Curse

LightningHell · Jun 20, 2006, 05:36 AM // 05:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

Anyways, i've enjoyed this little debate. It is taking far to much of my time to respond to this crap, i do need to sleep, and this game is pretty much my retirement from competitve play, so i dont have the amount of time i use to. So I'll finish with this.

while i do agree that warriors are great at forcing characters to kite, and they have great dps, it hardly makes an ele useless. Damagewise ele's are very good, yet have far more access to utility then almost any class in the game. It's short sighted to openly say "this class sucks, and there is no room for it in gvg" when it's made its way in some form or another in nearly every balance build in the game.

To say that an ele is useless simply because it does not do a warriors job better then a warrior is kinda retarded. Each build for each class, for each job has a differnt battle pressence. Where as a monks battle pressence is in healing there own team, it's not to say it's the only type, just as a warrior may get in a casters face and cause kiting, a ele can control the midline, or really push the backline fairly well, including stoping warriors on the frontline and forcing either a retreat, or atleast a few minutes of uselessness.

Frontloading/spiking has been in form as there have been high damage skills and spells. To dismiss this is to dismiss the meta game of every PK game in exisitance. Simply put, a spike kills faster then pressure does, because you do not have to waiste time draining the monks. This can be seen in every top guild (even yours ensign) there ends up being a spike of somesort to get the kill. Thus some sort of spike damage is needed.

This is perhaps the most balanced game since muds, due to a lack of FOTM. Where skills rarely change, and almost never change drasticly, every class has a specific job its good at, and to a lesser extent can be made into any job. It's mostly important to understand that this entire argument is build dependant. where as 2 warriors and 2 mezmers can do a grand job at shutting down the monks long enough for the warriors to get a kill, so can 2 ele's and 2 mezmers or even 2 warriors and 2 ele's using gale on the monks and then spiking the warriors target. It's again hugely depenant on what your build is and how you want to control the match.

Now, if you really want to see any of this, and your really dont understand what i'm talking about, or are curious about what i'm talking about ensign, feel free to talk to me in game, and i'll show you. Otherwise i would rather play the game with the limited amount of time i have, rather then argue with you for 10 pages on a point thats mearly a point of view.

-S

You sound like you've been in Ascalon your whole life.

I'd like to see you get pitched against Ensign, him running a Warrior (which isn't even his main profession), and you running your 00b3r 1337 elly.

EDIT: I echo the EDIT of Zui. I'd love a real life demonstration of your theories.

Master Fuhon · Jun 20, 2006, 05:53 AM // 05:53

There are two strong pvp builds for elementalists using elite energy management (Ether Prodigy and Elemental Attunement). I happen to think EP is the better choice on a wandering elementalist because of the ability to power through mesmer denial strategies. An elementalist bottoming out all the time can't be compared favorably to any other class reasonably because the better spells have higher costs. There are other situational "Glyph" builds that are too limited by skill selection.

Imbalance comes from willingness of players to fill up teams with multiples of powerful skills to be used on a single target to bypass the effects of self defense/armor skills. If the game was really balanced towards caster attacks, then you would see balance like flare damage = orison healing on 60 AL target, but then every spell in the game might technically spike a target to death. I would go as far as to say that the game needs the warrior and monk to exist in the current overpowered state to thwart the effectiveness of spike. That being said, elementalists are the top victims of limited spell damage and high recharges. Necro/Mesmer hexes are next on the list for getting screwed by mass hex strategies. So if you want to play as a caster... don't even think your DPS is what will make you good.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

"Sword: 34.12.... 25.59... 1536.....1539.2..... 2400 DPM.... 8 guys.... 62....8.5 pips of energy regeneration".

Don't spend all day on math. Numbers are good, but you may be balancing the wrong equations. I have to step in and disagree on as to how the "theoretical elementalist" works in practice. Look at a good elementalist on observer mode. They end up doing so many things over the course of a match that you'd realize its an exercise in futility to compare them to a damage/disruption build. Total party support effectiveness, spikes thwarted by blind, targets finished spiked, team members snared, speed boosts etc.
A warrior trying to be an elementalist would fill his bar with Hamstring, Protectors Defense, Shields Up!, Charge, Distracting Blow, Shock, Final Thrust, Rez Sig.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

Sticking a warrior in a monks face is just as good as sitting a EP orb/arc/strike ele on the monk."

Warriors/Assassins are about DPS. Targetting the least defended target (not protected, not kiting, out of healing range, no defensive stances, etc.) I question why a pure damage dealer should ever be going after a monk. A monk is single handedly the best character built to handle damage. Monks are killed by skill disruption (knockdown included) or energy overload. Energy denial or mass damage on multiple party members works also.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

Blackout will not only stop a warrior, it will also drain his adrenaline in most cases."

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

Energy on an ele is easier to get then adrenaline on a warrior by far. Especially with the new factions ele skills.

If adrenaline is really a problem, fill up the bar with "You will die", "To the limit", "For Great Justice", and some IAS. Seriously, if blind/cripple are problems too then take Mend Ailment. You are comparing a maximized damage warrior build with the "best avaliable elementalist". The maximized damage Elementalist used dual attunements with high recharges. Then listen to all the complaints about enchant removal being overpowered. Memser enchant removal gives an added damage/energy bonus.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

Capitalizing on a target with lighting orb, is far easier to pull off then capitalizing on a target with an adrenaline skill. There is no guarentee that your adrenaline is charged. I digress to blackout.

Also you keep claiming that orbs miss frequently.

I'm sure this is because you are far more likely to be thwarted as the warrior being within melee range pounding on the target. Orbs can also miss due to interruption, which is the equivalent of your blackout. I don't understand how anyone can argue that blackout is most crippling on a warrior. It's most crippling on the person most likely to kill/save someone (general terms). A warrior gets denied an almost limitless number of times in a battle. An elementalist feels it more every time they get denied.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

You go into this big discussion of how kiting a warrior is important and that the kiter gets screwed. You then make this huge assumption that battlefield pressence is formed soley on forcing a character to kite. What positioning? what about frontloading aka spiking? what about forcing spell use? I mean your talking aggression. This is all tactical. The biggest difference is the ele is almost guarentied to hit, where as the warriors damage is negated from kiting.

If kiting was not highly effecient in damage midigation, more so then doing there class's damage, why do people do it? It's because the guy who's kiting the warrior isn't taking damage. That means your huge dps machines are negated, meaning that if your putting all your eggs in one basket, the other team is doing damage with any of there other class's. Now obviously you can't kite a warrior forever, so you have other options. which leads me to one thing that you failed to talk about in this whole article.

Wow. I'm not going to spend all day on the rest of them, but the comments about kiting really stand out. Melee attacks, stances, and a few skills are the only things that don't require you to stand still. Every spell, anything you see with cast time is something that you have to use while standing in one spot. You aren't doing anything as a caster if you are kiting, except regaining energy. I don't know how to say that any clearer. You kite to save yourself, not to frustrate warriors. Think about the damage mitigation the warrior is achieving by making the caster have to run instead of casting spells. This isn't random arena griefing with all running skills on the bar. A caster has a job to do, and they can't get it done if they have to run. And you do have to run if you plan on getting by with only two full monks worth of healing.

LOL...wasted my time even writing.

Ensign · Jun 20, 2006, 06:31 AM // 06:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

Ok, here we go.

Yippee!

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

Did you take into account crits?

One has to wonder how you think I could get those numbers *without* taking critical hits into account. Straight weapon, no prefix, 16 attribute. Assumed critical hit percentage chance of 24% (within 1% of actual value, in-game critical hit calculation is bloody weird and no one knows how it works exactly apparently). 1535.614 damage per minute. Didn't take free criticals from attacking someone from behind into account.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

And not to nitpick but even with your numbers it's 1539.2

You're looking for 1539.4, but while people round attack speeds in text the game does not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

You fail to menchin that that half of the skills that spend mana to negate the warrior come from energy effecient class's such as necro hex's, ele's wards and blinds, and mez hex's.

Should I also mention that the skills used to counteract those countermeasures are even more energy efficient? Blind for 15, Draw for 5, go?

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

Further more your talking ideal conditions.

Ideal conditions serve as a baseline for these things. Practical conditions are treated as deviations from ideal conditions. You modify how much you favor certain mechanics by the costs and rewards of those deviations. I.E., damage that is impossible to mitigate is preferable to damage that is inefficient but possible to mitigate, which is preferable to damage that is efficient to mitigate.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

And i'm confused, 2400 dpm is high damage on a non moving target with no defence?

I don't know, is it? It's a baseline standard for damage that compares favorably to a lot of other damage options in the game, so I have to figure it's a decent starting point. Is it a lot? Well, I'd be pretty happy if I got that much directable damage out of anything in a game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

if so thats a static judgement

It would be, yes, and when you're looking at games that often last upwards of 15 minutes, with comparable packet sizes across professions, it seems to be a useful metric. You don't have to resort to hyperbole to point out things that most of us consider obvious, but besides the point.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

From here on i think this is very inaccurate. Your basicly picking random spells and with a spike combo and seeing how it is vs a warriors damage.

What you consider random spells, most of us consider baselines of effectiveness. Warriors get autoattacks, elementalists get zero-recharge spells, how do they compare? Seems obvious. Orb and strike are the only commonly used single target damage spells, so it seems obvious to see how they stack up. I don't understand why you'd consider those to be randomly chosen.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

Flare Combined with mark of rodgort, one of the oldest damage tricks, taking 2 skills and doing 62 damage per hit, with 14 of it ignoring the global cooldown.

Warriors can maintain conditions on their targets too. A lot more cheaply and reliably too, I might add. If you want to add complexities, you add them on both sides, and after a certain point things just get so messy that they no longer make any sense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

BTW is the global cooldown correct?

Yes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

i've not seen any documentation on it.

Arena.net has not released any documentation on their game mechanics. The only documentation that exists was written by players who have tested these things thoroughly, myself amongst other people. The global cooldown probably didn't make it into any formal articles that I've written but was discussed widely enough around the time of initial release if you want to dig through the archives.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

It's good to know, though i still think it might be slightly faster

Do clocks run faster where you live? Feel free to take a stopwatch and confirm it for yourself. I've already done that test, a lot of other people have already done that test, and I'm not really interested in discussing it with someone who hasn't done the test himself.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

Again, your taking a look at this through a pressure point of view.

Well given that the point of the article was that elementalists are incapable of dealing any sort of pressure, one would assume that is obvious.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

Blackout will not only stop a warrior, it will also drain his adrenaline in most cases.

Resetting his adrenaline is the entire point of blacking out a warrior. What exactly did you have in mind otherwise?

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

Also you keep claiming that orbs miss frequently.

If the target is not snared or knocked down an orb fired from more than half of its range is going to miss more often than it hits.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

Where as a simple retreating character wont be able to dodge it.

Why would you retreat in a manner that lets you get hit by Orbs and arrows when you can move in a way that makes those miss with some consistency, at no cost? If a player is moving you shouldn't bother throwing Orbs at him. If they're standing there, casting or attacking or whatever, you can hit with an Orb - but that situation really doesn't exist when you're trying to spike someone down, either they're running or incapable of doing so.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

You also described it as spikey and unrealiable. While, its a spike skill. What do you expect?

It to be reliable like virtually every other spike skill?

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

When a warrior hits a 80 armor target, his damage is drasticly altered.

Elementalist damage is also drastically altered. Even worse than warrior damage, in fact, because warrior skill damage ignores armor. An average Executioner's Strike is reduced from 81 on a caster to 59 on a warrior (absorption plus boots plus shield), for instance - 27% reduction in damage - while Orb is reduced from 140 to 78 (knight's boots plus shield) - a 44% reduction in damage. The comparison gets worse if you take DR out of the equation BTW. Not considering Deep Wound.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

To clairify, A warrior vs a 100 armor target is going to do significantly less damage then on a 60 armor target. Where as an ele's difference on the same 100 and 60 armor target is much less of a difference.

Comparing normal attacks to skill damage from elementalists, warriors lose 50% damage against a straight 100 AL target, while elementalists lose a bit more than 40% damage if using air spells. It's a difference that's small enough that the lesson is still 'don't bother attacking warriors with non-armor ignoring attacks unless they're under Frenzy'.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

Hence why you dont see many fire ele's in gvg, though you see plenty of air ele's.

I think the difference has nothing to do with armor penetration, and everything to do with Blinding Flash, Windborne Speed, and Gale. If those 3 skills were fire spells I'd be playing a fire ele. If those 3 spells were yogurt spells I'd be playing a yogurt ele.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

Especially with the new factions ele skills.

Since all the new factions energy management for elementalists is elite, and worse than Ether Prodigy, I don't understand why that matters at all. The only factions elementalist skill to see any widespread use, in fact, is Ward of Stability.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

"3) cooldowns" Cooldowns are not that bad considering you usually can afford multiple spells.

How many attack skills are you really going to put onto your bar? Four? Five? You can't fit enough of the things on your bar while still maintaining that key utility that's earning you a spot in the build in the first place. In general there's usually only room for two straight damage skills on a bar, three if you really push it. Everything else needs to play both ways and provide utility plus damage if you're going to use it. Eles don't have two good, reliable damage skills on reasonable cooldowns though. Without spammables you're entirely reliant on your conditionals being good on recharge, and that's no way to deal any sort of sustained damage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

"4) Cast times" This is arguably in every caster class.

It's also starting to be addressed, and I'm happy about it. A lot of the 4-5 second cast times of terribleness are turning into 2s and 3s. No other profession is expected to cast 3 second spells with any frequency - and honestly, I don't think it would matter, as long as the skills were balanced with the understanding that a 3 second cast time really sucks and the effect had better be worth it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

Dealing them in larger packets is better.

No argument. It should be pointed out though that elementalist packet sizes are not significantly larger than those from other professions. Eles have Orb for 140, everything after that is 120s which is on par with what other casters have. Warrior crits are in the 100-140 range depending on the weapon and skill used. Deep Wound throws everything out the window.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

Warriors are very conditional by nature. They need to make sure they can stay in range of the target, be able to hit the target and have healing. Thats conditional enough.

Different kind of conditional. There does not exist a GvG environment where warriors are not the best source of damage. If warriors are completely ineffective and there is no way to make them work, then damage is ineffective, and 321spike is the only viable strategy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

Again, your mixing apples with oranges. The where as an ele's hate can be from anything to ice snares and wards to conditions and anti warrior hex's.

I don't understand how the various countermeasures has anything to do with the statement 'elementalists threaten the other team by dealing damage'. Are you arguing that threaten should be defined in such a way that the following is true: 'monks threaten the other team by healing damage dealt'?

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

You then make this huge assumption that battlefield pressence is formed soley on forcing a character to kite.

Not really. There are other forms of battlefield presence. You don't have to go into a long discussion on everything involved in battlefield presence to discuss a particular aspect of it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

what about forcing spell use?

You mean like a warrior forcing an elementalist to blind him? Yeah, sure, that's relevant too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

Sticking a warrior in a monks face is just as good as sitting a EP orb/arc/strike ele on the monk.

Experience and mathematics state otherwise. The big difference? That elementalist is about as good as a warrior would be if he didn't use any skills. Real warriors get to use skills. Those skills hurt.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

If kiting was not highly effecient in damage midigation, more so then doing there class's damage, why do people do it?

Because if they don't do it they die. Because, yes, the damage you're taking as a softie from a warrior in your face is a whole lot more than you could hope to dish out. The big reason for it is that it's energy free mitigation that anyone can do, taking that burden off of your monks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

It's because the guy who's kiting the warrior isn't taking damage.

Sure he is. He just isn't taking as much damage as he would be if he just stood there and got his face raged.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

Now obviously you can't kite a warrior forever, so you have other options.

Sure you can. But good warriors stop caring as soon as you are no longer in a position to be threatening. Then they find someone else squishy who thinks that casting is a good idea and beats on him until he decides to move too. Repeat.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

which leads me to one thing that you failed to talk about in this whole article.

Which is? I really don't know what you're getting at, because I didn't talk about a lot of things in that article. That's why it's an article. If I wanted to talk about everything, I'd need to find a publisher and a book deal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

To be fair, there is alot of condition removal in the game. However any half way decent EP ele can keep a warrior blinded indefently, reguardless of condition removal AND still throw in a few spells.

An elementalist will consume all ten pips of his energy by casting Blinding Flash on recharge, without a drop of energy in between to cast anything else. How effective he will be at keeping that warrior blind will depend entirely on how fast the other team's Draw is. If you don't shut down the Draw, a blinder is pretty lucky if he can keep a single warrior blind half the time. That's a 2-3 second stick which is a perfectly reasonable reaction time.

In practice you don't cast Blinding Flash into that, you use it as a deterrant. How much time a warrior spends blind is really up to the warrior.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

This is not to say how great an ele is damage wise, but how you completely understated how easy it is to shutdown a warrior.

Any team that does not come into a match prepared to pull blind off of its warriors deserves to lose. You should not expect your blinds to stick more than a couple of seconds under normal circumstances.

Peace,
-CxE

Ensign · Jun 20, 2006, 06:49 AM // 06:49

I'm giving this one it's own post.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

To say that an ele is useless simply because it does not do a warriors job better then a warrior is kinda retarded.

Which is why *no one* is saying that.

What everyone is saying is that *dealing damage* is *not* the elementalist's job. They are *patently awful* at that job.

Elementalists are *very good* at some other jobs. Elementalists are the second best defensive profession in Guild Wars - ritualists might have more raw power but are much less flexible. Elementalists are played extensively for their strong variety of defensive skills and warrior support.

None of this has *ever* been contested.

The only thing that has been contested, is the ability of an elementalist to deal damage, in the face of the raw number of damage skills they have available. This failure has been discussed extensively because it is *not obvious* and *counterintuitive* for a new player.

Elementalists are a perfectly viable and perhaps even neccessary profession. They simply do not do what everyone thought they did when they first bought the game.

Peace,
-CxE

Makkert · Jun 20, 2006, 06:51 AM // 06:51

I think I have found my new favourite poster on GWG. He is worthy of taking the throne that was left vacant after Ollj left GWG.

Shadex, I'm your biggest fan.

G. De Sonoma, thanks for pointing this thread out. I'd missed it else. <3

LightningHell · Jun 20, 2006, 10:49 AM // 10:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Makkert

I think I have found my new favourite poster on GWG. He is worthy of taking the throne that was left vacant after Ollj left GWG.

Shadex, I'm your biggest fan.

G. De Sonoma, thanks for pointing this thread out. I'd missed it else. <3

Ex Dee.

XD.

shadex · Jun 20, 2006, 04:24 PM // 16:24

"The only thing that has been contested, is the ability of an elementalist to deal damage, in the face of the raw number of damage skills they have available. This failure has been discussed extensively because it is *not obvious* and *counterintuitive* for a new player."

fare enough, yet the name of the article is "why nuking is useless" which is actually all about pressure damage. If anything that is counterintuitive by itself, especially since pure pressure killing is one of the least effective stratagies, and least used in the game. Almost every high end build relys on pressure with a spike for actual killing. So i guess i must be missing the point of that article....It's either pressure is really great, ele's are useless in gvg as a solution for damage, warriors are really great because they have high DPS, or the only way to do damage in gvg is all based on warriors.

I have one question. Is it posable that there is another class, other then the warrior, who's damage is accetable to use in gvg? And which class's have this damage?

Symbol · Jun 20, 2006, 04:29 PM // 16:29

Do you have a problem reading Shadex? Or are you just trolling now?

Makkert · Jun 20, 2006, 04:46 PM // 16:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

Shrug, feel free. Last night i watched TE vs Rifts. I noticed that both side had ele's. TE was running to ele's, where rifts was running 6. So ignoring me completely, explain how the ele is a dead class if the top teams usually run 1 or more (generally 2). Anyways, i sent you a PM so feel free to hit me up ingame. Funny thing was that most of the stratagy's i explained, where used by TE and Rifts, and through the entire match i didn't think one orb was missed...though TE's warriors where pretty much useless against blind. Given rifts had 5 blinds, it was still enough warrior shutdown to make TE's main damage type hurt alot.

I've seen this match also on Obs mode.
A few remarks in response:
1) Orbs didn't miss (much) because the target was Galed before spike. Without the snare of Gale, it would have been dodge-ble. There is currently even a fun event with Lightning Orb called 'GW Dodgeball' with low health and try to hit your opponent. Lightning Orbs ARE dodgeble if the target isn't snared.

2) The amount of Blinds on Rift's build is a testimony that warriors should be disrupted in their damage output, or nasty things can happen.

3) The whole discussion here is NOT 'Elementalists are useless in PvP'. The discussion here is 'Elementalists are lacking in bare damage output'. The Ele runner is one build with a lot of utility (Heal Party, Blinding Flash, Windbourne) and a bit of damage usually (Orb).
The Me/E's of Rift are all about spiking. That is a different story then the 'Elementalists are lacking in bare damage output' which was discussed here. Or at least in the write-up by CxE.

DieInBasra · Jun 20, 2006, 06:14 PM // 18:14

Quote:

or the only way to do damage in gvg is all based on warriors.

Yes, or 123spike.

Quote:

pure pressure killing is one of the least effective stratagies, and least used in the game.

Tell that to all the people who play iway or thumpway.

tomcruisejr · Jun 20, 2006, 06:41 PM // 18:41

comparing apples and oranges again?

elementalists mostly do ranged damage and warriors do melee/inurface damage. and you can take it from there.

Horseman Of War · Jun 20, 2006, 06:57 PM // 18:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Freeza

i wish i ahd the 2 open slots only 1 left after unlocking skills hehe. I ust wanted to know if its worth unlocking the ele skills or if they are not really good in pvp and go the emsmer route =)

My experience:

Elementalists have nice mana, but once they are out, they are out like everyone else.

At least a mesmer or necro primary can gain energy back quickly in a fight, giving (i think) a better mana supply in a pVp fight.

Me/E is faster spammer, gains energy with inspiration, can echo and recharge spells quicker

N/E is my favorite nuke build. kill one, get energy, kill another. simplicity.

E/me Very powerful spells, some of the same benefits from Mez (i believe this to be the quintessential Ele PVP choice for the most part)

My recommendation for you would be Me/E for a quality char you can unlock the rest of the game with.

Ensign · Jun 20, 2006, 08:05 PM // 20:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Freeza

i wish i ahd the 2 open slots only 1 left after unlocking skills hehe. I ust wanted to know if its worth unlocking the ele skills or if they are not really good in pvp and go the emsmer route =)

You are going to get more milage out of mesmer in PvP, at least from unlocks, because mesmers have a *lot* more viable skills. I'd just unlock ele skills with faction if you're not interested in having one for PvE. Here's a list of what to get, in rough order of usage:

Ether Prodigy*
Gale
Blinding Flash
Deep Freeze
Lightning Orb
Ice Spikes
Shock
Ward Against Melee
Ward of Stability
Windborne Speed
Elemental Attunement*
Air Attunement
Blurred Vision
Lightning Strike
Shard Storm
Armor of Mist
Ice Prison
Teinai's Prison
Obsidian Flame
Glyph of Energy*

Elites are starred. A few other skills slip in now and again but that covers everything you'll see on a somewhat regular basis.

Peace,
-CxE

Akathrielah · Jun 20, 2006, 08:21 PM // 20:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

You are going to get more milage out of mesmer in PvP, at least from unlocks, because mesmers have a *lot* more viable skills. I'd just unlock ele skills with faction if you're not interested in having one for PvE. Here's a list of what to get, in rough order of usage:

Ether Prodigy*
Gale
Blinding Flash
Deep Freeze
Lightning Orb
Ice Spikes
Shock
Ward Against Melee
Ward of Stability
Windborne Speed
Elemental Attunement*
Air Attunement
Blurred Vision
Lightning Strike
Shard Storm
Armor of Mist
Ice Prison
Teinai's Prison
Obsidian Flame
Glyph of Energy*

Elites are starred. A few other skills slip in now and again but that covers everything you'll see on a somewhat regular basis.

Peace,
-CxE

That is a depressingly small list. 20 out of 175 skills... And yet I can't really find anything to add to that list. Especially considering that half your skillbar is going to be filled with monk skills (or mesmer skills if you are running a MoPersistance Ele) anyway.

Neo-LD · Jun 20, 2006, 08:22 PM // 20:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadex

I have one question. Is it posable that there is another class, other then the warrior, who's damage is accetable to use in gvg? And which class's have this damage?

omz an intelligent question.

Warriors are the undisputed kings of damage, plain and simple. Thumpers technically are ranger primary and have nice dps too, but I consider them just another warrior varient. However, there are other classes (assasin, ranger) which can come close to warrior damage and are viable options to use if you take advantage of their other strengths. Assasins and Rangers have good dps (tho not nearly as strong as warriors) because of the same principal that makes warriors strong: they deal good physical damage just by spacebar-ing a target. Any attack skills are just icing on the cake.

Rangers (cripshot/apply, or melandrus arrows) are great picks if you plan to exploit the snares, interupts, and degen that those characters bring to the table. Warriors cannot match rangers in any of those attributes. However, Warrior dps is still far higher, which is why people dont use rangers as their primary offense, they are only support. In my pressure builds I like 3 physical damage dealers; 2 warriors and a ranger. The ranger contributes a respectable amount of damage, can nail some interupts (heal party!) and add some degen. He also works around common counters that 3 war builds would have problems with by not being melee (wards, deep freeze, blurred vision) Rangers can even help to amplify your warrior's damage by snaring their target, temporarily netralizing kiting.

So in summation: Assasins and Rangers are "acceptable damage dealers." But dont use them like another war. They are there because you have some job for them, otherwise you might as well have brought more wars.

This is different from eles trying to deal damage and also having "other roles," because while ele damage is bottom-of-the-barrel, ranger and assasin damage is actually appreciable.

edit: Ensign - Why isnt Ward vs Foes on that list?? In my experience it is far more useful than Ward of Stability, which is actually on that list. i agree with the rest, tho

LoyalSoldier · Jun 20, 2006, 10:16 PM // 22:16

The thing about Ele damage is just how slow they use their skills. The way the game is set up it mainly uses speed. The monks can heal faster than an elementalist can cast plain and simple. Other classes can attack much faster with comparable damage.

Also the Elementalist has no way of getting around protective spirit and yet the elementalist is the one that loses the most DPS from it.

Phades · Jun 20, 2006, 10:32 PM // 22:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomcruisejr

comparing apples and oranges again?

elementalists mostly do ranged damage and warriors do melee/inurface damage. and you can take it from there.

Rangers will do more ranged damage than eles will. They will do it in shorter time frames and repeated more often. Rangers also have the option to having pressure based assist setups that eles do not even have the option to consider using. Since there is no orders/aura of faith/divine boon equivilant to augment elementalist spell damage, there really is no comparison in what is possible even for "ranged" damage dealing. Hell, with the hit and run tactics assassins use, they could even be argued as a pseudo "ranged" assailant with teleports.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

edit: Ensign - Why isnt Ward vs Foes on that list?? In my experience it is far more useful than Ward of Stability, which is actually on that list. i agree with the rest, tho

Probably because there are not enough maps with suitable choke points to keep people from just going around it.

It would be a similar argument to the range of effect vs static static defense placement that ritualists represent, yet the coverage from a ritualist is far more favorable and he calls them limited.

Ensign · Jun 20, 2006, 10:37 PM // 22:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Akathrielah

That is a depressingly small list. 20 out of 175 skills... And yet I can't really find anything to add to that list.

Well, when you stop looking at the raw number of skills (it's actually 109) and start looking at the subsets that *could* be useful, the percentage of skills is actually really high. For example look at the 30 new skills introduced in Factions. Ten of them are elites:

Energy Boon, Gust, Ride the Lightning, Shockwave, Unsteady Ground, Double Dragon, Star Burst, Mirror of Ice, Shatterstone, Second Wind.

Of those, only two are energy elites, and they still refuse to give the profession any sort of viable energy management that isn't elite, so eight of them are basically unplayable without even looking at them. Of the two energy elites, neither of them are comparable to Ether Prodigy so they don't really matter either. Nice and simple.

Of the 20 normal skills, *fifteen* are DDs:

Arc Lightning, Lightning Hammer, Shock Arrow, Teinai's Wind, Ash Blast, Churning Earth, Dragon Stomp, Teinai's Crystals, Bed of Coals, Breath of Fire, Lava Arrows, Smoldering Embers, Teinai's Heat, Icy Prism, Vapor Blade

Since DDs are generally awful, and these as a rule are worse than what we got in Prophecies, it shouldn't be surprising that none of them see any play. You're not going to run more than one or two DDs because they're the worst skills on your bar as an elementalist, and more marginal, situational nukes may as well not exist.

Then you get five actually interesting skills:

Glyph of Essence, Silver Armor, Ward of Stability, Burning Speed, Teinai's Prison

Now from those you actually see a lot of use. Ward of Stability is a really good spell in high level play, and Teinai's Prison, while a duplicate, is a duplicate of an effective snare. Silver Armor isn't really a PvP skill but has a strong PvE effect. Glyph of Essence isn't something that I'd run on an ele primary but it's better than Glyph of Sacrifice on an elementalist secondary in general, I'd think. Only really use for either of those is forcing a Well of the Profane on a dais map though, since the cast time of the Glyph makes the benefit really sketch. Of the five, then, the only real miss is Burning Speed, mostly because the role it fills is so ridiculous.

So really, elementalists got seven skills in Factions that had any chance of being good, and about half of them were. That's not too bad of a ratio. Sure if you count all the skills that you *know* are going to be bad without even reading them the percentage looks terrible, but why torment yourself like that?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

edit: Ensign - Why isnt Ward vs Foes on that list?? In my experience it is far more useful than Ward of Stability, which is actually on that list. i agree with the rest, tho

Basically, whenever warriors converge to kill someone that person is not going to be able to kite, Ward or no Ward. They're going to be bombarded with snares and knockdowns. Hence the Foes is decent against plain warrior pressure, but useless against spikes, making it pretty marginal. Melee and Stability, however, are both good against the spikes since they actually stop either the damage or the shutdown. Ward Melee is strong against normal warrior pressure, while Stability is strong against Mes/Ele spike. Both are very playable.

A more subtle change has been in the philosophy of how wards are used. With Ward Foes you really want players to sit outside the ward, but kite into it when they attract attention. That of course doesn't really do much when you're going to be snared and knocked down when warriors converge. Melee and Stability are kinda blah when used that way, but they're really good if you dynamically move the ward. Now players go wherever they need to be to do their jobs, and the ward gets placed on top of them to shore up the weak points in the defense. Dan Jang was the first one to use wards that way I believe, and while it's a lot harder to do than ward camp it's incredibly effective. So much so that while before I was starting to dislike wards (because people were just camping them), now I think they're one of the strongest things an elementalist has to offer.

Peace,
-CxE

Divineshadows · Jun 20, 2006, 11:49 PM // 23:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Basically, whenever warriors converge to kill someone that person is not going to be able to kite, Ward or no Ward. They're going to be bombarded with snares and knockdowns. Hence the Foes is decent against plain warrior pressure, but useless against spikes, making it pretty marginal. Melee and Stability, however, are both good against the spikes since they actually stop either the damage or the shutdown. Ward Melee is strong against normal warrior pressure, while Stability is strong against Mes/Ele spike. Both are very playable.

A more subtle change has been in the philosophy of how wards are used. With Ward Foes you really want players to sit outside the ward, but kite into it when they attract attention. That of course doesn't really do much when you're going to be snared and knocked down when warriors converge. Melee and Stability are kinda blah when used that way, but they're really good if you dynamically move the ward. Now players go wherever they need to be to do their jobs, and the ward gets placed on top of them to shore up the weak points in the defense. Dan Jang was the first one to use wards that way I believe, and while it's a lot harder to do than ward camp it's incredibly effective. So much so that while before I was starting to dislike wards (because people were just camping them), now I think they're one of the strongest things an elementalist has to offer.

Your points on Ward v Melee and Ward of Stability make a lot of sense in how they can be used to help shore up defense and protect against warrior spikes. I still have questions about Ward v Foes though. Why not play all 3 wards? Maybe it was just the way Neo phrased his question, but you seem to look at only the defensive applications of Ward v Foes. Your elementalist always has the option to drop Ward v Foes on your opposition's midline making your own warriors much harder to kite/handle. Sure your opposition can just back up and give up this ground, but perhaps this was also a desired effect of using the ward. This ward is also quite useful in helping hold for a moral boost (Warrior's Isle comes to mind) or on GvG maps with several confined spaces (Burning Isle and Isle of the Dead).

LightningHell · Jun 20, 2006, 11:57 PM // 23:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Horseman Of War

Elementalists have nice mana, but once they are out, they are out like everyone else.

ETHER PRODIGY~!