Replace HM Armor with more Health

As we all know, in HM monsters get significant buffs. One of the most significant of these is additional armor. This was probably thought of as being no big deal when it was implemented, but in practice it has proven to be anything but. Rather than being a way to uniformly make monsters tougher, it has instead made armor-ignoring damage much more effective than intended while simultaneously making non-armor-ignoring damage laughably ineffective. There is no clearer picture of this than the Elementalist, which in NM is an incredibly powerful damage-dealer but in HM is relegated to a utility or healing/protting role. And it's all due to the fact that monsters in HM simply have way too much armor.

So, I suggest that the armor buffs monsters recieve in HM be removed, and that they instead be given a health buff equalling what they lose in armor. This would, in effect, make Elementalists and other users of non-armor-ignoring damage more viable in dealing damage without making the monsters more squishy otherwise (in fact, they would be even tougher vs armor-ignoring damage).

So, while playing an Elementalist, it will take the same time to kill a mob as before because of the Health bonus, but you'll see bigger numbers when casting your spells.

Mmmh, sounds useful... not.

I think the point he is trying to make, is that it will allow more versatile builds

I agree that something like this needs to be done,as it would render discord pretty much as a mediocre build. Increasing health however as Gill says wouldn't do that much.

This is actually a good idea, at least it would make HM actually Hard for some teams/areas. I aprove.

Would be a waste of time. HM is already fairly easy as is as long as you know what to expect. And if your thinking an Ele in HM is a support role, your clearly running the wrong builds.

meh, leave hardmode as it is and introduce god mode hardmode has become mediocre in general with the overpowered skills and builds being used today

Lots of monsters already have lower armor versus certain damage types and you can always inflict cracked armor. Cracked armor increases damage by roughly 40% and since so many people use discord or sabway it shouldn't be hard to put weaken armor on 1 necro's bar. The skill is even core so any ele can bring it themselves.

The difference is that now, your elementalist's relative usefulness against the mobs would be closer to that of other damage dealers.

What bars are you running on your Eles. If your running like Mind Blast or some other sub par Elite in PvE then chances are your damage output isn't that great. Savannah Heat/Sand Storm are great AoE damage skills. Unsteady Ground+Churning Earth=good damage plus knockdown as a plus. Eles do put up big numbers in PvE. And why eles? Why melee roles? They are affected probably more then anyone by the buff in not only armor, but health as well in HM.

I'd rather not, personally.

/notsigned

EDIT: Oh, it's you, reaper with no name. No wonder it's you, considering what a horrible suggestion it is.

Cracked Armor exists, and Elementalists can apply it. Or go /N or slot Weaken Armor on a Necro primary in the team.

Yes, but one foe a time. Not too usefull with ele AoE spells.

You can do this, but still you are inferior damage dealer to necro/smiter/mesmer. And fixed to /N means you can't use in many PvE situations superb Assassin's_Promise.

I think too many players who start to play ele like archetype of glass-canon mage kiling enemies with big kaboon... and in the end in HM they are forced to play utility role or suboptimal damage dealer. I am happy ele is more than just damage dealer (I love earth;), I don't say make eles to rule damage dealing in HM as they do in first half of game (that would be unfair), but replace part of HM extra armor with extra life can give ele fair chance to be HM damage dealer as well as other casters.

But I guess this topics was here many times and so I doubt Anet is going to change this.

Actually not a bad suggestion, but I still find playing Earth more useful anyway.

The AoE blind and AoE KD depending on my bar is always great.

I personally LOVE the fact that Elem's do significantly less damage in HM than they do in NM. This does 'force' people to play a more support role, or they find themselves relying heavily on their team to do the job. Since few people know HOW to play support, or WHY it is good, this helps broaden people's abilities in the game.

If all you know how to do is blow stuff up, you won't be as good at the game as someone who knows how to interrupt, protect, reduce, prevent, boost, etc. Variety is good, and people who want to play the exact same thing every time are missing a lot.

I am fan of opportunity to play other role than just damage dealer (as I wrote, I love earth), but I see no good in forcing people out of reasonable expectations. If you choose necro/mesmer/monk/ranger/warrior you get what you expect and a bit more, but good portion of players choosed elementalist because they love damage-dealer role and it is taken from them in high-level PvE because.... well just because. Other casters and even rangers can do tons of armor-ignoring damage in HM using very simple to play builds and in this case it is ok because...welll once again just because.

This problem of very high armor of mobs in HM was the cause of high popularity of many degenerate gimmick builds, from Ursan to Cryway, Discordway and PvE-skill spam... armor ignoring skills are far too efficient in HM when compared to ones that are affected by armor.

I support some rebalancing of HM, not to make it easier but in order to make more builds viable. But it's not a simple task - it would require looking carefully at armor levels of specific mobs in both nm and hm, and only intervening if the difference is excessive.

Variety is good. Limiting effectiveness of some skills while keeping a select few at full efficiency and letting them dominate is bad.

we need Ursan mode.

but no, their armor and health dont need to be changed.

Not intirely a bad idea, and with some HM scatter, it still wouldn't be easy as to just nail them with ele henchies unless you are also an ele set for water to snare them for the heroes to nail them with some high damage skills.

Its called Hard Mode for a reason.