Curse

HolyHawk · Jan 15, 2007, 03:42 PM // 15:42

Gave some thought on elementalists, and noticed how hard it can be to balance this class. Here's my sugestions:

1. Air Magic
- Chain Lightning: 2 sec cast
- Conjures (all): 20 sec recharge
- Glimmering Mark: 5e, 1 cast, 5 recharge (to be uppar with b.surge)
- Gust: 10...70dmg
- Lightning Touch: 5e, 3/4 casting, 5 sec recharge
- Ride the Lightning: 10e, 1 sec cast, 15~20 sec recharge, remove exhaustion
- Shock Arrow: 3/4 casting
- Windbourne Speed: 3/4 casting (would possibly be better than djinn's since it becomes a utility skill, being able to be cast on ally as well)
- Thunderclap: 10e, 1 sec casting, 15 sec recharge, 15...4 energy loss

2. Earth Magic
- Ash Blast: 5 sec recharge
- Churning Earth: 15e, 2 sec casting, 20 sec recharge
- Eruption: 15e, 2 sec casting, 20 sec recharge (dust trap has expertise)
- Glowstone: 5 sec recharge (same as glowing gaze)
- Grasping Earth: 1/2 casting
- Iron Mist: 5...21 seconds, 1 sec casting
- Magnetic Aura: 30 sec recharge
- Shockwave: 10 sec recharge
- Stone Sheath: turns into non elite, or 5 sec recharge
- Unsteady Ground: lasts 10 seconds, like sandstorm. Instead of extra dmg, you get a kd, sounds fair.

3. Energy Storage
- Energy boon: removes exhaustion
- Ether Renewal: 20 sec recharge

4. Fire Magic
- Breath of Fire: lasts 10 seconds
- elemental flame: 1...6 sec burning
- Fire Storm: nearby foes
- Flame Djinn's Haste: 15 sec recharge
- Imolate: 20...68 dmg
- Lava Arrows: 3/4 sec casting
- Phoenix: starting strike hits nearby foes, target strike hits adjacent foes
- Searing / Teinais Heat: 15e, 20 sec recharge
- Smoldering Embers: 1 sec casting

5. Water Magic
- armor of frost: 30 sec recharge
- Icy Prism: 3/4 casting, 5 sec recharge
- Icy Shackles: rework the skill: target foe is slowed for 30% (always), and additional 30% (max 90%) for each enchantment on that foe.
- Mirror of Ice: 15...111 dmg
- Mist Form: 25 sec recharge
- Swirling Aura: 30 sec recharge
- Ward Against Harm: 5~10 energy (don't really see much use for this)
- Glyph of Essence: rework skill: next spell casts instantly, but costs twice as much energy.

All glyphs : 3/4 activation

Fire changes in special, I would like to face them as area denial, not just a bunch of forced dmg. It's not like you can't do dmg with it, but people will know that the spot its cast is to be avoided for some time, an anti-ward. But again, it's really hard to work on this class.

Phades · Jan 15, 2007, 06:32 PM // 18:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

It's one think for a monk to squeeze off a .25 sec RoF, it's another for other casters who cast longer spells less often-they'd often find themselves useless as well as taking a non-trivial amount of damage. ...
As for the prot issue, I'll just say that it's far more efficient for a ranged character to switch targets (essentially 0 time penalty) then it is a for a melee.

Well, when a soft character takes non-trivial damage, they typically get a prot thrown at them. So, then you switch and the cycle begins anew essentially. Its no different than a mesmer robbing a war's adrenalin regularly via blackout.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Blackout was nerfed twice and diversion once. The changes were pretty significant too. And these are skills with relatively comprehensible effects with few/none unforeseen interactions with other skills.

Those skills are some of the best you could use if your goal was lockdown, similar to how other skills like pre-nerf ether renewal was the best at gaining energy. Comparativly speaking, those nerfs were nothing. Ooh rangers cant abuse blackout for little investment like they could before... Big deal. Its also not like mesmers are forced through the same hoops like exhaustion on now ~7% of the skills, but the ratio was higher in factions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

I'm not sure why you're bringing up this example, we're not talking about a hypothetical 4 copies of LS, we're talking about the hypothetical buffed strike + javelin, which does approx 46 dps without FC gear. Sword autoattack dps is 38 btw. Flight time doesn't affect peak dps-being a projectile reduces what you get in practice, but such effects are impossible to quantify.

I bring it up, because you are in essence, nearly copying the 4 lightning strike setup between 2 skils. While fire is conditionally dps via burning, this is unconditional making it immediately superior in that aspect against all targets. I keep forgetting that javelin does slightly more than lightning strike though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

It's an energy hog-but you want strong e-management for things likes bflash anyway so it doesn't matter in the end.

Well, if bsurge gets the energy/recharge nerfs people keep suggesting, i doubt that would be the eliete on this guy's bar due to the energy needs to keep the pressure up. Single attunement would be the only option if you did bring that skill and you would still be running at a defecit for chain casting dps purposes. GoLe would be useless as well, due to the nature of the small energy casts and the eliete slot is already taken if bsurge doesn't get nerfed. No options really.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

How can you be "duplicating" it when the fire build is better at doing damage? That was your complaint, correct?

Buffing air doesn't mean that it automatically becomes as good at doing damage as fire.

I was saying fire should be better at DPS and attempting to duplicate that dps situation elsewhere just makes fire without utility and air the only way to go. Also having fire only "conditionally" better, due to burning doesn't wash either.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

No it really isn't like bsurge. It only duplicates one aspect of bsurge, which is the melee lockdown ability. It can't catch spikes, and it doesn't do any damage, and you certainly don't need divert to deal with it unless you're talking about a hex stack build.

Look at the recharge on it and look at the other usable hex removal options and tell me what skill would need to be used in order to keep up with the skill. Furthermore, you must do damage in order to trigger the blindness. Just because the damage is required after the hex, doesn't mean the target will avoid being hit with damage. In essence, you could have it on all the melee on the opposing side and should they "spike" hitting any one of them who still have the hex would nail them all with the blindness. With Bsurge one of those melee would have to be a dervish or have some other enchantment running on them to create that kind of save.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Bsurge is borderline OPed and I'm certainly not trying to duplicate it. The problem with this skill is that it's an elite blind that is also a hex. Given the current game environment (extremely powerful hex removal) that means it as to be either a) really, really good at blinding or b) really cheap and easy to apply, or c) do something else entirely. I don't want a), bsurge is bad enough as it is, c) is unlikely, therefore I'm left with b).

Which is exactly what blinding surge is, along side minor skill compression incuding lightning strike. Essentially what you have in that eliete used to be 3 slots on 1 bar that included ether prodigy, blinding flash, and lightning strike. What you created was something cheaper to sustain and just as cheap to apply and harder to remove, because its a hex. Granthed there are more hex removal options, but none of them are on the same kind of recharge time that the condition removal skills are on, which is what blinding surge and flash were balanced against. This hex is competeing with that almost directly at the recharge time you suggested and could easily create the same complaints over time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

That's the point. It's meant for spell spam builds where you want more damage, but you don't have the time to squeeze in any other casts. If the glyph duration is a problem, just raise it to 20 seconds or thereabouts. I'm open to other suggestions, one could make the attribute bonus scale (+1...4) instead of the # of spells, but that raises issues with spike which A.net doesn't seem prepared to deal with.

Which brings me to a point i made earlier, where the damage cant really go up and still be balanced in some instances, like air. Instead what it needs is other utility to make it worhwhile to bring.

Skuld · Jan 15, 2007, 08:01 PM // 20:01

Quote:

- Mirror of Ice: 15...111 dmg

I think you found the reason why this is never used, not enough damage! But seriously.. :P

I Phoenix I · Jan 15, 2007, 08:14 PM // 20:14

[skill]Balthazar's Pendulum[/skill] just sucks...it's elite as well. Why take it over [skill]"Brace Yourself!"[/skill] anyday anyways?

Symbol · Jan 16, 2007, 07:36 AM // 07:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Well, when a soft character takes non-trivial damage, they typically get a prot thrown at them. So, then you switch and the cycle begins anew essentially. Its no different than a mesmer robbing a war's adrenalin regularly via blackout.

I disagree. The mesmer has to get within melee range and blackout his own skills as well. The ele can just pound on one target until the he see prots going up, then switch and start locking down another one without pause.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Those skills are some of the best you could use if your goal was lockdown, similar to how other skills like pre-nerf ether renewal was the best at gaining energy. Comparativly speaking, those nerfs were nothing. Ooh rangers cant abuse blackout for little investment like they could before... Big deal. Its also not like mesmers are forced through the same hoops like exhaustion on now ~7% of the skills, but the ratio was higher in factions.

Diversion was a 2s cast and a 5s recharge. That's a pretty huge nerf. Blackout I don't recall the old stats offhand, but it was a fairly significant duration nerf.

Anyway, the point is not that the magnitude of the changes was necessarily huge (though I argue in the case of diversion they were), but that they needed to be changed at all, despite having simple mechanics. Skills like these are difficult to balance, and I don't trust a.net to get it right.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

I bring it up, because you are in essence, nearly copying the 4 lightning strike setup between 2 skils. While fire is conditionally dps via burning, this is unconditional making it immediately superior in that aspect against all targets. I keep forgetting that javelin does slightly more than lightning strike though

Well, the mind burn build I mentioned is 57 dps vs 46 for the combination of buffed strike and javelin including the burning. Removal would lower that some, but why bother since the burning is reapplied every 6 seconds thanks to mind burn + smoldering embers?

MB is conditional, but without exhaustion and with GG you shouldn't have energy problems. The whole build is just better if your goal is to kill things quickly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Well, if bsurge gets the energy/recharge nerfs people keep suggesting, i doubt that would be the eliete on this guy's bar due to the energy needs to keep the pressure up. Single attunement would be the only option if you did bring that skill and you would still be running at a defecit for chain casting dps purposes. GoLe would be useless as well, due to the nature of the small energy casts and the eliete slot is already taken if bsurge doesn't get nerfed. No options really.

Bflash not bsurge. I'd run either prodigy or double attunements depending on how much I'd like to use gale.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

I was saying fire should be better at DPS and attempting to duplicate that dps situation elsewhere just makes fire without utility and air the only way to go. Also having fire only "conditionally" better, due to burning doesn't wash either.

That's true, but I'm not attempting to have air duplicate the dps of fire. I don't see why burning isn't a legitimate way to buff fire dps either-as long as the burning is easily reapplied it's not going to be removed much in practice-and if we're going to consider condition removal as a factor then we damn well should consider projectile accuracy too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Look at the recharge on it and look at the other usable hex removal options and tell me what skill would need to be used in order to keep up with the skill. Furthermore, you must do damage in order to trigger the blindness. Just because the damage is required after the hex, doesn't mean the target will avoid being hit with damage. In essence, you could have it on all the melee on the opposing side and should they "spike" hitting any one of them who still have the hex would nail them all with the blindness. With Bsurge one of those melee would have to be a dervish or have some other enchantment running on them to create that kind of save.

One copy of blight is all you need to deal with this. Remove the hex, remove the blind, and heal any incidental damage you did inflicting the blind. Very energy efficient. A couple of non-elite hex removals (holy veil, deny hexes) will suffice as well.

Your argument presupposes that you can maintain the hex on top of two people. That's nuts unless you're talking about hex build where glimmering mark is covered, which sort of defeats the purpose of using it as a cover hex.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Which brings me to a point i made earlier, where the damage cant really go up and still be balanced in some instances, like air. Instead what it needs is other utility to make it worhwhile to bring.

There's little generic utility that can be supplied by a glyph. Outside of modifying cost, effect (by raising attributes), or cast time what is there?

I Mean I · Jan 16, 2007, 02:45 PM // 14:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by What if...

My desired buffs would be:

Shame and Guilt: Drop the recharges by 5 seconds

PLEASE NO!
this would make it extremely overpowered... very good e-steal plus interrupt next spell it's fine.But with 5 sec recharge it's totally overpowred! use it before spike like eurospike does and you got a clean spike.

Thomas.knbk · Jan 16, 2007, 02:56 PM // 14:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Mean I

PLEASE NO!
this would make it extremely overpowered... very good e-steal plus interrupt next spell it's fine.But with 5 sec recharge it's totally overpowred! use it before spike like eurospike does and you got a clean spike.

hell no, BY 5 seconds, not TO 5 seconds
Maybe just for Guilt. Shame is good enough as it is.

Patccmoi · Jan 16, 2007, 04:42 PM // 16:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas.knbk

hell no, BY 5 seconds, not TO 5 seconds
Maybe just for Guilt. Shame is good enough as it is.

I think both are fine honestly. It's a combination of 'interrupt' and energy steal without even having to babysit a target, and 30s recharge is fine for that. If you want lower, there's Mantra of Recovery and it does the job very well. If all you want is the interrupt effect on offense, use Mistrust (or both Mistrust and Guilt really. MoRecovery-Guilt-Mistrust is kinda like 'interrupt for newbs'). Shame shouldn't get any kind of buff.

For the Mesmer skill buffs i'd personally like to see:

Chaos Storm - 15/2/25, Nearby AOE. It would be a nice anti-ward skill in fact, but recharge/aoe kills it.

Hex Eater Vortex - 10/1/8. It's elite, it removes a hex, and it's nothing close to Divert or Expel... For elite, it's waaay too costy atm on top of being very conditional (hex removal and foes need to be nearby to have any use)

Mirror of Disenchantment - 15/1/25. It's powerful, but not THAT powerful, and recharge would be fine at 25 with lower energy (basically same stats as Shatter Enchant, but instead of doing damage you remove it from other foes too).

Price of Pride : For 5...17 seconds, the next time target foe uses an elite Skill, that foe loses 4...9 energy and the elite Skill recharges for an additional 15s. (or could be every time target foe...)

Atm, Price of Pride isn't really punishing at all. You'll lose more energy using the skill than your target, only if they use an elite skill, once.

Simple Thievery... i'm not sure, but something has to be done. It can't be as some people suggested 'steal target foe's elite skill'. Imo that would just be way too strong. I'd like 'this skill is used with 16 attribute points' or something like that so at least you can use what you stole at max efficiency, no matter what it was.

Visions of Regret : 10/2/10, 10..22..26 seconds. It should be somewhat comparable to Spoil Victor considering it's an incredibly specific hex (only targets adrenal users).

Power Flux : not a hex (no way to remove the -2 pips of regen)

Wastrel's Demise : Hex, 5/.25/5. Target foe takes 5...25 damage. After 1 second, if that foe is not casting a Spell, that foe takes an additional 3...6 damage for each equipped Spell.

Would prevent using mass WD as spike skills (being an hex, only 1 can be active), and gives 1s for target to start casting something (atm it's just a direct nuke really. The clause is flatout ridiculous). Recharge time is lowered. Would be more for pressure and dilemma than just straight nuking.

Spiritual Pain has been discussed a lot and it even has its own thread so i'll leave it out for here.

Persistence of Memory : 5/.25/10. It's good, but it's still better not to be interrupted and there's stances for that. At least it should be cheap and easy to keep on, it still requires relatively high FC.

Symbolic Celerity : ... and recharge 25% faster. Atm this skill is nice in general but if you plan to use this + Mantra of Inscription you have just no skill slot left. Would be nice if it included a 'weak' Mantra of Inscription in there.

Symbolic Posture : ... and activate 25% faster. It's just for 1 signet, and Mantra of Signet is already 'instant recharge' with 0 investment. Should give some more advantage since it's in Fast Cast.

Air of Disenchantment : Nearby. Adjacent is just too hard in PvP. I'd also add 'target foe cast enchant slower and enchants targetting target foe cast slower' (well, reworded correctly).

Illusion of Pain : target foe takes 6..18 damage instead of -3..9 degen.

Signet of Clumsiness : 10...76 damage OR if that attack was an attack skill, that skill is disabled for 15s.

You have to interrupt an attacker with a signet, it should at least do something more than minor damage.

Discharge Enchantment : 5/1/20. Recharge 20..56..68% faster.

It's just too costy for the effect. With decent Inspiration the recharge would be same as it is now.

Drain Enchantment : 10/2/25. Gain 10..20E.

Like before the nerf, but with 2s cast so monks can't abuse it.

Ether Signet : 45s recharge.

It's really good emanagement, but 60s recharge is too unreliable to trust that skill, and MoI is an additional skill slot.

Mantra of Earth, Flame, Frost, Lightning : +15AL vs elemental, take +5..17% damage vs opposite element (like Mantra of Earth takes +5..17% damage from Lightning)

Extend Conditions : Rework to this:

5/1/10

Hex Spell. All Conditions on target foe last 5...41% longer. Whenever a condition with more than 5s remaining is removed from target foe, it is instantly reapplied with 50% of its remaining duration.

So say you Blind a warrior for 8s, it will last 5..41% longer (say you have 12 insp, it'll last 11s). You draw from the warrior after 1s, Blind is reapplied with 5s duration. If it's drawed again, it's gone cause it's below 5s. The below 5s clause is to prevent something like Frag-Hypochondria abuse where you could spam Hypochondria on a target next to the guy with Extend Conditions and he'd just die because condition would get applied/reapplied everytime. Now it could still work to some extent but you would need very high duration conditions so that you can trigger them more than 2-3 times.

Power Leech : 5/.25/10

Hex Eater Signet : Nearby

Lyssa's Aura : Target ally.

Most of these skills, like Lyssa's Aura, Mirror of Ice, etc. would all be great if they could be used on other allies but suck when it's self-only. Basically, a self-defense enchant is fine, but an ELITE one better be insanely good to ever see play (like Shadowform, and in some rare cases Obsidian Flesh cause of the no spell target). And Lyssa's Aura is nice, but not insanely good.

Tease : 10/.75/10, remove touch range OR 10/.75/15, remove hex type (basically only way to remove is hitting target)

Signet of Illusions : 1s cast

Phades · Jan 17, 2007, 02:56 AM // 02:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

I disagree. The mesmer has to get within melee range and blackout his own skills as well. The ele can just pound on one target until the he see prots going up, then switch and start locking down another one without pause.

That is where energy issues come in to play. The duration of the mesmer options allow for regen and other options between uses, while the ele would have to maintian casting making him a easy target for any kind of disruption from different sources.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Diversion was a 2s cast and a 5s recharge. That's a pretty huge nerf. Blackout I don't recall the old stats offhand, but it was a fairly significant duration nerf.

The duration nerf was more signifigant below 12 spec, which only really affected rangers. I don't recall blackout going to 7s at 16 skill. The 2s cast time change to 3 is the difference of .5s, big deal. The recharge time is a byproduct of the spam through mantra of recovery, basically making it available constantly. That change was needed as a adjustment and it is completely different from chaining together 3-5 ~4s recharge skills just to maintain similar level of lockdown.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Skills like these are difficult to balance, and I don't trust a.net to get it right.

Not much point investing in new chapters then is there?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Well, the mind burn build I mentioned is 57 dps vs 46 for the combination of buffed strike and javelin including the burning. Removal would lower that some, but why bother since the burning is reapplied every 6 seconds thanks to mind burn + smoldering embers?

Sec, rewinding a little here, but i have a little to say in regard to just the burning that ill end up restating in a sec. In just removing the burning condition, you fall under the lightning damage. Furthermore, burning doesn't stack, so you get diminishing returns overall opposed to damage with utility options in the direct competition.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Remove exhaustion.

That doesnt raise the existing 34.6- DPS that is mindburn cast on recharge, which includes burning and assumes no overlap in burning times. I am not seeing a suggestion you made to bump its damage or recharge to change that figure. Unless you meant the "consistancy" adjustment, which i thought was directed more towards the line in general for changes. If not, then my appologies.

Also, given the nature of many different condition removal options, burning could in fact merely turn into more healing, essentially nullifying the pressure it was intending to cause. I am making it seem worse than it is, but my suggestions for the line was to try and create more fire and forget burning situations and allow the up front damage also be somewhat more competitive.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Bflash not bsurge. I'd run either prodigy or double attunements depending on how much I'd like to use gale.

I would assume double attunments as well, despite the risk running something so fragile for energy management, but you have no choice really because being constantly in the midlines with something dangerous like e-prod with the current removal options is tantemount to suicide. Then again, it would be not very difficult to e-deny or strip creating a similar, but less volitile situation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

One copy of blight is all you need to deal with this. Remove the hex, remove the blind, and heal any incidental damage you did inflicting the blind. Very energy efficient. A couple of non-elite hex removals (holy veil, deny hexes) will suffice as well.

Blight would be running at a energy defecit compared to the application cost, as would divert hexes assuming single hex removal. Considering the nature of projectiles and range, you could have a blinded character the moment glimmering mark lands. Since wanding is for free, unless you felt the need to use lightning strike to trigger that adjustment just makes it potentially too good if we are to assume b-surge is currently too good as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Your argument presupposes that you can maintain the hex on top of two people. That's nuts unless you're talking about hex build where glimmering mark is covered, which sort of defeats the purpose of using it as a cover hex.

With a 5s recharge and a 5e cost, you could keep it up on three people if you really felt the need to, not that it would help in every instance. Also, unless someone is using divert or blight on recharge to get rid of it, it wouldnt be that hard to sustain even without cover hexes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

There's little generic utility that can be supplied by a glyph. Outside of modifying cost, effect (by raising attributes), or cast time what is there?

Sorry, my latter comment was more of a general one instead of just toward the glyph specifically. Basically, i see it as a situation where the skills need to be built more like how the mesmer lines are designed (multi function) in order to be competitive and that the damage is about as high as it can go without being too spike heavy.

skillsbas8 · Jan 17, 2007, 06:48 AM // 06:48

I want to see many monk elites buffed.
Empathic removal- lower cooldown might make it legit on off casters

Boon Signet- the problem with this one is definitely the 5...29 heal. Gaining 2 energy for each enchant is far too situational and even with 2 enchants, gaining 4 energy is laughable, especially with the max possible energy gained is 6.

Balthazar's Pendelum- a pointless elite version of brace yourself. Needs to be more than 1 kd duration.

Just my .02

Symbol · Jan 17, 2007, 08:55 AM // 08:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

That is where energy issues come in to play. The duration of the mesmer options allow for regen and other options between uses, while the ele would have to maintian casting making him a easy target for any kind of disruption from different sources.

Well it's easy enough to take elite energy management for something like this. Dual attunements, prodigy, or even master of magic might work for air spell spam.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

The duration nerf was more signifigant below 12 spec, which only really affected rangers. I don't recall blackout going to 7s at 16 skill. The 2s cast time change to 3 is the difference of .5s, big deal. The recharge time is a byproduct of the spam through mantra of recovery, basically making it available constantly. That change was needed as a adjustment and it is completely different from chaining together 3-5 ~4s recharge skills just to maintain similar level of lockdown.

Well it is different I'll grant you that. The elementalist is inflicting damage and locking you down from range while chaining those spells.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Not much point investing in new chapters then is there?

I'm not sure how claiming that I don't trust A.net to balance powerful mes effects properly is an argument for not buying new chapters.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Sec, rewinding a little here, but i have a little to say in regard to just the burning that ill end up restating in a sec. In just removing the burning condition, you fall under the lightning damage. Furthermore, burning doesn't stack, so you get diminishing returns overall opposed to damage with utility options in the direct competition

If you prevent the burning from being applied at all the damage drops slightly below strike-javelin spam. That pretty much requires having one guy spamming dismiss condition on you at all times-not a productive use of time and energy when you could be removing blinds and deep wounds, or doing something else.

On the other hand someone strafing can avoid lightning javelin entirely, dropping your potential damage by more than a half.

Burning doesn't stack but I'm fine with that. If you have more than one mind burn elementalist on the team there's no need to have them double team someone unless it's on a spike assist, it's better to have them pressure separate characters.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

That doesnt raise the existing 34.6- DPS that is mindburn cast on recharge, which includes burning and assumes no overlap in burning times. I am not seeing a suggestion you made to bump its damage or recharge to change that figure. Unless you meant the "consistancy" adjustment, which i thought was directed more towards the line in general for changes. If not, then my appologies.

No, you have it right. I don't think mindburn needs a damage buff. Removing exhaustion will be sufficient. I'd prefer a 5-10E mindburn with current damage stats than a 15E version that does 142 damage per pop that you proposed, because the former doesn't requires fragile emanagement.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Also, given the nature of many different condition removal options, burning could in fact merely turn into more healing, essentially nullifying the pressure it was intending to cause. I am making it seem worse than it is, but my suggestions for the line was to try and create more fire and forget burning situations and allow the up front damage also be somewhat more competitive.

I think the upfront damage of fire is mostly fine, it's the cast/cost/recharge that kills it. That isn't to say that a few skills couldn't use more raw damage (immolate, mind blast, firestorm, IB) but that isn't the majority of the line.

Also, I don't buy the condition removal = free heal argument.

1) Mend cond/ailment heal while removing burning, but really if you inflicted the damage some other way you'd just use a different 5E heal. There's no difference.

2) Everyone uses dismiss condition now anyway, so the point is moot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

I would assume double attunments as well, despite the risk running something so fragile for energy management, but you have no choice really because being constantly in the midlines with something dangerous like e-prod with the current removal options is tantemount to suicide. Then again, it would be not very difficult to e-deny or strip creating a similar, but less volitile situation.

The current situation for enchants is just dire with avatar of grenth running around. If AoG was made less ridiculous running dual attune or prodigy would be feasible.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Blight would be running at a energy defecit compared to the application cost, as would divert hexes assuming single hex removal. Considering the nature of projectiles and range, you could have a blinded character the moment glimmering mark lands. Since wanding is for free, unless you felt the need to use lightning strike to trigger that adjustment just makes it potentially too good if we are to assume b-surge is currently too good as well.

With a 5s recharge and a 5e cost, you could keep it up on three people if you really felt the need to, not that it would help in every instance. Also, unless someone is using divert or blight on recharge to get rid of it, it wouldnt be that hard to sustain even without cover hexes.

Several things in no particular order:
* You don't need to cast blight on recharge to make the skill useless. If you cast it every 10 seconds so that you only get 5 sec duration from your hex you basically get a horribly cumbersome version of bsurge

* If you're just concerned about removing the hex rather than cleaning up the side effects of the hex non-elite hex removal is perfectly adequate

* There's no way outside of a hex build that you're going to be able to maintain this on more than one person. Removal is just too strong. And even in a hex build it's just far clumsier to use than bsurge/bflash Yeah you might have it on all their melee, but you still have to trigger the blind. If you need a timely blind you absolutely have to use an instant hit (= more energy), so pretty much the only thing GM will be uniquely useful for is locking down a single target.

*lemming* · Jan 17, 2007, 09:10 AM // 09:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by skillsbas8

Empathic removal- lower cooldown might make it legit on off casters

Has anyone tried an Empathic war recently? Haven't seen them for quite a while now.

Phades · Jan 18, 2007, 02:35 AM // 02:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Well it is different I'll grant you that. The elementalist is inflicting damage and locking you down from range while chaining those spells.

Right, which is roughly equal to the mesmer throwing one lock down skill and switching targets and doing something else before the original skill's duration ends. In essence it is also similar to comparing it against e-surge and burn, where it is doing damage, while creating e-denial creating pressure in two directions at the same time. It doesnt have the same effect in a spike assist, like shatter enchantment does, or spiritual pain, but that is more of a raw damage up front+ utility issue that i doubt could be compensated for fairly overal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

I'm not sure how claiming that I don't trust A.net to balance powerful mes effects properly is an argument for not buying new chapters.

I was equating that roughly towards not trusting ANET to produce skills with new effects and be balanced. If they produce a mes effect or not is irrellevant.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

If you prevent the burning from being applied at all the damage drops slightly below strike-javelin spam. That pretty much requires having one guy spamming dismiss condition on you at all times-not a productive use of time and energy when you could be removing blinds and deep wounds, or doing something else.On the other hand someone strafing can avoid lightning javelin entirely, dropping your potential damage by more than a half.

Fire doesn't get gale without cros speccing, which easily invalidates the projectile issue, just not completely. Then again with dismiss conditions and restore conditions, you don't have to kill the burning right away in order to wipe out what the burning damage could do. Assuming dismiss conditions though, you are likely to be hitting a target with existing prot anyhow, potentially lowering the damage output anyway. Even so, if someone were to cast dismiss or restore conditions immediately, not only does it wipe out the burning, but it removes the damage up front as well. Its just two birds with one stone. Its similar to divert hex and blight knocking out hex and condition pressure at the same time for no extra cost in different build comparisons.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Burning doesn't stack but I'm fine with that. If you have more than one mind burn elementalist on the team there's no need to have them double team someone unless it's on a spike assist, it's better to have them pressure separate characters.

Ideally that is the case with degen based pressure builds, but it does create an artificial handicap on skills like rodgorts invocation limiting the damage potential. I do think that the burning should be treated seperatly and independantly, becuase of the abscence of utility. Essentially burning is the utility in the fire line, while air has easily applied blind and knock down skills.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

No, you have it right. I don't think mindburn needs a damage buff. Removing exhaustion will be sufficient. I'd prefer a 5-10E mindburn with current damage stats than a 15E version that does 142 damage per pop that you proposed, because the former doesn't requires fragile emanagement.

You have to run that energy management anyway if you run fire, due to the fact that the majority of the skills cost 10e or more anyhow. Unless you were intending on being the occasional burn someone while running the flag guy. Also with my changes, mind burn damage would have to go up to follow immolate scaling, which in turn is scaled to be more competitive against air and closer to the damage over time potential of conjure phantasm. Futhermore, the 142 damage puts it directly into competition with mind shock against a AL 60 target in a 142 vs 140 damage comparison with the burning vs knock down effect trade off between the two skills. I can't justify, given the existing skill options, taking the exhaustion off of a knock down skill, however comparing a exhaustion causer for 5e up front vs a 15e skill seems fair given the energy maitenence options like glyph of lesser energy and glowing gaze. Take lightning orb as an example for a parity of that nature.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Also, I don't buy the condition removal = free heal argument.

1) Mend cond/ailment heal while removing burning, but really if you inflicted the damage some other way you'd just use a different 5E heal. There's no difference.

2) Everyone uses dismiss condition now anyway, so the point is moot.

For both, if they have those skills anyhow, its not like you are forcing them to use a different skill to maintain that kind of efficiency. Then you have extinguish, which would basically nullify any burning dependant team, if it did become more envouge. Not that you would really need it given the options, but still...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Several things in no particular order:
* You don't need to cast blight on recharge to make the skill useless. If you cast it every 10 seconds so that you only get 5 sec duration from your hex you basically get a horribly cumbersome version of bsurge

I don't believe people will allow their team mates to remain blind for 9 out of every 10 seconds.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

* If you're just concerned about removing the hex rather than cleaning up the side effects of the hex non-elite hex removal is perfectly adequate

With this argument, there should be absolutely no problem with any hex in the game, especially the more popular spoil victor and reaper's mark hexes, yet there are comments towards effectivness and ability to counter both.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

* There's no way outside of a hex build that you're going to be able to maintain this on more than one person. Removal is just too strong. And even in a hex build it's just far clumsier to use than bsurge/bflash Yeah you might have it on all their melee, but you still have to trigger the blind. If you need a timely blind you absolutely have to use an instant hit (= more energy), so pretty much the only thing GM will be uniquely useful for is locking down a single target.

Consider you have a hex build, then consider giving all of your backline characters a lighting damage wand option. The only way you are going to keep blind off the melee is with combo removal of the hex and the blind before the hex gets re-applied. Right now draw conditions and flesh wound users can outpace blinding surge and whenever i run blinding surge against good players, the blind rarely lasts more than 2s. With glimmering mark, the removal options would simply be moot untill the hex is removed as the blind is now being applied potentially faster than the condition removal can keep pace with.

Symbol · Jan 19, 2007, 11:40 AM // 11:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Right, which is roughly equal to the mesmer throwing one lock down skill and switching targets and doing something else before the original skill's duration ends. In essence it is also similar to comparing it against e-surge and burn, where it is doing damage, while creating e-denial creating pressure in two directions at the same time. It doesnt have the same effect in a spike assist, like shatter enchantment does, or spiritual pain, but that is more of a raw damage up front+ utility issue that i doubt could be compensated for fairly overall

You can't really do much else if you're running around spamming blackout. As for diversion, I'd say that lockdown that's comparable to pre-nerf diversion is really not an indicator of balance...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

I was equating that roughly towards not trusting ANET to produce skills with new effects and be balanced. If they produce a mes effect or not is irrellevant.

How can it be "irrelevant" when it's the heart of my position? I haven't been talking about some generic new effects, I've been talking about lockdown like blackout/gale/diversion/hypothetical air spam which are powerful mes effects that are (IMO, and supported by evidence) difficult to balance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Fire doesn't get gale without cros speccing, which easily invalidates the projectile issue, just not completely.

This is a weak argument when someone speccing fire can put 4 points into air and get a fully functional gale. Really, I don't think see how you can contest that the fire build is signficantly better at doing damage. Better raw dps, much better dps in practice thanks to instant hits and more robust energy management.

Whether that's worth the tradeoff in utility that you get with air is very much up to you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Then again with dismiss conditions and restore conditions, you don't have to kill the burning right away in order to wipe out what the burning damage could do. Assuming dismiss conditions though, you are likely to be hitting a target with existing prot anyhow, potentially lowering the damage output anyway. Even so, if someone were to cast dismiss or restore conditions immediately, not only does it wipe out the burning, but it removes the damage up front as well. Its just two birds with one stone. Its similar to divert hex and blight knocking out hex and condition pressure at the same time for no extra cost in different build comparisons.

Again, this is not a convincing argument. Burning exists to do damage, there's no other utility there. Inflicting x damage with burning which is healed by a mend xxx or inflicting x damage with a DD nuke which is healed by a RoF or GoH are not different from an efficiency standpoint.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

You have to run that energy management anyway if you run fire, due to the fact that the majority of the skills cost 10e or more anyhow. Unless you were intending on being the occasional burn someone while running the flag guy.

In the mind burn build I described above your offense is complete with three skills. With a 10e burn GG is enough to sustain you quite a while by itself (you run a small energy deficit, but that's all). If you do choose to run fire attunement your damage output is essentially free energywise, which allows you to use your natural regen on other things.

With a 15E burn you're pretty much required to run attunement just to reach a neutral energy balance. I don't consider that a worthwhile tradeoff for 16 extra points of damage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Also with my changes, mind burn damage would have to go up to follow immolate scaling, which in turn is scaled to be more competitive against air and closer to the damage over time potential of conjure phantasm. Futhermore, the 142 damage puts it directly into competition with mind shock against a AL 60 target in a 142 vs 140 damage comparison with the burning vs knock down effect trade off between the two skills. I can't justify, given the existing skill options, taking the exhaustion off of a knock down skill, however comparing a exhaustion causer for 5e up front vs a 15e skill seems fair given the energy maitenence options like glyph of lesser energy and glowing gaze. Take lightning orb as an example for a parity of that nature.

I can't speak for anyone else, but assuming the rest of your changes to fire were implemented (which I'm largely fine with), I wouldn't care a whit if mind burn didn't follow the damage scaling of the other skills (24...71 in this case), because I'd much rather have a cheaper mind burn rather than one that does 12% more damage for 50% more energy. This seems more like an argument from aesthetics (it's just "nicer" to have the damage numbers match up) rather than anything to do with relative power.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Ideally that is the case with degen based pressure builds, but it does create an artificial handicap on skills like rodgorts invocation limiting the damage potential. I do think that the burning should be treated seperatly and independantly, becuase of the abscence of utility. Essentially burning is the utility in the fire line, while air has easily applied blind and knock down skills.

Burning isn't utility. It's just a way to increase damage without making skills too much of a spike threat. If fire has any utility, it's position control/area denial through AoE, too bad those mechanics are too weak to be worthwhile ATM.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

I don't believe people will allow their team mates to remain blind for 9 out of every 10 seconds.

This won't happen since a blight will remove the blind along with the hex. So it sticks for 5 seconds, of which you'll get maybe 3 seconds of blind (since you have to trigger it after you apply the hex), and then blight hits removing everything.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

With this argument, there should be absolutely no problem with any hex in the game, especially the more popular spoil victor and reaper's mark hexes, yet there are comments towards effectivness and ability to counter both.

Hardly. The problem with spoil victor (not RM) is that if you can't remove it, it is threatening, because it does huge chunks of damage every time it triggers and you can maintain it on three people at once. Spoil victor is a direct consequence of the strength of hex removal because it's balanced under the assumption that removal won't allow it to last its full duration. In a hex build that often won't be the case which leads to complaints. Glimmering mark is not nearly as dangerous.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Consider you have a hex build, then consider giving all of your backline characters a lighting damage wand option. The only way you are going to keep blind off the melee is with combo removal of the hex and the blind before the hex gets re-applied. Right now draw conditions and flesh wound users can outpace blinding surge and whenever i run blinding surge against good players, the blind rarely lasts more than 2s. With glimmering mark, the removal options would simply be moot untill the hex is removed as the blind is now being applied potentially faster than the condition removal can keep pace with.

I didn't consider this possibility, though I have my doubts about the effectiveness of a bunch of random wand spam between movement and casts as far as maintaining blind goes. Anyway, potential problems are easily avoided by requiring you to do some nominal damage to trigger the blind (say 5 damage). Wanding a warrior with a lightning wand that you don't meet the reqs for will result in a bunch of -0s. Dervishes and such easily reach 80AL, which means that your blind from wanding will be extremely unreliable.

JR · Jan 19, 2007, 11:45 AM // 11:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

This is a weak argument when someone speccing fire can put 4 points into air and get a fully functional gale.

5

sgfg4wo9gjwhg

Symbol · Jan 19, 2007, 01:34 PM // 13:34

Minor runes ftw.

Phades · Jan 19, 2007, 03:52 PM // 15:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

You can't really do much else if you're running around spamming blackout. As for diversion, I'd say that lockdown that's comparable to pre-nerf diversion is really not an indicator of balance...

Actually id say its equal to diversion spam as it is now, given all the options available due to the fact that the ele is forced to cover only one target and with diversion's new recharge the mesmer is somewhat forced to cover only one target as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

How can it be "irrelevant" when it's the heart of my position? I haven't been talking about some generic new effects, I've been talking about lockdown like blackout/gale/diversion/hypothetical air spam which are powerful mes effects that are (IMO, and supported by evidence) difficult to balance.

Avatar of grenth is a old effect, delivered in a new flavor. Adding effects to old skills is essentially this kind of a change, in addition to creating new skills and skill effects. If you have no faith, there really isn't a way that i see you could argue it any differently.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

This is a weak argument when someone speccing fire can put 4 points into air and get a fully functional gale. Really, I don't think see how you can contest that the fire build is signficantly better at doing damage. Better raw dps, much better dps in practice thanks to instant hits and more robust energy management.

The quantity of projectiles between the two lines is similar, but slightly favoring air. Although air has no drop from the sky mechanics to compete with either, that get avoided with any run speed boost active. Even so, i realize e-storage is weak, but being forced to cross spec for functional effectiveness dropping the maximum e-storage level while playing with skills like the mind series has much more signifigant issues over time compared to say running e-prod for instance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Whether that's worth the tradeoff in utility that you get with air is very much up to you.

Id run your changes in air over the fire line I proposed every single time. My air changes would invariably fill up the skill bar too quickly for that theoretical "total temporary" lockdown situation and leave no room for utility. Still "total lockdown" with skills on a 5-8s recharge or mixing in 2s cast times doesnt work with a 1s blackout.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Again, this is not a convincing argument. Burning exists to do damage, there's no other utility there. Inflicting x damage with burning which is healed by a mend xxx or inflicting x damage with a DD nuke which is healed by a RoF or GoH are not different from an efficiency standpoint.

Rof is more anticipation, rather than GoH being reactionary. Of course everything in the prot line is more resuable than GoH and RoF is still equally effective against all nukes, regardles if it applies burning or not. This is not a convincing argument if one has more options to mitigate or redirect than the other.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Burning isn't utility. It's just a way to increase damage without making skills too much of a spike threat. If fire has any utility, it's position control/area denial through AoE, too bad those mechanics are too weak to be worthwhile ATM.

So then, why bother with a inferior method to do damage in a line that has zero utility?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

This won't happen since a blight will remove the blind along with the hex. So it sticks for 5 seconds, of which you'll get maybe 3 seconds of blind (since you have to trigger it after you apply the hex), and then blight hits removing everything.

So then you are using Blight on recharge then, or how does 10s suddenly become 5?

Symbol · Jan 20, 2007, 01:40 AM // 01:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Actually id say its equal to diversion spam as it is now, given all the options available due to the fact that the ele is forced to cover only one target and with diversion's new recharge the mesmer is somewhat forced to cover only one target as well.

You can't really cover one target with diversion fully because of duration/recharge issues (13 second recycle, 6 duration). Removal is also a stronger option than prot as far as counters go since you can't do much about diversions recharge but you can always switch targets to get around prot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Avatar of grenth is a old effect, delivered in a new flavor. Adding effects to old skills is essentially this kind of a change, in addition to creating new skills and skill effects. If you have no faith, there really isn't a way that i see you could argue it any differently.

I have no idea what you're trying to say here. My point is very simple, I don't trust A.net to balance powerful mes effects properly. Whether it's an "old effect" or a "new effect" is besides the point.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

The quantity of projectiles between the two lines is similar, but slightly favoring air. Although air has no drop from the sky mechanics to compete with either, that get avoided with any run speed boost active. Even so, i realize e-storage is weak, but being forced to cross spec for functional effectiveness dropping the maximum e-storage level while playing with skills like the mind series has much more signifigant issues over time compared to say running e-prod for instance.

Why are you talking about the lines as a whole? We are comparing the best single target damage options available to both, and AFAICT fire is totally superior. As for dropping points in e-storage reducing the effectiveness of mind burn-that's not true in any reasonable attribute distribution. One less point in e-storage is not going to make or break things, you'll still have a larger energy pool than anything but other primary elementalists and if you build right you should be running a neutral energy balance so you never have to tap into it except in emergencies.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Id run your changes in air over the fire line I proposed every single time. My air changes would invariably fill up the skill bar too quickly for that theoretical "total temporary" lockdown situation and leave no room for utility. Still "total lockdown" with skills on a 5-8s recharge or mixing in 2s cast times doesnt work with a 1s blackout.

I wouldn't. A high spec in air mainly benefits bflash, windborne speed, and SDH. That's certainly NOT a slam dunk over fire + gale + utility from your secondary, esp now that you can get a really good self-speedbuff (flame djinn's haste) in fire.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Rof is more anticipation, rather than GoH being reactionary. Of course everything in the prot line is more resuable than GoH and RoF is still equally effective against all nukes, regardles if it applies burning or not. This is not a convincing argument if one has more options to mitigate or redirect than the other.

Having more options is meaningless if they all work equally well at mitigating/healing damage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

So then, why bother with a inferior method to do damage in a line that has zero utility?

Because on the timers we're talking about here, it's not really inferior. Why take fire? Because it does better damage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

So then you are using Blight on recharge then, or how does 10s suddenly become 5?

Good point, my mistake.

Phades · Jan 20, 2007, 02:33 AM // 02:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

You can't really cover one target with diversion fully because of duration/recharge issues (13 second recycle, 6 duration). Removal is also a stronger option than prot as far as counters go since you can't do much about diversions recharge but you can always switch targets to get around prot.

A mesmer can power through the situation that the ele couldnt. Its also not 13s, at best its 11.5 without adjusting the recharge times. Even so, its easy to overlap the effects with 1-2 other skills commonly used. By contrast, the ele is more locked into the recharges dictating the amount of shutdown, while at the same time committing a greater percentage of his skill bar to offer up the equivilant of 1 mesmer skill.

For the sake of comparison without arguing projectiles or touch skills.
Assumed mesmer skill investment
Diversion, Gale 9s lockdown with 1 exhaustion use 20 energy invested. Mesmer has 5.25s of time to do anything he wishes.
Assumed ele skill investment
Gale, Lightning strike, envenerating charge, lightning arc 9.25s lockdown with .75s gaps between damage casts, 1 exhaustion use, and 30 energy invested. Ele has chain cast to the limit of the skill cycle and has less than 1 second of freedom to do something other than chain casting before hitting a .5s recharge gap in skill reuse creating a 1.5s hole in lockdown before the latter half of the cycle can be restarted.

Are you still convinced that its more powerful by comparison? It is similar in function, but far different in cost and application.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Why are you talking about the lines as a whole? We are comparing the best single target damage options available to both, and AFAICT fire is totally superior.

Searing flames eles, were searing flames, not the fire line, while someone speccing in air could take a little of this or a little of that in addition to the goodies air has to offer without diverting extra attribute points lowering efficientcy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

... and if you build right you should be running a neutral energy balance so you never have to tap into it except in emergencies.

If any defecit is possible, especially when considering what the rest of your team needs you to do, then it should be considered since your team will not retreat in order to allow the ele to recharge his energy pool. Your latter half of the comment just sounded like, "its good if your opponent is inferior".

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

I wouldn't. A high spec in air benefits bflash, windborne speed, and SDH. That's certainly NOT a slam dunk over fire + gale + utility from your secondary.

You are overlooking getting gale for free in this instance, in terms of attribute points of course. Then again with fire its a rather tight bar considering you are most likely going to take glowing gaze in addition to your other options, while trying to fit in gale and everything else.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Having more options is meaningless if they all work equally well at mitigating/healing damage.

Not when it means being countered by more various builds instead of more narrow builds.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Because on the timers we're talking about here, it's not really inferior. Why take fire? Because it does better damage.

You are doing better damage conditionally. Those conditions are A) the damage time window observed and B) the target remains on fire constantly and C) only single target damage is considered. Otherwise you are spending more energy to do less with longer recharges by comparison to your proposed air line changes.

(side note) Weekend changes have smoldering embers as a pseudo fireball copy lol!?!?!

Bowstring Badass · Jan 20, 2007, 03:02 AM // 03:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by gasmaskman

About the Conjures, giving +energy back would allow people to use that without have any points into the elements and getting insane amounts of energy, as in a melee character.

How many counters are there to melee chars? lol