Curse

WarcryOfTruth · Sep 09, 2010, 04:00 PM // 16:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cuilan

You're obviously aren't going to run a normal mode build in hard mode and expect the same results.

I suppose not. But Elementalist builds are the only ones that differ much from NM and HM. Most of what works in HM is used in NM, but Elementalist damage bars typically work great in NM but not in HM. This is what should be fixed.

Vallen · Sep 09, 2010, 04:07 PM // 16:07

1. take a necro hero
2. give him weaken armour
3. ???????
4. profit

Its a team game, your 12.5% of a team so stop trying to do everything yourself.

Stop QQing cause your bad at using an ele / playing GW. My ele is like my 6th or 7th least used character but I still faceroll HM with her. They have great utility with earth / water, decent damage with air / fire, unsurpassed support with ER Prot / infuse spam.

Of course NM builds dont work in HM, the same can be said for every profession.
Are you going to use anything but barrage / scythe spam on a ranger in HM? no
Will you use anything on a rit other than SoS or resto in HM? no
Anything but inep or panic on a mes in HM? no

ETC... I could go on but I cant be bothered

I Hate Chips · Sep 09, 2010, 04:23 PM // 16:23

still with weakon armor...
armor ignoring damage is still better

LifeInfusion · Sep 09, 2010, 05:12 PM // 17:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vallen

1. take a necro hero
2. give him weaken armour
3. ???????
4. profit

Its a team game, your 12.5% of a team so stop trying to do everything yourself.

Stop QQing cause your bad at using an ele / playing GW. My ele is like my 6th or 7th least used character but I still faceroll HM with her. They have great utility with earth / water, decent damage with air / fire, unsurpassed support with ER Prot / infuse spam.

I don't see anything that really does a thorough analysis in your post. You basically said "I ROCK UR BAD AT GW because I said so". Besides, "decent damage" from a character that is touted to have the best damage is lame, especially with the small amount of utility it brings to the table. The irony of it all is you're a ranger.

It's a team game but when you don't pull your weight it is kind of lame. You might as well wand things and not have a skillbar.

Weaken armor doesn't work as well as you suggest as far as augmenting Elementalist damage, it is -20 armor and it is pulled off very easily by HM monks and anything with condition removal. Lightning Orb is basically what your suggestion of Weaken armor is entailing, and the reason why Lightning Orb works well is because the Cracked armor is applied/re-applied right before the damage, so there is minimal risk of condition removal. The 25% armor penetration in air magic is the best bet, but when chain lightning does about 80 damage and has a risk of exhaustion if attunements are stripped, you might as well run an ancestor's rage and Spirit rift rit.

Let's look at earth utility: Ward against melee, Churning Earth (only in HM) and Ashblast when used with it, Eruption, Unsteady Ground...Ebon Hawk which is mainly a prep for Stoning, Glowstone for energy management (going back to needing energy storage), Obsidian flesh/Stoneflesh Aura/Sliver armor for "tanks"/farmers, ward of stability (only in certain places), Magnetic aura (why use it when you have ward against melee...though 75% >50%). Magnetic Surge/Obsidian Flame are just fake armor ignoring skills when compared to the likes of Ancestor's Rage. Ward against elements is not as good as Stand your ground/ebon Vanguard standard of Courage.
* Ward vs melee is mostly replaced by Defensive Anthem/Aegis on heros.

Air utility: Blinding surge, blinding flash, enervating charge (terrible compared to necromancer's weakness skills and even to an extent, Ebon hawk), shell shock (used previously instead of lightning orb for the cracked armor), shock arrow for energy management (projectile...), Storm djinn's haste for speed boost, Gale/Gust (why bother when you have "You Move Like a Dwarf")

Fire utility: meteor/meteor shower, mind blast with secondary skills, Mark of Rodgort which helps with "They're on fire", Flame djinn's haste for speed boost...the rest is all damage

Water utility: Deep Freeze, blurred vision, Ice spikes/freezing gust/shard storm/icy shackles/winter's embrace snares, glowing ice for energy management, icy prism (too conditional), maelstrom (pain to use), armor of mist for speed boost, Mist Form for tanking (lol), slippery ground (difficult to pull off), steam (attribute split), Ward against harm (ebon vanguard standard of courage/ Stand Your ground), swirling aura (um yeh...)

Energy Storage: Ether renewal , Ether Prodigy (Lyssa's Aura says hi), Energy Boon

It seems the best utility options are mostly anti-melee. Snares, 50% block, 50% miss, or 90% miss blind. Other than that, not much.

Let's not forget about fire damage against Destroyers and Titans. It's not just HM, it's NM also. But in NM earth actually does a decent amount.

So...in summary:
* terrible primary attribute
* attunements with 2 cast time, 45 recharge creating the opposite of skillbar compression and artificially inflating skill energy cost to match other professions'
* mobs with high armor versus elemental damage
* mobs that flee from AoEs
* paperthin 60 armor
* long cast times for most of the "money" skills, and some of them also have long recharge and high energy cost (eruption is 25 energy, meteor shower is 25 + exhaustion)
* weak utility except for a few choice skills

Essence Snow · Sep 09, 2010, 05:21 PM // 17:21

Not to sound repetitive, but this topic is well known and well discussed already. You may check here for an in depth discussion.

Cuilan · Sep 09, 2010, 05:31 PM // 17:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

Let's not forget about fire damage against Destroyers and Titans.

You didn't mention foes weak to fire.

So in summary: you don't like the profession. Their armor is fine... Scatter can prevent a lot of damage or can be used more skillfully. Nothing in this thread is really new. You would be complaining about necromancers having blind and elementalists having AoE weakness if that were the case, even if both professions have access to weakness.

Vallen's post has a point though. A lot of the things mentioned can be dealt with by the player him or herself.

LifeInfusion · Sep 09, 2010, 05:33 PM // 17:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Essence Snow

Not to sound repetitive, but this topic is well known and well discussed already. You may check here for an in depth discussion.

I'm sorry. I missed that thread because I didn't play for a while since I finished EOTN and it seems every single class got a buff in the mean time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cuilan

You didn't mention foes weak to fire.

So in summary: you don't like the profession. Their armor is fine... Scatter can prevent a lot of damage or used more skillfully. Nothing in this thread is really new.

How many foes are weak to fire that are worth mentioning? Things like the Aloes that pop up of the ground don't really count. Almost every high end mob has fire resistance: things in endgame Prophecies, destroyers, etc.

It's not that I don't like the profession, it's that every other caster got a pretty ridiculous buff while I was gone (even smiting did, which is ridiculous).

Cuilan · Sep 09, 2010, 05:46 PM // 17:46

There aren't any fire resistant foes in high end PvE (lol destroyers). Winter can easily be used and there are even Titans that are weak to fire.

Vallen · Sep 09, 2010, 05:52 PM // 17:52

Destroyers:
Despite having a wide range of professions, Destroyers have no healers and no condition removal, however their mesmers have hex removal skills.

They have a -20 penalty to armor against cold damage. With their global +20 armor, this means they have normal armor against cold damage

They have a +20 bonus to armor against fire damage, except for Destroyers of Earth, which have much more.

Winter combined with any elemental damage (like weapon upgrade, or fire elementalists nuke spells) works very well on them due to their lowered armor against cold damage.

Few sentances pulled from wiki and ive highlighted the parts you need, with a bit of imagination i'm sure you could make your ele effective against them?

As for titans, they all have either 83 or 63 AL vs cold so again, winter + fire dmg or just use cold dmg.

As for buffing ele's i'm afraid you will have to wait since derv's are now and then para's and its rumored that smiting is next. Surely after that rangers will be buffed since they are, by far, the worst class in the game yet we aren't QQing about it ^^

If I sound like a twat I dont intend it to come across that way but this really has been argued to death and it isn't needed since ele's are fine.

MArcSinus · Sep 09, 2010, 07:16 PM // 19:16

I always find myself running ER prot 90% of the time...
Pretty sure I didn't made an ele for that purpose 5 years ago.
Nuff said.

Lord Dagon · Sep 09, 2010, 08:33 PM // 20:33

i just gotta say.. i own in HM with my ele.. ive persoanlly never known any areas besides the super high end areas that i could go H/H with my Ele in HM and not just dominate. So it may be agreed by the community but i seem to pwn in HM with searing flames >.>

Xenomortis · Sep 09, 2010, 08:49 PM // 20:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

How many foes are weak to fire that are worth mentioning? Things like the Aloes that pop up of the ground don't really count. Almost every high end mob has fire resistance: things in endgame Prophecies, destroyers, etc.

High end mobs? Destroyers are high-end now?
I submit that the water eles in the various EotN dungeons are as high a standard as Destroyers. Level 24 Frozen Elementals in NM have 48 armour vs Fire and should only have 54 in HM (at level 26) whereas they have 72 vs everything else (78 in HM) except Cold which is at 112.

Enemies that are tougher against fire than anything else are any fire based Elementals and Destroyers. There's a lot more that's weaker against fire than stronger.

Mashiyu · Sep 10, 2010, 12:07 AM // 00:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vallen

They have a -20 penalty to armor against cold damage. With their global +20 armor, this means they have normal armor against cold damage
They have a +20 bonus to armor against fire damage, except for Destroyers of Earth, which have much more.

Damage-wise, this does not really matter because air does more damage thanks to armor penetration. (Bsurge as a nice support skill is another reason for using air)

And even with "normal armor" you don't always deal the dmg stated in the skill description (80 armor warriors [do monsters get a shield bonus?] and 100 armor rangers). Cold damage is rather low btw - another reason for not choosing water for damage (for support its a good choice).

LifeInfusion · Sep 10, 2010, 12:46 AM // 00:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

High end mobs? Destroyers are high-end now?
I submit that the water eles in the various EotN dungeons are as high a standard as Destroyers. Level 24 Frozen Elementals in NM have 48 armour vs Fire and should only have 54 in HM (at level 26) whereas they have 72 vs everything else (78 in HM) except Cold which is at 112.

Enemies that are tougher against fire than anything else are any fire based Elementals and Destroyers. There's a lot more that's weaker against fire than stronger.

Fine, Destroyer's aren't high end. But they constitute most of the expansion which is meant for level 20 players and are a good example. I run air most of the time save for Mind blast so if that was a mental slip forgive me, ok?

+ damage is armor ignoring. HB damage is armor ignoring. Everything from mesmers, spirits, necromancer hexes are armor ignoring. I won't keep posting in this thread now that I have read http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/l...t10438663.html

It seems that people that haven't played elementalists extensively use the hard mode bosses as a metric and/or compare it to rangers/dervishes which aren't even casters and have + damage.

But yeh, there's been power creep among all the classes once Nightfall came out. (Searing Flames was wtf.)

Back to playing my necro...

MArcSinus · Sep 10, 2010, 12:54 AM // 00:54

Why bother with weak water magic?
We got another overpowered pve skill that does that for you, namely snowstorm, or the frigging imp.

Xenomortis · Sep 10, 2010, 01:00 AM // 01:00

Here's the thing; when you can run the support necessary to keep physicals hitting things and can buff them, you don't need nukes. You don't even want them.
As for the other casters, only two of them stand a chance at matching the physicals for damage and neither of them rely on nuking or simple direct damage to do it.
And an Elementalist can keep up with a Mesmer for direct damage. Armour has very little to do with why an Ele has issues as a damage dealer in PvE.

MArcSinus · Sep 10, 2010, 01:08 AM // 01:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

Here's the thing; when you can run the support necessary to keep physicals hitting things and can buff them, you don't need nukes. You don't even want them.
As for the other casters, only two of them stand a chance at matching the physicals for damage and neither of them rely on nuking or simple direct damage to do it.
And an Elementalist can keep up with a Mesmer for direct damage. Armour has very little to do with why an Ele has issues as a damage dealer in PvE.

Not realy, a mesmer deals passive damage while an elementalist deals active damage. Besides, with the newly buffed WW and WD combo a mesmer is capable of dealing massive armor ignoring damage which makes Savannah Heat pale in comparison. Ele's are designed to deal active damage and that's where they fail.

I agree with you that support is everything, but the only real way to do that is by running earth. Casting wards and providing knock down and weakness. Fire is just spamming PVE skills and 1 or 2 fire skills anyway.

Jeydra · Sep 10, 2010, 01:42 AM // 01:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vallen

1. take a necro hero
2. give him weaken armour
3. ???????
4. profit

Its a team game, your 12.5% of a team so stop trying to do everything yourself.

Stop QQing cause your bad at using an ele / playing GW. My ele is like my 6th or 7th least used character but I still faceroll HM with her. They have great utility with earth / water, decent damage with air / fire, unsurpassed support with ER Prot / infuse spam.

Of course NM builds dont work in HM, the same can be said for every profession.
Are you going to use anything but barrage / scythe spam on a ranger in HM? no
Will you use anything on a rit other than SoS or resto in HM? no
Anything but inep or panic on a mes in HM? no

ETC... I could go on but I cant be bothered

I faceroll HM with an empty skill bar. You must be bad at using an Ele / playing GW, because you need Weaken Armour. ETC ... I could go on but I can't be bothered.

This topic has been discussed to death, zzz.

HigherMinion · Sep 10, 2010, 06:52 AM // 06:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by MArcSinus

Not realy, a mesmer deals passive damage while an elementalist deals active damage. Besides, with the newly buffed WW and WD combo a mesmer is capable of dealing massive armor ignoring damage which makes Savannah Heat pale in comparison.

Surely WW and WD can only be used in niche builds, as the foe cannot attack for 3 seconds to take any damage at all. An elementalist deals more than 0 DPS with every cast, atleast. I think Xeno's referring to GDW spamming, as he thinks Earth is useless anyway. I think he thinks. Er...

Mashiyu · Sep 10, 2010, 10:13 AM // 10:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

Surely WW and WD can only be used in niche builds, as the foe cannot attack (edit: use a skill) for 3 seconds to take any damage at all.

I heard some rumor, that there is a class which is great at shutting down enemies.

If you use WW/WD bring some rupts or Panic (which are in the same attribute line). Or just shatter the delusion WW.