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.

I like the idea of permitting classes to play closer to their archetype in HM. This is a step in the right direction, but like others have said, it's a step that would need to be considered on an individual-monster basis.

Aww...But then sliver armor wont be so good! Does that mean we'd have to use an actual build to clear uw?

Agreed - best change would be to have in HM some monster with high armor (even better with more difference in armor levels for different damage types than now) and other with the same armor as NM but but great life bonus. This would add more diversity promoting to adapt builds for different areas and also mixed groups. But again, I doubt Anet is going to do any HM rebalancing. They have very ambitious plans ahead considering manpower assigned for GW1 which I see as mixed blessing. So, most what have sense to propose is to transfer part of HM armor bonus to life bonus. BTW this is not only issue for eles, warriors would benefit from this change also a lot (but not so much as eles).

I agree with this idea: maybe make the HM casters have a lot of HP, but 60 AL, and Warriors, Paragons, etc would have a lot of AL but not so much HP, or something like this.

However, these will probably remain only ideas for the reasons you posted. But i wanted to say another thing: i think that, even if this would be implemented, and in theory characters like elementalists would be more efficient changing their build according to the monsters they will face etc, i'm sure that in practice very few people would do these kinds of thoughts.

I know a lot of people who use the exact same nuker build in both NM and HM, and if somebody asks them which character deals the biggest damage in HM, they will answer: the fire elementalist (without PvE skills i mean), because the HM PvE never asked them to understand the difference between armor-ignoring damage and physical/elemental damage, because they were still able to do whatever they wanted to do with those old NM builds.

Obviously, everyone is free to play as he likes, but what i'm saying is that, even with these suggested changes, HM would be very easy, you would roll through it even with a fire ele against a high-armored HM boss. So IMHO this wouldn't make people think more about which build to bring against which kind of foe, because they are not forced to do this. Only a few who like this kind of gameplay would do it, but these are the people who already think about armors, adapting builds etc.

To really promote build adapting etc., you have to force people to use armor ignoring damage against high armored foes, and physical/elemental damage against low armored foes, etc. This means that if you made bad mistakes while choosing your skills, it will be very hard to kill your mobs (not impossibile, but simply more difficult). However, i don't know how it could be implemented.

In this way, every class would have different roles in the party: when facing a particular kind of mobs, for example, elementalist would be the damage dealers, and necors the support members, and vice versa when facing other kind of mobs.

But if you let HM be doable by every class with almost every build (i remember that someone posted here on guru a screenshot with him beating Hell's Precipice in HM with only Res Signet in his bar, or something like this), thanks to discordway, permasins etc, all this discussion is pointless IMHO, or it's only interesting for those people who like to think about builds, and not only grind titles or farm ectos.

That's exactly how it works now, both in NM and HM. Enemy AC depends on profession and level. There's no such a thing like a "special" armor bonus for mobs when facing them in Hard Mode, it's just they're higher level and, consequently, they also have higher armor according to their level. Changing this would require the alteration of a basic game mechanic.

If you're trying to effectively kill a Lv30 Warrior boss with an Ele, you're doing it wrong.

We are aware of this fact. We propose basic game mechanic adjustment because at high levels it makes damage which does not ignore armor too ineffective.

Thats it , game mechs are like this :
The basic formula is: 3 * creature level + armor bonus.
When facing multiple lvl 28 or more foes , cracked armor is a must imo. It really smooooths VQ and general killing , even more with air eles .

Hardmode is supposed to be hard... why nerf it ?
Lots of people even consider it too easy.

Actually, NM and HM got nerfed with all those cons and stones you can now use.

They're as effective as they're meant to be. What made Hard Mode harder than Normal Mode is higher level foes, and the need to cope with this.

There's a reason why some damage sources DO NOT ignore armor: they're balanced around other characteristics, be it lower cost of the skills (think of adrenaline, or cheap elementalist or ritualist spells), spammability, recharge times, damage dealt against lower level armor classes.

Well, than why exactly is neco meant to be great damage dealer trough whole game and ele is no longer meant to be damage dealer in HM?

Than why present state it is fairly easy for armor-ignoring damage dealers and selectively hard for others?

You state obvious. Nobody speaks against this concept, we just thing some rebalancing is reasonable.

Because Eles - who deal Elemental Damage, which incidentally is armor-sensitive - are meant to be less effective against high armored foes. Duh.

A necro - which is not that great as a damage dealer in a lot o situations as you think - has linear performance through the game. Armor-ignoring damage is pretty much fixed, you'll deal the very same damage for the whole game, be it against a Lv3 mob or a Lv30 boss in HM. You seem to forget that Elemental Damage is INCREASED when hitting lower armored foes, which are pretty common in the first half of all the three campaigns. Sorry if those aren't there in HM.

Armor-sensitive damage decreases in effectiveness when armor level increases. That's it, by design. You want to play an Ele? That's your strength at the beginning, and your weakness at the higher end of the game. Period. Don't like it? Not satisfied with your damage output? You've picked the wrong class.

Armor-ignoring damage is often dealt by hexes, which have drawbacks direct-damaging spells DON'T have. Hexes usually need triggers which might never occur, hexes can be removed, their duration can be shortened.

If armor level of foes in HM is decreased, then a rebalance of armor-sensitive damage to put it more in line with armor-ignoring damage through the rest of the game would be necessary. Or an increase of costs and recharges of those damage sources.

That would be a massive overhaul for no reasonable advantage, and the problem will still be there.

EDIT - BTW, I still don't see an advantage in decreasing armor while still increasing health of foes. In HM, that could be made by decreasing level of foes by 1 or 2. Big deal! As an Ele, that wouldn't change a thing - most Lv24-28 foes have too high armor for them to be effective nonetheless, even in NM - except you'll see slightly bigger numbers while still needing a lot of time to kill a foe.

There is no need again stating obvious about game mechanics, we all share this knowledge.
Necro has best of both words - until enemy armor is high the minion master is killing machine (as is ele). And then necro can switch to curses for armor ignoring damage and be super-effective damage dealer again.
My argument is reasonable expectation of players about choosen profession. Many people choose ele because they like role of AoE damage dealer. I see no good in forcing them out of this role in HM. I do not say nerf necro/smiters/dom.mesmers, it is great they can shine in HM, just do not make ele damage to be so much inferior. If you give no weight to this argument, well then sure there is no need to any proposed change. But how would for example monks feel if after some hypothetical change they would no longer be able to be effective healers or protectors in HM?

The problem is, I see your point. Heck, my main is a Warrior, the reduction of damage I can deal in HM is evident to me as well. There's little to no solution to it tough: anything suggested here is either:

- Too complex to implement at this stage of the game.
- Game-breaking.

Going down to the basic design of the game now is out of question, so the only way your Ele could deal more damage is to reduce the level of the enemies encountered, which sounds ridicolous to me. And this is not a problem with HM, there was no "change" that suddenly made Ele worse, Lv20+ mobs can be found in NM as well, and they have the same AC of a comparable Lv20+ mob in HM. Eles are less effective in this case. Sorry, that's the drawback of this profession: its efficiency in dealing raw damage degrades as AC increases. That happens to Warriors, Ranger, Assassins, Ritualists (most of the Channelling Magic lines deals Lightning Damage), Paragons as well.

Eles are effective as "damage dealers" if you play them properly, even in HM. They're just less effective when compared to professions that CAN also deal armor-ignoring damage (you know a lot of Necro spells deal Cold Damage?), and that's because of a design characteristic.

There are a lot of options for you as an Ele: some spell have bonus AP, some spells even deal armor-ignoring damage (Obsidian Flame, to name one). Or, you could just play your Ele taking advantage of its full potential, inflicting conditions, snaring, knocking down. Which is their role in HM, a role that can hardly be covered by a Necro or a Mesmer as efficiently. Bingo! That's about it. Eles in GW are not "damage dealers" through and through. Wrong expectations with people, nothing wrong in the game to me.

There's much more than "damage" in this game. You're basically asking to put the whole game upside down to have the ability to deal some more "raw" damage with one single class, which to me doesn't make any sense.

I will try to be as short as possible:
- replacing part of high level armor bonus with life bonus is neither hard to implement nor game breaking
- war/rangers/ass/para/rit all have better options to do armor ignoring damage then ele (bonus damage from melee attacks is mostly armor ignoring, barrage can be enhanced wit armor ignoring damage and so on....) Few ele armor-ignoring skills like obs. flame, 2x crystals, mirror of ice or energy burn have some use but have too much limits/drawbacks.
- please, do not again repeat obvious, we all know ele can be usefull in HM, we know damage dealing is not only role, we love AoE snares/KDs/interrups/blinds/wards ele can provide in HM. And of course monk/mesmer/necro can do much more than just damage in HM too.

It probably is. It's basic code that drives the progression of AC with level increase. And won't change anything except the "yellow numbers" only you can see. Taking down an enemy with more health is gonna take more time, even if you deal more damage to him. That's unless those foes have a ridicule health bonus and a huge armor penalty, which would be indeed game-breaking.

There's just a couple armor-ignoring skills for the Warrior, and those are - surprise, surprise! - balanced with their pretty high cost. Not to mention they're hardly used, if at all.

Bonus damage from melee attacks is far from being "You deal 7...91 damage to foe and adjacent foes and knock them down". That's Meteor, an Ele skill. 5 energy. Which is balanced, thankfully, by dealing armor-sensitive damage. I've never hit a Lv28 foe for 100+ damage with Dragon Slash (+38 damage, elite skill) as much as I've never hit for 100+ on him with Meteor.

Ritualists have Spirit Spamming. Which, to me, is now OP and could use a revision. Yet you don't take a lot of factors into account: spirits launch projectiles, which can be blocked. Spirits target randomly, which can be annoying. Spirits are viable just because of some PvE-only skills (Summon Spirits) and are still quite fragile. Spirit Spamming pretty much needs a whole bar to work. So, there's a lot of drawbacks, hence they're quite balanced (excluding SoS, maybe, but that's the power creep of the month...)

Anything else you mention involves using a secondary - such as the Conjure Barrager. So, what impedes you from using Necro as a secondary to deal AoE Cracked Armor?

Doesn't seem that obvious to me, if you keep asking for more. What else do you want the Ele to do? Snares/KDs/Interrupts/Blinds/Wards, and godly damage as well?! That would be ridicolously unbalanced...

Ele do enough damage to me. They're not the best damage dealers in HM. That's because they're not supposed to, so I don't see a single reason why this is to change.

Unfortunately it is the Ritualist's only way of staying on par with other classes.

If you want us playing with groups, you kind of have to leave it as it is, or bring our other skills up in power. (Massive revision.)

Sure, I agree about this. It's the only way, but it's admitedly a pretty powerful one. Read further, I just think SoS could be detuned a bit, maybe: right now, it's fully-mantainable, it allows great bar compression, with no Energy cost. It's quite long lasting with relatively little recharge and activation times. No drawback and little to no counters. Just increasing its recharge to put it in line with the duration of the three spirits could do, IMO, but it's fine with me as it is anyway.

BTW, I believe this is not the right place to discuss this.

check out the redway kath for some armor ignoring ele damage

Just being curious , what would be the change ? 2 armor per foe lvl and that bonus health what would be 10 ? 40 ? that will also reduce armor ignoring damage drastically ....... i just dont see it.

Or you can just work around it?

Mesmers had to deal with monsters having faster casting buff. Guess that should be removed, too.