Curse

MetalMan · Aug 06, 2007, 03:30 PM // 15:30

No, the title wasn't a mistake

Recently, i joined a party and, once pinging my bar (Savannah Heat, Arcane Echo, Immolate, Fireball, Glyph Of Restoration, Fire Attunement, Res Siggy for those who wants to know) was asked several times to change my build to a Searing Flames build or face being kicked... i refused, and therefore was kicked over an elite...

Can anyone help me out as to why there is a Savannah Hate going around, and yet people love Searing Flames that, for 10 extra energy, does less damage in 2 castings and, if spammed, will leave you low on energy. I have ove 70 energy and only in the *rarest* cases do i run below 30.

If anyone can help me figure this out, i'd appreciate it

Skyros · Aug 06, 2007, 03:46 PM // 15:46

Although SH is a really good elite that is often ignored for the more popular SF, my guess why people prefer SF is:

1) SH causes AoE Scatter (which is obviously bad in areas where tank NEEDS to control aggro like in DoA, FoW, etc.) MAybe adding some type of AoE snare like Deep Freeze would help.
2) Although I don't know the EXACT numbers im pretty sure that SF will do more damage per second then SH (at the cost of more energy). However in your description, you seem to have a energy problems with the SF bar. This can be controlled with Fire Attunement, Glyph of Lesser Energy, Glowing gaze, and even taking Eve [Cultist Henchmen] just because of the fact she carries BR and uses it well.
3) People don't like to leave their comfort zones.

But the bottom line is, if you want to use SH in your build, run it by yourself with heroes and henchmen or (in a more devious way), ping a standard SF bar then quickly switch to your SH build before quest.mish start :P

Stormlord Alex · Aug 06, 2007, 03:52 PM // 15:52

Because SF is the cookie-cutter.

Besides, if you're gonna run SH... Go all in, run 3 Heats and Deep Freeze. And a pair of Heroes with 3 Heats and DF, too.

If you're only using one... It seems kinda weak, personally I'd use Teinai's/Searing on a Mind Blast.

MetalMan · Aug 06, 2007, 04:17 PM // 16:17

I usually have more problems running a SF build because i find i have little damage while GoLE recharges, if i use SF while it does i'm on basically 0 energy for ages...

I'll try again with deep freeze, although i target casters with savannah first and they very rarely seem to run. Plus, to 60AL targets, savannah heat = 305 fire damage overall, 2 x savannah heat = 610 if they stay in it

1 x Searing Flames = Burning, 2 x SF = 120? Fire damage to 60AL targets... and then until GoLE recharges, you can't do anything without causing yourself mass energy loss

ZenRgy · Aug 06, 2007, 05:00 PM // 17:00

You do have glowing gaze on your SF bar, right? You shouldn't run into too much energy problems, bringing Mark of Rodgort is a good idea with SF too.

Searing Flames doesn't have SH's weakness of being able to be ran out of easily (provided there are no snares) and the recharge times are fairly long.

SF you can just pick your target and mash your keyboard.

Coloneh · Aug 06, 2007, 07:33 PM // 19:33

SF isnt energy heavy at all if you use it right. so you can stop using that argument.

was there another SF ele in the party? solo, SH eles do quite a bit more damage than SF, but when you have multiple SF eles the damage is incredible.

MBP · Aug 15, 2007, 10:30 PM // 22:30

SF is boring and overused IMO...ya it's effective but SH can be just as good.
SH requires far more skill to use and people who think it's bad are just too afraid to stray from pushing 1, 2, and 3 over and over.

Arcane Echo and SH is standard.

I agree that you need some type of snare...whether it be Gale, Deep Freeze, what have you.

I also suggest having the non-elite heat spells on your bar...Searing Heat (Prophecies) and Tenai's Heat (Factions)

I also take Glyph of Elemental Power to boost my snare spell and my DPS...add Fire Attunement and you're golden.

I also want to suggest using a wand and off hand to get 40% recharge because the recharge time on the Heat's can hurt.

BigDave · Aug 15, 2007, 10:52 PM // 22:52

I've used a combo of Earthbind (from a rit or Razah) with arcane echo, MS, mark of rodgort, glyph of sacrifice, MS, SH on many occasions. Rarely does anything other than the most heavily armoured targets survive. Once you hit that first MS they can almost never move out of the way for the entire duration of the combo and they'll take the full impact of 1029 AoE fire damage + several seconds of burning. You could echo SH instead but you run the risk of them getting out of it with only one MS.

Caster backlines in HM and even some of the more heavily armoured targets in (like dervs and paragons) simply vanished when i was vanquishing. You have to make sure you pick your targets carefully though because the whole combo has a long recharge, but if you hit it (and with a bit of practice you will) you'll kill pretty much anything with it. The best tactic i've found is to have arcane echo already cast, let others go in and get aggro, WAIT a few secs for aggro to settle, then blast them. It's amazing how many times their casters will bunch up for you, especially if you pull them a short distance first.

My bar looked something like this.

Glyph of Lesser Energy
Arcane Echo
Meteor Shower
Glyph of Sacrifice
Savannah Heat
Fireball
Aura of Restoration
Fire Attunement

Once you get the hang of it you'll be able to take out far more than your fair share of targets.

rick1027 · Aug 16, 2007, 02:11 AM // 02:11

ive had the same problem as the op i set it as the usual cookie cutter mode. group tend to want sf even if your the only ele sad fact is mobs drop faster with sh if you know what your doing get a nice snare in there. my thought is let the pug have what they want they'll feel better and may play better if they don't ask you to change them bring what you want

Serenity Divinity · Aug 17, 2007, 06:47 PM // 18:47

I like both SF and SH, but I think SH's recharge is too long...

MBP · Aug 17, 2007, 10:30 PM // 22:30

That's why you take a weapon set that gives you 40% recharge when using SH

phillydilly · Aug 24, 2007, 11:35 AM // 11:35

I've always ran the SF build, but I just capped SH the other day and I found some real usefulness with it.
For one, its a nice change!
Second, like anything else, it depends on the situation. I'm playing through Hard Mode right now, and the scarabs touch skills do 50-80 damage a shot. With Savannah Heat, I can cast that, it does a ton of damage, and keeps them off of me.
I'm still playing with my SH skill bar, but I think I like the skill.

blue.rellik · Aug 24, 2007, 11:41 AM // 11:41

The thing with Savannah is that is sucks when you don't bring spells that support it (aka [skill]Deep Freeze[/skill], [skill]Searing Heat[/skill] and [skill]Teinai's Heat[/skill]) but once you do, it's amazing.

populationcontrol · Aug 24, 2007, 09:56 PM // 21:56

i think people hate savanah heat cause its the type of spell that makes enemies disperse and chase new people . regardless there are ways around that and people are narrowminded and want sf i agree. sf is cool and all but its an energy drain and its really tempting to cast it every 1.5 secs or whatever it takes to recharge. i personally think that eles are the only class that can get way not bringing a damaging elite but a defensive elite (since everything has high damage) and ill do that mostly in pvp if i play fire. if im water or air (damage is much less) ill take damaging elite and then blinds or something. so my point is that sf is not an essential skill, other strategies work as well. even not taking an ofensive elite skill (in the case of an elite enchantment or stance) eles can still be effective.