Air Magic Nukers

This should have been mentioned earlier. What i was mentioning was of the concern of the PvP side of these implications. providing such heavy spikes for both fire and air eles, it could have some serious damage on the widespread use of shields for casters (providing extra armour vs physical AND a specific element).

If your suggestions are purely just for PvE, then i personally don't mind, since i don't hold that side of the game with high regard. Because high end areas are so hard with consets and perma builds.... It's either that or discord/sab way for HM.

Moar nookz phoar teh creepz! First RoJ, now Air Magic. This will just become another way of nuking that will not cause scatter.

Perhaps Air Magic was not intended on having "nuking" capabilities, rather it was designed for quick spikes. I'm pretty sure not everything dealing with an Elementalist must deal with nuking, but correct me if I'm wrong I'm known to be a bit radical.

Granted they may cause concern in PvP but the number of foes struck could be scaled according to the attribute level.

Say for Arc from 0…1…2 foes, Chain the spread goes from 2…3…4 and Invoke from 2…4…6 foes.



Nuking was a horrible choice of words for this as it isn't exactly nuking as it still has limitations on the number of foes that can be hit whereas fire doesn't.

People have focused more on the title of the thread than the suggestions made to increase the number of foes hit by three skills which already hit multiple foes.

The changes to Orb as well a hammer were made to complement these changes.

Like I have said I have been tinkering with these skills because I have grown tired of having to run the same fire builds over the past 3.5 years and would like to see these skills buffed to where they are a competitive option to the fire builds, when dishing out AoE damage.

Where fire out shines the changes I have suggested it does not require you to maintain an enchantment or face massive exhaustion, it has no limit to the number of foes that can be hit, and it causes burning which improves their damage capability. Where the Air magic skills have armor penetration they also have longer cast times, have limited numbers of foes that can be hit and rely on being enchanted to provide that damage or face being shut down from exhaustion.

This is not about trying to create easy mode it is about shaking things up and giving els more options to fire for decent AoE damage.

^this.

Air is good for PvP and PvE alike, if it was all for one purpose, we'd have no differences.

It's like making Expertise all bow attacks, making Axe Mastery work with Hammers too, making Curses use Blood Is Power, ect.

Wrong, you're still not understanding my point.

Basically, even if you scale the number of jumps, people will run (defenitely in HA) 1 primary fire ele and 1 primary air ele. my point is that you will now be introducing a new element into the battle that can provide some serious firepower.

A while ago, running 1 Fire and 1 Earth was popular due to the Earth ele being able to join the spike with Stoning and provide better defensive wards and eruption to blind against frontliners.

But that is 1 skill, which is a projectile and provides less than 100 damage on one spike that does not jump or give AoE damage.

This was seemed useful because teams would adjust their shields accordingly to what type of element or damage type the team is running. for example, if you encounter an r-spike team, you would all carry shields with extra armour vs piercing damage. The most popular damage being fire, due to lots of AoE and spike of rodgorts/mindblast, people would usually run with shields vs fire damage.

Therefore if you now add in lightning damage skills that are capable of not only spiking every 10 secs, but providing AoE damage to up to 6 people. and with a 2 second activation time, Lightning Chain is harder to interrupt than Rodgorts of any of the Fire AoE skills. Not to mention you also want to buff other skills which can also be used plus still give the Ele utility of still being able to invest into a 2nd profession.

So obviously the answer is to keep these updates PvE only. But then i don't see the point... Isn't fire good enough?

Right, cuz Lightning orb did AoE damage amirite?

Hehe, that made me laugh

One of the 4 skills I ask to change which does damage, unlike your comment below which makes it seem like I’m asking for something that deals no damage do massive AoE damage.

I personally find nothing wrong in making Elementalist universal Nukers... as like Chieftain already showed... the Elementalist already has so much mixed skill effects, that you can't say anymore, that Fire is only for this, air for that and the other Elements for somethign else specific...


In regard of Elementalists being as much as flexible as possible, it would be good if all Elements of the Class would allow the player to play all different tactics as Ele in different ways, but still very similar.

Each Element can be "Nuker Style", all Elements offer Skills, which can make AoE-Damage and all Elements should offer such skills, at least for PvE

Each Element can be used for defensive..even Fire..but sadly Fire gets way too less attention from Anet for defensive Skills like maybe "Fire Armor", "Flame Barrier", or "Heat Aura" i'd like to see as Fire Defense Spells... also Air can be used for defensive...

"Wind Armor", "Shield of Sonic Bursts ", "Lightning Teleportation" ...and so on...(all skills i'd like to see in GW XD)

Each Element can be used for Hxes a for Snares also ...

the Elementalist is the absolute Allrounder Class and so should it be used also...each Element should be able to offer very similar Builds so that the player can be with every Element Nuker, Supporter, Hex Spammer or Snarer, but each element in its different own style... so that everyone can play with his/her most beloved Element his/her most beloved Ele Build...


if all Eles regardless of their Element could play the same tactical styles, PvP would become alot more interesting and surely PvE would also make more fun, because players couldn't tell then anymore just from looks, if an Fire Ele is now Nuker, Supporter, Hexing or Snarer or maybe a mix of something from that...

Phoenix Tears agreed with OP, that confirms that his idea is horrible

request close

So in the end, any Ele just maxes Energy Storage, and one of the elemental lines. Because you would be able to Hex, Snare, Spike, Protect and Nuke with any of them, essentially making the segregation of the different elements useless...

That's the same as asking to enable the Warrior to make similar builds in the Axe, Sword and Hammer line. There is a reason the Elementalist has the power over 4 different elements, it's not just for the fancy visuals.
Of course you can't tell what an Ele's role is from the looks. You can't tell a Fire ele from the outside. You need to look at its skills. And as soon as you look at its skills, you know its role. Doesn't matter if it uses Searing Flames of Searing Frost, you'll know it's role the moment you see that skill flashing up.

Well, if I see an ele with a fire staff and a Factions fire aura, I'd guess they were a fire nuker of some sort, mabye even Mind Blast. Not sure what else they'd be.

*snerk* I see I'm not the only one with that attitude - Phoenix is too obviously a member of the make-GW-ftp-WoW club.

Although in this case... it's possibly not such a bad idea, although I wouldn't take it to this extent. Arc Lightning could afford to be made unconditional (it'd still be inferior to Lava Arrows) and Invoke Lightning could afford something more to justify its elite status over Chain Lightning, and extra hits would serve that purpose. (It's okay for an elite to do something outside an attribute line's forte - in fact, I think it was mentioned early on in GW's history that one of the possible uses for an elite was picking up a capability that wouldn't normally be present in an attribute line.)

The comment about Ice Imps is a good one (Elementalists tend to have good synergies with Asura summons in general...) but I think another part of the problem is the way attunements work - they provide a fairly strong incentive to only run a single line.

This is the best argument here. /agree.

/vote for close.

What's funny about the last balance update was, I was considering starting a thread saying ANet doesn't understand PvE.

Consider:

1. Elementalist damage is currently not viable. Any good (+ aware) Elementalist playing for damage will rely on PvE skills and Assassin's Promise, not Elementalist skills - and even then the Elementalist primary isn't too hot.
2. Air Magic was more viable than Fire Magic before the buff. In fact I'd even consider Air Magic the single most viable elemental line for H/H, with Earth more effective with teams (but then if you're in a human team, why aren't you ER Infusing?).
3. Fire Magic is currently the single least viable line, except in select areas, followed closely by Water Magic.

And yet ANet goes ahead and buffs Air Magic on the grounds that it is overshadowed by Fire?! That's just showing they don't understand Elementalists in PvE! This thread too ...

I agree with buffing Air Magic because even with Air Magic Elementalist damage simply doesn't compare. But I don't agree with the motivation. Fire and Water Magic need buffing even more, and the overarching priority isn't buffing the different lines but buffing Elementalists in general - or nerfing the competition. That's my understanding of the thread, and why even though I welcome the last buff to Chain Lightning for example, it leaves a bittersweet feeling.

Theres absolutely nothing wrong with eles just maxing energy storage and an element of choice... the same way you handle warriors...you just either max tactics or strength and 1 weapon style of choice, more attribute don't need to be raised for a warrior ...

same with ranger...you raise either only marksmanship and expertise or beast mastery and expertise or wilderness survival and expertise...only with the difference that you do this with the other classes for playing certain builds, but as said..the Elementalist is GW's universal Allrounder Class, or this should it be anyway, because as said, every element can be used for the same purpose. There's no rule, that says that fire spells can't be defensive or that you can't hex with a certain element and so on...

Sure, once a player uses a skill, you'll be eventually able to guess direct the build and the role, that the player does try to fullfill, but as an other one posted here after you..there are mostly other indicators, which will instantly reveal, what build you are, like the weapon or the as said head armor

I'd like to know from you, what you think about the game, what would all change, if players could play with their Eles all the same tactical styles with all of the 4 elements.?
Yet you argued only, that peole would start just to specialize their eles on 2 attributes...thats nothign wrong, because all people already do that to be able to play an effective ele and not a wannabe, that uses all elements at the same time, but is cause of the attribute split not very good at any element of them compared to an ele, who has just 2 maxed attributes and is specialized on 1 element.

Does it really care you, if you got now snared by an fire spell, or by an water spell, are you really one of those superficialy person, who cares of what element was used against u, when the most simple fact there is to care for in the moment is just only, that you got snared ... with which element is totally regardless.

But would be all tactical ways playable for all elements, the player would receive a much bigger variety of builds for eles and as said, players could choice then their most beloved play style with their most beloved element.

players would be then anymore forced to play a fire ele, just to be counted as nuker...not anymore air, just to be counted as spiker and so on.

I havent said, that these changes should be for both modes, but at least for PVE, there they make sense, just for PVP I'd hesitate to say, if it makes sense, because it could end up in a total unbalanced chaos, if there eles would be able to play with all elements all tactical builds.
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@draxynnic:

I defend me against this "WoW-Club" stuff U've written...that may you write maybe for people, which proclaim themself as WoW-Fans and also play WoW hell alot of time and even say in forums like this here, that they find WoW better than GW...but not for people like me, who never have played a single second WoW, never have written in Forums, that they find WoW better, and never have compared WoW with GW - how when I've never played WoW...

My ideas come from total other games that inspire me, mostly offline rpgs
I personally would call myself when then a Member of "Let GW2 become a great MMORPG that kicks WoW painful into the nuts and lets Aion look very old"-Club

And you all know, that GW2 will become alot more in kind of gameplay like WoW, that it will be more of a classic MMORPG

So this point for Eles becoming able to use with all their elements all tactical styles I do hope will be made so for GW2 in the end, because for GW1, this makes all no sense anymore..GW1 is DEAD!!! since anet has announced that GW2 comes and no more real content will be made for GW1...

Well no, there isn't anything wrong with it. In fact, it's kind of expected.
However, I fail to see why turning all the elementalist lines into each other is a good thing. In fact, I see it as a bad thing.

You might as well argue for Blood Magic to be turned into a Curses look alike, or for Channeling and Communing to be the same. It doesn't make any sense and initially looks like a bloody stupid idea that doesn't improve when you look into it.

Air magic is fine as it is. I would agree however to raise the damage of certain air magic spells since they aren't very good, not as a spike neither (Enervating Charge, Lightning Strike and such)

Hmmm. I think there is something wrong... I used a pvp fire built taken from some HA in pve and I was clearing the areas even without a single pve skill. It was hard to see enemies due to amount of yellow numbers popping on the screen. I tried running various air builds and it utterly sucked even with pve skills. I guess Air is only really usable in pvp and probably will stay that way. I guess that is the point of OP to make Air more viable for pve. I guess since pvp should not be affected his suggestions should be pve only.

It isn't that I'm asking to turn lines into copies of other lines. I am asking that skills that already do AoE damage have their cap increased to hit a few more additional foes, as well as asking that one skill be change to an AoE skill and another which has a huge cost to cast have a condition added to it but remain single foe damage.

Three of the skills I asked about are already Aoe damage skills but they have had the number of foes capped, I am no asking that they be increased to do the same things as the fire magic line. I am asking that that cap be increased to hit a few more foes too make it more useful in PvE.

If the PvP crowd is afraid of this then I am fine with the changes being PvE only.

What I am asking for isn't some kind of copy of another line it is to give more options to PvE casters to do something besides run fire builds to do AoE damage. Looking at the lines there are cross overs in each one Earth and Water snare and protect, Fire does AoE as well as has a few nice spike skills, Air has spike damage and a few AoE skills which I think need buffed to be more viable in PvE.

I am not asking that the caps be removed just increased to a more useful number of foes in PvE. For Arc 3 foes taking damage seems fine for the cost and recharge, for Chain 5 foes seems fine for the cost, recharge, casting time and condition of if not enchanted you are exhausted, and for Invoke 7 foes seems reasonable as it is a Elite, for the cast time and the condition of if not enchanted you are exhausted.

Even with these changes they still are not equal to the fire line because the fire line has no limit on the number of foes that can be hit, as well as for the main nuking skills fire has no exhaustion, with the exception of Meteor Shower which many times people build around this skill to use it.

As for skill split most builds only split into three attribute lines and for Els you need one into the damage, snare or protection, one into E-storage and one into some sort of energy management which is usually Sin or Mes. If you bring a rez from the monk line then you bust up your points into 2 lines and what is left over into the rez line. When you start trying to go into 4 you really start reducing your effectiveness in all of the skill lines you are trying to use.

I am not asking that every skill in the Air line be bastardized into just another fire line. I am asking that skills that already do AoE damage be ungimped for PvE, with the exception of Orb, which I am fine with staying how it is. I am not asking for something that isn't already there, so I really don't see where some of you guys are getting this attitude that I am asking that Fire and Air be the same thing. I am not. I am just asking that skills one of which is an Elite get a buff in the number of hits they put out. Take Invoke to the practice dummies and cast it, it runs all over the place and only three take damage, how pathetic is that for an Elite.

If this would cause unbalance in PvP then make it a PvE only change because that is where I’m looking at it from.