Curse

Kakumei · Mar 12, 2006, 07:13 PM // 19:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShadowMagus

And this skill would still remain powerful if it cost 30 energy.
I have personaly tested this extensivly, and 25 energy is not a heavy cost for the effect of this skill. It is one of the most successful elites I have used in PvP, and as I have stated before, I specialize in the necromancer - I have over 350 hours of play logged with soly my necromancer, and I have done massive amounts of experamenting with builds.
Im fairly certain I have tried most of the builds possable out there.

Another underused skill would be chillbanes - an AoE enchantment remover with fast cast time and 15 second recharge is also worth the 25 energy cost, although it must be used far more carfuly due to the poison. Note, Spellbreaker is another underused but powerful skill in PvP, and chillbanes is the only effective way to remove it, only other possable way being well of the profane.
I also dont commonly see Weaken Armor being used. Now how much damage does 20 less armor effectivly add again...?

You're apparently a big fan of long casting time skills I'm not sure why!

Recommending using Lingering Curse, Chilblains, and Weaken Armor all in the same post for PVP doesn't exactly lend to your credibility. Nor does the 'look at me I've played 300 hours on a necro I am awesome' line.

FalconDance · Mar 12, 2006, 07:14 PM // 19:14

SisterMercy, actually rangers have the second highest armor in the game....AL70 over the AL60 of the necromancer (except, of course, for the Necrotic and Tormentor's). ::shrugs::

As has been said, if you think elementalists are horrid, don't play an elementalist.

Personally, I've created three now and have always found them to be so boring to play, I've deleted them (except this time, but she's due to be rebuilt on my new account and taken off my son's). Yes, they do decent damage if played correctly but so many parties only want a cookie-cutter nuker that anything else gets kicked or ignored. My ele runs Air and bow skills (even her bow is a lightening bow

). She's invited into parties as long as they don't realize she uses something besides fire until we're underway. Not that I mis-advertise or lie.....I simply do my job and hopefully bear witness to the fact that an elementalist can do his/her job well without being strictly a certain pre-published "build".

Grimm · Mar 12, 2006, 07:18 PM // 19:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kakumei

Odd, I didn't think this game had come out yet. How could you recommend they go play it? In fact, how do you know this 'ai' actually works as advertised?

It's also a licensed AI engine and probably costs quite a bit of money to use.

Kakumei · Mar 12, 2006, 07:19 PM // 19:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grimm

It's also a licensed AI engine and probably costs quite a bit of money to use.

So I should probably research the things I say before I say them!

Lesson learned.

Ira Blinks · Mar 12, 2006, 07:19 PM // 19:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by FalconDance

Personally, I've created three now and have always found them to be so boring to play, I've deleted them (except this time, but she's due to be rebuilt on my new account and taken off my son's). Yes, they do decent damage if played correctly but so many parties only want a cookie-cutter nuker that anything else gets kicked or ignored. My ele runs Air and bow skills (even her bow is a lightening bow

). She's invited into parties as long as they don't realize she uses something besides fire until we're underway. Not that I mis-advertise or lie.....I simply do my job and hopefully bear witness to the fact that an elementalist can do his/her job well without being strictly a certain pre-published "build".

is that a pve setup? Care to share why would you use E/R and not R/E?

ShadowMagus · Mar 12, 2006, 07:31 PM // 19:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kakumei

You're apparently a big fan of long casting time skills I'm not sure why!

Recommending using Lingering Curse, Chilblains, and Weaken Armor all in the same post for PVP doesn't exactly lend to your credibility. Nor does the 'look at me I've played 300 hours on a necro I am awesome' line.

I did not state that you should use all long casting time spells, simply that when used correctly these are the most powerful, and if you pay attention to your opponents and what is going on, interupts rairly prove a problem.
Further, I did not say I was awsome, simply that I am experianced with the necromancer, and have tried a great deal of the possable builds. I could be rong, but from my tests, one or two skills such as lingering curse, weaken armor, or spirit of failure, among others, can easly prove the turning point in battles. If you would care to look at the necromancers skill list, many of the most useful ones have a casting time of 2 seconds as well. 3 seconds is noticably longer, but is not a great difference, once again, if you pay attention to how the battle is going.

Tyrent Frath · Mar 12, 2006, 07:32 PM // 19:32

heres the thing...we can all agree SS is a *little* overpowered because it ignore AOE. Hell it's an AOE Empathy that ignores AOE rules and is triggered by skills, not attacks, so its a backfire too.

i suggest...having it abide to the AOE rules and lower the damage...but moving it down from an elite skill to a regular skill.

Asprah · Mar 12, 2006, 07:52 PM // 19:52

Its not only the SS and ignoring armor that makes Necro better choise for Sf then Ele. There are also skills like Blood ritual-to aid monks,spinal shivers to interrupt bosses and priests ressurect spells. Necro has many uses that ele just dont have. And its not just SF. For example 2 man farm in UW with 55hp monk. It goes so easy and there is no way that ele could kill smiters so easy. Also for ele to be effective he got to have 16 in fire and 13 storage (ussually)and no other skills then fire. But necro can combine blood,curses,illusions and still be extreamly effective-for example i use for UW farm -7 illusion,7 reaping,10 blood,16 curses and it works very good. Also one thing i dont like is that every ele i see is fire. A-net should really try to do something to improve some air and water skills bcs when i see every single PVE ele as nuker,its really annoying and boring.
I have both ele and necro lvl 20,but ele has one good usage for me-he is storage and item carrier. I am really thinking of deleting my ele but i hope i ll find some usage for ele in Factions so ill wait a bit before i delete him.

frojack · Mar 12, 2006, 07:52 PM // 19:52

@Shadow Magus:

I understand how you feel. However, being civil as Sister Mercy advised, is probably the only way to get people to truly listen to what you have to say.

Anyway, about the ai thing. Some interesting points and ideas. However are you aware of how insanely difficult a real free-roaming ai would be to balance, let alone bug test? In my experience it would take a hell of a long time. More than a simple update that's for sure. To get any product out to the market requires you put in limitations that can be tested and balanced.

Case in point:
"... Get rid of this effect, and replace it with an acual AI upgrade - remove programmed patrols and mobs, add in the ability to acualy make decisions."

Right, let's see. I'm the ai for a second;

"These hero bastards are wiping us out. Why is that? Hmm... Maybe our numbers are too small. Hang on. There are over 50 of us in this map, and only 8 of them. Why are we attacking them separately? Let's hunt them down as a huge mob...!"

As soon as your free thinking ai works that out, how the hell do you plan to complete ANY missions at all? How does Anet counter the situation? Limits.
With limitations, problems like the one above can be theorised and accounted for. I agree Anet chose a 'cookie cutter' (lol) approach to (not ai) they're character behavioural system. Who knows. In a year from now, the game your playing could host far more intelligent enemies. They have already changed how npc's behave right? Let's hope it keeps getting better so the PVP'ers can stop calling us noobs :P

Jokes aside, there are 101 reasons why REAL ai sucks for games right now. Intelligent behavioural systems are just far more suited to our needs.

ShadowMagus · Mar 12, 2006, 08:11 PM // 20:11

frojack

I also understand your point in testing the AI, and it not being a simple update. As far as the update part, they should improve the AI as much as possable untill, say, chapter 3 is released, then include the full update with that.

As for testing, do you think Bethesta did not have problems they could not solve with their Radiant AI? One of the biggest problems they had was that the AI was "to good".
The example I am aware of was that, during testing, one of the npc guards in a town would get hungry and steal some food. Another guard would see the action and attempt to arrest guard 1. Guard 1 resists, and a fight issues. All other guards in the town then go to that location because of the actions, leaving the town open for all the other npc's to steal nearly everything from all shops in the town. This is all occuring when the pc is several hours away from ariving at the town. When the pc arives, all stores are completly out of merchandice because of the event.
I forget how Bethesta solved that problem, but obviously, they did, and I can only assume hundreds, if not thousands more.

Such an update would take a great deal of time and effort, but would greatly improve the gameplay, and is possable.

Now if only anet would bother to try...

I also have not yet seen a responce to my take on the 2-dimentional combat system. This is what I consider a massive bug in the game, and anet should fix it as soon as they possably can.
Another massive problem, although with their servers, not the acual game, is the lag. Nearly everyone I play with frequently gets unexplained lag, often at the same time as all the other players. We have come to the conclusion, due to the fact that none of our computers are shitty, nor is our internet connection, that it is the server.

Now if only anet is acualy reading this thread...

zoozoc · Mar 12, 2006, 08:59 PM // 20:59

wow, looks like everyone playing PvE finally figured out what everyone in PvP found out ages ago, eles are not a sustained dps class. They cannot do good amounts of high damage. In PvP they are either used for spike, or more often then not, a support character. If you havnt noticed, all the ele skills are extremely costly, have horrible recharge times, and have high casting times compaired to like skills for other professions. So until Anet finally wisens up, they will forever be a support class.

FalconDance · Mar 12, 2006, 09:02 PM // 21:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ira Blinks

is that a pve setup? Care to share why would you use E/R and not R/E?

Yes, PvE.

Why E/R and not the other? Energy, of course. An elementalist with a long bow has a long reach (when using bow skills) and energy to back up just about any skill/spell. A max bow (base damage 15-28 is higher than a staff/wand's 11-22) (and a pet in lower level areas/missions) give her a slight edge.

Besides, I like to use slightly out-of-the-ordinary set-ups. They're fun.

Ira Blinks · Mar 12, 2006, 09:23 PM // 21:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by FalconDance

Yes, PvE.

Why E/R and not the other? Energy, of course. An elementalist with a long bow has a long reach (when using bow skills) and energy to back up just about any skill/spell. A max bow (base damage 15-28 is higher than a staff/wand's 11-22) (and a pet in lower level areas/missions) give her a slight edge.

Besides, I like to use slightly out-of-the-ordinary set-ups. They're fun.

Thats exactly kind of thing people talking about... Yes, it can be useful, but why bother when R/E would do a much better job?
Why better job? Well far superior armor and ability to use runes for marksmanship and beast mastery... Energy? Expertise seems much more useful than energy storage as long as you dont use exhaustion skills much, but then you would be better off with +15/-1 wand as opposed to bow anyway.

WasAGuest · Mar 12, 2006, 09:30 PM // 21:30

One thing I noticed - it was a while back now so I'm not sure if it is still the same. I had better damage output with ele/mnk using Smiting spells. I just assumed the mobs having higher resistance to elemental damage was the cause... which was probably the case. I used fire magic with smiting, the timers seemed to compliment each other fairly well... and "the poor undead"

I also tried ele/rng, it was fun. With 12 marks and I think I had 14 air magic (mainly for conjure) my arrows did some nice damage (Barrage). Throw in the interupts and I had a blast. Though, as was said, getting into a group was rather tough... thank goodness for my guild. hehe

Dagomir Zarusta · Mar 12, 2006, 09:32 PM // 21:32

Yup, I cant think of a single instance outside PvP where I'd welcome an ele on my team. I usually farm FoW with my guildies, and we take either a 5 or 4 man team consisting of a bonder, healer, Echo SS, tank, and barrage ranger. A 4 man team only lacks the ranger. I used to make 5 man teams with eles, but after so small experiments, found an SS necro combined with a high damage tank is enough to take out everything in FoW.

frojack · Mar 12, 2006, 09:34 PM // 21:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by zoozoc

wow, looks like everyone playing PvE finally figured out what everyone in PvP found out ages ago, eles are not a sustained dps class...

.The words typical come to mind...

@ShadowMagus:

Your point and example are well taken and I am intrigued to see if they actually have successfully worked this out or not. Your example is surely just the tip of the iceberg. I imagine the fact that they delayed the title can only suggest the amount of issues that could have arisen. At the end of the day though, a product has to ship. Perfect or not.
We'll see if they ironed out enough of the potential problems to save the game from the 'we almost cracked it!' pile.

I'm sure there will be a fair few copies of this doing the rounds in the office come March 24 for that very purpose

.

So. Fingers crossed then...

[edit]

With regards to your assessment on the '2d' combat. All I can say is, I dunno'. Adding a crude height check (is this character really far up etc.) is stupidly easy to do. So I can only imagine it was a gameplay decision. I do however concede that I found it rather strange at first.
I can only really call it an exploit now I think about it. I mean, it's like rangers obey the (most basic) laws of physics. 'Ur... sorry. Can't fire arrows through buildings...'. Well mostly

. Nor can wanders. Though I can suppose another question could be; is it unfair that casters can spells through obstacles?
Anyway, it doesn't lend itself to a convincing world no, but it makes the gameplay far more solid. That is what's more important I think.

cherikku · Mar 12, 2006, 09:39 PM // 21:39

sure is! I deleted mines for a ranger ^_^.

wiz12268 · Mar 12, 2006, 09:44 PM // 21:44

R/E are a tough class. As far as expertise goes that doesn't effect spells. So I can see where a E/R would be better. Since 8 is the max in marx for most archers anyways(except for barrage cookie cutter build) being an E/R wouldn't effect that at all.

The only advantage with an R/E is armor, and when combined with ele specific armor and a few spirits it makes a R/E almost indestructible. But once again it comes down to spaces available for a build.

Not to go off on a ranger tangeant. but to have a "perfect" build you need about 10-11 skills, when you only have 8 available. Thus experience and playing the game and team members come in.

So while Any and all cookie cutter builds are just that, SPECIALIZED, they are taking into consideration the support around them. But the thing is people get so caught up on a "perfect" balance. In fact 2 MM necros and 6 rangers can do the ToPK without either a monk or an orders necro. BUt people have been drilled into thinking it can't be done any other way.

Just like all the other areas where "perfect" team chemistry is necessary. It isn't. It just makes it slightly faster.

Again getting a little off topic here, but this whole post sort of has deteriorated.

Bottomline is the elementalists have been nerfed into obscurity either by AI "upgrades" or by "skill balancing" far more than any other clas in GW.

All the other stuff is exactly why most people have 4 primary classes these days...Warrior, Ranger, Necro, Monk, then they switch out secondaries depending on what map they want to go to. They copy the cookie cutter builds and go from there.

Desbreko · Mar 12, 2006, 10:43 PM // 22:43

I still find my elementalist to be fun and decently effective with a fire build in PvE. Sure, you can't use Fire Storm to any good effect anymore, but I still make good use of Meteor Shower and Searing Heat. (That buff last update got Searing Heat back into my skill set.) With MS knocking things down, mobs can't get out of either it or Searing Heat a lot of the time--especially not if I get the halved cast time on Searing Heat.

Sure, I may not be able to put out as much sustained damage as a SS necro, but I can do plenty good at putting out fast AoE damage. A couple days ago I did a FoW run with some friends; I was playing my ele, and we had two FoC necros was well. All three of us would spike and mobs would drop by the time MS finished. Or, if they didn't, I'd just toss out an Incendiary Bonds + Fireball combo or a Rodgort's Invocation on top.

FalconDance · Mar 12, 2006, 10:52 PM // 22:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ira Blinks

Thats exactly kind of thing people talking about... Yes, it can be useful, but why bother when R/E would do a much better job?
Why better job? Well far superior armor and ability to use runes for marksmanship and beast mastery... Energy? Expertise seems much more useful than energy storage as long as you dont use exhaustion skills much, but then you would be better off with +15/-1 wand as opposed to bow anyway.

But see, that's the thing. I have a ranger and I dearly love playing her. But I wanted an elementalist with ranged capabilities, including a pet. Voila, an Ele/R.

My ranger has armor with vs. universal Elemental damage and alternately certain types of elemental damage. The Elementalist has armor with vs. certain elemental damage, which can be tailored to an area for greatest efficiency. In that limited view, a ranger would appear to have the advantage.

But you're saying an Ele/R can have no better energy pool than 62 with -1 regen (or 75 with -2 regen)? That's a +27/-1 offhand and a wand/rod with +5 energy with no points in Energy Storage.

A ranger cannot obtain that sort of energy pool. So how can you sustain your apparent stance that a ranger would be better at that?

My ranger seldom runs dry on her energy pool of 28 because of her high Expertise. But she could not truly hold her own if she were attempting anything other than her skill set.

WasAGuest understands. The Ele/R is FUN. And that is one of the reasons I play Guild Wars.