Curse

Primeval_Goddess · Jul 28, 2009, 02:31 AM // 02:31

Just looking for some opinions/knowledge:

Fire dmg vs Earth dmg & Savannah Heat vs Sandstorm.

I believe fire does the most dmg, going from what I learned a while back and comparisons on GW Wiki. Is earth dmg very effective?

Also, between Savannah Heat and Sandstorm... both work a bit different, but there's a potential for more dmg with Sandstorm, at least immediate dps, if enemies are attacking. Also, due to length of spell, if you can keep enemies in Sandstorm for full duration, it can do max of 300 dmg.

Savannah Heat is incremental, which can work well, especially if you have enemies not moving/slowed/trapped, as with all such spells.

Any general opinions?

I have two fire builds, but was thinking of going Earth... a lot of exhaust involved, and not sure how the dmg difference is/relates, but seems like it could be hefty.

So, between Fire and Earth dmg, and between these two spells... thoughts?

_Nihilist_ · Jul 28, 2009, 03:21 AM // 03:21

Elemental damage isn't really all that hot to begin with. Elemental damage is reduced by armor, so once you get to areas with lvl20+ enemies, the damage is toned down quite a bit.

Earth is useful for Wards (Party Defense), some KD (yes, some of the spells cause Exhaustion, just don't get to spam-happy with them), and a good bit of utility (Churning Earth and Unsteady Ground are amazing).

Fire is useful for spamming Mind Blast to fuel overpowered PvE skills.

IronSheik · Jul 28, 2009, 03:24 AM // 03:24

For HM? Neither, for fire HM..if you must use it..searing flames/MB. Earth=Unsteady Ground or other profession elites such as AP

Sandstorm they'll kite out of way too fast, and Savannah doesn't pwn as much as it does in NM

luminoire · Jul 28, 2009, 03:41 AM // 03:41

the only place i see use for stationary AoEs is faction farming, lol.

for AB, no one i've seen caps with sandstorm, mainly because fire offers much more depth in shrine capping capabilities. SH+searing heat/tenai's heat+maelstrom if necessary.

Primeval_Goddess · Jul 28, 2009, 03:43 AM // 03:43

Interesting...

I'm seeing people use Sandstorm a lot, including in PvP, which actually caught me a few times because it triggers more dmg if you're attacking.

I've testing SH on-and-off in PvE and PvP and sometimes it's great, sometimes not.

I also know there's a difference between fire dmg and earth dmg, with fire generally being better. At least, that used to be the consensus last time I checked a while back.

But, if you slow enemies down with something such as Deep Freeze or the like, or an Earth skill if you're running an Earth build, which really would do more dmg/be more effective in the end?

For spam, I generally use Searing Flames. Used to Echo it, but it recharges so fast, I now just use it with Immolate and Rodgort's.

Mind Blast seems decent, but in comparison to Searing Flames, I'd say that it does not do as much dmg as fast, due to being lower dmg initially with recharge time included. Same recharge/cast time, but less cost and less dmg with each cast. Would seem to make more sense to spam Searing Flames.

There's also Shockwave, but as a caster, you want to keep your distance, so the benefits of more dmg to closer enemies, while handy sometimes, I don't really go for that much.

I don't know... little confusing to me, especially with what I've been seeing recently.

Quote:

Originally Posted by luminoire

the only place i see use for stationary AoEs is faction farming, lol.

for AB, no one i've seen caps with sandstorm, mainly because fire offers much more depth in shrine capping capabilities. SH+searing heat/tenai's heat+maelstrom if necessary.

You mean because there are so many duplicate skills, that it offers more "depth" to basically spam stationary AoE?

Oh, I should probably be more clear here as well... I'm not just referring to PvP, but also PvE. I don't think I made that clear initially, sorry.

So, for stationary AoE skills, it seems that fire is the way to go, then?

Just want to get a better feel for the difference, since there are a few good Earth skills for that as well, many that also offer knock-down, which of course helps keep enemies in the AoE area.

P.S.
What spell do you think is best for slowing enemies enough to make stationary AoE spells most effective? Deep Freeze, since it's 66%? though it costs more... 25 ene...

IronSheik · Jul 28, 2009, 04:36 AM // 04:36

Deep freeze is best snare for PvE if you want to do AoE damage, besides tryptophan, which has a smaller AoE but a more useful side effect

luminoire · Jul 28, 2009, 05:07 AM // 05:07

when i said depth, i basically meant more spells that accomplish the same goal.
for casual pvp purposes (AB, basically), there's no real need for snares. they die.
for PvE though, snares are important if you want to use any kind of AoE. basically, snares are always good, though i much prefer mindblast to power rodgort's invocation/incendiary bonds/liquid flame. if i'm running two mindblast eles on my ele, i'm usually water. for all else, there's summon ice imp, that ice spike comes in pretty handy :P

draxynnic · Jul 28, 2009, 06:32 AM // 06:32

The point of Mind Blast is to fuel the rest of the bar. Searing Flames eles have a tendency to burn out quickly, while a well-played MB ele is like the Energizer Bunny.

Regarding Sandstorm - I prefer Unsteady Ground. The knockdown means they're probably not getting out until they've taken most of the damage anyway, and the knockdown is still useful in Hard Mode. If you're combining it with EBSoH for damage, it's really the number of strikes you can score that matters rather than the size of those strikes.

the slasher · Jul 28, 2009, 09:15 AM // 09:15

people say fire damage >>earth damage: this is NOT correct...
armor affects both types of damage exactly the same way, lets start with that
secondly, even in the gwwiki page about elementalist, they say many people think fire dmg is superior: this is wrong: searing heat, with a spec 12 in fire magic, churning earth, spec 12 earth magic: the damage is EXACTLY the same, if you sped 14, same dmg too...
so, earth magic= fire magic in increase per attribute point spent

what you can and should say, is that fire magic offers alot more of dmging skills, but this does not mean that it does more dmg... fire dmg and earth dmg will always be exactly as strong(sorry for repeating, wanted to make it clear)

personally, ive been looking abit more into earth magic, because of the KD's it can offer... and i love sandstorm+earthquake...massive dmg
savannah heat... hmm if you compare it to searing heat(or its duplicate)(searing heat causing 34dmg, dunno how much fire magic that is^^), the only 2 differences are:
after 5 seconds, savannah heat did 51 more dmg (lool)
savannah heat only costed 5 energy and will be recharged after 20 seconds

but, look: for savannah heat to even compensate for not using searing heat, you need it to strikes thrice: and in HM areas, or even normal mode, you won't get them all...basically, IMO, its a waste of an elite, a skill slot that could be replaced with stuff that is so much more useful...

Primeval_Goddess · Jul 28, 2009, 03:09 PM // 15:09

Thanks for the great responses

I think that people feel that fire does more dmg perhaps due to burning, which causes the highest of all degen at 7 pips (which is why it never lasts as long as other conditions)... so it probably seems "stronger" to people than earth dmg.

Yeah, I've had the same feeling about Savannah Heat, with one exception being that when you really nailed something/someone with it, the dmg does really increase exponentially. I've seen it hit upwards of 105+ at times because it increases by 21/second, where Searing Heat will always remain at what ever the highest dmg it is that it will cause.

I've tried earth builds a little over time, but never really found one that felt "right", but I'm wanting to maybe use my other Ele to try it again, maybe with the Sandstorm/Earthquake combo (was actually thinking of that last night).

As for snares, I've tried using Deep Freeze with my one Ele that uses a lot of stationary AoE, and sometimes it works great, and sometimes it gets wasted because either a) the creatures/people end up not moving anyway, ha ha; or b) they end up moving slow but steady enough to avoid the majority of the dmg. If either happens, it's really sort of a waste of 25 ene, but I agree that it's really still necessary.

Eh... maybe I'll just try out an earth build on my other Ele again and see what happens