Curse

Hella Good · Sep 26, 2006, 03:29 AM // 03:29

I noticed no one is saying anything much about NF skills. I sadly didn't get a chance to get on my Ele and play around with the new skills (was too busy drooling over the awesome new Necro skills

) but some of them seemed interesting. These skills intrigued me:

-Blinding Surge-E (elite B Flash, with added damage, small AoE if chant present on target, and cheap and spammable, no exhaustion, too, what's not to love)

-Searing Flames-E (nice damage, the recharge on that is sweet, will be hard to keep up spamming it tho, not sure if its nrg efficient)

-Stoneflesh Aura (wow, this sounds amazing, it's almost too good to be true... is there a catch or is it truly a great proto skill?)

-Ether Prism-E (well, this skill is at least an nrg management skill that does NOT cause Exhaustion, seems usable with Glyph of Lesser Energy and/or focus swapping maybe)

-Freezing Gust (a great snare skill, can pretty much chain it on a target to keep it immobile, maybe use on top of Chilling Winds, altho that doesn't seem to be very nrg efficient)

But overall, I'm not too impressed... Some rly good numbers but a lot of same olds, too. For example, Mind Blast seems nice but it's really a free Flare, with Fire Attunement it will work very well to maintain nrg high but... damagewise it's nothing like a good spike skill. And then there is all the DoT-s again... kinda sick of those.

Any feedback from people who already tested the skills?

ubermancer · Sep 26, 2006, 04:43 AM // 04:43

Ether Prism is bullshit. There is no way in hell that I am bringing a non elite skill, to supplement an elite energy management skill, that STILL leaves me vulnerable to e-denial. [please, quote me]

The only way it could be good is if you were running it in a EW build, and then the 2 sec cast prohibits it from being usable in serious PvP. Imo, it needs either a 10/15 energy cost, or 1 sec cast.

Master of Magic is much the same... it places such absurd restrictions on my build, can not be kept up constantly, and costs 10 energy to use. In 24 seconds, youd have to have it proc 5 times to even get into the red. It DOES work with off class skills, which is nice, but it should be something like +0..2 energy for each spell of the same attribute you have equipped, and likely last a bit less.

Blinding Surge = badass (period)
Invoke Lightning = chain lightning spike lives again!!
Sandstorm = useful
Stone Sheath = useful, but not amazing (pvp exclusive skill)
Mind Blast = very good, damage that you can always use, without a downside
Savannah Heat = follow with a rodgort's invocation, and combine with a water ele. gg.
Searing Flames = meant for quick bursts of aoe pressure. i love it.
Icy Shackles = permanent, multi target mind freeze? where do I sign up?

Oh, and Stoneflesh Aura with Stone Striker and Mantra of Earth = GFG. -9 Destructive Chop, anyone?

LightningHell · Sep 26, 2006, 08:49 AM // 08:49

Stone Sheath would be good if it wasn't easily Drained away.

Ensign · Sep 26, 2006, 09:28 AM // 09:28

Freezing Gust is a useful spot snare, but it gets rather expensive. It's on par with Spikes / Deep Freeze.

Stoneflesh Aura is this silly farming skill that basically gives you god mode, as long as you're farming something without interrupts.

Of the elites, Blinding Surge is nice for a more specialized character (a better blind, lose the Party and snares, gain the Exhaustion). I think you can run it on a Mesmer or something as well...it's a good skill for small fights.

Mind Surge is great for fueling a fire beater, it spaces out your DDs and keeps you pumping out damage while managing your energy. It's pretty innocuous but powerful nonetheless.

Searing Flames would be cute if we had like 20 pips of energy.

Ether Prism is a real pain to use, but the returns are nice enough that I have to try if I ever have 12 ES for whatever reason.

Those are all of the Ch3 skills from Ele that interest me at the moment.

Peace,
-CxE

trialist · Sep 26, 2006, 03:59 PM // 15:59

Yep, Master Of Magic is very restrictive for what it does, the fact that it works on recharging skills in energy storage makes it so. I can't see a primary ele really running this since attunements do a better job albeit for a slightly lesser energy gain.

Think about it, attunements on a 5 energy spell gives you back 1, thats only slightly worse than Master Of Magic at 2 max per spell but attunements lasts longer and with bigger spells gives back more. It also doesn't force you to try to spam like a madman in the 20s window (24 if using a 20% enchantment mod) that it has, plus there isn't any way for Master Of Magic to increase this energy gain since the only other spell that isn't elite in energy storage is Aura Of Restoration which has a 5s recharge.

Someone creative might come up with some way to make a spam built but at present i can't see it. I personally think this skill is mainly to get a discount for using non ele skills, if you are gonna be using primary ele skills, attunements still do a better job and isn't elite for that matter.

For Searing Flames, by itself it looks energy hungry, but when you include its counterpart, Glowing Gaze, along with Fire Attunement, the 15 energy cost isn't that bad. At 16 fire, Glowing Gaze gives back 8 energy, with Fire Attunement on, Searing Flames becomes a 11 cast, Glowing Gaze at 4 but a net gain of 4, making Searing Flames cost just 7 energy, add a wand and focus both with a 20% chance skill recharge mod and you get spammable aoe pressure spike damage. You can even couple this with some big hitter fire spells for bigger effect. Only problem is that Fire Attunement has to stay up, else you run into a world of trouble. I had some fun running this in RA, would be interesting to see how it performs in a team setting.

Edit: Thanks for the correction, Ensign, keep forgetting attunements round down heh, bad habit. Anyway, didn't get a chance to test this but how about just throwing Energizing Winds down? I believe that makes Searing Flames with Fire Attunement and Glowing Gaze cost just 3 energy, am i right? Add some other E-management and you might have something there, i dunno might be just as Mysterial said and end up as some sort of gimmick built for RA/TA/AB.

Vladmir Mironov · Sep 26, 2006, 06:41 PM // 18:41

I'm not too impressed either. I also agree with you saying that a lot of the new Ele skills are very a like the older ones (If that is what you're saying). For some skills this would be good but with that there are a lot of useless ones.

I'm not too wild about Mind Blast since I'm not really about spamming spells so much as Nuke spells that you can spam (I don't PvP with my Ele). Ether Prism I think has potential but I don't think it would take the place of one of my other Elites being used. Stoneflesh Aura I see being just another skill used in all the Ele Earth farming builds, the skill isn't too unlike Armor of Earth. Blinding Surge and Freezing Gust I can't say much about because I have never really made a fooled around with any new Water or Air builds.

Hella Good · Sep 26, 2006, 06:41 PM // 18:41

I wonder if Stone Sheath will work better with Mantra of Earth. The earth damage won't matter on high armor characters (Wars, Rangers, Paragons, even Sins and Dervishes to some extent) and with Mantra of Earth softies will not only recieve reduced damage, they will be gaining nrg every time they get hit. Maybe worth a shot who knows...

Ensign · Sep 26, 2006, 08:39 PM // 20:39

Attunements and friends round. You get one energy back from Glowing Gaze, four from Searing Flames. The only way I've found that skill to function is to milk it with Attunement, Channeling, Glowing Gaze, and usually another emanagement option as well, ala Drain Enchantment.

Mind Blast is definitely a PvE skill. It's pretty awesome there, letting you actually play with fire magic and doing something productive.

Changing enemy physical damage to earth and using Mantra of Earth is just worse than using Armor of Earth in my experience. The exception would be if you were not running with much of an Earth spec, on some sort of Mesmer with good Inspiration. Then it might outperform.

Peace,
-CxE

Mysterial · Sep 26, 2006, 08:55 PM // 20:55

Invoke Lightning is hilarious... pre-nerf Chain Lightning as an elite. When Nightfall ships some people will spike it for a week or two then remember why no one spikes with Elementalists anymore.

Sandstorm is great in RA/AB with all the Dervishes and Assassins taking 60+ DPS and getting slaughtered. The only DOT AoE that actually does what those things should be doing. Ignore it and you die, it's that simple. Savannah Heat would be fine if the AoE matched the description, but sadly it is only "nearby" and thus is just a cheaper version of another skill I'd never take, Searing Heat.

Mind Blast is great. If that skill can't get some Fire Elementalist pressure builds going, it's because not enough of the non-elites have the kind of effect they should. Glowing Gaze is the Elementalist's Essence Strike, something they needed, and Liquid Flame is good as well since it's got alright/conditionally nice damage at only 1 second casting time.

Searing Flames is a bit like Mind Burn... you run it in RA/TA/AB, spend all your energy blowing out a bunch of people and then recharge while waiting for the next battle.

Ether Prism is worthless and if Master of Magic ever gets used, it's because someone figures out a way to abuse it with smite.

Stone Sheath is pretty much a hex-based Greater Conflagration and will be used about as much - i.e, not often. Stone Striker and Mantra of Earth are a good PvE combination though.

Finally, we get to Icy Shackles which is pretty bad since it's not like there are a lack of non-elite slow spells you can stack to get unconditional spammable slow effects.

Hella Good · Sep 26, 2006, 09:42 PM // 21:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Changing enemy physical damage to earth and using Mantra of Earth is just worse than using Armor of Earth in my experience. The exception would be if you were not running with much of an Earth spec, on some sort of Mesmer with good Inspiration. Then it might outperform.

Stone Sheath is a cheap and fairly spammable hex with nice duration at low levels of Earth Magic. There is, however, really no reason to use it unless you build specifically to have elemental damage resistence. Several profs can use armors that reduce elemental damage, and that's always a consideration but Mantra of Earth seems the most worthwhile skill to use with this. I'm not sure about PvP, that is a bit tricky, but in PvE, you can def use the combination in some sort of a farming build, along with all the other "god mode" stuff, as you put it.

Dark Tykane · Sep 26, 2006, 10:52 PM // 22:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hella Good

I wonder if Stone Sheath will work better with Mantra of Earth. The earth damage won't matter on high armor characters (Wars, Rangers, Paragons, even Sins and Dervishes to some extent) and with Mantra of Earth softies will not only recieve reduced damage, they will be gaining nrg every time they get hit. Maybe worth a shot who knows...

I've always hoped for a way to control damage taken so i can use mantras without completely wasting an elite on Greater Conflagration I've already started thinking of ways to utilize it in and outside pvp.

Ensign · Sep 26, 2006, 11:37 PM // 23:37

Oh, Stone Striker was what I was thinking of. Yeah, basically it's ok if you have low earth spec, otherwise Armor of Earth gives you better returns by a wide margin. Plus it makes you /mesmer instead of /monk with is QQ.

Peace,
-CxE

ubermancer · Sep 27, 2006, 04:16 AM // 04:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mysterial

Invoke Lightning is hilarious... pre-nerf Chain Lightning as an elite. When Nightfall ships some people will spike it for a week or two then remember why no one spikes with Elementalists anymore.

Because Chain Lightning was nerfed?

Hella Good · Sep 27, 2006, 05:07 AM // 05:07

A lot of the "new skills" they came up with for NF are actually extentions or spin-offs existing skills. Invoke Lightning is a extention to Chain Lightning, Blinding Surge is a spin-off B Flash, etc. This is not to say there is no originality left but I do feel ANet are suffering from Skill Creation Exhaustion.

Dark Tykane · Sep 27, 2006, 11:25 PM // 23:25

I looked at elemental flame and thought about how water magic has always been the hex element in my mind....maybe it would add on to kiting as water eles but theres more ways to achieve almost the same effect...

Former Ruling · Sep 29, 2006, 03:58 AM // 03:58

BLinding Surge:
Better Elite Blinding Flash. But...you are giving up Ether Prod...So its a trade off. You are BEST blinder there, but lack the power elites to fire off Heal Partys and such.It is HAXS in PvE too..and Allaince battles...And RA/TA...

Invoke Lightning:
For eles to use dmg skill elites, they gotta be HAX, and this isn't...

Sandstorm:
In PvE monsters run from AoE, in PvP..Humans run from AoE. This would have been HAX before the aoe nerf in pve though.

Stone Sheath:
An elite that...I dont know...used so you can use Geomancer armor? So Orders doesnt work?

Ether Prism:
Wow...just wow...Gotta use 15/-1 things to make it worth anything, and lesser energy glyph if you REALLY want to do anything...

Master of Magic:
I am too tired to repeat people

Mind Blast:
Like a free Flare >_> FLARE. Nuff Said. PvE nuke elite MAYBE.

Savannah Heat:
Bugged, AND if it wasnt bugged, still sucks alot. Sandstorm is better.

Searing Heat:
An alliancemate made a spike with this, Its like a Starburst spike, but more expensive and long ranged <_< Didnt go with them, So didnt see it in action.

Icy Shackles:
Slowdown is one person only, and depends on them having an enchantment..so I dont see water eles in gvg using it.

Phades · Sep 29, 2006, 02:41 PM // 14:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Former Ruling

BLinding Surge:
Better Elite Blinding Flash. But...you are giving up Ether Prod...So its a trade off. You are BEST blinder there, but lack the power elites to fire off Heal Partys and such.It is HAXS in PvE too..and Allaince battles...And RA/TA...

Thats more of a mesmer eliete misplaced in the elementalist skill set.

Hella Good · Sep 29, 2006, 02:53 PM // 14:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Thats more of a mesmer eliete misplaced in the elementalist skill set.

Meh, please, spare us a few! The new Me elites are horrible beyond horrible. Least Eles got a few goodies in there.