor sint that big of a difference(at least to me)

-20 armor is upwards of 25% more damage dealt to those HM mobs, for 5 enrgy, and with only having to deal with the loss of 1-3 pts in Energy Storage (like that truly matters) for decent uptime, its nothing BUT profit if you want to deal damage with elemental.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Dagon

and the idea of using lightning orb as a crazed.. snareing with water and then nukeing for fire.. its kinda a bad idea. at that point you are point pips into air for condition, water for snareing, fire for nuking and energy storadge to fund it. at that point its better to just run something like Searing flames glowing gaze and PI or snow storm and some aoe and fire attuenment+aura of restoration.

Snaring with Deep Freeze is viable with GOLE because the duration is set at 10 seconds regardless of attribute spread. Combined with AOE that causes mob scatter, you can maximize the number of seconds the mobs stay in your AOE, with Searing Flames, the snare is redundant, as it does not cause scatter. Lightning Orb is pretty meh with Weaken Armor and Invoke / Chain Lightning as options. I agree however that Tri Spec will get you no where, and master of magic grants a meaningless 12 to each attribute, denies secondary / PvE skill use and ultimately hurt E management since +2 pips < attunement.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Dagon

yes we do get screwed over armor wise but usually you aren't going out alone and have heros to buff you and heal you and to give you general support. so its really not a big deal imo.

Eles aren't physicals, your getting no buffs except possibly energy management (no meaningful offense thats powering you, the central human player with access to OP PvE skills), at this point the heroes are carrying you.

Also what Chthon said is pretty much spot on with what most do with their ele once they can seperate and compare the effectiveness of apples to oranges.

Chthon · Jan 16, 2011, 01:10 AM // 01:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bandwagon

-20 armor is upwards of 25% more damage dealt to those HM mobs, for 5 enrgy, and with only having to deal with the loss of 1-3 pts in Energy Storage (like that truly matters) for decent uptime, its nothing BUT profit if you want to deal damage with elemental.

expugnare is correct that the benefit is always slightly more than 41% so long as the foe has 80+ AL to start with.

You, and many other folks in this thread, are correct that cracked armor is a "must have" for builds that try to get by on elemental damage.

Jeydra · Jan 17, 2011, 12:42 AM // 00:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

1. If I'm playing Ele in HM, I'm probably the healer.
2. If I'm not the healer, I'm probably trying to exploit PvE skills to get decent armor-ignoring damage.
3. If I'm not exploiting the PvE skills, then, yes, I'm probably running Cracked Armor, either from Air skills or Necro secondary. No, I don't trust heroes to put Cracked Armor where it needs to go.

My version:

1. If I'm playing Ele in HM with a human party, I'm probably the healer.
2. If I'm playing Ele in HM with a H/H party, I'm probably trying to exploit PvE skills to get decent armour-ignoring damage, which means a heap of PvE skills that are consistently spammed, backed by Assassin's Promise.
3. If I'm not exploiting PvE skills, then yes I'm probably running Cracked Armour, either from Lightning Orb or Weaken Armour on a hero (as well as Ebon Battle Standard of Honour and possible "By Ural's Hammer!"). I will trust heroes to put Cracked Armour where it needs to go, because having to spend another 1.75s to cast Weaken Armour is a bit ... eh.

expugnare · Jan 18, 2011, 01:47 AM // 01:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

My version:
2. If I'm playing Ele in HM with a H/H party, I'm probably trying to exploit PvE skills to get decent armour-ignoring damage, which means a heap of PvE skills that are consistently spammed, backed by Assassin's Promise.
3. If I'm not exploiting PvE skills, then yes I'm probably running Cracked Armour, either from Lightning Orb or Weaken Armour on a hero (as well as Ebon Battle Standard of Honour and possible "By Ural's Hammer!"). I will trust heroes to put Cracked Armour where it needs to go, because having to spend another 1.75s to cast Weaken Armour is a bit ... eh.

These two shouldn't be mutually exclusive. Perhaps it should read, plainly--

2. If I'm playing Ele in HM with a H/H party, I'm probably trying to exploit PvE skills to get decent armour-ignoring damage, which means a heap of PvE skills that are consistently spammed, backed by Assassin's Promise. I supplement these powerful PvE skills with my own, albeit mediocre, Elemental damage--Lightning Orb + Chain Lightining or GoS, MS and Liquid Flame. Thus, if I don't have cracked armor on my bar from Lightning Orb, I will trust heroes to put Cracked Armour where it needs to go, because, as stated previously, Cracked Armour is a a 41% or better damage increase against the vast majority of Hard Mode foes.

It doesn't matter whether one has only one or two Elemental damage skills, bringing Cracked Armor is a solid damage increase, because even with those powerful PvE skills, you can't really guarantee a kill without some damage supplement from your own spells.

LifeInfusion · Jan 18, 2011, 03:23 AM // 03:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by AndrewSX

Still, for HM Air is the way imo. With or without Creacked Armor.

I don't pretend that air does real damage. At best you get 140 (with cracked armor). Even with the lowest recharging skills with 106 base damage (Invoke, Orb) that's ~20DPS not including aftercast. Chain Lightning has 90 base, which is 116 or so on 60 armor.

Glyph of elemental power would bump you up from 140ish to 160ish on orb (more than ESoH's +15 would add). BuH would push that to 200 even (vs 175 without glyph). It's just a waste of slots for the glyph.

Air is all about the spike but you can't spike mobs out with 3 seconds of casting (4.5 after aftercast) on Orb-Invoke or Orb-Chain Lightning (which is ~24 less damage and more cast time). 280 (maximum) isn't enough most of the time so essentially an AP bar with YMLAD (80) + FH! (80+ deep wound) + sin support (Iron Palm, Fox Fangs, and Nine Tail Strike = ~100 + autoattacks) wins out over Invoke.

Dropping Invoke for AP + YMLAD+FH!+sin support + orb = 400 (max) + deep wound. Anything with <80 armor and <500HP dies with no added help. The alternative is AP+BUH!+FH!+ sin support+orb , which also puts out 400 (max) + deep wound.

If you have a Mesmer being terrible and casting Stolen Speed, along with a Necro pumping out Weaken armor you can pump out higher damage but it still isn't comparable to what physicals put out since even the slowest weapon without IAS is 1.75 seconds attack rate.

At the same time, you can pump out 100+DPS on a caster with no additional buffs, just using SoS+Bloodsong. The main reason for this happening is because Elementalists do not have PvP splits that are as drastic (Ether Renewal is an exception). Savannah's Heat (PvP) is 15 energy, Orb's cracked armor is not in PvP.

The reason why Searing Flames spike was so attractive was because it was 1 second cast, nearby AoE, and on 2 cooldown. The only way it is usable in DoA is with +40% damage LB title and BUH!.

Irony of it all: E/D
12 scythe, 21 damage SoH (12 smite) from N/Mo hero
41.4 Minimum Damage
85.6 Maximum Damage
121 Critical Hit Damage <--
63.5 Average Damage (excluding critical hits)
73.5 Average Damage (including critical hits)

just autoattacking.

+5 Vamp:
46.4 Minimum Damage
90.6 Maximum Damage
126 Critical Hit Damage
68.5 Average Damage (excluding critical hits)
78.5 Average Damage (including critical hits)

Jeydra · Jan 19, 2011, 01:32 PM // 13:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by expugnare

These two shouldn't be mutually exclusive. Perhaps it should read, plainly--

2. If I'm playing Ele in HM with a H/H party, I'm probably trying to exploit PvE skills to get decent armour-ignoring damage, which means a heap of PvE skills that are consistently spammed, backed by Assassin's Promise. I supplement these powerful PvE skills with my own, albeit mediocre, Elemental damage--Lightning Orb + Chain Lightining or GoS, MS and Liquid Flame. Thus, if I don't have cracked armor on my bar from Lightning Orb, I will trust heroes to put Cracked Armour where it needs to go, because, as stated previously, Cracked Armour is a a 41% or better damage increase against the vast majority of Hard Mode foes.

It doesn't matter whether one has only one or two Elemental damage skills, bringing Cracked Armor is a solid damage increase, because even with those powerful PvE skills, you can't really guarantee a kill without some damage supplement from your own spells.

Well not really: if you barely cast elemental damage skills (and you usually barely cast them) then Weaken Armour gets less useful. The ratio of Vanguard Assassins that I cast to Chain Lightnings is usually about 3 to 1, although admittedly lower when against tough mobs that don't die easily. With that kind of ratio, how much does Weaken Armour really increase your total damage output by? Maybe Cracked Armour does increase damage from all elemental spells by 41% - I haven't done any calculations - but when most of your damage is armour-ignoring, is that important?

You can get kills without damage supplement from your own spells actually (that's why you can get kills while AFK). Sure, your own spells help you get those kills faster, but at least when I play, I find I usually only cast those spells near the beginning of a fight. Later, it's just AP -> EVAS + shouts -> AP -> EVAS + shouts -> AP.

AndrewSX · Jan 19, 2011, 06:53 PM // 18:53

Quote:

I don't pretend that air does real damage.

Well, this should be fixed saying "I don't pretend that elementalist's skills does real damage", lol.
I was saying only that air is probably the best element to do some damage, talking about general HM PvE without any particular buff(cons, weaken armor or BUH for example). Don't considering Water, Fire sucks(apart little burning), Earth is better(mass blind and KD..), but Air is the only damage element imo, even tought the too single-target kind of skills apart Invole/Chain ligthing, but this works well also in an AP build for take down single foes. And surely the 25% ArmorPenetration is the best thing of Air, even if you boos tall kind of ele damage using weaken armor.

Quote:

1. If I'm playing Ele in HM with a human party, I'm probably the healer.
2. If I'm playing Ele in HM with a H/H party, I'm probably trying to exploit PvE skills to get decent armour-ignoring damage, which means a heap of PvE skills that are consistently spammed, backed by Assassin's Promise. I supplement these powerful PvE skills with my own, albeit mediocre, Elemental damage--Lightning Orb + Chain Lightining or GoS, MS and Liquid Flame. Thus, if I don't have cracked armor on my bar from Lightning Orb, I will trust heroes to put Cracked Armour where it needs to go, because, as stated previously, Cracked Armour is a a 41% or better damage increase against the vast majority of Hard Mode foes.

But as stated above ^ , all this consideration about what element run is pointless...Eles in HM can't dish so much damage, Cracked armor or not, Air or not. And you have to rely on SoS/ER/PvE skills/AP.....soooo depressing.

expugnare · Jan 19, 2011, 08:25 PM // 20:25

I wouldn't agree with the above posts necessarily. Let's take for example somewhere with a lot of strong Charr casters--say, HM Rragar's or the 2nd level of Warband in HM. If you don't immediately wipe the back line of Charr menders, flameshielders and prophets, you will be overrun. In areas like this, with casters that need to die, and fast, supplemental damage from Elemental spells is vital. Although EVAS is undoubtedly the strongest spell in these areas, with the Charr casters grouped up, a GoS + MS with Rodgorts/Liquid Flame/Fireball followup will do serious damage, which is furthered by Cracked Armor. Usually this will bring the group low enough that I can AP EVAS and Finish Him and wipe the rest of the mobs shortly. I don't bring fire in most places, but certainly in a situation like that, Weaken Armor amplifies my damage output heavily.

Furthermore, how much does it hurt to bring it along? I remember you saying once, Jeydra, that you noticed things died faster when you began bringing Cynn into your H/H groups. Cracked Armor, especially in an AoE increases her damage, however mediocre it might be, to a more reasonable amount.

Moreover, you bring Cracked Armor yourself in your AP build, in the form of Lightning Orb, don't you? My point, anyway, is that no matter the situation, if you are H/H in HM you should bring Cracked Armor in some form--if for some reason you don't have it, you are only hurting your already meager damage output.

EDIT: I attached screen shots explaining my point--I understand this is the first level of Warband, but my internet in my dorm is too shitty for me to do anything serious. In any case, one screen shows the damage of MS and Rodgorts without Cracked Armor: 89 + 95 respectively (I know the 89 is hard to see, but if you look closely you can see it). The other screen shows the damage of the two spells with Cracked Armor: 119 + 127 respectively. That is a 62 damage difference, applied to two targets, for a total of 124 damage added just from Cracked Armor. In an area with more casters, the damage would be multiplied further for each foe in Adjacent range. You can see in the screen where Cracked Armor is applied that only two foes were in Adjacent range, and thus only two had Cracked Armor on them. The other foe, who was out of adjacent range, only took damage from the Rodgorts, without Cracked Armor, and only took 95 damage. Like I said (and I hate to reiterate this so often) Cracked Armor is really, really powerful in PvE. Even against rather squishy casters, the damage increase is huge, as nearly every foe has over 80 armor. QED

UnChosen · Jan 19, 2011, 09:05 PM // 21:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

My version:

1. If I'm playing Ele in HM with a human party, I'm probably the healer.
2. If I'm playing Ele in HM with a H/H party, I'm probably trying to exploit PvE skills to get decent armour-ignoring damage, which means a heap of PvE skills that are consistently spammed, backed by Assassin's Promise.
3. If I'm not exploiting PvE skills, then yes I'm probably running Cracked Armour, either from Lightning Orb or Weaken Armour on a hero (as well as Ebon Battle Standard of Honour and possible "By Ural's Hammer!"). I will trust heroes to put Cracked Armour where it needs to go, because having to spend another 1.75s to cast Weaken Armour is a bit ... eh.

My Version:

1. If I'm playing Ele in HM with a human party, I'm probably the healer.
2. If I'm playing Ele in HM with a H/H party, I'm probably trying to exploit PvE skills to get decent armour-ignoring damage, which means a heap of PvE skills that are consistently spammed, backed by Assassin's Promise.
3. If I'm not exploiting PvE skills, then I'm probably loading up on skills from other classes and spamming them using my "superior" energy pool and GoLE.

expugnare · Jan 19, 2011, 09:24 PM // 21:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by UnChosen

My Version:
3. If I'm not exploiting PvE skills, then I'm probably loading up on skills from other classes and spamming them using my "superior" energy pool and GoLE.

Too bad this doesn't work effectively, nearly ever.