Buff Vapor Blade (or hydromancy in general)

With skill tweaks coming up how about hydromancy getting a little <3 for a change? Of all the el lines it needs some extra damage potential. If you look at air magic, it's got AP. Earth spells are okay but do good damage. And fire is a real good damage dealer for el skills (other classes still can have better DPS). Hydromancy is kind of like mesmers... it has a role in pvp but in pve it's pretty gimped. While I know anet will probably tell people who want to nuke to play air or fire, but that's not the point. In most other games, elemental-like spells are usually balanced in terms of damage dealing potential. But in GW, hydromancers get left out and are usually stuck with [wiki]Conjure Frost[/wiki].

Take [wiki]Vapor blade[/wiki]
It's a nice damaging spell but it has that dumb limitation. So how about either removing the limitation or giving the spell 25% AP if hexed with a water hex?

Or [wiki]Ice Spear[/wiki]
It would be nice if it lost that half range limitation that the other spammable el skills are missing. Another option would be to give it like +5...20 damage if the target is within half spell range.

And look at [wiki]Mind Freeze[/wiki]
For the core elite, it does barely more damage than ice spear even though it's got an okay hex with it.

I really don't understand this..... as it seems to be one of the most balanced magic lines.... it can snare, do spike damage, run, has armor buffs, evasion.... how good can you make water before it becomes overpowered?

Try to press B ingame once...

I agree 100% that it is very balanced but I'm sorry it doesn't do good spike damage in general. If you think so, name it's 3 best spike spells.

It has one, and its been used ever since the damage got buffed on a particular elite. Each magic line has its use, but honestly, if water got a damage buff too high, air would be useless, and well if it got buffed to where fire is atm it would be the de facto magic line.

Gotta agree with Lord Oranos. Water Magic already does some very respectable damage and has the best utility of any of the elementalist lines of magic.

As for the spiking skill, [skill]Shatterstone[/skill] is ubiquitous whenever there's a balanced-spike that calls for an elementalist.

Water magic just isn't as useful in PvE. It's the king of PvP though, where skills such as [skill]Water Trident[/skill] and [skill]Deep Freeze[/skill] dominate in controlling the field.

No spike damage? Ever been hit by Shatterstone -> Vapor Blade? Without an enchant, Shatterstone ending and Vapor Blade hitting you at the same time does wicked damage. Not to mention whatever else your party's spiking with.

It's a pvp skill line, end of story.

I admit hydromancer skills arent as appealing to people as earth air or fire.But i think in GW:EN getting a spell thats as decent as shatterstone would be a cool skill.

ok not all ele lines are damage my friend.... i know im an ele, i do believe everyone knows this list but ill put it again.

Fire = Aoe Damage
Air = Spike Damage
Earth = tanking
Water = heavy snare

now each att has some skills that dont quite fit in there but all in all thats how it goes, next people will be asking for fire to have a snare and air to have aoe lol

Oran, if you can't name three, I'm going to assume you don't know what you are talking about. Unlike some other people.

Blade, I agree that shatterstone is the closest thing to a decent spike skill hydromancy has. Still when you compare water to the other 3 lines, it's generally pretty weak in terms of damage and energy costs. Chicken, shatterstone+vaporblade is good when the other guy isn't enchanted (but not as good in pve where monsters have slightly better AL vs elements). When he is you are better off with ice spear.

I agree with your summation of the purpose of the lines, but els are supposed to be nukers so each line needs to have a few good damage spells. Look a warriors. With NF, every skill line has a few equilivalant damage skills. Now you could point out monk smiting skills don't heal or protect, and while that's true it's also obvious that it should be different. You can't say the same thing about water magic where in other games, ice damage is comparable to fire and lightning.

You also have to think about it from this point. Some people out of personal preferance might want to play ice-mages but think they should be damage (a fair expectation compared to other games). In PvP they are asked to snare mostly. In PvE snaring is usually unneeded. Most of the time it's easier and more convenient to kill the mob. So you usually end up taking the best spells out of a blah selection and maybe something like blurred vision or a utility spell like that.


Air needed AoE is also a valid request, but best for another thread.

Excuse me? Shatterstone and Vapor Blade are the only decent spike skills it has, thats the only reason even ONE spike build is made with it. And Shatterstorm+Freezing gust works best when the target is enchanted because of the longer range and more damage while the target is hexed. Don't judge me because for some odd reason if I don't know three spike builds with water=nub. If you want two, look on pvx builds and see them, and if you want the third, look on obs mode, its usually a hybrid runner.

I don't remember anet saying eles are supposed to be nukers period.... and like I said before, if water had the same damage as fire, there wouldn't be any reason to run fire. And since it already has the utility of air, there wouldn't be any reason to run that either.

And Air has two aoe skills from what I can see.

Also, warriors are usually supposed to be all damage, this is coming from a pvp point. And in pve, I see no reason to take huge armor buffs unless I'm going to be tanking huge mobs, they go for casters anyway.

Water magic sucks for straight damage. If you buff anything though, it'll become even more ridiculous than it already is in PvP.

With the last buffs to water magic, it became a very usable line. Before this, it wasnt even used in PVP. The snare and movement controll skills are perfect, but the damage ones do need a little tweaking. I would suggest the following:

Buff both Shatterstone and vapor blade to 10e, 5r, and remove the limitation off Vapor Blade. Or, make it better when targetting an enchanted foe.

Ice spear - remove half range limit

Icy Prism - Increase damage to 90 at 16 water.

Swirling Aura - Reduce recharge to 30, make the block % determined by rank in water magic.

Tenais Prison and Icy Prison - Remove the ends on fire damage condition, reduce max duration to 15 seconds at 16 water.

Mind Freeze - Buff damage to 55 and 55.

Mirror of Ice - affects the next 1-3 spells cast against you. (2 spells at 8 water magic, 3 at 14)

These changes would perfectly balance the water line.

I'd have to disagree with you there. I've had an earth ele since Amnoon Oasis (and I've now done all three chapters, proph first) and she is a nuker all right!

Earth's nukes aren't all damage but they pack in the added effects. For example my skill bar is:

Stone Daggers, Earth Attunement, Eruption, Obsidian Flame, Sandstorm, Armour of Earth, Stoneflesh Aura/Silver Armour, Healing Breeze

Sandstorm is a pure damage and long lasting killer but eruption can blind whole squads of melee foes. When I last did UW I don't think my group would have survieved had those aatax not been incapable of dealing damage. Earth may be heavily defence orientated but it certainly does hurt too.

/signed. Vapor Blades limitation is horrible, perhaps it could be 75% damage instead.

Otherwise Maelstrom is the best water spell

p.s. how do I get the skill icons?

ok like i said not all skills fall in line with the description

also to get icon its [skill] insert skill name

then close with [//skill] but with only one slash.

i agree that water could use some reworking. honestly, how many snares does one person need? there's no variety amongst the water line - snare, shatterstone or trident, vapor blade - that's all you need to know to run a water build. all the other lines of elemental magic have a plethora of nice skills to choose from.

i don't expect to nuke with water, but at least having some more options for spiking would be nice, as eles should be able to do decent damage with every element.

Shatterstone will always deal 50..200 damage (0-15 water), which is pretty good on a mostly support line. Look at Lightning Orb, compare the two and you'll see its generally fine. Vapor Blade is designed to aid in spikes where enchantments are removed anyway (or just to cause a bit more damage for pressure reasons). Changing them to 10 energy and 5 recharge reduces their costs by quite a bit, and allows for more mindless spamming, something that really shouldn't be promoted.

Ice Spear has the highest DPS of all the spammable Elementalist spells. It loses to Flare for two reasons. 1. Water is not meant for its damage. The damage is just icing. 2. Fire is the king on elemental area damage, even if it rarely meets that. Removing the half-range requirement, though minor, will encourage mindless spamming with lower penalties for its higher DPS. You want those penalties to exist (else there is no reason to take Flare).

Icy Prism isn't meant for damage, but a signet disabler. Why would you want to increase the damage on something that strong? You're also asking for an almost 50% increase in damage.

Swirling Aura definately needs a look at. I'd suggest a stance buff to it (lower duration, lower recharge). The block chance is fine as it only affects yourself.

Icy/Teinai's Prison shouldn't have the end on fire damage clause removed. The whole point of that clause was to prevent snares and massive AoE damage, though this isn't much of a problem now that Factions and Nightfall introduced some more interesting skills. Still, Savannah Heat spike?

Mind Freeze doesn't need damage, you just want it for the 90% slowdown. Upping the damage by 15 points on both damage variables could technically lead to Mind Freeze spike (6 E/Me Arcane Echo+Mind Freeze). You don't want to promote degenerate gameplay in PvP.

Mirror of Ice definitely needs to be looked at. It's an elite Reversal of Damage, dealing comparable damage at the same attribute levels (15 extra damage at 15 water over 15 smiting RoD). Pro? Negates all damage instead of a limit, from the one packet. Cons? Spell damage only, enchants yourself only. For an elite that's worse in versatility than Reversal of Damage, there's something wrong with it. Instead of scaling number of spells, just make it targetable, then start looking in other ways to work it. Though this would promote hexway and physical damage, something has to be done with such a poor elite. The worst thing? Reversal of Damage was buffed from 8 second recharge to 6 second recharge some time ago, and this wasn't even looked at.

Fistly note that water damage is very weak against targets with over 80 armor, and that shatterstone is an elite skill, so it is pointless comparing it to loightning orb. Invoke would be a better comparison. While invoke has a loger recharge, the damage output is a lot higher to make up for this. The suggestions I made for shatterstone and vapor blade will balance these skills a lot more with the other elem lines.

My Icy Prism suggestion was over the top, i forgot about the 2 second recharge. However, it would be better buffed to 74 damage to make it the same as ice spear and trident.

A mind freeze spike with 110 cold per hit really wouldnt ever become used. Fistly, these spells cause exhaustion, and considering that, it is a very weak spell for one that causes exhaustion. Right now, it does the same damage as ice spikes, the increase I suggested was to allow it to do the same amount of damage as a single hit from shatterstone. It really is a very weak spell, if you are looking for a snare, Icy Shackles is a lot better.

The point you raise about the prisons ending on fire damage to prevent aoe snares is a little invalid, since there are so many other snares that allow you to do the same thing anyway.