Curse

aoeclald · Jun 19, 2009, 12:17 AM // 00:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kendel

So? Scale it with PvE skills ANYONE can use it and it turns it into a grind. Scale it with Energy Storage and you basically screw people up that are lowering ES for a bit of 3rd attribute speccing. Who cares if Mesmers can use it, if Cry of Pain ever gets kicked out of the realm of being a stupidly overpowered AoE spike skill then Mesmers can use it for some damage aswell.

Yes i did think of Shatterstone... then i thought, who gives a toss. If you increase them by 50%+ Shatterstone would last 5s instead of 3s. Do you seriously think "I need to spike, i'll go Water magic"? If you do then Air has some serious problems that a massive increase in AP would solve. It wouldn't effect it much, making Deep Freeze last 15+ seconds is a hell of alot better.

Again how is that a problem? Mesmers have always lacked in PvE due to the way they work. Cry of Pain not only made Mesmers capable of dealing AoE damage it made them FAR better at it than Eles for farming. If they start using Ele again this really isn't a problem until they start to do it far better than a real Ele.

Awesome Keira, you mean i get to gimp half my bar by running PvE skills to amp up my damage, leaving me 3 slots to bring skills that actually hurt? Wow i can do so much with that... /sarcasm.

@sonof - Yes thats why i was going for Attunements. Buff skills or attributes and you turn the already stupidly powerful HM ele foes into 1 hit killing machines. Almost nothing in PvE uses Attunements and almost every player uses them.

Also a thought for Earth, give it increased knockdown time. Say 50/100% at 15 so you get 3 or 4 second KDs, making them really worth using.

Mmmmk. Water is one of the few solo-target tiers that elementalists get in terms of pewpew damage. For an air build to come anywhere close to doing the damage that water can to a solo target is quite difficult considering you'd need Elemental and Air attunement to be able to spam the two noteworthy skills for the said purpose -- Lightning Orb and Lightning Hammer. Elementalists do not all prime themselves on being big AoE nukers and should have the option to have the benefits of a single-target build, right now you are saying that elementalists should only take advantage of AoE damage because that's all they're good for.

Also, the thread title is to increase Elementalists damage in HM, not everyone. We want to balance the elementalists to be on par with mesmers and the other meta professions in terms of damage, therefore your thought that "Who cares, mesmers used to suck" is invalid in this topic.

And, your thought for Earth is interesting, and I like it, though most people who spec in Earth are farming. I do use the Unstable Earth/Churning/Eruption build from time to time, especially when facing Destroyers, so I could see a benefit, but more often than not, people just use Earth to farm. Oh, and on your note of 3 skills dealing damage and no longer being effective, the churning earth build I use has only the 3 I mentioned and it works fine. Similar to the Assassin argument that 5 attack skills are "not gud" anymore because they are easily countered by stances and shield bash nowadays, it's much better to run with 3-4 attack skills and an IAS. Why bring 5 fire skills when your 3 skills can do the same amount of support and damage and leaving you more room for option?

sonofthort · Jun 19, 2009, 12:58 AM // 00:58

A note about the earth knockdowns ppl have been talking about: Ppl often feel that ritualists are worthless in HM, but Earthbind is probably the most amazing skill for HM when used in a team that knows how to sync their spells. I was running a 5 man group team, 1 perma for tanking, 3 rojs, and a Rit with 16 spawning power, 15 communing, earth bind, signet of binding, metoer shower at 3 fire magic, and weapon of quickening as my elite. The way the build worked was the sin was able to aggro as many monsters as possible, sometimes 20+, then the rit, under weapon of quickening, casts earthbind, signet of binding on spirit of earthbind, then start casting meteor shower on the group. At about 4 seconds into meteor showers 6 second cast, the rojs cast first roj, then echoed roj. The effect was keeping the monsters knocked down so long that they couldn't escape, and essentially completely solved the problem of scatter in hm. My point is, if you want longer knockdowns, Earthbind is a great way to get them.

enumaelish1 · Jun 19, 2009, 01:27 AM // 01:27

Hmm, isn't this a bit of a moot argument? From reading the last 5 pages, most of it is flame and the rest is ... QQ eles don't do enough damage in HM, fix it please! Well, why do eles DESERVE a boost over other classes? The main argument I see here is: HM armor pwned my ele's damage output, I can't do damage with just ele skills anymore, Assassins outdamage me.

First off, the assassin in those screenies is hitting undead mobs. With AOHM, which is holy damage, and we all know what holy damage does to undead. Regardless, 300 damage a hit is very impressive. But, what happens to said assassin if they have weakness or blind or blurred vision? Heaven forbid deep freeze or mind freeze. Conversely, an ele can be shutdown with anti caster hexes, but they stay in the backline more or less out of harms way. where they are less likely to be hit with such things, and when swords or other caster weapons, tend to get hit with these even less. Furthermore, the crit sin isn't protected against all damage at all in PvE, I'm pretty sure Borgaas Blisterbark would burn him to a pile of ashes.

My first argument against the idea to buff elemental damage is: Crit sins will outdamage most of us, its a sad fact. What else actually does more damage without some sort of priming? Also, did anyone consider the other side of the coin? If you add armor penetration to ele skills, HM mobs will also get them, and hit harder...
Even Ice imps in EOTN use ice attunement and they hit decently hard as it is. Poor us who gets hit even harder by an ele boss. Because they have higher stats, oh and they have hard mode boss bonuses. Suddenly, without a protection spell on you, things become much more painful, and lets face it, in PvE, enchantment strips do exist, during boss battles. Lets consider Tortureweb/terrorweb dryers in foundry. They get paired with Greater dream riders using shatter enchantment. Would you honestly want to get hit by that when it has extra armor pen? It even has aura of restoration for the suggestion to add AP to that.

Also, to the argument that battle standard takes up a slot, put several people in that ward, lets disregard minions because theres a load of problems with them. 5. 5x12 = an extra 60dps. Of course, you can have your title maxed, which is 5x15, ,a useful 75 dps.
lets say you brought a ranger with you. He brings asuran scan and triple shot, sits in your ward, or brings it himself, saving you a slot. Does some decent damage at range I would think.

Oh, and the argument that you want to use all ele skills, or be using said ele skill for damage... well, why? Cristsin uses a scythe, I thought that was a dervish skill... Oh and so do those cryer monks, using mesmer skills. But monks have ROJ! Oh wait, 1 roj per 20 seconds without secondary class. without secondary class to help, these meta builds generally fail. Only cryer mesmers don't have to spec into a 2ndary.

Also, to Jeydra, I though AOHM was a buff skill? Oh, and so is Critical Agility, you seem to be a large proponent of Crit sins, so why not apply the logic to your own precious brainchild. If the skill can make the rest of your bar do more damage that an extra attack skill would, take it. At least that's how I thought it worked.

Going along your picking holes in someone elses post, I'm going to continue along yours

That little crit sin takes time to set up their buffs also, and if they come up against blocking stances or aegis or something, then their skills run out don't they? They need to hit something to refresh it. If your counter argument comes down to something like, but I have a necro to stop them blocking. Then why doesn't an ele have another ele next to them using a ward? Or as it is for me, sit in an imbagon's ward.

Next in line, is your scythesin's damage. Ok, so its impressive. Sin hits 3 times in the time it takes an ele to use 3 mind bender affected skills. It's only fair since sin has AOHM. Over a period of 7 seconds, a balled up bunch of enemies would more likely be killed by a buffed up ele. (lets assume 6 enemies) Whereas your sin has to kill something, then run after something else kill it, run after something else.. etc.
Due to the scythe sin only being able to hold agro from 3 ish mobs, he has to chase down the others, lowering his DPS. His friend in this case is an anti blocking necro. Whereas an ele would have some sort of physical balling up for Tank n Spank. In the end, the mob of 6 things takes about the same amount of time to die. From what I observe, with a scythe sin as the main damage dealer, mobs chase my healers around, and said sin has to go chase it. That's my experience anyway.

I will admit that my ele typically uses support or runs discord in HM, but I think it is a little narrow minded to say that elementalists need or deserve a buff of sorts. Your "balance" creates more imbalance in other ways. The change in hard mode affects all classes differently. Just because your armor ignoring damage has to come from a line other than fire magic or some sort of buff doesn't make it bad. I actually use an echo chain rit(chaining vanguard sin support) with explosive growth. Its quite amusing and it gets the job done. Oh, and it gets the job done in only a minute or 2 slower overall in a vanq.
I think you should stop obssessing about being a nuker and focus on the other things your ele could do. Or even start a ranger. If your really that worried about having huge damage, then your mindset needs to change a little bit. Damage overall in my opinion should come from a total party, which has synergy with itself. To me it seems like you just want eles to be able to cut and paste into any team, with a single build that pwns. As others have already said; spec into something else a bit and be helpful to the party, try and think outside the box. It's even possible to do 200 dmg a hit on a ranger, you just need to work out how. If you can't. Then think harder. If you still can't work it out, theres 3 PvE skills in use, one is triple shot. Keep going from there.

Just remember to have fun guys.

Chthon · Jun 19, 2009, 01:27 AM // 01:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keira Nightgale

I heard assasin promise + ural+intensity+ ebon makes your screen filled with big numbers if you run fire or earth.

Kinda medium numbers, but it works. Sadly, there's only 2 general builds that can take advantage of this (and one is strictly better than the other). The fact that 2 builds have passable damage does not mean that the class overall doesn't have damage problem in HM.

Forgotton200 · Jun 19, 2009, 01:34 AM // 01:34

I love the idea of OP. I agree on it being a PvE skill because anet loves to screw up game balance and PvP would become a mess. PvE/PvP split would anger the PvP players because of the "feel."

Kendel · Jun 19, 2009, 02:31 AM // 02:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by enumaelish1

First off, the assassin in those screenies is hitting undead mobs. With AOHM, which is holy damage, and we all know what holy damage does to undead. Regardless, 300 damage a hit is very impressive. But, what happens to said assassin if they have weakness or blind or blurred vision? Heaven forbid deep freeze or mind freeze. Conversely, an ele can be shutdown with anti caster hexes, but they stay in the backline more or less out of harms way. where they are less likely to be hit with such things, and when swords or other caster weapons, tend to get hit with these even less. Furthermore, the crit sin isn't protected against all damage at all in PvE, I'm pretty sure Borgaas Blisterbark would burn him to a pile of ashes.

I've got a Legendary VQ/Guardian Dervish and i've been playing Sin alot recently. My record against HM Undead on Dervish stands at about 650 (with Judges Insight on top). But of course considering damage against undead is a little pointless because holy enhances it beyond what anything else can do. If the Sin was to run in first and hit Blisterbark, he'd have been pre-protted, and the DPS the sin could kick out is beyond anything the Ele could manage.

As for staying on the backline, yes thats where all the casters are. Unless you are running a tank or standing WELL back you are always going to be in range of the anti-caster skills.

Quote:

Also, to the argument that battle standard takes up a slot, put several people in that ward, lets disregard minions because theres a load of problems with them. 5. 5x12 = an extra 60dps. Of course, you can have your title maxed, which is 5x15, ,a useful 75 dps.
lets say you brought a ranger with you. He brings asuran scan and triple shot, sits in your ward, or brings it himself, saving you a slot. Does some decent damage at range I would think.

Yes, i H/H'd Frostmaw with 6 Rangers and 2 Monks. Scan + Ward + Triple Shot can do about 200-400 damage. The difference is the Rangers bar is set up to contain generally, 3/4 attack/ints, a prep, with the rest as anything you need. A Ranger has spare slots pretty much by default, an Ele's bar is cramped as hell.

Quote:

RoJ

RoJ is sufficiently overpowered it doesn't need to be, assuming you wait until things have stopped moving (would be pretty stupid otherwise) you can cause with Urals, 74 dps to the target with that 1 skill. It can be a level 0 River Skale or a lvl32 Frost Wurm, it causes 74dps. Its a decent skill for general use and ridiculously overpowered when you combine it with a tank to ball things up.

Quote:

ScytheSin

Have you ever actually played a Scythesin in general PvE? Meaning in HM areas but not elite dungeons that basically demand a tank. Unless you really are balling up every mob as closely as possible, also neglecting that they'd probably flee, you wouldn't be causing that much damage. Running between foes is a matter of moments, but its not unknown to cause ~350-450 damage easily without even considering Deep Wound in the same of 2 seconds. Thats the same to everything else that gets hit too, and if the Sin in question is buffed with Splinter Weapon...

The ele isn't suppose to be a 1 trick pony. His bar shouldn't consist of 2/3 energy management, 2/3 damage buffs and 2/3 attack skills, resulting in you becoming useless if you get int'd or things don't get pulled exactly how you want it. Thats the only real way an Ele can cause damage and even then, assuming there are no restrictions with going to the frontline, War/Sin/Derv would be able to spike down some of the more critical targets while also causing some AoE (Triple/Cyclone/Whirlwind, Blossom, Scythe).

Quote:

Originally Posted by sonofthort

Earthbind

Its nice but its not that nice. Its only real use is the glitch in it that allows you to KD 'immune to KD' foes for the full 3 seconds. 2 seconds increased to 3 seconds at the expense of what is essentially, an entire character slot to make it usable, isn't really worth the trouble, but increasing it from 0 to 3 can be nice.

Axel Zinfandel · Jun 19, 2009, 03:17 AM // 03:17

Hey, at least all the other nukers suck now. RoJ now causes scatter and Cry was Smiter's booned

sonofthort · Jun 19, 2009, 03:51 AM // 03:51

After this update, ele's didn't get a buff but our competition got a nerf!! That's kinda a win! Plus earthbind got buffed!! Here's my idea, have a nuker with BUH on a team with a spirit spammer with earthbind as now spirit spammers are godly in pve, and a necro of some sorts with weaken armor and battle standard of wisdom.

Jeydra · Jun 19, 2009, 04:03 AM // 04:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by enumaelish1

First off, the assassin in those screenies is hitting undead mobs. With AOHM, which is holy damage, and we all know what holy damage does to undead. Regardless, 300 damage a hit is very impressive. But, what happens to said assassin if they have weakness or blind or blurred vision? Heaven forbid deep freeze or mind freeze. Conversely, an ele can be shutdown with anti caster hexes, but they stay in the backline more or less out of harms way. where they are less likely to be hit with such things, and when swords or other caster weapons, tend to get hit with these even less. Furthermore, the crit sin isn't protected against all damage at all in PvE, I'm pretty sure Borgaas Blisterbark would burn him to a pile of ashes.

It's a good point but note this: 300 damage a hit is not highly impressive it is huge. With 33% increased attack speed to boot as long as the Assassin is hitting he'll also deal many times the DPS of an Elementalist, so long as he is free to hit. That leads to this question:

1. It is better to devote time and energy to keeping the Assassin clean and thus able to deal damage, or -
2. Use Elementalists (or other kinds of caster damage)?

In the ideal world I think both these options should be viable. Right now though the situation is definitely biased towards the first. You run 2-3 melees, maintain Strength of Honor on them, spam anti-hexes and anti-blind, spam Orders, and they reward you with huge damage + Save Yourselves. If you have enough humans this is without much doubt the most effective way to play, and in a team playing for peak speed Elementalists and damage simply do not mix (and neither do Mesmers and damage). That's not to say Elementalists have no place. Actually they do: Ether Renewal Elementalists are extremely reliable backliners that kick out many times the power of a real Monk. Elementalists are useful alright, but it doesn't make PvE any more balanced.

The last balance update buffed Ritualists and Paragons spectacularly. I think the idea's great, although the execution may not be good. Maybe they'll see more play now. Next please give Elementalists some love as well (and nerf Ether Renewal).

Quote:

Originally Posted by enumaelish1

Also, to the argument that battle standard takes up a slot, put several people in that ward, lets disregard minions because theres a load of problems with them. 5. 5x12 = an extra 60dps. Of course, you can have your title maxed, which is 5x15, ,a useful 75 dps.
lets say you brought a ranger with you. He brings asuran scan and triple shot, sits in your ward, or brings it himself, saving you a slot. Does some decent damage at range I would think.

Is there a reason why the Ward is special to Elementalists?

Quote:

Originally Posted by enumaelish1

Also, to Jeydra, I though AOHM was a buff skill? Oh, and so is Critical Agility, you seem to be a large proponent of Crit sins, so why not apply the logic to your own precious brainchild. If the skill can make the rest of your bar do more damage that an extra attack skill would, take it. At least that's how I thought it worked.

Yes AoHM and Critical Agility are buff skills, and yes using them means you have less room for offensive skills. But please compare. What is there to buff Elementalist damage with? Let's see:

Ebon Vanguard Battle Standard of Honor
By Ural's Hammer
Intensity (long downtime)
Glyph of Elemental Power / Double Dragon (takes up elite)
Mindbender

Compare the buffs for Scythesin:

Strength of Honour
Order of Pain / Order of the Vampire
Barbs / Mark of Pain
Great Dwarf Weapon / Splinter Weapon
Aura of Holy Might
By Ural's Hammer
Ebon Vanguard Battle Standard of Honor
Critical Agility (or Drunken Master)

So while you as an Elementalist is bringing the Ward, Mindbender and BUH, the Assassin can bring AoHM, Asuran Scan and Critical Agility and then count on the rest of the team to apply the buffs. His damage is still going to be supercharged. You can make a Scythesin superman but you can't make an Elementalist superman. Do you see what I mean by buffing now?

Quote:

Originally Posted by enumaelish1

Oh, and the argument that you want to use all ele skills, or be using said ele skill for damage... well, why? Cristsin uses a scythe, I thought that was a dervish skill... Oh and so do those cryer monks, using mesmer skills. But monks have ROJ! Oh wait, 1 roj per 20 seconds without secondary class. without secondary class to help, these meta builds generally fail. Only cryer mesmers don't have to spec into a 2ndary.

It's got nothing to do with secondary skills and everything to do with the skills themselves. Do you see any effective build that uses Elementalist skills for damage? Nope. What about effective builds that use Dervish skills for damage? Yes. Warrior skills? Yes. Assassin skills? Yes. PvE skills? Yes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by enumaelish1

Going along your picking holes in someone elses post, I'm going to continue along yours That little crit sin takes time to set up their buffs also, and if they come up against blocking stances or aegis or something, then their skills run out don't they? They need to hit something to refresh it. If your counter argument comes down to something like, but I have a necro to stop them blocking. Then why doesn't an ele have another ele next to them using a ward? Or as it is for me, sit in an imbagon's ward.

Feel free. AoHM lasts pretty long. The downtime on the skill is clearly less than that on BUH and Intensity. As for blocking stances, that's what Rigor Mortis is for.

If your argument is "why don't you have an Ele inside another Ele's Ward?" then feel free to compare the damage afterwards. With everyone buffing the Assassin he's dealing maybe 150 damage per second to a single target, probably more. How many Eles does it take to deal 150 damage per second to a single target?

Quote:

Originally Posted by enumaelish1

Next in line, is your scythesin's damage. Ok, so its impressive. Sin hits 3 times in the time it takes an ele to use 3 mind bender affected skills. It's only fair since sin has AOHM. Over a period of 7 seconds, a balled up bunch of enemies would more likely be killed by a buffed up ele. (lets assume 6 enemies) Whereas your sin has to kill something, then run after something else kill it, run after something else.. etc.
Due to the scythe sin only being able to hold agro from 3 ish mobs, he has to chase down the others, lowering his DPS. His friend in this case is an anti blocking necro. Whereas an ele would have some sort of physical balling up for Tank n Spank. In the end, the mob of 6 things takes about the same amount of time to die. From what I observe, with a scythe sin as the main damage dealer, mobs chase my healers around, and said sin has to go chase it. That's my experience anyway.

Lol what's the cast time on your Mindbender'ed spells? Don't forget you have an aftercast. An Assassin is very likely to hit more than 3 times in that time. If you're assuming balled up foes the Assassin will be hitting balled up foes as well, and they will die just as quickly if not even quicker. Then what if there are no balled up foes? If you think mob of 6 takes about same time to die, maybe you should try a really fleshed-out physical team.

Quote:

Originally Posted by enumaeilish1

I think you should stop obssessing about being a nuker and focus on the other things your ele could do.

I think you should see some of the E/Mo bars I've developed, then repeat the above to me with a straight face.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sonofthort

After this update, ele's didn't get a buff but our competition got a nerf!! That's kinda a win! Plus earthbind got buffed!! Here's my idea, have a nuker with BUH on a team with a spirit spammer with earthbind as now spirit spammers are godly in pve, and a necro of some sorts with weaken armor and battle standard of wisdom.

What do you mean competition got nerfed? Physicals are still going to be the ones pumping out big damage. FGJ, SoH and Asuran Scan weren't touched at all. I guess you could call the scatter effect on RoJ a "nerf" as well as the change to Cry of Pain, but the more I think about it, the more I think those weren't the problem in the first place.

Malician · Jun 19, 2009, 04:33 AM // 04:33

I've had nothing but an elementalist in Guild Wars for most of my four years or so of on-and-off playing; I wanted to be a damage monster. When that didn't pan out very well, I stuck with it because I didn't want to grind skills and quests to build other characters up). Elementalists just suck.

I've tried air, earth, and water builds. I've tried a good ten or twenty fire builds, and I've tried assassins' promise meteor storm. Some stuff works nicely in some NM areas, but there's really nothing that's all around good. The only builds I've ever really liked get horribly shutdown when things go wrong. Recently, I've built an Assassin (standard SY!) and a Necromancer (Mark of Pain nuker), and am amazed by how much more powerful either is than my four-year-old Ele.

I will give one exception: I picked up the E/R healer build recently, and it's FUN. Just sustaining Great Dwarf Weapon on a barrage ranger and two other physicals is better than most PUG ele's builds - let alone the ability to spam prots and infuses like no tomorrow.

Honestly, a few months ago I would've said "buff the crap out of elementalists; they NEED it". Now, I don't really care; I just play the Necro instead.

Kendel · Jun 19, 2009, 05:30 AM // 05:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by sonofthort

After this update, ele's didn't get a buff but our competition got a nerf!! That's kinda a win! Plus earthbind got buffed!! Here's my idea, have a nuker with BUH on a team with a spirit spammer with earthbind as now spirit spammers are godly in pve, and a necro of some sorts with weaken armor and battle standard of wisdom.

I very much doubt it... Until RoJ is nerfed people will simply look for a way to keep the foes in it. That is how much better it is. A +30/-2 Mo/E running RoJ, Urals, Intensity and Earthquake/Meteor? Perma probably uses Grasping Earth. In less farming orientated areas, damage is still gonna get left to the physical hitters.

FengShuiDove · Jun 19, 2009, 05:57 AM // 05:57

enumaeilish, you are correct in many regards, and mistaken in some others. Yes, the shutdown for a physical is more probable and more debilitating than shutdowns for a caster, in general. However, those same issues (Blind, Blurred, blocking, etc.) are more easily removed so that the physical can get back into the game. For a long time, strong physicals have been a key aspect in the game. Utility, including enchantment strips and condition removal is not only a good idea for clearing up physicals but just as good team composition. Eles don't do damage against Spirit Bonded foes either.

Yes, you are correct that the scythe sin, for example, relies heavily on buffs. Auto-attacking without any of the skills or simply with Way of the Master is rather pathetic dps. However, even with nothing but Way of the Master up, the damage the build puts out is worth keeping, it's the criticals that count. To be honest, lots of times I won't even put up AoHM, as it's the best lone-standing buff on the bar so it's available if I get CritAgil and/or WotM ripped and the latter two put put out insane damage by themselves.

As far as downtime, yes, you have a pretty long recharge on all of the skills. However, you should be running 14 Crit Strikes so even without a renewal you get 18 seconds. I use an enchanting scythe permanently for 22 seconds. Since Malicious is a guaranteed Critical, it means that if I'm blinded or blocked for 19 seconds, I can still renew. This is an incredibly improbable amount of time to be left blind as a primary physical damage figure.

Elementalists, however, unless running some sort of gimmick (I'm looking at you, AP), have incredibly long recharge on most worthwhile damage dealing skills. So unlike a scythe sin (and it's just an example for a high dps physical, it could be anything), if an Elementalist gets interrupted or misplaces an AoE spell, it's worthless for 30 seconds. A scythe sin can toss up an enchantment, one of the three should be available at any given time, hit a target with Asuran Scan, and Wounding-->Malicious for decent damage even though it's "downtime." Once an Ele's nukes are expended, they're useless for the duration of the recharge of their AoE.

================================================== =======

Therefore, those AoE skills have to make big, BIG damage or severely impede the performance of opposing mobs in order to be worth their place on a skill bar. So let's say that my CritScythe puts out (a very conservative) 150 DPS average for 15 seconds and spams Scan-->WS-->Malicious for 60 DPS over the next 15. The overall DPS for the 30 second cycle is around 100, give or take. Note that this is extremely conservative in a number of ways.

Let's now assume a best case scenario for an Ele. You get an enemy to stand in a full blast from Savannah, Teinai's, and Searing Heat. Savannah gives you 315 damage @ 16 without any armor consideration. Teinai's/Searing give a combination of 420 damage overall, so the total for a single target would be 735 damage plus degen from burning. On a 30 second time scale we'll even add an extra full blast from Savannah for 1050 total single-target damage. Even so, that's 1050/30 = 35 DPS, assuming best case scenario (mobs take off their armor and sleep in your fire).

So where does the benefit lie? In mob damage? If they're standing close enough for multiple target hits, we'll say the Sin can hit 2 and the Ele can hit 5, Sin puts out 200 DPS to group, Ele puts out 175 group DPS. The physical's damage is mobile, spammable, and contains Deep Wound for increased effective DPS. The Ele has one shot, but even if it lands it under extreme circumstances it still can't even come close to a properly functioning physical.

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I'm sure this is a tl;dr for many, and I hope you don't feel like I'm picking on you, I'm just really enjoying this thread =). I really think that experience and the mathematics show the Eles need a buff. If their skills are going to have such insane downtime, they need to be worth it when you get to cast. Either add some damage one way or another or lower the recharge to produce competitive pressure/DPS. As is, they're sub-par at best.

Kendel · Jun 19, 2009, 06:27 AM // 06:27

Sounds pretty accurate tbh Feng.

We did Urgoz HM last week and had about 3 or 4 eles. Safe to say we had a few problems when we hit the wardens but we got through and Greater Blood Drinkers... don't even go there, they have so much armour its ridiculous. Since then we've done 2 more trips that have involved 2-3 Echo RoJ Monks and the Wardens never stood a chance, the Greater Blood Drinkers were torn apart by the armour ignoring damage. The last trip i was a GDW Barrager and hitting things for 40-60 every attack is alot more consistant than anything an ele can do.

Eles have been reduced to gimmicks or conditioning really. Frankly i feel alot more useful running a Thunderclap build with a Fevered Dreams hero that basically lets me screw up an entire mob than running a damage dealer that just makes me think "never mind less than my Sin, this is less than my Ranger!".

Edit: Oh and looking back up at Jeydra's post, you forgot Judges Insight. 20% AP is incredibly powerful for a Crit Sin and with the current PvE meta featuring RoJ Monks quite heavily, there is absolutely no reason to not take it if your with melee'ers.

Jeydra · Jun 19, 2009, 08:01 AM // 08:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by FengShuiDove

Let's now assume a best case scenario for an Ele. You get an enemy to stand in a full blast from Savannah, Teinai's, and Searing Heat. Savannah gives you 315 damage @ 16 without any armor consideration. Teinai's/Searing give a combination of 420 damage overall, so the total for a single target would be 735 damage plus degen from burning. On a 30 second time scale we'll even add an extra full blast from Savannah for 1050 total single-target damage. Even so, that's 1050/30 = 35 DPS, assuming best case scenario (mobs take off their armor and sleep in your fire).

I think this is a pretty skewed example - after all properly built you should still have stuff like Liquid Flame, Fireball, 40/40 sets triggering, etc. Compare this one instead, which is probably one of the best Elementalist damage builds around.

12 Air, 12 Deadly Arts, 3 Energy Storage

You Move Like A Dwarf! / Finish Him! / Enervating Charge / Lightning Orb / Glyph of Lesser Energy / Air Attunement / Assassin's Promise / Ebon Vanguard Assassin Support

Assuming you get one trigger of AP every ~8 seconds (pretty reasonable) and that during those 8 seconds you've used one LOrb, one Vanguard Sin, one YMLAD and one Finish Him, then:

The Vanguard Sin does maybe 200 damage
The LOrb might deal ~120 damage
YMLAD does 80 damage
Finish Him does 80 damage (+ Deep Wound)
Total = 480 damage over 8s = 60 DPS.

Sometimes it's possible that monsters die even faster, about once every 5s. No time to cast LOrb in this case so it's just the Vanguard Sin + the two shouts.

The Vanguard Sin does maybe 200 damage
YMLAD does 80 damage
Finish Him does 80 damage (+ Deep Wound)
Total = 360 damage over 5s = 72 DPS.

It's pretty clear the build doesn't deal the DPS of a physical. There're auxilliary advantages of course - for example if the Assassin is caught in Sandstorm then it's unfeasible for him to attack and thus he won't be dealing damage. Since it's caster damage you can pick targets at long range and switch easily. You don't need to worry about terrain or line of sight, you got more utility on the bar (YMLAD = interrupts or cripple, Enervating Charge = weakness, Vanguard Sin = meat shield). And so on.

But here's the punch line: even if we accept all this, notice that essentially NONE of the skills used are Elementalist-primary. The key skills on that bar are the PvE skills and AP. What does that tell us about Elementalist skills?

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Originally Posted by Kendel

Edit: Oh and looking back up at Jeydra's post, you forgot Judges Insight. 20% AP is incredibly powerful for a Crit Sin and with the current PvE meta featuring RoJ Monks quite heavily, there is absolutely no reason to not take it if your with melee'ers.

There is one actually ... it turns your damage to Holy and so doesn't work anymore with Orders and Barbs / MoP. Still I bet once you see this reason you'd laugh, because it's "hey, I got so many good options, which one should I use?"

Kendel · Jun 19, 2009, 08:13 AM // 08:13

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Originally Posted by Jeydra

There is one actually ... it turns your damage to Holy and so doesn't work anymore with Orders and Barbs / MoP. Still I bet once you see this reason you'd laugh, because it's "hey, I got so many good options, which one should I use?"

Indeed... but i think your overlooking something. Aura of Holy Might also changes your damage type to holy, it just doesn't say so. But frankly, the only skill you mentioned that can really compete with JI/AoHM for damage is Mark of Pain, and that causes CRAZY scatter.
Its far better when used with something like Ranger spike where you hit the target with as many arrows as possible in the space of a second so the enemies simply don't have time to escape. 3 Heroes using Dual Shot and you using Triple Shot, followed by an int is a total of 13 arrows in less than a second.

enumaelish1 · Jun 20, 2009, 12:50 AM // 00:50

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Originally Posted by Jeydra

With 33% increased attack speed to boot as long as the Assassin is hitting he'll also deal many times the DPS of an Elementalist, so long as he is free to hit. That leads to this question:

1. It is better to devote time and energy to keeping the Assassin clean and thus able to deal damage, or -
2. Use Elementalists (or other kinds of caster damage)?

Ok, so in this situation, how many are you assigning to keeping said physical clean? While I'm not trying to say that a physical is going to be straight outdamaged by an ele and physicals can get the job done faster, isn't this also true of normal mode? Since the problem was that from normal to hard mode, eles power drops considerably... If you just wanted huge damage as you seem to, just go for a physical in the first place right? I'm pretty sure they clear even faster then... Or was there some sort of glitch where in non farming builds you killed slower in normal mode...

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In the ideal world I think both these options should be viable. Right now though the situation is definitely biased towards the first. You run 2-3 melees, maintain Strength of Honor on them, spam anti-hexes and anti-blind, spam Orders, and they reward you with huge damage + Save Yourselves. If you have enough humans this is without much doubt the most effective way to play, and in a team playing for peak speed Elementalists and damage simply do not mix (and neither do Mesmers and damage). That's not to say Elementalists have no place. Actually they do: Ether Renewal Elementalists are extremely reliable backliners that kick out many times the power of a real Monk. Elementalists are useful alright, but it doesn't make PvE any more balanced.

Ideally, yes you bring a load of physicals, load them up on buffs and go on your merry way. But I thought the typical player has to H/H or go with a pug. Failing that, its normally only 2 people with heroes, maybe 3. As a matter of interest, how fast are your anti hex skills? Last time I was running against hex prone mobs, they came thick and fast. PnH wouldn't be right for the recharge, nor would most other hex skill removal. Other than ether renewal, couldn't an ele work for conditions such as cracked armor, blind (weakness? I don't like enervating cast time) This could further increase the output of a physical team, since if your getting JI then surely another chunk of armor off wouldn't hurt at all. At the same time, you could relieve pressure from the monks with blind(assuming theres physicals which alot of the time, there are some). So in this regard, I agree with you, they are useful, perhaps not damage dealers, but useful.

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Is there a reason why the Ward is special to Elementalists?

Nope, I did say that I sit in a paragon's ward, and because a sin has to move around alot, they can't take advantage/dont need the ward for their sustained damage

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Yes AoHM and Critical Agility are buff skills, and yes using them means you have less room for offensive skills. But please compare. What is there to buff Elementalist damage with? Let's see:

Ebon Vanguard Battle Standard of Honor
By Ural's Hammer
Intensity (long downtime)
Glyph of Elemental Power / Double Dragon (takes up elite)
Mindbender

Compare the buffs for Scythesin:

Strength of Honour
Order of Pain / Order of the Vampire
Barbs / Mark of Pain
Great Dwarf Weapon / Splinter Weapon
Aura of Holy Might
By Ural's Hammer
Ebon Vanguard Battle Standard of Honor
Critical Agility (or Drunken Master)

So while you as an Elementalist is bringing the Ward, Mindbender and BUH, the Assassin can bring AoHM, Asuran Scan and Critical Agility and then count on the rest of the team to apply the buffs. His damage is still going to be supercharged. You can make a Scythesin superman but you can't make an Elementalist superman. Do you see what I mean by buffing now?

Ok, but can superman help a balanced team in slavers? Whilst I don't have an assassin down there, on duncans level, I was sure that the physicals got pwned by touch skills. Whilst the rest of the team was quite happy to sit in a ward and kill souls that had deep freeze on them. It's already been said some buffs don't work, so I dont need to detail.

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It's got nothing to do with secondary skills and everything to do with the skills themselves. Do you see any effective build that uses Elementalist skills for damage? Nope. What about effective builds that use Dervish skills for damage? Yes. Warrior skills? Yes. Assassin skills? Yes. PvE skills? Yes.

So exactly what caster skills do as much damage as physical skills? It seems to me that the trend to the game in guild wars is that physicals should be the ones doing the damage generally. While its sad that casters don't get to be badass nukers like in other games, I think the devs actually wanted physicals to be able to do more damage. Back before HM existed, eles were damage monsters, but back then, there was only 1 PvE skill, and axe wars were regularly used in PvE for utility.

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Feel free. AoHM lasts pretty long. The downtime on the skill is clearly less than that on BUH and Intensity. As for blocking stances, that's what Rigor Mortis is for.

BuH can't get stripped like AOHM is all I have to say on this, and AOHM is a huge damage increase.

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If your argument is "why don't you have an Ele inside another Ele's Ward?" then feel free to compare the damage afterwards. With everyone buffing the Assassin he's dealing maybe 150 damage per second to a single target, probably more. How many Eles does it take to deal 150 damage per second to a single target?

Another characters ward actually, but anyways why has this argument reduced to scythe sin vs ele, or physicals vs eles? From what I understand, you want a buff to ele damage because you don't feel eles are useful otherwise with the exception of ER for infinite energy. If the primary attribute for ele was to somehow increase damage, then I would understand, but atm its just, more energy = more spam, so you can be any sort of caster you want. I like to think of eles as a blank template, they have energy, so can be versatile, but then lack the primary attribute of anything else. Sin's primary is to increase damage and for energy management(crit = more damage is where this comes from) and warriors for extra damage from AP, so isn't it logical that these classes be suited for damage? Just like paragons are suited for support, and necromancers can do just about any sort of caster because their primary gives them almost unlimited energy. At least thats my way of wondering why ele's suck. They are just a generic caster template, thats all.

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Lol what's the cast time on your Mindbender'ed spells? Don't forget you have an aftercast. An Assassin is very likely to hit more than 3 times in that time. If you're assuming balled up foes the Assassin will be hitting balled up foes as well, and they will die just as quickly if not even quicker. Then what if there are no balled up foes? If you think mob of 6 takes about same time to die, maybe you should try a really fleshed-out physical team.

If your really going to factor in aftercast, then factor in the time a sin needs to move between mobs, the time needed to keep them clean, time inbetween when their still blind/ binding chained. I'm pretty sure a sin can't hit faster than a half second cast on some skills that caster can use with mindbender. And alas, I don't have the luxury of a lot of physical friends who are friends with others willing to keep them clean as their only job. Some people enjoy monking, but a good monk rather difficult to find. Heroes just don't get the job done quite right.

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I think you should see some of the E/Mo bars I've developed, then repeat the above to me with a straight face.

I would love to see them, always interested in new and better things.

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ScytheSin
Have you ever actually played a Scythesin in general PvE? Meaning in HM areas but not elite dungeons that basically demand a tank. Unless you really are balling up every mob as closely as possible, also neglecting that they'd probably flee, you wouldn't be causing that much damage. Running between foes is a matter of moments, but its not unknown to cause ~350-450 damage easily without even considering Deep Wound in the same of 2 seconds. Thats the same to everything else that gets hit too, and if the Sin in question is buffed with Splinter Weapon...

The ele isn't suppose to be a 1 trick pony. His bar shouldn't consist of 2/3 energy management, 2/3 damage buffs and 2/3 attack skills, resulting in you becoming useless if you get int'd or things don't get pulled exactly how you want it. Thats the only real way an Ele can cause damage and even then, assuming there are no restrictions with going to the frontline, War/Sin/Derv would be able to spike down some of the more critical targets while also causing some AoE (Triple/Cyclone/Whirlwind, Blossom, Scythe).

Whilst I forgive you for neglecting rangers completely, why is ER the only thing an ele can do in your eyes? Also, I assume you mean in HM dungeons and vanqs. If an ele can be useful in an elite dungeon in HM, why can't a scythe sin be useful in there too? If it was that good, it should be able to perform just as well in these areas.Also, from my experience, eles go decently well with scythe sins by keeping stuff from moving all too much(actually I just use an ice imp) and then keeping some pressure off him and monks with conditions.

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EDIT: Just came to my attention that buffing the attribute classes themselves would give the buff to every hm monster!!!! This is definetly not a good thing!

Pretty sure that was in my other long post :P but as another note, if you added damage to ele skills, couldn't it also unbalance PvP(if it was universal) and further to that, in PvE, what would happen to rangers? Surely Ap would make their innate bonus pretty unimpressive.

Since the starter of the thread has decided they don't need a buff, I don't need to come back to the thread ^^.

Jeydra · Jun 20, 2009, 01:25 AM // 01:25

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Ok, so in this situation, how many are you assigning to keeping said physical clean? While I'm not trying to say that a physical is going to be straight outdamaged by an ele and physicals can get the job done faster, isn't this also true of normal mode? Since the problem was that from normal to hard mode, eles power drops considerably... If you just wanted huge damage as you seem to, just go for a physical in the first place right? I'm pretty sure they clear even faster then... Or was there some sort of glitch where in non farming builds you killed slower in normal mode...

About 2 should be enough. Last time I played with 8 humans, we had 2 Wars + 1 Derv, and we kept them clean with one Monk using Signet of Removal (maintaining SoH too) + one ER Elementalist maintaining Purifying Veil.

Elementalists can deal damage in NM because of the lower armor on everyone coupled with the AI being dumber and so bunching more.

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Ideally, yes you bring a load of physicals, load them up on buffs and go on your merry way. But I thought the typical player has to H/H or go with a pug. Failing that, its normally only 2 people with heroes, maybe 3. As a matter of interest, how fast are your anti hex skills? Last time I was running against hex prone mobs, they came thick and fast. PnH wouldn't be right for the recharge, nor would most other hex skill removal. Other than ether renewal, couldn't an ele work for conditions such as cracked armor, blind (weakness? I don't like enervating cast time) This could further increase the output of a physical team, since if your getting JI then surely another chunk of armor off wouldn't hurt at all. At the same time, you could relieve pressure from the monks with blind(assuming theres physicals which alot of the time, there are some). So in this regard, I agree with you, they are useful, perhaps not damage dealers, but useful.

I'm not talking about H/H. I'm talking about human teams. I mentioned teams playing for peak efficiency earlier in the thread. The less humans you have the more powerful casters become, although Elementalists (using Elementalist skills) and damage would still have trouble mixing since Necros and Mesmers deal more damage.

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Nope, I did say that I sit in a paragon's ward, and because a sin has to move around alot, they can't take advantage/dont need the ward for their sustained damage

Tell the Paragon to be less stupid and run up to the melee before using the Ward.

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Ok, but can superman help a balanced team in slavers? Whilst I don't have an assassin down there, on duncans level, I was sure that the physicals got pwned by touch skills. Whilst the rest of the team was quite happy to sit in a ward and kill souls that had deep freeze on them. It's already been said some buffs don't work, so I dont need to detail.

Why shouldn't the physicals be able to kill the Touchers? There're only two of them at a time + one SS Necro. If whatever healing you're running can't keep you alive against that then they fail pretty hard. Even if you mistakenly aggro two mobs, you've got GDW giving you 40% chance of KD - you don't get hit that much with Vamp Bite / Vamp Touch.

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So exactly what caster skills do as much damage as physical skills? It seems to me that the trend to the game in guild wars is that physicals should be the ones doing the damage generally. While its sad that casters don't get to be badass nukers like in other games, I think the devs actually wanted physicals to be able to do more damage. Back before HM existed, eles were damage monsters, but back then, there was only 1 PvE skill, and axe wars were regularly used in PvE for utility.

And therefore we say Elementalist damage in HM is underpowered and ask for a buff! Problem resolved! If ANet markets Elementalists as big damage dealers then certainly they think Elementalists should be "badass nukers" too. You can ask ANet why they gave Elementalists Energy Storage and Sins / Warriors primary attributes that deal more damage, and then said Elementalists are "capable of inflicting more damage in a single strike than any other profession".

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If your really going to factor in aftercast, then factor in the time a sin needs to move between mobs, the time needed to keep them clean, time inbetween when their still blind/ binding chained. I'm pretty sure a sin can't hit faster than a half second cast on some skills that caster can use with mindbender. And alas, I don't have the luxury of a lot of physical friends who are friends with others willing to keep them clean as their only job. Some people enjoy monking, but a good monk rather difficult to find. Heroes just don't get the job done quite right.

Time moving between mobs = use a speedboost.
Time keeping clean = not the Assassin doing it someone else is.
Aftercast = 0.75s, so if you have a 0.5s spell that's total of 1.25s in time, I'm pretty sure an Assassin can hit at least once in this interval.

If you're doing H/H with Elementalist primary I recommend you not use physicals, except possibly Paragons. It's just that when you do have the humans around there's nothing for you to do except ER Monk.

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I would love to see them, always interested in new and better things.

See the Ether Renewal thread in The Campfire.

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Whilst I forgive you for neglecting rangers completely, why is ER the only thing an ele can do in your eyes? Also, I assume you mean in HM dungeons and vanqs. If an ele can be useful in an elite dungeon in HM, why can't a scythe sin be useful in there too? If it was that good, it should be able to perform just as well in these areas.Also, from my experience, eles go decently well with scythe sins by keeping stuff from moving all too much(actually I just use an ice imp) and then keeping some pressure off him and monks with conditions.

In a team playing for peak efficiency you screw all these niceties and plain take the damage to the monsters + overwhelm them with it. No need to keep stuff moving, they can attack if they want - that's what the ER backline is for. Keeping pressure off the Assassin is also the job of the ER backline. Blind can be replaced by SY.

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Pretty sure that was in my other long post :P but as another note, if you added damage to ele skills, couldn't it also unbalance PvP(if it was universal) and further to that, in PvE, what would happen to rangers? Surely Ap would make their innate bonus pretty unimpressive.

Buffing Elementalists skills will probably unbalance PvP, unless we get another huge PvE / PvP split like with Rits and Paragons this last update. I favour buffing an Elementalist PvE-only skill (Intensity, Elemental Lord) or just nerfing physicals.

Mouse at Large · Jun 20, 2009, 10:14 AM // 10:14

I tend to run twin heats/MB as my standard bar these days. However, recognising the disadvantage of relying on fire damage alone, Mark of Rodgort is pretty much stapled to my bar as well. Relying on yellow numbers from fire damage alone won't cut it in HM, but hitting 3-4 enemies at a time and causing constant burning still adds up to reasonable dps - it's just not single target dps

Worked for me in getting Guardian and Vanquisher titles apart from some specific areas (Ring of Fire comes to mind).

Kendel · Jun 20, 2009, 12:30 PM // 12:30

I think your forgetting something about Prophecies. You say that Axe Warriors were mainly used for utility... yes this is because there was a considerable lack of reliable AoE multi-hitting targets. Factions came and they got Triple Chop. Nightfall came and they got Whirlwind Attack and more importantly, Flail, the only decent IAS available for a Warrior in PvE. Eles were taken alot in 5man farming trips... then people, disaster, people realised Eles were useless for anything but the KD from meteor Shower, why? Spiteful Spirit, thats why. Dual SS or SS/FoC took over if i recall.

As for keeping a Sin clean, this can be done with 1 skill. Spellbreaker. Yes you may be required to sacrifice an elite for this, but the return is a character with massive spike damage and strong DPS. Its not too unthinkable to run this at 16 Divine with Blessed Aura on a Prot who can take advantage of the increased enchantments for PS/SoA.

I favor creating PvE versions of the Attunements which allows each element to be buffed in different ways (and considering i just realised Ruby Djinns have Fire Attunement, if necessary, removing them from all foes). Buffing the skills themselves will create major problems with foes, buffing PvE only skills will just create grind.

sonofthort · Jun 20, 2009, 01:25 PM // 13:25

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Originally Posted by Kendel

I favor creating PvE versions of the Attunements which allows each element to be buffed in different ways (and considering i just realised Ruby Djinns have Fire Attunement, if necessary, removing them from all foes). Buffing the skills themselves will create major problems with foes, buffing PvE only skills will just create grind.

If intensity gets buffed, you wouldn't really need to grind, most ppl easily get r7 without even trying if they just play nf. Plus the rank could influence only the duration, the armor penetration could be set at a constant for every rank, creating less need for grinding.