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The thing about not having multiple copies of the same hex is that Mistrust is one of the best skills in Domination, so giving up on it is a hard hit (even though keeping it leads to conflict). Personally I think Mistrust is worth stacking. Ineptitude is terrible. It's Wandering Eye all again except it commits the elite slot.

You can argue that "if they cast they eat Cry of Frustration, if they wand they eat Ineptitude, if they do neither they eat Wastrel's Worry", but then you could equally say "no matter what they do, they eat Invoke Lightning" - which is obviously more impressive. Especially since Invoke typically outdamages Cry of Frustration and the Wastrel's spells. I'm not saying Mesmer heroes are bad. I'm just saying they are not necessarily better than Elementalist heroes.

HM casters do wand in between casts but if you try it you'll see that they wand far less often than some people would have you believe. Try it. Video yourself killing a caster mob and see how often they attack. Ineptitude / Wandering Eye / Clumsiness damage vs. casters is not reliable unless you do something like intentionally kill them slowly so they attack, which is of course silly. I can say with complete certainty that Illusion heroes are significantly inferior to Dom heroes against the vast majority of mobs; they are superior only if mobs are entirely physical (although tbh I don't see why you aren't using AP as a player Mesmer ...).

I really don't get why you think the damage gap is "too close", or that "armour reduces elemental damage" or that "fast casting reduces cooldown" or whatever. Even taking all that into account, Invoke still does more. "It's affected by armour" holds even if Fireball did 200 damage per hit, yet I can almost guarantee that a 100% increase in Fireball damage will immediately make the skill one of the best available to Elementalists. Instead of looking at theory, look at the times I posted on the last page. With good execution I'm quite confident of 10-11s times with dual Invoke, while with dual Dom Mesmers it's 12-13s. It may be capped, it may be affected by armour, but in the end Invoke still does more. Invoke Lightning will exceed the damage on Cry of Frustration by as much as 50% vs. a single target, for example. Yes, you will lose the support / shutdown that Mesmers give. That is the tradeoff, and that is what makes Eles different from Mesmers. That statement I completely agree with. I just completely reject the idea that Mesmers deal more damage than (or are superior to) Eles in general play. If you ball six targets around a tank, or if mobs are so big that you can reliably hit 5+ monsters per cast, yes. But not in general play.

Thing is we don't know what the HM and ES changes are going to be, so how to discuss that? I'll reserve judgement until I actually know (+ can test for myself) what those changes are.

I was reading through parts of the thread and noticed that some people are highly in favour of the "increase health, decrease armour" of enemy npc's and would like to see it being applied in the next update. I wanted to set up a scenario to see if this would be better or worse for the game. Here goes.

AR: Armour Rating
AR Pen: Armour Penetration
Time (1) Time till death before AR/HP adjustment
Time (2) Time till death after AR/HP adjustment
I used an elementalist with the popular Invoke Lightning build. Although I could've used the Master of Damage to record the DPS, I don't have access to GW and so had to resort to manual calculations. Anyway, for 31 seconds, this theoretical elementalist chained Invoke Lightning, Chain Lightning and Shock Arrow (at attribute level 15).

[5 casts of Invoke, 4 casts of Chain Lightning, and 3 casts of Shock Arrow]

On a 60 AR target, the DPS calculated was about 39. A target with 500 would survive just under 13 seconds. Assuming the current HM npc's were all given 60 armour but adjusted their hp according (and I'll explain what accordingly means), all npc's would now require more time to beat. While this may increase gameplay difficulty, players given more options with regards to characters choice in the party as well as eliminating the developers the need to buff 'less used' professions and thus prevent power creep altogether.

"Accordingly": Any target with 60 armour will take the listed skill damage. Increasing armour is supposedly the same as increasing hp. Under normal circumstances, this would hold true. However, high armour, low hp npc's are highly susceptible to armour ignoring damage, making certain classes much more useful. Example: A target with 100 armour takes 1/2 damage from skills that affect armour. Therefore, the hp adjusted accordingly would be the reciprocal (x2)

For the adjusted hp, all npc's have increased hp in accordance to the armour level before the hp increase. Their armour has then been adjusted to 60.

The plus point for increasing hp would mean the players would now focus on bring sources of damage rather than sources of armour ignoring damage. Sources of damage with increased enemy hp / lowered armour allows for more flexibility in group formation.

Some negative points would be, as already mentioned by some people, are how skills that react to hp% are going to be affected, degen, victorious skills, etc. Post 166 by Chthon has some excellent points.

Overall, I think the change people want would be in general healthier for the game simply due to the additional flexibility in profession selection within a group. The change makes professions play as they were intended and not wedge them into 'weird' roles. Although people would still use E/Mo builds (assuming it stays the same), it also allows other people who don't like to be pigeon holed into using 1 or 2 builds to use their mass AoE fire build.

Why not just Buff the Damage of Ele spells and make PVP versions of them that are not buffed ? Obviously they would have to scale Ele PVE Foes(so they dont do too much damage to the player) if they were to Buff Elementalist Damage.
Basicly so armor ignoring classes such as Necros and Mesmers + RoJ Smite Monks are still usefull but Ele's are now wanted as well for their AoE Damage with good energy management. Make things more competitive for the Eles vs Mesmers in terms of damage output without Nerfing what aint broken.

Enemy damage can be buffed by increasing their level. There's no need to complicate matters by buffing Ele damage. Like I said in my post, by increasing enemy hp and lowering their armour, you allow players to add different professions for sources of any damage rather than sources of armour ignoring damage.

This won't greatly improve and Ele's ability as a damage dealer. It might make it suck a little less when dealing with the enemies with more asinine armour levels, but most of the time it wouldn't matter.

I feel useless when I see 119 fire dmg brought down to 40. If anything it still greatly helps balance out the problem between armor-ignoring dmg with ele/phys dmg. Don't forget eles will get skill changes to.

Don't use Fireball on a Ranger.
Seriously though; you weren't overly useful before the massive armour stacking which isn't too high most of the time.
I've already commented on the potential for skill changes and the problem of an Ele's damage options in this thread.

Yes, in order for Ele to 'compete', they bring skills like AP to recharge their PvE skills, etc... You suggested to remove PvE skills and/or nerf AP, both which I would agree to. However, the removal of PvE skills is not going to happen, which leaves AP. Once you nerf that, all Ele's are left with is damage that can be mitigated by armour (and some long recharging PvE skills).

You can buff ele's, but you then have to think about enemy balance. That level 26 Ele on HM is going to do a shit-ton more damage using some crappy skill like stoning (roommate's quote when he first started HM Effectively, HM becomes harder (subjective; please don't argue on this point). You would then need to balance out all the monsters so they don't decimate you on the first fight.

So, for this to work, you'd need to: nerf AP, buff Ele damage, nerf monster level. That, just opens a whole new can of worms. HM becomes easier and people would STILL use mesmers and necros due to reduced HP of monsters (due to their now lower level).

Instead, if you buff hp and lower armour, you automatically cause AP to be less useful (effectively nerfing it). Just look at the numbers in the table--buffing HP will prolong battles. Once AP isn't as effective, people will find less value in the lower dps on their PvE skills and use the skills actually meant for an Ele. At the same time, monster balance (with regards to damage) will remain unchanged.

If you played WoC even in NM you will see Elementalists are shafted because of stuff like "Stand Your Ground!" (on paragons and ritualists), "Watch Yourself!" (on warriors, paragons, AND monks?, seriously?), Protective was Kaolai while Way of the Pure, and Rend/Strip Enchantment (Scavengers only) make them more vulnerable (Aura of Restoration being 20 recharge instead of 5 doesn't help). Plus the tighter the corridor, the more adjacent range is the same as nearby: I think I single-handedly nuked mobs with MoP+splinter spikes in Dragon's Throat and the Kaineng City Zones. The only real danger to hexes is divert/ deny hexes; smite hex and remove hex aren't that large of a problem and because monster hex removal skills are in the 20-25 second recharge range they don't really pose a problem.

I don't think you need super-complicated fixes: hex removal on mesmers&monks, more spread mobs (Invoke vs MOP, E-Surge, or Keystone), and less armor boosts all over the place (from level and skills) are a start. MMs were already killed with holy damage everywhere, fire/earth AOEs, plus the minion skills.

Another thing is that there's basically one "Elementalist" damage build for HM (not AP): Invoke+Chain. Mind Blast+Rodgort's isn't as viable because your other skills are more or less filler, like Fireball/Liquid Flame/Immolate. In both cases, you still lose skill slots just for attunement (and another if using AoR with 8+ Energy Storage for +1 more energy return). Neither will save your butt when you get in trouble...unlike Keystone or Dom stuff.

You've failed to understand the purpose of that particular post.
I never suggested either of those; I said that those are one of the few possible courses of action to address the lack of use of Elemental skills on Ele skill bars, but what's more likely as a result is the cessation of Elementalists playing PvE.

If this were to happen, AP would still dominate offensive caster bars, including the Elementalist as would the associated PvE skills.

"A few possible courses of action" isn't a suggestion. Sorry for the misinterpretation.

Okay, you do have a point there. I forgot that AP recharges it self and can be casted right before an enemy death.

However, nerfing AP will not improve the Elementalist at all. It will effetively remove them from the game. I'm not going to repeat how buffing numbers isn't going to go well. Functionality, perhaps you can change. But in my opinion, it's risky.

Why do you want to nerf AP?? Im doing first part of WoC right now and tried Air, Earth and Fire builds on my Ele - it doesnt works. Even protection wards cant help much my heros. My damage is pathetic.
Only through AP and Discord team i can finish WoC. If you cant buff Ele just leave us AP !

That's good - now HM is, usually, 'normal mode', with NM being 'lolwut easy mode'. It IS supposed to be challenging and demanding, and now it's not quite like that.
Hello there, tactical gameplay. Hello there, Protective Spirit. Hello there, Pain Inverter. Hello there, minions and spirits. Hello there, interrupts. Hello there...
If an elementalist or ritualist boss decimates you on the first fight, you're doing something wrong. Given the vast amount of skills and power-ups available, given the seven heroes to aid you (and their unhuman rupt skills), you should be more than able to stay alive, even if the current HM bosses were buffed.

If Anet go down this route, I anticipate a massive wave of complaint from players about how the buffed ele bosses have become far too hard

I've said previously that the quick and dirty way of partially addressing this would be through tweaking something that only affects PvE player eles. Intensity or Elemental Lord are available. However, they would have to be altered to an extent that makes then attractive in comparison to currently used PvE skills. A tweak/buff to these skills plus a mild reworking of the functionality of ES and selective buffs to some useless skills might be the way forward.

In essence, I want to be in a place where I don't have to rely on an Assassin elite or become a pseudo-monk to add real value to a PvE group

I never understood why AP recharged non-assassin skills to be honest.

AoR could be restored to a more normal recharge (10-15 like Healer's Boon /UA/Zealous Renewal/Zealous Vow/Grenth's Grasp/Grenth's Aura/Heart of Holy Flame/Mystic Regeneration/Mystic Vigor/Onslaught/Wielder's Zeal/Locust's Fury/Way of the Empty Palm/Channeling maybe). It wasn't exactly broken at 12 recharge, was it? (see http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Feedb...dates/20110322) People ran Assault Enchantments and Strip Enchantment+Rip Enchantment/Shatter Enchantment. Rend Enchantments, Mirror of Disenchantment (when running multiple eles don't go fight Margonites), Disenchantment (Slaver's Exile especially), Gaze of Contempt (never I think), Pain of Disenchantment (only one mob I think), Order of Apostasy (Afflicted I believe), Shatter Storm (rarely), Shattering Assault (rarely), and Chilblains (8 recharge vs 20 is hardly fair: Mandragors in EOTN + Skelk + Dragon Lich in FOW+ grawl + giants + titans + bog skales + others) are fairly annoying in PvE. Then again any non-mixed mob with single enchantment removal will wipe your attunements anyway.

Ele Lord could return more energy (every 5 ranks instead of every 10 ranks?) so that you don't need AoR. However, the high recharge makes it garbage as a cover enchant. If it gave you +2 at 10 energy storage, add in AoR and an attunement...then 5 energy spam skills like Lightning Javelin/Ice Spear/Stone Daggers/Lava Arrows and such could be used on the pretty terrible downtime on fire, earth and water magic without sucking up energy. However, in the process you waste 4 skill slots for terrible single target DPS so that's not exactly good but even without AoR you can spam stuff every 3 seconds (corresponding to the 3.75 of cast+recharge+aftercast on Lava Arrows and Lightning Javelin) without sucking up energy ...and Mind Blast becomes stronger. You'd probably need to remove aftercast on Flare, Stone Daggers, Ice Spear for them to be semi-workable or make them 0.25 to 0.50 cast.
--> alternately, it could have functionality that augments power more: such as doing +25% elemental damage (similar to old Intensity/BuH!) while attuned

Intensity could give a 50% damage boost to that spell, so that the AoE isn't so pitiful (unless you top out over 100 damage on your target it will be <50 so you might as well just use Technobabble or Alkar's Alchemical Acid, although they are adjacent range). Or give it a shot against Cry of Pain by making it "in the area" range.

The fundamental thing here is skills like Ele Lord/Intensity need to do ridiculous things because they don't do anything on their own unlike Snow Storm, YMLAD!, FH!, etc. With attunement + AoR + overpriced ele skill you're already using up 3 skill slots and if you carry a res skill you basically end up with 2 ele skills+3 PVE+attunement+AoR+res or 3 ele skills+2 PVE+AoR+attunement+res. It's a bar expansion similar to a MM with Masochism + Aura of the Lich, a Healer's Boon monk, or a Keystone Signet mesmer with Mantra of Inscriptions + Symbolic Celerity: except being super-reliant on the enchantments (without attunement, your energy goes down very fast because every overpriced ele skill worth using is 10+ energy more or less).

If Elementalists are buffed across the board even for bosses then "Save Yourselves!" should be nerfed hard to +25 armor or something (with reduced cost and perhaps increased duration), simply because it doesn't matter even if HM Eles do 750 damage because it gets reduced by 82% (making it laughable for melee classes and imbagons). I mean...it gives you more armor than Feigned Neutrality, Ward Against Harm, Shadow Sanctuary (PVE skill), Elemental Resistance, Dryder's Defenses, Dolyak Signet, Armor of Mist, or maxed out Armor of earth: isn't that overkill considering the drawbacks of alternatives?

AoHM has been made pretty lame now unless you run Pious Renewal as your elite ... so SY! shouldn't suffer to that extent.

To compensate for a SY! nerf, I'd buff TNTF! (energy and recharge reduction to work better in 4man and 6man teams) because Paragons shouldn't be relegated to only P/W if they want to adequately support the party. A recharge reduction would make it comparable to Divine Healing but with more prot-like effects.

Really? Pain Inverter. Here's some math for you:

At Asuran Lv10, PI returns 140% damage back at the source. That means that if anything does just over 57 damage to you, you get the full benefit of PI. With buffed Elementalists, it doesn't matter whether they do 57 damage or 570, PI won't change in the way it will play.

Enchantments? Stripping is fun.

What you call tactical gameplay is making sure you Soul Twist Shelter at all times. But wait, that doesn't matter because people do that anyway.

With buffs Ele's NPC's, all that will achieved is a smaller margin for error and a lot of pissed off people. But then again, maybe that's what defines HM to some people: smaller margin for error means harder gameplay.

I remember having hard times against the ele boss at the end of Dasha Vestibule in HM. And with the spider-bosses in the Torment mission with freeing souls.
I used SoS spiritmancer build as Me/Rt back then, with PI as optional skill. I tried to pull and kill as many mobs around as possible, flagged heroes right out of the boss's range, then summoned all spirits, put Protective Spirit on me from a hero, aggroed the boss with PI and quickly used Summon Spirits.
I got hit for ~55. The boss got hit for 560 if his first skill was AoE, or 640+ if the second/third skill was AoE. [Let me just point out that, ele or not, bosses with no AoE skills are laughable, even in HM]. Usually at least one spirit, Vampirism, survived, thus adding at least another 80 damage in case the boss used another AoE skill on me.
And THEN i deflagged my heroes, and finished the boss off (in case he didn't die of PI).

I never used any consumables going H/H (only used DP sweets for the title, really), never used a ST Shelter hero, never used SY unless on my para, who simply can't support the team otherwise (or dish enough damage to replace SY with something damage-wise).

Stripping? Use Shielding Hands as cover.
Not enough? Change your team build so it's more useful against the threats you're going to face in the location you're going to, and less universal. GW was originally intended to require people to adapt, rather than simply steamroll through HM using one discord/mesmer/rit/whatever build.
Still can't deal with a particularly nasty boss or location? Pop a conset - they aren't there only to minimise speedclear runs, and higher HM difficulty might mean that the less skilled players would need consets in order to gain HM titles, making them more prestigous, and more rewarding (especially for said players).

HM should require proper preparation, both in terms of 'what should i take with me into the zone' as well as 'how should i prepare to aggro this particular boss'. Those monsters are bosses, creatures with often substantial power, lore-wise, they shouldn't die to your universal lolwut build simply because you're the player and they're not.
It's not the best example, given i also believe that PC elementalists should be fixed asap for HM, but you simply can't keep using fire magic for Destruction Depths HM, only because you so like your fire magic build and it worked elsewhere (or in NM). If the same way of thinking is applied onto the rest of your team, you will fail miserably because you didn't adapt properly, and it will generate frustration - a kind of well self-earned one, so to speak.

All of you seem to want something different out of the game in terms of PvE difficulty. It's impossible to please every gamer. Best thing they can do is balance HM out by reducing armor and increasing health, then change some skills for professions that need an update. I think one of the hardest things that needs to be hit with a nerf bat is Panic. Panic makes PvE just to fking easy. Every person I have talked to about heroes has a Panic somewhere in his setup and its when elites like this one become such a staple that they need to be looked at closely. It's either improve AI(wont happen) or reduce the effectiveness of Panic. Fortunately for AR ignoring damage the health increase will be a blanket nerf that it so desperately needs.

I agree with everything you wrote, except the above. While Panic is nice, it does not offer complete protection. Psychic Instability provides FOUR seconds of NOTHING from foes. If your party is built right, which generally with 7 heroes it will be, the entire mob should die within four seconds. Panic, while it stops most skills, does not stop ALL enemy actions. Non-attack skills, and one skill every so often will still get through, thus possibly causing trouble.

Panic has a much greater range than PI. Panic also lasts 11 seconds(at 16 dom) and hexes all nearby foes. If a group is hit by a full panic they wont get rid of it because its an AoE hex. Panic also triggers when any skill is used, thus interrupting all other mob actions. Don't get me wrong PI is powerful and I have used both, but in my experience Panic is just more devastating because if its range and ability to hex all mobs in that range.

Panic sucks and needs no nerf imo. It has its uses against very large mobs or if you want a large AoE hex for whatever reason (e.g. breaking enemy Hex Breaker), but most of the time ESurge is simply better. PI sucks too and needs no nerf; again, ESurge is simply better.

Still no comment on how to make Elementalists use Elementalist skills, I haven't given it much thought either. I guess if ANet asked me how I'd buff Elementalists I'd think more about it, but until then I'm just waiting for the update and will critique after seeing it.

PS: I strongly suspect "if your party is built right the entire mob should die within four seconds" to be a blatant exaggeration. Two or three monsters die in four seconds, maybe. Entire mob, no.
PPS: Prot Spirit does wonders against any Elementalist boss that cannot be cspaced through; you do not need ST Shelter. Using Prot Spirit takes more micro than ST Shelter, though, which I guess qualifies as "tactical gameplay".

Jeydra, run MoP necro...I decimated an entire WoC mob in about 3 seconds because they were in a bunched unaggroed state (and started attacking sin support). Also helps when it's a tight corridor and you're running Keystone or other AoE on top. I don't remember if there were more physical triggers but I remember it was sin support, my spear trigger, splinter weapon.

I ran the same quest with AP +sin on my monk and didn't get anything close. (every other hero was the same except maybe for runes). It takes me about 3x longer to wipe a mob using a monk AP compared to necro one. Plus a necro stays at 100% energy all the time.

Did you count the time it takes to ball them?

From the time Psychic Instability is cast, to the time foes are beginning to stand up, and cast their skills or attack again, they're basically low enough that I've already began running to the next mob, and my heroes as they lag behind finish it up. So, no, it's not within four seconds exactly, but it's always been close enough that I use it in my measurements.

Did you actually time it? Because 4s is over twice as fast as the best times I can get, and I have trouble believing it is even possible.

If I run my high damage team, 4 Air Eles, PI Dom Mes and E Surge Mes. Once the PI hits, Gwen casts Waestral's Demise and Waestral's Worry. Causes a hot spike, but hard to pull off in a lot of areas.

Share your builds (+ any instructions on using them)? I'll try it myself.

Do not start again a "Let's see what fastest!" discussion....

Btw, Panic is good, but not great. When you have large caster mobs balled, it rocks. But in most situation, where you aggro mobs of 4-5 units, and half of those are meeles, it lose most of his power.

I've been fiddling about with my hero team builds. I have a basic core of 3 nec and 2 Rt with me as an earth ele with Unsteady Ground as my elite.

My last 2 places are taken by 2 out of these 4 - Panic mes, PI mes, Keystone mes and smite/hybrid monk.

It's totally unscientific I know, but I seem to get best results from the PI mes and smite hybrid monk. However, the margin between any combo is small and to some extent depends on the area/foes.

Maybe that's just down to my playstyle

I <3 Panic and PI. Instantly turn a mob of any size into a bunch of placid meatbags for the slaughter. I'm sure it's not the fastest build, but it makes it much easier to steamroll damn near anything.

So any word on how far they are revamping whatever it is? Also if they're going through with the said casses or just ele?

So far its just HM and eles that will be changed for sure. Rangers and Paras are rumored along with smite monks but imho they will be looked at in the future.

Bleh. 'In the future', anets favourite term. At this rate GW Beyond won't hit Elona, let alone leave them any time for rejuvenating classes.. .

I never liked NF and would rather have classes worked on before any GW beyond content in NF. We saw Part 2 WoC a lot sooner than many people thought so Part 3 can't be too far off. I really hope all their plans are done and implemented before the release of GW2. There wouldn't be many people to appreciate new content in an old game and it would be kind of a waste. However they plan to support GW after GW2 release so no way to tell. If I had to guess I would say WoC part 3 will be out by December and HM/ele changes in April or May, unless they have already been working on it.

Well, it's been two and a half months since the preview, and a month and a half since WoC2. Any update or possible release date of the Hard Mode/Ele+ changes?

I ask because if the update doesn't come by this Thursday, it won't come until December. (Obvious reasons, major updates are always released Thursdays for testing purposes, skill changes are never released the Thursday before the mAT unless they are the followup nerf, etc.)

Nothing new so far, we don't even know if the update is supposed to come before or after WoC part 3, nor how big will it be by itself. On an unrelated note, they are planning to release the old-promised melee hero AI update with the final part of WoC.

John Stumme had said long time ago that future profession's skill updates after the dervish would be smaller (or at least not major overhauls, or at least not every change would fit within one and only one update, or something similar that I don't know exactly), and from this thread we know they're planning to focus on the elementalists elites first, and normal skills thereafter. So it's sure to be smaller.

Meanwhile, the bug change to leadership's description confirms that they are playing with Paragon changes already, so I don't know how it'll be.

My mistake, you are right, I didn't mean to imply it was promised before the end of the year or anything. Thanks for the info, I was unaware of the leadership description bug. Also, elite changes alone sounds good if it means they will arrive sooner.

It may be a while before HM changes take place. They plan to reduce almost every mobs armor back down to 60,70 and 80 depending on profession and increasing their health. Doing that across the board takes time, not to mention they plan to focus on professions and beyond content along with HM changes.

For the release of WoC part 3 and the melee AI update, it becomes slimmer with each passing day that it will be released before the Wintersday event. Once its the middle of December I think you can safely say it won't be out until January.

A skill update is overdue for pvp.

skill updates are also overdue for PvE. Its been forever since the derv update... and for those of us who don't have a derv character, we haven't had a skill update since the mes update. Skill updates are overdue all around, and I don't like how anet is putting so much emphasis on GW beyond as opposed to skill updates.