Curse

Calibretto_9 · Aug 29, 2005, 08:45 PM // 20:45

This is a strategy question about smiting. Who exactly is better when it comes to smiting? I know there are the two popular varieties: Elemental/Monks and Monk/Warriors. Of course the monk could have whatever second profession he preferred but it seems that mo/w is the most popular. So, in the end, who does it better? This would include both PvP and PvE. Or is it that the Ele/Mo is better in PvP while the Mo/W is better in PvE?

From what I gather, the Elemental has so much energy that he can basically just spam any smite spell he wishes. But, there are so many monk smiters that there has to be an advantage to both. My question is, which is better at doing what they do? I'd appreciate some advice from some experienced Ele/Monks and Monk smiters. =)

White Designs · Aug 29, 2005, 08:47 PM // 20:47

Easily E/Mo. Ether Renewal is flat-out broken. Mo/W isn't really for smiting, its more of farming, which includes the tanking aspect of it as well.

Eonwe · Aug 29, 2005, 09:07 PM // 21:07

E/Mo is going to do more sustained damage to more targets, enough said.

zehly · Aug 29, 2005, 10:01 PM // 22:01

Do you mean having an E/Mo spamming BA onto a warrior, and then using other smites on the targets?

Eonwe · Aug 29, 2005, 10:19 PM // 22:19

I'm not sure if that question was addressed to me or not, but I'll answer it.

Yes, I mean having an El/mo spamming Draw Conditions and throwing Balthazar's Aura on his warriors.

rii · Aug 30, 2005, 10:09 PM // 22:09

^^ i thought about tossing in qz to reduce recharge on renewal to 15 seconds, with a 10s roughly with 16 e. storage, you shaft casters and get renewal up lots of the time, which means lots of health and energy, nearly all the time.

dansamy · Aug 30, 2005, 10:50 PM // 22:50

I play an emo, both on pvp and pve. With select skills, I can smite off myself or another party member. Prior to the addition of a cooldown on draw conditions, I used only it to trigger zealots fire. Now, I use 2 skills to trigger zealots. My smiting is only marginally slower than it was with DC, but it is world's better since I can now smite on myself as well. Really the only thing that bothers me is diversion, and that's only if I don't notice it.

smurfhunter · Aug 31, 2005, 12:03 AM // 00:03

the biggest leak with emos is ether renewal, if they distract that when you have like 20 energy left you can expect to do nothing for awhile.

and yes ether renewal is completely broken.

White Designs · Aug 31, 2005, 12:37 AM // 00:37

QZ really isn't very good anymore. I personally thought the skill was nerfed too far, since nowadays Spirits can be killed fairly quickly so are really used to gain more of a temporary advantage. But making QZ cost 25 makes it really hard to run efficiently.

UberRusty · Aug 31, 2005, 05:15 AM // 05:15

I don't use QZ, but making it 25 energy is a bit ridiculous. (My opinion of course)

Quote:

and yes ether renewal is completely broken.

Ether Renewal isn't exactly broken, if you're targetting the smiter, Lingering Curse? And it's not one of these "what if blah blah had blah blah", last I checked Lingering Curse was still popular in PvP.

Scaphism · Aug 31, 2005, 06:38 AM // 06:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by UberRusty

Ether Renewal isn't exactly broken, if you're targetting the smiter, Lingering Curse? And it's not one of these "what if blah blah had blah blah", last I checked Lingering Curse was still popular in PvP.

Sorry, but Ether Renewal is broken. Exactly. When you're using it right it gives roughly +7 pips of energy regen. "That's nice," you say, "I should always have 10 pips of energy regen."

Then you look at other good energy management elites and see that they give somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.5 pips of energy regen.

Your argument that Skill A is broken because Skill B counters it is flawed. One has nothing to do with the other. Maybe Skill B was created to keep Skill A in check, but it says nothing about the brokenness of Skill A.

My favorite hypothetical example is a skill insta-kills a target, but takes 25 energy to cost, has a 5 second cast time, a 60 second recycle, and has a fail rate of 75% at death magic 12 or less.

That skill, you could argue, is balanced by all the extra costs associated with using it, but I'd say it's broken.

Let's say you reduce the costs make it 15 energy, a 3 second cast time, keep the same recycle, but lower the requirement to 8 death magic. Is it broken yet? What about if we include a skill in the monk line that gives an "Anti-Death Aura", preventing any instant death effects, and say it gives a +10% bonus to any healing you recieve for the duration. Is it now balanced, or is it broken?

I'd argue that it's broken in every one of those situations. First of all, it's admittedly a powerful effect. It has a countereffect to keep it in check, so within the context of those two skills it's balanced, but in the greater context of the game, where there is no other similar effect, it's power is clearly out of whack. The drawbacks I listed aren't really drawbacks either- if it's worth using someone will find a way to pay those costs. Fundamentally it goes against the aim of the game- fun. I'd say that instant-death effects are not fun in this game, but if someone starts using them everyone has to compensate.

And that's really the case with Ether Renewal. It is clearly in a league of it's own in terms of energy management. The fact that you can try to hate it out (with an unweildy counter) doesn't change the fact that it's far more powerful than anything in the field. In the context of all of the energy management elites, Ether Renewal is king, and as much as it pains me to say it, Energy Drain is queen.

*Edit* I left the last thought unfinished. My point is that you have to look at Ether Renewal in the proper context- where does it rank among the energy management elites? Right at the top. Knowing that, you'd expect to see people bringing skills along to specifically counter it. Yet despite the active hate it receives, Ether Renewal continues to flourish. That's the real sign that it's broken- good players know they're going to see it, actively plan to fight against it, and still cannot beat it.

Warskull · Aug 31, 2005, 06:47 AM // 06:47

Nothing can outsmite the E/Mo. Ether renewal turns into an engine of smite that little can stop. In fact things get even scarier when these E/Mos begin to realize a 20/20 energy storage off-hand item exists. That means a 1 in 5 chance ether renewal is ready to go again instantly. I smite with this thing in PvE (I get bored playing E/Mo smiter in PvP, but it is useful for farming) and it allows for on heck of a sustained smite if it goes off. Actually come to think of it I could probably make a pretty penny selling those things to smiters.

Kaylee Ann · Aug 31, 2005, 07:34 AM // 07:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by White Designs

Easily E/Mo. Ether Renewal is flat-out broken. Mo/W isn't really for smiting, its more of farming, which includes the tanking aspect of it as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Warskull

Nothing can outsmite the E/Mo.

Really? That is kind of funny considering one mo/w can almost insta kill a target.

An e/mo can sustain damage on a target. A mo/w has one of the most wicked spikes in the game. It is situationally dependent really. I would rather run both imho.

Ensign · Aug 31, 2005, 09:02 AM // 09:02

For those of you just getting here:

E/Mo Smiter

Ether Renewal
Zealot's Fire
Aura of Restoration
Draw Conditions
Reversal of Fortune
Balthazar's Aura
Aegis
Smite Hex / Ressig

9+4 Energy Storage, 12 Smiting, 9 Protection

Mo/W Shouter

Zealot's Fire
Cyclone Axe
Flurry
"Fear Me!"
"To the Limit!"
"Watch Yourself!"
"Charge!" / "Victory is Mine!" / Sprint / Frenzy / some other stance or shout
Ressig / one of the skills mentioned above

12+4 Smiting, 9 Tactics, 9 Axe

The E/Mo Smiter kicks out large, sustainable amounts of damage in an area of effect around the teammate of your choice. Use Draw Conditions / Reversal of Fortune / Draw Conditions chains to trigger Zealot's Fire on your favorite target, and stack Balthazar's Aura onto him as well to pile on the damage. Draw Conditions and Smite Hex keep your Warrior nice and healthy so he can continue chasing and pumping out the damage. Ether Renewal gives you infinite energy. This guy dishes out roughly 56 DPS in an AoE around your target.

The Mo/W Shouter is the polar opposite - his damage is relatively poor overall, but he can kick out an unparalleled AoE spike. You simply run up into AoE range, charge adrenaline, then fire off Cyclone Axe (which deals AoE damage *and* triggers Zealot's Fire), and all of your shouts and stances in rapid succession. Be sure to stick To the Limit in between the Fear Me and Watch Yourself, to charge the second one instantly. With five shouts and stances, plus the Cyclone Axe, you're looking at 288 near-instantaneous damage per smiter, 336 if you don't bring a ressig.

Of the two, I'm a much bigger fan of the former - it's just a much more flexible, durable character overall. The latter we (iQ) messed around with a few months ago, but ultimately rejected from serious builds because of how useless the character was outside of a spike and how fragile he is - I've come to refer to the build as a walking bomb. Still, both do some pretty insane things that you need to be prepared to fight against.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

When you're using it right it gives roughly +7 pips of energy regen.

That's not quite right. Ether Renewal, when it's active, gives somewhere on the order of +30 to +40 pips of regen. Over the course of a minute the full potential of Ether Renewal averages out to being around +12 to +15 pips of regen. The problem is that pesky energy capacity. You simply cannot hold all of the energy Ether Renewal gives you. So in reality Ether Renewal gives you 12 seconds of infinite energy, followed by 18 seconds of casting normally when you floor your energy from max to 15. Then you just cast Ether Renewal, Draw, and the like again to refill your energy. Because of the cap you end up casting stuff like Balthazar's Aura during the 12 seconds of Ether Renewal, because you're going to finish with max energy anyway so you might as well cast the expensive stuff.

So overall Ether Renewal 'only' gives around +10 of energy regen, because of the max energy cap. In reality many Ether Renewal builds scale Ether Renewal back even more, to around +8 pips, because you simply cannot spend your energy that fast. Once you hit infinite there's no use in continuing to dump points into Energy Storage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

Your argument that Skill A is broken because Skill B counters it is flawed.

Just to add onto this - skills are broken when they do far more for their cost than comparable skills. They begin to hedge out options and create degenerate environments. The fact that Leech Signet exists does not make every spell fundamentally fair. Sure, you can counter nearly every skill with Leech Signet. So what? Does that mean that the game is going to be fundamentally balanced no matter how ridiculous some of those spells happen to be? Of course not.

Skills need to be balanced in the absence of counters, against comparable spells, against other skills with similar energy costs and cast times and cooldowns. Otherwise you have non-choices and degenerate environments, and that doesn't make for a vibrant, thriving game in the long run.

Peace,
-CxE

Odd Sock · Aug 31, 2005, 04:55 PM // 16:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaylee Ann

Really? That is kind of funny considering one mo/w can almost insta kill a target

Can you please show us that build ? I'm curious as to how the insta-killing will occur on the Mo/W

Kaylee Ann · Aug 31, 2005, 07:43 PM // 19:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Odd Sock

Can you please show us that build ? I'm curious as to how the insta-killing will occur on the Mo/W

I really don't understand what you don't get about my post. Even your own guild memeber posted the build. 48 * 7 = 336 dmg to a target before any other factors are included. Lets examine my post:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaylee Ann

Really? That is kind of funny considering one mo/w can almost insta kill a target.

A standard run of the mill target running one superior rune and running superior vigor has 455 hps. 455 - 336 = 119 hps left. Like I said before, this is before any modifiers (ie wards, life barrier, ect ect). That is roughy 74% of a target's life gone when I am done karate chopping my keyboard. So I see 2 problems.

1. You either can't read, or you don't understand the definition of almost. Dictionary.com defines almost as:

al·most - Slightly short of; not quite; nearly:

Considering I can karate chop my keyboard and almost instantaneously knock off 74% of a targets life (like I said, before any modifiers), while using the definition of almost, I can make the statement that a mo/w can "almost insta kill" someone.

<*Snipped!* for flaming. Please do NOT flame on these boards. .. Aria>

Rieselle · Sep 01, 2005, 02:08 AM // 02:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

Sorry, but Ether Renewal is broken.
And that's really the case with Ether Renewal. It is clearly in a league of it's own in terms of energy management. The fact that you can try to hate it out (with an unweildy counter) doesn't change the fact that it's far more powerful than anything in the field.

Hmmm, by the same argument, I think Zealot's Fire is pretty overpowered too. It's got a pretty unique effect, and nothing else does it quite as well either.

I wonder if it would be "balanced" by changing it to "EVERY SECOND, if a skill is cast on ally, do aoe fire damage around that ally".

Or we could make it elite. It's certainly pretty overpowerful in conjunction with ether renewal. (and if we allow this combo, why not IW+100Blades?)

As an aside - if Mark of Rotgort does sets fire in an AOE fashion, would it be good then? I'd like to see that, if only to force ANet to tone down the framerate-destroying on-fire effect.

STINGER · Sep 01, 2005, 12:22 PM // 12:22

One Smiter is nothing, easily shut down and killed, (2) can be an issue and if not identified and adjusted to quickly will usually mean a loss.

We will see more changes in this setup soon its just too good, so enjoy your fun while its there!

Smites for Noobs!

WinterChill · Sep 01, 2005, 01:39 PM // 13:39

So, you say that you can counter easly, can you explain how? You gonna waste your shutdown mesmer? a emo smiter can deal smiter damage and also be a protection so if you shutdown the smiter he get always useful, cause he can get the protection role. And you wasting your shutdown in a non-essencial character. The fact they deal smite damage dont meen that he are the key strategy, very ppl use the the air elemental to deal damage but that dont meens that they are the key-char, you gonna counter it? Or you run with 2+ mesmer shutdow? Smite damge its part of the game, some do damage with air others with illusion hex/condition, others with smite.
And diversion SUKS, its a waste of a slot, they just need to cast other spell.

IMhO

Vincent Draculov · Sep 01, 2005, 11:39 PM // 23:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Mo/W Shouter

Zealot's Fire
Cyclone Axe
Flurry
"Fear Me!"
"To the Limit!"
"Watch Yourself!"
"Charge!" / "Victory is Mine!" / Sprint / Frenzy / some other stance or shout
Ressig / one of the skills mentioned above

12+4 Smiting, 9 Tactics, 9 Axe

My guild, Select Few, has been using this build in Tombs since the beginning of PVPx weekend. I think we were the first to win the hall during the weekend. If not, we were fairly close. We're using a slightly different skill setup, but the end result is nearly the same, and we keep experimenting with different directions in the build.

Really, the damage is fine and mana isn't a big problem... the spikes are gross. We won the HoH by running in and basically taking out two teams and two ghosts all at one time, in less than one second.

The problem we ran into with the build was all of the anti-smiting going around due to the more usual E/Mo smiting teams. We have most of the same weaknesses as them, so we run into the obstacles that are meant for them. =)