Curse

LifeInfusion · Sep 19, 2010, 12:11 AM // 00:11

I was disappointed with elementalist buffs in the past also. They didn't make the elementalist into better supporters, but more gimmicky. Things like AoE dazed on thunderclap make me wonder sometimes. Glimmering mark's change into a hex DPS skill is disappointing as well and Mirror of Ice defies the whole point of water Magic (add 30 damage on your hexes is a lame elite).

The so-so damage addition to rust was okay though. (Chilling Winds had the same change.)

Cuilan · Sep 19, 2010, 03:24 AM // 03:24

Having stronger/AoE snares that don't need spam isn't inferior.
"Projectiles" is more of a issue with rangers, especially with a long bow.
Ele knock downs don't have requirements and they deal damage.
Disease can be given by all professions.
There is an E/R Ether Renewal build that uses point blank nukes that apparently worked.

Maybe unlike the other thread, you can come up with a solution without breaking player balance, as I'm all for hard mobs. To most players they are just a profession that just casts things without much thought, risk, or worry.

Del · Sep 19, 2010, 04:01 AM // 04:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mouse at Large

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

Not as if ele damage is bad, it's just bad when it's completely armor-respecting, and in HM, enemies have a lot of armor. Anyone can tell you, run into a mob with eles in hm, especially bosses, and you might get your shit wrecked. Personally, i think HM enemies should have reduced armor, but buffed with better AI/attack rate, etc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cuilan

Ele knock downs don't have requirements and they deal damage.

Stoning/water trident both have requirements, tbh, eles have just as many non-conditional kds as warriors, and warriors have more non-conditional

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cuilan

Disease can be given by all professions.

O rly? Not sure this sentence was even partially thought through.

Frozen Ele · Sep 19, 2010, 05:18 AM // 05:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

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

Water magic snares have great efficiency (often over 100%, especially when two are used in combination). The Symbolic and Graphical Investigation of the Efficiency of Water Magic Snares is a perfect warrant on this.

Most of the snares you listed are single target (Imagined Burden, Crippling Anguish, Ethereal burden/Kitah's Burden) and deal no damage (the exception here is Crippling Anguish, an elite that has problems of its own when it comes to the damage it gives - i.e. max degen cap), causing them to easily be beaten by Deep Freeze + Ice Spikes (AoE range and has a ~94% efficiency).

Also, 66% snare >>> 50% snare anyday. With a 50% snare, the target takes twice as long to move from place-to-place (from initial agro to your backline/frontline, etc.), whereas with a 66% snare, the foe takes three times as long (a 90% snare causes the foe to take ten times as long). When it comes down to x2 vs. x3 or even x2 vs. x10, x3/x10 wins.

Any way you slice it, elementalist water snares > mesmer snares.

Cuilan · Sep 19, 2010, 06:40 AM // 06:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Del

Stoning/water trident both have requirements, tbh, eles have just as many non-conditional kds as warriors, and warriors have more non-conditional

O rly? Not sure this sentence was even partially thought through.

Naming a couple spells that do doesn't change anything.

Signet of Infection and Radiation Field.

Del · Sep 19, 2010, 07:44 AM // 07:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cuilan

Naming a couple spells that do doesn't change anything.

The point was, as far as KDing, eles are inferior to warriors, and that sentenced implied that eles are good at unconditional KDs, and if you weren't trying to imply that, then the statement would be completely arbitrary.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cuilan

Signet of Infection and Radiation Field.

Failed to consider those, i was thinking more along the lines of real skills.

UnChosen · Sep 19, 2010, 09:20 AM // 09:20

I know a class is underpowered when we have to compares/nitpick on things like KD, conditions, disease, and snare effectiveness...stuff that no one in PvE cares about.

Wake me up when KD, conditions, disease, and snares would actually made a difference in PvE.

Dervish has a lot of enchants, Paragon has AoE heal, and Rangers can cause KD/Cripple/Bleeding/Burning/Poison all at once, does that mean they're fine?

Xenomortis · Sep 19, 2010, 09:50 AM // 09:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Del

Not as if ele damage is bad, it's just bad when it's completely armor-respecting, and in HM, enemies have a lot of armor. Anyone can tell you, run into a mob with eles in hm, especially bosses, and you might get your shit wrecked. Personally, i think HM enemies should have reduced armor, but buffed with better AI/attack rate, etc.

Except Warriors, Assassins and Dervishes are just flat-out better for killing things. Even if Hard Mode didn't exist this would be true. Hard Mode just made people notice how much of a difference there was and then widened the gap a bit.

Edit:
Sorry, it was the other way around. HM widened the gap which in turn made more people look and notice the difference.

Cuilan · Sep 19, 2010, 12:15 PM // 12:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Del

*stuff*

I guess I can see how thought that, but that particular sentence was a bit neutral. The main point being that they were different then the skill that it was compared to.

LifeInfusion · Sep 20, 2010, 02:57 AM // 02:57

I'll concede the bit about 66% slower vs 50% slower. I mainly pointed out the skills in the water magic line that were bad compared to the line itself (i.e. Shard storm vs Deep freeze, freezing gust, and ice spikes).

I forgot to mention Psychic Instability means Earthquake is a waste of time in the KD section. It knocks down longer, faster, more often (even with 0 fast casting), and for much cheaper. The only downside is it is an elite and does no damage.

Basically only burning and blind are holding out, where burning doesn't affect some mobs and blind is hanging on by a thread since Ineptitude is in play with Fast casting recharge buffs.

HigherMinion · Sep 20, 2010, 05:37 AM // 05:37

In PvE, Mesmers can blind better than eles with Fevered Dreams-Ymlad-Ash Blast; let alone Ineptitude, which I think is lacking value when non-physical foes are present.

Jeydra · Sep 20, 2010, 08:42 AM // 08:42

@LifeInfusion - no offense but most of your comparisons are very weak. That's because they simply are not relevant. I could for example say that Elementalists have one area of PvE where they do better than everyone else, and having more energy than anyone else. You can run 16 Energy Storage and energy armour and high energy set and have more than 100 max energy. I could also say that Elementalists have the unique ability to use all their elemental attributes at the same time, courtesy of Master of Magic, and have +20 armour from Prismatic Insignias to boot. Nobody else can spec into all their attributes while still having enough points left over to bring a (say) 9-spec Aegis. While true, these statements are also irrelevant. So what? Who cares?

The point is that in PvE, by far the most important thing is how fast you kill the monsters. You need enough defense to stay alive, and any kind of utility that helps you kill your targets faster help as well, e.g. if you're fighting monsters who spam Stoneflesh Aura, anti-enchants or interrupts will help you kill them faster. But beyond that everything is almost irrelevant. So the first two points are now:

Burning - falls under the category of direct kill speed. No one should care about this condition, because you are concerned with the sum total of your team's damage output, regardless of where that comes from. Burning does nothing except for damage (and trigger Searing Flames, I guess ...), and you can find superior damage sources elsewhere. Being the best profession to inflict burning with is meaningless.
Blind - falls under the category of defence. Again no one should care about this condition, because you are concerned about the sum total of the team's defences, not blind itself. Now if blind were crucial to staying alive, then being the best profession to inflict blind with matters. Except of course, blind isn't essential. In fact it's even arguable that blind is subpar, because it's hard to apply and Aegis generally more than compensates (not to mention it's easier to use, easier to spec into, blah blah blah).

I quote this for truth (although to be fair KDs and some conditions, especially Deep Wound, do make a difference):

Quote:

Originally Posted by UnChosen

Wake me up when KD, conditions, disease, and snares would actually made a difference in PvE.

Here's something else: if the best damage build in the game were Elementalist primary using PBAoE, I'd go ahead and use it and not claim that Elementalists are underpowered. Sins are the best tanks in PvE right now because of Shadow Form. Do you see any Assassins saying "roll a Warrior or something if you want to tank"? Or Warriors complaining that their profession is underpowered because they, despite having the highest base armour, aren't the best tanks in the game? There might be isolated cases, but their argument holds no water ... in the same vein, saying that Elementalists are underpowered because Ritualists have intruded into many areas that used to be an Elementalist's domain simply doesn't work.

LifeInfusion · Sep 22, 2010, 06:27 PM // 18:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

@LifeInfusion - no offense but most of your comparisons are very weak. That's because they simply are not relevant. I could for example say that Elementalists have one area of PvE where they do better than everyone else, and having more energy than anyone else. You can run 16 Energy Storage and energy armour and high energy set and have more than 100 max energy. I could also say that Elementalists have the unique ability to use all their elemental attributes at the same time, courtesy of Master of Magic, and have +20 armour from Prismatic Insignias to boot. Nobody else can spec into all their attributes while still having enough points left over to bring a (say) 9-spec Aegis. While true, these statements are also irrelevant. So what? Who cares?

The point is that in PvE, by far the most important thing is how fast you kill the monsters. You need enough defense to stay alive, and any kind of utility that helps you kill your targets faster help as well, e.g. if you're fighting monsters who spam Stoneflesh Aura, anti-enchants or interrupts will help you kill them faster. But beyond that everything is almost irrelevant. So the first two points are now:

Burning - falls under the category of direct kill speed. No one should care about this condition, because you are concerned with the sum total of your team's damage output, regardless of where that comes from. Burning does nothing except for damage (and trigger Searing Flames, I guess ...), and you can find superior damage sources elsewhere. Being the best profession to inflict burning with is meaningless.
Blind - falls under the category of defence. Again no one should care about this condition, because you are concerned about the sum total of the team's defences, not blind itself. Now if blind were crucial to staying alive, then being the best profession to inflict blind with matters. Except of course, blind isn't essential. In fact it's even arguable that blind is subpar, because it's hard to apply and Aegis generally more than compensates (not to mention it's easier to use, easier to spec into, blah blah blah).

I quote this for truth (although to be fair KDs and some conditions, especially Deep Wound, do make a difference):

Here's something else: if the best damage build in the game were Elementalist primary using PBAoE, I'd go ahead and use it and not claim that Elementalists are underpowered. Sins are the best tanks in PvE right now because of Shadow Form. Do you see any Assassins saying "roll a Warrior or something if you want to tank"? Or Warriors complaining that their profession is underpowered because they, despite having the highest base armour, aren't the best tanks in the game? There might be isolated cases, but their argument holds no water ... in the same vein, saying that Elementalists are underpowered because Ritualists have intruded into many areas that used to be an Elementalist's domain simply doesn't work.

Having gone through years of updates I have grown a thick skin so it's hard for me to be offended. Anything I have said here is just an expression of a frustration when I have to stop playing my ele if I want to do something effective besides Ether renewal, E/A AP, or mindblast (energy storage is only good for this kind of thing) as fuel for PVE skills.

I've seen the elementalist evolve constantly since beta in 2004, and so many times it has turned into a one trick pony. There is no occassion I remember more than Ether Renewal with Smiting (Zealot's Fire) when Draw conditions had 0 recharge. It seems like that trend is back. I am sure some older players remember chain lightning air spike as well. I'm a guilty party, I have done that a few times just to see it in action. It was so bad that they made Chain Lightning 3 second cast (among other things) whcih then led to them bringing in Invoke Lightning (the elite equivalent) in Nightfall. The exact same thing happened with Obsidian Flame. It died down when armor swaps were disabled in PVP, but you still see it in Zaishen PVP.

On the PVE side it was mostly meteor shower echoing, with fireball and other random stuff as filler, which was destroyed by a mob AoE fleeing update. Fast cast nukers were the rage with mesmers since the only AoE was cry of frustration on 20 cooldown and chaos storm on 30 cooldown with 15 energy. I ran earth and air mostly to try something different because when I specced mainly in fire I put points in earth for wards. I was probably one of the few to run earth in places like FoW, but by no means the only one. At the time, it was fire or bust.

A good look at the Ritualists shows how overbuffing entire mechanics is terrible. Factions brought the Ritualist with ancestor's rage, Shelter/Union/Displacement, a bunch of single target lightning damage skills, and Spirit Rift. So air kind of died down a bit, fine...but we can still blind things, AoE, and spirits cast in 3 to 5 seconds ...which means it didn't really work that well. The predominant build at the time was Ritual Lord and it was hard to get in a team with it. Channeling was only for Splinter weapon but you mostly saw it on R/Rt rather than Rt/*. Well, even spirits were run on R/Rt with Oath Shot. Why? Because spawning power was supposedly useless at the time and rangers could reduce spirit energy cost. Now we have spirits that pop up in under a second. (It's the same idea with energy storage being useless for the most part.)

Then there was Searing Flames in Nightfall. Who could forget Searing Flames? Before hard mode all people wanted to do is SF the crap out of everything, with 3 ele teams and such. Broken? Terribly. Where's energy storage useful in this? Juts for frontloading the spam, and nothing more.

The issue at hand is: when elementalists are wanted, they are broken (in the overpowered sense) and usually stacked. It is less common now that you can only run 12+1+1 unless you want <500 HP (hard mode and all). That means since energy storage is not that important, you might as well run a Rt/E, Me/E, or N/E with 12 in the attribute even if elementalist skills are useful. The exception is things like Mind Blast or Glowing Gaze which hinge on energy storage investment and 8+ energy storage to get Energy blast to do max damage.

Regardless, Master of Magic is just like running ether renewal: it's not flexible and gimmicky (just like energy storage as an attribute). That's almost as gimmicky as Illusionary Weaponry to make a Mesmer do so-so DPS. Some skills like Aura of Restoration make me go "what?" when it requires 8 energy storage just for the energy gain to work. Elemental Lord is even worse (every 10 ranks of energy storage). Some synergy would be nice. Elementalist skills are priced with attunements in mind, and that is an issue when you have bulk enchant stripping.

The only reason why I pointed out burning and blind was someone mentioned how to improve the elementalist without it becoming overpowered. My conjecture was simple: to make the utility stronger and damage more consistent rather than higher powered, but the utility in itself has been largely replaced by other professions. Even if you make the utility the strongest thing in the game, there is no reason to run an elementalist primary. That's why it is messed up, that's why we even need to have this entire discussion to begin with.

Some skills in the elementalist line are only strong when stacked (i.e. searing flames) and I find that to be inherently flawed. I want to see more utility like Blinding Surge, Eruption, Unsteady ground, or Icy Shackles that don't need to stack (and possibly should not be stacked). Just look at Codex arena. They allow professions to be in a party no more than once. That's how PvE ought to be, but without it being forced. Every class should have some role it can fill best, but at the same time remain just flexible enough such that it can do other things. The monk is probably an exception here, but smiting has been changed with "disables all smiting prayers" on Light of Deliverance, which is sort of lame way of doing it. (Having 10 professions is another problem Nightfall introduced.)

For example, I was playing my necro (which has much better energy management) and weaken armor + oppressive gaze is easier to apply than blind is and is more consistent. Since it creates a condition stack it also has more synergy within itself. Is the combination overpowered? No, it just preps for your minions and physicals while topping it off with poison. If elementalists are not to be supreme damage, at least make it consistent and utility based (the water line is a bad example because outside of Deep Freeze (or Ice spikes), Blurred Vision there are few AoEs).

Assassins may "tank" better, but it is not consistent and zone specific. If they have to spec points into shadow arts and such it isn't innate, it is hinging on a skill. Warriors just need to auto-attack provided they are buffed.

I remember a while ago (2007 or 2008) I posted on the ritualist about how the spawning power attribute should do something with weapon spells, such as lengthening them by 3 or 4%. Guess what happened? That is exactly one of the things that was added. Is it a big difference, enough for a Restoration rit to spec 13 in spawning? No. But does it improve the profession's synergy within its own skillset? yes. Putting points in your primary attribute should do something meaningful even if you don't use a single skill that hinges on it. Right now it's more or less Glowing Gaze, Glowing Ice, Glowstone, Shock Arrow, and Mind Blast which are all energy management.

The elementalist needs something beyond just damage because the conditions really aren't that strong (maybe except for Thunderclap which is ridiculously bad in terms of usability), considering hex removal is not as rampant, can't be bulk removed (except for Peace and Harmony , expel hexes, purge signet), and are on longer cooldown.