Curse

FrogDevourer · Feb 02, 2006, 03:59 PM // 15:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

If Ensign used only maths to calculate its damage output, then it's more inaccurate because he probably uses a mean base damage and calculate damage output through his formula. Without testing the effect of randomness in an "on-field" test with numerous tries and statistical approach.

I'm sure you can expand on this because I just can't understand your point. Ensign collected a lot of actual ingame data to deduce these formulas. That's what he used to compute the base damage from his first post. Let's make a quick and dirty overview:

Base damage of a sword is 15/22 (average is 18.5)
Customized: +20%
Attribute 16: +15%
so
Base damage (unmodded sword, versus 60AL) is: 18.5*1.20*1.15 = 25.5dmg

Critical rate is not yet understood completely (pretty complex formula). At lvl20 v. lvl20, an accurate approximation is 1.5% per attribute level, hence 24% for 16 mastery. At 16 mastery, criticals deal double max damage (2*22*1.20*1.15=60.7dmg).

So average sword damage with criticals is:
25.5*0.76+60.7*0.24 = ~34dmg

The same calculation gives roughly 36 dmg for axes, and 51 dmg for hammers. The rest is well explained in Ensign's first post.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

Theory and reality doesn't fit each other.

Yes, they do. If you disagree with this base, please give us a very precise way to estimate the warrior damage dealing capability. You "randomness" in an "on-field" test is vague, to say the least.

glountz · Feb 02, 2006, 08:15 PM // 20:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrogDevourer

So average sword damage with criticals is:
25.5*0.76+60.7*0.24 = ~34dmg

I didn't know this. I was supposing that Ensign calculated only average damage without currently taking into account criticals (so in reality his scenario would have been worst).

Now enlighten me.

One says that spells can't do criticals and lands always on chest.
I did make 100+damage with a lightning javelin on a 60 AL monk at 15 air.
He weren't using lowering armor skills (Heal Sig) or frenzy.
So I believe also that there are some criticals for spells.

Yesterday I tested my Victo's maul. Again, on KDed monk (my apologies for the monk community). I landed an INSANE damage output for a normal attack: 140 damage. I feel that I landed a critical and hit in the head (one says that hitting in the head increase damage, I don't know the truth) whereas my normal attacks turned around 50-60 (so a critical would have been around 100-120 at max).

I do feel that spells also can increase their damage through criticals. Some spells only (line-of-sight spells, not AOE.)

My goal would be simple (but I must admit I've no time for this kind of tests):
Take A warrior, train him again dummies on Balthazar temple (60 Al) note all its damage for say, 10 minutes and calculate average damage/minute.
Do the same with elementalists.

I feel frustrated with Ensign damage calculations with spells. You can make really a "pressure" build if you want. Like Obsidian Flame-Stoning-Stone Daggers rince and repeat. Testing this on Balthazar's Isle dummies statistically would give a more accurate vision of what is Eles and warriors damage output.

And finally, I feel frustrated on how is left away the problem of damage mitigation in-game to base the thinking only on rough numbers.

Any class has warrior hate skills. Monks, (Enchants), NEcros (Hexes), Mesmer (So many I can't count them), Rangers (Stances), Warriors (Stances), Eles (Hexes).

Only 2 classes can shutdown easily a caster (Rangers and mesmers).

That's all.

Ensign · Feb 02, 2006, 10:47 PM // 22:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Actually I'm not so sure necros are that weak, damagewise.

Well they're not Warriors, but they can dish out a pretty good amount of damage. If you know me you know that I'm a huge fan of disease, and their degen is reasonably efficient - even moreso if you can benefit from the healing a lot of it provides. Their DDs aren't that impressive, (I guess they had to be numerically worse than Ele versions) but that they ignore armor and other defenses makes them fairly attractive nonetheless. I mean 63 damage from a maxed Vampiric Gaze isn't terribly impressive on that alone, but 63 damage that hits consistently not only through armor, but through every enchantment defense in the game? On a one second cast? That's kinda appealing.

Necromancers do have many of the same theoretical problems as an Elementalist in a vacuum because they are offensive casters that want to chaincast. But in practice they don't hit the same pitfalls. I would speculate that the reason for this is because Necromancers are momentum / backloaded characters rather than 'glass cannons', and because stuff that's strong but takes a while to work doesn't throw up red flags like strong hits on the first few seconds of an encounter. Because of this Necromancer skills are much more aggressively priced, in terms of cast time, energy cost, and cooldown, than Elementalist skills of comparable effectiveness. Just for starters I feel that Rotting Flesh on a single cast has more raw power than *any* Elementalist skill, but look how it's priceline compares to some of the bigger Ele 'nukes'. Sure some of the Necro's skills are kinda sketchy, and they're sketchy for many of the same reasons Ele skills are - expensive, long recharges, unimpressive effects.

They aren't a class that you can use as a primary damage dealer, but they don't look like they were ever intended to be. Their lines make it pretty clear they were intended as a support character that can supplement an offense with some more damage, and while they need some tweaks I think they've accomplished that. They aren't a naturally scary class, though, at least not until they've built up a lot of momentum, after which...well, have you ever seen a Death guy with a dozen Fiends in Tombs? You'd better knock that guy out with a quickness.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CKaz

So at least in pvp they dont frontload particularly hard (and people object when and where they can) and dont sustain, yeah.

People objecting is clearly the reason for the current state. If Eles did the kinds of damage upfront that they'd need to in order to be a viable, scary offensive threat, they would be absolute kings of nubstomping. While an experienced team would know to disrupt the Elementalists and contain them before they got out of hand, a new team would take the full brunt of their attacks and wipe very quickly. Remember that back when these classes were developed and balanced the understanding of the game was pretty poor and the quality of play was abysmal - people are only just starting to understand and attempt basic tactical plays, or execute a larger strategy, let alone all of the play mistakes that you'll see in any observed GvG match. I'm sure that people were nubstomping other bad teams with frontloaded Ele builds that the other team had no idea how to address. So Eles have been nerfed to the point where that frontloaded damage no longer nubstomps, but in the process they've taken the fear of Eles out of the game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mysterial

LOL, you wish. Soul Reaping is insanely unreliable

It's reliable if you want to use it with corpse skills, not that that is a particularly popular route in PvP. Soul Reaping isn't bad though, you just can't use it as your primary energy management. You need to make sure your Necromancer is effective even if Soul Reaping never triggers. But when it does trigger your energy should go nuts. It's certainly something worth investing some points into, but it can't be a focus of your build.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomcruisejr

at 16 str and 15 axe

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomcruisejr

i was just shocked with the article and read it and i find him like comparing an apple to an orange.

You didn't understand the article at all, because your complaint is effectively the point I was making.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

How did you calculate this? Is it theoretical calculations or is it empirical?

Where exactly do you think that 'theoretical calculations' come from? Did I find them under my bed? Of course not. They are models of empirical data gathered by observing the game. All of the assertions about how things scale, from the exponential nature of weapon attributes and armor to the customization and rare modifier of weapons being multiplicitive have been rigorously tested for veracity and have been supported by the evidence again and again.

The difficult thing to measure is critical hit percentage, but at this point thousands of tests have been performed and the margins of error are within 1%. The critical hit percentage of a weapon at 12 attribute is arbitrarily close to 18%. The critical hit percentage of a weapon at 16 attribute is not as well tested but the error bounds place it at either 23% or 24%. Again this is all empirically tested and compiled, I can only speculate at what's going on in the game's code.

So, from theory, you calculate average per-hit axe damage as:

((6+28)/2*.76+28*sqrt(2)*.24)*1.15*1.2*2^((68-60)/40) = 35.546

Now I'm not about to claim that figure is absolutely correct but it's damn close and more accurate than any other model out there. I see three sources of error right now, one known and unavoidable and two unknown:

1) Imperfect critical hit percentage. Figuring it out is a game of statistics and no one knows how criticals scale in an exact sense right now. I know this value is within 1% of the actual observed value in game but there is a slight amount of error involved.

2) Weapon base damage might not follow an even distribution. I have assumed through this that 6 and 28 are equally likely results on a normal hit, and that the average roll on the base damage would be 17. I haven't tested this so I have to leave it open. There could be some weird behavior in there that would skew the numbers slightly.

3) Rounding. Every hit you make rounds the result to the nearest interger and with that exponential in there things are always rounding. It's virtually guaranteed that the net amount rounded up in reality is not exactly equal to the net amount rounded down. But again that's just noise and not something that I think we have to take seriously.

In any case that's where those numbers came from - rigorously tested theoretical models. They are, in my estimation, the most accurate numbers one could present at this point in time. Take that as you will.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

Did you create a PvP warrior and hit a 60 AL dummy during 1 minute

1 minute? You've got to be kidding me. That's not going to give you a very good average. Try 6-8 hours. If you want to do that test then come back to compare those numbers to the predicted values, be my guest.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

Theory and reality doesn't fit each other.

Huh?

If you have evidence to contradict all the data myself and countless others have gathered, analyzed, and reported over the last year and change, please present it now. I would be interested in seeing it to refine or at least better understand the theory.

If you do not have such evidence to present, please do us a favor and stop making a right fool of yourself.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

One says that spells can't do criticals and lands always on chest.

One would be wrong. Spells use hit locations just like everything else.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

I did make 100+damage with a lightning javelin on a 60 AL monk at 15 air.

Evidence that said monk had 60 AL on the hit location? There are a lot of PvE characters in random arena without max armor. It's fun to identify them early and pick on them for screenshot-worthy numbers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

I do feel that spells also can increase their damage through criticals. Some spells only (line-of-sight spells, not AOE.)

You feel that way, eh? Have you tested it? Have you observed a spell critical on a controlled target? Do you have any idea how such a thing would be reproducable?

I'd have thought that in the hundreds of tests I performed with Flare and Lightning Orb to figure out and later verify the first armor relationship I would have noticed a 'spell critical', but such an anomoly was never observed. I've never observed such a spell critical during all of my hours of playing this game as well.

All of which points directly to my conclusion that what you feel is wrong. But please feel free to provide evidence for how you feel.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

My goal would be simple (but I must admit I've no time for this kind of tests)

Great. We've already performed these types of tests in the past in the aggregate with a much greater accuracy than what you are proposing and the data has already been presented.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

I feel frustrated with Ensign damage calculations with spells.

You're frustrated because the conclusions do not support your preconcieved notions of what Elementalists and Warriors should do. In fact the entire reason this thread exists is because I believe that notion is fairly common even though it disagrees with reality. But the core issue here is that you're stubborn. You'd rather sit here and try and argue against methods and data, things that are more well tested and understood than you would believe, than actually re-evaluate what you think about the different professions.

That, I feel, is a much bigger issue than the roles of two professions in a computer game and something that you should take a good, hard look at.

Peace,
-CxE

Divinus Stella · Feb 02, 2006, 11:35 PM // 23:35

A fire nuker may not have the reliable constant pressure of a warrior, but an ele has the opportunity to hit much harder, on altar maps a well placed meteor shower or fire blast can do a sick amount of damage and some handy interrupts on claim res and trappers, even standing between 2/3 casters an inferno or blast will do in excess of 100 dmg in 1/4 seconds to all enemies around, for 10/15 en thats pretty good going.

Rodgorts also has the possibility to do huge damage in a small ammount of time, its all about combining the skills, a sly meteor shower will usually get people moving, but just after the cast you can throw in a fire blast followed by a skill like inferno and all in the space of 1-2 seconds you have an AoE spike of 330 dmg and a knockdown, its all very easy to say people can simply get out of the way, but the sad fact is they often dont.

The typical tombs earth build (GoE, EQ, AS, Flame, Wards) seems to do well for dmg ouput aswel as being able to limit the output of others using wards, again for an EQ/AS to work you need to be near the target, but again its not hard in a 8v8 to get in a position where you can hit multiple tagets with some pretty hard dmg.

Energy can be a problem for an ele, but earth eles can often get along just using glyph of energy, fire eles make good use of attunes aslong as your not going too heavy on exhaustion you never really see the bottom of the energy bar.

CKaz · Feb 02, 2006, 11:37 PM // 23:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Good, telegraph that your spike is comming even more by wasting an additional second powering up the glyph before every cast. Just more time wasted for the opponent to react. Hell with the new professions, wasting that extra time will allow for a ritualist to plant a shelter before your spells land. Never mind any team that was remotely worried about that style of a spike and didnt bring an interupt method or prot spirit and just went with fertile season instead.

Answer a query, have to answer some more.
Ok did having 4 eles NOT telegraph a spike was coming?
And now you're mentioning ritualist as a counter?
Umm ok this got a little far afield.
And again I mentioned enchantment strip.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

So, who exactly is doing the multi-layer stripping before you spike lands, if 4 of your characters are powering up with a glyph before hand in a "balanced team". You have 1-2 spots left for what will be up to 6 different professions remaining. What you have is a spike team with no depth using that much weight in just 16 spec earth eles.

this is a 4 person team I mentioned in my post, I already agreed with Ensign that eles in gvg/hoh/extended durations for offense sucks in general

but I tried to paint a picture of where if that's all they did maybe there's still a little niche in pvp they can do something - the 4v4. so there it was.

pick a targ without a green up arrow, if all have arrows one E/N leads with Rend and maybe doesnt glyph while the others glyph and nuke, yeah something like 2 E/Ns and 2 E/Rs (frozen soil, maybe some traps)

I'm not saying this is uber in the least but at least demonstrates SOME damage, and hey 'nuking sucks' is the thread. And this kind of thing (ie much more the lightning issue) shows how a hue and a cry (rather than thought) gets things nerfed. Air spike being counter-able and really not that scary it nerfed eles more where it hurts most - less damage, more time - that much less DPS and sustainable.

I did the earth thing a looong ago, it was fun loooong ago, I wasn't really looking for build debate, just something that could still be REMOTELY feared with ele damage - 4 eles with obsidian flame at the core, possibly dropping one a volley - some wards/defense and frozen soil to hopefully do the job before wearing out.

[Something not far from the zaishen challenge version I suppose.]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Eles need to do something distinct in order to be used in one manner or another. The ward utility guy is distinct. If they are to be just a raw and outright nuker, they would have to outperform the basic ranger spike(that has interupt elements/is not just damage) by a fairly noticable margin due to the inherent drawbacks that spell casting posesses by comparison. You are talking spells that borderline one shot characters in one spell with no outside aid, given the current elementalist mechanics. Barring that, the game would have to see a large round of nerfs everywhere it try and bring everyone down damage wise, and consequently healing wise, to the elementalist level. This would invariably have the baseline be roughly wand level damage sustained. At which point it would be rather pointless to have rangers and warrirors.

That's the crux of the thread and the OP no? Eles can be utility, but nuking sucks in the big game. And its unfortunate one threat (air spike) got such a bad wrap - again if you have to defend against other builds is it so bad you might have to consider an elementalists zap? The answer was/seems to be that yes, it is. Ah since it spreads to 3 opponents everyone can't be bundled in prot spirit or x y z. So a nerf bat swing later ele boom is gone.

Even what I used in random for awhile, E/N with blinding flash, virulence, and other air spikes is a little telling. Because I had to address the warrior which would slaughter my ele otherwise, and unloading all my spells wouldn't do it that often with any kind of aid/counter/leave me 'E' less, thus the degen and DD. Obviously random is generally a poor example, and if the targets took blind off quick at 15 a pop that's tough to keep up even with some energy aid.

Even in balanced teams GvG when playing spiker ele, what happened for me?
I brought wards along for the ride very soon into the mix (max air,good earth).
When we were successful I warded to handle the warrior influx and then zapped to add DD when we could turn the tide. But zaps before some kind of pivotal moment were a bit moot while the utility (here wards) were anything but. Why not have richer ward and utility options then if that's the way we go? And with 4 elemental lines, couldn't one remain inherently useful nuking in the 'real' or 'big' pvp of 8v8? How about some ignore enchant options or 'enchant burn' alla more damage desecrate, 'enchant fry (air)' knocks it off and the bolt comes through, etc

Almost every other classes ignores armor better than the ele and their the 'big boom', more options there to string damage together, bring the noise, or at least stretch the noise out.

Phades · Feb 03, 2006, 12:06 AM // 00:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by CKaz

pick a targ without a green up arrow, if all have arrows one E/N leads with Rend and maybe doesnt glyph while the others glyph and nuke, yeah something like 2 E/Ns and 2 E/Rs (frozen soil, maybe some traps)

Its not a spike if the neccary damage is not delivered all at the same instant. Give any monk who is not half asleep more than 2s to react and has energy and you will see the damage fail.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CKaz

I'm not saying this is uber in the least but at least demonstrates SOME damage, and hey 'nuking sucks' is the thread. And this kind of thing (ie much more the lightning issue) shows how a hue and a cry (rather than thought) gets things nerfed. Air spike being counter-able and really not that scary it nerfed eles more where it hurts most - less damage, more time - that much less DPS and sustainable.

No one has stated to not use obsidian flame if you alloted a space to an earth utility guy. It has been put forward that using it in place of pressure over time that can spike comparable damage is a mistake.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CKaz

[Something not far from the zaishen challenge version I suppose.]

Comparitivly speaking, the spike team is one of the easiest to beat out of all of the ziashen challenges. The IW mesmers, the spike team, and the smite monks are the most commonly beat with random groups, while the degen, IWAY, and VIM trappers pose the biggest threats. This is assuming you arent just exploiting the AI with a trapper group. Granted you can just kite the IWAY and the VIM with the right build, but i found it rather shocking how many class combinations just fold if they try to hold their ground and fight those 2 teams. If you bring no interupts, hp boosts, prot spirit or shelter and stay in range of all of the elementalists, then yeah you could stand to lose. But if you are seriously trying to state that a good team is not going to bring anything to address the spike or have any reaction beyond a AL60 target dummy, then i dont know what to say.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CKaz

That's the crux of the thread and the OP no?

Why present an argument in favor of using an elementalist team instead of a balanced or ranger build then?

Quote:

Originally Posted by LouAl

This whole thing is ubsurd...

It starts with some seriously flawed logic and just keeps on going. I mean honestly, do warriors ever just attack with no skills? Do elementalists spam one or even two skills as a spike? No.

The ele is lucky to get 2 skills off in the timeframe of a spike. It was addressing the issue of damage over time more specifically, since warriors spike comparitivly harder than eles do given the existance of deep wound and can be further augmented beyond what their own skill bar can achieve. An elementalist can not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LouAl

I can get all of those spells off for a total of 291 dmg and 6 seconds of burning all in about 7 seconds (including downtime between casts).

You must have missed how rangers can do in the 250 damage range in the space of less than 2 bow attacks and is reusable faster than most of the skills you just listed. I also doubt that anyone is shocked that a mesmer casts spells faster than an ele delivering the damage sooner.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LouAl

And what about against high armor opponents? The warrior's attacks become much less effective, but the elementalist can just chage to a few skills that ignore armor and becomes very deadly again.

Yep because 2 skills that ignore armor level show a great depth in the realm of armor level ignoring damage, while only one of which is a ranged attack.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LouAl

What about when the warrior's opponent won't stop running away? If a warrior is not within melee range they cannot do ANY damage whereas an elementalist has spells that do large amounts of damage and cannot miss, ever.

I beleive it was brought up how knock down skills and snares are used in pvp, in addition to how projectile spells can miss.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LouAl

What is the point of nuking anyway? It is to apply large amounts of damage over a SHORT time period in order to overpower any healing being done to the target.

Show me a 10e spell with a .25s cast time that does 400-500hp of damage in one cast and ill show you a healing spell that fixes that amount. I will give you some time to find it. I am curious when there will be spells, skills, and spirits that only allow 10% of healing to actually land on a target. Best thing possible is a reduction to lower it to 80% of possible efficency.

Falconer · Feb 03, 2006, 05:14 AM // 05:14

Okay somewhat of a late reply. But Ensign here's why I think you don't give enough credit. If you're playing monk... yeah 3s hex is too much warning. But if you're spiking someone besides the monk. Then 3s isn't enough time to communicate to your monk that you're about to be spiked.

How do I come to this conclusion... playing... playing monk... playing hex removal. Voice comms themselves have an inherent 1s lag. So you end up needing to A. spot the hex immediately. B. communicate to your backline that you're a spike target. About the only meaningfull way I've found to communicate this is to ctl-click on the hex itself. And pray the support sees the text message in time.

Now in some cases, yes there's other things you can do. See the hex activate your distortion or whirling defense, or endure pain. But once again the latter is probably the best anti-spike reaction... and it's warrior only option. (know any other skills in game which instantly give temp HP without a commensurate cost or casting time?). Stances... great... unless you have dryders defense or the right mantra of whatever... forget reducing that damage though. Your 'bet' is that you can mitigate some other portion of the spike (exempli gratia: a ranger who didn't signal his intent to slam you and is just executing his dual shot now).

The scene in spaceballs where the main character tells Barf... "Pray to God" Barf: "Praying to God" comes to mind for the above. You know it's coming you've done what you could... now you just need to survive. (dodge... run away... etc.)

But given an environment where a REASONABLE number of hexes are flying around. You can't simply key on a hex indicator and say that's the spike. Even phantom pain suffers from this. A pink bar could just as easily be conjure phantasm. Infusing that would be a massive waste. Using a hex like this as a spike precursor is just like you said... stupid. If there was nothing else there. (though I guess you could cast incend bonds on the guy standing NEXT to the spike target... but we know how well that kind of AOE thinking works in actuality). Or potentionally as a misleading indicator... EG: cast it on the monk... he sees it and prepares to get spiked himself.. only to learn that someone else was the actual target.

As far as the rest. Surge/Orb combo could be enhanced simply by changing the flight time on orb (so it hit before the surge... also making it MUCH harder to dodge). There that enhances orb without changing it's damage or anything else. (not arguing that something else with it might be wrong)

But the entire premise of your original post. Is that warriors do a ton of 'passive' pressure damage. And this is what's unbalancing them towards elementalists who can't do enough frontloaded damage to compete in the nuke role. An unfair characterization of your argument or not?

So when I brainstorm well why not give warriors -10 armor against elemental. You came back pretty snippy now didn't you. Why suggest this... why are warriors so completely damage resilient even against elementalists who can't even do frontloaded damage against them? Why did I state this, because Izzy and the rest of the crowd at Anet has already done this. (they changed ranger 80 +20 to 70 + 30, so the insinuation that I've gone completely looney ignores the fact that it's been done before).

As the other old timers and alpha testers may recall. At one point warrior armor had a HUGE -armor vs. lightning damage. This was changed to armor piercing on the lightning. But the amount of damage the line did still didn't compare to the original. Also since then, other items have come into play, this was back before runes of superior absorption... warrior armor with more in-built absorption... shields with more absorbtion... (seeing a pattern here).

Right now, I'd argue that MUCH of the warriors advantage lies in the equipment they can use. And which has been added since the initial class 'balance' was set. Seriously.. did water damage envisage that their 5-6s snares would be cut to 2 or 3s... by a mere warrior helm?! Izzy is right that warriors do less damage because they need to be at point blank. But if the target is moving... that target isn't doing any damage themselves (unless they're loaded up with hex type DOTs!!! Or can stop and unload single BIG damage effects briefly). But if the targets moving... it's not doing anything else, and the warrior is still doing some damage (if reduced damage).

But if you're in an environment with a lot of snares and plenty of condition removal already. This is largely a non-issue. Courtesy of the Denravi helm... hexes don't even work properly. Though if you're running warriors, you need to have solid hex and condition removal anyhow. It's a natural advantage that you can hide the martyr and buffer way in the back also keeping most elements in easy striking range the rediculously overarmored warriors.

Originally ellementalists were seen as a counter to warriors. I'd like to see them regain that mantle.

And warriors as an answer to rangers. I'm not talking 1 on 1. I'm talking squad on squad (potentially split)... where it's not so easy to keep the warrior kited. (again... this is the reason the rangers armor was changed from 80 to 70). Or after making your original argument, are you going to say that a squad of warriors won't typically run roughshod over a squad of rangers?

Also lets not forget there are 2 new classes on the way. Where do assassin and ritualist fit into this mix? There's a nicely complex set of interconnecting links right now.

As far as this goes... Ensign okay you've made a decent argument that something is wrong. Now make a MUCH HARDER one... how do you rebalance the situation? It's not a multiple choice thing, there's many different things that can be done. All with various advantages and drawbacks.

Just to rattle a few ideas off the top of my head....
Reduce warriors armor against certain damage types (or narrow their damage reduction to physical only... EG: protection from assassins and rangers).
Increase elementalists energy regeneration (5 pip elementalist is kinda tempting and enhances their ability to do sustained damage).
Massive cost reductions across the board... doesn't work because arenanet is stuck on 5, 10, 15, or 25 are the only allowable costs.... half or 33% cost reductions are probably too much.
Eliminate the dependance on 5, 10, 15, 25 only costs...
Give elementalists damage reduction of their own (a rune of physical absorbtion?)...
Change deep wound (10% HP loss, but a 30% reduction in healing). Or maybe Deep wound does no damage at all but simply reduces healing by some high number, making it a meaningfull condition in it's own right. And not something that kills instantly when applied (just like all the other conditions).
Give elementalists some kind of +armor against melee attacks. (they have stances which are only usefull against melee or ranged... no reason a +armor buff couldn't do the same). (rangers 70+30, warriors 80+20, elly's 60+20 vs. melee???)
Major systemic problem though... how do you frontload the elementalists 'nuke' more without overpowering spike? How do you enhance their sustained damage meaningfully if that's the route?

JR · Feb 03, 2006, 05:40 AM // 05:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

Okay somewhat of a late reply. But Ensign here's why I think you don't give enough credit. If you're playing monk... yeah 3s hex is too much warning. But if you're spiking someone besides the monk. Then 3s isn't enough time to communicate to your monk that you're about to be spiked.

If they are running lots of hexes, which an air spike build *shouldn't* be, then yes it is a little more difficult. However the amount of time it takes to say "Surge 4" for a monk to prot spirit you should be an absolute maximum of 2 seconds if you are on top of your game. Even if you are a tiny bit sloppy it should still catch it.

Ensign · Feb 03, 2006, 10:20 AM // 10:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

But the entire premise of your original post. Is that warriors do a ton of 'passive' pressure damage. And this is what's unbalancing them towards elementalists who can't do enough frontloaded damage to compete in the nuke role. An unfair characterization of your argument or not?

Unfair on the details. My argument is that warriors are either rocking your face or devouring resources to keep them from rocking your face. elementalists, on the other hand, cannot deal enough damage to make anyone care, so don't bother trying.

My argument is not that the elementalist does not matter because the warrior is 'better at his job' or whatever. My argument is that the elementalist is so poor in the supposed 'nuking' role that even in the absence of warriors he would not be viable. If that were the case the game would be reduced to boring spiking contests because that'd be the only way to kill people with any regularity.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

So when I brainstorm well why not give warriors -10 armor against elemental.

Because it's completely irrelevant. 96 armor vs. elemental with a -7 tacked on versus 86 armor vs. elemental with a -7 tacked on? Who cares? This isn't about elementalists dealing damage to warriors, this is about elementalists dealing damage period. They just aren't any good at it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

Right now, I'd argue that MUCH of the warriors advantage lies in the equipment they can use.

They're the most equipment dependant class in the game. Buffs and weapon mods continue to stack up as you add more to the game, they don't replace each other. Warriors stand to benefit the most from equipment creep.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

warriors do less damage because they need to be at point blank.

The funny thing about movement control is that the more of it there is in an environment the more warriors are favored. If everyone's gimping around that's getting closer to the no one moving scenario that the warrior loves. Plus it never scales correctly. If I have 3 warriors, you need 3 snares for every 1 I need on your monk.

So yes movement does mitigate some amount of warrior damage but nothing backbreaking - a lot of that movement is forcing kiting as well which is disruptive in its own right. But movement control is so prevalent that kiting just doesn't matter all that much. I'll say that it's bad enough that I no longer feel that snares are a reliable solution to warriors, because any target that you want is immobilized anyway.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

Though if you're running warriors, you need to have solid hex and condition removal anyhow.

Conditions yes, hexes no. Anti-warrior hexes aren't terribly relevant thanks to the helm.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

Or after making your original argument, are you going to say that a squad of warriors won't typically run roughshod over a squad of rangers?

A squad of rangers would spank a squad of warriors like a bunch of red-headed stepchildren the day before Christmas. The rangers would control every aspect of the fight and would never be in any serious danger of suffering a death. The warriors would gimp around blind and crippled and eventually drop dead from a degen stack. It would be the least fair fight you would ever see.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

As far as this goes... Ensign okay you've made a decent argument that something is wrong. Now make a MUCH HARDER one... how do you rebalance the situation?

Well the first question is, do you feel that elementalists should be able to deal damage and pressure an opponent? I obviously feel that they should, but that is a design decision.

If it's the case that you do want elementalists to be able to deal damage, you have to address it the only way that makes sense - through the skills. Elementalist skills need to be balanced around the idea that an elementalist that isn't casting is a worthless elementalist, and that if you're going to make someone invest a lot of time and energy into a single spell it had damn better do something worth that cost. They cannot be balanced with energy storage in mind, or 'priced for their energy' - all that does is make the elementalist the class that uses its energy to cast skills from its secondary that don't suck.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

Reduce warriors armor against certain damage types (or narrow their damage reduction to physical only... EG: protection from assassins and rangers).

Irrelevant, the problem isn't elementalists dealing damage to warriors, it's elementalists dealing damage to anything. You'd have to reduce warrior defenses to the point of uselessness if you wanted this to matter, and then you'd have just succeeded in reducing the game to a stupid spiking contest.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

Increase elementalists energy regeneration (5 pip elementalist is kinda tempting and enhances their ability to do sustained damage).

Irrelevant if the skills still suck. Elementalists can give themselves 10 pips of energy regeneration now but the best use of all that energy is spamming Blinding Flash around to screw up their warriors and to power out Heal Party. Overcosted and underpowered skills aren't worth the cost no matter how much energy regen you give someone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

Massive cost reductions across the board... doesn't work because arenanet is stuck on 5, 10, 15, or 25 are the only allowable costs.... half or 33% cost reductions are probably too much.

There are multiple parameters that can be tweaked on every skill. I do not feel that a 33% cost reduction would be too much on a vast majority of elementalist skills. I do feel that significant power upgrades across the board for all elementalist skills is the only answer that doesn't involve a radical restructuring of game mechanics.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

Give elementalists damage reduction of their own (a rune of physical absorbtion?)...

I don't care if they have 1000 HP and 200 armor if they can't do anything. All that would do is encourage me to make my monks into elementalist primaries for the additional defense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

Change deep wound (10% HP loss, but a 30% reduction in healing). Or maybe Deep wound does no damage at all but simply reduces healing by some high number, making it a meaningfull condition in it's own right. And not something that kills instantly when applied (just like all the other conditions).

Deep Wound does need a serious look, it's just a retarded condition that kills people instantly. 10% HP loss would be a good start. I don't know what tweaks you would want to make to the healing reduction because that aspect of the condition has never been even remotely relevant up to this point.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

Give elementalists some kind of +armor against melee attacks.

Irrelevant for the same reasons mentioned so far. You cannot fix a problem of a classes' inability to deal damage by upping their armor, unless the reason they cannot deal damage is because they are too vulnerable to get into range to use their skills. That isn't even remotely relevant here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

Major systemic problem though... how do you frontload the elementalists 'nuke' more without overpowering spike?

Spiking has next to nothing to do with elementalists, because elementalists simply do not hit hard enough to be competitive. A discussion I had earlier tonight about spike went something like this: 'ranger spike in GvG hits for 850. It's worse in tombs though, because they don't have to run flags, so they can hit for around 1000 there.' Why would anyone worry about elementalist spike if that's the environment that we're dealing with right now?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

How do you enhance their sustained damage meaningfully if that's the route?

Depends on the line. Fire and water are easiest to address because each of them has great tools to work with already at their disposal: AoE and secondary effects, burning for fire and snares for water. A combination of more aggressive energy costs, cast times, and in some cases cooldowns, along with tweaks to AoEs and those secondary effects would be more than enough to make these lines viable without upping their spike potential. Without going through the skill lists one at a time I'll just say that Fireball is at an attactive power level now, and that other skills should be tweaked using that as a baseline.

Earth is a more defensive line and I feel that the attack skills there should probably be a bit spendier than those found in other lines because you're getting so much more flexibility for your attribute point investment. Balancing those skills shouldn't be terribly difficult though, because all of the existing ones have analogues in other lines and can be adjusted accordingly once you figure out where you want those to sit.

Air is the hard line, because it's key design space is single target damage and you don't want to run into issues with an overpowered spike build. Nonetheless I feel that the spiking potential of skills can be safely raised, albeit slightly. I say that because of what the environment is handling right now, and because caster spikes are much easier to shut down than ranger spikes. Orb doesn't become a prime spike candidate until it hits around 170. I feel the best place to start on air, then, is to raise the armor penetration on air nukes to 40%, since that raises the line's damage potential slightly (14%) against normal targets but furthermore increases its utility against the high armor guys that normally give elementalists fits. You'd probably want to drop the price on Orb to make it attractive outside of dedicated spikes, and the damage might want to be toned down slightly to go along with that. Air would still want another spammable but there's still a couple obvious design points that can fill it, a 10 energy, 1 second cast spammable in particular.

The bigger problem air runs into as far as attack skills go is design space - by being a single target line it doesn't have a lot of AoE effects to play with, then you're missing another dimension in the lack of DoT or snare. Air at the very least needs that dimension, damage plus effect, and it needs to play that up with more skills along the lines of Enervating Charge (damage plus weakness) or Mind Shock (damage plus knockdown).

Energy management is always an issue and the class would benefit immensely from making the attunements more PvP friendly (halve the recharge). Otherwise I think the changes you need to make are all in the skills themselves, by looking at each one, figuring out what its important properties are, and deciding how much you're really willing to pay for that effect.

Peace,
-CxE

Manic Smile · Feb 03, 2006, 10:44 AM // 10:44

How much of the problem would be solved by simply removing the HoD helm and forcing the metagame to shift due to hexes now making warriors do "less" damage, or at least cause less pressure in a battle? At least mezmers and necromancers would be much more useful and then maybe solely by comparison the elementalist would do more damage...if still have the same underlieing problems.

Ensign · Feb 03, 2006, 11:50 AM // 11:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Manic Smile

How much of the problem would be solved by simply removing the HoD helm and forcing the metagame to shift due to hexes now making warriors do "less" damage, or at least cause less pressure in a battle?

Well there are a bunch of issues with the current meta beyond the scope of the original argument...the HoD helm is one of them. Gale is another. The combination of the two has made it a whole lot harder to mitigate warrior damage than you want it to be. If you can't kite them, and you can't hex them up your options are pretty limited. Would cleaning that up help break the current metagame of warriors as unstoppable killing machines? Definitely. Would that have any effect upon how ineffective an elementalist is? No, not really.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Manic Smile

then maybe solely by comparison the elementalist would do more damage...if still have the same underlieing problems.

The elementalist wouldn't do any more damage just because there would be more tools that could deal with a warrior available. He'd still be a gimp, and as far as things like threat/answer theory are concerned nothing would have changed. I point to warriors right now because they're the gold standard of damage, but realistically the limiting factor is the monks and how much they can kick out to fight any incoming pressure. If the tools aren't there to break them with pressure you're forced to fight with spike or attrition (which doesn't work because of Heal Party, in brief)...basically the next best strongest options rise to the surface, you don't start seeing bad options in the same strategy.

Peace,
-CxE

angshuman · Feb 03, 2006, 02:09 PM // 14:09

How would an Energy Storage-based Damage Bonus (or +AP) for all attack skills work? That would make an Ele primary more attractive for the reason it "should" be - the ability to do more damage, rather than the ability to have a larger pool.

Goonter · Feb 03, 2006, 02:28 PM // 14:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

Major systemic problem though... how do you frontload the elementalists 'nuke' more without overpowering spike? How do you enhance their sustained damage meaningfully if that's the route?

I like some of your ideas, some of them Im not to keen on. But this looks like a challange worthy question.

They have (and I think they should have) a slow momentum consisting of longer intervals of big packet damage. (not as a single option, but a viable option if wanted)
Ensign pointed out, the momentum that elementalist have is also downward.

So the solution, i guess, would be that their potentual (threat) stays consistent even as it is actively being countered.

Why not let glyphs stack and last for as long as needed (within reason) until a spell has been cast?
Glyph of power, glyph of lesser energy, glyph of renewal - POW!
Its like loading a gun.
How about, Glyph of power, glyph of concentration (with the increased buff of an 1/2 sec cast time becuase who wants there interrupted buffer interrpted) glyph of energy - deep freeze?
Its going to hit hard, nothing is going to stop it,... run for cover....every fifteen seconds.
I mean, your sacrificing a significant part of your skill bar to keep that threat up.
*new glyph for chapter 2. glyph of range - increases your casting range by x%. glyph of enchantments - cause x number of enhantment removes to fail.

Some of the machanics of glyphs would have to be altered. (glyph of sacrifice and renwal stack? or a glyph of lesser energy and energy stack?)
But once corrected for fairness, I think it would make a front loaded character as the eley come into the game and stay there as long as he need to, with his front loaded.

Another thing to consider...
If attunements are to last for around 60 secs and elementalist need them to keep up their momentum (as slow as it is) how come they recharge as long as it takes for them to wear off?
Attunements should recharge at least 3 times faster.
If it gets stripped for the lack of cover within the first 20 seconds of it being on, thats too bad. But if it means that I need to wait 40 more seconds to get into the game Im designed to play, thats just wrong.

This eley wont get popular. Even then, the avalible counters are there. Prot Spirit mitigates all the time and energy an eley spends on one big bang to ...50 damage very easily. Add in reversal of fortune and you heal your foe for 50 health. (ranger spike will still own)

But at least is will keep elementist from loosing so much of their already slow momentum, and thats about all I wanted to address this time.

And if this can keep a monk spamming prot spirit on 3 or more targets as fast as he can to mitigate damage, then, even as that eley is being countered, at least he is causing the foe to spend resorces to do so.

just a few ideas towards a provoking question.

Neo-LD · Feb 03, 2006, 02:55 PM // 14:55

The way I see it, a couple things need to happen, based on the facts that at the current moment warriors are a bit too strong and elementalists are much too weak.

First the HoD helm has to be removed from pvp. Its presence it totally out of line with all other equipment in the game, and unessesarily strikes down one of the supposed warrior counters, hexes. If things like faintheart, shadow of fear, water snares, etc lasted as long as they should, the game will definatelyy be better.

Second, elementalists need nearly universal improvements. Costs for nearly every spell to be reduced, cooldowns lessened. I agree with ensign that fire, earth, and water will be relatively easy to balance due to their inherant aoe and secondary effects. Reduce costs/cooldowns and increase power slightly and they'll be fine.

The only line of magic that risks becoming overpowered due to spike is air, at which point they can either go ensign's route by incorperating secondary effects, or giving eles more powerful single target options. While improving the existing ones. Increasing the power of orb, strike, enervating, and javalin, and reducing their recharges or costs will go a long way to making sinlge target annhilation nukers viable. Toss in 1 or 2 new attack spells with comparable power and air will be fine.

The way I see elementalists (as they should be) is that they can kick out an insane amount of damage, aoe/single target or otherwise. They can choose to use their energy as fast as they want, either spending it steadily for acceptable threat to the enemy team, or going into "nuke mode", blowing it as fast as they can to decimate whatever was pissing them off. Mostly, though, I just see them as always having at least 1-3 spells recharged and ready to go, so that unless they are being shut down they are never in the situation of sitting on their hands waiting for everything to recharge.

I think Ensign said it best. Elementalists have to be a big enough threat to make people care

angshuman · Feb 03, 2006, 09:09 PM // 21:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Elementalists have to be a big enough threat to make people care

Unless of course, Anet intended the Ele to be a nothing but a ward b*tch from the start (design decision as Ensign put it). In which case, they should update the description in the game manuals and character selection screen.

Bugeater · Feb 03, 2006, 10:39 PM // 22:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goonter

Why not let glyphs stack and last for as long as needed (within reason) until a spell has been cast?
Glyph of power, glyph of lesser energy, glyph of renewal - POW!
Its like loading a gun.

The only thing you've done there that's not already in game is to increase the attribute of one of the two casts by 2. The net effect of that is roughly: jack squat. All the other glyphs concern energy management and interruption prevention - neither of which make an ele cause any more damage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goonter

How about snip: some other glyph combination that does effectively nothing deep freeze?
Its going to hit hard, nothing is going to stop it,... run for cover....every fifteen seconds.

Its not going to make anyone run for cover, it's going to make them ignore you...every fifteen seconds.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goonter

Another thing to consider...
If attunements are to last for snip: I stopped reading after "attunements"

We're talking about damage, not energy. A nuker with infinite energy still sucks at dealing damage. Attunements don't matter, energy regen doesn't matter, glyphs of InstaCastZeroEnergyNoInterrupts don't matter. If you're not fixing the damage, you're not fixing the nuker.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sents

Perhaps this discussion is centered around the PvP game,in that case I am wholly unqualified to comment on such activities.

It is a discussion centered around equal level, moderately intelligent opponents. - I'll let you decide who that boils down to.

Goonter · Feb 03, 2006, 11:44 PM // 23:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bugeater

The only thing you've done there that's not already in game is to increase the attribute of one of the two casts by 2. The net effect of that is roughly: jack squat. All the other glyphs concern energy management and interruption prevention - neither of which make an ele cause any more damage.

Its not going to make anyone run for cover, it's going to make them ignore you...every fifteen seconds.

We're talking about damage, not energy. A nuker with infinite energy still sucks at dealing damage. Attunements don't matter, energy regen doesn't matter, glyphs of InstaCastZeroEnergyNoInterrupts don't matter. If you're not fixing the damage, you're not fixing the nuker.

It is a discussion centered around equal level, moderately intelligent opponents. - I'll let you decide who that boils down to.

Your not on my sheet of music. I dont think you even tried.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goonter

But at least is will keep elementist from loosing so much of their already slow momentum, and thats about all I wanted to address this time.

Quote:

If you're not fixing the damage, you're not fixing the nuker.

You think sustained force is nothing to do about damage? Isnt that a major factor in why nuking sucks in the first place?
Nuke does not necessarily mean spike. Nothing besides some sort of high volume small packed quick momentum damage equivalent of ranger spike mean spike with prot spirit in its current state.
I tried to suggest that.

Any suggestion is subject for debate due to the layers of machanics that are at work in the game.
Your welcome to disagree, my ideas are therocitical and I dont suspect that I hold the one answer.
But if you do so, *edit* check your tone and explain yourself beyond " A nuker with infinite energy still sucks at dealing damage", which Im sure you said shooting from the hip because to voice yourself so addamently suggest you think you know what your talking about.

Manic Smile · Feb 04, 2006, 12:53 AM // 00:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

The elementalist wouldn't do any more damage just because there would be more tools that could deal with a warrior available. He'd still be a gimp, and as far as things like threat/answer theory are concerned nothing would have changed. I point to warriors right now because they're the gold standard of damage, but realistically the limiting factor is the monks and how much they can kick out to fight any incoming pressure. If the tools aren't there to break them with pressure you're forced to fight with spike or attrition (which doesn't work because of Heal Party, in brief)...basically the next best strongest options rise to the surface, you don't start seeing bad options in the same strategy.

Peace,
-CxE

So you are saying if the HoD helm was removed...wars would be affected greatly but Eles would still suck to the point where something else would probably be used before them to cause "damage" or pressure(or simply that Eles can't no matter the situation) and that without the warrior, battles would be a never ending heal fest/mostly spike builds(ala IWAY)?

if I'm off explain further please...or anyone who understood it clearly

Phades · Feb 04, 2006, 01:39 AM // 01:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falconer

Change deep wound (10% HP loss, but a 30% reduction in healing). Or maybe Deep wound does no damage at all but simply reduces healing by some high number, making it a meaningfull condition in it's own right. And not something that kills instantly when applied (just like all the other conditions).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Deep Wound does need a serious look, it's just a retarded condition that kills people instantly. 10% HP loss would be a good start. I don't know what tweaks you would want to make to the healing reduction because that aspect of the condition has never been even remotely relevant up to this point.

Personally i think that the conditions should be more scalable. While deep wound is really potent now and could stand to be reduced, i feel that repeate applications should be able to achieve a similar parity to what exists currently. For example, start off the deep wound at say 5% for instance, but let it work up to 15-20% through repeate use so that its not just 1-2 warriors dumping out tons of extra damage through one initial application. Yeah it still can be worked around through ganging up on a target with lots of deep wound appliers, but assuming any defensive measures some of those should fail similar to how assassin combination skills can fail. The same idea can be applied to alot of different conditions and some hexes, like the water snares. Having them start off lower, but through repeate application achieve the same or slightly higher effect depending on the condition or hex involved.

It could be taken a step further, by creating different skills to goto different points in the progression of the effect giving more depth to the different skills, which allows for more fine tuning of the current balance involved.

This does not address the majority of the mechanics surround what makes elementalists ineffective over time, but will have some tuning towards how effective all the other classes are.

Ensign · Feb 04, 2006, 08:24 AM // 08:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Manic Smile

So you are saying if the HoD helm was removed...wars would be affected greatly but Eles would still suck to the point where something else would probably be used before them to cause "damage" or pressure(or simply that Eles can't no matter the situation) and that without the warrior, battles would be a never ending heal fest/mostly spike builds(ala IWAY)?

Nono, without the hex helm warriors would still run rampant but the set of tools to deal with them would be a lot bigger.

I was talking about what would happen if you removed warriors from the game entirely. Eles wouldn't suddenly matter just because warriors were gone, they'd still not really matter...you'd see packs of spikers with support skills or degen to hide the spike but not much else. Basically the polar opposite of iWay. Eles would actually become a bit less relevant as one of their few strengths right now is hating out warriors with Blinding Flash or Wards. Maybe Flashbots would stay to screw with ranger spike...oh, bah, who cares, it'd be some silly boring meta in any case.

Peace,
-CxE