Curse

cataphract · Dec 02, 2008, 06:38 AM // 06:38

Next thing I know - I'll be reading that Air Magic sucks because it inflicts several conditions.

DarkGanni · Dec 02, 2008, 06:50 AM // 06:50

For PvE I go fire most of the time, unless in specific situations like Destroyers (that's when I go air) or Hell's precipice with water magic.

With [Searing Flames] being my favorite fire elite mainly due to its damage and constant burning.

I find earth to be weak in PvE and if I have to use earth spells in PvE that would be in conjunction with another element.

PS: With SF I vanquished all GWEN areas in 22hrs. I don't see why ppl are saying fire ain't so good.

Tyla · Dec 02, 2008, 10:21 AM // 10:21

Air really isn't that strong outside of the ability to blind and knockdown. You can say Fire sucks partly because all it does is damage aswell, whereas Death Magic has minions and armour ignoring damage which spreads. Though the damage from Fire still isn't that impressive.

xDusT II · Dec 02, 2008, 10:58 AM // 10:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by cataphract

Next thing I know - I'll be reading that Air Magic sucks because it inflicts several conditions.

No but Air magic can't apply effects in AoE formats like Earth can. Also as far as PvE is concerned, Enfeebling Blood is better than all the anti-melee condition causing skills in the Air line.

Cebe · Dec 02, 2008, 12:24 PM // 12:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by xDusT II

No but Air magic can't apply them en masse like Earth can. Also as far as PvE is concerned

Blind

[[Eruption] - 25 energy, 30 recharge.

[[Blinding Flash] - 15 energy, 4 recharge

Weakness

[[Ebon Hawk] - Needs to hit a moving foe

[[Enervating Charge] - Unconditional

([[Enfeebling Blood (PvE)] is better than all of these, however)

Daze

Air Magic: [[Thunderclap]

Earth Magic: Err...

Cracked Armour

Air Magic: [[Shell Shock], [[Lightning Orb (PvE)]

Earth Magic: Umm...

So, yes, Earth Magic can inflict some conditions "en masse", but at a great cost in terms of energy and skill recharge. The AoE factor is easily overcome with Air Magic with the use of [[Epidemic].

Earth Magic is a great attribute, but it excels at knockdown and defense rather than condition spreading.

Quote:

Originally Posted by xDusT II

Enfeebling Blood is better than all the anti-melee condition causing skills in the Air line.

When Blinding Flash is paired with Epidemic, I think a 90% chance to miss trumps the damage reduction from Weakness. Both work well together of course.

xDusT II · Dec 02, 2008, 12:48 PM // 12:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celestial Beaver

Blind

[[Eruption] - 25 energy, 30 recharge.

[[Blinding Flash] - 15 energy, 4 recharge

Weakness

[[Ebon Hawk] - Needs to hit a moving foe

[[Enervating Charge] - Unconditional

([[Enfeebling Blood (PvE)] is better than all of these, however)

Daze

Air Magic: [[Thunderclap]

Earth Magic: Err...

Cracked Armour

Air Magic: [[Shell Shock], [[Lightning Orb (PvE)]

Earth Magic: Umm...

So, yes, Earth Magic can inflict some conditions "en masse", but at a great cost in terms of energy and skill recharge. The AoE factor is easily overcome with Air Magic with the use of [[Epidemic].

Earth Magic is a great attribute, but it excels at knockdown and defense rather than condition spreading.

Really the only comparisons I'd make between Earth and Air would be Blinding Flash and Eruption. The other defensive condition causing skills are greatly outclassed by PvE skills or Necromancer skills. Blind is one of the few conditions an elementalist can output decently, and even then the condition is pretty redundant in PvE due to it's tendancy to come in the form of low duration single target spells.

Quote:

When Blinding Flash is paired with Epidemic, I think a 90% chance to miss trumps the damage reduction from Weakness.

Personally I would still take Enfeebling Blood over Bflash + Epidemic for a number of reasons:

Less Energy Intensive
Longer Duration
Nearby Range vs. Adjacent Range
Epidemic Requires mesmer as secondary
Bflash and Epidemic Requires 2 skills
66% physical damage reduction is ample to nullify frontline mobs
It's easier to fit a necro into a team build than an air ele. Necro also provides other defensive options.

Not sure if that clarifies anything. It's late and I'm sleepy -.-

zwei2stein · Dec 02, 2008, 01:20 PM // 13:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celestial Beaver

...

IMHO, not really fair

Blind:

Erruption: 10 seccond long blind, reapplies 5 times (big thing when foes have condition removal), AOE. Requires not att investment for main effect. Can be considerably improved by 40/40 set.
Blinding Flash: up to 8 secconds., can be maintained (in AOE!) with /Me and strong energy engine and cost of very little damage being done by ele.

Weakness:

Ward of Weariness: Weakness on elemental damage (i.e. most of wanding.) Can you say "reapply, please?". Ofc, still inferior of E-blood.

Mass-conditions mean that earth can apply them very cheaply and overhelm condition removal.

Still, condition argument is pointless, strength of earth is not condition spamming

Aiden_Madrigal · Dec 02, 2008, 02:34 PM // 14:34

The most valuable and flexible elementalist skill, IMO, is Ether Renewal. Together with an attunement enchantment, and aura of restoration/mindbender, you can spam any and all high energy skills of a given attribute (consider using DF and Maelstrom).

When I play with H/H, I take a Mirror of Ice build. Interrupts, snares (and trust me, snares are an amazing prevent damage from melee enemies), and decent damage are what makes water so great.

Fire? Extremely overrated. The only decent skills are Searing Flames and Savannah heat, and the only HM place where they do a great job is Snowman's Lair.

Earth: Probably your best support attribute. Eruption, Unsteady Ground, Earthquake, kinetic armor, stoneflesh aura, and ESPECIALLY the wards make this a good attribute for damage prevention. It can greatly decrease the pressure on your healers, and reduces (though it does not eliminate) the need for hybridized monk builds (though any HM monk bar without protective spirit is a bit risky).

Air: Most of these elites suck. In NM, you don't need thunderclap. Your enemies should be dead before daze goes into effect. In HM, you'll most likely be taking an Air build to both blind melee and help spike healers (The Grawl in Eastern frontier, anyone?). And let's face it, HM enemies (with the exception of the highly annoying stone summit in GWEN) do not stay put long enough for TC to be worth it. Expensive air spells such as blinding flash(because of its recharge time), lightning hammer (25e), and lightning orb (15e) are completely spammable. If you add chain lightning and epidemic you should be able to spread cracked armor and blind to all those pesky melee, as well as put in some pretty good damage. Add ER to the mix with an enchantment or two and you can spam all of your skills endlessly.

Remember that HM eles are not damage machines. The only casting classes that do outstanding damage in HM are necros and (sometimes) mesmers. So to answer your question, you can't really say which attribute is the best, as they are all useful and provide some amazing party support. But you can say which one is the worst: fire.

Cebe · Dec 02, 2008, 04:20 PM // 16:20

I wasn't really avocating Air Magic over any other with that post, nor was I wanting to start a debate about blind vs weakness, I was mostly responding to the comment that Air Magic can't apply conditions "en masse" like Earth Magic can.

It's a bit of a silly statement given that one Earth Magic skill inflicts an AoE condition (excluding Ward of Weariness given it's passive nature). I think that's all that needed to be said, in hindsight.

faraaz · Dec 02, 2008, 04:53 PM // 16:53

I say Earth Magic.

[Unsteady Ground],[Eruption],[Enfeebling Blood]+[Stoning], [Ward Against Melee]...all good stuff.

The Meth · Dec 02, 2008, 05:02 PM // 17:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celestial Beaver

I wasn't really avocating Air Magic over any other with that post, nor was I wanting to start a debate about blind vs weakness, I was mostly responding to the comment that Air Magic can't apply conditions "en masse" like Earth Magic can.

It's a bit of a silly statement given that one Earth Magic skill inflicts an AoE condition (excluding Ward of Weariness given it's passive nature). I think that's all that needed to be said, in hindsight.

While not a condition, ward against melee fulfills pretty much the same purpose. Huge AoE and protects just as well as blind/weakness (keeping in mind that the AoE means you affect more foes then single target blinds) Knockdowns are a sort of condition as well, keeping an enemy down for 3 seconds. It would be best to say that Earth magic generally has a more efficient and effective party-wide defensive ability then the Air magic Ele.

Epidemic doesn't really count as AoE IMO. The only time more then 2 enemies are adjacent is if you are playing tank 'n nuke builds, and thats a totally different concept. In that case you just have 6 players with nukes cowering in back killing enemies instantly.

Bobby2 · Dec 02, 2008, 06:33 PM // 18:33

Earth [ward against melee]
Water [maelstrom]
Physicals doing their job [assassin's promise]

Dan Ops · Dec 02, 2008, 11:01 PM // 23:01

For NM, fire. It just kills everything. For HM, fire for most areas. Against enemies with high armor vs. elemental, I'd go either air or earth. Tho, been there, done everything with fire, so it doesn't seem so bad option tbh.

xDusT II · Dec 03, 2008, 12:44 AM // 00:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celestial Beaver

I wasn't really avocating Air Magic over any other with that post, nor was I wanting to start a debate about blind vs weakness, I was mostly responding to the comment that Air Magic can't apply conditions "en masse" like Earth Magic can.

It's a bit of a silly statement given that one Earth Magic skill inflicts an AoE condition (excluding Ward of Weariness given it's passive nature). I think that's all that needed to be said, in hindsight.

Fair enough, changed original post to make it clearer. I was probably considering effects as a whole not limited to just conditions, including knockdown and defensive options such as wards. Unlike air which may have these, Earth has them in AoE formats which is much more suitable to the PvE format.

illidan009 · Dec 03, 2008, 03:35 AM // 03:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by wind fire and ice

earth=awesome,all that needs to be said.

Unfortunately, your name seems to suggest other wise O__o
Lol earth is hands down the best HM, very versatile and powerful. I would rate fire a close second in NM though, just b/c of big damage and mobs not being quite as powerful as those in HM.

_Nihilist_ · Dec 03, 2008, 04:24 AM // 04:24

The reason people like Fire Magic is because at first, the damage numbers in the skill description seem AMAZING, especially when coupled with the fact that Fire has lots of AoE.

Then we add this little thing called Armor.

And a second little thing called 'Panic', aka AoE = Scatter and =/= Aggro Control.

Another thing. If you are running with a Sabway trio, a Discordway trio, a CoP team, a B/P team, any decent physicals for that matter... YOUR FIRE ELE ISN'T WHAT IS GETTING YOU KILLS.

Fire Magic scatters mobs. Which makes it harder on your Physicals to maintain aggro control. Which makes your healers expend too much energy.

Dan Ops · Dec 03, 2008, 05:19 AM // 05:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyrael_Eveningsong

The reason people like Fire Magic is because at first, the damage numbers in the skill description seem AMAZING, especially when coupled with the fact that Fire has lots of AoE.

Then we add this little thing called Armor.

And a second little thing called 'Panic', aka AoE = Scatter and =/= Aggro Control.

Another thing. If you are running with a Sabway trio, a Discordway trio, a CoP team, a B/P team, any decent physicals for that matter... YOUR FIRE ELE ISN'T WHAT IS GETTING YOU KILLS.

Fire Magic scatters mobs. Which makes it harder on your Physicals to maintain aggro control. Which makes your healers expend too much energy.

Oh come on you can't be serious. That's true against destroyers and something like that but against general hm mob fire does proper damage. Minions blocking + meteor shower + sf spam = profit!!??! Go out and try, if you don't get kills you're just bad.

-Lotus- · Dec 03, 2008, 05:35 AM // 05:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dan Ops

Oh come on you can't be serious. That's true against destroyers and something like that but against general hm mob fire does proper damage. Minions blocking + meteor shower + sf spam = profit!!??! Go out and try, if you don't get kills you're just bad.

hahaahahahaa!!!!
you fail... bad

and i don't even need to explain why... you already quoted it...

daze · Dec 03, 2008, 09:25 AM // 09:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dan Ops

Oh come on you can't be serious. That's true against destroyers and something like that but against general hm mob fire does proper damage. Minions blocking + meteor shower + sf spam = profit!!??! Go out and try, if you don't get kills you're just bad.

be careful when you talk about [meteor shower] in guru or you will be lit on fire by all the uniting flamers of Guru. Even though it has lots of good uses, people here like to say that it doesn't. I haven't figured out why yet, but maybe one of these days ill figure out why multiple AoE knockdowns with one spell is a bad thing.
So far these are the reasons why [[meteor shower] sucks bawls
1. 5 second cast time (and dont try to say [glyph of sacrifice][meteor shower] because you will receive further flaming saying that you are wasting 2 skill slots to make one skill go from baed to mediocre)

2. Its fire magic (as we all know fire magix is the devil)

3. [[deep freeze] is a better snare even though IMO KD is always a better snare (In HM [[deep freeze] only slows enemies down 16%-33% but mostly its just 16%) some snare huh?

4. long recharge unless you are [[assassins promise]

5. Its exhausting and expensive.

those are 5 reasons why [[meteor shower] is the worst skill ever.

ive even tried to defend [meteor shower] by saying [fire attunement][assassins promise][glyph of sacrifice][meteor shower] but then im told im wasting 4 skill slots to make one skill work (even though they will synergies beautifully with the rest of an AP build)

Dan Ops · Dec 03, 2008, 02:56 PM // 14:56

I've done everything in pve, vanquishes, missions, cartographers, skill hunters, reputation titles. Mostly h/h, always fire magic. I agree, for some areas, other attributes are better. And of course, genarally everything works in pve. I'm not going to start argue about this in Guru, I've tried before and it just leads to flaming by people who haven't actually even played ele in pve.

I used mostly sf, glowing gaze, liquid flame, pain inverter, meteor shower, gole, fire attunement, rez. And ele hero with pain inverter replaced by mor. I'm not saying it's the ultimate choice for every area but tbh, it beat every. Anyway, I'm not going to argue it anymore, the GWG meta says fire sucks and people won't agree anything else.