Earth Magic - enhancement of rarely used skills

I have some suggestions to rarely used skills, it's just as simple. No, it's not aimed towards making earth farming eles job easier, but it's about increasing the offensive side of some clearly damage-oriented skills (part of them got boosted with recent update).

I. Aftershock

Both the skill name and in-game animation as well as quaking effect suggest very powerful damage, but nowhere it justifies why the skill creates an effect around the caster and not at chosen destination. Damage to knocked down foes is not armour-piercing as well, while it clearly should be (well, logic dictates that).

now: 10e 3/4c 10r (e - cost, c - casting time, r - recharge)

Spell. Adjacent foes are struck for 26...85 earth damage. Knocked down foes are struck for 10...56 additional earth damage.

after: 15e 3/4c 20r (note: casting time and/or damage might need a nerf in pvp)

Spell. Target foe and foes adjacent to the target are struck for 10...56 earth damage. Knocked down foes are struck for 10...56 additional earth damage. Additional damage to knocked down foes has 25% armour penetration.

II. Earthquake

Another skill which is awkward to use. Knockdown lasts only for 2 seconds (now, little joke - warrior with stonefist insignias can KD up for 3 seconds). Energy cost is justifiable, but exhaustion no matter what only in pvp, but not in pve. Damage seems a bit awkward as well, given long casting time and powerful nature of the skill. Short recharge time on the other hand is something to be corrected for an AOE skill dealing knockdown over large radius.

now: 25e 3c 15r

Spell. You invoke an Earthquake at target foe's location. All foes near this location are knocked down and are struck for 26...85 earth damage. This spell causes exhaustion.

after (pvp): 25e 3c 30r

Elite Spell. You invoke an Earthquake at target foe's location. All foes near this location are knocked down for 0...4 seconds and are struck for 26...85 earth damage. This spell causes exhaustion. 25% armour penetration. (Before you say overpowered, no it is not, it's still inferior at spiking versus chain lightning and invoke lightning. Still, well-timed, this skill will cause a mess if aimed versus noobs bunching one onto each other - positioning is essential).

after (pve): 25e 3c 20r

Elite Spell. You invoke an Earthquake at target foe's location. All foes near this location are knocked down for 0...4 seconds and are struck for 26...85 earth damage. If you are not under the effects of an Enchantment, this spell causes Exhaustion. 25% armour penetration.

III. Dragon's Stomp

Unneeded duplicate skill, which could be given more interesting use.

now: 25e 3c 15r

Spell. You invoke a Dragon's Stomp at target foe's location. All foes near this location are knocked down and are struck for 26...85 earth damage. This spell causes exhaustion.

after (pvp): 15e 2c 20r

Spell. You invoke a Dragon's Stomp at target foe's location. All foes adjacent to this location are knocked down for 0...3 seconds and are struck for 26...85 earth damage. This spell causes exhaustion.

after (pve): 15e 2c 20r

Spell. You invoke a Dragon's Stomp at target foe's location. All foes adjacent to this location are knocked down for 0...3 seconds and are struck for 26...85 earth damage. If you are not under the effects of an Enchantment, this spell causes Exhaustion.

Summary:

Earthquake finally is good at what it should be, immediate damage spike followed by painful knockdown. It's smaller twin, Dragon's Stomp, has worse area of effect and knocks down for less but recharges and casts faster, allowing the player to actually make an insightful decision which skill serves him best, instead of bringing two of them and spamming over glyph of energy. Since the former is an elite skill now, it's 20 second recharge for pve, long knockdown effect and armour-piercing damage are fully justified. Aftershock now is a very good tool to assist warriors in all kinds of spikes, so combined with fast Dragon's Stomp it gives a warder more opportunity to become useful in HA and GvG again. Knockdown based solely on proper attribute ensures that both the elite skill and non-elite one will kd only for 2 seconds when used by non-ele profession, with 12 earth magic (elite - 3 EM = 1 second, 8 EM = 2 seconds, 13 EM = 3 seconds, 16 EM = 4 seconds, stomp - 3 EM = 1 second, 8 EM = 2 seconds, 13 EM = 3 seconds).

So you want a ranged AoE Backbreaker (at least you want this elite), a ranged Earth Shaker, and a ranged 3/4 cast skill to add 120+ damage to a hammer spike?

I'm really not seeing why any of these need implemented at all.

Warrior can spam earthshaker few times in a minute, this skill can't, it's also easily interrupted, eats lots of energy and adds exhaustion if you lose enchantment. Forgive me but Earth Elementalist who SHOULD specialise in knockdown is useless in them compared to hammer warrior or even bunny thumper. Aftershock is something I'm yet working on, like I said pvp version is not ready. I don't see anything wrong with pve version though.

lol; first of all, there will be no new Elite skills. Evar. Never Evar.

Second, 4 second knockdown is the same as casting both dragon stomp and earthquake, you effectively combined the two and made it better overall because 15 + 15 recharge = 30 recharge, same as that skill.
3 second cast instead of a combined 4, 25 energy and only 1 trigger of exhaustion instead of 50 and 2 triggers, and 25% AP makes it more damage than one, but less than both, so about 30% damage nerf.

Overall, that makes it considerably better. and you could follow up with earthquake to knock-lock at range for 7 seconds, in AoE, without having to build up adrenaline prior.

really though, you need to play elementalist more... Or at least play it better. Earth ele's CAN knockdown quite well, inflict blind and weakness, have defensive wards, armor-ignoring damage, ect. Earth is an excellent attribute... the only skills in earth magic that could use a change are Iron Mist and Stone Sheath. (Stone Sheath especially, it's quite pathetic.)

Why have you added armour penetration everywhere?
Why have you increased knockdown durations? A 4 second knockdown is something unique to Backbreaker.
Why have you made a new elite?

You've changed Dragon Stomp (a duplicate) into a weaker Earthquake. Why?


The point of those two skills is not an AoE spike. It is a large AoE knockdown and it is fairly good at that. These changes are unnecessary and could prove problematic. You'd raise the damage done by Earth magic whilst providing even more powerful utility.

I suppose what I really don't get is what is wrong with the skills as they stand now. Sure, they may not see much play at the moment, but insane buffs or changes like this are not the way to approach it.



But an Earth Ele will not be geared to specialise in knockdowns. They have strong utility options that include knockdowns. Let us not forget the useful Wards and ability to cause blind and weakness.

Hey guys! Check out my skillchanges!

Seriously, I thought there was going to be 'discouragement' for starting these type of threads?

/notsigned!

Earth attribute is meant to be mainly supportive/defensive with wards, weakening and knockdowns. Although there are offensive skills, they're supposed to be weaker than for example air or fire. That's one reason why there's no Conjure Earth for example. If you want more damage, play Aeromancer. You can't have both strong defensive skills AND offensive skills, so make a choice.

Yeh what the holy crap is this?Earth revolves mainly aroudn defenses,through wards,enchs and inflicting weakness on people.Don't worry,your suggestions weren't OP,they sucked,badly.Making a skill an elite is retarded,especially one with a duplicate,a buff to those skills would be removing the exhaustion if you're enchanted.It's that simple,you don't have to rework things and add sundering stuff here and there.

Is it so hard to understand what each attribute is for,earlier someone wanted air to be uber leet nukeage...fire is for raw and good aoe damage,air for more concentrated high pressure damage/spikes,earth for defense whilst assisting in damage and water for snaring and being a bitch in general.

Xsiriss

I have different opinion on that. What matters is not damage dealt by skill, but overall dps of the build which is still very low. The only skills worth using in pve as damage dealing are aoe churning earth, blinding eruption, elite 5 second knockdown-on-attack skill (this one is quite good, finally).

Why KD? Because it would make earth magic more distinct, you would actually feel that the spells you use have some effect on the foes. KDing down a mob for 2 seconds is nothing, and it costs you hell of an energy and adds up exhaustion. Defensive power from the spells comes from ability to disable the enemy and that is much, armour piercing because of long casting time, high recharge and to give earth ele's some utility in the offensive in pvp, outside usual gimmicks.

Dragon + after shock build with defensive wards would certainly become meta and eventually get nerfed, but none of Anet updates were perfect, and this one would bring back earth eles to the play. Wards are not everything, you know? Earth magic has many spells, out of which 70% are sadly designed for earth solo farmers.

As for the Sheath, agree, it needs a strong revamp but I'm yet to think of one.

/signed.

Earth got no love again -.-

Eh?
The damage done or DPS from an elementalist in HM is not going to be very high. Earth magic is not a line aimed at dealing large quantities of damage all the time, it is just part of what it does. As an offensive line it isn't too bad, combining damage, knockdown and defensive utility.

What are you really trying to achieve with these changes? Try and state your answer in no more than sentence or two.

1. Bring earth ele into new role in pvp environment
2. Give it some love in pve, so it doesn't have to constantly farm with sandstorm popping up everywhere, it got boring already

Sorry but these aren't appropriate buffs,and you rarely see ele's running air,water or earth in PvP because their very nature is squishy and vulnerable,it's not just earth alone.Their energy and energy management skills (or the old powerful SH) used as things like the good old E/Rt ether prism,which turn out to be support in terms of damage assistance or healing/protection.
The reason why we don't see earth in PvP is because it's job can be replicated easily:KD from frontliners,hell there was a pretty successful Me/E mesmer build using gust and freezing gust to achieve 3second KD and snaring whilst providing more standard mesmer support;Weakness,a standard thing any balanced team in high end pvp would take to counter frontliners.The attribute itself is the problem,the defensive capabilities from wards were nerfed for being apparently too good,the enchanments needed for defense/energy management for the costly earth skills can easily be stripped and many useful skills (ebonhawk+stoning for example)are projectiles,thus won't hit the vulnerable targets who are kiting like good little back liners should.

I love earth magic too and I agree with you that Stomp/Earthquake seems to me weak for its price+exh.+casting time., but changes proposed by you are out of game logic and design.
1) There is reason earth has many attacks PBAoE and not so easy AoE nuking - it is role of fire. But earth ele can safely go into the middle of melee. And aftershock is not weak skill.
2) Yes, hammer warrior have easy 3s knockdowns, but a) it is his speciality and b) he has to to come to you and hit you. It would be too much power for ele to easily give AoE 4s knockdowns and damage. It is same like ask +4 energy regen for warriors. Also fire has Meteor Shower, it would be unfair for earth to have better knockdowns.
3) About armor penetration - yes, I share opinion that crazy high armor in HM is unfair to ele, but giving 25% armor penetration to earth is out of game design - it is air ability at the price that most such a spell attack one or just few targets (not AoE). Earth has probably best armor-ignoring ability from all elements (2xcrystals + obsidian), carefully balanced by their downsides (and then made obsolete by PvE only skills).

Lets be happy for recent earth buffs. And if I can wish one thing it would be give foes in HM a bit less armor (and a bit more hit points to ballance), so ele would be viable damage dealer even in HM.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...d.php?t=113319

I've only rarely if ever used Sandstorm. Unsteady Ground'll give you knockdowns.

Why? Meteor and Meteor Shower have always struck me as being among those skills that are in there to let fire elementalists do things other than damage, while earth is, on the whole, much more knockdown-oriented.

As for the skill changes suggested... none of them seem to me to be an improvement, although I wouldn't mind seeing some of the duplicate skills being given subtle differences. Aftershock in fact appears to me to be a nerf - you've increased energy cost and recharge and decreased the unconditional damage in exchange for a bit of armour penetration on the conditional damage? How is that better?

(A better way to buff Aftershock, in my mind, would be to make a PBAOE knockdown of some kind for Elementalists that would combo easily, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.)

Dude, dont mess with Earth Magic its already got the single most powerful Elite skill in the game, and the skills are just fine the way they are.

...being?

I know it's a subjective thing, but I can't think of any Earth Magic elites that are even in the running. Obsidian Flesh? Pretty specific to tanking builds, and Shadow Form beats it anyway. Unsteady Ground or Sandstorm? Plenty of people will happily take Assassin's Promise (now that's an elite that is in the running...) and just spam Eruption and Churning Earth instead, not to mention the rest of a bar likely filled with long-recharge skills.

(This is from a PvE viewpoint, but I don't see any of the Earth elites taking the crown in PvP either...)

I see lightning penetrating armor. I don't see rocks penetrating armor. I have no idea how you come up with the idea that ANY Earth Magic spells should have armor penetration. I used to think Anet sucked at skill balancing.... now I know they do better than some would. The only change I can see being made that would 'buff' a skill, and not make it TOO powerful would be to make Aftershock ranged instead of adjacent. Even that would need to be a PvE only change though. Increasing the knockdown time is a big mistake, as only Warriors with Stonefist Insignias and Back Breaker have the ability to increase the duration. Ele does have some 3 second knockdown options. Use them if it matters that much.

I don't see any problem with any of the skills you want changed, so I can't agree with any change being made.

If I ever had reason to run Earth magic on my ele it would be Unsteady Ground or AP. The apparant disuse of EM elites is simply because AP is better than the next two options (UG and Sandstorm), the remaining three are useless and you don't need elite energy management.


Only Gust, which isn't too great. I've tried various builds to make it work in low end PvP, but it's not really worth it.
Meteor Shower is a near knock lock though.

ermmm no. I do not want to see such overpowered skills used by some of the NF elementals. Unless your point is to make pve harder then it is fine....

On reflection, I advocate the new changes for this reason alone.




And no, I'm not being serious.

You mean Shadow Form, Assassin's Promise, Spitefull Spirits, Earth Shaker .... oh wait, they are not earth;) But seriously - all earth elites except Stone Sheath are good, but single most powerful Elite skill in the game ? Everyone knows it is Echo Mending.

/notsigned

My first, and main, character is an earth ele, and I love playing him. Earth magic is an extraordinarily flexible line, with both active and passive defense (personal and team), snares, and fairly respectable amounts of either AoE or spike damage. (Of course fire is better for AoE, air for spike, and water for snare. But earth has at least something worthy in all those lines, plus defense.) It is a support line that doesn't feel like playing support.

I'm all for getting some earth love from ANet, but I see no particular value to the changes proposed here. I don't see any need for armor penetration, which doesn't really fit the theme, especially since earth already has a number of skills that do armor ignoring bonus damage.

Yes, a number of very powerful earth AoE skills are point blank. But, there is a reason for this. Earth magic also has a wide selection of armor skills that let an earth mage get in among the foe to use this AoE. Making those skills ranged would certainly make them vastly OP. The fact that these combinations are rarely used outside earth farming builds is beside the point -- they are nicely balanced around the concept of a high-armor ele with devastating PBAoE. (And I would hate to lose my farming ability because of changes to this. )

You want longer knockdowns? Go /Rt and bring Earthbind. With the recent buffs to rit spirits, this is now a more viable option than ever. Plus, it assists everyone on the team with a knockdown skill, from hammer warriors to smiting monks to anyone with YMLaD. For my money, being able to support the team > increased individual power.

If you want to find earth skills that really could use some love, you don't have to look far. Think of something nice to do with, say, Iron Mist, which is about the most useless skill in creation. Perhaps there is some bizarre earth/air/MoM build that can use this, or an earth mage with a team of air mages and/or rits, but I just can't see it being as effective as so many other options that are less limited. Creating a specific setup just to take advantage of one single-target snare? Bah.

Pretty much my thinking in a nutshell. I do run earth on my elementalist at least a third of the time, usually with Unsteady Ground... but I know plenty of people prefer Assassin's Promise, and, to be frank, AP probably does create a better build when added to Unsteady Ground, Eruption, and EBSoH in Hard Mode. This makes Unsteady Ground the best Earth elite in my book, but it's utility over AP even in an Earth Magic build is questionable, while AP can supercharge the bars of Necromancers and Mesmers as well.

No! Don't change my beloved Luxon FA griefing skill!

Why change? Earth is already a hella lot better than the rest, on par maybe with Air, but the other 2 are rubbish

I've always thought it should work well with a Mark of Pain / physicals team. When you get the whole team focusing on the MoP target, it's the target himself who tries to flee, not his buddies who are taking all the AoE damage. Iron Mist could keep the target quite snared, while at the same time ensuring that he does not die too quickly from focused fire, ensuring that MoP does its maximum potential damage.

That said, I've never tried it.

Wow. You have a devious way of thinking. I like it.

It might be pretty devastating against groups of melee foes. However, it doesn't sound too practical against groups that won't ball up as well. Casters and rangers aren't going to come running in to stand next to whatever target you're beating on. And if there's any hex removal going around, you're sunk in either event.

Your suggestion feels like even more of a one-trick pony than the setup I described with the air mage and/or channeling rit team. I do have to wonder what the designers of that skill were thinking people would do with it. It's just too narrowly specialized. Obviously meant to be functional in some kind of team build for snare-spike, but any spikers who could take advantage of it would probably do about as well without the snare. (In fact, they would have to most of the time, since Iron Mist has a 30-sec cooldown.)

I don't see a problem with Earth magic. The only thing I'd change about Earthquake and Dragon Stomp is possibly lowering their cast times down to 2 seconds. Other than that...

/notsigned

Other than wards and UG (and churning in pve hm), earth always looked pretty much crap.

For KD, in pvp you're better off with a physical, and in pve with AP and MS + Glyph of Sac. For blind, bsurge. For defense in pvp wards are pretty standard, but nobody goes more than 9 earth unless they also want to take UG -- which is pretty rare. In pve (even hm) wards are nigh on worthless -- neither pugs nor heroes stand in them, and on a guild team you have either an imba or monks good enough that it won't matter. In terms of snares, you're better off grabbing deep freeze, what with its 10 sec 0 point req snare of doom. And, obviously, earth's damage is laughable, even compared to channeling.

Maybe earth would be more interesting if, say, Stoneflesh and Armor of Earth were target ally rather than self. It'd give eles an active defensive option to help the team, rather than all their passive self defense options that no one bothers with.

You are biased. You spent a lots of tim describing that AoE KDs are easier in fire, snare in water, earth damage sucks, self defense useless... First - you missed main point which is earth is versatile. In one element you can have build with excelend self-defense and party support with wards and inflicting weakness and KDs and doing decent damage. Yes, it is true that in HM earth damage is weak, because all elemental damage sucks in HM. Earth is only one element which can make decent armor ignoring damage (2x crystals + obsidian flame), just PvE only skills do it much better.Second - Wards in PvE works just great, if your group does not stay inside them ...well the trouble is somewhere between chair and keyboard Even with heroes they are sure worth it if you manage them properly. And last but not least, earth is fun to play, so many combinations.

BTW Churning Earth you mentioned as great on HM PvE sure is amazing, but because of KDs not damage, so it can be used even with zero earth (simillar to Maelstrom with zero water).

I woul love to see this, just I am afraid ANet would see them too powerfull. And weaking them would make many earth tank builds impossible.

Versatile? Yeah I guess that's one word for an element without a purpose.

The two crystal waves are armor ignoring pbaoe at the cost of conditions. Not viable. And Obsidian Flame? Lol?

Wards are useless in pve because better options for damage mitigation exist -- ones that perform the same function without tying your team to a small area vulnerable to aoe damage. Your party will also generally prefer that you focus on doing halfway decent damage instead of mediocre party support. On my builds, I generally prefer a 12-9-9 or 11-10-10 into prot for Aegis and Prot Spirit or channeling for ARage and Splinter for party support because they are quite simply better than anything available in earth. After all, why dick around with buffs to your armor when you can maintain prot spirit on multiple folks.

The same is true for self defense. Outside of a few farm builds, no one bothers with them. And tanking? I'm fairly certain that permas are optimal for that.

Earth would be more interesting with some functionality changes.

I have a liking for combining Earth DoT effects from within an Ebon Battle Standard of Honor myself. Sure, you can do it with Fire, but that's just armour-respecting damage and doesn't have the yummy knockdowns and blind.

Really, though, it is the versatility. Fire does more damage and, with meteor shower builds, knockdowns, Air is better at conditions and disruption, and Water is better than snares, but Earth will give you conditions, knockdowns and snares in one attribute with defense as well (otherwise only available to Water). That it doesn't do them all as well is the cost of versatility, but there are a limited number of slots in a party after all...