Searing Flames and Frost Armor/Avatar of Melandru...

Il assume most of you know what Searing Flames is, and how its pretty much "the" nuker build atm, due to its spammable damage and burning. My problem isnt its high damage, which is nice, but its that the only two ways to truely counter the burning needed for SF to be effective are nightfall only. Yes, you COULD roll a mesmer and max out domination magic for backfire...but would this be very usefull or skillpoint effective to say, sins? warriors? dervs? Yes, you COULD constantly spam mend ailiment or mending touch, but you would still be hit for 90ish points of damage at least once or twice in between times of spamming mend aliment/mending touch, and it wouldnt be energy effective... My suggestion would be to make Frost Armor a core skill. Now, you may ask "Why would you want to put any points in Frost Armor instead of backfire?" And thats a valid question, the reason why is that at 12 water magic, it gives 34 armor against physical damage...ie; something deserving a slot on a tank, or a squishy sin's skill bar. Im sure someone will flame me and say "Then why dont those people buy NF noob!", well, my answer is the original premise of GW that A) a lvl 5 could beat a lvl 20 if the level 5 pwned and the lvl 20 sucked (although iv never seen that happen, its just what the GW team said at some point...), and that B) the idea that you wouldnt need all campaigns to be competitive in PvP. Feel free to make suggestions, I would prefer no flames (especially not searing ones...lol, bad joke :P ), but if you feel compelled, go ahead...

/signed
I think that it is unfair to say "buy NF noob" some people dont have the finance to buy the new game. I dont see the point in nerfing searing its a good skill and not over powered because there are counters. But the counters are only available if you own NF.

~the rat~

A counter doesn't necessarily mean a hard counter. You can viably counter things with disruption and beating stuff to death. You don't need those two skills to beat an SF team.

By your logic, Searing Flames should also be a core skill. Since most people seem to think without it, elemetalists can't do any damage...

Buy nightfall noob

/notsigned

Does anyone seriously use Avatar of Melandru and/or Frigid Amor (I'm assuming you mean that when you say Frost Armor) to counter SF? Are your healers really going to have points in water magic? Sounds strange to me- I'd have thought people would be stripping enchantments from healers whenever they can.

But I'm not an expert GW player. What do the experts think? Still even a noob like me knows you don't need to buy NF to counter SF.

Backfire to counter SF, uh why? Mesmers have so many more options than backfire, so many more:

Psychic distraction (very evil skill, buy factions noob ), cry of frustration, power block (evil skill buy prophecies noob ), Signet of humility, diversion and tons more that I'd rather use than backfire. You don't even need max attrib for these to work well. All these skills are good against other spell casters not just SF Eles. Who cares if you aren't doing damage- you can stop 2 or even more targets from being effective. Meanwhile the rest of your party should get on killing stuff.

As for mesmers not being a useful secondary, in PVE I actually prefer to use a hero necro/mesmer for psychic distraction since a necro can get lots of soul reaping energy even if the other skills are disabled. If you are winning you get energy, if you are losing you get energy, if you have a decent MM, you will get lots of energy. For some PvE fun try run a few necro/eles with an SF build - while they don't do as much damage they hardly ever run out of energy.

If you have a ranger, there's broadhead arrow and a fair number of other options. Concussion Shot was buffed.

So I see plenty of counters to SF that aren't part of NF.

I may have misunderstood the premis of the post, but I think your suggesting making an ele skill which protect against SF a core skill to be available throughout the game?

I dont see why. Searing flames is only in NF skill, so you can only have it if you own NF. People just need to make better builds to protect against it.

There is a very easy way to prevent searing flames completely. Drain the casters energy. Their rendered uselss until they regen and by which time you can kill them.

Searing flames drains energy very fast when its spammed. If you use it continually when spamming, any attunement isnt enough to compensate and your reduced to 0 energy.

If a profession doesnt have energy draining, interupt or disabling skills/spells, then they just need to ensure they have a profession in their party which does.

But the main reason im against making a skill a core skill, is that it would require updating prophercies and factions. Something which Anet wont do. They have added all the core skills they will. The only new skills we will get are campaign unique ones.

If they added a new core one, they would have to add it to creatures and trainers in prophercies. They stated they wont go back and update previous campaigns.

And since I dont see it as a necessity because it can be countered in other ways, I dont see why we need it.

Sorry.



P.S Im an elemental and own ever normal and elite skill in all 3 campaigns for that profession.

I virtually never use SF unless its to farm in low level areas and I cant be arsed to use more then one skill. As I said, I find it drains energy too easily when spammed, and it reduces you to just using one skill/spell. Its not fun.

Ive also never experienced anyone else using it when ive PUGed.

Fallot, I take you've never hit a 6-man SF team with 2 monks and 4 sf eles in HA...

You can't really interrupt a 1 sec cast time skill very well, and the monks bring hex remover, so those options are screwed...

Pretty much says it all. Mesmers are great at shutting down SF, I saw a mesmer bring Arcane Langour as their elite in HA. Now what kind of noob skill is that? Well it didn't seem much of a noob skill when one of the SF ele was shutdown because they filled their bar with exhaustion.

That one mesmer also brought signet of Humility. Another SF shutdown.

Also brought diversion, which they cast on another SF ele, which either diverted an essential skill or stalled the SF ele for 6 or 7 seconds reducing the effectiveness.

That one mesmer also brought some enchant removal, without the attunement up, the SF ele ran out of energy rather quickly.

So what I am saying is that one mesmer, equiped with the right skills, made an SF team 50% or less effective. That is only one character making the whole build crap. There are a lot of effective counters to SF, you just need to realize they are there.

Pretty much says it all. Mesmers are great at shutting down SF, I saw a mesmer bring Arcane Langour as their elite in HA. Now what kind of noob skill is that? Well it didn't seem much of a noob skill when one of the SF ele was shutdown because they filled their bar with exhaustion.

That one mesmer also brought signet of Humility. Another SF shutdown.

Also brought diversion, which they cast on another SF ele, which either diverted an essential skill or stalled the SF ele for 6 or 7 seconds reducing the effectiveness.

That one mesmer also brought some enchant removal, without the attunement up, the SF ele ran out of energy rather quickly.

So what I am saying is that one mesmer, equiped with the right skills, made an SF team 50% or less effective. That is only one character making the whole build crap. There are a lot of effective counters to SF, you just need to realize they are there.

I have, and thoroughly destroyed them. But that doesn't mean or prove anything. A lot of SF teams in HA are really, really bad. Have you ever beaten an SF team without Frigid Armor ? I'm betting you have.

D-D-D-D-D-Double Post!

---

Yep, Mesmers are the Kings of Shutdown. That story about the Arcane Languor made me laugh Ele got total shutdown!

G O D L I K E

Too mcuh UT2004 for you, me!

okay that was not intended, i only pressed save once :l

Lol i feel like an idiot for what i said in prior post, which is why im gonna delete it.

Diversion?
THE most effective counter to SF around, and it's core. Ever played as SF and had it diverted? you're 'spamming' GG and LF, nothing more. If you take away their elite, it becomes the most useless build there is. The same can be accomplished with Signet of Humility/mantra of inscriptions.

if you lose against a SF team you are doing really wrong and is not the skills fault seriously...

lol, ye diversion is a fine counter to sf, just need to time it right(just before they do it) and a monk cant do anything. Figid armor and melandrus are nice too though but they dont really need a core counter for it imo .

/not signed

I am sorry but this is the reason that the ele is practically useless anymore...instead of actually figuring out a good counter or counters, people whine to get it nerfed and then when Anet nerfs it and other skills to keep them "balanced" as well...Everyone starts complaining about the nerfs.

On a side note~PvP whiners get the nerfs and PvE players get shafted with it, but the monsters in PvE don't change. So now PvE players are forced to fight against skills beyond them...seem fair?

If you want to compete in PvP you have to stay up-to-date skillwise. If you can't, thats your problem. No-one elses.

Here's a story about an overpowered class that never got nerfed.

The story of a touch ranger.

They were everywhere. They were invincible. There was no skill that could counter them. An odd skill or two helped annoy them, but nothing would kill them. They were: The Ultimate Class.

Here's an interesting observation. They never apeared in GvG or HA. They had most success in RA, some in AB and FA, and minor in TA.

So where did this overpowered class come from? Meta-game. Boon prot, *the* healing build was unable to counter them. Cries for nerfs were abound. And the end result was "Can't touch this".

So.... How come nobody is running this skill? How come this skill didn't kill them? How come touchers are just another memory, an epiphany to a lame class? Well, boon-prot is gone.

The trick about SF isn't to have "Can't Flame This" skill. How do you counter casters? How do you counter AoE?

Your post indicates you've never played caster in pvp, or you'd know what horrors they face, and how easily they are shut down. Or, at very least, you didn't play SF.

Yes, SF is strong. SF is AoE nuke. Is it undefeatable? Far from it. Why are there so few SF in competitive pvp? Why do so few (if any) SF builds hold the altar? Why aren't they everywhere in RA?

SF isn't that good. It's simple, it's annoying, but not the ultimate build. Learning to counter SF will teach you so many good lessons that you'll be grateful it was introduced. Waiting for nerfs to happen will just leave you with new "overpowered" build to complain about.

I find this kind of silly, you say the counter is only available in Nightfall, but Searing Flame is only in Nightfall too, the counter comes with the game.

Players who don't stay current with new expansions are going to suffer a weakness in skill availability, it is as simple as that, if your really going to compete than you may want to buy nightfall. Besides, there are plenty of other counters, Diversion, Guilt, Power Block, Psychic Distraction.

Useful spells and useful counters are available to those who spend the money to buy the chapter, your not entitled to Frigid Armor any more than your opponent is entitled to Searing Flame just because it is useful, they paid for the attack, you will end up paying for the counter.

Complaining that even with mending touch youll still get hit for 90dmg every once in a while is sort of like complaining that Exacutioner strike or Decapitation hits for 90+dmg every once in a while.

There are so many other counters listed for SF in other threads, and it will most likely be nerfed into unusablitly soon anyway, that this thread is pointless....

I can understand the OP's point. Anet said on several occasions you won't be forced to buy NF (duh) and you can stay competitive without them. The flaw in his logic however is that he thinks he's no longer competitive without Melandrus/Frigid armor (not frost armor), while in fact there are plenty of counters in both Prophecies and Factions. The best ones are Diversion, Psychic Distraction and SoH/MoI. Those work much better than the two he mentioned.
The Spearmen ran a team with 6 SF's recently (who even had dual attunes), and granted, they won a lot but they got rolled a lot as well. By teams who didn't bring 8 people with Melandru's or Frigid.
And a 1sec cast is perfectly interruptable by any remotely skilled interrupter. Especially if it's spammed on recharge like SF will likely be.