Curse

Silk Weaver · Dec 22, 2007, 06:07 PM // 18:07

You can take some time to read my edits.

In other news, 50% block rate does not reduce a wariror DPS to the same level as your when you are Pblocked. Your damage potential then is near nil; remember pblock can recharge faster, is only one skill. I assume guardian means guardian-ing every target? Well that means casting LOTS of guardians, I'm afraid, since warriors can switch through up to 7 targets...

AS I'VE ALREADY STATED, WHICH YOU DID NOT ADDRESS

... ahem, and they also have a short duration compared to pblock. I only use pblock as an example. What about power drain, power leak, savage shot, diversion, dshot, magebane, agonizing, and so on and so forth? What about migraine covered with other hexes like shirnking armor? Pblock is just one very good example-- by no means the only.

It's a good example that one skill stops you in your tracks a lot better than any one counter warriors have.

Hexes are pulled off quickly or can be ignored. Blind removed very very quickly. Both of these are easily disabled by mesmers and rangers.

Enchantments... dude.

SoD is 10 fricken energy. Guardian is 1 second cast time! Can a monk really spend 1.75 second on every target? .75 is after cast. By the time he guardians half the team, the first guardian is already wearing out. And what happens to his energy? Guardian at most takes away 50% DPS, and considering a warrior's DPS WITHOUT SKILLS, that's quite a damned lot.

Half of a warrior's DPS using skills and vamp and all that is still better than your DPS stopped by merely ONE skill. Choose any. Choose Diversion, mayhap? Choose Powerleak? no more chain. Choose Power Block? wand enemy for 16 seconds or whatever.

I understand there are MANY warrior counters, but like Guardian, they are easier to soften. That above example of attacking through guardian is what lazy people do. Smart people would have it shattered or diverted by an ally, and attack another target.

Do you think that warriors take no skill and just mash buttons? They choose targets wisely.

Sorry, I have more experience playing practically any sort of character than you do. I used to test builds for wiki, and I've seen many like yours. DPS casters? Yeah. DPS Rangers? Yeah. Lots of retarded shit, really.

Aside from empirical knowledge, I am also capable of reasoning. So there.

I am willing, however, to concede that you deal more damage in an enviroment without ANY mesmer/ranger disabling spells whatsover, and NO effective warrior IAS. In that situation, your damage would be on par with a warrior (perhaps), you would be weaker in armor, but also have the advantage of range and impossible to disrupt.

Now find me an enviroment outside of PvE where that is true.

Another Child · Dec 22, 2007, 06:09 PM // 18:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silk Weaver

Moar Edit:

I must go soon, and can't wait for you to finish typing your angry reply.

For your answer, what can do you what your build does better, I answer: Mind Blast. Better damage potential, possibilities of utility due to energy gain, AoE for cleaning NPCs especially after VoD, good speedbuff with Flame Djinn. It also opens itself to the problems I mentioned above. Like your water build, mind blasters are extremely prone to mesmers and rangers, though a bit less so due to massive energy spam and low recharge; they can afford it.

They can also flag and solo npcs or even support in ganks. Yours? Kinda. Not so much. Need speedbuff and good healing. No energy gain, sucks to be you, spamming heal spells. Mystic Regen + Djinn + Attune, is an option, for example. Can you?

Eprod Flag Runners used to do damage support with Lightning Strike, but only IN ADDITION to utility duty such as blinding flash and gale; not pure damage. They do pressure, yes. Damage from eles can support, but they are nothing without their utility, which is flag running and blind/gale.

Therefore, for me to find lots of examples of builds that do what your build does is impossible, since what you want to do is stupid. How can a game allow for a midline character that is more effective than a front line one? Imagine, frontline player > MANY counters. In order for frontline characters to be used at all, they need to have an effectivenss advantage, and GW is based entirely off frontline.

Imagine an RTS. Ranged units always have a statistical disadvantage when compared to non ranged, because they take less microing.

Mind Blast is the only significant example because it is a stupid class. It is strong but easy to shut down, and depend on good team coordination, which is cool and dandy, but a class that does damage from range should never be more effective than one that does it close up. Unavoidable Restrictions/Risk must result in Additional Gain.

Yes, it can solo NPCs rather easily.... yes it can add flame djinn and mystic regen to the attune, but mystic requires an investment in earth prayers I'd rather not make, however, this is more the kind of suggestion I was looking for. With that earth prayers investment you get a +9 regen buff, I just get the equivalent of +3 without.

However, arguing that a mind blast ele does more damage, then telling me that eles deal less damage than warriors, well, you can't have it both ways. This does more damage than a warrior.

Another Child · Dec 22, 2007, 06:13 PM // 18:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silk Weaver

You can take some time to read my edits.

In other news, 50% block rate does not reduce a wariror DPS to the same level as your when you are Pblocked. Your damage potential then is near nil; remember pblock can recharge faster, is only one skill. I assume guardian means guardian-ing every target? Well that means casting LOTS of guardians, I'm afraid, since warriors can switch through up to 7 targets...

AS I'VE ALREADY STATED, WHICH YOU DID NOT ADDRESS

... ahem, and they also have a short duration compared to pblock. I only use pblock as an example. What about power drain, power leak, savage shot, diversion, dshot, magebane, agonizing, and so on and so forth? What about migraine covered with other hexes like shirnking armor? Pblock is just one very good example-- by no means the only.

It's a good example that one skill stops you in your tracks a lot better than any one counter warriors have.

Hexes are pulled off quickly or can be ignored. Blind removed very very quickly. Both of these are easily disabled by mesmers and rangers.

Enchantments... dude.

SoD is 10 fricken energy. Guardian is 1 second cast time! Can a monk really spend 1.75 second on every target? .75 is after cast. By the time he guardians half the team, the first guardian is already wearing out. And what happens to his energy? Guardian at most takes away 50% DPS, and considering a warrior's DPS WITHOUT SKILLS, that's quite a damned lot.

Half of a warrior's DPS using skills and vamp and all that is still better than your DPS stopped by merely ONE skill. Choose any. Choose Diversion, mayhap? Choose Powerleak? no more chain. Choose Power Block? wand enemy for 16 seconds or whatever.

I understand there are MANY warrior counters, but like Guardian, they are easier to soften. That above example of attacking through guardian is what lazy people do. Smart people would have it shattered or diverted by an ally, and attack another target.

Do you think that warriors take no skill and just mash buttons? They choose targets wisely.

Sorry, I have more experience playing practically any sort of character than you do. I used to test builds for wiki, and I've seen many like yours. DPS casters? Yeah. DPS Rangers? Yeah. Lots of retarded shit, really.

Aside from empirical knowledge, I am also capable of reasoning. So there.

And power block has a recharge. All I hear from you is power block this, powerblock that. I could take a ranger with incendiary arrows and your warrior would never deal a point of damage, great! Would I? No, that's retarded. If I'm being pblock camped, some necro monk or mes isn't. If we are setting up wards, well, we are setting them up anyway. Everything has a counter, this is harder to counter than a warrior, and deals more damage, making it more important to counter. Here's a warrior counter for you: run around in circles. Oh man, whatever will I do? You haven't even worked out the damage of the build when it has water pblocked, you just assume, again. It's more than a warrior with a 50% miss rate for any of the million and one reasons a warrior could have a 50% miss rate.

It's also more than a pblocked mind blast ele, and is more than that ele when both are free to spam as well. Mind blaster brings utility? What's blind, a cover hex, and 1-2 free skill slots to do with as you will? Is draw utility? Is gaze? What about a pair of water hexes? You can do any, without slowing down your damage at all. Even at full spamming there is plenty of room in the cycle to do something else, and plenty of energy. Mind blast? Not so much. Energy yes, time, no. If you want to do something else, your pressure (which is inferior in the first place) slackens.

Ensign · Dec 22, 2007, 11:27 PM // 23:27

This guy's on par with or a little better than dual-Attunement Air guys; you get degen along with damage as opposed to AP, blind + damage instead of a more spammable blind, and distributed emanagement instead of an Attunement stack. It's less prone to disruption than the Air guy, but more prone to Prot as you're much weaker switching targets than a guy with Hammer and Orb.

To that extent it's a decent enough low-end PvP template, for those areas of the game where a damage caster isn't a complete joke.

If you stop focusing on the bad parts of the OP's build and strategy (simply cycling DPS skills on targets in short bursts of mediocre damage) I think there are plenty of good ideas in there to play with; Glyph of Immolation is great with Water in general and not just Steam, and while Glowing Ice is no Glyph of Lesser Energy, it's a reasonable enough substitute when you're taking advantage of Glyph of Immolation.

If you take the good parts of the original build:

Shatterstone
Steam
Glowing Ice
Glyph of Immolation
Water Attunement

and replace the crap with the standard goodies, Blurred Vision and Freezing Gust, mix in Armor of Mist for Alliance Battles, and play like a real Water Ele, I think the archtype has enough going for it that you can't dismiss it entirely.

Mouse at Large · Dec 23, 2007, 12:28 AM // 00:28

I'll make two observations...

1) It's an interesting concept for a build and it deserves more consideration that "it can't outdamage a Warrior=automatic fail," If the guy likes the build and it works for him, so be it. I have builds that stray outside "orthodoxy", but I'm not going to spend time trying to convince anyone else that they are the bees knees.

2) The real problem with this build, and I base this on PvE (as this is a mainly PvE forum according to its title) is that it misses the main strength of PvE eles i.e. multi-target damage and effects - either directly via AoE/DoT elemental spells or indirectly via sustained burning (usually), slowdows etc. Single target eles might have a place in PvP, but I'll leave that up to the PvE gurus.

Pace

Another Child · Dec 23, 2007, 02:14 AM // 02:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

This guy's on par with or a little better than dual-Attunement Air guys; you get degen along with damage as opposed to AP, blind + damage instead of a more spammable blind, and distributed emanagement instead of an Attunement stack. It's less prone to disruption than the Air guy, but more prone to Prot as you're much weaker switching targets than a guy with Hammer and Orb.

To that extent it's a decent enough low-end PvP template, for those areas of the game where a damage caster isn't a complete joke.

If you stop focusing on the bad parts of the OP's build and strategy (simply cycling DPS skills on targets in short bursts of mediocre damage) I think there are plenty of good ideas in there to play with; Glyph of Immolation is great with Water in general and not just Steam, and while Glowing Ice is no Glyph of Lesser Energy, it's a reasonable enough substitute when you're taking advantage of Glyph of Immolation.

If you take the good parts of the original build:

Shatterstone
Steam
Glowing Ice
Glyph of Immolation
Water Attunement

and replace the crap with the standard goodies, Blurred Vision and Freezing Gust, mix in Armor of Mist for Alliance Battles, and play like a real Water Ele, I think the archtype has enough going for it that you can't dismiss it entirely.

If you take out glowing gaze you will have to slow down at some point when using other spells, but you can potentially drop fire to 7+1, opening a 3rd atttribute, depending on what other spells you choose to bring. You lose the flexibility to throw out any spell you have without worrying whether glyph is active though, meaning sometimes you'll be caught short when you need a blind or nonwater spell to do something that will have impact.

Spells that don't target enemies, like wards or party heals, could be useful in this case. You could get 10(+1) in a third attrribute by dropping glowing gaze, a point out of energy storage, and 5 points out of fire, none of which really hurts you aside from limiting your energy management to below 'infinite without disruption'.

If you did that, water hexes may not be ideal, as once glowing gaze is removed, you are left with a glyph you can't use with anything if you do get pblocked, so I'd really look at options for a third attribute such as curses, illusion magic, earth magic, or air magic.

Oh, and imo you still have to make sure you have a cover for your attune, just because 45 seconds is a really long time to lose your attune to a random strip.

LightningHell · Dec 23, 2007, 07:16 AM // 07:16

Quote wars~ Note that I'm quoting haphazardly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Another Child

What I would have really liked is for a few people to look at it and say 'not a bad idea, let's see if I can make it work in x environment with a few changes'. See the reason I would have liked that is because I have had a lot of success with it, so I know the idea is sound, it just needs some purpose.

This is the main problem with your whole thread. "I made this build, I ran it, I won a game. It must be good, since I ran it and won a game." You are also unable to accept that when this build is weakened by one or two skills, your damage output is simply ignorable. Also, many of your points are not unlike this (note, this is actually quoted from what you said):

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However, arguing that a mind blast ele does more damage, then telling me that eles deal less damage than warriors, well, you can't have it both ways. This does more damage than a warrior.

There is no provided reason apart from "It does". How can you be expected to be taken seriously?

Besides, how is this build not a spike? You have not provided any reason other than "It's not a spike".

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I'd like you to keep in mind that we are comparing a two different styles of pressure here however. One is a midline character.

Of course. Hence why we're saying all this; midline pressure tends to be not as much of a threat as melee pressure.

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It spikes harder than a warrior, and it deals more consistent damage, being that it is able to do so against targets that are blocking, kiting, etc.

Yes, your elementalist can do damage. Not unlike a necromancer that uses blood magic.

It is not of consequence, since your damage is easily predicted, as well as alleviated.

Remember that when a Warrior doesn't kill in a spike, there's an immediate threat present - he's going to kill the target in less than a second if one doesn't respond. There is no such threat with your elementalist.

Quote:

He has to be dealt with, because just like a warrior, if left alone he will really put some hurt on anyone he catches out. He is quite difficult to deal with because the more effective ways to do so require midline characters to extend further than they would have to if they were trying to deal with the melee.

Also keep in mind that a threat can be dealt with by sticking a threat on the threatening character. It is easier to stick a threat on a character when said character doesn't have Warrior armor as well as innate survival skills.

Quote:

I know it would be a bad runner even with armor of mist and mending touch or something, because rangers would still rape you. I know it can't stand in the front line, even with 102 armor from armor of mist it simply doesn't have the survivability of a warrior. Besides, even with an enchanting mod, armor of mist has 5 seconds downtime in every 30, and pausing to reapply alleviates pressure on the enemy.

Actually, if you modify it to be more water-oriented it'd be a pretty good flagger. But as it is, it simply doesn't do anything worthwhile.

Quote:

If you are anywhere near it, you are just as vulnerable as though you were standing right next to a warrior. That's not going to force people to kite though, since they can't really.

It spikes harder than a warrior, and it deals more consistent damage, being that it is able to do so against targets that are blocking, kiting, etc.

...I have to go.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

If you take the good parts of the original build:

Shatterstone
Steam
Glowing Ice
Glyph of Immolation
Water Attunement

and replace the crap with the standard goodies, Blurred Vision and Freezing Gust, mix in Armor of Mist for Alliance Battles, and play like a real Water Ele, I think the archtype has enough going for it that you can't dismiss it entirely.

I second this. Just go play a Water ele.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Another Child

And power block has a recharge. All I hear from you is power block this, powerblock that.

A template PBlock mesmer has Diversion, Shatter Enchantment, and other stuff on his bar too.

Quote:

I could take a ranger with incendiary arrows and your warrior would never deal a point of damage, great! Would I? No, that's retarded.

Yes, that's retarded, mainly because a cripshot would do that much and more.

Quote:

If I'm being pblock camped, some necro monk or mes isn't. If we are setting up wards, well, we are setting them up anyway.

If you got pblocked, that doesn't stop a necro, monk or ele being diverted.

Wards are a concern - however, this constricts movement from your team, and

Quote:

Everything has a counter, this is harder to counter than a warrior, and deals more damage, making it more important to counter.

You still haven't told us how it's exactly dealing more damage than a Warrior.

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Here's a warrior counter for you: run around in circles. Oh man, whatever will I do?

Sprint/Rush? Besides, if you're running around in circles, that's however many seconds that you're casting a spell.

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You haven't even worked out the damage of the build when it has water pblocked, you just assume, again. It's more than a warrior with a 50% miss rate for any of the million and one reasons a warrior could have a 50% miss rate.

SoD, Guardian, whatever.

Learn to switch targets.

Quote:

It's also more than a pblocked mind blast ele, and is more than that ele when both are free to spam as well. Mind blaster brings utility? What's blind, a cover hex, and 1-2 free skill slots to do with as you will?

Blind is utility. Blind on a target you're going to kill is not utility.

Cover hexes are not utility. Cover hexes are essential functions of any hex build.

Quote:

Is draw utility? Is gaze? What about a pair of water hexes? You can do any, without slowing down your damage at all.

Draw is utility. Gaze of Contempt is not so much utility than what you can do to lessen your damage being countered, because honestly, your character switches targets very poorly - unlike a more flexible threat such as a Mind Blast or a melee. A pair of water hexes is utility, but you'd have to drop your precious cover enchant for it.

Quote:

Even at full spamming there is plenty of room in the cycle to do something else, and plenty of energy. Mind blast? Not so much. Energy yes, time, no. If you want to do something else, your pressure (which is inferior in the first place) slackens.

Not really. Using Mind Blast you rarely go below 40 energy if used properly - and you can easily spam Heal Party or such like when alternating between spamming. (You haven't used a Mind Blast ele, have you?)

As specified in the middle of the post, I have to leave now - I'll probably be back on tomorrow if I'm lucky.

Another Child · Dec 23, 2007, 09:17 AM // 09:17

Look your whole argument revolves around the fact that it's hard to block, snare, hex, or blind warriors, which we both know isn't true. I'm not even sure why you are bothering actually.

The build, when pblocked, does more damage than a warrior with 50% miss rate, as you would know if you had either run it against pblock or simply figured out the damage output of glowing gaze+glyph of immolation+wand(even with 50% miss rate), as well as the damage of a warrior who is missing/being blocked. You haven't bothered, so you are basing your argument on fallacy. Your 'hard counter' is less effective against this build than the million 'soft counters' are on warriors. It's pretty simple really, go figure it out instead of trying to pass falsehood as fact.

And let me reiterate for the simple/slow: it's not meant to replace a warrior. It's another method of adding pressure, that requires attention from characters designed to hate out midline/backline characters, being that the typical melee hate does not help your monks in any way against this pressure.

And yet again, the damage output is simply higher. The warrior spikes for 260 including his deep wound. That won't kill anything. This spikes for 390 without a deep wound. That won't kill anything. Put the two together. Something died.

This spikes harder, and adds the same level of pressure to force a situation where something is vulnerable.

Apart from the basic flaw in your argument of overestimating warrior damage simply because that's always been the best way of dealing it, and underestimating the damage of this build simply because it's a water ele which has always had low damage, some of your arguments have been quite irrational. Things like 'spirit bond is a great counter to your spike but sod costs 10 energy from a monk' are pretty much clutching at straws.

You have spent a surprising amount of time and effort trying to belittle the build considering you have put none at all into assessing what it is actually capable of. It deals about 20% more dps than a mind blast ele when both are spamming. The fact that you keep insisting that a mind blaster deals more shows that you haven't bothered trying to figure out what this one can do. Because the dps is largely frontloaded, it has plenty of time to do other things while continuing to deal damage, whereas if a mind blaster stops spamming to do anything at all, he loses damage.

frojack · Dec 23, 2007, 09:40 AM // 09:40

It's certainly an interesting concept. We've tried Glyph builds in the past but being Glyph-locked can be annoying if anything. It can make the ele a bit too cluncky and slowing down key skills is generally a horrible idea.

These are bars I've experimented with in 4v4 and other non-GvG areas...

12+2 air
10+1 e storage
7+1 fire

Mind Shock
Lightning Bolt
Lightning Javelin/Convert Hexes/Draw
Shell Shock
Blinding Flash
Glyph of Immolation
Attunement

It's got a nice spike (about 175 damage with the burning + knock down, good for shutting down someone else for a bit while your warrior kills something) but it's still just a support build at heart. You'll notice there are no major 2 second cast offense skills to try and make up for the need to cast GoI, but even then the build is too slow. It's nice in some ways since the burning does interesting things to condition removal since it covers your main stuff, but that really is about it.

All the water variants we've tried are ok (Trident, even the lol-some anti-kiter Mind Freeze) but just don't exhibit enough quality to use extensively. Even the air variant has issues (Glyph locked into GoI means paying for B Flash without GoLE in a war of attrition becomes game losing).
Basically the build is still warrior support whichever way you slice it. Those monsters are just too efficient at killing stuff to ignore as your main DD, regardless or DPS number wars. I won't pretend to understand the reasons why perfectly by bringing up silly numbers, I just watch/play matches and see it for myself...

Even then we've found the Mind Blast versions to be more robust anyways. No need for any Glyphs, unless you need Rodgorts on recharge for like 40 minutes straight, and paying for stuff like Convert, Extinguish, Stability spam, even Spirit Bond-lite (don't ask) is almost never a major problem.

Incidentally this has been fun...

Mind Blast
Immolate
Rodgort's
Steam/Convert/Extinguish
Blurred
Ice Spikes
Attunement

... But then I have to play Against Megabane Hax so it doesn't mean shit anyways...

(Yes, I just posted to bitch about that...)

frojack · Dec 23, 2007, 09:48 AM // 09:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Another Child

The warrior spikes for 260 including his deep wound. That won't kill anything. This spikes for 390 without a deep wound. That won't kill anything. Put the two together. Something died...

This is kinda' the point. People generally coordinate to kill shit, your right. However when you play attrition (as in most PvP matches) you can't beat a warrior. They can c-space for free. It costs an ele a fair bit to try and match that.
Counters or no counters, sooner or later the warrior can skill stuff with his 'rubbish spike' for the same reason that the ele runs out of steam. Those prot's just become too expensive to maintain...

Another Child · Dec 23, 2007, 11:53 AM // 11:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by frojack

This is kinda' the point. People generally coordinate to kill shit, your right. However when you play attrition (as in most PvP matches) you can't beat a warrior. They can c-space for free. It costs an ele a fair bit to try and match that.
Counters or no counters, sooner or later the warrior can skill stuff with his 'rubbish spike' for the same reason that the ele runs out of steam. Those prot's just become too expensive to maintain...

I agree, that's what I posted earlier. Most ele builds that can maintain warrior like damage run out of energy. This doesn't. By the time you can use every skill on the bar, you have regained more energy than you have spent, which gives you room to throw in other effects. Disabling glyph or interrupting either of the glows won't change that, only stripping attunement and it's cover, as well as disabling glyph or a glow, will slow you down eventually, and that only if done shortly after a recast. Again though, all it does is slow you down, not shut you out.

With the attune up and no interruption:
glyph+shatterstone+glowing ice+steam+glowing gaze = 35 energy.

Attune gives 6 for shatterstone, 2 for glowing ice, 2 for steam = 10.
Glowing ice gives 9 = 19.
Glowing gaze gives 8 = 27.
11 seconds before full recharge = 14 natural regen.

Total spent = 35, total regained in that time = 41. You have room to cope with a bit of disruption or throwing out support, although being disrupted while supporting will force you to slow down, as will heavy disruption. Not unlike a heavily hexed warrior will slow down.

If it comes down to a direct measure of who can apply the most pressure in terms of both damage and disruption, while requiring the least support in terms of time and energy from his teams monks to take care of said damage and disruption, I can stand toe to toe with a warrior and finish about 35 health down. Even more selfreliant arena style builds that can remove their own blind will get me to about 50% before they are running and dying. For the bad at math, that means I'm applying twice as much pressure as a warrior who is being kept clean, even if he has to pause for 1/4-1 second for that, that's a significant difference. Keeping blind that is covered by burning off your teams rangers and warriors costs someone time and energy. That's easy enough for the naysayers to go test, feel free, I'm off to work.

LightningHell · Dec 23, 2007, 01:36 PM // 13:36

Was just wandering when I'm not supposed to, but I felt this post really needed responding to.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Another Child

Look your whole argument revolves around the fact that it's hard to block, snare, hex, or blind warriors, which we both know isn't true. I'm not even sure why you are bothering actually.

We do know that it's easy to apply block. That's why there's target switching. We've been trying to get this concept through for what? 4 pages now?

We do know it's easy to hex warriors. However, such hexes either require active maintenance (i.e. snares, which are generally costly and/or have short durations), or you can still hit through them.

We do know that it's easy to cripple or blind warriors. However, any competent backline solves such a problem.

Quote:

The build, when pblocked, does more damage than a warrior with 50% miss rate

TARGET SWITCH.

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, as you would know if you had either run it against pblock or simply figured out the damage output of glowing gaze+glyph of immolation+wand(even with 50% miss rate), as well as the damage of a warrior who is missing/being blocked.

Sheesh.

Can you please not think in terms of "this counters that, that counters this"?

I probably'll be annoyed enough to write an essay on how caster damage - more specificially, your build - is pretty ineffective.

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You haven't bothered, so you are basing your argument on fallacy. Your 'hard counter' is less effective against this build than the million 'soft counters' are on warriors. It's pretty simple really, go figure it out instead of trying to pass falsehood as fact.

I haven't bothered, because the premise of the build being "pressure" is based on a false understanding on how the game works.

Your damage is based on a 3-second-damage cycle that has a 5 second recharge. Spiking is damage compression into a period of time as so to allow less time for the opposition to react. Hence, your build, according to this definition, is a rather sloppily constructed spike (3 seconds wtf? I haven't even counted aftercast, so it's probably something like 5, given that each spell has 0.75 second aftercast).

And again, please stop thinking in terms of "counters", as everything has a counter. This build

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And let me reiterate for the simple/slow: it's not meant to replace a warrior. It's another method of adding pressure, that requires attention from characters designed to hate out midline/backline characters, being that the typical melee hate does not help your monks in any way against this pressure.

I do understand that. I however do not understand why you would take this over another character, say, a template Water elementalist with Shatterstone, or a Mind Blast ele.

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And yet again, the damage output is simply higher. The warrior spikes for 260 including his deep wound. That won't kill anything. This spikes for 390 without a deep wound. That won't kill anything. Put the two together. Something died.

You compare a Warrior spike to this pathetic joke of a spike (I mean, 3+ seconds wtf?), then say Warriors don't deal enough damage because apparently their autoattacks heal the enemy, right?

o ok.

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This spikes harder, and adds the same level of pressure to force a situation where something is vulnerable.

The problem?

YOUR "PRESSURE" IS YOUR SPIKE.

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Apart from the basic flaw in your argument of overestimating warrior damage simply because that's always been the best way of dealing it, and underestimating the damage of this build simply because it's a water ele which has always had low damage, some of your arguments have been quite irrational. Things like 'spirit bond is a great counter to your spike but sod costs 10 energy from a monk' are pretty much clutching at straws.

I have already done a damage calculation in page 1 or 2. If you haven't read that, go read it.

I did not overestimate warrior damage - it should be common knowledge that an Axe war frenzying at 16 weapon spec has 40 DPS.

Things like 'spirit bond is a great counter to your spike but sod costs 10 energy from a monk' were not suggested.

Please do not resort to false statements.

Quote:

You have spent a surprising amount of time and effort trying to belittle the build considering you have put none at all into assessing what it is actually capable of. It deals about 20% more dps than a mind blast ele when both are spamming. The fact that you keep insisting that a mind blaster deals more shows that you haven't bothered trying to figure out what this one can do. Because the dps is largely frontloaded, it has plenty of time to do other things while continuing to deal damage, whereas if a mind blaster stops spamming to do anything at all, he loses damage.

A Mind Blast ele has a net energy gain from using skills. As such, even if a Mind Blast ele has somewhat less DPS, it can spam important and needed utility such as Heal Party, as well as capitalize on some situations via Rodgort's, etc. Your build cannot. It is very inflexible. That has nothing to do with 'counters lol'.

Quote:

I agree, that's what I posted earlier. Most ele builds that can maintain warrior like damage run out of energy. This doesn't. By the time you can use every skill on the bar, you have regained more energy than you have spent, which gives you room to throw in other effects. Disabling glyph or interrupting either of the glows won't change that, only stripping attunement and it's cover, as well as disabling glyph or a glow, will slow you down eventually, and that only if done shortly after a recast. Again though, all it does is slow you down, not shut you out.

...

Another Child · Dec 23, 2007, 08:15 PM // 20:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by LightningHell

Was just wandering when I'm not supposed to, but I felt this post really needed responding to.

We do know that it's easy to apply block. That's why there's target switching. We've been trying to get this concept through for what? 4 pages now?

However this doesn't address hexes that slow attack rate, hexes that increase miss rate, basic kiting while regaining energy, transit time when switching targets, a snare that sticks for 2 seconds, wards, or the fact that a blind that sticks for even half a second can and will do it's job when timed right, costing you a whole stack of adrenaline.

When warriors are frenzying on immobile targets and spamming attack skills every time they are charged, they can achieve the same dps as this can, without considering the various counters to each. Warriors can't frenzy on immobile targets for an entire match, nor do they blind. In fact they often bring little support apart from that which will allow them to apply their dps, and other members of the team are required to do the same.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LightningHell

We do know it's easy to hex warriors. However, such hexes either require active maintenance (i.e. snares, which are generally costly and/or have short durations), or you can still hit through them.

You can hit through something like shadow of fear, just like I can wand and glyphed gaze through pblock. But my wand and glyphed gaze does more damage than your shadow of feared warrior, so even when we apply a standard 10 energy, 5 recharge counter with a 20+ second duration to the warrior, and an elite 15 energy, 20 second recharge counter with a 12+ second duration to me, I'm still dealing more damage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LightningHell

We do know that it's easy to cripple or blind warriors. However, any competent backline solves such a problem.

Nothing 'solves' anything entirely. So you don't have to sit through an entire 8 second blind. It will still stop your spike.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LightningHell

TARGET SWITCH.

Moving still takes time, and people can still see which way you are going, as far as I am aware. Or I guess you could shadowstep everytime you saw a blocking enchant go up or your target start kiting?

Quote:

Originally Posted by LightningHell

I haven't bothered, because the premise of the build being "pressure" is based on a false understanding on how the game works.

Your damage is based on a 3-second-damage cycle that has a 5 second recharge. Spiking is damage compression into a period of time as so to allow less time for the opposition to react. Hence, your build, according to this definition, is a rather sloppily constructed spike (3 seconds wtf? I haven't even counted aftercast, so it's probably something like 5, given that each spell has 0.75 second aftercast).

I broke it down for you already. If you cast every damage spell on the bar consecutively, there is no great pause when aftercast is considered, and the target is constantly burning, with no pause at all. 3 seconds in which to do something else while your target burns, which could be more pressure such as hexes, more damage if you so chose, or something defensive, isn't any kind of loss at all. The total output over ANY period of time is still more than a warrior. Standing around waiting for a warrior to deal enough damage that it's worth healing his target is no different from standing around waiting for 3 seconds recharge time. No one said you have to chain the spells imediately after one another anyway. The closest I came was press 1-5, because that's the easiest way to show the synergies of the skills.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LightningHell

I do understand that. I however do not understand why you would take this over another character, say, a template Water elementalist with Shatterstone, or a Mind Blast ele.

Because it fulfills a different role to the traditional water ele, and just outperforms the mind blaster for pressure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LightningHell

You compare a Warrior spike to this pathetic joke of a spike (I mean, 3+ seconds wtf?), then say Warriors don't deal enough damage because apparently their autoattacks heal the enemy, right?

A warrior spike involves a deep wound, but conditions are instantly removed according to you. It also involves standing next to an unprotected target, while either being protted yourself or in no danger of being counterspiked.

BTW, if you want to spike in a hurry, you don't rely on shatterstones detonation. You shatterstone-steam. You're correct though, warriors spike faster. So? This spikes harder. Each has it's advantages. However I think you might be getting a bit histrionic when you claim I say warrior autoattacks do nothing. I know they do something. It's just less.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LightningHell

The problem?

YOUR "PRESSURE" IS YOUR SPIKE.

How hard is it for you to grasp the concept that a series of spells that take 8 seconds to cast and 11 seconds to recharge is not a spike? Yes for 1/4 of the time your dps is only 14, but because it's so much higher than what most other pressure characters can apply during the initial 8, it's not a huge problem. There is no spike here. This is not a spiking character. I run it with 40/40 in fact, just because more steams is good, but also because 1 second shatterstones are good. Just because YOU say shatterstone is a spike skill, does not make it so. Shatterstone is terrible for spiking, in my own opinion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LightningHell

I did not overestimate warrior damage - it should be common knowledge that an Axe war frenzying at 16 weapon spec has 40 DPS.

This alone should be setting off warning bells. This character does 48 dps to anyone within range. An axe warrior does 40 without skills to an immobile target, while being in the midst of the enemy and taking double damage himself. You simply can't maintain that in a real environment. People move. People hit you.

Aside from that, how much dps do you think warrior skills add? Eviscerate for example, on your permafrenzying axe warrior, adds 3, if spammed every time it charges. Of course eviscerate is hardly a pressure skill, but even cleave only adds 7.5. Axe warriors are for spiking.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LightningHell

Things like 'spirit bond is a great counter to your spike but sod costs 10 energy from a monk' were not suggested.

My apologies, someone else must have written the spirit bond comment and I misread it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LightningHell

A Mind Blast ele has a net energy gain from using skills. As such, even if a Mind Blast ele has somewhat less DPS, it can spam important and needed utility such as Heal Party, as well as capitalize on some situations via Rodgort's, etc. Your build cannot. It is very inflexible. That has nothing to do with 'counters lol'.

I don't see why not. Full spamming takes half my natural regen, leaving half to do whatever else I choose. If I unload everything as fast as possible, I end up with more energy than I began. The key difference is that because I have leeway in my spamming, I can take the time to do those other things without letting up my pressure at all.

I recognize that there is inflexibility with energy management and the blind, being that 2 of my 3 energy management skills must be chained after something else, and the blind must always be. However, with 13 in fire magic and 4 offensive spells, the glyph is always up unless interrupted. So yes, you can stop me from blinding by interrupting either steam or glyph. You can stop me from regaining energy by interrupting either glyph or glowing gaze AND shatterstone or glowing ice. That's a vulnerability, I appreciate that, and emphasized it in my summary. BTW, what happens to a mind blaster who gets mind blast diverted?

I don't see where the lack of target switching comments come from either. If I want I can set four different targets on fire one after the other, blinding one, dealing varying amounts of direct damage to each, and it'll only cost me 3 net energy. Perhaps it's a misunderstanding about the mechanics of glyph of immolation?

Hyprodimus Prime · Dec 23, 2007, 09:10 PM // 21:10

I've been kinda following this thread for a while now and I dont want to get between you two, theres some good arguments I think...especially after Ensign has spoken. I still dont know what this build is for though. GvG? HA? TA? In TA I think it would be great. Its got blind, spike potential, and yes, pressure since there are only 4 people. In HA I'd definitely go with the fire ele for AoE and party support (HP, DC, extinguish, Aegis etc). in GvG Im not sure because I dont GvG, maybe someone else can add to that.

Tab · Dec 23, 2007, 09:11 PM // 21:11

If you took this into GvG, people would laugh in your face and thank you for the free faction.

Sir Pandra Pierva · Dec 23, 2007, 09:55 PM // 21:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibreaktoilets

If you took this into GvG, people would laugh in your face and thank you for the free faction.

That made me lol

And didn't the OP say that this build is for AB?

Also this is a SPIKE NOT PRESSURE.

The damage is pretty good but as people said other classes can do much the same without much trouble.

A good mes will just have a game day with you.

Ensign · Dec 24, 2007, 12:41 AM // 00:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Another Child

If you take out glowing gaze you will have to slow down at some point

Don't care, unless you're really interested in how your build performs at shooting barrels for 20 minutes straight. RA matches last only a minute or two, while AB skirmishes rarely last much longer than 30 seconds before you're running around regenning. In any organized format, TA, GvG, HA, you're going to eat disruption that makes ideal theorycrafted-in-a-vacuum energy expenditures not matter all that much.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Another Child

If you did that, water hexes may not be ideal, as once glowing gaze is removed, you are left with a glyph you can't use with anything if you do get pblocked

I don't know why people are talking about PBlock and other stupid stuff in this thread. Even if it weren't relevant, I wouldn't exactly be thinking 'oh, but I have Glowing Gaze + Glyph of Immolation! I'm fine against PBlock!' as if that particular combination did something.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LightningHell

Of course. Hence why we're saying all this; midline pressure tends to be not as much of a threat as melee pressure.

To clarify; this is not necessarily because it doesn't deal as much damage over time. A lot of the time, a straight DPS caster is going to deal more raw damage than a Warrior; this just doesn't really matter because the damage is predictable and generally in small enough chunks that it isn't a big threat of killing anyone. Mostly it just taxes energy, much like a Warrior swinging at you...except if you give the Warrior an opening, he's going to land a Bull's Strike on someone, or unload a clip of adrenaline, or otherwise present an immediate, unpredictable threat. DPS Ele is still just DPS Ele no matter how much room you give him. Hence he's usually given more room while the Warriors are monitored.

Also if said DPS Ele does become a problem, he's likely to be fed a steady diet of Power Leaks until he stops being a problem, and perhaps a Warrior will beat his face in for good measure. When a Warrior gets in an Ele's face, the Ele runs away. But the other asymmetry is a bigger issue: the Warrior is disrupted, but goes nuts in the openings when he is not. The Ele does decent DPS when unmolested, but is shut down long and hard when he does garner attention.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LightningHell

It is not of consequence, since your damage is easily predicted, as well as alleviated.

In fairness steady caster DPS is useful in situations where there are not defensive characters to deal with the damage, namely Random Arena and oftentimes in Alliance Battles. There characters like this, or the Toxic Chill Necros, or any of a variety of DPS casters can actually kill things since the only thing stopping them tends to be self heals. However they tend to have so little situational utility that I couldn't imagine recommending them to anyone with a decent amount of skill.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Another Child

It's another method of adding pressure, that requires attention from characters designed to hate out midline/backline characters, being that the typical melee hate does not help your monks in any way against this pressure.

To reiterate - it is a DPS caster. It is a character that is dealt with adequately with Reversal of Fortune, Protective Spirit / Spirit Bond, and heals; when it would be more of a problem, a Warrior in the face, a Ranger looking at you, or a steady diet of Power Leaks make the character downright awful. DPS casters are patently bad when they have to stop casting for stretches of time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Another Child

It deals about 20% more dps than a mind blast ele when both are spamming. The fact that you keep insisting that a mind blaster deals more shows that you haven't bothered trying to figure out what this one can do.

The Shatterstone guy, described the way you describe him, deals 541 damage (411 damage, 130 burning degen) on a 11 second cycle for 49.18- DPS. A generic Mind Blast guy will cycle Rodgort's Invocation / Mind Blast / Immolate / Mind Blast indefinitely for 400 damage (316 damage, 84 burning degen) on an 8 second cycle for an even 50 DPS.

The Shatterstone guy has only 1.25 seconds every 11 second cycle in free time, which isn't even enough for a spell with a casting time longer than a quarter second.

Mind Blasters can take advantage of 40/40 sets to compress damage further; Shatterstone / Glyph guy is stuck on his 11 second cycle by the recharge on Glyph. In practice a Mind Blaster is going to deal more damage, with a substantial amount of AoE damage on top of it, than this guy by a pretty comfortable margin.

Dr Strangelove · Dec 24, 2007, 04:05 AM // 04:05

In case it hasn't been mentioned, I'd like to point out that this build may be sub-par.

Another Child · Dec 24, 2007, 07:47 AM // 07:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Don't care, unless you're really interested in how your build performs at shooting barrels for 20 minutes straight. RA matches last only a minute or two, while AB skirmishes rarely last much longer than 30 seconds before you're running around regenning. In any organized format, TA, GvG, HA, you're going to eat disruption that makes ideal theorycrafted-in-a-vacuum energy expenditures not matter all that much.

I did present that comment as a leadup to showing whether the build has resilience to disruption, if you read over it again. I wouldn't have posted the build if disabling one or two energy management skills turned it into the bad spike everyone keeps talking about. That's where I find the vacuum theory useful.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I don't know why people are talking about PBlock and other stupid stuff in this thread. Even if it weren't relevant, I wouldn't exactly be thinking 'oh, but I have Glowing Gaze + Glyph of Immolation! I'm fine against PBlock!' as if that particular combination did something.

In a straight out comparison, that particular combination plus wand does more damage than a warrior who is missing 50% of his attacks. I was just responding to the 'hard vs soft' counter comments.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

To clarify; this is not necessarily because it doesn't deal as much damage over time. A lot of the time, a straight DPS caster is going to deal more raw damage than a Warrior; this just doesn't really matter because the damage is predictable and generally in small enough chunks that it isn't a big threat of killing anyone. Mostly it just taxes energy, much like a Warrior swinging at you...except if you give the Warrior an opening, he's going to land a Bull's Strike on someone, or unload a clip of adrenaline, or otherwise present an immediate, unpredictable threat. DPS Ele is still just DPS Ele no matter how much room you give him. Hence he's usually given more room while the Warriors are monitored.

As said, there's room here to throw your spells at any time, in any order, if given an opening, due to 1 glyph applying to your next 4 spells, and there only being 4 spells in the build as it stands, along with the energy supply, and the fact that all of them are on similar recharges. I've already suggested steam into shatterstone, shatterstone into steam, and shatterstone-glowing ice-steam-glowing gaze for different situations, all of which are landing chunks of 100+ damage at different stages of time. Either 100+0+100, 100+100, or 100+50+200+50.

There's minor scope here for surprises, although I agree with you that it is harder to track a warrior, it's still a level of damage that needs to be reactively dealt with, by monks. The guy you hurt can't hide in the back or run to wards to alleviate that energy pressure on the monks, so they are going to find themselves in a situation where they can't react to a warrior on your team in time that much faster. When a warrior would be making his way to a new target, this guy is already in range, often still in range of the target he has put into a situation where they want to take cover. Yes I understand that he can be proactively dealt with too, as can anyone.

Still, you are right, if the warrior gets cleaned up, he is again the same level of threat. It's harder to clean up a huge energy hole or 3 spells being shut out for 10+ seconds. If I find myself in deep energy trouble I tend to switch in high set for glyph gaze every 8s recharge, then hide behind the regular set again. This lowers my pressure to negligible for anywhere up to 20 seconds, but of course just having the high set available means I'm still ready for spikes when necessary, and it takes longer than 20 seconds to put me under that kind of energy pressure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Also if said DPS Ele does become a problem, he's likely to be fed a steady diet of Power Leaks until he stops being a problem, and perhaps a Warrior will beat his face in for good measure. When a Warrior gets in an Ele's face, the Ele runs away. But the other asymmetry is a bigger issue: the Warrior is disrupted, but goes nuts in the openings when he is not. The Ele does decent DPS when unmolested, but is shut down long and hard when he does garner attention.

It takes over half a minute of power leaks to slow me down for a maximum of 20 seconds. That's the reason I posted the energy in a vacuum. It takes 1 shadow of fear to slow a warrior to the same level I am at after those power leaks. While the shadow of fear can be dealt with, there's a long list of other things that can, will, and do, put him right back in the hole.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

In fairness steady caster DPS is useful in situations where there are not defensive characters to deal with the damage, namely Random Arena and oftentimes in Alliance Battles. There characters like this, or the Toxic Chill Necros, or any of a variety of DPS casters can actually kill things since the only thing stopping them tends to be self heals. However they tend to have so little situational utility that I couldn't imagine recommending them to anyone with a decent amount of skill.

I think the damage might be harder to deal with than you think. I'm still not seeing how it is drastically different from a warriors level/rate of damage, and teams are expected to bring a multitude of skills to ensure he can do just that. The key difference seems to be the 1s faster spike vs the blind to shut out the enemy spike, and the different ways in which they are predictable.

This is predictable because the largest portions of damage come over 3 seconds, while the warriors largest portions of damage take only 2, giving more time to deal with this. The warrior is predictable because his target is often very obvious.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

To reiterate - it is a DPS caster. It is a character that is dealt with adequately with Reversal of Fortune, Protective Spirit / Spirit Bond, and heals; when it would be more of a problem, a Warrior in the face, a Ranger looking at you, or a steady diet of Power Leaks make the character downright awful. DPS casters are patently bad when they have to stop casting for stretches of time.

ROF is effective against anyone except pure degen. The damage comes in the form of 3 large chunks, 100+ points of degen, and 2 small chunks. Protective spirit or spirit bond on my target cut my damage by about 1/3. Well, closer to 1/4 actually. Guardian on a warriors target cuts his damage by over half. I already addressed power leaks, but I'll talk about a warrior in the face now.

I can stand toe to toe with a warrior and deal more damage to his team than he is dealing to me. That's because while he is now in range of a low armor target, by necessity, I also am. If I am not, I'm going to unload in his face and his monks will wonder where he went while he yells on vent about blind. Alternatively I can just unload in his face anyway, shutting out his frenzy, which reduces his dps to about 60% of what I am capable of, while his armor reduces mine to 67-75% of what I am capable of. Plus every tenth of a second that blind sticks is another 1% reduction to him. If it sticks for a whole second, as it often will when it arrives at the same time as 209(pre armor) damage, that's another 10% off him.

If I choose to kite, it's because my team is under the sort of pressure that requires it, I want to deny him adrenaline while we regain energy, or other similar reasons, not because I cannot simply stand there and unload. This character and enemy warrior standing next to each other, the warriors monks will be pushing harder to keep the team safe. If I am running armor of mist, it's even more lopsided.

A ranger camping me is not greatly different to a necro camping a warrior, and while one will inevitably be true, the other is not always the best option.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

The Shatterstone guy, described the way you describe him, deals 541 damage (411 damage, 130 burning degen) on a 11 second cycle for 49.18- DPS. A generic Mind Blast guy will cycle Rodgort's Invocation / Mind Blast / Immolate / Mind Blast indefinitely for 400 damage (316 damage, 84 burning degen) on an 8 second cycle for an even 50 DPS.

Sorry, thanks for the correction, same pressure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

The Shatterstone guy has only 1.25 seconds every 11 second cycle in free time, which isn't even enough for a spell with a casting time longer than a quarter second.

Again, thankyou for the correction. The 40/40 may have been throwing me off, as I always have time to seek better positioning or what have you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Mind Blasters can take advantage of 40/40 sets to compress damage further; Shatterstone / Glyph guy is stuck on his 11 second cycle by the recharge on Glyph. In practice a Mind Blaster is going to deal more damage, with a substantial amount of AoE damage on top of it, than this guy by a pretty comfortable margin.

Actually, due to the lower recharge on the damage spells and the fact that 2 of them don't rely on glyph at all, while the other 2 only rely on it for an extra ~30 damage, this character can actively compress his damage by 27%, as well as relying on the 40/40. Of course this character relies on the gyph to blind too, but as that option is not open for the mind blaster, it's probably not worth mentioning.

Anyway, I appreciate the comments. Despite my presenting arguments against, I certainly see more flaws in the build now. I guess what I really have is an engine, not a build. I'm happy with the engine, haven't heard any reason I shouldn't be (except for the 'warriors are for pressure!' stuff, I'm glad we got that '48 dps might be good for a water guy' out of the way), but I certainly need to have a think about what to swap aura of resto for, and what should go in the last slot. Also should be thinking about dropping glowing gaze and 5 from fire magic for other options. I'd be happy if I can get something out of it that's useful for any organized environment anyway. It's nice to get some reasoned criticism from more experienced players, so again, thankyou all.

Mouse at Large · Dec 24, 2007, 08:19 AM // 08:19

A couple of suggestions for the free slot. Maybe a bit left field, but in my (limited) PvE experience, an enchant remover such a Gaze of Contempt can really mess up opposing characters if used wisely

It's also possible Freezing Gust might be useful.