Replace HM Armor with more Health

hundred blades+whirlwind attack

seems like a pretty cheap nice AoE armor ignoring damage dealer right there, especially if you use "for great justice" and sun and moon

I don't think that you're all aware that Searing Flames still does big damage in HM under the right circumstances. It's still powerful enough to be able to spike down HM DoA mobs with relative ease. Quit complaining about the High armor and freaking do something about it. Weaken Armor is an effective skill that should easily fit onto any hero bar. Having some kind of curses hybrid with Enfeebling Blood should already exist if you plan on getting anywhere in HM, it's not that difficult to slot on Weaken Armor as well. In addition, bring shit like BUH and Elemental Lord to increase damage and attributes respectively.

I don't know what drugs you're on atm, but kindly learn to think clearly before you suggest things. There are some areas where the monks are so frustrating, even at their current health levels, that a health increase(even at the cost of armor) would make it even more annoying. Go try to spike down Shiverpeak protectors or stone summit monks in HM. It really doesn't work that well. Giving their massively specced prots and off heals more time to take affect is a terrible idea. Plus, removing the armor bonuses just to make eles happy would doom mesmers even further, making them ridiculously more underpowered than they currently are in general pve.

K so, learn game mechanics, kthnx. Hundred blades is slashing damage. It's not even marginally questionable if it's armor ignoring or not.

As mentioned, both skills deal slashing damage (which is armor-sensitive). Also, bonus damage is "mostly armor-ignoring" as waeland stated, but bonus doesn't incur at all if melee attacks are blocked, so, again, it's balanced by its counters and by the relatively small numbers of those bonuses (+42 being the highest, with Superior runes in place, which are deprecated).

Warrior skills that deal armor-ignoring damage are:

- Shove, an elite touch skill under the Tactics line which is hardly used outside The Deep, and now being effectively replaced by YMLAD! when available.
- Riposte/Deadly Riposte/Gladiator's Defense, all requiring a trigger (you being hit by a melee attack).

That's pretty much it. It's been a LONG time since I've last seen a Warrior playing GD in PvE, not to mention Ripostes.

^^^^ This ^^^^

Elementalists: if you're trying to be damage dealers, you're doing it wrong; this is not WoW.

Elementalists have three possible jobs in Hard Mode: wards, blind spam, or ether renewal healer (unless ER healers were nerfed; I don't use it so I don't keep track of it). Leave the damage dealing to Ritualists, Assassins, and Warriors.

/not signed

I was excited about the addition of hard mode due to the belief that mobs would be given skillbars similar to the ones in slaver's exile. Instead they made it so monsters hit harder, move and attack faster, and are harder to kill. There is no need to change builds from NM to HM as you just need a little more patience to clear a map.

You might be upset by how weak eles are in HM, but what about the non-monks, necros, and wars? Paragons are shoved onto the same boat with SY! spamming. Loosing armor won't change the team make-up at all, due to the fact that A. monsters run out of most AoE and B. Giving more health to monsters will just give it more time to run out of AoE before you can unleash your complete chain.

edit: I forgot the recent Rit buff...shame on me

These two responses indicate a total failure to understand the first post.

Let's see if upon being called out, they can discern why with a little more thought.

Ignoring the fact that you're just stupid wrong about the armor ignoring part, most of the builds that use those skills also require a synergy with skills that are armor ignoring. Like Mark of Pain and Splinter weapon. The use of hundred blades and whirlwind attack are simply triggers to those sources of big damage, and not the big damage itself.

Let's see if you care reading the whole thread then... I don't think you have, and even if you did, you missed the point of most of it.

I've argumented my opinion diffusely enough, I think this proposal makes no sense at all, and support given to this idea in this thread has me convinced I understood the first post just right. It's a matter of mere NUMBERS, coming from the misconception that:

- Eles are the "archetypical damage dealers", so they MUST do higher damage than other classes.
- If you do little damage, there nothing else in this game for you to do.

Sorry, both those points have no place in GW. Get a grip, Eles are not the best damage dealers in this game, yet they're given the SIGNIFICANT chance of covering a great support role other classes simply don't have. Then if Eles have mania of grandeur and want it all, or think that three-digits yellow numbers is everything, that's beyond me.

Increasing Health while decreasing AC of mobs won't change a thing - Eles would deal more damage indeed, but more damage will need to be dealt to kill a foe, so I can't really see the point of this - unless it's implemented in a way that blatantly favors Elementalists (so that the Health bonus is little and the AC penalty is huge), which, quite frankly, is unreasonable to say the least, not to mention that it goes against the concept of Hard Mode itself, where foes are stronger and players need to learn to ADAPT and REACT.

Can't adapt to HM? That's not a problem with the game itself. Nothing to be fixed here.

We already noticed that GW is not WoW or wash wash mashine for that matter ...but thanks for reminding

We know ele has use in HM. We just humbly propose to enable ele be viable damage dealer in HM too, because big part of players who started to play ele did it because of loving damage dealer role and then ends disappointed (the same is to lesser extent true for warriors). I repeat this argument here about fourth time, but it seams oponents of "lower armor add life in HM" does not listen. I don't say you must agree with it, just please this is *THE* reason for proposed change. But every time discussion goes away into flames, technicalitis or opossing thesis "ele are weak in HM, please bump ele" which nobody say.

BTW renewal healer are starting pushing away monks from role of PvE heales+protectors and I fully see why monks are not happy with it. Same reasoning: although they still have viable roles in hm (like smiters,600 monks), most monk players choose profession because of healer/protector role. Its OK if renewal healer/prot is viable build and even if it is superior to monks in some areas, but if renewal healer really can overheall/overprot monks in most situations in HM, they are right to demand ether renewal change.

To be honest just give them more health AND armor. The PvE in this is so zzz easy.

I agree.

When I started playing, I myself - a Warrior - ended up being a little disappointed as each individual hit I dealt caused less and less damage as the game progressed.

Yet, that induced me to adapt and learn how to exploit my character's potential at its best. That's when I realized that my Warrior was never meant to deal three-digit damage in a single hit, while still being considered a valuable damage-dealer thanks to pressure. That's when I realized there's more in this game than "raw damage" and "big numbers".

So, why can't those "disappointed players" do the same? Why can't they use their brains and learn to play their chosen profession as it was designed? Why do they need aid in form of an alteration of a basic game mechanic? Because, you know, there's no special bonus in HM for developers to remove. They'll need to rethink a massive portion of the game code that's been there for almost 5 years now.

The real problem with Eles as damage dealers has very little to do with high levels of AC of foes in HM, it's the misconception of what "damage" really means: "damage" is not "big yellow numbers" every time you cast something.

Check this out and see.

Gill Halendt, you repeat same position over and over, but could you respond more to what was said here? Or if I miss you point, please help me understand. Otherwise there is no meaningfull dialogue. You last response reiterated two main arguments arguments agains "part of high level (= mostly HM) monster armor bonus change to life bonus":

1) Ele can adapt
Of course they can, nobody say otherwise. Or starts another character. But I would prefere that game does not force ele players to abadon role for which many choosed this profession. If you hold position that in this case this disapointment is not enough to justify proposed change I agree that there is no other reason. Opinion about this is not matter of facts but preference what game we want.

2) Change will disbalance game
In my opinion you are wrong. If they keep present formula for monster armor till level 20 (or something more) and for highers levels just add more life but not more armor (or some compromise between old one and this) it would be very simple change and does not threaten game balance. Or where exactly you see the danger?

This has nothing to do with the OPs suggestion. The OP is discussing the disadvantage given to certain classes that are not equally felt by other classes in HM by virtue of the difference between armor ignoring and non-ignoring damage types. Increasing Health instead of simply raising AR, makes all classes feel HM equally.

This is not about making elementalists more effective in HM, because it wouldn't. If an ele only takes of 10% of HP due to Armor right now, does it change their role if with this change he only takes 10% because the max HP is higher? No. You think he's crying because he can't adapt. It just shows a fundamental lack of reading comprehension on your part. He's not asking for his role to change at all, indeed he's asking for his own personal role to stay the same because of his damage output relative to enemy HP. He's asking for other classes to feel HM the same way he does.

You. Fail.

I've created a w/mo because i want to play a cleric (healer with plate armor), now a discovered it's complete garbage. So please ANet, give warriors 4 energy pips and some energy managment skills so i can play my char the way i thought i would be able to.

Does this sounds stupid to you? Well, your argument sounds just as stupid to me.

And btw: I've seen players finishing DoA HM with 3-4 eles using [[Weaken Armor], [[Rodgort's Invocation], [[Searing Flames] and [[Liquid Flame] in less than one hour.
If anything eles deal too much damage in PvE and skills like RI and SF should get nerfed.

I think I've responded enough, you just don't want to see my point and keep repeating yourself as much as I did. I don't think the change suggested is needed nor reasonable, I don't think the game should be put upside down because people misinterpreted the role of a profession and are disappointed because of this. Eles work just fine IMO, if you stick to their ACTUAL role, which is not the role a lot of players think. Eles have so many options to support because THAT's their role. Support is not a disease, it's a much more relevant role to me than "damage dealing", If you think Eles should be the best damage dealers around just because of an archetype you and some other players have in mind, sorry, that's your problem, not a problem of the game.

You're not forced. You just misunderstood your role and your profession. See above. I don't think Eles need any help in dealing more damage. If they do, then any class in this game does, Mesmers in particular, which are a bit left out of PvE. This suggestion wouldn't help them anyway. So, no, I'm against any change that favors classes that don't need any more favors just because players can't play them effectively.

How do you think that's feasible? And if it is, easy to implement?

Even if it is... Why? I repeat, there's no advantage in dealing more damage to a creature that needs more damage to be killed. If all you want is to see higher numbers and feel stronger for it, while taking the same time to kill a foe, well... It seems pretty linear to me. More Health -> more time to kill a foe. Because there's not even a remote chance they'll lower the AC enough for your Ele to do significantly higher damage, so your ability to deal more damage will be balanced by the higher Health of your enemy. Nothing will change, you'll just see your Fireball hitting for 50 instead of 40 and be happy with it...? If that's not it, explain me with an example how this "fix" would change a thing...

Any profession has his own disadvantages in HM. The only special bonus enemies have in HM is the faster casting bonus, so remove that as well so that interrupters are more effective. No... Just, no... When people tell you HM is called Hard Mode for a reason, that's it: those are the differences between NM and HM. Cope with them, don't ask for them to be removed because you can't deal with them.

As I've stated almost EVERYWHERE in this thread, armor-sensitive damage usually is balanced around other factors, be it lower cost, spammability, higher base damage. Or, when we talk about Ele spells, utility. Most of those Ele spells deal proportionally little damage, but usually cause conditions or side-effects that Necroes and Mesmers can't cause. That's because Eles are meant to be played like that. You can't Burn, you can't Snare, you can't Blind or Knockdown with a Necro. You can do a couple of those things with a Mesmer, but not nearly as effectively as an Ele. So, the counterbalance is Ele deal elemental damage, which is less efficient against highly armored foes. What's so wrong in this?

Whoa, insightful...

LoL you read my mind , best comparison ever for this "i want my NM cookie back" thread imo . For anything else , agree with Gill .

im fine with the additional armor, i just dont like that they have the reduced hex duration.

Except that warriors actually do deal some of the best damage in the game, just needs proper use of build.

By the time they reach that point they should have realized that in Guild Wars, physical damage is king. And they can make a new character, you know.

That's just the way it is. Did they expect to be damage dealers? Yes. Does that mean they SHOULD be damage dealers? No.

It's not an issue with global balance but with what builds you use, i.e. your creativity. With NM build mindset don't expect too much of HM ...

And you have plenty of options:

- cracked armour
- Air Magic
- all kinds of degeneration
- other armour-piercing and armour-ignoring spells
- high-dps low-cost skills, which you wouldn't use much in NM for obvious reasons
- pve-only skills (some are bloody overpowered, but if you want to go through entire game just with h/h then no wonder you make no real use of these, that's your fault!)

So in fact, either you adapt your strategy having HM challenges in mind, or you fail, and there is nothing wrong with that.

I understand that one degenerate build like Discord Spam pretty much kills the challenge, but it's not an issue with the high armour of HM mobs, but with that particular skill (find me any Blood Magic spell or any other life-stealing/armour ignoring spell which can be spammed that much for so low energy cost and without any drawbacks, wait, there are none?).

So, in fact, common sense dictates:

/notsigned

HM monsters don't have reduced hex duration, only bosses in Proph, Nigthfall and Eye of the North have this (in NM and HM).

Yup, I know by now

Exactly. And Elementalist players should learn that they aren't a damage class in PvE. If an Ele player doesn't realize that by the time they start Hard Mode, they aren't very good.

I never thought this was a problem on my ele, and I usually run her attributes at 14 or below. If you're running 19-20 in your main attribute (easy enough to do with nowadays' skills/consumables) and still have damage issues, then consider bringing Intensity or "By Ural's Hammer!" to boost your numbers. Stack them together if you must. If that's not enough then I'd say you probably just don't have the patience for Hard Mode.

Also, Obsidian Flame also works wonders.