Skill suggestion for hydromancy.

I've noticed somthing with hydromancy whenever I try to make a water build "It's the only element I don't build for yet" I always run into reoccuring problems.

I can put somthing like Ice prison or tenies prison on a foe and keep them perminantly at -66% however due to the huge cycle times any other wammo can rush me and hammer me to death with frenzy. I can slow the guy down alittle and do a hopelessly small amount of damage to an armored target but the slow effect wears off and he ignores the damage done.

I think water magic needs more low cost + Low duration hex slowing spells whitch the slowdown dosen't act as the conditional "bonus" but is more the actual goal IS to slowdown a foe so you can dish out another kind of pain.

At the moment Arena-net appears to be going down a strange route with water magic by adding additional augmentations to water magic whitch is fine. but currently makes the line even more cumbersome and inflexable to use. as certain conditions must be met by the rest of your build whitch limits your ablity to adapt to a certain situation.

So I would ask for a couple skills like.

*Insert silly spell name*
5 energy, 1sec cast, cooldown 7
for 2-6 seconds foe moves 25%-60% slower

(That would add upto 66% 8 at rank 15-16ish)

And for a good defense

*Blah name*
10 energy 3/4 cast Cooldown 15
Water hexes adjacent to the caster last 20%-65% longer

That would give you a good chance to actually run away from a crazy wammo tank train if you combined it with ice shards rather than the pathetic duration currently offered whitch they spimply hit sprint and it lasts through its duration and carrys on going long enough to splat me

So what do you think?

Mind Freeze?

Don't hurt yourself.

I'd like to see shard storm buffed so it is a single target DoT spell... instead of one bit of damage and they are hexed with slowness for a few seconds, they take cold damage for every second they are hexed.

Hydromancy could also use 1 or 2 good nuke spells. I know water magic is more support magic, but it could still use some better nukes.

Maybe a 15 cost spell that does 60 damage, plus another 60 to your target and all adjacent foes if the target has a water hex on them.

Or a comet spell which is just like meteor but it does cold damage.

Hydromancy could also use a hex that slows opponents and also causes degen. Freeze: 15e, 1 cast, 10 recharge; Hex. For 10 seconds target moves 66% slower and suffers 3-7 degen. Freeze is automatically reapplied every time the target suffers from a new water hex. Freeze ends if the target takes fire damage.

The damage of Water Magic spells needs to be increased in general due to the fact that most PVE enemies have a natural resistance to Cold Damage.

You spend 2/7ths of the game in a Cold Mountain area. Krytan creatures are about normally effected by it, Maguuma Creatures are resistant to it.

Bugs seem to be effected by cold depending on where they are. Ascalon Devourers are severely damaged by cold, Maguuma Devoureres not so much.

Scarabs seem generally damaged by cold.

But most other creatures have a reduction to the damage.

Another eles suck thread. Anet gets it, but I don't think they care

Let's be real.

DAMAGE + UTILITY SNARE?

Won't that kill fire magic entirely?


Not to mention it isn't realistic since the mobs have thick skins/armor/etc. which means cold won't realy affect them...but then what in the game is real?

we arent talking comparable damage, just reasonable damage.

Most water magic damage spells do less damage than Mesmer Damage spells.

I think the ice hexes should have longer duration and shorter recast, to enable better sustainment. There are alot of crippling moves available to many classes which deal plenty of damage, and cripple longer, as well as having shorter recast. Elementist isn't a Combatant, they arn't armored, they are the example of stronger skill power in exchange for weaker equipment strength. For that, their skills should be more effective, it is bad enough that they are more expensive, if your paying more than you should be getting more. Giving them more energy than usurping that by giving them skills which cost more for the regular effects is a cheap tactic.

Water Magic spells revolve around doing less damage and more disability. They don't need to have higher recast and low duration on that disability, that is just too much. When Elementist starts casting Water Magic hexes on you, you should be thoughoughly screwed, not waid through it til it wears off and than keep pounding. Hydromancy is not strong enough to kill any self sustaining target let alone supported, no matter how you use it, it should be indispensibly damning in disability instead of damage. The recast times for all of their slowing hexes (all spells that include 66% slow) should be cut in half. Your already paying more for a spell that hits less enemies for less damage in exchange for slow, we could at least use it frequently. It should not take 3+ skills to slow down a few targets regularly, they certainly arn't getting killed by your contribution. In exchange, some Water Hex counters can be added to overcome the obstercal, it shouldn't be overcome by its own weakness.

damn you and your common sence.

water works well, its also about the 2nd proff. and why not take armor of mist or something, then you can run from the tank. I agree the slow should be increased. this makes it more spammable but not untouchable. rangers and sins could still take the ele out fairly easily. But then of course we would have a thousand or so threads about how eles suck cause they all they do is slowspam.

~the nordic rat on ice~

e/n ice and curses works well. Never tried it on pvp but with just a necro/mo running battery i farmed perdition rock.

Snare one tank, Hex with blurred vision the other one.

Water magic is already quite useful. Snares that are hexes and not conditions are wicked. Removing cripple is easy compared to removing that deep freeze that may have hit your entire team at once. The snaring water magic spells are good. They shouldn't be easily spammable. A few of them could use slight damage increases perhaps or ice spikes a slightly lower recharge.

It is the cost involved that makes it unattractive. I have run Water magic builds, and it is extremely effective in hampering oncoming enemies in large battles. But the cost and lack of damage involved, as well as recast, make most of the ordinary snares weak. Shard storm is a joke, Frozen Burst has such a long recharge that it doesn't merit any damage. Ice Spikes only lasts a third of it's recast. In general, the recast should be about half the high end duration, that way any one ice snare can slow a target half of the time, and be cast often enough to put some decent damage out.

With retardedly long recast times, you can't hit the enemy often enough to hurt them. your basicly wanding them wile waiting for your next snare to come up, the infrequent spell casting is what really kills the damage, besides providing less than regular snaring. Elementist isn't the only class that can put down a constant snare on an enemy, other classes can put cripple on an enemy indefinetly, easier to remove, and often cheaper to use. Shard Storm for one, should have a recast nearly equal to its max snaring duration. If it is only good for Snaring one enemy, it aught to snare them costantly. Any group snaring skills work fine snaring them half the time. One Third of the time is just not enough, not even if it is 16% slower than Cripple and hex instead of condition, they certainly arn't paying less for it.

And as I said, there should be better Ice Hex counters to compensate for it, like All elementist effects, they should require some sort of counter to overcome, it should not be naturally survivable.

ah, ever tried to run thu ice imps an golems, the most difficult opponents ingame for runners...

also 66% for 1 sec means u will get about say 3 meters away from the warrior, which ofcourse is more than hammer range...

please do not add skills that makes playing warrior useless since they never get to weapon range, there are already too much of them
(blindness weakness, cripplean ofcource slow down hexes) if ur ele u can always do spells when blind or use normal attacks when dazed (btw elemental dmg from staffs does more dmg on a warrior than a normal attack from axe)

so basically ur asking something u can own a warrior with an thats not going to happen (ie frozen warrior does nothing, so atleas limit freeze to reasonable numbers so u might actually be able to do something in 1 game)

1 anti-war mesmer or necro can seriously screw up warrior heavy builds, so its more a matter of teamwork than 1 on 1

Water needs a buff. More damage, longer snares and shorter recharges.

Explain to me what water dose then?
Your not taking any factors into your analysis.

Melee damage a warrior vastly outperforms any caster class in melee, Firstly staves do 11-22 every 1.75 Axes do 6-28 every *1.33* seconds and with high attributes in axe mastery you have a good chance of hitting with a critical whitch will be at the high end of this range hugely outdamageing a stave... You also didn't take into account the fact that warriors will almost certainly be using there "strength" attribute whitch gives every attack +1% armor penitration for each hit. this is very damaging in combination with the 1.33 attacks per second.

An ele can only damage to a warrior when they have just cast the spell (assuming the spell deals damage) or when there not getting there head concaved by a tank. This means an elementalist isn't doing any damage while there
1: Kiting
2: Casting
3: Drained on energy

A warrior with there auto attack can chase and still damage. kiting isn't 100% effective and i'm not doing damage when kiting.

I can understand not having the hex overlap or match the duration of the spell cooldown but it should be definately leaning that way. Look I could go on like this, but basically as a somwhat compitent warrior I ask you.

If I hit you with a water hex and the small amount of reduced cold damage (About 27 total loss of hp to you) and slowed you for 5 seconds

Would you even think twice before using sprint for 12 seconds and running me clean over? I doubt it you can simply wade through and ignore anything I put on you because it will come off as soon as I put another on you. Slowdown water hexs are useless at there current state defensivly and offensivly.

Currently water resembles a small glass of chilly water whitch I splash in your face, and you stand flabbergasted that I made your mascara run before you promtly floor me

To all people that think water ele should be buffed:

Anet focuses the game on pvp, to be realistic they don't care at all what you pve people think. and if you think that water magic isn't strong enough in pvp, watch some gvg battles.

And yes, let's make water magic hexes last for 45 seconds with 66% slow and deal 90 damage for 10 energy and only 3 second recharge. why would anyone play a cripshot then? who cares if this is an unrealistic skill, i'm just making it that way to prove my point.

BK, in general I think you are right that water magic should be more utility than damage, but it still needs 1-2 good nukes. Like vapor blade without the half damage vs enchanted. Ice trident comes close in cost/range/recast vs damage, but it's more of a spam spell. As someone pointed out earlier, there are a lot of mobs with good elemental defense.

Nightfall isn't helping the matter much either since it largely ignores water and air magic.

If an elementist wants to slow enemies down and nuke, they can use Earth Magic. Water Magic is expressly designed to slow enemies down, and has a few variety spells. I say it should be damn good at what it does, not just good enough to pass off.

I accept nothing but great performance, not decent, not good enough, not acceptable (by some), It has to be freaking great. There are alot of Great abilities and strengths to many classes, not issuing this to all classes is imbalance. I have played Elementist in PvP more than any other class, and I will say it is the best element for a single Elementist, Air magic takes second for good spiking, and Earth for some spiking and defense. Fire is great for PvE...... Being able to slow more than any other skill is a significant ability, but the cost, duration, and recast don't compete well enough with other abilities. Dealing insignificant damage, and a very short but heavy snare isn't as useful as snaring an enemy 3 and 4 times longer, and being able to snare them continously with one spell (using only one skill slot) for less cost. This goes along with every other elementist skills theme of overcompensation, a relativly good effect is overpriced in energy, cast, recast and even exhaustion for the amount of output the spell actual retains.

And making a totaly broken skill example doesn't support denial. It just proves that your unwilling to compare or recognize the volidity of reasonable and balanced alterations, and instead defect to making a totaly ridiculous example as justification for your laziness and narrowsight (holymasamune). Feel free to crunch the numbers if you actually have the ability.

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. Yes water magic does slow people down and it can do it pretty well, but that's not all it is. If you look at ward vs harm, mist form, and some of the armor spells you see ice magic is capible at defense. Mirror of ice, maelstrom, rust, and blurred vision makes it kind of mesmeresque. However two of the three spells that come close to having decent damage potential frozen burst and vaporblade, both have some real disadvantages.

Here's my justification for why it needs 2-4 good attack spells. People play elementalists to nuke. In a lot of other games, you can "nuke" people with ice spells. In D&D for instance, cone of cold is more powerful than fireball. In the final fantasy games, ice spells are just as powerful as fire or lightning. So when people come to GW and pick an elementalist, some of them are going to like ice spells and want to nuke. However this is the only "elemental" line that doesn't really support nuking enough.

If Anet wants Water to be versitile, that's great if you ask me. Give it a healing spell on the level of orison of healing. Give it a weak degen. Give it a spell to give it synergy with an earth spell (since air magic has spells that work on water hexes and nightfall with have steam). But since it is in the nuker class, give it a few spells that give it a little more punch.

Here's an example:

Ice Lance - 10e, 1 cast 7 recharge
Send out an ice lance that does 10-92 ice damage, has half the normal spell range.