Curse

benjy01 · Aug 11, 2005, 08:35 PM // 20:35

I am currently running a Hydro/Aeromancer because of the added effect from most water hexes with Lightning. Can't wait till I snag Water Trident.
Elem/Necro IGN - Typhoon Mary

Cartoonhero · Aug 11, 2005, 09:17 PM // 21:17

fire is good in PvP with an earth or water ele, the earth/water ele slows the enemy down, and then the nuker casts their spells to devastate the other team while they hoplessly try to run away at the crawling speed they are now moving at because of the air or earth ele's spells.

Kampfkeks · Aug 11, 2005, 09:40 PM // 21:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkAynjil

Bring your AoE Meteor Shower...

Maybe you should read again. I said it works great in conjunction with other spells, or backup from your team. Yeah, go on mister invulnerable, try to step out of it with Deep Freeze or another Snare stucking you to the spot.
I wonder why you are acting all elitest when you obviously got no clue at all. You haven't been to the tombs neither. Else you'd know there are a lot of scenarios where stepping out is just no solution.
Sure some wards might counter it and Ward against Harm might nearly nullify it. Yet it is a teamgame and your ranger might just have brought winter. OOOPS, what was that added defense against fire again?
But compared to an Aeromancer, yes.. every other Attribute actually requires skill. With Earth you've got to either get your wards right or live up to heavy exhaustion with those few damage spells they got. With Water you've got to know whom to attack when (Even if it is not the teams common target) Whom to snare and whatever. With fire you've got to know when to use it and where to use it. As you obviously are too uber to understand it: Cast it twice on the close combat guys and elementalist who came too near to your monk. Snare them with a deep freeze. Watch them stuck to the place and getting knocked down a lot. Have your monk just sit there and tank the little damage that got through. Watch the other teams monk go crazy about the hefty incoming damage. Once again try moving when you are snared with 66% movement decrease or a 50% malus. Try moving with getting knocked down from two simultaenous Meteor Showers... yeah, sure you are mister uber super.. you can do... sure thing pal. You're not even bringing balanced stance as you are just too uber. bla bla bla. Gotta love wanna be Elitegamers.

And don't try to come with interruption. We all know there is a counter to EVERYTHING out there. And EVERYTHING has its equal share of power under certain conditions. Just saying Fire is useless in PVP is like saying Necros/Mesmers and Rangers are useless in PVE. Both is just plain nonsense.

But speaking about skill... we finally have got the Aeromancer. Hit T. Press Button 1. Press Button 2. Press Button 3. Rinse and repeat. Spam "ololoool ownzorized by leet skills".
Yes, yes i'd love to see you hitting someone with protective spirit on him. Oooops, that just totally nullifies your leet Aeromancer. I guess Air has no use in PVP then...

Eonwe · Aug 11, 2005, 10:20 PM // 22:20

Water is a great line, but with the amount of Nature's Renewal you see in tombs these days, you're better off running either an Air or Earth ele until that skill is fixed.

Tengoku No Yushosha · Aug 12, 2005, 01:51 AM // 01:51

What people don't remember is that EVERY strategy has a counter strategy. Meaning, in time, someone will find a way to easily beat the Spirit Spammers (-Which, has happened alot already-).

Ristaron · Aug 12, 2005, 07:01 AM // 07:01

Edge of Extinction.
Or so is the most common way.
There are several others.

smurfhunter · Aug 12, 2005, 08:04 PM // 20:04

my problem with water elementalists is they dont offer anything unique. like fire (duh) sets people on fire, aoes, etc. air is knockdown, high dmg spikes (you can go pretty long with orb-lightning strike and good attunements). earth is awesome as a support character with the wards and defense stuff.

water.... is like taking a little from each. ish dmg, some aoes, malestrom instead of meteor shower.... meteor shower is better imo, water trident is spammable but... its like using flare as an elite.

basically what im tryin to say is probably any water build can be remade with comparable (and slightly better) fire/air skills.

and idk about you but slowing ppl down is like totally useless.

and someone mentioned deep freeze and ice spikes stops you from running... why would you want to run again? in the pvp (tombs) setting, the only time you run is to dodge warriors and make the follow you, or possibly avoid aoes. i just dont see how slowing ppl down does you any good.

to make water work i think it needs a much better 'special' than snaring/slowing down.

Storm Crow · Aug 12, 2005, 08:11 PM // 20:11

nicely said smurfhunter. I agree entirely.

Arcador · Aug 12, 2005, 08:34 PM // 20:34

Watter can be used for support class or with some strongly team builds in pvp. In PuG it can be a lot of waste. Some water spells are quite good for cross-class hero - like running in a middle of enemy group and slowing them all.

Seron Dalar · Aug 12, 2005, 09:05 PM // 21:05

Obviously you've never played a water elementalist. Or even looked at their skillset.

Maybe you would have noticed "Maelstrom," which essentially interrupts any spell with a 1-second or more casting time for ten seconds and deals damage. Screws up spellcasters quite a bit. Of course, they can walk out-- that's where slowdown comes in. They can still walk out, just slower-- that's where Water Trident comes in. It's not as obvious as the raw damage given by fire and air, but it's as effective if not more. If you combo it with, say, Meteor Shower from a pyromancer on your team, it works even better.

Not to mention fighting Warriors. An Earth mage, of course, can handle a Warrior-- for a while-- if he has the right skills, but a Hydromancer with slowdown and Water Trident can run forever and he'll never catch up. Plus if you have Rust on, it's hilarious when they use healing signets...

The one problem with Water Magic is that there's not much to counter Rangers... so with the Tombs how they are now, it's not easy fighting there. But there are still ways of doing it. Blurred Vision means they'll miss half the time, plus it's an AoE one-time effect. Ward Against Harm helps an incredible amount against some preps (Kindle Arrows, Ignite Arrows, Incendiary Arrows), and is still decent vs. other damage. Mist Form negates their arrow damage, unless of course they have Greater Conflag/Winter. Armor of Mist means you can run away from them, or sit there and take damage if you'd rather. Armor of Frost means you can take more physical damage, although if they have fire preps or Greater Conflag it doesn't help. There's also Swirling Aura, which should actually kick ass vs. rangers, but the 60-second recharge makes it unwieldy.

You say Water's bad because it isn't great at any one thing. I say it's good because it's versatile. I want to deal damage? I can. I want to tank? I can. I want to protect? I can. I want to support? I can.

The major issue right now is that NR completely screws it up, just like half the other possible builds. Honestly I don't see why NR has to affect Hexes as well as Enchantments-- everyone says we'd just have healing balls if NR got nerfed, but if it was just Enchantments... oh, right, anyway.

The biggest dent in Water Magic is probably Mind Freeze. It sucks so much. It's almost exactly the same as Shard Storm, but not a projectile, causes exhaustion, longer recharge, slightly more damage... and it's an ELITE. WHY. If it dealt maybe 10-20 more damage on each hit, it'd be acceptable. But right now it just sucks.

Water's good on its own, but I think it's best used when combined with other people. The Deep Freeze/Meteor Shower/Maelstrom thing is a very simple form of that, but I never see it used. Plus I'm sure it's good when you use it as other classes-- a W/E would probably be happy with Mist Form, Armor of Mist, Armor of Frost, or Frozen Burst (which needs its recharge reduced), for instance. A Mo/E might like Blurred Vision, Ward Against Harm, even Frozen Burst. There are so many ways it can be used... much more than Fire or Air, although I think Earth is quite versatile too.

Buh. I've given away enough secrets. Go back to your spiking or whatever. Water Magic is mine.

smurfhunter · Aug 12, 2005, 11:12 PM // 23:12

well ok ill try to list some of my problems with that build:

(this is in a 4-4 pvp setting, where i usually test builds)

maelstrom - good idea but there are some limitations. first of all, you might not even get to cast it. aoes have long casting times, and i noticed this alot on a fire ele build, you ten to get noticed when ur sitting there casting all by yourself. but thats not specific to maelstrom, so it can really be applied both ways. also, maelstrom does interupt. all well and good, but its quite easy to just walk out since it doesnt have a humungous range. now you mentioned using snares to keep them in it. well even with a snare it takes probably about 2 seconds to walk out. i like meteor shower alot more because by the time they notice it the meteors coming down they start moving and get immediately hit by one. and if they happen to be right in the middle may even get hit by two. and two hits is alot of damage, while maelstrom has more firestorm calibre damage. now you mentoined water trident. i hope you noticed that its elite, meaning you cant use elemental attunement. this means you are going to be running out of energy somewhat faster than you might hope. as to its effectiveness, yes it does knock down moving targets but it isnt like lightning strike, it flies out much like lightning javelin. meaning when they are moving out of a maelstrom they amre moving pretty eratically so those kinds of attacks do tend to miss alot. finally, assume you do manage to snare say one warrior, he doesnt absolutely have to chase after you. if hes smart he just puts up one heal and goes after the nearest mesmer that currently taking a beating ot whatever. NR beats just about any ele, since all your attunements go poof, so i dont really see how this affects water only =/

just to show you what i meant by all the skills being replaceable, let me tell you an air build i use alot (in 4-4, but i think its about the same as the one in tombs). first, instead of maelstrom, take chain lightning. aoe ish effect, you only get hit once, but you who stays in aoes anyway >.> then for water trident use lightning strike. nice damage, always hits unlike water trident. and its not elite. orb as a damage dealer, which can replace a snare. then enervating charge. self explanatory really. the other 4 skills i use elemental attunement, air attune, and aura of restoration. res signet is kinda standard.

the idae of this build is *assuming* you have your enchantments running nicely, and assuming no ones busy rending them or whatever, if its a caster your attacking, just empty chain, orb, strike, orb etc. you wont run out for awhile with the attunes. if its a warrior, you simply use enervating charge. this is especially funny when they run up to you, get weakened, do like 10 damage a hit, and your busy healing for 50 with aura eveyrtime you cast. its more effective than an armor of frost really, it doesnt care if greater conflag is up or something.

granted NR or rend or lingering curse basically wipes you out. but it does that for just about any ele build, so it doesnt really distinguish.

notice how the air build has essentially the same ingrediants as the water build, i.e. an 'aoe' (chain), a water trident thing (strike), a damage dealer, (orb), and an extra condition attack (enervating charge).

its a simple build, nothing fancy. if you keep the attunements running (theyre all possible except the elemental attunement, which is gone for 15 seconds i believe) you can basically forget about your energy and just shoot away. even warriors cant hurt you when theyre right up close, no running or water tridenting involved really.

i hope you understand my frustration with water, nothing in it really works better in its own way. almost eveyrthing is replaceable with something comparable or better. i just outlined an air build that does more damage, relies more on you than on what the enemy may do, and is really simpler.

i can probably make a fire build with something similar in it, but fire works good only in tombs pvp, you just dont do enough damage in 4-4...

and one last thing. water trident knocks people down if they are moving. correct. however, when a warrior is running after you, he isnt just homing in on you, especially if you are unloading on him as he comes. they usually run, use healing hands or something, keep running, stop for breeze, stop to target you, stop to res an ally etc. list goes on. ive noticed projectile attacks rarely hit in these cases. so water trident becomes a waste really

id love to hear your response to this, because for now i havent found a working water build. if you come up with something new that i havent tried, it would be great. thanks.

Aug 12, 2005, 11:30 PM // 23:30

Water Magic is better than fire magic by far. In terms of versatility it's a slight step behind earth. If you dont think slowing people down is good, then dont get your hopes up in PvP.

Actually, there is way too much fallacy in this topic(Water Magic destroys healing Hands, and HH is shit anyway) so its not worth talking about in depth.

Also to add, Water Magic users generally dont need elemental attunement due to their spell pacing+water attunement.

Maelstrom is better than Meteor shower as Ms is easy to dodge, doesn't hit every second and is easy to see. The Maelstrom Aoe effect is larger than the actual graphic.

The snares are hexes, which makes them devestating in hex manipulation builds since they cover them, and convert hexes doesn't add armor when they are used.

Seron Dalar · Aug 13, 2005, 12:26 AM // 00:26

Yes, good points. But you're thinking along the lines of raw damage. I'm not saying Water is better for raw damage than Air is, of course not.

NR affects Water more because... something like 13/18 Water Magic skills are enchantments or hexes. I forget if that's accurate, but you get the idea. Air, I would guess, has maybe... 5? If that.

Warriors... smart? What? Okay, sometimes they'll realize they can't catch me, but a lot of times they'll just charge after me. Taking a warrior out of the mix frees up space for my caster allies. And if the warrior's actually smart, well, I just turn around and start hitting him with Water Trident, Ice Spikes, and whatever else. Or, more likely, I target a weaker caster enemy who I'll deal more damage to.

Nobody dances out of a Maelstrom. They just head out as fast as they can, usually in a straight line. Perfect for Water Trident. Maelstrom's dealing damage the whole time, and they can't cast or anything. Let's assume I hit them with Deep Freeze, then Maelstrom. They stay in my Maelstrom for five seconds because I hit them with Water Trident as they ran out. (I just got a Superior rune, so these numbers could be off, but...) It's something like 90 from the Deep Freeze + 28 * 5 = 140 from the Maelstrom + 61 (I think more) from the Water Trident. So that's roughly 300 raw damage, plus they can't cast. Doubtless your Air combo does more in damage, but nothing like Maelstrom's casting power-- plus both Deep Freeze and Maelstrom are AoE, so if anyone's nearby, they get blasted too. One really nice effect of Maelstrom is the first interrupt you get. If it's just an Orison of Healing or something, it's not all that great (although having that 60 damage not healed for that time, plus the time it takes to escape, is nice), but if you interrupt something big, it's great.

Armor of Frost lasts forever. 30+ seconds, although there is a 45-second recharge... but it costs 5 and casts in 1. I don't know how long Enervating Charge's weakness is for, but I'm guessing it's less than that. Hell, if I felt like it I could bring Mist Form, and just use Armor of Frost in the 10-second window when Mist Form was recharging/being cast after its effect runs out. Although Mist Form does have that 2-second cast time.

Meteor Shower... uh, nobody stays in that. And generally if you get one hit with it, you're lucky. The exception, of course, being if your hydromancer buddy just hit the target with a slowdown spell... heh. (Or if someone else crippled the guy, but you know. My example was more self-serving.)

Energy is something of a problem for me, though. However, that's alleviated a bit by the recharge times on these spells. Granted, I'm not doing much in between, but I wouldn't be doing that much anyway-- I'd just be doing not much with more energy. As it is, in PvP, after I first fire off my skills once or twice I generally end up having to pick and choose every fifteen seconds or so, with the occasional Water Trident in between. ...I love blood necros. But uh... you're right, I probably should look into that.

Aug 13, 2005, 12:32 AM // 00:32

The other day we were discussing Armor of Mist again(was changed a while back, since before it costed 25 iirc). Underrated spell because we havent found a concrete use for it at the moment but we have ideas.

smurfhunter · Aug 13, 2005, 02:41 AM // 02:41

well - i dont really know. in terms of NR, in my air build it completely wastes the attunes. this totally destroys my build since i run out of energy in like 2 seconds, not to mention i cant heal, etc. something like ouch.

as for meteor shower/maelstrom... idk most of my experiance with running out of maelstrom is in uw with coldfires

and there its alot like.. move 2 inches... ur fine. and ive been hit by meteor shower in pvp sometimes... and its like run... aaah i took 140 damage and got knocked down.. and im out. i think the deal is im always casting something when a big aoe hits and im usually too dum to interupt it to run when theres a meteor shower, while maelstrom does it for you lol

the enervating charge thing works indefinetly - 10 energy on the attack and the recharge is quicker than the amount of time the enemy is weakened by.

returning to water trident... my two biggest problems with it are that its 1. elite and 2. a missile. i noticed i miss about 50% of the time on my lightning orb, and im guessing if i spammed it (which i cant) it wouldt be much better.

and blackace, i dont mean to ignore you but if you would be a bit more specific than " that just sucks" maybe i could respond to you...?

and yes that is basically my point, the air combo i use lets me basically non stop spam those 4 air skills, like in the order chain, orb, strike, orb, etc. (i also use the collector wand and item so it helps on the recharge too). this lets me get some pretty good regen from aura of restoration, as well as doing much more damage than the water magic build. its something like 140 damage on chain (assuming they have no resistances to it?) with the same on orb and about 60 on strike/enervating?

and if you really like making them do situps with maelstrom or water trident, try switching elemental attunement out for thunderclap. you wont last forever with it, but for the time you do its more effective than maelstrom and water trident, since it knocks down everyone in the area as well. but, like i said, you will run out of energy if you use that so =/

but my main point isnt that air is better, its that every water skill somewhat annoyingly has a counterpart in the other elements >.< like water trident and maelstrom, try chain lightning with thunderclap. ok maybe mist form is your elite and yes there isnt a counterpart in the other elements, but from my experiance you can never maintain it and its always too little too late when your in a jam...

and if water doesnt do more raw damage, what exactly does it do? slow people down? i mean im sorry for sounding a little sarcastic but huh? fire magic does less than air but you can keep your targets on fire basically forever. earth magic can protect really nicely, and you can do some rather nice damage with it too. but water magic...? like yes maelstrom is a nice skill. yes you will probably knock someone down when they run out of it with water trident. will that kill anyone? not likely. ive noticed that water elementalists in pvp just kind of sit around not doing much until they die because a tank switched targets...

and truthfully.. lets pretend for one second that water magic had a skill which did aoe damage like ice spikes and didnt slow them down but... set them on fire. with the same aoe damage. it doesnt take a genius to notice setting someone on fire is better than slowing a person down...

and it sounds alot like you are kind of justifying the slow down ability by making up alot of scenarios where it matters. well let me tell you a pretty common one where it wont do anything: a warrior beating on say a necro, or some other caster. warrior uses hamstring on the necro. realistically, what can a water mage do then? a fire ele can probably make the tank panic when he notices a humungous hp degen. a spiker can probably get him to start healing when he loses like 300 hp. a water elementalist can... slow him down. woot.

i hope you see my point here...

(and pleeease dont tell me you can stop the warrior from chasing the necro.. we all know that in *many* cases a warrior just sits in place and attacks some person on your team. thats the case im talking about, wether its a necro or w/e)

this is kind of long but one last point: if your thinking about taking a water ele into a tombs group to say annoy people with maelstrom and the snares... wouldnt you be better off with an earth ele? the defense will probably annoy the enemy alot more than a maelstrom... (damit NR should be elite and greater conflag shouldnt... i dont get it)

twicky_kid · Aug 13, 2005, 06:11 AM // 06:11

that's kind of the point of water magic. its utility and prevention vs dmg. fire is for high dmg with lots of AoE spells. earth is def and offensive as well. air is high dmg single target shots.

they all have their different jobs. personally i like the utility and easy intergration into any party. water doesn't have bad damaging spells there is just less of a selection than the other elementals.

smurfhunter · Aug 13, 2005, 06:06 PM // 18:06

thats exactly my point, water magic doesnt do what an ele should be doing, and that is doing all the damage and/or protecting the rest of the team. if you want utility and prevention why not completely dump the water ele and take a necro? he can help out alot more. i just dont see the point if these lukewarm moves which are easily replaced by something better...

as to selection... im not sure what you mean. air eles have like 4-5 damaging spells. and you use almost all of them in an air build. wide selection? not really... i think the problem with water eles isnt the number of spells.. its that all the spells they have just suck. really.

but i would be *very* interested in hearing a water build that you cant replace with something better. it would be great. like really awesome. plz post if you have one!

secretsmg · Aug 13, 2005, 06:10 PM // 18:10

It's useful in certain situations. Spells like maelstrom can change the battlefield positioning quickly. Ward against Harm is a great spell that can lower ranger prep dmg. The problem with water is the energy cost. It almost forces you to run elemental attunement in order to cast for any length of time.

Aug 13, 2005, 08:34 PM // 20:34

Ele/Mes

16 Water
11 Energy Storage
10 Inspiration

Water Trident
Arcane Echo
Shard Storm
Ice Spikes
Deep Freeze
Maelstrom
Water Attunement
Power Drain/channeling

Normal water ele lockdown build

FengShuiBundi · Aug 15, 2005, 03:45 PM // 15:45

Now I'm disappointed... Earth and Water are in my opinion the two best and most versatile elements available for elementalists. I'm slightly biased in favor of earth, but that's only because perpetual knockdowns are a blast.

But since this topic is about water, here is a good way to stop most healing ball, smiting, possibly putrid abusing teams in Tombs.

It's already been said, but here it is again:

TWEAK as necessary, I may be forgetting some things

Maelstrom [Kills smiters and healing ball]
Blurred Vision [Cheaper Ward against Melee that works on Rangers too]
Ice Spikes [Snare + AoE damage]
Ward Against Harm (ELITE)[Protection and Smiter Hate]
Water Attunement [Energy Management]
Power Drain [GREAT spell]
Arcane Echo/Deep Freeze/Res Signet [Snare or Dual Wards]
Res Signet/Energy Tap

The last 2 Slots are really about what you want to be able to do, if you feel you want another snare and more damage, Deep Freeze is great. The defensive types should take Arcane Echo and Energy Tap so that the 2nd Ward goes off better. Res Signet and Energy tap together is a more energy efficient option and allows for a res if necessary.

Stats are up to you.