Curse

Shred Dread · Jun 20, 2006, 04:53 AM // 04:53

I'm not sure if I should expect to get a lot of responses on this thread.

I just want to clarify one thing. The reason why there are so many more pyromancers out there than any other kind of elementalist is really because of Anet and a little spell called Flare. While I normally come close to worshipping Anet as a god (well I guess that's a teensy bitof an exaggeration), I have to say Anet didn't really think too far ahead when it chose the starter skills for the elementalist. Beginners start out with flare, find they love it, and continue to buy fire skills, until they've invested so much in being a pyromancer that they are reluctant to change by the time they realize there's more out there than just fire. I know, this is how it was for me when I made my first character, an elementalist, on Prophecies.

Hurricane · Jun 20, 2006, 05:01 AM // 05:01

Pre-searing needs to be redone.

Maria The Princess · Jun 20, 2006, 05:01 AM // 05:01

its just that in pve fire damage is more "damaging"

LightningHell · Jun 20, 2006, 05:02 AM // 05:02

You shouldn't, since this is more of a statement.

However, I agree with you. Although I checked out all the skills before playing, and then chose Earth. Air came a close second. I was hugely disappointed when nearly all the beginner spells that were anywhere near usable in the specific area were Fire spells.

CaptainRansom · Jun 20, 2006, 06:28 AM // 06:28

The problem stemming from them loading you with Fire spells early on is that once you finally have enough skill points/gold (Factions) or do the quests (Prophecies) to get new spells - you're already so accustomed to using Fire that trying out a new build is a bit daunting for PvE. Especially for Survivor characters, because a failed build in an unfamiliar element can definitely lead to death and/or repeated slamming of the F12>Enter combination.

ANet needs to re-evaluate Elementalist skill distribution in the early game and actually give characters a taste of ALL elements early on. Go make a fresh Ele in Factions and look at the skill lists for other elements that are available to you before Kaineng... most of it is crap, and that's sad. Warriors get a decent taste of axe/sword/hammer, Mesmers get a smattering of Inspiration/Domination/Illusion, Monks get Healing/Smiting/Protection, etc. Elementalists get... Flare and Aura of Restoration.

Luciora · Jun 20, 2006, 08:52 AM // 08:52

Not 100% sure but ANet did give a few more spells in different elementals on Canthan born chars. Though my ele is prophecies born so that explains my fire love

I agree though, the other classes get a nice taste of all that lies ahead while the ele is nudged to think FIRE FIRE FIRE...

ubermancer · Jun 20, 2006, 11:20 AM // 11:20

I like to burn things.

I like to burn Luxons.
I like to burn Kurzicks.
I like to burn White Mantle.
I like to burn Mursaat.
I like to burn Dwarves.
I like to burn Undead.
I like to burn Jade Brotherhood.
I like to burn Am Fah.
I like to burn Titans.
I like to burn Wardens.
I like to burn Naga.
I like to burn Oni.
I like to burn... myself.

BURNING SPEED!!!

**Marty Silverblade** · Jun 20, 2006, 12:45 PM // 12:45

I think you should be able to choose which element you get at the start of the game. That way, the noob ele's can grow using skills that they like, and decide for themselves which element they want to use. All the other skills that would be gotten at the start can be bought for convenience sake.

Shred Dread · Jun 20, 2006, 02:24 PM // 14:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marty Silverblade

I think you should be able to choose which element you get at the start of the game. That way, the noob ele's can grow using skills that they like, and decide for themselves which element they want to use. All the other skills that would be gotten at the start can be bought for convenience sake.

I definitely like this idea. It almost sounds worth petitioning, although I don't know that you're allowed to do that in any thread besides Sardelac.

Triple Evel · Jun 20, 2006, 02:34 PM // 14:34

about that , i definitly agree with you , i used an ele as a first charr .. and guess what ? i got all fire skills before even taking a look at other elements :S
, then the regretion came onto me made me farm for like 100K+(dont remeber how much , maybe 100K- alittle ) to get the other skills needed for Ele Builds ... now got all ele skills , and go for Fire Nukes in PvE and Air or Water/Earth combos in PvP .. :S ... though it wuldve been better if i could balance my skills a little bit before getting only fire skills , cuz in pre-searing you dont have appeal to the Earth/water skills , when you might like the air ... its just how u think

Why_Me · Jun 20, 2006, 07:52 PM // 19:52

Quote:

Originally posted by ubermancer
I like to burn things.

I like to burn Luxons.
I like to burn Kurzicks.
I like to burn White Mantle.
I like to burn Mursaat.
I like to burn Dwarves.
I like to burn Undead.
I like to burn Jade Brotherhood.
I like to burn Am Fah.
I like to burn Titans.
I like to burn Wardens.
I like to burn Naga.
I like to burn Oni.
I like to burn... myself.

BURNING SPEED!!!

Hopefully you dont like burning your psychiatrist.

But anyway, presearing pretty much sets you up with a working buid for most classes, including elementist, and the popular combo is aura of res+flare+glyph of lesser energy+firestorm. There is air too, but the early skills dont compare to the damage of fire early on, and most secondaries use air over fire. Fire is the most basic element, straight area of effect damage damage. The other elements, water and earth, have many effects that have the same advantage at a given attribute level against any enemy.
Ex. Armor of earth at 16 earth magic would give an extra 60 armor against any enemy, unlike flare, which progresses in damage, just like the enemies get larger hp. However, armor of earth at the low level attribute point levels gives a small amount of armor, and it doesnt compensate for the 30%+ speed reduction. Later in the game, this is fine, but early on, you dont have enough attribute points for it to be effective. The same applies to water snares.

|pyro| · Jun 20, 2006, 09:36 PM // 21:36

I also started the game as a Fire ele because all of th enew skills were mostly fire, but then I found one gret article on hydra farming, after that i got most of geo skills + 15k geoarmor

.
When I go to FoW sometimes I go geo coz of Obsidian Flesh + With all that armor I can affor to be in the middle of monsters to Earthquake+Aftershock+Crystal Wave them, then they run

.

But for solong I use fire spells, I never invested enything invo water spells.

For farming geomancer pwn 62+[armor of earth] 84+[Kinetic armor] 20+[Obsidian Flash] thats 146 amor +, a hydra metor/fireball does 9 dmg to me :P. I kill them with ease.
In pvp geo is good also, high dmg. from stoning, and Earthquake+Aftershock works well to bring monks down,

joncoish · Jun 20, 2006, 10:07 PM // 22:07

Yeah, earth magic is great fun. I love soloing with it with my elementalist, and I almost have the full 15k geomancer armor as well. It looks so nice!

Shred Dread · Jun 21, 2006, 12:28 AM // 00:28

This is a little off-topic, but my black 15k imperial for my elementalist does not look nearly as good as black 5k armors do. Next time I'll stick with the Shing Jea... :/

BaconSoda · Jun 21, 2006, 01:31 AM // 01:31

Why is it that most people think that Water isn't damaging? Has anyone here every used Mirror of Ice in FoW and then walked into a firestorm or a maelstrom to set it off? Or when you use it when an ele throws lightning surge or incindiary bonds on you...has anyone tried that? How about knocking down enemies in a Firestorm or Maelstrom with Water Trident while they have Deep Freeze stuck on them, has anyone tried that one either? How about The defensive capabilities? Blurred Vision (which I bet many have tried) works for a long duration, and keeps them from hitting. Ward Against Harm, how about using that v.s. Hydras? 50 armor is a huge amount of damage mitigation.

I do agree that Anet has put "Fire First" in many pre-searing characters heads, and this does make it so that people never want to try new builds... I do beleive that Water damage should be changed to be higher damage than what it is, even though I've listed ways to deal damage with it anyway, it greatly saddens me to see all the pyromancers laughing at the 1 Hydromancer I have ever seen (me), but then I laugh when they see how much damage I really do and they say something like "Wow...I thought Water Magic Sucked".

Helena cursebreaker · Jun 22, 2006, 01:17 AM // 01:17

Air damage (in my opinion) is better than fire because...The recharge time on fire magic spells are very high and air spells are low recharge. Air spells would probably do the same amount of damage fire spells would do because of recharge times.

Bloodied Blade · Jun 22, 2006, 12:59 PM // 12:59

I just like fire because (at the cost of every point of energy I have) I can set 3 meteor showers around the map or on a given boss (I made a KD build in pvp once...I think the warriors spent something like 10 seconds standing up).

Ozric · Jun 22, 2006, 04:11 PM // 16:11

I'm on the slow progression. In prophecies beta it was all about a Fire Ele I'd made, but after release I held off on making an Ele until around 5 months ago.

After finishing the game as Fire I found myself farming Tombs, and mastered a good Earth build there. Now with Factions and pvp I'm playing with Air, just capped Thunderclap after reading a post on using it in pvp in this forum, and it's alot of fun (shut down a trio of touch rangers with it last night, 1 of em brought their pet which i hexed with it, poor rangers had no idea what was going on). In another round I hooked up with a Water Ele, and in between my Thunderclap and his slow spells, we made a couple of Tanks just give up and stand there waiting for us to finish them off. ^^

But yeah I'm curious about the Water line, and after I'm done messing with Air I'll probably dabble a bit in that.

joncoish · Jun 22, 2006, 11:45 PM // 23:45

Yeah, similar to me. I started with fire, moved to earth, and have managed to unlock all the other skills in the other lines so have been fiddling around with those. That's one thing I like about elementalists. They have a lot of different options, so you have a lot of different things you can try out. I guess that's the same for any class, but elementalists are cooler!