Fire AoE post nerf tactics?

Hey all. Recently started an E/W for fun and I've been trying to come up with ways to still use the Fire AoE's in PvE.

Now when I'm solo it's pretty much a waste of time to attempt to stack AoE damage over time spells like Fire Storm/Lava Font post the AI nerf. Quick frankly that used to be quite a fun and efficient combo to use and I'm sad to see it die the way it has.

When grouped the only way I could see this working nowadays is with some form of dedicated AoE KD'er.

How do you guys feel you can get around the new AI?

I can't seem to find more than a tiny handful of ways to combat the AOE AI nerf.

The most common thought process I have is to have 2 Ele's at least in the group and have them both cast Meteor Swarm on a group of creatures staggered, so that the creatures in the AoE are Knocked down every 1.5 seconds or so instead of every 3 with ONE swarm. For added security have either another Ele OR one of the same ele's use something like Frozen Burst to snare the swarmed creatures.

This of course would require 2 or more Fire ele's in a group in order to pull off instead of the usual one it used to take to accomplish a full AOE onslaught.

I guess I understand why the nerf ocurred. AOE farming was entirely too effective for a few builds and cheapened the game. However now I find AOE with Fire to be incredibly saddening because if you are soloing and want to AoE with fire you basically have to use all the instant AOE damage spells rather than the over-time ones. The only benefit of the over time ones is that once you fire them off you could cast other spells while they were working.

I'm curious to hear what clever ways Elementalists out there have come up with combatting this AI.

The only other game that has this kind of AOE AI is City of Heroes/Villains with certain large area AOE debuffs. The problem is that Guild Wars AOE is so damn small in area compared to most other games.

Discuss :/

They don't run from Meteor Shower, period.

And you can still do AOE damage with skills like Rodgort Fireball and Phoenix.

So just do instant nukes instead of DOE nukes?

I guess that's just what I'm gonna have to do.

I guess a combo like Swarm/Storm/Font/Font from one fire ele is now a build specific to teaming with another person who can reliably slow and KD a group of creatures.

I guess ANet was right in doing this. Now instead of a battalion of fire ele's you could switch it up and go One Fire ele, one Water ele, and one Air ele on a team with monks/warriors/whatever

Fire for the higher damage AOE DoT's, water to snare, air to glimmering mark a target while hitting it with lightning wand/staff to blind everything in the crowd, and hell maybe even a geomancer to cast earthquake somewhere in that combo.

Slowly I'm beginning to understand the reason besides just farming as to why AoE DoT was nerfed the way it was. All the AoE DoT spells are high damage spells if they land every single tick on a crowd of things that do NOT move out of range at all.

The trick is mixing more types of builds to keep the things IN range.

I wonder if it's only a matter of time before Spiteful Spirit is nerfed.

From what I've seen it seems that Fire ele's have been replaced with SS necros.

It's like they squashed one problem and started another of the same type.

The AI change wasn't intended to change the fire elemental line, it was intended to change solo farming with Zealot's Fire.

I might be wrong.

Instead of using AOE spells for offensive purposes I now use it for defensive. spells like lava front are great for protecting a healer as long as they stay within the AOE. All the enemies run away long enough for the healer to get back on track.

One thing you might want to think about if you want to go AOE offensive is to go with knockdown. I have a build Im working on that uses air and earth. Use whirlwind as an opener to knock opponents down, and then follow up with crystal wave (i think thats the right spell), and then do something like an aftershock to knock them back down. Its basically all about keeping them within the AOE now instead of trying to stack the spells. Once I get the last of the spells I want to try my full build out and see if I can keep an enemy constantly grounded.

major nukaje , with 16 in fire , 2 meteor showers not in the exect same place , like one on one mob another on a mob a litle on the side , its too much dmg , running or not they all die.

Be careful of casting a phoenix immediately followed up by fireball. That does break agro.

How do I get around AoE nerf? Don't include Orion or Cynn in my party.

Seriously, could we please replace their Firestorm with something else? If not Orion, at least Cynn.
Can't take them anywhere.

they dont run from meteor storm rodgorts invocation and fireball. those 3 in succession are normall more than enough to take out any group of enemies.
max out fire attribute + superior rune + hat. get a tank to control aggro as soon as he has all aggro firmly locked on him let rip with meteor storm rodgorts invocation and fireball... i normally team up with a guild mate who is good at controlling aggro and it is a very very effective method.

but for gods sake do not bring firestorm searing heat or incendiary bonds as they will break aggro

Seriously, Orion/Cynn is now completely useless. They should just make them warders instead XD

I just finally capped Elemental Attunement last night, and threw together a pretty obvious build (E. Attunement, Fire Attunement, Aura of Restoration, Kinetic Armor, four damage spells, maxed out fire attribute with superior rune, approximately equal attribute levels in Earth Magic and Energy storage.)

I sometimes struggled to beat a single Rockshot Devourer, if it got its interrupts right, but I also was careless about the tming on casting my enchantments. Killing Minotaurs and Griffons in small groups wasn't a problem.

The damage spells were Rodgort's Invocation, Incendiary Bonds, Lava Font, and Immolate. Lava Font kept the bad guys running back and forth a lot while my more powerful AoE spells recharged.

I imagine the builds talked about earlier in this thread would have been faster.

Quote: Originally Posted by JoeJJohnsonII

Quote: Originally Posted by Francis Crawford

I use the earth damage line for prophets path, and find it better to cast crystal wave first, not last, since doing whirlwind/aftershock or earthquake/aftershock will break aggro, but doing crystal wave/whirlwind or crystal wave/earthquake won't break aggro, since your foes are sprawled on the ground, allowing you to get in the aftershock immediately (which then breaks aggro). it saves an aggro breaking round usually if you do it in that order.

Since they do run from AoE, sometimes i found this useful (not anymore, changed build):

I try to corner them. AI loves attacking Eles, and I give them the opportunity. Warriors rush in on my heels....and they are cornered.
Now u can FireStorm em
+ lava font + inferno + whatnot.

It's a difficult tactic and i dropped it after a while (along with fire storm )

Quote: Originally Posted by FlyTB20C

Quote: Originally Posted by Rajamic

Incandiary Bonds, Fireball, Rodgord's, Meteor Shower - 4 Spells just in fire that no one will run from. All of which (If you include the extra fire damage for Incandiary Bonds) do more damage than any other spells in the game.

Add in Ice Spikes, Earthquake, Chain Lightning, Ele's have a LOT of Direct Damage Area of Affect spells that don't cause scatter.

As mentioned before - The scatter can be used as a 'protection' spell. When doing missions, I tell the healers to hang out by me. Whenever someone comes near us, I drop a lava storm which causes all monsters to run away.

Does interleaving Fireball with Meteor Shower cause them to run away?

The same for the other spells cited?

I.e., do you have to leave them otherwise alone to get them to wait around for all three meteors?

no i normally cast meteor shower rodgorts invocation and fireball in quick succession when im rune farming and they very rarely break aggro

I always take Cynn and Orion in my parties. If anything, making the mobs stop attacking (when they DO run, and they don't usually) helps alot more than it used to, when it just tickled them.

I can't beileve people STILL don't see how to play with the AI improvement.