Curse

Necromankas · Sep 13, 2010, 12:45 PM // 12:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

The Mesmer doesn't do high damage from upright nukes.
In fact, the Mesmer doesn't really do all that much damage in the first place.

Against an ele though... backfire, cry of pain, spirit shackles, mind wrack... A few interuption skills... Ele toast

Xenomortis · Sep 13, 2010, 12:56 PM // 12:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Necromankas

Against an ele though... backfire, cry of pain, spirit shackles, mind wrack... A few interuption skills... Ele toast

What does an Ele fighting a Mes 1v1 have to do with anything?

HigherMinion · Sep 13, 2010, 01:25 PM // 13:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Necromankas

Against an ele though... backfire, cry of pain, spirit shackles, mind wrack... A few interuption skills... Ele toast

Spirit Shackles in PvE is pointless, all foes seem to have 16 Energy Storage... single-target rupts are meh because there are always multiples of the same foe in PvE. Backfire is Reactive rubbish with a high recharge... But CoP is nice.

UnChosen · Sep 13, 2010, 07:47 PM // 19:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

Spirit Shackles in PvE is pointless, all foes seem to have 16 Energy Storage... single-target rupts are meh because there are always multiples of the same foe in PvE. Backfire is Reactive rubbish with a high recharge... But CoP is nice.

Not if its the mob casting it on the players/heroes/henchmen though.

The long cast time/recharge, reliance on enchantments, and the need to actively cast spells (rather than preparing them ahead of time, like how necro can cast death nova and minions before the next mob, and how rits can cast spirits ahead of time and teleport them in), make eles a giant shatter/interrupt/hex bait.

The remaining 2 caster classes, mesmer and monk, make it up by having extremely fast cast time (mesmer) or extremely spammable spells (monk), as well as the ability to self remove hexes or turn it back on the opponent.

Poor eles....

Jeydra · Sep 14, 2010, 09:11 AM // 09:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frozen Ele

What should Elementalists be doing?

Spam heals, or armour-ignoring damage, or concentrate on utility without regard to damage or sit in EBSoH with BUH active ... what else?

HigherMinion · Sep 14, 2010, 09:15 AM // 09:15

Recently been using AP-Earth bar, I find it quite effective in HM. The damage is -fine- (hitting 50-60s in wide AoE) with great support; blind and KD snare.

ERing is fun, but you can't run a defensive bar h/h.

Lanier · Sep 14, 2010, 08:12 PM // 20:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

Spirit Shackles in PvE is pointless, all foes seem to have 16 Energy Storage... single-target rupts are meh because there are always multiples of the same foe in PvE. Backfire is Reactive rubbish with a high recharge... But CoP is nice.

Actually, mobs have far less energy in HM then the general public seems to think they have. I have run Mindwrack/aneurism builds in PvE many times and activating the energy=0 damage on mind wrack really isnt all that tough. Of course that doesn't automatically make spirit shackles useful... im just saying that energy denial is possible against PvE mobs.

Also, I like single target rupts not for the rupt itself but for the secondary effects that are tacked on. Power Spike for example is a great way to inflict some cheap and high armor ignoring damage on a target. Power drain is a great way to gain a lot of energy. Rupting is different in PvE than it is in PvP but it is useful for other purposes.

Finally, I never did understand all the animosity toward reactive hexes. Maybe they don't have as high of a damage ceiling as proactive hexes do but they can still inflict a shitload of armor ignoring damage.

Quote:

ERing is fun, but you can't run a defensive bar h/h.

Uh, why not? I run monk or resto rit all the time in PvE. If its fun, then do it.

Cuilan · Sep 14, 2010, 09:01 PM // 21:01

They can be made less effective if there's conflicting conditions, knock down, or hexes.

Xenomortis · Sep 14, 2010, 09:04 PM // 21:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lanier

Finally, I never did understand all the animosity toward reactive hexes. Maybe they don't have as high of a damage ceiling as proactive hexes do but they can still inflict a shitload of armor ignoring damage.

Yes, they can inflict a lot of damage. Eventually.
They're a really, really slow way of killing anything and are not something you'd put on a target you want dead now. They're something you put on a target you'd kill last.

Life Bringing · Sep 15, 2010, 03:35 AM // 03:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

Yes, they can inflict a lot of damage. Eventually.
They're a really, really slow way of killing anything and are not something you'd put on a target you want dead now. They're something you put on a target you'd kill last.

unless its deeeeeeeeeeeep

LifeInfusion · Sep 15, 2010, 04:03 AM // 04:03

Wow, this thread is still going. Luckily HoM is account wide.

When you truly play an elementalist with attunements and a cover enchant then swap to playing another class you realize how annoying the attunements are. Even the ritualist's preparation takes shorter time now that spirits are 3/4 and 1 second casts.

And for mesmer damage...cry of pain (pve only), clumsiness, overload, Wastrel's worry (and wastrel's demise used properly), ineptitude , cry of frustration (interrupt anything), energy surge, wandering eye, mistrust, unnatural signet, etc. If you are thinking of searing heat, chaos storm does more in hard mode... Plus mesmers have a recharge buff in PvE for all their skills.

There's a reason why people run DwG...Spirit rift does more than chain lightning and is AoE.

Cuilan · Sep 15, 2010, 04:33 AM // 04:33

People run DwG in normal mode and in limited locations. A lot of the skills you mentions have quite a few downsides themselves.

Ones who wanted the skill updates for dervish and mesmer actually liked those professions. Took five years for mesmers to get an update that did anything for them and it just amazes me that such a pop profession has such self loathing players.

Klance · Sep 15, 2010, 09:25 AM // 09:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cuilan

People run DwG in normal mode and in limited locations. A lot of the skills you mentions have quite a few downsides themselves.

Ones who wanted the skill updates for dervish and mesmer actually liked those professions. Took five years for mesmers to get an update that did anything for them and it just amazes me that such a pop profession has such self loathing players.

Guess then the sooner we bring the matter to attention of Anet the better then.

Its not a matter of self loathing, as a number of posts have pointed out, elementalists can do decent damage in HM if you put in alot of effort. Of course other classes with the same amount (or arguably lesser amount) can do better damage in HM.

HigherMinion · Sep 15, 2010, 09:46 AM // 09:46

Shouldn't all direct Fire spells cause burning/cripple(stepping in lava cripples/burns)?
Shouldn't all direct Water spells Snare? 33-90%?
Perhaps Earth's direct damage spells should cause Weakness, and it's projectiles Daze.

Air has it's penetration bonus. What have the others got?

Xenomortis · Sep 15, 2010, 02:04 PM // 14:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

Air has it's penetration bonus. What have the others got?

Look hard at why this is the case.

HigherMinion · Sep 15, 2010, 05:57 PM // 17:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

Look hard at why this is the case.

I'm at a loss. The damage was compensated for Air skills; so do the same for fire, earth and... Water.

Xenomortis · Sep 15, 2010, 06:09 PM // 18:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

I'm at a loss. The damage was compensated for Air skills; so do the same for fire, earth and... Water.

Air skills have lower damage than the comparable fire skills to compensate for the armour penetration. Air skills are almost all single target. Fire skills are largely AoE.
Earth is almost all utility with damage and Water is all snares with some damage.

Wyatt · Sep 16, 2010, 04:02 PM // 16:02

My /age is 60 months, and played with an ele most of it, but unfortunately it has become pretty useless. So, I've changed my profession to ritualist and focus on that instead. It's a shame, really.

LifeInfusion · Sep 18, 2010, 09:35 PM // 21:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Klance

Guess then the sooner we bring the matter to attention of Anet the better then.

Its not a matter of self loathing, as a number of posts have pointed out, elementalists can do decent damage in HM if you put in alot of effort. Of course other classes with the same amount (or arguably lesser amount) can do better damage in HM.

When you have hundreds or even thousands of hours logged on something that was rendered obsolete by one large update (hard mode was added in 2007)...that's different than starting off with something that was KNOWN to be that way (mesmers). If you knowingly start off with a profession that is known to have problems in PvE then it is your fault for not picking a profession that you like. But when an update that is years from when you created your character throws a wrench in the gears that, is different. Why else would there be so many elementalists from 2005? Besides, mesmers have always dominated in PvP while elementalists have largely been phased out once Factions brought Ritualists in.

And no, slapping cripple+ burning onto fire is not a solution. Neither is adding snares to water or dazed (WTF dazed???) and weakness to earth. The primary attribute is what needs to be tweaked, just like ritualists and mesmers got theirs tweaked for PvE.

Let's look at conditions and ease of access. Elites don't count as much...

We see that many of the skills have been pushed out by ritualists.

By conditions
Burning: Primarily Fire Elementalists (mark of rodgort, rodgort's invocation, immolate, incendiary bonds, glyph of immolation, searing heat, etc.) ... but I would like to see a burning arrow ranger kind of change (lower damage and longer burn) on some skills so that there is less class stacking where you bring 3 searing flames eles to make wtf damage but 1 ele is kind of "meh"
* Spirit burn has an easy to pull off conditional for PVE, but AoE burn is still elementalists' feature (only flame trap has AoE burn)
* Ray of Judgement should not have been given so much burning, granted it is an elite that one slides

Blind: Primarily Air Elementalists (eruption is high recharge; steam and ash blast are conditional), throw dirt on ranger, Ineptitude/signet of midnight/Smoke trap/ebon dust aura are elites, belly smash is hard to pull off
* Gaze from beyond has a ridiculously easy to pull off conditional but the recharge is long enough to not make it a blind spam contender
* Blind was mingson, rupture soul have PBAoE blind...
* Weapon of shadow is basically putting protective blinding on a new level
* Shadowsong is not targetted

Cripple: Primarily Rangers, sword warriors, assassins, dervishes (harder)

Deep Wound: primarily Warriors, Paragons
* we saw wearying strike abused with Dervishes on Melandru form

Cracked armor: primarily Necros, (shell shock and shrinking armor are not as effective)
* Spirit rift has cracked armor...
* Sundering weapon has cracked armor

Weakness: primarily Necros (enervating charge sucks for the most part, and Ebon Hawk is projectile)

Poison: rangers, death necros (conditional), assassins (conditional)

Disease: primarily Death Necros <-- example of a condition specific to a profession.

Bleeding: primarily Sword Warriors, Rangers, Blood necros

Daze: Rangers, Warriors, Assassins, Paragons (hard)
* sort of broke when they gave Mesmers Fevered Dreams (elite) daze as well as Air elementalists' thunderclap

Hexes
Most water magic hexes fail in efficiency mainly because Mesmer 50% snares were buffed heavily and fast casting reduces recharge...
* Shared burden, Imagined burden, crippling anguish, ethereal burden/kitah's burden
* Deep freeze still reigns, as does Icy shackles (90%), freezing gust
* Ice prison/Tenai's prison look terrible against imagined burden

Knockdowns
Earthquake would be much better if it didn't take 25 energy AND exhaustion AND 3 cast time, with 15 cooldown. Maybe if it had 15 energy cost only, since exhaustion takes a while to wear off. Sure, it is nearby range knockdown. (Meteor is adjacent with 30 recharge and so is meteor shower.)
Of course, if they decreased the energy it would become more viable as an area spike...which is why I think if they decreased the damage and the energy cost at the same time it would be more utility oriented like Gust or Gale.
* Psychic Instability has a ridiculously easy to meet condition

Look at Rodgort's Invocation: it has 25 energy cost, comes in the same line as Mind Blast (energy management) has 8 recharge and 2 cast.

Unsteady ground is okay, but I notice foes fleeing after the last pulse. Churning earth doesn't have any utility unless things move and takes longer to cast, so I don't like it (3 cast also).

Projectiles
Some skills are projectiles, but don't have anything that compensates for being one.
* Lightning Orb: high damage, has cracked armor, low 5s cooldown
* Ebon Hawk: has decent damage, weakness, low 5s cooldown, only 1 cast time
* Stoning: has high damage, low 5s cooldown, KD, only 1 cast time

* Glowstone/Shock arrow: energy management... , only 1 cast time
* Phoenix: adjacent aoe , low 10s cooldown... high damage, really high damage if adjacent to you
* Fireball: adjacent AoE, low 7s cooldown (but has to compete with Liquid Flame)

* Water trident: low cooldown, easily met KD (but lame damage) , only 1 cast time
* Lightning javelin: low 2s cooldown, interrupts attacking foe (how useful is this though?), I wish this was 1/2 or 3/4 cast given most attacks are faster than 1 second on IAS so it will not work reliably to interrupt attack skills
* Stone daggers/flare/ice spear: no cooldown (doesn't make them good though) but I hoped ice spear would not be half range since it doesn't do anything special (see the lava arrows change from half range to full range)
* Lava arrows: multiple targets with only 2 cooldown (but when Fireball is in the same line and this has only up to 3 targets... it's not as good)
* Shard storm: no redeeming qualities other than bar compression since it has damage and snare in one (having line of sight for a snare of all things is not so good and it is not maintainable, compared to Freezing Gust ; Ice spikes has the same snare duration with adjacent range for 5 energy more)

Point blank skills unfitting for a caster (aka roll a Assassin or a Dervish or something):
* Aftershock (seen on hammer warriors mostly)
* Bed of Coals
* Crystal Wave/ Teinai's Crystals
* Double Dragon
* Flame Burst
* Inferno
* Lava font
* Lightning touch
* Magnetic Aura (not to mention it is not maintainable and is the same line as Ward Against Melee)
* Ride the Lightning
* Shockwave
* Shock
* Starburst (I saw an elementalist try to use this in HM when in a PUG. It did not end well for her)
* ward against foes
...maybe...
* Flame Djinn's Haste (fine, it can be used to damage things while running away/kiting)
* Frozen Burst (fine, you can kite)
* Grasping Earth (fine you can kite)
* Whirlwind/Teinai's wind (fine, can be used to kite)
* Sliver armor (fine, you can use it to block rangers too)

Mesmers have Ancestor's Visage/Sympathetic Visage but that can be cast on others. Signet of Midnight has been used to disable a melee indefinitely. Blackout is the exception and Illusionary Weaponry has been fixed to give an armor bonus, though it is still lacking. Tease used to be touch range, but now it is energy management with an interupt.

Necromancers have skills like Contagion, Dark Aura, Demonic Flesh, Enfeebling touch, plague touch, poisoned heart, touch of agony/wallow's bite, Vampiric touch/vampiric bite, vile touch.

Ritualists have Defiant was Xinrae, Destruction, Destructive was Glaive (sort of), Grasping was Kuurong. Blind was Mingson is one that works as a kite.

Monks have Holy strike/Stonesoul Strike, Kirin's Wrath/Symbol of Wrath.

Mouse at Large · Sep 18, 2010, 11:43 PM // 23:43

Good analysis above.

The basic fact is that now, with HM in the game, eles have lost their focus.

Inefective damage dealers in HM/Elite areas, but still effective in NM.

The basic quandry is how to make eles effective as damage dealers in HM/elite areas without imbalancing mobs.

I hope Anet/Live Team can do something about the situation, but I ain't holding my breath....