nerf overpowered searing flame?

I'm sure if anyone play HA, you already know how overpowered this skill is. It's like 99% of heroway spamming this skill without any doubt. Believe it or not, this skill (searing flame) has generally affected the gameplay of HA negatively. It's just so annoying seeing every heroway team abusing this overpowered skill. Hope this would raise concern to the GW design team, and hopefully you guys will make reasonable adjustment to it. Thanks.

Do give your comment on this too guys.

We finally get such a good elite ele dmg spell and you wan't to kill it

Searing flames is not overpowerd...

Heroes can handle a searing flames build pretty well, plus it's one of the few spells that deals decent damage and don't make the foes run around the map..

I like it as a pve player, but like a lot of spells that where overused in pvp, searing flames or glowing gaze will most likely be nerfed soon...
bah, at least, ruby djinns will be easier to kill

I've been on the business end of it, but I still disagree to nerfing this skill. Just bring a couple guys with extinguish if it's irritating you that much.

That's true..extinguish heals a whole bunch on burning characters

Deal with SF. It is not overpowered. You should find a build to counter it instead of call for a nerf.

There are disabling, disrupting and interrupting skills as well as backfire to overcome any spell ever how great or small it is. It is no disfunction that the proclaimed damage dealing class of the game can deal damage, or that it actually requires a counter to survive some attacks, it applies liberally to many other classes, it should apply to elementist as well, damage should not be mitigated easily.

Quite honestly, alot of Elementist spells are trash and need to be improved to the level of significance neccessary to be a threat, the fact that this is your riding concern about elementist just shows how lacking they are in the overall firepower they require to be a balanced threat on the battlefield.

The main problem is that Searing Flames gives out way too much damage while compared to other spells, thus unbalancing elementalists skills. Its either make the other elementalists spells as powerful as SF or lower its damage.

The pathetic weakness of thier other skills is not a scale to measure a skills effectiveness. It is the combine effectiveness of a build vs other builds. If Searing Flame builds overshadows crappy elementist builds, which include a vast majority of their skills, it means nothing, except they should improve such crappy skills. The balance lies in Searing Flame builds Vs other top builds, If Searing Flame is significantly more effective and unbeatable than other top builds, than it needs to be nerfed, it is no different than any other top build which often includes a single or 2 skills which vastly out preform most of that classes other skills.

Does SS need to be nerfed because it has alot more potential than other Necro skills and elites? Does Mobius Strike need to be nerfed because most of Assassin skills suck? Does Blood Magic need to be axed because a good class/attribute combination can make effective use out of it?

No, there is always one skill which outperforms, and the lack of balance lies in all the skills below it which arn't acceptable because they don't meet the expectations of pro build output.

The vast sum of Elementist skills are just a little to weak to deal useful damage, they all need to be fixed, many of them just cost too much or have way to long a recast to produce enough damage to compete with other builds, the fact that one of them is good enough doesn't mean that it is unbalanced, your comparing a working skill to an overall weak selection of skills, it is not a fair or balanced assesment.

My grief is that elemental damage and most elementist skills are so weak that a proper counter and protection against them are not a common and neccessary part of every parties build. Why isn't there an Aegis Equivalent to Elemental damage, Why arn't Elemental resistance techniques valuable, Why isn't Ward Against Elements common? Because the Elemental damage isn't significant enough to merit it, and bringing elemental defense seems like an unneccessary burden, because Elementist are useful for Ward Against melee to mitigate the Melee damage which is a real threat instead of dealing damage and protecting against elements.

The fact that you are actually rallying to break a usefull skill because people don't expect to contend against elemental damage in particular and because most elementist skills commonly suck just measures the utter depravity you have fallen victim to, and proves that elementist is overdue for redevelopements which would make it the threat it should be in general, and not with one particular skill.

I'd /sign this if it actualy had merit. However, since Searing Flames is not overpowered, there's no reason to nerf it because it is overpowered.

That's because almost every other Elementalist ELITE sucks (or is at least a bit underpowered).

Well i feel that this has to be asked so here goes, are you herowaying as well against searing flames hero groups? If you are, you deserve no sympathy from us and searing flames should be left as is. A human team spread out with appropriate condition removal should have no problem with a searing flames built. It only seems overpowered if you try to heroway against a searing flames heroway built cause your team would bunch up all nice and cuddly for the big bonfire roast.

Everything in the game has a counter, not one build can beat EVERY other build, so don't whine because your build doesn't pwn everything anymore, just be flexible and try to counter it. What would guildwars become if anet nerfs everything you don't like? Axes dealing only 11-17 because you could spike with them? mending giving negative regen because it owned you once?


jup, DON'T nerf the ele's!
An damage dealing class which got nerfed to only supporting....

Definatly NOT and i repeat NOT signed... (and yes, i encountered foes with searing flames )

I suppose we can wait til more and more people learn how to counter Searing Flames. But what if the trend is to not do that, but instead just do Searing Flames also? HA could become a Searing Flames arena. Unless there's a build that can really counter this with good damage or just flat out fight it head on and be effective, a build that will catch on like Searing Flames. Stay tuned...

Meh I like SF (no i dont run heros) but i think its got that simple sort of power that makes PvP - PvP....

To be honest along with the signet spike i see it as the next possbile Zaishen build (we need new ones eh? bit more challenge to everyones fave Faction gatherer)

Drop one Quickening Zephyr and you screw the entire SF team.

For those saying searing flame is not overpowered, then why 100% of the heroway got SF ele? Cmon..stop lying to yourself yea, there are counter against it, in fact i should have nothing to complain against it since i do able to beat them. But the thing is SF just make the whole gameplay in HA dull. If you guys say no to nerfing SF, then why on earth should we nerf Vim or IWAY since it's relatively easy to beat them too....I'm sure by nerfing that, players will not abuse AI of heroes using only that SF build

If anything, change the recharge to 4. It wouldn't kill SF but at the same time it would force the searer to choose to use glowing gaze to gain energy or to use searing flames again for the bonus damage. With a recast of 2 what is making the spell so powerful is the ability to use it 2 times and use glowing gaze within the 7 seconds of burning the spell causes. This deals 119 area damage, 40ish target damage and 10 energy gain within the time frame of 1-3 seconds.

I'm 100% sure SF is getting nerfed to 4, so im calling it now.

But if your going to nerf SF, better nerf Rampage as One as well. That skill is way broken.

But still you can beat SF with QZ and extinguish anyday...

To my knopwledge,IWAY, the skill wasn't nerfed,but the build became defunct in HA. VIM became overused,so the "nerf bat" tapped it a bit.

SF is just being used effectively,and if it continues,it will get "tapped" by the Nerf Bat eventually as well.

I play an ele myself, I don't use SF but I understand its power. Yes its damn good but with just a single caster that guy stood no chance. Imagine four of him tacking the spell on you at the same time, then you will see the issue. The general complaint is about multiple eles running the SF build and causing massive AoE damage. Thank god eles got a boost, too bad everyone is complaining now. :P

On another note, being impartial on this bring extinguish or QZ before you complain.

No reason to nerf it, it is a very powerful skill, but look what it did for eles in PvP. They are no longer now just utility characters, they can actuallly add a bit of pressure to a team. Furthermore, it is a buff to a skill line that was not used too much in PvP before nightfall release.

As far as the skill ruining HA, since when has HA not been dominated by gimmick builds? You used to face IWAY/Blood spike now you face searing flames, HA is in the same state that it was before as far as build selection is concerned. Nerfing searing won't force people into not bringing heros, their heros will just be less effective until they find something else that works well with the AI.

ANet should add exhaustion if it hits a burning foe or something... it is VERY strong, but overpowered (it IS an elite, keep that in mind)? Nah.

Rampage As One, however, is overpowered imo (make it a stance dammit)

But the all-round best 'fix' ANet could do for HA, is just leave heroes out of it... GW isn't a real CORPG anymore, it's just an RPG with multiplayer environments and outposts.

Personally I think the reason searing flames is so popular is because

ITS EASY TO USE.

You just spam the skill over and over and stuff starts dying. No wonder everyone loves it. Searing Flames requires little more than the mind of a 4 year old to figure out. You just press the icon over and over and things start burning. Half the Searing Flames teams I face get so caught up in tapping SF they forget all about their energy management or that I rended off all their attunements. Seriously if you want to see a noob SF team just drop Quickening Zepyhr and mind wrack them all. They will probably kill themselves.

There are plenty of counters to SF:

1.) Diversion
2.) Signet of Humility
3.) Xinrae's Weapon (Never seen this used but looks promising... if its even in NF)
4.) Ward Against Harm
5.) Mantra of Flame
6.) Quickening Zephyr
8.) Attunement Rending

Well while we're at it we might as well nerf shock thumpers and maybe Incoming Paragons, infact why not just nerf every skill and use a modded version of the dragon arena where the skills do 1 damage a hit instead of 1 hit kills except Wammos who still get the 1 hit kills and perminent mending (lol). SF is easy to counter with the right build, its also easy to beat with a good team. eles were meant to be the original big hitters that why they got such weak armour and as soon as they finally get some improved skills which almost restores them to how they should be people cry nerf nerf nerf. Interupts and spell blockers are there for a reason u know . Although im sure that the main arguement isnt really about SF at all i think its more about the fact that heros are there which people dont like cause there smarter than henchies and have generally betta skill sets (depending on the player obversly) which makes them a greater challenge and allows more people to enter the battles.

lol..like i said if it's not overpowered, will it be overused in the first place? use your common sense, and stop defend yourself from abusing it :P

umm...mind you when i say it's overpowered, doesn't mean i can't beat it or you so called bad player, in fact i can beat them as hell easily. It's just no fun everyone using same build, especially the heroway.

It's overused because the AI is not good at spreading out, and because the AI can actually run searing flames effectively. Also, most players are too retarded to bring or understand caster hate.

Yes, it "overused" should equal "overpowered" but unfortunately, most HA players don't seem to have a brain.

Look at VIM. Overused? Hell yea. Overpowered? Not really. I can count on one hand how many times I've lost to VIM... ever. Pre-OoA IWAY falls under the same category, as do many other gimmick builds. I'm not sure why people ran VIM in the first place (easy to use?) but it certainly wasn't because of the build's win percentage. Searing Flames might have a slightly better track record than VIM, due to the huge influx of PvE players into HA who have no idea what to do about elementalists pouring out AoE damage and lose...

If you think I'm defending my own abuse of Searing Flames... just watch us on observe some time, eliminating two SF teams on broken tower one after another and winning 45 seconds before time. The only way I'm abusing SF is getting free fame out of Zhed Shadowhoof over and over again, which is kinda boring.

Then why not simply kick heroes out of tombs instead of calling for a nerf on one of the few decent damage skills eles have?

If Searing Flames stays at 2 recharge I'll might just create a thread demanding that some necro elites have their recharge changed to 2 seconds. Some are much more conditional than searing flames and don't have the same damage or aoe.

But searing flames deserves a bit of a tweak because if nothing else after you've used it a few times you feel like you've lost a few brain cells from the mindless spamming.

You guys all missing the point of searing flame, yes, it does good damage, but fireball do same, yes it burns, but rodgort invocation can do that, with searing flame the point is you can save skill slot, me n few friend ran searing flame spike and glyph of sac shower spike build with 3 ele, 1 ranger trapper with Energizing wind, with first make chaos with 3 shower down in same time and just burn to death

I see people insulting others, I foresee a PvE v. PvP argument, I see some people complaining about a skill, I see some people complaining about completely unrelated material, and I see some people supporting the skill; but most of all, I see a thread that isn't going to go in a very good direction if it is left open.

I wish I didn't have to do this, but some people just can't seem to grow up and have a decent conversation about a skill.

Edit:
I'm going to re-open this thread. I've deleted the majority of the unrelated material and flame-bait posts. If that nonsense starts up again, the thread will be locked once more, and left that way.

Ok Faer

So if you watch the observer nowdays you will see low ranked teams bringing two of those guys and putting very high pressure on a good team who is trying to outmaneur and outskill by doing some very "meta" tricks...and sometimes they fail which is kind of silly.

Some of the counters poeple suggest help but can't hold on much longer vs the dual SF combos.

Extinguish quickly deplenishes Ele's energy pool (there is no attunement to protection and Protecting Gaze :P)
Armor and skills VS fire help but the major strenght of the skill is the wide and quick spreading of a burning effect.
So the only sure way is - kicking the hell out of the caster - Divertion, Distraction, pressure on him, KD-ing... the bad thing is those are active counters and work on paper but are not that easy to use on the battlefield, especially vs experianced team.

As an elementalist myself I suggest increasing it's recharge by 4. If not the whole thing I said - it will at least bring some sort of variety in the builds.

/not signed.

I can see the discussion Anet devs must have had about the skill.

Dev 1: Wow, this is a great skill, Eles will finally be more threatening in PvP like we wanted them to be originally.
Dev 2: Yeah. So what should we call it? Rodgort's Fury?
Dev 1: Not bad...wait! How about...Searing Flame! Because of all the whining on forums it'll cause...
Dev 2: HAHAHAH! GENIUS!

Get it? Because it causes fl- eh, nevermind.

It's a great skill, and Eles needed stuff like this a long time ago, but meh, we all know Anet will nerf it, and Eles will go back to utility, and whiners will find something else to scream about. OMFG NERF MEZMERZ OHNOEZ TEY ITNTERUPTD MY SPLZ!!11one!

"Why Nuking Sucks" - A thread around here.

And then suddenly, nukers can nuke.

And trouble ensues again.

SF is powerful, perhaps really too much. But unlike some other team builds, SF is somewhat easy to shut down. For example, just signet of humility will cause severe problems to the caster.

Energy management for SF also isn't all that great. At least one attunement is still almost required. Not to mention that SF is a spamming build, which brings in every spam counter.

It's somewhat different going against real players, but I'd warrant that most SF you encounter are heroes. And AI has simply too many weeknesses.

Now, SF does hit hard, especially with two casters. But shut down the caster, and they become a wasted group spot. And shutting down casters was never that hard. SF, unlike perhaps some other notorious builds, or some which are still powerful, is very fragile. Just spreading out a bit cuts damage to 1/3 or 1/4. But most importantly, SF can be countered by any of the commonly available counters: interrupts, mesmers, knockdown, daze, anti-caster hexes, ...

Oh come on people... come to your senses!
Its WAY overpowered!
Its like people saying IWAY wasnt overpowered.

Think about the other Ele elites (except for Sandstorm wich is also overpowered) and well talk again ok?
Sry for beeing rude, but some of you dont have ANY sence of pvp

It's not overpowered. Elementalists finally get a legitimately good damage elite and all of the sudden every r2 HA player floods guru calling for a nerf.

Sucking less is key.

i'm an ele, and i agree its extremly overpowered

it should be on par with the old ele skills lets see...

um that would be ether prod and heal party......

sorry but most of the complainers are relatively new.

you have missed so many threads/posts that compare elites of eles with those of other professions and say

*why cant eles have some decent elites*

a good reference is ENSIGNS number crunching proof that the ele elites suck.

if you have no idea of who ENSIGN is dont even bother trying to argue.

not to mention IZZY the dev king of balance

EDIT

linkie

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s... nuking+sucks

conclusion, read the rest for the backup to the conclusion

I had never read that summary before. Awesome and very eye-opening. As my main character is an Elementalist and I don't play much PVP or GVG (as in at all) it's kind of unsettling to know that a warrior can ultimately dish out more damage than the Ele's who are supposed to be the damage dealers.

Searing Flame is powerful yes, but no more so really than any of the other fire skills (most of the others don't set you on fire but there are several that deal as much if not more damage). It's the Glowing Gaze combo that really makes that shine and even then the weakness of that build is energy management. Even getting 10 energy back you're still spending 5 to cast Gaze and you'll get some back if you run with fire attunement, but Searing Flame is an elite and that knocks out my usual Elemental Attunement so energy becomes even more of an issue depending on what other skills I have tucked away in the build.

Personally I'm seeing alot of disadvantages to the Searing Flame build WITHOUT bein interrupted or targetted for other energy drains. It can be shut down relatively easily with just a few combos. I'd hate to see it get changed too much. It really would be useful in a PVE context which is where I'll end up using it.