A skill-by-skill listing of Elementalist skills that need fixing

The one blanket statement I want to preface this with is that PBAOE spells (Aftershock, Inferno, etc.) should NOT have twice the after-cast time as compared to normal spells. Maybe 1/4 second extra but nothing more.

AIR

Air Attunement - Decrease recharge to 30 seconds and cast time to 1 second and set energy gain as 40%.

Chain Lightning - Increase to 15 energy and a 15 second recharge but remove exhaustion and decrease to a 2 second cast.

Glimmering Mark - Decrease cast time to 1/4 second.

Gust - Reduce to a 7 second recharge and 3/4 second cast time.

Invoke Lightning - Remove the "if not under the effects of an enchantment" conditionality.

Lightning Hammer - Reduce to 15 energy.

Lightning Orb - Make the spell "follow" your target a bit better than a normal projectile.

Lightning Surge - Give the damage 25% armor penetration and reduce to a 1 second cast.

Mind Shock - Cause knockdown even if the energy requirement is not met.

Ride the Lightning - Remove exhaustion and make the damage equal to Lightning Orb.

Teinai's Wind / Whirlwind - Increase AOE to "Nearby", plus slight damage increase and recharge decrease (equal to Gust for both, just to streamline these wind-type spells).

Thunderclap - Decrease to 5 energy and a 1 second cast.

Windborne Speed - Decrease casting time to 3/4 of a second.

EARTH

Churning Earth - Reduce to 20 energy, 2 second cast, and 15 second recharge.

Crystal Wave / Teinai's Crystals - Increase AOE to Nearby and decrease recharge to 15 seconds.

Dragon's Stomp / Earthquake - Increase AOE to "In The Area".

Earth Attunement - Decrease recharge to 30 seconds and cast time to 1 second and set energy gain as 40%

Ebon Hawk - Decrease casting time to 1 second and cause weakness ALWAYS.

Eruption - Reduce to 20 energy and a 15 second recharge and change secondary effect to 4 seconds of blindness on every hit.

Glowstone - Reduce recharge to 5 seconds.

Iron Mist - Decrease to 5 energy and slight duration increase to 5 + Attribute Rank.

Magnetic Aura - Reduce recharge to 45 seconds.

Obsidian Flesh - Increase armor bonus to +60.

Sandstorm - Reduce to 10 energy.

Shockwave - Increase damage to a max of 60 per hit at 16 Earth Magic and decrease recharge to 15 seconds.

Sliver Armor - Slight duration increase to 5 + (Attribute Rank/2) and slightly increase blocking % to 25 + (Attribute Rank multiplied by 2).

Stone Sheath - Decrease recharge to 10 seconds.

Unsteady Ground - Reduce to 10 energy and a 15 second recharge.

FIRE

Bed of Coals - Reduce to a 20 sec recharge.

Breath of Fire - Reduce to a 1 second cast and 15 second recharge.

Burning Speed - Have the duration scale with your Fire attribute (up to 10 seconds at 14 Fire, 11 seconds at 16 Fire) and cause it to set you on fire for 3 seconds instead of the entire duration.

Double Dragon - Reduce to 10 energy and a 15 second recharge, and have the second damage hit come 1 second after the first instead of 2 seconds after.

Fire Attunement - Decrease recharge to 30 seconds and cast time to 1 second and set energy gain as 40%

Firestorm - Increase the AOE to Nearby and decrease to a 20 second recharge.

Flame Djinn's Haste - Small duration increase (up to 13 seconds at 14 Fire, 14 seconds at 16 Fire).

Incendiary Bonds - Increase the damage to be equal to Fireball.

Lava Font - The update to the skill was just not what needed to be done; it's still fairly useless as a 2 second cast. Change it to a 1 second cast and drop the damage a bit.

Meteor - Increase to 10 Energy but decrease to a 2 second cast and 20 second recharge.

Meteor Shower - Increase AOE to nearby (no joke).

Mind Blast - Decrease casting time to 3/4 of a second and give 1/2 energy bonus even when requirement is not met.

Mind Burn - Reduce burning duration by 1 second but cause it even if the energy requirement is not met.

Phoenix - Decrease to a 2 second cast and have the projectile damage be equal to the PBAOE damage.

Rodgort's Invocation - Increase damage to be equal to Inferno.

Savannah Heat - Reduce energy cost to 10 and recharge to 15 seconds.

Searing Heat / Teinai's Heat - Decrease to 20 energy and a 15 second recharge, and change secondary effect to 4 seconds of burning on every hit.

Starburst - Increase damage to be equal to Inferno.

WATER

Armor of Frost - Reduce recharge to 30 seconds.

Frozen Burst - Reduce to a 20 second recharge.

Ice Prison / Teinai's Prison - Reduce cast time to 1 second.

Ice Spikes - Decrease recharge to 12 seconds.

Icy Prism - Decrease to 5 energy and a 1/4 second cast.

Icy Shackles - Should cause a base movement reduction of 30% no matter what, plus an extra 30% per enchantment on the target (max of 90%).

Maelstrom - Increase AOE to nearby.

Mind Freeze - Cause snare effect even if the energy requirement is not met and increase damage on each hit to 5 + (Attribute Rank multiplied by 3).

Rust - Reduce to a 1 second cast and 10 second recharge.

Shard Storm - Change to a regular hex/damage spell instead of being a projectile.

Shatterstone - Decrease casting time to 1 second and cause the second burst to interrupt the foe.

Swirling Aura - Decrease to 5 energy and a 1/4 second cast, and increase to a 75% block rate.

Vapor Blade - Cause 75% damage vs. enchanted foes instead of 50%.

Ward Against Harm - Decrease to 10 energy and slightly increase the overall bonus vs. non-fire damage (set it to half of the bonus vs. fire).

Water Attunement - Decrease recharge to 30 seconds and cast time to 1 second and set energy gain as 40%.

Water Trident - Reduce to a 2 second recharge.

ENERGY STORAGE

Elemental Attunement - Change duration to 10 + (Attribute Rank multiplied by 4) and reduce recharge to 30 seconds.

Energy Boon - Slight decrease in energy gain but remove the exhaustion.

Ether Renewal - 1 second duration increase.

NO ATTRIBUTE

Glyph of Essence - Should cause you to lose 10 energy instead of all energy.

Second Wind - Add 5 energy to the amount given back.

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Random funny note - Teinai must have been a bad mage because I think all of his spells need a boost, LMAO.

I agree that most Elementist skills are just a little weak and a little expensive for their effect, especially since Elementist can often second another class and use cheaper skills for more damage and more potent effects.

But the General use of many of their skills is what I think needs the most improvement. Generally reducing the cast time on spells and allowing most nearby and location spells to be cast on any target would be a significant improvement to the way Elementist can be used. Aside from that, all self targeting AoE skills on Elementist should hit at least nearby foes, an Elementist should never need to be point blank to hit something, that is for Zealots Fire Monks who can do it right.

This would make it so you NEED to shut down an ele, or else you'll suffer.
I cant decide if I like it or not. The pyro in me says "YES PLZ", but there'll be a huge negative backlash from all the defenseless newcomers getting scorched.

Very interesting. In bold...

(Anything not commented, I either agree or have no oppinion on)

I think it makes it more of a "move it or lose it". AOE-over-time spells right now are all gimped, with the exception of Meteor Shower. That one is even a bit weak, though, as it only really shines at VoD or sometimes on the Altar. With the new changes mass Elementalist damage would actually be a viable tactic that requires the enemy to do more than take two steps every so often if they want to completely avoid the effects. Instead they have to be moving around almost constantly if they don't want to suffer large amounts of damage. I think it makes Elem AOE viable for real play, much as trapping is.

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Responses for Frojack:

Conjure "Element" Spell Line - It's only a 4 damage increase, I don't think that makes it abusable at all. Just playable. It would be most powerful on an Assassin but any less than 12 in Dagger or 13 in Crit Strikes hampers either their damage or their energy management, making it an equal tradeoff if they want to pump a ton of points into an elemental line.

Defensive Enchantments - A shorter duration but an even quicker recharge could work too. You'd definitely wanna keep Swirling at 75% though. Whatever the change I think they should be able to be up for at least half the time...so Sliver does need a bit of an increase (my suggestion might have been slightly too much but at the same time I don't even think so because it's a more specific skill and many builds would continue running Armor of Earth anyway).

Mark of Rodgort - It's not constant -7 degen...the degen is conditional. If the spell flat out said "cause burning on target and all adjacent foes for 30+ seconds and reapply this burning every 3 seconds", hell yes, that would be overpowered.

Lightning Orb - It does 21 more damage than Fireball for 50% more energy. For a 15cc spell I think it needs a little something extra. It only sees so much play on Elem runner bars because there simply isn't anything better. If there was a spell that was an exact copy of Fireball in the Air line, I'm pretty sure that spell would always be used instead.

Shockwave - I wanted to cap the spell at 60 so that Spirit Bond doesn't make it worthless. Telporting E/A's could do great Aftershock + Shockwave spikes if PBAOE's weren't gimped.

Churning Earth, Unsteady Ground, Searing Heat, etc. - They would be overpowered at a 1 second cast time if you still want to keep the low recharge. Breath of Fire is fine at a 1 second cast because the AOE is only adjacent.

Bravo, I like this guy, are you the same guy that did the assassin skills? Anet listen to this guy. Very well thought out, these buffs would make eles deal more sustained damage while still keeping their spike capability at a good level.

Yes, I did the Assassin write-up as well.

So, because you play an ele you want half the ele skills to get a buff?

Doesn't work that way... anet has beta testers for a reason. I don't see how you are qualified to declare that all these skills NEED "fixing"...

For real, it honestly doesn't sound like you look closely enough at Ele skills or the attributes the skills are under.

I play all classes and will be doing a write-up for every class.

I've looked at the skills quite closely, actually. I have played this game since its release and have a firm knowledge of how they all work within each sect of the game. My goal going into all of these changes is that every single skill in the game needs to be playable in GvG and/or HA.

80% of these skills never see play in serious PvP. That alone should be enough for anyone to question if they are balanced well enough. I say "no" and these are my solutions. It will only help if you discuss and give thoughtful input instead of just being afraid of change and saying "no way!" without giving any kind of supporting argument or thinking about why these skills never see play.

For anyone who knows the game in-depth I believe that almost all of these changes are pretty much no-brainers that NEED to happen if skill balance is of any concern (even if you don't agree with the exact change I listed). There are definitely some changes that I can see being contentious and I would love to explain my point of view to anyone who has a different viewpoint and hear their opinions as well.

I outright dismiss anyone who says elementalists don't need a buff in their damage capabilities. With the exception of a very few skills, elementalist are completely lacking in damage dealing compared with other classes. Every other class, with the exception of possibly a mesmer, can out damage them.

Look up the thread "Why nuking sucks" in the elementalist forums if you are unconvinced.

I agree with most of the skill changes listed, more or less. Something needs to be done in any case, otherwise elementalists will forever be locked into their 'support/heal bot' role.

There are weak skills in every class, but a barage of weak skills makes the class weak. Even if the class has "some" combinations which are strong, with only a few strong combinations compared to dozens in other classes, it is overall a weaker class.

I think it is natural to point out Assassins skill weakness and Elementist skill weakness because these are the ones which suffer disapproval the most. And no matter how good some of thier builds are, their overall skill pool has less productive builds to choose from than other classes, which is why they are disliked in whole.

Improving weak skills in all classes would be a great asset to the game. And starting with the ones who need improvements the most is the most rational thing to do. Only a moron does maintenance on the working wheel before fixing the flat. It is one thing to balance your tires when they are all in working condition, it is another thing to overlook a flat or damage tire for a working one.

I think the most promenant weakness throughout all classes is massive skill recharge on certain skills. It basicly makes them part time skills, and using one of your 8 skill slots for something your only getting part time use out of will always suck. If the skill doesn't have an exagerated effect, it shouldn't have ridiculously large costs and recasts, and some recast are so long that you simply can't justify that much output, either the damage needs to go up, or the cost and recast need to go down. This is most prevalent in elementist, who spends twice as much cost for the same output as other classes, which totaly counters the usefulness of their Primary, putting them at a clear disadvantage. And if your trying to convince others that 2 energy managment skills and a maxed primary is a fair ability to compete with other classes who simply put out just as much (and sometimes more) with thier cheaper skills, than your just bonkers.

But unlike alot of classes, I still think Function is just as much a problem as Frequency for this class. Although simply being able to recast DoT spells Frequently would make it rather useful. It really makes no sense to wait 30 seconds to recast Fire Storm.

Balance both skills was released at the same time (Factions)

Similar thing happen in Nightfall, with necro skills that counter the "overpower" of Paragons.

Comments inline, using underlines:

As a general comment: There does seem to be some nice stuff for elementalists coming in Nightfall. We may find that the Ele is less obviously in need of buffing when the other stuff comes in.

There is a reason this spell costs 25; it has precisely the same effect (dmg and armor pen.) of lightning orb, but like lightning strike or enervating charge, cannot miss the target. I suspect this is why it costs 25 energy, whereas orb costs less but can be strafed ^^

I'm unsure on a few of these. Most wouldn't be that imbalancing however, considering how imbalanced warrior and sin damage is already. I wholeheartedly agree on the aftercast thing. Who thought that would be a good idea? If anything, they should have a low aftercast so you can run like hell.

I can't believe you didn't list Blurred Vision as needing a recharge reduction. :P

It also has a rather huge recharge. 5e + exhaustion would actually suit it quite well, but as it is now, it's ridiculous to run hammer without dual attunements. Are there ANY other spike skills that cost 25 energy?

I could argue for specific skill changes, but I think the problem with the class runs deeper than that.
- Too many skills are needed to keep the same effects going persistantly
- Too many skills have side-effects or conditions that ruin their usefulness
- None of the skill lines pack the diversity of lines like Curses, Wilderness Survival, or Domination Magic
- There's very little synergy with other professions' skill lines, and the synergy among the class's own lines is limited.
- Basic attunements are fragile, recharge slow, and not even good enough to spam the good spells in any particular line, yet all of the skill costs are balanced around them.
- Elemental damage is spikey, yet easily mitigated.

In general, I think the problem is that most other ranged classes either simply do more damage, cause very harmful side-effects, or more often, both. The strategic use of ele skills aside from wards and gale is rather limited, so either that needs to be improved (i.e. more fire spells that cause burning, more diverse water hexes, more conditions/knockdown stuff in air), or the damage needs to be buffed significantly.

Some responses to things multiple people have questioned:

Glyph of Elemental Power - It increases the damage of the average spell by like 12 damage. 5 energy for 12 damage is horrible. It has a place for some spike builds but I was trying to give it a broader use.

Lightning Orb vs Lightning Hammer - Even with both at 15e I believe they'd be balanced. Hammer always hits while Orb would have a partial miss chance but the difference is in the recharge times...5 sec on Orb and 15 sec on Hammer.

Phoenix - I realize my change just turns it into a Fireball with an added PBAOE damage component. But, once again, the difference is in the recharge times. 20 seconds means that both Fireball and Inferno are going to be superior most times and this will remain a speciality skill.

Inferno - If Aftershock can do 177 damage every 10 seconds than this most certainly should be a 10 sec recharge. Flame Burst would still definitely be better for some builds because it hits a larger area and recharges quicker.

Ice Spikes/Ice Shards/Whirlwind/Ice Prism - The extra damage is mostly symbolic, really. Just trying to get all the spell lines with a certain parameter for these spells. For Ice Shards specifically I don't think the 5cc Ice Spear should be doing more damage.

Incendiary Bonds - It's doing 7 more damage than Fireball right now. Perhaps a little bit more when you account for a part of the damage being burning that ignores armor. However, it costs 5 more energy and has twice the recharge of Fireball. For the small amount of extra damage it does that's not worth it...needs to be increased.

Eruption/Searing Heat - I agree that the effects should be applied on every hit. I thought about that myself but bailed out when typing this up...I don't know why now.

Energy Storage Attribute - Spreading the bonus out across the attribute ranks would be better, I agree with whoever said that. A base of 2% + 1% per rank would be good.

No matter what comes out in further expansions, it doesn't changed how weak most of these spells are. Worthless skills shouldn't just be sitting around taking up space in the game.

"It's no shadow of fear" is exactly the point. Spells like SoF are what give a class threat and legitimacy. And as far as not being what the line specializes in, that's the other half of the problem, a line specializing in one effect and not having much of anything in others isn't very good. Rangers don't have a whole line "specializing in cripple."

Chilling Winds may make things slightly more interesting.

I didn't say that a skill line should specialize in one specific thing (damage aside)? We basically agree but I think you misunderstood.

Chilling Winds doesn't look very promising in it's current form, imo. It needs to be 5e and semi-spammable or stick with the current numbers and hit an area instead of just one target.

Which would make it a requirement to buy future chapters just so an elementalist can be at the same level as the other professions. This wasn't what Guild Wars was supposed to be about. Sure there will be certain skills from specific chapters that will always be considered awesome unless ever nerfed (Spiteful Spirit from Prophecies for necromancers as an example), but the fact is elementalists have a lot more skills that just aren't even considered in builds compared to other professions.

Their attributes are too specific in what they do, and they need a better bit of diversity to make them both PvE and PvP friendly. I still use my elementalist a lot, and though she is quite powerful, it's annoying that I have to use dual attunement to even try to match my Necromancer in power. Someone pointed out in this thread or another that multiple elementalists provide a great amount of damage, especially compared to multiple SS necros that can't be effective because you can't multi-hex something. While this is true, a profession shouldn't have to rely on more of its kind in a group to be effective.

I haven't really thought enough and focused enough on the faults of the skills so won't bother commenting on them individually, but the OP and many other posters have pointed out very clear problems and possibly solutions. I don't want elementalists to become these huge damage dealers that own everything. I love the balance of GW and I'm happy that there isn't one class that overpowers the others. I just would like the elementalist to be more diverse and creative to play instead of having to rely on a few specific skills and attributes to make it effective in PvE and then in PvP.

Fair enough. I was unclear what you mean't by '5 + rank in attribute'

The reason I say keep it at 50% is quite simply because of balance. If a ranger is spec'ed out to interrupt casters, he should be able to do just that with a fair amount of success (unless the caster goes out of their way to use the better evasion methods of other classes). There's a reason skills like Guardian or Aegis max out at around 50%. No one ever said those skills needed buffs.
I hate being interrupted personally, but I accept that this is the scissor-paper-stone relationship at work. Just because it's broken elsewhere, doesn't mean we should further damage it. The same goes' for Sliver. In short it's a great skill. One of the few skills in the Elemental line that just feels 'right'. While other classes have a general base value of 75% for evasion/blocking, that is their specialty. They 'should' have better options in this regard. Just as no defence buffs can really equal that of the elemental line. Especially with the coming skills in Nightfall. No other class can achieve more armour, only one other class can become completely invulnerable to spells. If Stoneflesh Aura stays as it is, no other class can match the raw damage reduction either (I'm not however, arguing the validity of Obsidian Flesh, just acknowledging it). It rubs both ways.

Sorry, but your assertion that your suggested change isn't over-powered is just false. What you propose is an AOE version of Mark of Rodgort. -7 degen is just ridiculously good. Maintaining the condition with a fire spec'ed elementalist is a breeze (screw other classes for a second). If this didn't cause scatter, elementalists would have a non-elite, (albeit slightly weaker) version of Spiteful Spirit, in terms of damage. How does that not deserve to be an elite?
With a 5 second recharge, you could keep entirely separate groups burning constantly (PvP or PvE). Energy cost is not an argument. Not in the face of the damage you get in return. With SS all you need to do is stop acting to mitigate it's damage. Failing that, hex removal. MoR requires both condition removal and hex removal for instant relief. To do nothing is to die.

Your missing the bigger picture... Fire only has 1 ranged spell with comparably high damage, that can follow Fireball in succession with a 1 second cast, and also has comparably short recharge. That skill is an elite. 2 more are coming with Nightfall, but they also happen to be elite. Air has a plethora of spells with similarly high damage and low recharge time.

Again, irrelevant point. Spirit Bond makes lot's of damage elites pointless. Why should Shockwave be any different? All in all, that's a weak argument to cap the damage...

Why would these be any more over-powered at 1 second than at 2? AOE spells are generally rubbish. Only a few have any real use. Meteor Shower is knockdown I guess (still think it's junk, but that's just me), and Maelstrom has it uses. Especially as snares are in the same cereal box. Unsteady Ground is ok, until you see the recharge, and note that you only achieve around 2 knockdowns for the earth-shattering 5 seconds it operates for. Any class that is brave enough to hit you in the face with melee will most probably have the armour to not even know their being 'attacked' by some crummy AOE.
All you need to do is simply move out of the AOE. All of a sudden you have mitigated the damage. Why should I have to wait 2 seconds and spend a lot of energy, for something that may not even hit for higher than 37 damage?


For whoever said this, Mind Shock/Burn, should never, ever not have exhaustion linked to them. They are far too powerful. If you think Hammer warriors are good at knockdown, unlocking Mind Shock would make them look tame. Mind Burn similarly shouldn't be spammable without consequence. Exhaustion is such an interesting mechanic. It's something that just hasn't been explored properly.

I think ANET is coming around to buffing the skills, instead of just blanket nerfing the sotm. They have got to be able to see that certain skills are just not getting played and that they need some changes to make them more viable. This will in turn lead to more builds and more interesting games.

Because spiteful does far more damage than MoR, and adjacent range AoE is pathetic outside of PvE clusterRED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOs. I'd much rather have MoR be 15E, 1/4sec cast than the proposted suggestion though.

What are you talking about? You don't need condition removal for a 4 sec burn. Hex removal is more then enough consider MoR's 25E cost and the fact that the elementalist has no cheap, spammable cover hexes available.

Depicting Aftershocks maximum damage value which requires knockdown is totaly bias. Knockdown is a very difficult effect to produce, especially on a group, the skill should hit a wider radius as it is.

Exagerated recast is the general theme of all poweful skills in the game. High energy and recast times are 2 costs, and if you add exhaustion, that is actually 3 costs, with that much cost, it is just riduculous to justify the truely mediocre damage output these spells do. And if you really want to get technical, High Casting Times are another cost, allowing easier interruption, and slowing the delivery of the spell as well. In all honesty, if skill A has twice as much energy cost, twice as much recast, twice as much casting time, and perhaps even exhaustion than skill B, than skill A should be at least 4 times more powerful. And on a related note, the damage done by AoE attacks is partially credited to the ability and situations required to hit several targets, and cost just as much in control as it does in energy, you can't debit energy for the amount of possible damage an AoE spell can do when half the work is placing it on more than one target. When you consider all factors, your typically paying 4 to 5 times more for effective elementist skills than simple ones, or skills from other classes. The skills deal less damage, and take a reduction against armor which is often from base to half damage, and cost more than equivalents in other classes which ignore armor, and sometimes even steal health, at simular recasts and higher actual damage figures.

66% more energy and 200% more recast time makes Lightning Hammer a Joke. It doesn't do enough damage regularly to merit anything, even with a frequent recast, it doesn't hit often enough to be worth 25 energy. The only way you could justify that cost is if Lightning Hammer could be cast as often as Lightning Orb, or at least close (7 seconds) That way the only real prohibition against spamming Lightning Hammer would be cost.

The balance is really ridiculous, using 50%-100% more energy for the same damage and twice as much recast on elementist skills compared to other classes is ridiculous. Elementist uses Obsidian Flame to deal high ignore armor damage, and pays 5 energy and 10 points in Exhaustion. For those of you who don't understand exhaustion, it recharges 4 times slower than normal energy, or basicly 1 point of energy regeneration, that is basicly 4 times the cost in max energy. Yet Necromancer can use Blood and Shadow Damage spells for nearly the same damage, and exceptionally cheaper cost, wile getting not only ignoring armor damage, but life return on many of their blood skills, offering basicly 60% of the same damage and 60% of the damage in healing, for less cost. Can you do the simple math there? Elementist pay more for less.

Improving the Radius of self targeting AoE skills and releasing the target options of all location+ spells would be an outstanding improvment to Elementist. But the overall cost and value of the skill slot itself, and the casting time and recharge of a skill are very significant oversights in Elementist, and even some other classes. Twice the recast is worse than Twice the Cost, yet spells regularly cost 4 times more for the same or slightly better effects, it is a serious disability.

Elementalist have many way to knock down a target.
gale , shock , the infamous earthquake aftershock combo etc etc.

even by itself its pretty decent , fast cast , decent damage , 10 energy , decent recharge.

about the ele - necro thing.

you if i give you lets say a skillbar for a elementalist (lets say the the old eq/af warder for HA) and with a necro you manage to do the same thing better , then you can say unfair , but comparing sigle skill without considering the entire line its poitless.

What I agree on:

Glimmering Mark, Lightning Orb, Ride The Lightning, Shock Arrow, Ash Blast, Magnetic Aura, Ward Against Elements, Lava Arrows, Smoldering Embers, Frozen Burst, Swirling Aura, Ward Against Harm.

The rest would become too overpowered, with an example as Rodgort's Invocation.

It isn't enough to just knock them down, first of all, you have to be adjacent to them, and second of all, knockdown typically last for one second, so you have to activate aftershock quickly.

As a seasoned elementist, I know only jokers try to make it with earthquake, it takes an additional skill to decrease the casting time in order to activate it fast enough to knock them down before they run away. Almost all other knockdowns only work on one enemy which means the added damage only works on one. Basicly the only good setup for a group aftershock is Whirlwind or Tenais Wind, which will knockdown all adjacent foes if they are attacking, and than you can hit all of those with aftershock. Furthermore, pumping skills in more than 2 attributes for elementist usually means alot of lost power, it means less damage for the amount of energy spent, and often less energy on account of less points in Energy Storage, and less energy manamgent due to weaker attributes as well.

Final difficulty, even though most defensive skills are in the Earth Attribute, Elementist is a fragile class, and moving in for point blank attacks is dangerous, Even if your using the usual Armor of Earth to brunt attacks, if your victim to enchantment stripping than you basicly get owned, end of story. There are alot of mix matched skills you can use from different attributes to meet the effects for powerful combos, but they are rarely powerful enough to compensate for the cost and reduction of power caused by spreading your attributes.

Returning to my point, Pretty much all self targeting AoE skills for Elementist should at least hit the Area around him, if not nearby, Adjacent is simply not good enough. Aftershock should deal damage in an area, and added damage to nearby knocked down enemies. Lava Font should hit enemies in an Area, and last at least 5 seconds so you can finish recasting it before it ends. And many others. Elementist is simply not ment to be shoulder to shoulder with anything, and if they have any adjacent damage spells, they should have some exagerated damage, and by that I mean about double what they currently are, he is certainly going to receive that much damage if he gets hit with melee attacks.

I agree some... or many Ele spells need buffing, more like tweaked. But are you guys really overlooking all the TRIPLE DIGIT NUMBERS IN DAMAGE this badly!?!? In this thread, it's been said ele need to be more diverse, trying to compare them to a Necromancer or a Mesmer. Well, this may be a shock to you guys, but they just aren't Necromancers.

Yup, just soak that all in for a second.

Shadow of Fear is a good spell! Why doesn't an Ele have a similar spell? Because Curses specialize in weakening and withering away enemies to mush. Elementlists can't do that. They aren't supposed to do that! They blast crap away with the elements!

Do you realize the majority of Fire Spells each hit for well over 100 fire damage? I can easily squeeze out 100s of damage with Fire Magic in PvE, Fort Aspenwood and even HA. (People and NPCs stay in AOE all the time, ya just gotta lay down enough of it.) I have done it many times and all it takes is a little aiming and prediction. (Which is all the more reason AOE spells should be able to be cast on the ground. They enable you to place flags in Nightfall, AOE spells should be able to be cast the same way, you Shift+click the spell or something, then you get your Adjacent, Nearby or in the Area circle to place where you want it to slam.)

Elementalists aren't going to be some great hexer where they can disable people. They are Primarily damage!

Air - Spiking, Knockdowns easy blinding.
Water - Snares, hexes, armor boosts
Earth - Defensive, Wards and buffs, general damage and nuking, Paticually high damage under certain requirements.
Fire - Blam stuff away because your ticked off. Nuking, Nuking, burning, Nuking, everything dies... nuking.

I know people already know this, but I really think it needed to be layed out again. Some of the Earth spell buffs in this thread basically make the Spells like Fire nuking! Earth will never out damage or nuke as good as Fire, BECAUSE IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO!!!

Lightning Orb doesn't deal enough damage? 140ish damage isn't enough to a 60 armor target? What?! Air = armor pen! No better single person spiking out there! Lightning Surge > Orb > Strike = well over 300 damage in 4 seconds! Plus a knock down to maximize your spike!

After Shock covers everyone in your area? WHAT THE HECK? What is wrong with you people? Ok, let's make Deathly Swarm hit 59 targets too.

"I have energy problems..."

If you have energy problem with an Ele, when no one is targeting you, you are just stupid, or suck as using mana. But usually when it comes to Ele, it's both. I hardly EVER use dual attunemnts and don't run out of energy! A PvE build I use with Fire Magic consists of two 25 mana spells, one 15 mana, and three 10 mana spells. Mind you I am CONSTANTLY casting. There seriously isn't a time when I am not casting SOMEthing which ensures damage, (save for the few times I mess up my cast order and ALL of my spells are recharing.)

It just seems like people want Eles to deal 300 damage when they want, on who they want. With a side of Ice cream.

...ok I'm done. There are many things that were on my mind about this topic, but I lost them for now and I'm not even sure the things I said here came out in text correctly anyways... bah, I''ll be surprised if anyone even reads this post.

Pretty much everything you said about elementalist damage was wrong. Air single target spiking is mediocre, nuking sucks, and elementalist damage is bad in general.

Water is a pretty far cry from "blasting crap away." If whammos can outheal your damage, it blows.

Speaking of whammos, the whole problem with water is that it was practically designed for running warriors around in circles, except it's all easily-mitigated elemental damage, which is more intuitively used against casters. Yet that not-particularly-useful combination seems to justify massive energy costs and recharge times among the entire line. More on why water needs improvement below.

And when someone starts attacking you, you do what?

In upper PvE, necros outdamage eles badly, courtesy of level 28 mobs mitigating everything. In Aspenwood, blood spike works significantly better, as do MMs. HA, it doesn't take much to park a ranger on a nuker to annihilate them.

Ironically, this is exactly my point from earlier. There is one practical knockdown in Air: Gale. There is one blind: Blinding Flash. In a line that's almost exclusively spike, those two skills are the most useful. Soon, Blinding Surge is going to take that spot too. Unfortunately, it's going to do it on Me/E fast-cast spikers.

As for not being a great hexer, there's not much other justification for running the water line as a primary. Cripshot does roughly the same job with one skill slot. The difference is that cripshot can also pack energy denial, degen, and numerous interrupts, while water doesn't even have a decent cover hex to prevent its best spells from getting pwned by Blessed Light.

And if they have a monk, you give them a 3-second warning that it's time to push the Reversal of Fortune button, not to mention you've spent 35 energy executing it, which takes 26 seconds to recover. If you're using air attunement, congrats, now it only takes 18 seconds.


Pretty much everything you've said requires three things: First, no one is bothering to attack you or even try to interrupt you. Second, the confrontation is going to be over within 10 seconds and it'll be 30+ seconds to the next one. Third, your target is level 20 and has 60 armor. Any other situation, the cracks start to show.

Mind Shock is too powerful it it causes knockdown everytime. The Mind spells already got a big reduction in recharge, I think they're fine now.

Also, he forgot aftercast.

Swirling is only going to be up half the time (unless you get a 20% fast recharge) and only protects against projectiles. Even with the changes I proposed it's going to be a specific spell that won't see a huge amount of play. I don't think it's good logic to say "if a ranger is supposed to interrupt he should be able to do that almost always". I mean, cmon, you could just spam blind on the Ranger and it would work even better than Swirling.

Eh? I don't think it can be called a great skill. For 11 (13) seconds you cause enemy warriors to get on a different target if they don't want to take lots of damage. Compared to Armor of Earth it's really pretty much useless right now for serious PvP.

Energy cost certainly is a factor; it's not a cheap spell. To keep separate groups burning constantly you would have to keep Mark up on both of them and continually switch between them with different damage spells. It's really not that easy and it's certainly not constant -7 degen. You can get interrupted, you can get energy denied...there's lots of things that limit the spell and make it less powerful than it might seem on paper. When everything lines up nicely it certainly is a lot of damage and that's what Fire Magic deserves to do. Damage, damage, damage. Aside from Burning Speed the entire line has absolutely no other functions.

I thought 60 was a perfect number anyway...that way it's still always going to do at least a bit more damage than Aftershock, which is what should be happening since this is an Elite spell. The fact that it just happens to say "HAHA" to Spirit Bond is incidental and pretty nice.

Okay, lol, but the goal here is to make them useful. 1 second is just a bit much I think. You could Gale + AOE spike for silly amounts of damage that gets around both Prot Spirit and Spirit Bond if they were 1 second casts.

Yes, I agree. But I definitely do think their secondary effects need to always happen. Your elite should be realiable - you have it on your bar because it does something necessary for your build. Mind Shock knocks down, Mind Burn sets people on fire, and Mind Freeze super-snares. Those effects should always be there when you use them . These spells are basically Elite versions of OBSIDIAN FLAME and yet that non-elite is a more reliable spell at the moment.

Gale knocks people down every time and for 3 seconds. Recharges faster than Mind Shock as well.

For an ELITE that's exactly what Mind Shock should be doing.

Symbol:

Last I checked SS is also adjacent. What's your point? Also, MoR is 25 energy for a reason; Anet seemingly want it to be the sole preserve of elementalists (well, in terms of not using everything you have on 1 spell), and that burning is just very cool.

You do if your under 50 hp. 'Instant relief' is what I wrote. 4 seconds of burning is around 50 damage. Remove just the hex and you still have to suffer upto around 50 damage.
Incidentally, if you want to cover MoR cheaply, a nice spell to use is Rust. While you have to contend with the 2 second cast-time, with just 4 or 5 (can't remember which) points in water it out-lasts it's recharge and gimps signets. Which is 15 seconds.

SS and MoR:

SS does no damage if the hex is removed.
MoR does no damage if the Hex is removed. However it can deal upto around 50 damage if the condition remains.

SS does zero damage if the hexed target doesn't act.
MoR will keep on burning, no matter what they do.

SS can out-damage MoR by far. This however is dependant upon human or artificial stupidity.



Zuranthium:

Your completely correct about just blinding them. I would in fact say Blurred Vision is a more desirable option for a hydromancer as hex removal is less common and attribute issues. Swirling at 50%, even with the proposed changes (yours or mine) pales in comparison to other block/evade options. It's a lot worse than the good warrior/ranger stances, and a little worse than monk block/evasion enchantments. Sounds about right to me.

Well it all comes down to context. It may not be a great blocking skill compared to skills outside the elemental line, but it certainly is compared to whats in it.

That's true. It is costly. However the armour ignorant damage you get in return is certainly worth it. Compared to what else fire has to offer, this would be far better for 'nuking' at high AL levels and high-end pve, than the junk people use currently. In fact an Elite version of MoR is a great elite idea .

Spirit of Rodgort [E]. 15 energy. 3/4 cast. 5-10 second recharge.
Target Foe and all adjacent foes are hexed with Rodgort's Spirit for 5-15(at 16)seconds, and suffer burning for 1-4 seconds whenever struck by fire damage.

Maybe over-powered but I like it .

Fair enough. Though Shockwave still has very limited use. Especially as an elite skill. Being 'up-front' as a caster (even an armour elementalist) is in most situations, suicidal.

Exactly . With a 1 second cast, they may actually be a little usefull at hurting people. I don't think it would be over-powered at all. You might actually see some new, interesting builds, based around snares+aoes. There are so few currently usable at the moment, which is a real shame.

It certainly is debatable. However I still believe constant knockdown, -7 burning for 7 seconds is too much. Meeting the condition is only difficult against other elementalists. Everyone else is easy pickings. All you have to do is watch your energy levels and be wise about when you use it. Without the condition, other classes could seriously abuse them.


anyways, we seem to be generally on the same page with these buff ideas. So I guess. Which is always a good thing. Here's hoping Anet take something from it.

On that note, I'm wondering how much potential Searing Flames has as some sort of AOE spike. While it is rather expensive, funnelling several copies of it on to one target means they AND anyone near them is going to taste some serious pain, and then you can do it AGAIN two seconds later.

Burning for 7 seconds is effectively a Conjure Phantasm that's easier to remove. Whoopie. It's also an ELITE!

If you want a simple, balanced change to make them tremendously more useful, here it is: If the condition fails, DON'T CAUSE EXHAUSTION! Seeing an elite wind up being an exhausting Flare is absolutely pathetic.

What other class matchups does this "relationship" apply to? I'm having a difficult time thinking of another matchup that's so obviously a near-automatic loss. A ranger doesn't NEED to be "specced out" for interrupts to screw an ele, they need to bring two skills: Savage shot and distracting shot. They also need to drink some coffee in the morning so they can time those to at fit within the 2-second cast times.

You could say the same thing about Backfire, it's the same idea: You present them with two alternatives: Take a crapload of damage, or stop attacking completely. Either is extremely favorable to you.

Did you miss the part about PvE? You can get mileage out of the AoE there, you can't in pretty much any form of organized PvP (and arguably unorganized too). Adjacent range AoE is just too small to count on, its a non factor when playing against people.

Recharge and cast time are unattractive making it a bad cover, and it's too overspecialized to deserve a slot on most bars on its own merits.


Yes MoR is better in PvP against opponents who aren't retarded. That doesn't make it good, and making it an "adjacent" AoE will certainly not make it overpowered (again, against people who aren't retarded).

In PvE enemies will happily cast/attack through spiteful, which is why it blows everything else away in terms of damage.

I made a GvG build utilizing 5 Me/E's with Searing Flames that was in a word "awesome". Can't wait to try it again. Freaking LOVE Searing Flames.

But if they don't act you're getting a rather desirable effect, wouldn't you say?