Breath of Fire / Fireball suggestions

Here it is:

Spell. Create Breath of Fire at target foe's current location. For 5 seconds, foes adjacent to that location are struck for 10...34 fire damage each second.

5 energy cost, 2 second cast time, 30 second recharge

It doesn't take long to understand that the skill is basically a 'nerfed' version of searing/teinai's heat but with lower energy cost. Now, let's be honest, this lower energy cost doesn't bring anything beneficial in itself, neither it's a pressure skill due to standard recharge, what means that the skills is completely useless.

I propose the following changes:

I. Skill concept #1 - small aoe spammable pressure skill

15 energy cost, 1.5 second cast time, 15 second recharge

Spell. Create Breath of Fire at target foe's current location. For 8 seconds, foes adjacent to that location are struck for 7...28 fire damage each second and are set on fire for 1...3 seconds each time they take [fire] damage.

With lower casting time, fast recharge, good pressure damage on the spot the skill can be a very good damage dealer, but given it's 15 energy cost it will drain energy quite fast. Because it lasts for 8 seconds it's crucial to slow down/knock down the target for the duration of the spell in order for the skill to remain effective. Burning adds up nicely to the pressure and as spammable condition making removing conditions from the target bothersome. This skill would be mainly suited for pve, but I believe it could find it's use in pvp as well for being a moderately flexible skill which offers something different in terms of gameplay.

II. Skill concept #2 - Pressure-spike hybrid with small aoe

15 energy cost, 1 second cast time, 20 second recharge

Spell. Create Breath of Fire at target foe's current location. For 3 seconds, foes adjacent to that location are struck for 16...50 fire damage each second and are set on fire for 1...2 seconds each time they take [fire] damage.

Again, the skill will have it's use in the game, mainly at pvp. Short duration and good damage along with small aoe and burning guarantees a skill that will deal the needed damage when landed successfully on knocked down/snared target. 15 energy cost ensures skill isn't cheap but ain't an overkill either. Fast casting time allows the user to land the skill just in time. Recharge seems about fine. I believe the skill could find some use in pve, but it's not the focus. There are better skills for casual pve 'nuking' than this and it's not the focus either.

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here it is:

Spell. Send out a ball of fire that strikes target foe and all adjacent foes for 7...91 fire damage.

10 energy cost, 2 second casting time, 7 second recharge

While the skill might seem quite nice to spike low level players in 'noob' arenas such as ascalon or shiverpeak or deals decent damage to low level mobs, later in the game as well as in pvp the skill itself is quite useless. It's fire projectile is slow making the skill rarely hit a moving target, casting time of the skill doesn't allow it to be used as 'spike' or finishing spell efficiently either unless the target can't move but even then there are other way better skills. It doesn't immolate it's target either.

I propose the following changes:

I. Skill concept #1 - fire magic spike/pressure hybrid

Spell. Send out a ball of fire that strikes target foe and all adjacent foes for 7...91 fire damage and sets them on fire for 1...7 seconds. If the skill doesn't reach it's target, you lose 10 energy and skill recharges for additional 8 seconds.

15 energy cost, 1.5 second casting time, 8 second recharge

additional notes: faster and more accurate projectile, can't be stacked with glyph of swiftness

While the skill has faster projectile, it doesn't change the fact that it can be avoided just like lightning orb. Since it has a faster projectile by default, it offers a viable alternative to fire elementalist in pvp without investing points in air magic. Note, skill will drain your energy fast if you start spamming it without careful consideration of the target ... to not make it next fotm spike ha build, additional recharge is added if it misses it's target. In pve it has it's use as well, good immolation spreader.

It's supposed to be low energy variant of tehnai's/searing I believe.

I don't really like those suggestions. I actually prefer BoF over Tenai's or Searing because of the low energy cost, at least on NM, don't use AoE spells at all on HM :P

I like fireball as it is, however wouldn'tmind them making the casting time 1 second instead of 2.

I don't really like the proposed changes. The existing skills are still useful as they are, so increasing the energy cost and tacking on burning isn't necessary. Fireball could probably use a faster cast time as it is already a projectile, but it's not a huge problem. It should be noted that unlike most other projectiles, Fireball is actually an area spell that just happens to be a projectile, so it still casts and hits things even if the original target dies.

so u wanna make a new RoJ?

Why not just remove the skills, if you want them completely useless? :O

I remember when burning was a very expensive condition to apply. Not every fire skill needs to cause burning.

Some of you may use them, but atm stupid flare is more useful in my opinion than any of said skills in terms of dps. I know BoF was meant to be a cheap variant of the latter, but it could use at least recharge time of 20 instead of 30 seconds. Energy is not a problem for elementalist, thus 5 energy skills are useless unless they are spammable like said flare. It makes no sense to create a cheap skill with 30 recharge since when you need aoe you can get better skills.

Btw, the point is to make skills more useful on the skillbar and offering something unique in terms of strategy and tactics. Just because I proposed X changes doesn't mean you can't propose Y changes. Ultimate goal is to make those skills better.

It's a filler skill to add even more damage in multi-hit numbers.

For example, against Shiro, multi-hit spells of low damage help a lot, so battle scars doesn't eat up whatever is around.

And what's that senseless stuff about 'AoE' not being useful in HMPvE? It's useful, but you must KNOW when and how to use it. You don't cast AoE skill over moving enemies or enemies that will move away easily, and an AoE-multi hit skill is never the first one you'll use, because the first thing monsters will do is move away before starting to fight. You chose the ones that will stay in the AoE, like enemies stuck between party members or enemies casting long-activation skills. Once enemies 'lock on target', they are likely to move less.
And when a bunch of melee enemies approach the party, nothing like some AoE to make them move away instead of attacking, while damaging them a bit on the process. They will be damaged runing in and out of AoE, or die if they lock target and stay. I've vanquished the Tarnished coast and his raptors and Ferothrax with nearby-range AoE spells (The Heats), and they are a joke against it.

The main reason I rarely bring Fire Breath is the small range of its AoE. But it's useful in areas with energy management problems.


What something unique? It could be turned into and Hex, that makes the AoE FOLLOW the target. But that would imply increasing its cost to 10 or 15.

I always envisioned Breath of fire to be ... a breath of fire

15 energy cost, 2 second cast time, 5 second recharge
Spell Summon a stream of fire . Breath of fire will travel slowly in the direction of the location of target foe when it was summoned & set nearby foes on fire 3...5 seconds. ends after 5 seconds.

and it would have the grafic of a fire breath cloud

O men do I not agree with you most.


I love this skill. you just need a few skills in your bar with this one to be very annoying.

1...: Mindbinder -Full: For 10...15 seconds, you move 20...30% faster and your spells take half as long to cast.

2...: Intensity -For 10 seconds, your spells deal 15...23% more damage.

3...: Glyph of Renewal -For 15 seconds, your next spell instantly recharges.

4...: Breath of Fire - Create Breath of Fire at target foe's current location. For 5 seconds, foes adjacent to that location are struck for 10...34 fire damage each second.

Breaths every where.. must love it

O yea.. you could do sec. mesmer and echo renewal or a other.

I could do the same with any other and stronger spell or choose a better elite instead.

Gz anet for creating 900+ skills from which 700+ are mediocre or bad and 400+ out of the 700+ are close to useless. Not to mention Factions duplicate skills ...

Ok, that might be true, but you made this topic about breath of fire.
So as I showd. It isnt useless, its a strong bar filling skill, and even as a stand alone it could be very annoying. That's the point I made.

Well, to be an 'actual' breath weapon much like D&D dragon's it would have to be a Cone.

But areas in GW are only circles.