Exhaustion: Couple of Suggestions

Ok, many people have played an elementalist and most likely have been annoyed at the amount of skills that cause exhaustion. The reason it exists in the first place is to prevent spamming of certain unique spells. In any other class, the energy cost is increased. Dont want a mesmer spreading conjure nightmare? Give it a 25 energy cost. Concussive shot too powerful for its recharge? Give it a 25 energy cost. Don't want that monk spamming heal party? Give it a short recharge, but give it a 15 energy cost. Ok, now most of those instances would effectively prevent spamming, but for three classes this doesn't work. One is Necro. Due to soul reaping, it isn't hard to spam 15-25 energy spells, so there needs to be a counter. The answer is life sacrifice, use certain skills, and you will end up dead. The second class is warrior. Most warrior unique spells (wild blow, heavy blow, final thrust, etc...) don't cost energy in the first place, so how exactly can you prevent spamming? Make it so they clear the adrenaline of other skills. The last class the energy increase strategy doesn't work is elementalist. Blinding flash, 15 energy, 4 second recharge, most other classes couldn't spam this, but the elementalist can, due to the incredibly powerful energy storage elites, with dual attunements, it will cost 3 energy, with ether prodigy, your energy will have recovered by the time it's recharged. Deep freeze and ice spikes spamming? 15 and 25 energy, no problem for an elementalist, as many GvG's have pointed out, however any other class would need to sacrifice to unleash those skills constantly. So, what does ANet do? Add exhaustion.

Exhaustion-10 energy is reduced for your maximum energy, this appears as greyed out, and no energy can be recovered beyond this limit. This energy handicap recovers at a rate of 1 energy pip, or 1 energy every one second.

I am not suggesting to get rid of it, in fact, I think it balances things out pretty well. However, the consistent recovery based on no other factors can really cause an imbalance. Lets say I'm running a warder build with obsidian flame, earthquake, and shockwave. In the beginning, everything is fine, I manage to kill a fleeing target or two with obsidian flame, I interrupt a spike with earthquake. However, if the battle doesn't end quickly, my energy is going to get exhausted out and I can't do anything, its like a soul reaping necro without energy management in a stale mate GvG, not fun. You could say, "haha n00b, manage your energy better, but how can I if the recovery rate never changes and there is ONE skill in the game the prevents exhaustion. For the other classes, then energy cost being jacked up can just be recovered with energy management skills, but I dont have room in my build for glyph of energy (the one exhaustion prevention skill) if I have ether prodigy. For this reason, a less than useful skill that causes exhaustion when I already have an exhaustion causing skill on my skillbar is discarded, immediately, without question. For a necro or warrior, its fine. I can bring a self heal to counter sacrifices, or reduce my maximum health. With warrior I could equip a furious weapon or bring to the limit/"for great justice". For ele, the one skill is an elite, so I can't bring that, and equipment means nothing.


1.More Exhaustion Counters

Glyph of Energy {E}-5/1/15-Glyph-No attribute
For 15 seconds, your next spell costs 25 less energy to cast and does not cause exhaustion.
Well, the only skill that prevents exhaustion, but its an elite, so why not tune it down into a non elite form and make it usable?

Glyph of Power-5/1/30-Glyph-No Attribute
For 15 seconds, your next spell does not cause exhaustion.

Thats it. No other effects, and it would still see a lot of play (well, at least I know I'd use it when prodigy gets stripped 3+ times in 30 seconds). It costs a skill slot, but allows you to bring another exhaustion skill into combat without having any effect on your exhaustion total. Another option would be a straight exhaustion clear on prevention skill.

Aura of Power {E}-10/2/30-Enchantment-Energy Storage
For 15...51 seconds, you cannot suffer from exhaustion, however any time you would have suffered from exhaustion, this skill is disabled for any additional 5 seconds.

Seems balanced, a complete exhaustion prevention that allows you to recover any previous exhaustion during its duration. However, the more you abuse it, the less effecient it becomes.

Arcane Cleansing-15/2/5-Spell-Energy Storage
All exhaustion is cleared. For each point of exhaustion removed, this skill is disabled for an additional 3...1 seconds. This skill causes exhaustion.

So basically, after the 2 second activation, all of your exhaustion is removed, however the more that is cleared, the less you can use this skill. In addition, its 15 energy and 2 second cast leave it vulnrable to interrupts, making it unwise to get a full grey bar and use this. The exhaustion caused by this skill would be removed, however causing it to have at least a 15 second recharge. If it gets interrupted, you can try again in 5 seconds, however you just lost 15 energy and this skill will take an additional 10 seconds to recharge for each failure.


2.Recovery Variations

So, I have 84 energy, 40 energy of that is greyed out, you may argue that I have no problem, after all, due to energy storage, I have 44 energy left.
Dead Wrong.
In this case I am using more exhaustion than I am recovering, so soon I will be left with nothing. If I really need to squeeze some blinding flashes out there and my prodigy keeps getting stripped upon casting, there is nothing to do except keep trying or just sit and wait for the 4 natural regen to take its 11 seconds giving me 15 energy. Unless it's a short RA/TA battle, having 2+ exhaustion skills would be a waste considering I will only be able to ever use 1 every 30 seconds without being exhausted. Energy storage isn't helping (unless its RA/TA), and that 30 extra energy goes fast.
So, why not make it so that recovery is based upon the maximum energy level at the time? If, lets say, exhaustion recovers at a rate of 1% of your maximum energy per second, it would have two effects.
First, energy storage would have a point (wow, thats something I thought I'd never say ), and points would be invested into it even if no skills were being used of its attribute. For each rank of energy storage, exhaustion recovery would increase by 0.03 per second, so at 12, thats 0.3 energy per second, almost double the normal recovery.
Second, it would give a use to 15/-1 weapons (another ironic phrase). Lets say I'm at the point of having 30 unexhausted energy and 25 current energy. I could care less about my current energy, because if I don't do something soon, I will hit the maximum cap due to exhaustion and be regaining energy much slower. So, I switch to my 30/-2 set, and I have the regen of a warrior, however my exhaustion recovery is boosted by almost 1 pip.


3.Variation in Exhaustion Amounts

Picture this, me casting obsidian flame on a full health monk fleeing from some angry fully adrenaline charged warriors. What did I do? Just cause a minor annoyance with no major significance except alerting other monks to our plan, yet I just lost 10 maximum energy. Result: Full health monk with protective spirit, guardian, and reversal of fortune on him, happly running away to heal land.
Now picture this, me using gale or mind freeze on the same fleeing monk followed by the same full charged warriors. What did I do? Leave the monk lying on the ground for 3 seconds watching -114 (fierce blow), -104 (eviscerate), etc.. Result: Dead monk, me gaining 40 balthazzar faction.

Picture this, a full spike team on a stage of 3 in 3,2,1, spike, and me running up and using shock on one of them. What did I do? End up in the middle of the enemy team 2 aggro circles away from the monk and I just shut down 1 spiker. Result: Dead teammate, dead ele.
Now picture this, me using earthquake in the same situation. What did I do? Knock down 2-3 people and add some minor pressure (assuming no ward of stability) Result: Failed spike

As you can see, in each instance, one skill vastly overpowered the other. However this is not always the case

Picture this, a fleeing target with 25% health running back to his monks for heals with no one chasing him. Lets say I cast obsidian flame, it gets through, however the monks have already gotten protective spirit and reversal of fortune on him. A minute later, another close to death target is fleeing, I try the same tactic. This time it gets through, and the enemy is dead. Result: 20 exhaustion with one dead target.
Now picture this, me bringing gale in the same situation. Assuming no one is chasing him, he just ends up knocked on the ground with monks running toward him. Result: Me with 10 exhaustion and a knocked down but full health enemy.

Picture this. Me facing the previous spike team with 3 shock wars. During the spike, they all use shock on different targets. The next time they attempt the spike, the process repeats. Soon, however everyone will be exhausted. Result: Failed spike, soon to be dead spikers, however if they aren't dead soon enough, we lose.
Now picture this, 1 warder with earthquake on his bar. 2 seconds before the spike, he starts casting earthquake. It ends directly in the middle of the spike, causing everyone to fail. The next spike, earthquake isn't recharged, so they manage to kill a teammate, no big deal, and the next spike is interrupted. However, after that, the ele is out of energy and cannot continue. Result: We lose

Once again, the same skills are used, but in a different manner. In each case, the more spammable skill overpowered the one, heavy duty, skill. Yet, after a while, exhaustion will accumulate to the point where, once again, the heavy duty skill wins.
For this reason, skills shouldn't always have the same exhaustion cost. Gale, being much more conditional, but always devastating at the right time will end up being a better choice than obsidian flame, which requires taking a chance. For this reason, obsidian flame needs to be used more to be effective, and it is, but will end up exhausting you twice as fast as simply galing someone at the right time. Same with shock and earthquake. Shock is much more effective at first due to its low energy cost and recharge, until it exhausts you more than earthquake. If the exhaustion costs were changed so that I could use several exhaustion skills as much as others, it would be much more balanced.
This could also add a form of progression to skills that have none, ex.
Gale-10/1/5-Spell-Air Magic
Target foe is knocked down for 3 seconds. This skill causes 15...9 points of exhaustion.

Well, uhhhh, yup, thats it.

heh didnt bother reading all that sorry but Anet seems to have a 25 energy limit for all spells, dunno why but thats what it is. Exhaustion just kinda balances it out. Another example is double attunement. Say you wanted earthquake to cost 50 energy instead, thats actually not much when you're double attuned. But the exhaustion you cant combat.

Did I ever say get rid of exhaustion? No, in fact I stated how it must remain to be balanced.

and he said he didnt read that whole drawn out suggestion. way way too much into that entire suggestion. the problem is balance if you mess arround with it in you will leave inbalance. you just need to change your build sorry but thats how it goes. and energy storage does have a point it raises your max energy allowing casting of more spells in a short amount of time. overall your still in same boat if you hit 0 energy.

I agree due to the fact that I run a fire nuker build. They need to lessen the amount of ehaustion or at least make it reharge faster. For the moment I feeel like a gelding afteracouple blasts due to the fact that I cant use my strongest skills anymore till I get rid of the exhaustion. This needs fixed havent they nerfed the Elementalist enough by making certian skillls scatter the enemies.

Mega Mouse

eh wel honestly I find the best spells to be non exhaust in PvE (Rodgorts etc) and MS is 60 cooldown anyways. The mechanics were built more for pvp in mind then pve

Just make a balanced build where you don't have all skills that cause exhaustion. Three skills that do that should be your limit unless you wan to gamble.

I'm not complaining about being exhausted out. This isn't a rant thread. I just find the mechanics behind the way it works......lacking.

I think exhaustion should recover a bit faster. It takes longer for exhaustion to recover than for a warrior to get his adrenaline back. Linking it to energy storage could be a good idea so that other classes get less use from exhaustion causing spells.

A non elite skill that reduces exhaustion would also be useful. Maybe something like

Glyph of Exhaustion (energy storage)
25 energy 3s cast 90 sec recharge

Lose 0....75% of your exhaustion.

All other forms of cost have better counters, you can use skills to gain adrenaline quickly, energy management, regeneration, return, counter sacrifices with healing, counter recharge with many skills.

Exhaustion only has one counter, as an elementist, it would be good if they had more skills that provided a continuous advantage with exhaustion cost skills for builds which are exhaustion heavy. I can understand if it is another elite, perhaps an enchantment which reduces all exhaustions spells to half the effect for a period of time. Can be stripped, can have appropriate duration and recast so it isn't overused or constant. There really needs to be more skills to overcome exhaustion on a regular basis for Obsidian Flame and Gust builds.

IMO, the cost of elementist spells is already hiked to offset the high energy pool, so in actuallity, the higher energy pool only gives Elementist the same access to his spells as other classes have to their spells, the only real advantage is exhaustion cost spells are acceptable. They still have to use just as much energy management as other classes to spam their skills, and fortunately they have plenty of them so they can spam even more than other classes can with their cheap skills, but at the cost of 2 skill slots, it isn't the greatest advantage.

I can think of one nice Elite, Signet of Restoration, lose all energy and all exhaustion, 3 second cast and 60-120 recast. A simple reboot skill for Gust and Obsidian Flame spam.

Everyone knows, 3 energy per attribute is not nearly as energy efficient as 4% less cost, Energy Storage is only good for Exhaustion Management and Elite Energy Managment skills. Elementist could use more diverse Exhaustion Management skills.

watch for the silly ob spike with that glyph removal exhaustion concept done by a MESMER + their elite for recharging skills faster. You will hate them, trust me.

Thats just perfect, how come I never thought about that, that way bringing air attribute in a shock warrior could actually be worth something, because the way it works now its not balanced, for example : a 4/0 air magic warrior can gale/shock as well as a 14 air magic ele.
I seriously hope they implement this.

/signed

All exhaustion works on 10 points already, adding a max of 5 more and minimum of 1 less really doesn't help anything, 10 exhaustion is already determental enough, and 9 doesn't help anyone.