A star just fell in lament for all eles...

@spike
Not to be blunt my friend,
<=--- 4.5 million experience ele, and i think eles are pathetic in their current state for damage dealing purposes in high level areas.
I have done 4 man farming in sorrows right after when AOE update took place, just to prove that an ele can still do sorrows without the help of a necro to inflict damage or interuption.
I see no point of you continuing your silly arguments in a thread which you don't seems to belong to.
Not being rude, i can tell you off the bat, your being an average ele, and this is one of the reason why we see so many elementalists running arround, Just like Ensign said, Like Cockroaches.
I wish not many people would play ele, just like not many people play mesmers. Only a good one can handle that mesmer profession. Casting all skills makes no sense.
In Last, OB FLAME DOES NOT DO ENOUGH damage when your dealing with exhaustion!!!
Forgod's Sake, read every one else. So many people are flaming you. Don't you think there is a reason for them to do so?

@Cynn,
i Dont care what happens to dervish. As for what i care, they can go to hell.
For all i care, i have posted alot of times in last few months to deal with energy storage attribute, and quite frankly, i don't think it is going to happen any time soon. With new professions coming, ANET is way more focused on those new chars than fixing the current ones. Ofcourse, new chars needs to be good to make a good sell of an expansion.

As for energy Attribute, lets say:
Attunements Recharge is 25 seconds, Give 33-60% energy back.
Better Regeneration of Energy storage. 6 or 7 regen i would say?
Non Stackable seems fine to me.

@Scooba_Steve
Lets read the very first post of this thread and pay attention this time
I am not being rude to you though, just being blunt that you need to read them all.
Hint: Your wasting another skill slot with something that was not very useful.

The extra pips (as i have already said) would just make elementalist the best primary professions, we will see tons of E/Me mesmer, E/N necro; E/Mo monk but it wont help eles as real eles.

I echo your proposal of attunements since i have asked the same: more % back and less recharge. My call is to have the 83% of energy back at very high attributes, the same amount when using twin attunements, and 20 secs recharge. 50% back on attunements would be enough (and making them non-stackable of course for balance) and with this extra feature:

Each Energy storage attribute point should give you 2% of extra damage when using elemental magic (just ele magic) and extra 2% of energy back.

In that case 50 + (2x12) = 74, 50 + (2x16) = 82, not bad, and in that way we free the elite slot

Interesting idea. I'm sure it wouldn't hurt if this was 'locked' to elementalist skills either (similar to how a lot of people think Expertise 'should' work). This would promote more 'elementalists' rather than secondary wannabe's like you pointed out.

Incidentally, for those who believe otherwise, damage is also a huge concern. The expense of running an elementalist is high enough as it is, if I ever manage to get off a spell (interruption, knockdown, dazed, e-denial, death) I'd at least like it to do 'some' damage.
The lack of non-removable defense is pitiful also. To rub the elemental nose in it further, these skills actually pale in comparison to the same corresponding skill in other classes. Skills that actually can't be removed. One could, at a stretch, argue that they should actually be more effective because of their fragile nature. Though arguably at the same time, since most of these belong to the physical classes, they have a right to be superior.

Some of them could do with a look at however...

(at 16 per attribute)

Magnetic Aura: 21 second (25 modded) duration, 60 second recharge.

Way too long in both duration and recharge. Too vulnerable to stripping. Proposed change...

Magnetic Aura: 15 second (18 modded) duration, 30 second recharge.

Not overpowered considering Rangers will still destroy you as this only works on melee. Plus everyone and their mum packs enchantment removal these days.



Sliver Armour: 11 second (13 modded) duration, 30 second recharge.

Awesome skill. No change in recharge needed really since it has a nice great secondary effect. I would however change the 37 earth damage, to just straight 'damage'. It is afterall supposed to be a deterrent to people pummeling your face in.


Armor of Frost:
Enchantment. For 10...36 (43 modded) seconds, you gain +40 armor against physical damage, but -24 armor against fire damage. Armor of Frost ends if you use any Fire Magic. 45 second Recharge

Ok ability. Has a built in 'gimp' mechanism. Duration is again silly also. Considering it already has a disadvantage, I propose...

Armor of Frost:
Skill. For 5...20 seconds, you gain +40 armor against physical damage, but -24 armor against fire damage. Armor of Frost ends if you use any Fire Magic or melee attack. 30 second Recharge

Not really over-powered. All you need is a fire hilt/string/tang/wand and this ele will suffer greatly. An easy counter. A risky choice.



Armor of Mist:
Enchantment. For 8...21 (25 modded) seconds, you gain +10...34 armor and move 33% faster. 30 second Recharge

Good skill. No change other than the ability to outlast it's recharge at 16 water.

Armor of Mist:
Enchantment. For 10...36 (43 modded) seconds, you gain +10...34 armor and move 33% faster. 30 second Recharge

Runners heaven I know, but it is still a fragile as any enchantment.

(at 16)

All the Conjure enchantments: 10 energy. 60 (72 modded) second duration. If you're wielding a 'X' weapon, your attacks strike for an additional 1...17 'X' damage. 60 second recharge

These really only benefit other classes. Plus the duration/recharge is too long. I would up the damage, and shorten the duration...

I]All the Conjure enchantments: 15 energy. 11 (13 modded) second duration. If you're wielding a 'X' weapon, your attacks strike for an additional 1...25 'X' damage. 15 second recharge[/I]

This would make it more useful to elementalists (damage, cover enchant) and very powerful for other classes if they can manage the energy cost. Still not 100% sure about this one (barrage, frenzy, Tiger's Fury etc.) but you get the idea...



Obsidian Flesh: 10 energy. For 8...21 seconds, you gain +20 armor and cannot be the target of enemy Spells, but move 50% slower. 30 second recharge

This a delicate one but since enchantment removal seems to be the new black, the 50% slower speed gimp is not really needed. The armour bonus could also increase.

Obsidian Flesh: 20 energy. For 8...21 (25 modded) seconds, you gain +40 armor and cannot be the target of enemy Spells. 40 second recharge

Maybe a little over-powered (pve implications noted) but this skill is an Elite. In pvp it is a gimmick at best.

frojack
i think you trying to make ele enchantments more like warrior staces and I don't really like that. Yes, stances take on average 15 seconds more to rechage (horrific magnetic and swirling auras aside), BUT... stances take no time to cast. It means you can apply it at any moment while running/casting/attacking, i.e. exactly when you need them. While enechantments has to be precast, which effectively reduces their usefull duration time by quiet a bit. Also recasting protective enchantments when being attacked means you can be easily interrupted.

What I'm trying to say is that reducing recharge and duration on protective enchantments is actually BAD thing. Ele enchantments are already way to complicated to get on you when you need them most. And that is the biggest problem with their usability. You see warrior charging on you, you cast something on yourself, by the time you done he is already pounding on you. Situation with assasins and rangers is even worse...

If you want to reduce duration, you'll have to reduce cast time, which I really doubt will happen.

Something i wanna share...

I just made a Mesmer and when i met Vassar, the mesmer trainer at Foible's Fair in Pre-Sear, he told me this:

"Elementalists may frighten lackwits with no greater concept of combat than striking someone with an oversized mallet, but any Mesmer worth his salt is far a greater threat than a robed bufoon who likes to play with fire... I wll teach you a few skills [he gave me Backfire] that should help you dispatch them far better than the brute force an Elementalist would employ. Then you will know what it is like to wield real power".

An excellent point. I can understand the problem of cast time well enough see how these kind of changes might hurt. However, getting stripped and having to wait a further 30+ seconds to use whatever it is again is far more painful. Besides I don't see why dropping the cast time of most of these to 1/4 or 3/4 second casts would be a problem.

Armour of Earth is a good example. A defence enchantment that works quite well with this sort of cast time. Admittedly if a ranger targets you for constant interruption, your quite possibly screwed, but then that's the meta game.

Magnetic Aura actually has a 1/4 second cast already. Obsidian Flesh and Sliver Armour, with my changes, should be interruptible. They are too powerful not to be.

Armour of Frost, with my change, would become insta' cast. Armour of Mist should at the most be 1 second. Swirling Aura should be 1/4 second, like the crappy Mirror of Ice.

I'm not going to even talk about attunements. Just, no...

EDIT:
The warrior/ranger point: They should really be superior anyways. Insta' casts are their playground. The fact that stances can't be stacked is another foible they have to contend with. Plus they can be removed also. Albeit with only a few skills.

ugh so? does the metagame says an ele should always lose to a ranger? Defensive skills should be... umm.. defensive, and not another way for enemy to deal more damage to you.
On a side note Armor of Earth is pretty bad example as it is actually pretty good skill due to it having duration twice as long as it's recharge time.

err... did i miss something in your post?

again, you not saying that...

I don't know where these ridiculous buffs to the attunements came from, but they're really just making people look silly. If you don't understand that 83% energy returned from an attunement is retardedly good, please stop posting.

Extra energy for the profession doesn't matter, because you need good spells to cast with all that energy. If those don't exist, all you're doing is encouraging people to use a secondary with your emanagement. People use the good spells with power emanagement already - it's just that very few of those skills are DDs.

A lot more emanagement skills would be good for the elementalist - skills that return large chunks of energy, not merely make things more efficient. The one big benefit of energy storage on energy management is that it makes it more flexible, more able to absorb big chunks of energy. Unfortunately as things stand, the elementalist is anemic when it comes to non-elite emanagement (in fairness, every profession save mesmer is). Changing that around would make energy storage more valuable as a primary.

As for the skills? They just need to not suck. Deep Freeze is awesome. It's possible to make more skills on that power level. They just have to do it.

Peace,
-CxE

I've said this before- better nrg management will pretty much solve most what's wrong with Eles. Inbetween a large nrg pool and skills that make that nrg pool sustainable, Eles should be able to accommodate their better skills. E-management with no exhaustion is more than called for.

I really like the list of changes you proposed awhile back. I'm gonna have to look it up and link it to this thread.

<edit>

It's this post here.


Particularly the changes to the AoE spells.

Ok as far as HA type of pvp is concerned, I dont take any sort of attunments...Channeling is great ...thats for someone who talked about non-elite managment.. a pvp tainted warder has ZERO e-managment skills...then your only e-management is your own skills ..trust me...65+ nrg with 4 pips is good enoough with what you are doing...if you want to spam 25 nrg skills like anything....you know that would make elementalists tooo powerfull? Elementalists are great and they do great damage...you will forget ss nuke yellow numbers when you see tiple meteor shower yellow numbers

The point is that as it is now you need two slots, elite included, to get the 80% of energy back (my bad ive said 83 but its 80). In several cases you add Aura of Restoraton as a cover enchant due to the fragility of the attunements (i.e. easily removed, long recharge times)and to get some healing. The proposals here try to get the same rebate, 80%, but without using twin attunements, and to make attunements less fragile, so we can free the elite slot and maybe the Aura slot.

*sigh* I had a better concept of you...

Nevertheless, the link of SnipiousMax is interesting

Just had a look at that post too. Some good ideas in it. However the changes to the Water Line would make Ice Imps possibly the most lethal enemy in the game and make Mhago Hydra kill henchman in seconds (half the time it takes them now).

The change to Meteor Shower is taking it a bit far. Imo that is a PvE skill, it has 0 place in PvP or GvG, there is nothing wrong with using Meteor Shower + Rodgorts Invocation + Fireball in PvE. Not every skill has to be viable in PvP (look at the arc of Broadhead Arrow for christ sake!).

I would like to see the DoT AoE skills do there effect on each pulse, as it is Eruption, Searing/Tenai's Heat are all excellent ways to waste 25 energy. The only time i've found the latter 2 useful was when i brought every single DoT AoE the fire line had w/ Dual Attunements for an alliance tirp through Tahnnakai. They were extremely powerful on enemies that got stuck on top of them.

seeming as it is we have three choises:

1 buff the energy management so that we can work as a machinegun, to get on par with a warrior or such. (can come in the forms of unremovable attunements or a better energy storage attribute power)

2 buff the damage so that we have a good reason to stand around waiting for energy: a glass cannon type of character, you fire with all your might, but are very fragile after it.

3 we leave them as they are and watch them die out in the upcoming chapters......

we seems to have been going for the third one quite frankly.

The dervish can easily be stopped by a water ele. A whole pve mob can be stoppd. Watch them go 66% slower for 10+ seconds.. then cast another spell and keep watching. The only counter to this is hex removal [Which ive never seen in pve] or shadow stepping [which cannot be done with a dervish]. Even in pvp, a monk normally only carries one hex removal, if any.

The point is that non-elite energy management skills on recharges that make them non-trivial to fight with enchantment removal should not net you 16+ pips of energy.


I agree, currently I'm thinking a 3s cast time + hit on the first meteor would be more reasonable - the AoE should be left alone. Putting a larger AoE on that thing would be deadly. But as is the skill is largely wasted because it's easy to get out of a 156 AoE before the first damage even lands.

Maelstrom - this is from back when it had a four second cast time. I think the two second cast time was a stronger change, but the skill is still too expensive for the effect. I'd suggest dropping it to 15 energy (keeping exhaustion), and perhaps shaving a little bit off the recharge as well.

Besides a few tweaks to existing skills (I'd like to see another second on Immolate, the recharge on Lightning Strike come down to 2s, Enervating to 5s, etc), the big change that's been sitting on my mind recently was taking the casting time off of Glyphs completely. A little bit of rebalancing would need to be done (thinking specifically of Glyph of Sacrifice / Essence), but removing the time costs from glyphs would make them a strong vehicle for elementalist metamagic.

Oh, and I generally ignore PvE concerns. My stance is that PvE is so broken that worries about skills with normal uses being overpowered there are downright laughable.

Peace,
-CxE

Ensign, how many hits were you suggesting for Meteor Shower? 4 or so if i recall?
Since my english is not fluent, could u kindly explain the very last paragraph of your post?

If you remove the casting time from glyphs entirely, would they still have an aftercast?

I like the idea of LS with a 2s recharge. That makes it the spammable shock arrow should have been. Maybe attach a secondary effect to shock arrow to make it more attractive? Or make it a LS clone with a .5sec cast time (to compensate for being a projectile).

Eh? What post were you reading? It doesn't sound like you read mine. I usually wouldn't bother but let's 'fix' some of those misconceptions...

Firstly, the ranger thing; A Ranger spec'ed out to interrupt and daze will 'own' a caster 70-80% of the time, 1 on 1. That's just the way it is (at least in my experience). Whether or not that should be the case is something I am neither concerned about, or even mentioning anywhere in any of my posts. It's just the 'way it is'. That's what I meant by 'meta-game'. It even makes a little sense if you look at it from a scissors-paper-stone viewpoint.

Oh and on a side note, concerning my Armour Of Earth comments, you need to go back read the post again. Carefully this time. You voiced your concern about the cast time of these enchantments. I proposed shorter casts. I brought up Armour of Earth as..

The same for Magnetic Aura in terms of cast time. Any of this sinking in? 1/4 and 3/4 second casts are not the easiest things to interrupt. In fact the former can quite comfortably be done while standing in Maelstrom (Vengeful Weapon).



Obsidian Flesh and Sliver Armour (with my changes):
You most certainly did miss something. You claimed that...

With the need to re-cast more frequently, interruption is a distinct possibility. Especially with a 1 second cast time. However, with my change to Sliver Armour (armour ignoring damage) it would be far too powerful (in the current game) for it to not be. 37 damage mounts up really really quickly, especially when multiple being targeted by multiple attacks. If you know anything about Vengeful farming, you'll know what I mean.

Obsidian Flesh: Without the speed de-buff, and an extra 20 armour (and admittedly a longer recharge) a 1/4 or 3/4 second cast is unthinkable. Even a 1 second cast is debateable. To be free from offensive spells and have +40 armour is a dream. Let me put that into perspective.
40 armour is the difference between getting hit for around 300 damage or 100 damage from a level 29 Bladed Aatxe. The damage is still ridiculous but a huge reduction. Try it yourself. It's amazing to see.
Basically, with this change the Flesh provides the most complete defence (barring removal) an elementalist could have while it's up. It's probably over-powered, but I made that assertion already...

About the insta-cast thing. I clearly stated Armour of Frost would become a 'skill'. Nearly all skills have zero cast-time. The Exceptions would be stuff like Flourish(why?), Shove, Palm Strike, touch skills in general, interrupts etc. Admittedly I didn't spell it out and I take full responsibility for the lack of hand-feeding.


Basically my ideas about the defence skills, are fundamentally a way to get more use out of them. Most 'engagements' (not fights, the initial clash/re-clash) don't last very long. In both PvE and PvP. This is especially true for the elementalist. You'll probably have spent a huge chunk of your energy and need to recharge that as well as your skills for a short period.

With shorter durations and shorter recharges, while you put your spells down, you could allow yourself to be protected more frequently in some way, at the (expensive) cost of energy. Shattering also becomes less detrimental to you.

On A side note: Forget the dervish. The necro has had an enchantment designed to end/be removed since the beginning (Blood Renewal).

Anyways, I know this is not the biggest issue with elementalists, and a lot of people prefer to talk about the damage/e-management, but defence is a big deal for me. I for one wouldn't mind some more durable options.

Lots of fine ideas in here. The thread hit the core of the matter when it spoke of how 4 pips just doesn't support the large pool of mana. The only way around that being to use some of your skill slots to maintain the pool, and then again another slot to protect that very maintenance from strippage. As for me, I've left the Energy Storage Elites on the table in favor of damage dealing ones in most pve and ab that I play simply because being stripped is just going to happen. I do bring an Attunement because, well, you just have to if you want to have any kind of longevity, and just try to stay away from the mesmers as long as I can.

Yes I've heard of Glyph of Energy, take it everywhere in pve land I go when I play Fire, which isn't often anymore. But I'm way past tired of having to use my Elite slot to maintain my primary attribute. Not to mention I hate having to add another second to my Meteor Showers, Meteor's, Rodgort's and all other exhaustion-causing/high energy spells to get the mileage out of the Glyph.

I'm just tired of having to make the whole party wait for my energy to regen after the fight because I'm having to wait on my energy pool to regen itself. The MM's complain because they're minions are dying, the warriors simply don't care and aggro the next group. Rangers are just like, 'WTF?'.

I think Ele's should have another pip or two of energy regen to help maintain that mana pool. Yes with the current Energy Storage spells/glyphs the way they are that would make it too good. So nerf or trash those. Give me the energy regen I need out of my armor to make my character viable and let me use something out of my secondary other than a single rez, stance, mantra, or arcane echo. You want this Ele to get more involved in organized pvp, let me deal sustained damage and get away with it, not just run a flag around and spam HP.

The extra pip wont solve the problem as some people has posted here, but yes, we need to deal better damage.

Yes, 4...I don't think that fourth hit is nearly as valuable as the first, and I think the effect needs a longer duration (right now, the animation has a 12 second effect, but only a 6/7 second duration (doesn't hit until second 3, last hit is on second 9). Hence, change effect from meteors on seconds 3/6/9 to 1/4/7/10. Landing immediately is key, I feel - right now players can get out of the shower before the first damage tick without too much trouble.

The lower cast time is because I think that a 5 second cast time on anything with such a tiny AoE is absurd. Shorter cast times = better tactical usage.


Short answer: 55 monks. I feel there are enough horrendously broken PvE builds that microbalancing 'fair' skills for PvE is pointless. By 'fair' skills, I mean skills that don't get their power from abusing enemy AI, and aren't effective only because of the holes in monster skillsets.


Nope. They'd be like stances, they'd flash on the second bar when you used them and be effective instantly. The idea is that elementalists are already the slowest profession in the game, and glyphs only serve to make them even slower. I think that without casting times, glyphs would instantly become a very strong 'metamagic' mechanic, giving the profession more versatility as they can suddenly cast all of their spells in different forms depending on the glyph used.

Without casting times, Glyph of Concentration and Glyph of Elemental Power instantly become playable. Glyph of Energy and Glyph of Lesser Energy similarly become much more attractive (Lesser Energy would still need a recharge buff though, IMO). The issue with those two glyphs has always been how they turn expensive 3 second cast time spells into cheap 5 second cast time spells, and 5 second cast times cannot be used tactically. Glyph of Renewal becomes attractive again (it was only really good with Domination mesmers, and Mantra of Recovery has largely replaced it). The only glyphs I think it breaks are Glyph of Sacrifice and Glyph of Essence - since they would make skills truly instant and likely break some things in the process. Spiking, for instance - Lightning Orb into an instant Lightning Hammer is probably a *bit* much. Those glyphs could retain a cast time for balance purposes, or be reworked to halve the cast time of the affected spell.

Anyway, I feel that glyphs without cast times would be a very strong mechanic with a lot of design space for the elementalist.


Lightning Strike with a 2s recharge just makes too much sense to suggest otherwise, IMO. At 5s recharge, it's pushing a lot of comparable skills into 8s recharges and that really kills 'em. So you drop Strike down to 2s, making it the vanilla spammable (it's just a followup and boring pressure damage, it's not going to break anything), and shift other things down in reaction, like Arc Lightning. Shock Arrow simply loses the recharge entirely (I don't know why it has one TBH) and has its damage bumped, putting it on par with Flare/Stone Daggers/Ice Spear in that family.

Peace,
-CxE

Thankyou for explanation Ensign

Neverthless, i do love the idea for glyphs.

Question, What do u suggest for energy storage attribute? Does adding more damagae (for example, 3-5% per ES level as Cynn suggested in above posts) along with energy increase by 3 points makes it overly powered?
Against Casters, Maybe, but against rangers and warriors along with the new dervish coming into scenes?

A couple of months I would have laughed at the idea of changing Energy Storage - but in light of the changes to Soul Reaping a couple of months ago, I can see a tweak happen.

I think there are a lot of things you can tweak about individual skills or even attributes, but damage is the one I am most lothe to touch. Anything that boosts damage in a general sense is going to cause all sorts of problems. Remember that the one thing that a.net is afraid of with elementalists is spike potential. I can't say I disagree with them - spike potential is a scary thing, and I don't feel it's good for the game when it's dominant. Hence I feel that solutions to buff up elementalist damage should focus on ways to increase their threat on the battlefield without significantly boosting their spike potential.

To address Cynn's suggestion: using a 16/13 Air/ES spec using that suggestion, Lightning Orb would deal 194 damage to a softie at 3% damage per attribute level, and 231 at 5% per level. I'll let those numbers speak for themselves.

As for a change to Energy Storage: while I feel that it is incredibly unlikely, if I could make a change to the attribute I would have it increase the rate of exhaustion recovery with additional points added. At 0 Energy Storage you fully recover from 10 exhaustion in 30 seconds - the change I would propose would have you fully recover from 10 exhaustion in 15 seconds at 16 Energy Storage - with linear scaling in between. Then I would use that as a basis to re-evaluate elementalist skills, putting exhaustion on skills a bit more aggressively in order to lower their energy cost.

The net result of such a change would be an elementalist who could cast the big spells more often (due to faster exhaustion recovery), while also making his energy better virtually (due to lower energy costs on exhaustion skills). Some desirable side effects of this are better class distinction (elementalists being the best at using exhaustion skills - right now, due to funky energy elite issues, they're actually the worst), and lowered dependency on energy elites (since you're getting virtual emanagement through exhaustion skills that you are much better set up to take advantage of.)

Peace,
-CxE

You've never played against a dervish/monk?

Dervish uses 2 of his "enchantments of doom" so you take XX damage or so.
At this point you hex him with your snare waterspells.

Dervish is going slower but as he realises he's been hit with those hexes he promply uses Complimentation of purity. Hereby he loses his 2 enchantment which trigger: 1 the secondairy effect 2 his healing/energy management primairy attribute 3 a dual hex+condition removal.
So after that he's just going to bash you even harder than normal because of his secondairy enchantment effects..........

Conclusion: You can't snare a dervish effectifly with a water elementalist at the moment.

It's unfortunate that this concept hasn't been utilized more extensively in the class's skillset. Obsidian Flame, Shock and Chain Lightning come to mind, but apart from these, exhaustion seems to be tacked on to arbitrary spells like the 25-e 60-s MS.

IMO one of the beauties of Exhaustion on high-damage skills is that it not only provides this virtual emanagement, but also allows for more aggressive recharge times (e.g., Obs Flame). In theory, this gives an elementalist the choice to either play conservatively to maintain a stable energy pool, or go all-out on a completely front-loaded assault dishing out substantial DPS over a short period of time, but crippling themselves in the process. In practice, this simply doesn't work (at least not with Obs Flame, echoed or otherwise) since a 7-sec cycle is laughable if you are trying to get any DPS out of the skill, although you *will* cripple yourself trying.

The exhaustion mechanic is interesting, and it seems to have a nice synergy with the entire notion of Energy Storage. I think it needs to be utilized a bit more, with more ways to both create and remove it.

Does that mean "i agree" or a "i disagree" ? Im too fond of my idea (extra damage and extra energy back) that i dont see your real opinion behind the lines IMO the 3% extra damage is nice

Not so true. Just dont let dervishes abuse Contemplation of Purity (like making it have a 50% failure when divine favor is under 4). And BTW, a mesmer can disarm a dervish.

A 231-instadamage skill (i.e. orb, hammer, ob flame) is going to turn PvP into this:

E/x
E/x
E/x
E/x
A/Rt (for hunting down enemy's shelter)
Rt/x (for spamming shelter)
Mo/Me
Mo/Me

Mhh... whatever, a little more damage would help.

And yes, i agree insta-cast and insta-recharge on glyphs would be a nice improvement

I've posted this elsewhere, but ES can become useful if we only had some energy management skills that are based off Max Energy.

(eg. Signet: regain 30% of max energy)

As for glyphs, I think quicker casting times are a fine idea. However, I dont see why Glyphs all need to have the same casting times.

Why not have short casting times for some Glyphs that need it, and long casting times for theoretical future high-powered glyphs, etc. (and a higher casting time like 3/4s for Glyph of Sacrifice)

A 231 damage orb would be ridiculous. Let's keep suggestions reasonable.

ANet has the same problem as you do. You both look at the number an say zomg thats overpowered... But this is against 60 armor target, for the two seconds cast time, 7 seconds total interval and a good chance to miss. Does it still look ridicilous for you?
I say this is really what ele should be - you either shut it down or die quick and painfull.

YES.
2-3 eles = instant death to anything ever.

Instant death to anything IF they can hit it fast enough before a monk can heal it.

Yes, it is idiotically overpowered. It's a ranged, non-elite spell that does more damage than an eviscerate on a 5sec recharge. That's insane.
I should certainly hope that A.net has more common sense than to make changes like these.

who said evicerate supposed to deal more damage than any ele spell anyway? I've read things that say exactly opposite.

They can, trust me.

Imagine an 6 ele spike, omfg.

231*6?
1386

I laugh @ trying to infuse that much damage.

O_o

The _point_ is that eviscerate is already in the running for best skill in the game. Now you want to introduce a non-elite lightning orb that essentially beats it (and not by a small margin) in damage, recharge, and range and somehow that's balanced?

Gah, i cant help but split hairs here, but even with a shorter recharge the only real benefit would be to create the possibility for more than one malestorm effect from a single caster at the same time. Otherwise you are merely creating more exhaustion with no real effect. Even in the time it takes to follow up with a mind freeze or have a existing water based snare, the AOE on malestorm is so pitiful that the target can walk out of it before 1 wave can hit due to the drop from the sky mechanic. You can agrue that it simulates warrior style shutdown by forcing a negligable amount of kiting, but really it would be better to just expand the aoe at least 1 level so that at a minimum 1 hit is assured.

The sad part with this skill is that it requires a k/d skill from another source to guarentee that the skill hits center target, which allows for a greater chance for full skill effect. Hpyothetically speaking, any k/d skill landing as the malestorm drops down from the sky when combined with a 90% snare will guarentee the full duration effect on the target. Though actually pulling that off in a realistic 8v8 setting is kinda absurd. It is more in the realm of possibility in a 4v4 setting, but the target will likely be dead before the malestorm effect finishes anyway. This is how bad that skill is, which is partially due to the terrible aoe size.

Im not really against the energy cost reduction either, but it only just makes it more managable for mesmers despite the exhaustion. Personally id rather see the eliete attunment tweaked further to discourage that kind cross class abuse of energy management and possibly removing the normal attunments. Then adjust the quantity of reduction through the energy storage attribute, creating the desired target energy cost. Though this is still only mimicing what expertise does without any skill slots unfortunatly.

I do agree though that the cast time reduction assisted the targeting of the spell dramatically.

It also suffers from the fall from the sky mechanic, which is another limiting factor when discussing player movement. By default, any kind of run speed boost will render it useless, but that would be a similar argument towards overal AOE size that has been discussed before.

Furthermore it would blur the distinction in cost vs effect between meteor shower and the earthquake clones.

Considering most skills with cast times above 2s never get used if there is a chance for interuption, i would argue that anything over 2-3s is unreasonable for anything other than resurection and some spirit creation effects. This is also assuming the skills were meant to be used in places of conflict instead of away from gaining unwanted attention.

Something along this line of thought i believe has been suggested before. Personally i think this is one of the better ideas to try and salvage the glyphs in general and help create better parities to other longer lasting skills. Though like other "skills" that tune performance, i would hope they would have multiple triggers per use of the skill. Hell, even signet of strength (among others) are one use up front, but trigger more than once.

The theory is sound in general, but due to the exhaustion mechanic there are many skills that can be gauged more by the exhaustion cost than the actual energy cost. Also, by using skills that return energy after casting like attunements or shorten the cost up front like glyphs it would only enhance this situation. Personally i had in mind something like a buyback of exhaustion following exhaustion use tied to energy storage, similar to the way attunements behave. This would allow skills like obsidian flame be used more aggresivly and have the exhaustion cap more closely follow the up front energy cost instead of only playing a waiting game like every other class and having lower up front energy costs making it easier for other professions to abuse.

Another idea would be to have energy storage to override the exhaustion cap when direct energy gain occurs. For example the elementalist has a total enegy pool of 70, but has 30 existing exhaustion and 40 available energy. Then the elementalist uses second wind to gain energy and extinguish the existing exhastion. Other methods could include the buyback mechanic for attunements, mesmer options, and so on. Currently this kind of mechanic already exists post death if a character has existing exhaustion upon death and uses a exhaustion causing skill shortly following resurection, but i still think thats a bug ANET has elected to avoid squashing at this time.

Actually it is true and the dervish doesnt even need CoP to do it versus elementalist based snares. Wiping out 1-3 hexes per casting of 1 skill while also healing and gaining energy at the same time for 5e is a no brainer should CoP become disabled. It had a 4s recharge as well if i recall correctly, making it silly to even try even a full bar of water hexes against 1 dervish, never mind multiple dervishes.

It was also excessivly difficult to stop a dervish with a mesmer. Monks were easier to handle than dervishes were durring the pvp event as a mesmer.