Preliminary Skill Update Notes: March 17

Do you build up your balance ideas around RA?

I am suprised they haven't buffed eles by adding a damage bonus per rank/s of energy storage for pve at least, mesmer for example got a very useful buff to fastcasting.

Nerf Necro / Mesmer / Ritualists / Dervish / Assassin / Warrior / Monk

I can complete every aspect of the game with an empty skill bar. Does that make an empty skill bar usable? NO.

I definitely agree that 10 damage off of already crappy damage ain't worth my effort to worry about. I don't think people are QQing though...Eles and Rangers needs exposure.

Ah... just realized that PvE version of Spiritual Pain is almost identical to Consume Soul.
Stopped PvEing for a very long time so I didn't notice that.

Spiritual Pain: 5e 1s 7r
Spell. Target foe takes 15...63...75 damage. All hostile summoned creatures in the area of that foe take 25...105...125 damage.

Consume Soul: 5e 1s 5r
Elite Spell. You steal 5...49...60 Health from target foe. All hostile summoned creatures in the area of that foe take 25...105...125 damage.

In PvE Mesmer's spells recharge even faster than Consume Soul, pretty scary especially in hard mode. :O

There's a reason why I'm the only person who has posted a Foundry HM clear without consumables using Elementalist primary, and it wasn't with a build optimized for damage. Hint on underlying reason, if you don't care to try Foundry yourself and see firsthand: all the other people who've done it had been Sin or Warrior primary.

Like I wrote before, the nerf to Invoke Lightning nerfed one big niche in 7H teambuilds where Elementalists were one of the best choices around. It's not so much about damage as it is about dealing damage while still carrying utility. The hit to potential templates is definitely genuine.

@Thock -

Imbagon is player-only and so is BotGD, while Extinguish is extremely niche and basically its only use is to counter Searing Flames. The others work just as well as plain Prot Spirit, until they don't - go into Foundry HM and see what happens.

Enchantments are actually harder to strip because of the Attunement buffs. As for damage ... I would appreciate any definitive proof that Mesmer heroes outdamage Elementalist heroes, because I'm not convinced they do. Only Necro hero which can definitively outdamage Elementalist heroes would be the MM, of which you can only have one. I'd also challenge player Mesmers being able to deal more damage than player Elementalists. Unsupported player Necro would have to rely on OoU, which needs a variety of factors to go on (bodies, especially). It is still more damage, however.

Also: Mesmers have hell of a harder time speccing into utility. To do that they need four attributes: their primary damage line Illusion or Domination, Fast Casting, Inspiration for energy, and then whatever attribute line the utility comes from. Not easy. If you have a good non-melee, non-Spear build that isn't a spirit spammer or MM, does good damage and can still use "Fall Back!" reasonably, post it. You might ask why these conditions. Not being melee is pretty obvious; AI doesn't know how to play melee. Not being Spear-based is because Spear has lower attack range than cast range, which exposes the hero and makes it more difficult to manoeuvre. Not being a spirit spammer is because you can only have two Rits, and not being MM is because you can only have one MM. You can still use Mesmers and non-MM Necros, however. Do you have a bar?

Hero Elementalists deal more damage than hero Monks for the same reason that player Elementalists deal more damage than player Monks: they have more nukes to use.

Re-read my post. I sincerely doubt those people sat down with the entire ele skillset known by heart and tried to balance the entire PvP and PvE content around those suggestions. (1) Because they didn't and (2) because they cannot. It's impossible without access to a specialized test environment inside the game and extensive (automated) tests.

Heck, some of the people in this thread are under the impression that ANet devs balance the skills exclusively by "playing the game". Sure, they do that too... but it has probably never occured to those people the devs also have bots and test builds and benchmark builds and testing environments, that they run accelerated simulations and get figures that report meta-issues at a whole different level.

And that's just PvE. Ask PvP guilds how much they train and how they test builds to achieve synergy and you will get a small idea of the complexity involved.

Then imagine puting PvE and PvP together (because the vast majority of skills are common) and balancing the entire PvE content, down to the last ele NPC, including how ele players can be expected to work each individual zone, and top it off with trying to predict balance for all the PvP teams and all forms of PvP, AND not ruin either PvE or PvP in the process.

It's like juggling 100 spinning plates at the same time, and if you still don't realise the magnitude of the task and keep insisting "it will be ok if we just buff skill Random"... there's nothing more I can say.

You sir, made me lol.

"Omg, I did foundry HM on my ele, so I'm awesome." First of all, your screen doesn't show how long it took you, so my guess: quite long. If you go on long enough with shitty damage, you will get everything killed. And, if you ask me, you got carried by your heroes... Damagewise that is.

Yeh, they were ssin or warrior, why? Because eles suck and deal shitty damage. They also were a shitton faster than you most likely..

You seem to think beating DoA in HM is so awesome, but it's not, it's in fact pretty easy, but then again, I am not really the person to point out someone on elitism.. But at least I know I am a damn elitist..

This one almost made me shit my pants. Either you are really trolling us, and succeeding very well, or you're just stupid. In the latter case, you're succeeding very well too...
Armor ignoring damage says hi, but since that probably won't convince you, lemme do the math for you.
So, assuming you are running Fire Magic at 16, you should deal 106 Fire Damage. I'll also assume you're max LB, so that converts to: 148 Fire damage dealt. Now, let's say you're hitting a Margonite Anur Su, a caster, that means lowest armor. Which is 83 against Fire, which transforms your SF to (148*0.67) = 99 damage dealt effectively. That's to a Su. Against others, this will be even lower. Now, Spamming that will result in 33 DPS.
A mesmer with dom 16 and FC at 16 will deal 222 damage with a perfect Overload + Shatter Delusions spam ideally doing 88,8DPS, and even if he only pulls of the Shatter Delusions damage, this will be 44,4DPS. With spamming 2 spells he can already outdamage you.
This made me lol too. Hard to spec in utility? You have obviously never played a mesmer. Mistrust, VoR, Empathy, Backfire.. All awesome skills that can shut down casters and melee both, and guess what, they're all dom magic also:
Yeah, it's called DoASC, and it can do DoA HM in 21 minutes.

Euh, no. Smiting prayers says hi. It's not because your ele heroes have more choices that they nuke better. Cause ele damage sucks ass. RoJ + Arcane Echo + some utility nukes = win on a monk.

I wondered why people sticked to one ele's PvE build when you could make another one. I bet there is at least one more undiscovered build exist. In fact in PvE it's so easy to test a new stuff.

But I understand it's so much easy to complain than making a build.

Euh, no one ever stuck to 1 ele build. All have been tried, and there are a lot of combinations possible, but they are all done better by other professions. Even most ele elite skills are outdone by other professions normal skills in HM.

Also, if you're so awesome and so all-knowing, post a decent build yourself then.

Do you think the bar I brought was for damage? If you did, you should reread that post of mine. Yes they were faster than me. Primary profession difference. Although I will point out that the fastest HM DoA 7H clear so far has a player bar with like 0 damage ...

Here's another "Discord DPS = [insert damage] / 3" calculation, except in the guise of "Searing Flames DPS = ...". I've already pointed out why that is wrong. Many times. If you're unable or unwilling to look for the information, I'm not going to bother explaining again. This reminds me of the time when I "proved" that Savannah Heat Elementalists deal over 700 DPS, woo hoo.

You call that utility? Those are mainly damage skills. Mistrust is very borderline defensive, but that's about it. Yes I know AI prefers not to cast if hexed with Backfire etc. Big deal. At that rate you might as well bring Diversion as a "utility skill".

I'm calling these utility: Prots, Command shouts, Splinter Weapon, Restoration heals and to a lesser extent, Curses support. Now let's see you exhibit a good non-melee, non-Spear hero build that isn't a spirit spammer or MM, does good damage and can still use these reasonably.

PS: "DoA SC" isn't a bar.

Post a bar.

Well, one prediction that didn't pan out was monsters with Consume Soul tearing through minion walls like paper. I've VQed Morostav and Mourning Veil (as they were ZV recently) before and after the update and did not encounter an unacceptable increase in minion rape from the wardens of spring/summer. The AI doesn't spam it and they die before they can use it much. (And even when they do use it, it's preferable to them using Splinter instead.) If anything, they're weaker now because they've lost a powerful self-heal.

Well, if eles are so awesome according to you, prove it. Post numeric examples of why eles outdamage mesmers. And don't just say "I don't believe they do.".

Yeh, he ran tank, cause that's kind of the smartest thing to do, and guess what he used? Mesmer spikers. Why? Because they are the best at spiking shit, because they deal the most damage.

Discord DPS is singletarget. SF is nearby and mine is adjacent. Meaning you will hit everything if you balled it right.
Also, go ahead and prove that a SH heat ele does 700 DPS. You keep saying "I did this and that" but you never actually prove you did. I can say "I proved that eles suck" without actually doing so, and it would still mean nothing.


Well, if I can solospike an entire ball in DoA using VoR, Mistrust, Overload and Shatter Delusions, I think they're pretty utile in what they do: blow up shit. Mesmers utility exists mainly in Panic in PvE: shutting down an entire mob with 1 skill is win. You don't need mesmers for utility, you are better off taking rits or necro's, let mesmers do what they'r good at: either bombing the shit out of mobs, or shutting them down completely.

Putting those utilities on a mesmer would be retarded, because mesmers aren't good at being utility: necro's are because of their SR and Rits for spirits, but taht's it. Or an ele hero with prot bond and ER

Euh, that is correct, it's 8 bars, 4 of which are mesmers. Now, I wonder why we would take mesmers, when according to you eles do more damage.. Oh, that's right, because they don't...


Here you go, straight of PvX: http://www.gwpvx.com/Build:Mo/any_PvE_Smiter

You didn't really mention any shutdown skills except for the damage reduction from Empathy which I'd only bring against multi-hitting foes. Mistrust isn't a real interrupt and is vulnerable to failure.

You dont need to prot spirit everyone. Spirit Bond + Infuse work wonders as well. Also you use the lock button to stick your mesmer on the elly boss, and in most cases they wont be able to fire off a single spell.

The last time I checked, everyone takes an imbagon in DOA which hugely reduces the damage taken partywide. ER prot elly isnt a DOA build.

15 energy + 25 energy for those two skills which also need to pass an armor check, or 5 energy for armor ignoring discord? Not really a hard choice to make, Discordway outdamages anything that ellys can do in HM.

They are usable, but they are a far weaker class than all the other caster classes. Ellys deal no where near the same damage as the current duo mesmer + sipiritway meta does, and you cannot combine both damage and support on a single elly bar as you can on necros or rits because elly spells use too much more energy.

Arcane Echo / RoJ / Snowstorm / Ebon ward that boosts damage / Kirins Wrath / Symbol of Wrath ------> Savanah Heat or Unsteady Ground based builds. You can even go 12 smite + 12 domination and add in an armor ignoring chaos storm. Though I've always found any such AoE build to be entirely useless in HM because enemies quickly and easily move out of it. AoE spells like those are always a bad choice in HM, but Monks still have a higher damage output because holy damage ignores armor.

No one is exaggerating, except for you finding elly bosses too hard to prot against. Maybe thats because you are using a poor team setup, which seems likely since you think that ellys are so viable for damage in HM.

Mistrust isnt used for its interupt, its used for for its 128+ armor ignoring damage every 12 seconds. Enemy mobs in PVE *NEVER* stop attacking or spamming skills. Spells which trigger on attack, skill or spell activation work extremely well in PVE.

1) Invoke Lighting was NEVER a niche 7H build, it was never one of the best choices available, and no one ever ran it as a powerbuild or advised it as a build for others to use. The only reason why a few players may have tried it was simply because they personally wanted to use ellys instead of the other caster classes, and it is the only viable elly build for damage in HM using heroes.

2) DOA is easilly manageable with heroes using a Soul Twisting prot rit. Neither ER prot nor Imbagon are very viable in DOA for a 7 hero build, unless you yourself are playing a paragon or ely because theres hardly anything better you can do.

3) Hardly anyone uses hero elementalists, at least not people who are currently trying to make the best team builds possible. The current meta is mesmers, rits and necros. However, if you were to take a Rojway hero setup and compare it to an Elly nuke hero set up, the Rojway would be better by a vast margin (some people are taking multiple monk heroes with RoJ, I really dont see anyone recommending or trying successfully with multiple AoE nuke ellys because they likely cant kill anything).

I don't prove things with numbers, I prove them with playing experience. The Air Elementalist hero bar I've been running has been able to bring more damage to bear on the called target than the Mesmer has been. If you want proof direct from the game, you'll have to wait till I finish refining my understanding.

You realize that being the best at spiking stuff doesn't mean they deal the most damage for non-spiking situations - which is where most people play - right? I don't have a choice but to make do with non-precisely balled foes because I'm not a Sin (or Warrior). What is your Mesmer DPS then?

The calculation that "proves" that Discord does ~35 DPS only works because Discord has a 2s cooldown. If Discord had longer cooldown everyone would immediately see that it was inaccurate. With 2s cooldown, it fools the gullible and gives the illusion that it's right. The same argument that proves that Discord does 35 DPS / Searing Flames does 33 DPS proves that Flare is better than Immolate, which is idiotic.

Most stupid way ever to prove that Savannah Heat Elementalists do 700 DPS: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...0&postcount=79 About as reliable as your calculations proving that Searing Flames deal 33 DPS, aka. totally ridiculous.

If you admit that Mesmers aren't good at carrying utility, you admit you were wrong. And you still haven't provided a good non-melee, non-Spear hero build that isn't a spirit spammer or MM, does good damage and can still use Prots, Command shouts, Splinter Weapon, Restoration heals and to a lesser extent, Curses support reasonably - Necro primary or Mesmer primary.

DoA SC is a collection of player bars, and if you've been reading my posts you'll know I'm talking about hero bars. Actually right now I'll limit my scope even more to general hero bars for caster primaries.

I think it's hilarious you linked the Mo/any PvE Smiter bar, because I've used that bar extensively before and I'll say that it's more a defensive bar than an offensive one. You use it because you need more healing in your team but do not want to dedicate a full healer to it. The hero's damage output is completely unspectacular and definitely worse than an Elementalist's DPS except against undead foes. Of course, it doesn't carry Arcane Echo and "some utility nukes" either, unless you're considering Reversal of Damage, Smite Condition and Smite Hex nukes, although anyone who made that bar up independently - it's not hard to make - would immediately tell you that their primary purposes is to trigger Smiter's Boon as well as offer some cleaning ...

@bhaav - You can't take an Imbagon into DoA when you're going in 7H, unless you're a Paragon. Don't you use an Elementalist ... ?

Discord's DPS is single-target, while Air Elementalists have Chain Lightning and Invoke Lightning. Discord also has some mild conditions to live up to before it can deal its damage, while Lightning Orb provies Cracked Armour. Both Lightning Orb and Lightning Hammer aren't elite, too. I will not say that they're better spells than Discord, but I'll say that they aren't useless.

At present Ritualists deal about twice the DPS of everyone else, so yes they deal more DPS than Elementalists (and Necros, and Mesmers, yada yada). Most Mesmer bars aren't aiming to deal pure damage, which is why you see less of ESurge and more of Panic. Ineptitude damage is great when it works, but mildly unreliable. Right now I'm sceptical about how good it is against balanced mobs. It's devastating against mobs of only or largely melee, that's for sure, but not every mob is only melee.

So RoJ isn't boosted by the Ebon Ward, Snowstorm is affected by armour and does less per tick than Breath of Fire, Kirin's Wrath and Symbol of Wrath are melee range and not boosted by the Ebon Ward either, Chaos Storm does low damage per tick and still isn't boosted by the Ebon Ward, and going 12 Smite + 12 Domination means you have barely any no energy management. Even you agree that such AoE builds are "entirely useless" in HM (I don't think they're entirely useless, just usually useless - although this particular AoE build is completely useless). Can we conclude then that Elementalists deal more damage than Monks? Elementalists have spells that aren't DoT AoE, you know.

I don't find most Elementalist bosses hard to prot against. Off the top of my head the only one who's a threat is Borguus Blisterbark, and even that can be gotten past with just Prot Spirit. Right now I find Rage Titans hard to prot against. Why don't you try it?

Lol, just you wait till I finish refining my builds. I'm trying to make the best team builds possible and Elementalists feature heavily in my options. I don't guarantee that I'll eventually use them of course, but right now they are a major option.

I don't know what the other innovators are doing right now, but I'll advance my hypothesis on why the current meta is Discordway + Spiritway + Mesway. It's because the people that actually make new builds haven't finished their testing. In the meantime, everyone else just grabbed ready-made builds off PvX, made minor tweaks to it and declared that they've found the best build around. It took months after the Ritualist update for Spiritway in its final form to crystallize. Early variants of Spiritway involved Reclaim Essence, Communing defensive spirits, etc. In the meantime most people (of which I'll admit I was one) just stuck with Discordway. That's what's happening now: most people just sticking with what has been tried before.

Uhuh, and in my experience, I rape through PvE with my mesmer, and my ele is hardly struggling to get mobs killed, so either I'm awesome at being a mesmer and you at being an ele, or eles just suck...

Well, the best at spiking stuff means, the best at blowing up stuff, last time I checked.. Ok, ele's are good at making PBAoE which will cause mobs to run into it and get some damage, but mesmers still rape imo.


Ok, I haven't played a lot of PvE outside of DoA and chestrunning lately. In fact, I've done nothing outside of DoA and chest running since August, so meh. The calculations I made weren't perfect, but seriously, ele damage is frigging horrible, I don't need to calculate anything to prove that. The fact that most mobs in HM have 80-100+ armor vs Ele damage proves that pretty much.

I haven't provided anything, because I don't play general PvE anymore. Not since I beat it on every single character I have and stopped caring about it (this was obviously long before 7h update). And even then I got through all of it, not using ele heroes, because they were absolutely awefull. Using SH on a single target when I'm trying to clean up etc..

Well, the fact that you're only looking at hero bars shows only more that you are looking at the entire situation wrong. If eles dealt so much damage, why does no one use them? We all use mesmers, because out of experience, human mesmers deal so much damage that it makes eles look like a lighter compared to a flamethrower. There's my experience.

I have to admit that I took the first random thing I saw on PvX and that I have never even used it myself, but still, this bar is going to do more damage than an ele, because it deals ARMOR IGNORING damage (note the emphasis).

I'll wait, mister awesome-O. And when you make your oh so awesome build, I won't care at all. Because I'll know that eles still suck (implying that eles will not be buffed by then).

Funny how you refer to yourself as an "innovator". But anyway: my analysis on the current meta: yes people are too lazy to make their own builds, yes discord or sabway is an easy way out, but if -according to you- eles were so super duper awesome, why wouldn't anyone have come up with your super duper awesome teambuild and why isn't everyone running it? Do note that NF came out over 4y ago, so by now your super duper awesome build would have been found, don't you think?

Ok my bad, I thought that RoJ was boosted by the PVE ward like fire nukes are.

I'm seriously not bothered about DoA or rage titans, but since you are so interested in DoA and you think ellys are viable for damage, why dont you try clearing it all in record time with elementalist heroes and beating what other people are managing with 4 or 5 mesmers?

Somehow, I feel like this thread isn't going to be going anywhere.

If you really want to argue about the relative damage-dealing potential of elementalists in hard mode, take it to the class forums or something.