Curse

Symbol · May 09, 2006, 05:01 AM // 05:01

The assassin has access to several damaging spikes and has superior mobility, which is a pretty good niche. IMO the lack of dependence on adrenaline is an advantage in a melee-hate heavy environment, your recyle isn't hampered by block evade.

Bio-Flame · May 09, 2006, 01:25 PM // 13:25

True but their chain is affected by block/evade. If the Lead attack is blocked/evade then all the others are useless. If the off-hand is blocked/evaded, then the Duals are useless.

It isn't quite as simple as you put it.

Symbol · May 09, 2006, 03:54 PM // 15:54

I haven't forgotten that, but I think that the problem is overblown. First of all if part of the spike fails it's likely the whole thing will fail. Secondly even in an adrenaline spike you have to connect with every hit if you want to chain skills, because each adrenal attack drains a strike from the other adrenal skills. If eviscerate doesn't hit you'll have to squeeze in a regular hit before you can use executioner's for example. Thirdly assassins have several options of dispensing with the lead attack entirely. Things like palm strike, golden phoenix strike, etc which make for faster and less fragile combos.

Jagan Vastary · May 09, 2006, 07:38 PM // 19:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by trialist

Actually you guys are looking at shadow refuge the wrong way, it isn’t exactly a self heal as it is a tanking skill. The whole part about it healing you if you are attacking when it ends should have clued you in. Thus you want to use it when you are a quarter or a third injured and your target isn’t yet down so you cast shadow refuge, tank for the final kill then get out. It’s basically a skill to maintain a high health. You shouldn’t be using it as a self heal on low health, better to just teleport out and let your real healers do the job.

Shadow refuge is a good skill in PvE, simply because you often don't take a big spike. Now, from a PvP standpoint, it is an alright skill against degen pressure groups, but then again, aura of restoration is an alright skill against purely degen pressure groups, but you wouldn't take that skill.

Quote:

Originally Posted by trialist

As for assassins, i can’t really see an assassin replacing a warrior in any way though. They might be nice as sneak attackers but they lack what a warrior is able to do: keep one target busy by raging on him, and then immediately switching to another target and adrenaline spiking him. That is, what he does on one target actually counts if he decides to switch to another.

Not kiting an assassin is just foolish, they can still pressure you well, considering they always have a psuedo attack speed boost in the form of dual strikes, their auto-attacking pressure is still pretty good.

The assassin primary attribute, critical strikes, is similar in a way to building up adrenaline. Your auto-attacks help you build up for your next spike, and when you add in zealous daggers, you really don't have energy troubles.

Quote:

Originally Posted by trialist

For the assassin, well if you switch targets, you will have to wait for your energy, health, or skills to recharge to be able to do another hit and run, and you start all over again from the first of your chain, unlike the warrior who has a nice adrenaline combo waiting for you from his previous target.

Well, if you unload your combo as an assassin, you have to wait for recharge/energy, if you unload your combo as a warrior, you have to wait for adrenaline. I really don't see that big of a gap.

Anyway, we should stop hijacking this thread.

pork soldier · May 21, 2006, 01:47 AM // 01:47

I just read through this again and I think there's something the OP missed.

Elementalists do have a very high utility glue that ties them together, energy storage. No other class can even come close to the energy reserve of a primary elementalist.

Loch · May 21, 2006, 03:18 AM // 03:18

The OP didn't miss out on that at all. The main issue with Elementalists is that they can't carry out as decent damage dealers, and instead they have to play some support role, often relying on skills from another profession.

Mandy Memory · May 21, 2006, 03:50 AM // 03:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by pork soldier

I just read through this again and I think there's something the OP missed.

Elementalists do have a very high utility glue that ties them together, energy storage. No other class can even come close to the energy reserve of a primary elementalist.

What good is a lot of energy when youve nothing to use it on.

JR · May 21, 2006, 02:19 PM // 14:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by pork soldier

I just read through this again and I think there's something the OP missed.

Elementalists do have a very high utility glue that ties them together, energy storage. No other class can even come close to the energy reserve of a primary elementalist.

He did not miss that at all.

The Energy Storage primary class is largely trash as it is, it's saving grace being Ether Prodigy. Now Ether Prodigy is a fairly formidable energy machine, but what is it actually used for? Pumping out Heal Party, Extinguish, Blinding Flash... Why? Because there just aren't many Elementalist spells that justify the use.

Phades · May 21, 2006, 07:45 PM // 19:45

This is something i wish i was reading when my mother board was fried out over a month ago. Anyhow, a few interesting things got mixed together so i guess ill toss in my 2c as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

*I seriously have no idea what to do with Thunderclap. That skill is scary.

Assuming they could re-code the skill trigger effect to something more specific than just lightning damage and use lightning damage based skills; then re-tune the energy consumption/duration/re-use time of the skill, i think it would be borderline usable without being overly broken. Coordinated rits and eles could cause alot of knockdowns, but would still be limited to the cast and recast times of the skills employed themselves along with other possible drawbacks like exhaustion. Doing this, it risks following the mark of rodgort effectiveness kleshea, but knockdown is a valuable effect instead of just adding more damage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

The bigger strike against Conjures on a caster is how little milage they get out of them compared to a physical profession. A caster stops attacking to cast spells, and if he's pulling his weight as a caster he's probably casting quite a bit - leaving little time for wanding, and giving you little milage out of attack damage buffs. On the other hand, physical attackers attack as part of their skills, so they never slow down (and often speed up). So while a warrior will get a lot of milage out of even a low spec Conjure (say, 30 hits over the course of a minute) a caster is unlikely to get 10, and if he gets even 15 in something is likely very, very wrong.

Personally i think the conjures could be taken in a entirely different direction, by giving elementalists (and elementalist secondaries) the melee damage stacking option with their attack skills. To clarify, it would be similar to having them work like soul barbs works with water hexes like ice spikes or deep freeze adding damage on top of the basic listed damage just like orders or strength of honor work. The benefit would be that it could be allowed to function for both skill and non-skill based elementalist damage and is enchantment based. This would allow elemental users an option for a universal nudge, instead of a conditional bonus similar to how IAS skills and others benefit physical damage dealers.

A change along this style would possibly need slight alterations considering DOT type aoe based damage. However, it could be the "needed" boost to justify the questionable aspect of how reliable in striking the target they are at times. Considering that none of them ignore armor level, the point could be considered moot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Bad players are terrified by exhaustion, and worship max energy capacity. It's not an opinion I'm about to take seriously when discussing adjustments to the profession.

As almost always rate of recovery is far more important than total amount available to spend. There is also the fine line of where things become "too costly", due to the exhaustion tacked on top of the normal cost. When combined with other skills that are not "too costly" that also happen to be exhaustion producers can cause problems in prolonged fights. This becomes especially true when observing some of the more "efficient" energy recovery elietes that are elementalist based. Ether prodigy works with the exhaustion burn off time period by generating additional pips of regeneration. The newer two energy elietes left me with a raised eyebrow though, as they seem to leave fewer options for use than Ether prodigy does. The first being energy boon, which just feels like a cheap knock off of offering of blood, that happens to cause exhaustion. In many instances when using this skill, i just found myself thinking i would have been better off with any other energy eliete, because it only felt efficient when used at below 50% of non-exhausted energy. Then there is second wind, which wants to be used like ether signet. Oddly though, second wind has more of a synergy with high energy storage skill due to its need for existing exhaustion to exist. Running the edge of nearly zero energy while keeping around 20 exhaustion makes it one of the more hefty energy recovery methods in one shot, yet its re-use time is shorter than energy boon's by 1/3 and required no skill point investment. It makes me wonder if other professions would go the route of +30e wand/foci combinations and just use the skill as needed for "new energy" on demand. Second wind is risky with the slow cast, but doesnt damage the user or is a removable enchantment. Should a energy storage based method for exhaustion removal come into being, this would potentially be one of the best overal energy recovery tools for a elementalist.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Of course those energy elites tend to be retardedly good, and the damage elites terrible, which just makes it even more obvious which way you want to go.

Of course that just leads to eles abusing other skill lines instead of using them to take advantage of their own skill lines. This was the biggest problem with the older style ether renewal and is arguably a problem with heal party spam under ether prodigy. The elemental lines should have equally retardadly good skills as the energy recovery, allowing the ele to choose how to play rather than being forced down only one viable path for playstyle.
Conversly, there is the issue with expertise as well. Assuming that all skill lines should be "equal", then i would wonder where are the bonus pips of regeneration simulated by expertise when compared against energy storage. This is also ignoring the other passive equipment options for rangers that further augment energy recovery and new a eliete that completely negate energy cost for a limited number of attacks, which allows easier use of things like concussion shot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SaintGreg

In a similar situation, if elementalists got to be a problem, then the anti-caster hate that you pack would likely be aimed more at them then at the enemy monks/mesmers.

The hate you are refering towards is already aimed at monks, but monks are somewhat resiliant to it due to the abundance of skills at 1s cast time or less. Should more of it be brought to bear, other professions such as the ritualist and necromancer would feel its effects far more than monks would aside from a larger overal quantity of it. If this situation did occur though, it would be likely that it would be more spread out across players depending on how effective and permenant the shutdown is.

pork soldier · May 22, 2006, 11:53 PM // 23:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mandy Memory

What good is a lot of energy when youve nothing to use it on.

Spam heal party, spam heal other, spam meteor shower, spam rodgorts invocation - if you can't figure out what to use a barge-load of energy for then you need to play an energy poor class for a while.

Try spamming air spike skills with an ele, you'll be out of energy fairly quickly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loch

The OP didn't miss out on that at all. The main issue with Elementalists is that they can't carry out as decent damage dealers, and instead they have to play some support role, often relying on skills from another profession.

That is so bogus, take blinding flash, take enervating charge, take air spike skills and one secondary class skill to finish your bar (serpent's quickness if you absolutely feel you have so much energy that you can't use it all) - you'll deal a boatload of damage and be OOEnergy in no time.

edit: You absolutely need to take your damage attribute (air, fire or whatever) all the way to 16 for this to be effective, a +1 20% chance offhand is a good idea as well.

Wasteland Squidget · May 23, 2006, 01:20 AM // 01:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by pork soldier

Spam heal party, spam heal other, spam meteor shower, spam rodgorts invocation - if you can't figure out what to use a barge-load of energy for then you need to play an energy poor class for a while.

I'm sorry, did you seriously just suggest that we spam Meteor Shower? Seriously?

You're half-right, in that Eles can get a lot of mileage out of Ether Prodigy in order to spam their few good skills like Blinding Flash. However, that Ele isn't worth anything without his secondary - he has to be able to power out Heal Partys or some similarly powerful skill with all that energy, or he's simply not pulling his weight on the battlefield.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pork soldier

That is so bogus, take blinding flash, take enervating charge, take air spike skills and one secondary class skill to finish your bar (serpent's quickness if you absolutely feel you have so much energy that you can't use it all) - you'll deal a boatload of damage and be OOEnergy in no time.

No, even if you're spamming these skills constantly you won't be dealing damage. The only way to deal significant DPS is by being a warrior. Numbers are available in the first post of this thread.

Eilsys · Oct 06, 2006, 07:56 PM // 19:56

This is going to be one hell of a bump, but here goes (something a noob just thought of)...

How about Energy Storage being used by Anet for more than just, say, energy management? Like an Elite called "Energy Release" or something, that makes all your spells do +75% damage or something, but then you lose 75% of your maximum mana when the spell ends?

And I know I'm way behind on this thread, awfully sorry about that, just got linked to it. XD