Sandstorm vs. Unsteady Ground

Hi everyone,

I was wondering what you guys would prefer to use when you compare these 2. Both of them give an advantage when your foes are attacking. Sandstorm hits harder to foes that are attacking, and Unsteady Ground knocks down foes that are attacking.

Sandstorm lasts longer (Note that enemies scatter), but won't hit as hard to foes that are casting spells etc.

Unsteady Ground.
If I wanted actual damage, I'd be running Fire.
Earth excels at AoE anti-melee, which is what UG does.

Sandstorm is bad, unsteady ground is not.

I've set my Vekk up as an earth ele with UG, eruption, ward against foes, ebon hawk and a few more skills and i must say that i love UG, it recharges really fast the cost is not that high and the knockdown effect is extremely useful, it also acts a bit as a snare. I don't know that much about sandstorm but as alex said, i don't need the extra damage, often eruption or churning earth deals the extra damage.
hope i helped

The sad thing is Eruption is better than both, and it's non-elite...

25 energy you say? My GoLE says it doesn't care.

I absolutely love Unsteady Ground. Combined with Eruption and Churning Earth, you can decimate most enemy backlines in Normal Mode while you just ward the melee mobs to buy some time.

I think Sandstorm might be more useful in Hard Mode, where Churning Earth will have you covered for knockdowns. But I haven't done much Hard Mode TBH.

Earth FTW. By far my favorite type of Ele to play.

Sandstorm has its place. While yes earth excels at melee shutdown that's not all it is capable of doing. Sandstorm is a viable option for someone looking to dole out more damage as opposed to shutting down melee. Coupled with eruption, dragon stomp, churning earth, really just anything that does AoE Damage stacked on top of an area in rapid succession can do really nice damage.

The point of Unsteady ground is:

1. lower recharge
2. utility (knockdown)
3. It does full damage: When they get knocked down while attacking they are down 2 seconds - before they can get out you have dealt 5/5 seconds of the listed damage.

Sandstorm is not bad either, but Unsteady Ground keeps them down, ideal if someone else wants to pack another AoE of any kind on the mobs where Sandstorm would already cause AoE panic.

Always found Unsteady Ground more useful because of the knockdowns.

Sandstorm is more Offensive. Unsteady Ground is Defensive.

Sandstorm just deals raw earth damage, Unsteady Ground has the Knock-Down utility.

Personally I prefer Unsteady Ground, and so does Sousuke.

Before the nerf, I would have to go with sandstorm. Now unsteady ground is the way to go imo, cast UG then ash blast or any other condition earth spell, be it blind or weakness.

I echo unsteady ground when I ward in HM. Its really nice.

Actually, I'm a Sandstorm/Churning Earth fan. Sandstorm has a longer duration and when a snare is employed, such as say ward against foes, their's no escaping the Ss/CE combo.

2 Ss/CE eles makes for major damage. it was even more fun to use my warrior to ward the area and my heroes to Ss/CE the whole place during an ugly margonite fight. let's just say overaggro wasn't an issue that time.

Yet, UG has its uses.