Curse

Kaon · Oct 06, 2009, 08:45 PM // 20:45

They carry shard storm, freezing gust, and winters embrace for snares. These supershort recharge hexes allow them to keep anything snared, not giving a shit about hex removal.

1) Trying to push the flag in against a water ele should be impossible on your own.
2) Trying to push the flag in against a water ele while you have a monk backing you up with a hex remove, should be possible but go slow.
3) Trying to push the flag in against a water ele while you have two hex removals (2monks, or mo+me/mo) backing you up should be very easy.

Currently it's completely impossible to do 3). Water eles have way too many short recharge snares on their bar making hex removal completely pointless. The pinnacle of this is of course freezing gust, which is one of the most powerful and overpowered skills in the game. On it's own, the skill is still managable though, but with the introduction of winters embrace in the meta, water eles have become untouchable gods.

I have not even spoken yet about the insanely broken Mirror of ice, or about the always powerful blurred vision. Water snares currently are so much out of control it's a RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing joke.

discuss.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Oct 06, 2009, 08:58 PM // 20:58

Freezing Gust is a bit too strong (make it 6 or 7 second recharge) and Winter's Embrace is a dumb skill (should be 15r and 10e probably), Shard Storm is perfectly fine.

I do agree that Mirror of Ice is broken/stupid, water eles shouldn't have anywhere near that kind of spike potential without running a high commitment skill like Shatterstone or Vaporblade.

If you're going to adress snares though, it's only fair that you look at speedboosts too.

Illusion of Haste, Featherfoot Grace, Primal Rage, Dash and even Storm Djinn's Haste are all pretty silly.

Sankt Hallvard · Oct 06, 2009, 08:58 PM // 20:58

(Almost) all hexes are out of control. And the more you can fit in one build, the stronger they all become. What's new? :-\

Bob Slydell · Oct 06, 2009, 09:47 PM // 21:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

They carry shard storm, freezing gust, and winters embrace for snares. These supershort recharge hexes allow them to keep anything snared, not giving a shit about hex removal.

1) Trying to push the flag in against a water ele should be impossible on your own.
2) Trying to push the flag in against a water ele while you have a monk backing you up with a hex remove, should be possible but go slow.
3) Trying to push the flag in against a water ele while you have two hex removals (2monks, or mo+me/mo) backing you up should be very easy.

Currently it's completely impossible to do 3). Water eles have way too many short recharge snares on their bar making hex removal completely pointless. The pinnacle of this is of course freezing gust, which is one of the most powerful and overpowered skills in the game. On it's own, the skill is still managable though, but with the introduction of winters embrace in the meta, water eles have become untouchable gods.

I have not even spoken yet about the insanely broken Mirror of ice, or about the always powerful blurred vision. Water snares currently are so much out of control it's a RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing joke.

discuss.

Woah.....you sounds exactly like some of the players I've rocked with my PvP Water Ele...are you?

Akaraxle · Oct 06, 2009, 10:03 PM // 22:03

The ridiculous strength of the things stopping byob.

lutz · Oct 06, 2009, 10:09 PM // 22:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

3) Trying to push the flag in against a water ele while you have two hex removals (2monks, or mo+me/mo) backing you up should be very easy.

It is very easy, provided your monks and midline are coordinated.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Akaraxle

The ridiculous strength of the things stopping byob.

Bobby2 · Oct 06, 2009, 10:26 PM // 22:26

Don't nerf my Godmode pls.

Marzipan Marci · Oct 06, 2009, 10:26 PM // 22:26

But remember, Snaring is the main job of Water Magic. It has to be better than crippled and Illusion Magic.

ousbique · Oct 06, 2009, 10:45 PM // 22:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marzipan Marci

But remember, Snaring is the main job of Water Magic. It has to be better than crippled and Illusion Magic.

Yup, but actually the problem is MoI ele have three snares (+1 since the boost of Winter's embrace) and do ridiculous ignoring-armor & compressed spike damage without serious energy issues (hi my name is Glowing Ice !).

Even with a PnH monk, pushing a flag is really hard against this.

I think, the main issue is MoI & Winter's Embrace (should be at 1sec cast for beginning). I don't think Freezing Gust is to blame, but the fact they can carry 3 snares and dont loose any damage potential (precisely : more snares they takes = more dmg power) is way too broken.

Master Fuhon · Oct 06, 2009, 11:45 PM // 23:45

Peace & Harmony was originally pushed as the way of dealing with hexes. Unfortunately, this was also a time when the game was fairly broken, and a standard team was packing 3 hex removals to be able to avoid using Peace & Harmony. My expectations for build design are that some of the hex templates remain designed around 2 single removals and a multi-removal being in your build, to have what amounts to being a strong response to hexes. This isn't exactly easy to see when a meta is being dominated by spike, but I still believe it's there.

I don't view design as perfected enought to flexibly fit non-elite hex removals, despite the fact that players obviously prefer to use non-elite hex removals. More importantly, I notice that I still see the using of a 'balanced' two removals, which doesn't fit anything beside a P&H backline against hexes. And even some P&H backlines take Deny Hexes as a complement.

'Balance' understanding, however, has recognized that something happened in the condition application game that warrants using RC/LS, Draw, and Mending touch combined in some cases. Right now, I lean towards minor tweaks to the more powerful condition removals as well to put them closer in line with non-elites (RC/LS-3 seconds, Draw-4 seconds); partly because I think the strategy of countering conditions out of the meta is more enticing than trying to face off against hex/condition pressure equally. To me this reflects the same issue; the design is particular in regards to certain elites being used, and people who want to use other elites are being left behind without knowing that they are.

The more balanced prot bar elites are Blessed Light, Peace & Harmony, and Empathic Removal. Restore Conditions and Life Sheath are slightly oriented towards countering conditions out of the meta so that you can choose to worry about other things.

Iotan · Oct 06, 2009, 11:56 PM // 23:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

I do agree that Mirror of Ice is broken/stupid, water eles shouldn't have anywhere near that kind of spike potential without running a high commitment skill like Shatterstone or Vaporblade.

I see this as being the bigger problem. The MoI bar has a ton of armor-ignoring damage, giving that character both spike damage and shutdown. All the damage this character does should be cold damage and some of the numbers could be tweaked down.

I think adding 1-2 seconds on recharge is the better way to look at water hexes. Winter's Embrace on a 2s cast might be worth considering too.

Jeydra · Oct 07, 2009, 12:54 AM // 00:54

I am curious why you have problems with water snares being "supershort recharge hexes [that] allow them to keep anything snared", but not Cripshot being a 2s recharge snare that allow Rangers to keep anything snared? In fact, there was even a relatively recent thread on QQ saying Cripshot is underpowered ...

moriz · Oct 07, 2009, 12:56 AM // 00:56

cripshot is pretty unwieldy compared to water snares. not to mention, water hexes are much better at shutting down melee than a ranger, and deal quite a bit more damage to boot.

Jeydra · Oct 07, 2009, 01:09 AM // 01:09

Don't mean to derail the thread, but: then why aren't Ice Prison / Tenai's Prison / Deep Freeze / Ice Spikes / Mind Freeze overpowered?

EDIT: OK, thanks. /end diversion.

Pugs Not Drugs · Oct 07, 2009, 01:18 AM // 01:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Don't mean to derail the thread, but: then why aren't Ice Prison / Tenai's Prison / Deep Freeze / Ice Spikes / Mind Freeze overpowered?

Ice prison and tenais prison have a huge recharge, so they hex removal makes them poinltess not to mention the casting time

ice spikes is sometimes used on an moi bar

mind freeze causes exhaustion

deep freeze = 25 energy

Killed u man · Oct 07, 2009, 01:35 AM // 01:35

Bring spellbreaker.

Krill · Oct 07, 2009, 01:46 AM // 01:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

cripshot is pretty unwieldy compared to water snares.

The biggest problem I have with crip compared to a water ele for counter splitting is featherfoot + cripple equip making it pretty much useless. There are still hoards of E/D mind blasters running around in mid level GvG that are tough to deal with without water.

Winter's embrace was also an unneeded addition to already powerful water hexes. There's actually quite quite a bit of difference between 3/4s and 1s cast skills, it's a third snare on the normal MoI bar and it's dirt cheap. Lastly it's worth considering the damage compression. Shatterstone, which use to be like whoa powerful, did about 240 with glowing ice in 2s and was major d-shot bait. MoI does a similar amount in the same period of time, some of it direct damage, but it's also got much better skills to use in between spikes and is much harder for a ranger to interrupt at medium to long range.

Thamior Shamus · Oct 07, 2009, 02:07 AM // 02:07

Why would you have a rit and 2 monks push against a single snare? "Hi, Im a person all by myself, please kill me."

As for rupting the snare, if he cant do it then thats depressing (talking about a ranger on ladder that does NOT have blurred vision on him).

But yes, three snares on one person is ridiculous.

Silent Treason · Oct 07, 2009, 04:32 AM // 04:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Akaraxle

The ridiculous strength of the things stopping byob.

I want to be in [LS] too

I Angra I · Oct 07, 2009, 04:33 AM // 04:33

As I said in the other thread on qq about this, freezing gust and water eles in general are balanced (except for mirror of ice, which I will address shortly) in the fact that, while they carry really powerful snares, the characters that they are brought to snare are also ridiculously powerful. Could you imagine trying to deal with some kind of super mobile split without freezing gust being in the game? It'd be close to impossible because there are so many things keeping splits from having so much mobility, survivability, and damage. Water ele snares need to be powerful to keep up with the power creep of the things they are brought to stop.

I do agree that water eles are a bit too powerful in general, but not because of freezing gust. Mirror of ice is the thing making them way too good. They fulfill their role as a snarebot, but then ALSO fulfill a role of a super high damage spiker. The two combined is too powerful. They need to have powerful snares to keep splits in check. They shouldn't be super spikers. MoI is the problem, not freezing gust.