Curse

Phades · Jun 04, 2006, 08:27 PM // 20:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Antheus

There apears to be high demand for all kinds of eles in Alliance battles. This may change, but nukes, a random ward, or water are quite handy. Anything with AoE basically, due to large population numbers.

The philosiphy behind this, is to help clear out the npc dias areas quickly, since the npcs are static. Additionally, they can be argued as an afterthought to put some counterweight against a MM build and reduce the number of potential assailants with just a few casts.

I dunno sometimes even when playing with my ele, since water is nice for trying to stall over long distances in addition to ward vs foes, but typically people are just too split up to maximize the effect. Of course the couple bridges and ramps when people do cluster, its almost a teary moment from the mass aoe days in pve. Those never last one way or the other though and one rit still neuters the damage for a period of time.

nightrunner · Jun 16, 2006, 05:19 AM // 05:19

Go read Ensign's article (I think it's called "Why Nuking Sucks"). Eles aren't useless, it's just that damagewise, they're usually outperformed by other classes, and are better suited to other roles.

Byron · Jun 16, 2006, 05:31 AM // 05:31

Much related info to be found in these threads:

Why Nuking Sucks

Conceptual Issue With Elementalists

torquemada · Jun 16, 2006, 09:42 AM // 09:42

Besides above references, Eles are far from dead - otherwise my Warrior would jump from happines for never seeing another flashbot or warder.

Usages being:
1. Warder
2. Flashbot/spiker
3. Heal party/other/orison spammer (mkaaay this is really just for E-storage)
4. Flag runner

Not dead, not by long shot, yet disfunctonal damage-wise (though air spiking can hurt a lot).
Anyway, Byron posted classic threads on those issues above. A fine read on a lazy friday afternoon.

NikkiIsNub · Jun 17, 2006, 09:29 PM // 21:29

I think when it comes to PvP, eles play a primarily defensive role no matter what you have them on. You have wards, flashbots, water eles or heal party spammers. On occasion they may help out with a spike by throwing in an orb, but the thing that ultimately kills their damage is the cast times that doesn't allow them to pile on damage quickly as they should be able to. This is why the Fast Cast eles are so popular now, as they appear to function how eles *should* have.

As everyone else said, though, the ele's huge energy pool still gives them a lot of other uses outside of PvP and they play important roles in protectings backlines (or running flags as it may be)

shadex · Jun 18, 2006, 10:10 PM // 22:10

I think both of those guides are full of crap. One is comparing warriors with ele's. They are forget to examine them off paper. For instance, Crippling shot and Pin Down are basicly the same skills on paper where the only difference is one is an elite and has a 1 second recast.

They fail to explore the massive amount of anti warrior skills out there. Where as there are snares, blocks, blinds, weakens, slow/miss hex's for warriors in the meta-game, Anti ele spells include interupts, slowing casting time, damage if you cast, and dazed. If you take a real good look at these skills, the anti caster skills are all on long recharges, and usually in the form of a short duration hex. If you want to do a damage output annaliyst you need to include how many times the warriors actually hit and do the damage vs how many times the ele actually hits and does the damage.

There both used for differnt purposes. Where an ele, generally, has a higher damage output then a warrior, a warrior doesn't need mana, and has higher armor. There differn't tools. If you role an ele, chances are you will find yourself in a fire spike, ice slowing position, or an e/mo heal and damage or heal and slow position.

Now a good union/shelter rit would stop an ele spike just fine, as well as prot spirit, which is why there arn't alot of ele spikers that work. If you want to play an ele prime, it's one of the most verstile primary's in the game. I wouldn't suggest many builds without either prodigy though. Take a look at the observation battles. You would be hard pressed to find a build that doesn't include an ele. And yes, flashbot, heal party, with orb and either prodigy is one of the more complicated class's but also one of the most powerfull.

Zui · Jun 18, 2006, 11:04 PM // 23:04

Shadex, perhaps you should read the articles again... I'm pretty sure they both mention that warriors damage is easeir to mitigate, but doing so requires time, attention, energy, slots on a skillbar...

Lando Griffen · Jun 18, 2006, 11:18 PM // 23:18

Ele is a great class, regaurdless of what anyone tells you. I'm sure you've heard it plenty of times, there is no "best" class for pve or pvp. So the only quiestion is, which class would you have more fun with?

Ensign · Jun 19, 2006, 12:08 AM // 00:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

They are forget to examine them off paper.

Other way around. Those articles were prompted by the *observation* that elementalists were complete and utter shit at applying any sort of pressure. This was tested explicitly over a couple of weeks that produced, alongside a lot of frustration, the roots of the Prodigy/Flash/Heal Party template.

A thousand hours of practical experience has shown conclusively that warriors outclass every other source of damage, and by such a large margin that there's no point in using anything else. This is a result that has been observed by virtually everyone of note and is reflected in the builds of every guild worth mentioning. No one tries to deal damage with anything but warriors. Every build either features 2-3 warriors beating down the other team, or is a countdown spike of some sort.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

They fail to explore the massive amount of anti warrior skills out there.

This was addressed specifically. Countermeasures to a particular offense or defense require resources, of time and energy, to break down and prevent from doing their job. There are no magical countermeasures that do not require investment of resources. At the very least they consume slots on your skill bar, and either time or energy - usually both. Hence you can't simply compare the effective damage dealt of different templates - you have to look at the damage dealt, and the resources consumed by the other team in holding you to that level of damage.

The other thing to remember about countermeasures is that their existance alone does not matter - only when they are put into builds and onto skillbars do they become relevant. The raw number of skills that do a job is not terribly important, because only the best ones will be used in practice. Hence what you need to compare is not the number of countermeasures, but the *effectiveness and efficiency of the best countermeasures of each class*.

Looking at this more practically, you'll notice in a typical 8v8 build a character who is largely devoted to stopping warriors, and skills and tactics employed by several other characters that are designed to hinder warriors as well. It's easy to conclude from this that stopping warriors is a very, very high priority of virtually every team out there. On the other hand, the number of specific anti-elementalist counters is infintesimally low. The hate that an elementalist sees is generally anti-monk or anti-mesmer shutdown that is being directed at him - and you know what? It's usually enough to wreck the elementalist thoroughly. In other words, warriors are effective *despite* teams actively gunning to shut them down, while elementalists work to remain effective through hate that isn't even in the build to stop them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

There both used for differnt purposes. Where an ele, generally, has a higher damage output then a warrior, a warrior doesn't need mana, and has higher armor.

An elementalist most certainly does not have a higher damage output than a warrior. Elementalist damage is so much worse than warrior damage that no one of note even bothers trying to deal damage with them. Why this was the case was the intent of the article on elementalist damage - it was trying to explain observed phenomena by pointing out that elementalist damage isn't even high enough on paper to be worth trying to make work, let alone trying to work it in the field where everything is messier and less productive than it would be on paper.

The main uses of an elementalist, as one can observe regularly, are defensive. Through Blinding Flash and Heal Party, and elementalist can apply direct counters to two of the most effective types of damage, warriors and degen. Both of those skills have other uses as well, such as harassing rangers with Blinding Flash, or topping people off with Heal Party. Elementalists perform other defensive purposes as well, such as snaring the other team's warriors or laying down Wards. Offensively, the elementalist has two roles - one, snaring the target so that your warriors can catch him, and two, contributing a spell to an adrenaline spike. Both are strong plays that you'll see fairly often.

In other words, the elementalist has a lot of value as a utility character to a typical team. However, it should be noted that the one job that is notably absent from the elementalist's long list of duties is 'dealing large amounts of damage to the other team'.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

which is why there arn't alot of ele spikers that work.

Fast cast Mesmer/Elementalist spike is rather effective. It should be understood why it is so effective though - first, because the build has several copies of Blinding Flash that make it very difficult for any sort of pressure team to fight through. Second, many copies of Gale in the build allow it to mes important defensive targets during a spike. Third, fast recharges on Orb and Strike allow the build to spike frequently.

Air spike does not kill with instantaneous, full to zero spikes, at least not until DP on the defending team is significant. Instead, it wins through stalling the other team's offense through blind, and delivering compressed damage during the duration of Gale's mes effect. Fast casting is critical to the functioning of the build, as it allows the ele to mes a monk with gale, then contribute to the spike itself with Orb before that monk can respond. The second part of the build working is fast spiking, taxing the energy of the other team. Infusing is expensive, and if you can spike fast enough via double attunes, they eventually start riding low energy and cannot keep up. Hence it is unique amongst 'spike' builds, in that instead of attempting to make monks useless through tight spiking, it uses 'sloppy' spikes and mes effects to prevent response to the damage being compressed into a couple of seconds.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

You would be hard pressed to find a build that doesn't include an ele. And yes, flashbot, heal party, with orb and either prodigy is one of the more complicated class's but also one of the most powerfull.

It is a very powerful metagame build, to be sure - warrior hate and 3rd monk duties. I've been playing many variations of elementalist for the last several months and I'm very familiar with what they can and cannot do. For all of its flexibility and contributions to a team, I wouldn't for a moment sell the template as a damage dealer. It is surpassed only by a monk in how ineffective it is offensively. Only a narrow subset of elementalists can even kill a solitary NPC, and any competent warrior or ranger isn't threatened by an elementalist at all.

Elementalists have a dozen or so strong skills that make them invaluable in PvP. It is far from a dead class. It just can't deal any damage.

Peace,
-CxE

shadex · Jun 19, 2006, 12:34 AM // 00:34

"This is a result that has been observed by virtually everyone of note and is reflected in the builds of every guild worth mentioning. No one tries to deal damage with anything but warriors. "

Almost every build worth mentioning has either mezers to shutdown or edeny the monks, Smiters, mass hexers or a form of spike etc... Circus builds set aside (builds that use a cheap set of tricks to win) Those pressure builds Become a way to stop the class's that shutdown the warriors. The draw e/mo is a clasic example of this.

The counter messures i do not think where addressed very well at all. where a warrior spends the majority of a gvg chasing around a soft target, a ele spends the majority of the time kiting the hard targets. That set aside The warrior is good at DPS where it takes more time to attack a specific target to get the damage in question. Where as an air elementalist only takes 3 seconds to pull off 210 damage, it would take a warrior generally 5-6 seconds, without a adrenaline skill up. The reason warriors are used in high level gvg is that there armor + there ability to adrenaline spike. Pressure is all good, however in order to get a kill in gvg, you need to make it so the monks can not heal. Thats accomplished by either making it so they don't have the reaction time needed, or by draining/shuting down them.

"The other thing to remember about countermeasures is that their existance alone does not matter - only when they are put into builds and onto skillbars do they become relevant. " -I 100% agree. And to the point the current metagame has plenty of anti warrior countermeasures in them. You generally run into Guardian, Aegis, Blind, Feintheartedness, and the like. Where as you don't see to many interupters besides some of the crip shot rangers and some of the mezmers. It's realevent because where a ele will generally get to cast his spells all the time, the warrior's damage can generally be cut in half due to midigation. Thats the reason so many switched to warrior cunning and Deaths charge to stop that midigation.

"Offensively, the elementalist has two roles - one, snaring the target so that your warriors can catch him, and two, contributing a spell to an adrenaline spike. Both are strong plays that you'll see fairly often."

This i'm unclear of....have we been talking about a team full of just air spikers or a mixed team for pressure? I know from personal expierence that combining damage types is the most effective style of play, as one type is to easily countered, Though i still see an ele as a high end damage dealer.

"Air spike does not kill with instantaneous, full to zero spikes, at least not until DP on the defending team is significant"

This is pretty much idiotic. No one player can insta kill a target. The closest was the AOD Phoenix/horns/falling spider/twisting fangs assassin that got nerfed. If your talking about a team of 5 ele's, then a decent timed spike can full to zero spike easily enough. Obsidian flame and lightining orb are very good at that. There are ways for a team of 3 ele's to full to zero spike easily. If you can't swallow that, i'll show you sometime. And you don't spike with dual attunments, you spike with either prodigy for energy. It's far more effective.

I agree that there heavy utility, though it's far easier to put damage on an ele and throw him into the mix as constant damage then just another warrior. Having gone up against plenty of wards with guardian and or aegis up, the extra help is invaluable from an ele. Again this would depend on the build your running. If your running a high damage aggresive build, I would rather have 2 warriors, 2 ele's over 4 warriors, as it's harder to negate the build, and warriors have always sucked at utility.

I don't know, maybie the purpose of your article was that you need warriors in gvg, and that i do belive is right in 90% of all the builds your going to run...However if your going to tell me an ele is useless as a damage dealer, then you might want to think on it abit. And also, on the nuker thing, alot of the ele math is incorrect. I do appreciate the work on writing it all out though.

LightningHell · Jun 19, 2006, 02:07 AM // 02:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

"This is a result that has been observed by virtually everyone of note and is reflected in the builds of every guild worth mentioning. No one tries to deal damage with anything but warriors. "

Almost every build worth mentioning has either mezers to shutdown or edeny the monks, Smiters, mass hexers or a form of spike etc... Circus builds set aside (builds that use a cheap set of tricks to win) Those pressure builds Become a way to stop the class's that shutdown the warriors. The draw e/mo is a clasic example of this.

One: Those "circus builds" are called gimmicks.
Two: I don't get what the hell are you talking about, I'll just talk about what I think you're talking about.

Of course, every one of them bring counters to Warriors; that is because Warriors are the biggest threat.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

The counter messures i do not think where addressed very well at all. where a warrior spends the majority of a gvg chasing around a soft target, a ele spends the majority of the time kiting the hard targets. That set aside The warrior is good at DPS where it takes more time to attack a specific target to get the damage in question. Where as an air elementalist only takes 3 seconds to pull off 210 damage, it would take a warrior generally 5-6 seconds, without a adrenaline skill up. The reason warriors are used in high level gvg is that there armor + there ability to adrenaline spike. Pressure is all good, however in order to get a kill in gvg, you need to make it so the monks can not heal. Thats accomplished by either making it so they don't have the reaction time needed, or by draining/shuting down them.

One: Where the hell did you get that 210 damage from?
Two: The reason why Warriors are used in higher-level GvG is because while they build up their adrenaline, they also pressure the opponent roughly the same amount as a Elly furiously spamming skills.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

"The other thing to remember about countermeasures is that their existance alone does not matter - only when they are put into builds and onto skillbars do they become relevant. " -I 100% agree. And to the point the current metagame has plenty of anti warrior countermeasures in them. You generally run into Guardian, Aegis, Blind, Feintheartedness, and the like. Where as you don't see to many interupters besides some of the crip shot rangers and some of the mezmers. It's realevent because where a ele will generally get to cast his spells all the time, the warrior's damage can generally be cut in half due to midigation. Thats the reason so many switched to warrior cunning and Deaths charge to stop that midigation.

And why exactly do they bring all that Warrior hate?

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

"Offensively, the elementalist has two roles - one, snaring the target so that your warriors can catch him, and two, contributing a spell to an adrenaline spike. Both are strong plays that you'll see fairly often."

And both can be done by other classes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

This i'm unclear of....have we been talking about a team full of just air spikers or a mixed team for pressure? I know from personal expierence that combining damage types is the most effective style of play, as one type is to easily countered, Though i still see an ele as a high end damage dealer.

I don't see your point.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

"Air spike does not kill with instantaneous, full to zero spikes, at least not until DP on the defending team is significant"

This is pretty much idiotic. No one player can insta kill a target. The closest was the AOD Phoenix/horns/falling spider/twisting fangs assassin that got nerfed. If your talking about a team of 5 ele's, then a decent timed spike can full to zero spike easily enough. Obsidian flame and lightining orb are very good at that. There are ways for a team of 3 ele's to full to zero spike easily. If you can't swallow that, i'll show you sometime. And you don't spike with dual attunments, you spike with either prodigy for energy. It's far more effective.

Who said it's a one-man-band? Airspike consists of about five people spiking down a target. We all know that we Ellys can spike full-to-zero; it's just highly unlikely.

One: Hard to time perfectly.
Two: Very vulernable to disruption.
Three: Do you think Ensign wouldn't be able to swallow that, seeing there are some Airspike builds in top guilds.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

I agree that there heavy utility, though it's far easier to put damage on an ele and throw him into the mix as constant damage then just another warrior. Having gone up against plenty of wards with guardian and or aegis up, the extra help is invaluable from an ele. Again this would depend on the build your running. If your running a high damage aggresive build, I would rather have 2 warriors, 2 ele's over 4 warriors, as it's harder to negate the build, and warriors have always sucked at utility.

Why we bring 2 Warriors and 2 Ellys over 4 Warriors? Because with 2 Ellys, we can negate the damage from their Warriors. With four Warriors, your whole team is supposedly setup to fully support their damage. It really depends on the build.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

don't know, maybie the purpose of your article was that you need warriors in gvg, and that i do belive is right in 90% of all the builds your going to run...However if your going to tell me an ele is useless as a damage dealer, then you might want to think on it abit. And also, on the nuker thing, alot of the ele math is incorrect. I do appreciate the work on writing it all out though.

Elly is useless as a damage dealer because other classes can outdamage it, whether it be Necromancer, Assassin, Mesmer, Warrior, Ranger. I don't know about Ritualist since I haven't played Factions nor faced a decent damage Rit (although probably Ellys deal somewhat equal damage to them), or smite Monks.

You say the math's incorrect? Bring out the figures.

Ensign · Jun 19, 2006, 04:05 AM // 04:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

The reason warriors are used in high level gvg is that there armor + there ability to adrenaline spike.

That's news to me. I thought everyone was running them because they are simultaneously the best source of damage in the game (bar none), the strongest individual characters on the battlefield, as well as being some of the best characters in small scale combat.

If all I wanted to do was spike people I'd run rangers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

Pressure is all good, however in order to get a kill in gvg, you need to make it so the monks can not heal.

Beating the energy out of their monks is an effective way to keep them from healing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

And to the point the current metagame has plenty of anti warrior countermeasures in them. You generally run into Guardian, Aegis, Blind, Feintheartedness, and the like. Where as you don't see to many interupters besides some of the crip shot rangers and some of the mezmers.

You see buckets of warrior hate because teams need their warriors working to kill you (if they are not trying to 321spike you out), and if you don't shut them down they *will* kill you. You do not see lots of interrupters because the slow casters are generally not threats to kill you. They tend to be defensively minded utility characters who can partially neutralize your interrupts through positioning.

The best way to deal with an offensive caster, in my experience, is to park a warrior in his face to keep him from ever casting long enough to really hurt.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

It's realevent because where a ele will generally get to cast his spells all the time, the warrior's damage can generally be cut in half due to midigation.

First, if you don't have those warriors there to *force* your opponent to mitigate their damage, your opponent will not be under pressure, and all the time and energy that would otherwise go into mitigation will go directly into your face offensively.

Second, isn't it rather telling that even in an environment so saturated in warrior hate, the top teams still run two to three warriors out there every match and find a way to power through it? Do you think that's because the top teams don't know what they're doing, or is it because there aren't any viable alternatives?

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

Though i still see an ele as a high end damage dealer.

Well, that would make it pretty difficult to understand how the game is played at a high level, because every offensive character you see in those builds is an order of magnitude more threatening than an elementalist.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

This is pretty much idiotic. No one player can insta kill a target.

Crafty warriors can come pretty close, especially the sword guys. But I don't understand why that would even be relevant since there are no 1v1 formats in this game, only 8v8. Spiking has always been a whole team effort. Always will be too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

If your talking about a team of 5 ele's, then a decent timed spike can full to zero spike easily enough.

You sit on one offensive caster in those builds and they become incapable of killing anything. Spikes can't deal 600 damage. They need to deal closer to 1000 to get through mitigation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

Obsidian flame and lightining orb are very good at that.

Lightning Orb is a piece of shit without knockdowns or snares supporting it. If you want to use Orbs to kill you either need a mixed team to set up the target, or you need to fast cast it with a Mesmer so that it can land while the target is still galed. Five guys casting Orb on an unsnared target is a complete joke.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

There are ways for a team of 3 ele's to full to zero spike easily.

Elaborate.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

And you don't spike with dual attunments, you spike with either prodigy for energy. It's far more effective.

Prodigy doesn't work with Mesmer/Elementalists, and Elementalist primaries can't set up their Orb with Gale. Prodigy plus Obs. Flame is a non-combo.

Only time you throw Orbs with a Prodigy guy is to assist on an adrenal spike, and on those you expect the warriors to handle the knockdowns.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

I would rather have 2 warriors, 2 ele's over 4 warriors, as it's harder to negate the build, and warriors have always sucked at utility.

Massed warriors are actually only vulnerable to a narrow set of warrior hate - namely, Aegis and Ward v Melee. Everything else actually gets diluted and it becomes impossible for them to shut down all of them.

I don't understand what you mean by warriors always sucking at utility. Warriors have some of the best utility in the game, because they have so much natural strength. You only have to devote 2-3 skills on your bar and you already have the best offensive weapon you can make in the game, so you can fill the rest up with whatever you like - speed, interrupts, snares, knockdowns, mes effects, you name it. Sure, you don't have skills on your bar explicitly to shut down, say, an opposing mesmer, but *you don't need to*, because you can shut him down perfectly well simply by getting in his face and making him kite.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

However if your going to tell me an ele is useless as a damage dealer, then you might want to think on it abit.

I've thought about it quite a bit. That and all of my practical experience has shown conclusively that elementalists are an incredibly poor option for dealing damage - only ritualists are comparably poor, now that monks have such a strong smiting option. This experience and conclusion was completely supported by game mechanics and mathematics.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

And also, on the nuker thing, alot of the ele math is incorrect. I do appreciate the work on writing it all out though.

I'm not going to pull this punch - I understand game mechanics a whole lot better than you do. The math in those articles is correct. I will go a bit further and say that based upon evidence in your posts, it is safe to conclude that you don't know the first thing about caster mechanics, and have never heard of the aftercast delay.

In other words, it's a really brave thing for someone as ignorant as you appear to be to come out and call tried and tested game mechanics incorrect.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LightningHell

One: Where the hell did you get that 210 damage from?

Odds are he's looking at Orb -> Strike and has no idea what an aftercast is.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LightningHell

I don't know about Ritualist since I haven't played Factions nor faced a decent damage Rit (although probably Ellys deal somewhat equal damage to them), or smite Monks.

Ritualists are on par in terms of damage. They can contribute better on a slower spike, worse on a fast spike, but are a bit better at randomly throwing damage around. Barring spiking a target down, smite monks outclass elementalists in every way, though. For assisting on a warrior spike, the two are probably comparable (Balth's Aura hits a few times during the knockdown, and Zealot's Fire triggers on the Draw).

Quote:

Originally Posted by LightningHell

Bring out the figures.

It would be nice if the people who like to call posted figures wrong would post what they think is correct so I can rip it apart. Can't really expect it of them, though.

Peace,
-CxE

Guillaume De Sonoma · Jun 19, 2006, 07:02 AM // 07:02

Wow Ensign you just ripped that guy a new asshole. Anyways on topic:

I do disagree with one of your comments.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Ritualists are on par in terms of damage. They can contribute better on a slower spike, worse on a fast spike, but are a bit better at randomly throwing damage around.

If feel that if you are not looking for the role of a spirit spammer that Ritualists are a great source of spike damage. Maybe you look at it in the sense that the channeled strike (the rits most powerful spike) takes two seconds to cast, but the damage is close to one hundred or over if you have a lot of channeling or are holding an item. If an ele can contribute a two second lightning orb to a spike, I feel that a ritualist can do the same with channeled strike.

Sacho · Jun 19, 2006, 08:48 AM // 08:48

[Off-Topic]Except:

It requires you to hold an item to do its bonus damage, taking up a slot in your skillbar, and more importantly, removing any + energy bonuses and mods from your weapons.

It requires you to spec high in channeling to be of any use, and whereas air magic provides a good utility spell, blinding flash, I'm stumped at what other channeling skills you'd be using as support. Basically, you're tapping into a whole new attribute just to get spike support. Doom would probably be a much better choice, since you'd be spamming spirits, and you would already have a spec in spawning power.
[/Off-Topic]

It seems that threads on this subject pop up every week or so, and there is always someone defending the "secret, limitless, ultimate, godly, blah blah blah" damage power of the eles, which doesn't really exist. IMO, people should just be pointed at those two threads with the following sentence:

"No, eles are not a dead class. They can fuel a great support role with their energy management elite, ether prodigy. However, if you're looking at elementalists for consistent damage, you're looking at the wrong profession."

glountz · Jun 19, 2006, 09:27 AM // 09:27

Ensign's post is still bothering me in all this war/Ele damage comparison. The maths were done on static puppets.
Without even talking about warrior hate, targets of warriors kite. It delays a lot their damage, and more than an aftercast.
What I mean is that I feel these "pure" maths don't really help about why Wars are better damage dealer than Eles. Real fight situations and "what is the winning combination" is a lot better. GvG Teams with eles devoted to damage dealing simply can't win.
Elementalists are so inferior damage dealers, IMO, because they need energy+skill slots+high attribute to be effective. A warrior only need a weapon. Without skills he only loses its spike ability. Elementalists, in order to sustain their pressure, needs so much energy (so many rippable energy management enchantments) and skill slots (because of their insane spell recharge) that they are simply not viable.
Another point is that warrior hate is really easily removed by other teammates (monks). The fact is that damage mitigation from warrior hate is extremely fragile because based on hexes or conditions.
When an ele has its enchantments removed, his energy sucked, his skills disabled, nobody can really help him. Whereas even if you disable an entire warrior skill bar, he will still be a serious threat simply by auto-attack.

Zui · Jun 19, 2006, 09:45 AM // 09:45

@glountz

kiting and warrior hate were adressed. Actual math on them was not posted, but honestly somthing as player dependant as kiting is impossible to post the math on, same with skillbar dependancies due to warrior hate and kiting, even blackout...

However, the base damage per second/minute, unmitigated tells alot about how much damage will need to be mitigated. The fact is mitagated damage = a combination of slots on your skill bar, time, attention, energy.

You could look at an extremely heavily mitigated warrior and a guy spamming vampiric gaze. Theoreticaly if the warriors team doesn't have enough hex/condition removal, the vamp gaze spamming guy is going to be doing way more damage. However, every point of damage the warrior didn't deal went into attention(kiting, using skills at appropriate times), energy(using skills, possibly canceling skills to get the heck away), time(the time spent casting or kiting that could be used for somthing more productive) and skills(the actual loss of a skill slot on your bar). This means that even though your axe warrior didn't do 2400ish damage in theory, he more than made up for it in the pressure put on the opposing team. Your vamp gaze spammer wasn't enough of a threat to bother mitigating his damage by pressuring him, inturupting him, energy denying him, whatever.

On top of this, keeping a warrior clean of conditions and hexes is far cheaper in terms of skills used and the application of those skills(applicable against any hex/condition) in addition to energy than hex/condition hate on the warrior, which is in some cases only applicable against warriors, assassins, and rangers. Does this mean warrior hate is bad? No. It's very good, and very needed. The point is Draw Conditions is a whole hell of alot cheaper than Blinding Flash, and blinding flash isin't going to be of any use on somthing other than a warrior, ranger, or assassin, where draw conditions has party-wide application(barring the caster), as long as there is a condition.

I hope that is an adiquite explanation of why kiting and warrior hate were not factored in the actual figures.

torquemada · Jun 19, 2006, 10:33 AM // 10:33

Point being, Eles can pack utilities Warriors can't, but damage-wise, Warrior ouperforms with ease. You can pack some air spike capabilities on a Elle to help with dmg spikes and still devote slots to utility.