Curse

Silentbreath · Sep 14, 2009, 11:07 PM // 23:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lux Aeterna

Basically what's he's saying; is that when building to fight 4v4 in an open setting you'd do better to pick another type of caster instead of a fire ele. A necro, water ele, air ele, mesmer, or anything like that would provide slightly better damage and support

yeah.
and yes AB isnt TA; the change is that you need to bring mobility and snares in, and consider aoe a bit stronger. yes aoe is a bit stronger but still it aint strong enough to bring up a nuker.

I just looked at the pvx build 'pieway' you mentionned. I agree with you that it is bad. I found it bad because it doesnt have snares and doesnt get run skill for each teammate. Actually all the AB builds on pvx are bad. I'm quite surprised of this because overall the quality of pvx builds is good.
The classic TA team magebane and ff nec have the same problem that it cant force opponents to fight them. Ranger need to be changed to a cripshot or a melandru's. You wont be able to pass by a team who has a water ele or a cripshot among it. If you do, you will have to leave your monk or nuker behind.

on Saltspray, you have no choice but to fight 4v4 at the beginning. On grenz, you must almost always fight 4v4 unless both facing teams does not want to.

A build i consider good could be, for instance, a woh monk, cripshot ranger, a sin and a W/N that bring in rip enchant. that would be great. Or a PB/VoR mes, a water ele, a woh monk and a wounding strike derv. It is flexible. Unfortunately I almost never play with a team which I consider to have a good build. I look for my team to be at least ok, and mind blast eles are among what I consider ok to be part of an ok team.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mister Smartypants

I used to run triple heat a while ago, pre-SH nerf, until someone pointed out to me that you only need two heats to clear a shrine in seconds and the rest of your bar is best devoted to player killing and utility, and since then I've never considered going back to SH. Can anyone here convince me that SH is actually better than MB in AB?

Mindblast is so much stronger

Sankt Hallvard · Sep 14, 2009, 11:54 PM // 23:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silentbreath

on Saltspray, you have no choice but to fight 4v4 at the beginning. On grenz, you must almost always fight 4v4 unless both facing teams does not want to.

A build i consider good could be, for instance, a woh monk, cripshot ranger, a sin and a W/N that bring in rip enchant. that would be great. Or a PB/VoR mes, a water ele, a woh monk and a wounding strike derv. It is flexible. Unfortunately I almost never play with a team which I consider to have a good build. I look for my team to be at least ok, and mind blast eles are among what I consider ok to be part of an ok team.

This Lux person sort of stole my thunder when he made the reply on your behalf then started to argue against it. However, I still find errors in your reasoning.

While it is true that some places it will initially build up for a 4v4 situation, that does not necessarily need to happen. If you have this mo, r, a, w setup of yours going up against the traditional ab balanced; mo, r, e, w the most logical thing for the nuker-team would be to fall back to a shrine. If player skill is somewhat equal in this case(to make it a fair comparison) the npc advantage will become significant, especially true for the ele shrine.

Your version will then either have to push into a disadvantage or choose another path. If they go off in another direction that directly favors the nuker-team since they will have a quicker cap speed.

Let's get any misconceptions out of the way, though. I personally prefer a team that can pack a punch in a skirmish situation and I have no problems with leaving the nuker at home. But that's because I don't expect perfect opposition, in fact I assume I will face more teams that are weak 4v4. I also assume that these teams will often not know how to avoid a skirmish. That's because few people use vent or give clear directions on the radar-map, some people might also be bad and not even think about seeking refuge at the nearest allied shrine. What I'm saying is that I would pick a skirmish-strong team over a pure cap-team because I feel confident that I and my team would in most situations make better use of npc advantages and make better tactical decisions. Also it's just strictly more fun to kill players than npcs. In my case this means I will sometimes push into stronger teams just for a challenge, even at the expense of losing the game.

Bottom line: If I only played to win and built for maximum resistance I would almost always(on away maps) bring a nuker on my team since AB relies on taking out npcs quick and repeatedly.

Lux Aeterna · Sep 15, 2009, 12:27 PM // 12:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silentbreath

You wont be able to pass by a team who has a water ele or a cripshot among it. If you do, you will have to leave your monk or nuker behind.

They snare the monk, we attack, we roll them in 30 seconds unless their team includes top50 GvG people.

If I was at a true disadvantage, ie having significantly fewer people (like 3v8), we'd either eat our losses and regroup, or avoid getting within snare range (IMPORTANT) and keep moving fast until we got to a more secure position, such as allied groups or an elite ele shrine where we could lose or defeat them.

There's an entire lobe of my brain devoted to getting my cute pocket monk out of situations like that.

Additionally, I sum up my team's strength and choose fights based on what think we can handle, also, I do not hesitate to run away from a fight. Why give your enemy free balth faction and the satisfaction of killing you when all you need to do is run away, find another Luxon team, and wipe the floor with your foolish pursuers?

Some rounds I do nothing but run, sometimes I do nothing but attack, usually it's kind of a hit and run thing. Hit and run, like, we hit them with a bus then run around in circles for fun. Hahahahahaha.

Using a pure cap team would be a big handicap, but due to the nature of AB combat I wouldn't lose the fire nuker -- My ideal setup would be W/A hammer war, WoH or ZB monk with return, E/P nuker, and the fourth slot is open for either a ranger, another war, a water ele, a necro, a mes, or really anything that fits (preferably not a sin).
On Ancestral I'll even run 2 fire eles because it helps so much, and means I can split off to do recon and pop multiple gates.

I wouldn't kick an ele for running Mind Blast, but would greatly prefer Searing Flames or Savannah Heat because, as was previously stated, AB is not TA.

It seems like your theories are based on rolling with Kurz baddies.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlackSephir

Are you blind or perhaps mentally challenged?

Black Stark, A/N. I'll be looking for you.

Bobby2 · Sep 15, 2009, 01:31 PM // 13:31

Lux turns to thuggery? Be fair, Mr Sephir had you beat. However, there's no backing down from this one.

SCREEN HIS CORPSE OR LOSE E-CREDIBILITY FOREVERRRRRRR

Jeydra · Sep 15, 2009, 01:53 PM // 13:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silentbreath

You wont be able to pass by a team who has a water ele or a cripshot among it. If you do, you will have to leave your monk or nuker behind.

on Saltspray, you have no choice but to fight 4v4 at the beginning. On grenz, you must almost always fight 4v4 unless both facing teams does not want to.

Why would you run through them though? Even if they didn't have a Water Ele or a Cripshot, they'd be dealing damage as you ran past them, which might result in kills.

Saltspray is unique among AB maps in that you can't cap anything without fighting - and is the only map in which I won't run AP Fire Ele. Grenz is a different matter. You CAN avoid a fight if you want to. Easy example: you start out on the left (Kurzick side), then run to Res shrine. If the team opposite you wants to fight it'll automatically draw your team that went middle into the fight as well and die in an 8v4. So they'll (logically) avoid fighting. Then you move on, cap the shrines behind them and the game goes on and on and on ...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lux Aeterna

Using a pure cap team would be a big handicap, but due to the nature of AB combat I wouldn't lose the fire nuker -- My ideal setup would be W/A hammer war, WoH or ZB monk with return, E/P nuker, and the fourth slot is open for either a ranger, another war, a water ele, a necro, a mes, or really anything that fits (preferably not a sin).
On Ancestral I'll even run 2 fire eles because it helps so much, and means I can split off to do recon and pop multiple gates.

There is no pure cap team. One Fire Ele, properly built, is more than enough to take out a shrine alone, and quickly. What else do you want, more Fire Eles? Unless you are attacking deep, what's the point? Once you have the Ele and the Monk you might as well add some characters that does damage in teamfights. I'd prefer Warriors or Assassins or any kind of front-loaded damage. Snares would of course be good, teleports even better.

PS: don't judge a profession by what's given in a profile. If you do, what is me then? I'm E/A as well as E/Mo in PvE, while in PvP I can be E/A, E/D, E/Me, Mo/E, Mo/W, Mo/A, N/E, N/A, etc. Your profession changes with regard to what you need at the time, so BlackSephir is very unlikely to be A/N if you meet him in AB ...

Anyway I'm pretty curious why people don't seem to run Searing Flames more, favouring Mind Blast. Searing Flames caps better (no, Rodgort's Invocation + Meteor will not let you solo cap in reasonable time) and does well in teamfights and doesn't lock your secondary. Why not?

Bobby2 · Sep 15, 2009, 02:00 PM // 14:00

MB over SF because you Fire Eles don't need an Elite to cap (single Heat + Rodgort's + support does the job perfectly fine), MB's energy gain allows for more efficient multi-spec and thus versatility.

BlackSephir · Sep 15, 2009, 02:04 PM // 14:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lux Aeterna

Black Stark, A/N. I'll be looking for you.

But what if my secondary is different now? It's been 3 god damn years, can't I at least change my secondary? What about profession? Do I always have to play A? LEAVE ME ALONE, I JUST POINTED OUT YOU'RE GETTING RIDICULOUSLY MAD AT THINGS YOU DON'T GET, THAT'S NOT A REASON TO HUNT SOMEONE DOWN NOW IS IT!?11/1/
Oh shi- looks like I'm screwed. Have to think of a reasonable A/N build and sit on AB 24/7 til we duel the shit out of each other.

Lux Aeterna · Sep 15, 2009, 02:10 PM // 14:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlackSephir

But what if my secondary is different now? It's been 3 god damn years, can't I at least change my secondary? What about profession? Do I always have to play A? LEAVE ME ALONE, I JUST POINTED OUT YOU'RE GETTING RIDICULOUSLY MAD AT THINGS YOU DON'T GET, THAT'S NOT A REASON TO HUNT SOMEONE DOWN NOW IS IT!?11/1/
Oh shi- looks like I'm screwed. Have to think of a reasonable A/N build and sit on AB 24/7 til we duel the shit out of each other.

Last time I hunted someone down, I had to chop through 2 monks and 7-8 players before I could get them.
As the last person left of their mob, they accused me of mobbing and going 9v1.

And they didn't even talk bad to me on forums.

BlackSephir · Sep 15, 2009, 02:48 PM // 14:48

You seem more dangerous with each passing second, I think I'll sell my GW acc on ebay. Too bad I won't know when you hunt me down since you don't even have your character's name.

Smarty · Sep 15, 2009, 02:54 PM // 14:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobby2

MB over SF because you Fire Eles don't need an Elite to cap (single Heat + Rodgort's + support does the job perfectly fine), MB's energy gain allows for more efficient multi-spec and thus versatility.

This.

12chars.

Jeydra · Sep 15, 2009, 03:23 PM // 15:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobby2

MB over SF because you Fire Eles don't need an Elite to cap (single Heat + Rodgort's + support does the job perfectly fine), MB's energy gain allows for more efficient multi-spec and thus versatility.

It's more of using your elite to deal damage than it is to use it to cap. Searing Flames does good damage - 94 damage @ 14 Fire, 106 @ 16 Fire if I remember right. It recharges quickly. It keeps the target burning. With Fire Attunement + Aura of Restoration + GoLE the Elementalist can keep casting for a very long time. It hits in an AoE. Far as I see it, Searing Flames is just a good elite that does heavy damage in a fight and happens to be good at capping too.

Just how is MB superior in a fight?

PS: I wouldn't run Searing Flames on a solo capper, you can't take out certain shrines with it.

Bobby2 · Sep 15, 2009, 03:28 PM // 15:28

Ugh, you and your 16 Fire...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Just how is MB superior in a fight?

Staying power.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Fire Attunement + Aura of Restoration + GoLE

That's 3 slots; MB needs only Attune and its energy management is still superior...

Jeydra · Sep 15, 2009, 03:30 PM // 15:30

Do you get in fights that last >1 minute very often in AB?

IrishX · Sep 15, 2009, 03:31 PM // 15:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Just how is MB superior in a fight?

Unlimited energy for Rodgorts and immolate spam.

Bobby2 · Sep 15, 2009, 03:36 PM // 15:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Do you get in fights that last >1 minute very often in AB?

All the ****ing time if I can help it, though shrines, teams... enemies are never far away

EDIT: Monk for me more often and you'll find out

Jeydra · Sep 15, 2009, 03:44 PM // 15:44

You fight too much

I tried the E/Me MB Elementalist with 16 Fire vs. the Master of Damage and got 61 DPS, using Flame Djinn's Haste for damage too. With Searing Flames, also using Flame Djinn's Haste for damage, I got 57 DPS. With both builds I camped the 40/40 set. Looks pretty close, although of course:

1. To maximize damage with Searing Flames vs. Master of Damage one would obviously use Mark of Rodgort;
2. Flame Djinn's Haste isn't too reliable a damage tool in fights. I should give it another try without using Flame Djinn's Haste for damage.

EDIT: Tried it again, without Flame Djinn's Haste. Bars were these two:

E/Me MB template with Distortion and Rodgort's Invocation (should be well known)

vs.

E/? 16 Fire 13 Energy Storage

Immolate / Glowing Gaze / Searing Flames / Meteor / Aura of Restoration / Fire Attunement / Glyph of Lesser Energy / Flame Djinn's Haste

The SF bar did 54 DPS while the MB template held constant at 61 DPS. Hard to believe since Flame Djinn's Haste ought to add DPS. Perhaps I should try it for longer. Anyway clearly SF does less damage. When I retried with Mark of Rodgort in place of Meteor, and Liquid Flame in place of Immolate, the SF bar hit 64 DPS, which is higher. With all bars I never used Meteor (2s cast).

Other things to note:

1. The MB template doesn't have either Searing Heat or Tenai's Heat. In fact its only AoE spells are Rodgort's Invocation and Meteor. It's going to be pretty damn hard indeed for the Elementalist to cap alone, or even if he has a Monk to heal him; he needs his teammate's damage.
2. Mark of Rodgort for damage is obviously cheating. Although I've not tried, I'd probably stick with Meteor.
3. The energy problems with the Searing Flames bar is really quite light. With that bar I could pretty much spam Immolate on cooldown as well, although certainly not Rodgort's Invocation.

moriz · Sep 15, 2009, 06:16 PM // 18:16

there's nothing stopping a MB build from having searing heat.

Smarty · Sep 15, 2009, 06:38 PM // 18:38

12+2 fire 9+1 estorage 9 command

MB Tenai's Searing Meteor Rodgort GG attune FB

Other variants would be Gale rather than Meteor, and Dash or FDH rather than FB, if you wanted a faster KD and/or everyone in the party has their own near-permanent speed boost. Alternatively /Mo for Draw, although I've not tried that yet. You could drop one of the heats for aura if you wanted a cover enchant or some backup healing, but I like packing as much damage as possible. I prefer to rely on my monk for blocking, or to pre-kite, rather than use distortion in AB.

Side note. There is such a thing as fighting too much? o.O

the ruloes · Sep 15, 2009, 07:08 PM // 19:08

Here's what I get with the bar I usually AB/competitive mission with.

Doing a run through of my regular damaging skills (excluding flame djinn's, I don't use that for regular damage), basically shooting until I don't have a skill that's not recharging, I got 71 DPS over 12 seconds, for a total of 854 damage.

Sustaining that, and then just keeping on pressuring, (i.e. wanding until my skills recharge again), I got 50 DPS over 80 seconds, equaling 8040 damage total.

Both were done in a 40/40 set, at 14 fire magic.

My skillbar is:

Mind blast
Rodgort's invocation
Power spike (utility, I put whatever I fancy here, power spike is to stop RoJ's in JQ. Also like bringing deep freeze in this slot.)
Liquid flame
Searing heat
Flame Djinn's haste
Fire attunement
Aura of Restoration (Could probably be swapped for more utility if going with a reliable monk, but that rarely happens to me)

In both cases, death occurred after 7 seconds, which is a decent capping speed I think.

Reverend Dr · Sep 15, 2009, 08:32 PM // 20:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Searing Flames does good damage

By itself Searing Flames is amazingly lackluster. Unless everyone balls up, which the degree necessary doesn't happen enough in AB, a single mind blast can push out more damage than a single Searing Flames.

Now put in 2 Searing Flames and you will have a bit of an edge on 2 mind blast eles in terms of raw damage. You lose the versatility of an open secondary and an open 9 attribute in a secondary along with the solo survivability of the Mind blast. Most times and in most places the 2 mind blast are going to be more effective than the 2 searing flames.

Three searing flames and you really do have a significant advantage over 3 mind blast. But that would make the whole team. No one runs 3 mind blast. A three fire nuker team is just asking to get rolled over.