Update - January 5, 2012

Swingline

Swingline

Forge Runner

Join Date: Sep 2010

Somewhere far away from you

The Mirror of Reason[SNOW]

W/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ensign View Post
I probably don't care all that much because I've largely retired my Ele at this point, and have switched almost entirely to playing Warrior in PvE.

While I liked the Air Ele heroes a *lot* when playing my Ele, I was never impressed by them at all when playing Warrior; the second Necro and another Mesmer feel way better there.

I do think it's worth pointing out that I've consistently cleared Hard Mode content faster with an Ele + Ele heroes than with a Warrior + Necro/Mesmer; even Ele + Necro/Mesmer heroes is faster than Warrior + Necro/Mesmer.

I really have no clue what to make of that observation.
Warrior is my main and its an awesome but under appreciated class. Mainly because so many new players give them a bad name. I am lucky because my monk is close to GWAMM and I can work on my 3rd character which is the Ele so I can appreciate this update. Getting GWAMM and 50/50 with a warrior though was fun.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Outerworld View Post
Shield Guardian was never essential, ER worked fine with or without it. An Invoke build cannot work without the titular skill for obvious reasons, hence the comparison you tried to make isn't exactly accurate. I do agree with you that those skills should have been split however.
The whole point of SG was that it gave 75% block and once it blocked it did an AoE heal with a 1 second recharge. The high energy cost was irrelevant to ER prot eles so it became a staple. Anet obviously tried to kill two birds with one stone in the SG change. One was to try and hamper the 3 melee plague in PvP, the other to make hurt hero ER prot.

Xenomortis

Xenomortis

Tea Powered

Join Date: May 2008

UK

N/

Quote:
Originally Posted by bhavv View Post
AP was the most ridiculous way I've ever seen ellys played. You devote a whole skill bar to just 2 elementalist skills (chain lightning and lightning orb), only actually use chain lightning, and claim that this is the best 'elementalist' skill bar when it uses just two offensive elly skills and relies on several PVE skills plus an assassin elite.

If its so good, then give your elly heroes AP + Chain Lightning instead of Invoke + Chain, and thats your minor invoke nerf sorted out.

I dont subscribe to this method of logic. Compare elementalist options now with with elly elites and skills to the same thing before, they are a huge improvement to having only two options as a player elly - ER or AP, or for heroes only having Invoke as an option.
You can't possibly be this stupid. You cannot possibly consider that a legitimate argument.

AP builds are, by far, the strongest offensive option for casters beyond spirit spamming and minions.* The Elementalist is not in a unique situation in that regard, it never was. I've explained why AP builds dominate and why this update was never going to change that, so I won't bother repeating. Where Elementalists fell behind was in tiers below this top tier and the majority of complaints stem from that because the majority of players don't really play in that top tier of builds, or feel that their arbitrary definitions and constraints should apply in some way (e.g. E/A AP builds aren't real Elementalist builds).

*They may even best those two, but summons are harder to gauge in terms of offense.

Now as for heroes, we have a different set of circumstances that better reflect the skill situation; notably we don't have PvE skills. We also lose much of our ability to create ridiculous combos due to the AI, but we tend to look at bars in vacuums anyway.


Quote:
Originally Posted by bhavv View Post
Invoke was good only because everything else that ellys had sucked in HM. This was the one valid build that pre update ellys could use in HM without relying on their secondary profession, just like the Imbagon build for Paragons. Anet noticed this, and thats why we got this update.
The Invoke+Chain Lightning template on a hero was good because it was efficient. Those two skills were enough together to create a decent offensive hero that could serve as a reliable platform for something else; notably Fallback but an Elementalist has the energy (just about) for other options. The actual damage from Chain Lightning and Invoke may have been weaker compared to single casts of ESurge or whatever, but Invoke has a very generous cast time and both it and Chain have excellent recharges; the build needs nothing more for decent offense.
Now this update has nerfed that build; you can still run Invoke or Chain Lightning in a build, but running both cuts the reliability of the hero that made it useful and only running one severely reduces it's offensive power.
As for other Elementalist options; well not many were really introduced that can compare: not many Elementalist skills offer the efficiency that Invoke Lightning and Chain Lightning had. Rodgort's Invocation was always had some potential but it's position in Fire Magic always held it back, there was nothing else in Fire Magic worth looking at really, and its energy cost was always debilitating. This update helped a little in that regard; Fireball got its cast time reduced. However, Elemental Attunement + Rodgort's + stuff in fire was never as good as Invoke+Chain Lightning and that would still be true if Invoke wasn't hit.
Some of the new elites may look promising, but they're invariably going to have to be coupled with very weak non-elites and so the strength of such options plummet; Shatterstone in particular comes to mind.
The top option for Elementalist heroes was hit in a way that destroys the aspects that made it good. Options below it were buffed yes, but not to the point were it's a straightforward replacement.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Ensign View Post
I do think it's worth pointing out that I've consistently cleared Hard Mode content faster with an Ele + Ele heroes than with a Warrior + Necro/Mesmer; even Ele + Necro/Mesmer heroes is faster than Warrior + Necro/Mesmer.

I really have no clue what to make of that observation.
You play an Ele better than a Warrior?
Ever since the Rit update came along, I've consistently found playing a caster in a h/h caster ball easier than playing as a melee character, but since I've always believed I truly suck at playing melee, I've never given it much thought.

Outerworld

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Aug 2010

UK

Gil Worz Is Srs [Bsns]

W/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Swingline View Post
The whole point of SG was that it gave 75% block and once it blocked it did an AoE heal with a 1 second recharge. The high energy cost was irrelevant to ER prot eles so it became a staple. Anet obviously tried to kill two birds with one stone in the SG change. One was to try and hamper the 3 melee plague in PvP, the other to make hurt hero ER prot.
SG healing was nice but it was largely a filler skill. The real reason to bring it was the spammability, something that other skills can also provide. Having to run either Invoke or Chain now is a much harsher blow to it's efficiency than losing SG was to ER.

Regardless of all that I really don't feel like getting into an argument over this, so we can at least agree that they should have just split the skills right?

bhavv

bhavv

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Sep 2006

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xenomortis View Post
You can't possibly be this stupid. You cannot possibly consider that a legitimate argument.

AP builds are, by far, the strongest offensive option for casters beyond spirit spamming and minions.
You dont understand my argument. Using an elite skill from your secondary profession is not a legitimate way of analysing the DPS of your primary profession.

I consider the use of non primary skills, especially the elite to make an effective build for your primary class to mean that there is something simply wrong with the primary classes skill choices in the first place, and this is the issue that needs addressing rather than telling people that they are wrong to be using anything other than AP, ER or Invoke on their ellys.

If AP is the most powerful option for casters, then use it on your heroes as well.

AP works well for skills with long recharges, but for something with a 6s recharge its ridiculous. Get yourself a 40/40 weapon set and use this:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ebon_...dard_of_Wisdom

That gives 100% half skill recharge.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xenomortis View Post
Now this update has nerfed that build; you can still run Invoke or Chain Lightning in a build, but running both cuts the reliability of the hero that made it useful and only running one severely reduces it's offensive power.
So learn to adapt, just like everyone else have always had to.

DiogoSilva

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Feb 2011

Girl

E/

The real problem with Invoke/ Chain Lightning nerfs, is the lack of alternatives to substitute either of them. However, for a player, I found out that the new Blinding Surge works almost as good as Invoke for spammable spikes, although it trades some of its power (it's weaker than even Chain) for a lot of blind, as well as it's more circunstancial (not effective against casters). The heroes, however, don't use the new BS as a spike skill.

Thunderclap has potential, but other than coupling it with Chain Lightning, there's nothing else decent to put on the bar, and heroes needed at least one more efficient and spammable spike skill here, or as an alternative, some efficient utility skills. Air magic line offers neither for PvE.

Air and water magic suffer the most from lack of good non-elite skills, and this prevents their new elites to be put to full use. Invoke had the advantage that, alongside Chain Lightning, was sufficient; AND heroes AI knew how to use it well enough too.

Meanwhile, fire and earth elementalists have gotten a clear, strict buff. Fire damage is back to NM level, although I'm not sure how strong that might be on high-level areas. Earth damage is back too, and its best elites were buffed. The new Fireball is an extra spammable skill of choice, the new churning earth is win in HM.

So far, I think an earth elementalist is superior to an Ineptitude Illusion mesmer. It has about equal damage, more so if you take EBSoH with yourself, it has about as much (if not more?) melee control, it has much better crowd control, and can deal full damage without depending on melee foes, being more general. It's lovely.

bhavv

bhavv

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Sep 2006

Quote:
Originally Posted by DiogoSilva View Post
So far, I think an earth elementalist is superior to an Ineptitude Illusion mesmer. It has about equal damage, more so if you take EBSoH with yourself, it has about as much (if not more?) melee control, it has much better crowd control, and can deal full damage without depending on melee foes, being more general. It's lovely.
I think so too, my party is taking much less damage with UG + Eruption than it did with an Ineptitude mesmer.

Does Churning Earth knock down foes in HM without speed buffs?

Also I forgot to check with glimmering mark, but I think the AI automatically casts spells on the same target afterwards which removes it, making this a useless elite choice if that happens, something else that could have been easily fixed with a skill split.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xenomortis View Post
[URL="http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showpost.php?p=5567056&postcount=177"]
Thats nice, however most people in that thread, and in this one agree that dropping your mesmer heroes for invoke ellys was a far worse option due to losing out on so much shutdown, and any damage difference is so minuscule to not be worth it. Hence there is nothing about this update that harms hero builds in any ways, all it has done is give you so many more options with elly heroes.

DiogoSilva

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Feb 2011

Girl

E/

Quote:
Originally Posted by bhavv View Post
I think so too, my party is taking much less damage with UG + Eruption than it did with an Ineptitude mesmer.

Does Churning Earth knock down foes in HM without speed buffs?
All HM foes have speed boosts. CE was already a decent skill before, now it's better with less casting time and less armor from foes. The only exception is when used alongside snares. No idea how well heroes use it, have to test it out.

My earth hero's bar is the following:
- Unsteady Ground
- Churning Earth
- Eruption
- Ward Against Melee
- Ward Against Foes
- Glyph of Lesser Energy
- Earth Attunement
- Aura of Restoration

The melee AI runs straight into the Wards, and the hero knows how to spam its nukes once they are there. I'm not sure if they waste their Churning Earth during that moment, though.

Still, my results are excellent so far. This build almost completely disables melee. Even with Ineptitude mesmers dedicating half of their bar and their elite for anti-melee, I found out that melee foes could still kill my party very often, especially when battles lasted long enough and against intelligent bars.

WoC healers waste their time removing conditions from Eruption, the wards aren't removable, and you can't do much when KDed. In between recharges, Ward of Melee does its job decently, and it's not even takes much until UG recharge again.

After the melee are taken out, or even if you're fighting only a full-ranged mob, this hero still deals enough damage, and now that's where Churning Earth shines the most. It also happens that the casters AI is dumb enough to attack sometimes, but I prefer unconditional damage plus the occasional KD against them than the conditional damage from ineptitude.

If you're an elementalist yourself and take EBSoH, the earth hero really shines. Double Dragon with you then becomes godly. Your melee opponents take the extra 14 armor-ignoring damage for 8 seconds from two different sources. Resulting in about 224 damage extra from EBSoH alone! With the Heat series and Meteor against the casters, and you have excellent crowd control while you destroy melee.

Finally, with a MM, both you and your earth ele + EBSoH shine at nuking, and Double Dragon can then be cast on whichever minion you want, although minions can die quickly here. I wonder if a true MM is better than a Minion Bomber in this context, especially now that minions natural strength is also higher.

Gonna test this out.

bhavv

bhavv

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Sep 2006

I think I'll remove my water magic hero and swap obsidian flame + magnetic surge to those two wards, that seems like a much better idea.

I'll also swap Starburst back to Searing flames and mimick that instead, as Starburst is rather lame for heroes and I didnt like having to run around to cast it (same with lava font which I swapped to snowstorm).

I think that blinding Surge would also be better than Glimmering Mark, because the AI seems to cast something right after it.

DiogoSilva

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Feb 2011

Girl

E/

Quote:
Originally Posted by bhavv View Post
I think I'll remove my water magic hero and swap obsidian flame + magnetic surge to those two wards, that seems like a much better idea.
I was unsure about Ward of Melee, but I think I prefer the redudancy for extra safety. At least for heroes, because you never know when they might screw up. Ward Against Foes has been key, though.

I do think, however, that Obsidian Flame is a great skill against armored foes, but being single target limits its uses to some foes like, bosses, or those Jade Armor, etc.

EDIT: I went to the far shiverpeaks to kill minotaurs. I know it's such an easy area, but it was just me with double dragon/ heats/ EBSoH, Vekk with the earth build I mentioned abouve, and Livia as a necro rit healer. We did kill mobs of 5 minotaurs in very few seconds, and our health bars were always full with the occasional healing. Considering that they are enemies with high armor, I was pretty satisfied by how fast I and Vekk killed them. Sure, EBSoH + Double Dragon making it activating 16 times in 8 seconds is strong. But if against 96 armor that's what happened, then you can imagine against 60 armor casters, 70 armored assassins and 80+ dervishes and warriors. Heh, even rangers with 100 elemental armor, which is just 4 more, and aboust as high as you'll face in general/ casual hard mode... Still, being an easier area, don't want to give much credit to it.

The earth ele really needs a 40% recharge weapon set, though. It's their main weakness so far, even though UG is easily available. And they do cast Churning Earth on foes within Ward Against Foes. Ward Against Melee might be switched to something more spammable if the area is not hard enough, but I don't know what it could be.

EDIT 2: My necro had weaken armor too.

Da Kenster

Da Kenster

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Feb 2006

A shoebox

The Boat Crew

W/E

Quote:
Originally Posted by Swingline View Post
Starburst has amazing potential to but I have not tested it out yet.
I ran into the new Star Burst doing Raisu Palace HM yesterday, and I also want to try it out and fool around with it. Could be fun

keli

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Sep 2006

Budapest

E/

god, double dragon needs a new active animation, it gets pretty hectic if there are 3-4 dd eles

Coast

Coast

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Jul 2006

Belgium

Whats Going On [sup]

Mo/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Swingline View Post
Then the skill should have been split.

----------



Thats blurring the lines between fire and air magic.


SF doing 36 damage against margonite dervs still >.>
Every other attributes aoe is mostly not limiting while only air has nothing (except those 2 kd ones)

And thats 36dmg with lb title on? lol

bj91x

bj91x

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Dec 2005

If you compared a SF E and an (old) IL E in terms of just pure DPS, then yes, the SF E did more DPS, even against single high armored targets. Even with IL's armor penetration, it couldn't match the DPS provided the armor ignoring burning and the quick recharge of SF. However, the reason IL was better was because it was more flexible and had more potential.

Let's take for example, a case of 4 SF E's vs 4 IL E's. In this case, using the same set up as above, the IL E's would deal more DPS. In HM, a huge chunk of SF's damage came from burning. Unfortunately, burning doesn't stack. If you have 4 SF's, you don't get 4 times the burning. You have DPS that just go to waste. On the other hand, the IL E's don't lose a bit (though the long cast time of CL did hurt a bit).

Then there are PVE skills like EBSH. This cuts what, 3 seconds from IL's recharge (I don't remember the exact recharge atm)? Then there's SF where the recharge is cut by only 1 second. And so what if SF recharges faster? What are you going to do? Burn them faster? SF's fire damage caused on targets already burning was nothing to write home about in the old HM.

There's also the fact that this is a team game that consists of multiple damage dealers. Let's say that a SF E did 40 DPS and an IL E did 30 DPS. While this may seem like a huge advantage, when you have multiple allies killing things, SF's burning isn't going to do a whole lot before things die. On the other hand, IL again, doesn't miss a bit. Then there's the fact that for speed runs, IL can bring more utility skills where a SF E relies heavily on energy management skills.

Also, I'm on board with this hate for exhaustion. Heroes simply cannot play smart enough to handle exhaustion. I have tons of fun builds that I would love to put on my heroes. Unfortunately, the AI simply cannot handle many of these builds. This update just changed a ton of skills to be highly ineffective on heroes and the exhaustion problem is one of them. Seriously, what's the point of exhaustion in PVE? Why not just reduce the damage, increase the recharge, etc. IMO, there's no valid reason to have exhaustion over reduced damage, increased recharge, etc. I thought this update would allow me to give my E heroes tons of fun DPS builds. Unfortunately, I don't have a single new DPS build for my E heroes that I would enjoy.

DiogoSilva

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Feb 2011

Girl

E/

I don't see the problem with the new exhaustion. 5ex on a single skill is irrelevant to most PvE, and to a lot of PvP, the exceptions being when you have to fight for a long time without a single break. The real problem is that two spammable skills with 5ex in the same bar is indeed a problem, and that nerfed one.single.build, but even then, this could be fixed in a different way.

Other than mixing Invoke with Chain, how many DPS builds does this prevent your heroes to take? Maybe if you be crazy enough to mix Obsidian Flame + Earthquake + Dragon Stomp, or something.

EDIT: Or maybe Mind Burn, I can see a problem with that. I don't know how the heroes would use it. But there's already Searing Flames for a similar alternative to that.

Kunder

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Nov 2010

Quote:
Let's take for example, a case of 4 SF E's vs 4 IL E's. In this case, using the same set up as above, the IL E's would deal more DPS. In HM, a huge chunk of SF's damage came from burning. Unfortunately, burning doesn't stack. If you have 4 SF's, you don't get 4 times the burning. You have DPS that just go to waste. On the other hand, the IL E's don't lose a bit (though the long cast time of CL did hurt a bit).
SF now beats old IL's DPS so badly it isn't even funny, even without burning it still wins easy. Thats because it can be spammed faster and also activate EBSoH faster.

Against 80 AL enemies, IL/CL hits ~27 DPS with EBSoH. SF hits ~30 DPS before you include burning. Not even considering the fact that can hit a lot more than 3 targets, and Fire has Liquid Flame as well (not calculating it since it's not for DPS, but for spike).

Quote:
Then there are PVE skills like EBSH. This cuts what, 3 seconds from IL's recharge (I don't remember the exact recharge atm)? Then there's SF where the recharge is cut by only 1 second. And so what if SF recharges faster? What are you going to do? Burn them faster? SF's fire damage caused on targets already burning was nothing to write home about in the old HM.
You mean EBSoW? Well, 1s recharge SF makes its damage go up 50%. 3s recharge on CL/IL only makes its damage go up by about 40%ish.

Quote:
Also, I'm on board with this hate for exhaustion. Heroes simply cannot play smart enough to handle exhaustion. I have tons of fun builds that I would love to put on my heroes. Unfortunately, the AI simply cannot handle many of these builds. This update just changed a ton of skills to be highly ineffective on heroes and the exhaustion problem is one of them. Seriously, what's the point of exhaustion in PVE? Why not just reduce the damage, increase the recharge, etc. IMO, there's no valid reason to have exhaustion over reduced damage, increased recharge, etc. I thought this update would allow me to give my E heroes tons of fun DPS builds. Unfortunately, I don't have a single new DPS build for my E heroes that I would enjoy.
Yeah, Exhaustion absolutely doesn't work for heroes and it only works for players on seriously powerful skills that you will only use once, maybe twice per battle. CL/IW are not that, they are spam skills.

DiogoSilva

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Feb 2011

Girl

E/

I just tested Invoke Lightning + Chain Lightning on Zhed Shadowhoof against Master of Damage. He spammed those skills until the exhaustion bar was about 40% filled, then slowed the pace down, and he NEVER casted those spells when his exhastion was about half of his entire energy.

Are you people sure the AI suck that much at using exhaustion skills?

This seems like good news to me, especially for those who want to give (only) one spammable 5ex spell to their heroes (ex. Chain, Mind Burn) and are afraid their heroes getting burned out of energy.

lemming

lemming

The Hotshot

Join Date: May 2006

Honolulu

International District [id???]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Swingline View Post
This update was PvE oriented and I am sure Anet knew of Invokes involvement in PvE hero setups. Invoke was never a problem in PvP after it's damage was nerfed down to 95. People just bitched because they failed to shield swap after that. Air magic has always been the choice of damage in PvP because of its intended goal, which is to deal single target damage just as water magics goal is to snare.
I'm really curious as to what makes you think that. Invoke has been by far the most popular midline template in the last four months, behind only Onslaught and RC in terms of overall frequency. Dual Invoke spike has been the most popular team build of this period.

DiogoSilva

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Feb 2011

Girl

E/

Tested it again, heroes won't use Invoke/ Chain lightning skills ever if their exhaustion bar is at half of their energy bar. My eles have 81 energy, and they only use those skills when they have 50e max, to reduce it back to 45 max. If they have no other skill to use by then, they'll just wand their enemies down.

So no problem putting some Mind Burn or something on them, right? They'll slow down and then stop using it before it becomes a problem (45+ energy is more than enough for a spellcaster with good e.management).

EDIT: So, at the beginning, they spam those spells mindlessly. Then they'll use it every 15 seconds.

And this only applies if they have TWO spammable exhaustion skills. With chain lightning only, and more options to use (ex. Lightning Orb), their exhaustion rate is soooooo slow, that the 5ex cost of Chain Lightning and the likes is nearly irrelevant.

Kunder

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Nov 2010

If after 5 battles the hero barely casts your exhaustion causing spell, is it really worth him carrying it anymore?

I can certainly see one 5 exhaustion spell being fine, but then you have an air build with just chain lighting for damage. What are you planning on doing with that? Potentially MoM can work, but your other non-elite damage options aren't great either.

DiogoSilva

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Feb 2011

Girl

E/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kunder View Post
If after 5 battles the hero barely casts your exhaustion causing spell, is it really worth him carrying it anymore?
If you only have one exhaustion skill, yes. It'll take forever to fill the exhaustion bar, unless they can't use any other skill, and any slight break (ex. walking inbetween mobs in pve) will probably reduce the exhaustion stack to 0.

EDIT: The air magic line is a bit underpowered now that we can't have Invoke and Chain, and this applies to both heroes and players. Honestly, for now, only fire and earth heroes are worth it, at least until we get better non-elites for air and water.

Kunder

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Nov 2010

Air magic could use a decent AoE cracked armor. Making Chain and Invoke apply it wouldn't be a bad idea IMO. Using only one of them you won't output huge damage yourself, but the rest of your team (especially other eles) see large benefits from cracked armor everything, and the air ele could focus the rest of their bar on support.

Water I don't know about. Thematically it just isn't fitting into PvE well. Just adding more nuke spells makes it another version of fire magic. The only "cool" thing Water is doing that is relevant for PvE is healing from Mist Form, but the heal is pretty low at the moment so I don't see much use since the rest of the non-elites you are using are mostly fluff.

Perhaps for PvE water non-elites we make some more double cast spells, but instead of AoE hexing enemy's move speed down, they reduce enemy cast speed/attack speed/hit rate/etc? That would combine well with Mist Form for a full support character.

bhavv

bhavv

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Sep 2006

I've had one 5e exhaustion spell per hero (chain lightning or obby flame), and they never get over exhausted.

Regarding pure DPS, per single spike neither Searing Flames nor Invoke come close to matching this:



Thats the RA version, for PVE drop the last two skills for elemental lord and EBSOH. Have cracked armour somewhere as well. I honestly dont see why so many people still play ellys in PVE without ebsoh and cracked armour, this would obviously be what is limiting them.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kunder View Post
Air magic could use a decent AoE cracked armor.
Thunderclap? Its range is terrible however, it should really have an area range and it would be fine.

Kaida the Heartless

Kaida the Heartless

Desert Nomad

Join Date: May 2006

N/

Quote:
Originally Posted by bhavv View Post
Hence there is nothing about this update that harms hero builds in any ways, all it has done is give you so many more options with elly heroes.
The update took out the former #1 Ele build. I'd say that's pretty harmful. Yea, you get many more options, but none of them are as effective (save Searing Flames, which I, personally, have always said was better). That's all Ensign, Jeydra, and Xeno are trying to say.

It's like you have some Bacon, and someone comes along and takes all of it and gives you 3x your Bacon in Bologna instead. Yea, there's more, but its just not as good!

Ensign

Ensign

Just Plain Fluffy

Join Date: Dec 2004

Berkeley, CA

Idiot Savants

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xenomortis View Post
You play an Ele better than a Warrior?
Ever since the Rit update came along, I've consistently found playing a caster in a h/h caster ball easier than playing as a melee character, but since I've always believed I truly suck at playing melee, I've never given it much thought.
That's a fun self depreciating way to look at it, but I think not.

I think a big part of it simply comes from having to include the support structure to play melee - more removal, melee buffs - and that costs you speed when you only have one melee to use it with. Melee + Melee buffs scale ridiculously well, and a team of 4 melee plus some buffs and cleaning is crazy strong; one melee without buffs is not as strong as a caster in PvE, and adding the buffs to make you feel good isn't that much better than just having heroes pumping damage themselves.

The other part of it, and this is probably the 'you play Ele better than melee' part, is EVAS. I feel like proper use of that skill, coupled with Assassin's Promise, does so much to make your team fast and durable; it's not like waiting for a minion horde to catch up and sending them in first at all.

That's also a big part of what made the Air Eles so good. Fire an Assassin from max range, call a target, AP, and the Air Eles burst it down, resetting everything before your sin dies consistently; adding another sin, repeat. It's such a powerful momentum build, and the faster you go the safer you are.

Anyway, there's nothing to replace it on the horizon, so I guess I'm switching back to walking a big wall of summons into things for the win.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaida the Heartless View Post
The update took out the former #1 Ele build. I'd say that's pretty harmful. Yea, you get many more options, but none of them are as effective (save Searing Flames, which I, personally, have always said was better). That's all Ensign, Jeydra, and Xeno are trying to say.
My general point is that I thought that in a couple particular circumstances (in particular, on Assassin's Promise casters with hero builds) that Invoke Lightning Eles were stronger than the 2nd and potentially 3rd Dom Mesmers. They clearly are not now.

It is also not at all clear to me that any new hero Ele build is superior to a Dom Mesmer. I'll likely be experimenting a bit with that the next few days, but again, I'm not really optimistic about it.

Searing Flames isn't a terrible hero; it is just extremely energy hungry, and it is more of a DPS hero than a burst hero (and it was the fast bursts from Air to trigger AP that I liked). So it's a bit harder to mash Command stuff on to, and doesn't really serve the same purpose - and *really* benefits from multiple copies. I don't really like them all that much, but I'd be a little surprised if you were able to get them to work in, say, Slaver's.

makosi

makosi

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: Mar 2006

"Pre-nerf" is incorrect. It's pre-buff.

Requirement Begins With R [notQ]

Me/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ensign View Post
That's a fun self depreciating way to look at it, but I think not.

I think a big part of it simply comes from having to include the support structure to play melee - more removal, melee buffs - and that costs you speed when you only have one melee to use it with. Melee + Melee buffs scale ridiculously well, and a team of 4 melee plus some buffs and cleaning is crazy strong; one melee without buffs is not as strong as a caster in PvE, and adding the buffs to make you feel good isn't that much better than just having heroes pumping damage themselves.
On top of this, when you're a melee with spell-caster heroes (as most people use) then the heroes like to join your war/sin/derv in melee. They don't stand back. This is what I dislike most about running melees in PvE.

Kunder

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Nov 2010

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ensign View Post
That's also a big part of what made the Air Eles so good. Fire an Assassin from max range, call a target, AP, and the Air Eles burst it down, resetting everything before your sin dies consistently; adding another sin, repeat. It's such a powerful momentum build, and the faster you go the safer you are.
Replace Air eles with SF, run an FD build and use your AP/air to spread cracked armor around in between using EVAS every 3s (or use AP/any other cracked armor applyer). You should do as well or better as the IV teams did thanks to the inherent armor reductions. Only snag is that SF spam tends to have less energy available for the Fall Back you might like.

Playing around with the specific skill sets at the moment to see what I like. Hard to choose between EBSoH/EBSoW/FH as my other pve skills.

EDIT: Now that I remember FH gives cracked armor in addition to deep wound, it might be best to simply go the Me/A route and FC echo spam your EVAS.

Swingline

Swingline

Forge Runner

Join Date: Sep 2010

Somewhere far away from you

The Mirror of Reason[SNOW]

W/

EBSoH is a crutch. After this update I would move away from it for fear of it being nerfed.

Quote:
Originally Posted by bhavv View Post
Thunderclap? Its range is terrible however, it should really have an area range and it would be fine.
Weaken Armor is the best non elite for cracked armor.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ensign View Post
The other part of it, and this is probably the 'you play Ele better than melee' part, is EVAS. I feel like proper use of that skill, coupled with Assassin's Promise, does so much to make your team fast and durable; it's not like waiting for a minion horde to catch up and sending them in first at all.

That's also a big part of what made the Air Eles so good. Fire an Assassin from max range, call a target, AP, and the Air Eles burst it down, resetting everything before your sin dies consistently; adding another sin, repeat. It's such a powerful momentum build, and the faster you go the safer you are.
The fact a sin elite and a pve only skill are the best for eles over their own elites and skills is downright terrible skill design.

Quote:
Originally Posted by makosi View Post
On top of this, when you're a melee with spell-caster heroes (as most people use) then the heroes like to join your war/sin/derv in melee. They don't stand back. This is what I dislike most about running melees in PvE.
That's what the buttons under your compass are for.

makosi

makosi

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: Mar 2006

"Pre-nerf" is incorrect. It's pre-buff.

Requirement Begins With R [notQ]

Me/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Swingline
That's what the buttons under your compass are for.
But as a caster you don't need to go to this trouble. And flagging is not as simple as that: the heroes will do absolutely nothing until they reach their flag point.

It's a wee bit tedious to do that for every single mob.

Swingline

Swingline

Forge Runner

Join Date: Sep 2010

Somewhere far away from you

The Mirror of Reason[SNOW]

W/

Quote:
Originally Posted by makosi View Post
But as a caster you don't need to go to this trouble. And flagging is not as simple as that: the heroes will do absolutely nothing until they reach their flag point.

It's a wee bit tedious to do that for every single mob.
I got gwamm and 50/50 with a warrior. Its not hard.

Kunder

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Nov 2010

Quote:
Originally Posted by Swingline View Post
Weaken Armor is the best non elite for cracked armor.
There are really no good non-elites at all for cracked armor. I define "good" as at least Nearby range. If you aren't consistently hitting 2 or 3 enemies per usage it would often be better to bring just another damage spell slinger.

This is why I <3 FD with everything I have. Well, the AoE deep wound and dazed spreading helps too.

Quote:
EBSoH is a crutch. After this update I would move away from it for fear of it being nerfed.
TBH its not a HUGE benefit unless you are using DoTAoEs, which apply the bonus every second, or are a physical who can hit things really fast. Cracked Armor generally provides 50-100% more damage for spells like SF or Invoke unless the enemy armor is already close to being floored at 60. The main advantage is simply ease of use compared to trying to spread cracked armor around.

Swingline

Swingline

Forge Runner

Join Date: Sep 2010

Somewhere far away from you

The Mirror of Reason[SNOW]

W/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kunder View Post
There are really no good non-elites at all for cracked armor. I define "good" as at least Nearby range. If you aren't consistently hitting 2 or 3 enemies per usage it would often be better to bring just another damage spell slinger.

This is why I <3 FD with everything I have. Well, the AoE deep wound and dazed spreading helps too.



TBH its not a HUGE benefit unless you are using DoTAoEs, which apply the bonus every second, or are a physical who can hit things really fast. Cracked Armor generally provides 50-100% more damage unless the enemy armor is already close to being floored at 60.
I use weaken armor on my MM at 5+1 curses(thats all you need). It may be only adjacent range but it's a 5 second recharge and the hero seems to use it all the time, that may be because of his build though. Since the update went live I rape shit faster than Insanity Wolf. I see SF constantly doing full damage because of weaken armor, on more than one mob to.

Chthon

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: Apr 2007

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeydra View Post
What spells are you going to put there, other than Rodgort's + Chain?
Last night I was toying with Rodgort's+Chain+Deep Freeze+Steam.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xenomortis View Post
You can't possibly be this stupid.
Oh yes he can. Just you wait.

Quote:
Originally Posted by DiogoSilva View Post
5ex on a single skill is irrelevant...
Perhaps my eyes are going bad, but I had to re-read that 3 times to figure out that you're not playing a much more interesting version of GW than I am.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ensign View Post
Searing Flames isn't a terrible hero; it is just extremely energy hungry, and it is more of a DPS hero than a burst hero (and it was the fast bursts from Air to trigger AP that I liked). So it's a bit harder to mash Command stuff on to, and doesn't really serve the same purpose - and *really* benefits from multiple copies. I don't really like them all that much, but I'd be a little surprised if you were able to get them to work in, say, Slaver's.
Last night I took up Thommis as my testing ground. The fourth (fifth?) mob is one of those obnoxious two-healer/multi-rezzer mobs, plus it just never balls up right for me, so it's a reasonably challenging test. My work-in-progress Searing Flames team died the first time, but did just fine when I added a Panic mesmer. Not exactly ready for prime time, but it works.

Swingline

Swingline

Forge Runner

Join Date: Sep 2010

Somewhere far away from you

The Mirror of Reason[SNOW]

W/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chthon View Post
Last night I took up Thommis as my testing ground. The fourth (fifth?) mob is one of those obnoxious two-healer/multi-rezzer mobs, plus it just never balls up right for me, so it's a reasonably challenging test. My work-in-progress Searing Flames team died the first time, but did just fine when I added a Panic mesmer. Not exactly ready for prime time, but it works.
It's an elite area. I won't ever expect it to die to shitter flame heroes alone. Your going to need some form of shutdown otherwise your going to have some problems. Not saying it isn't impossible though. Luck can play a factor, it's just not logical.

DiogoSilva

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Feb 2011

Girl

E/

Double Dragon benefits (abuses) the most out of Ebon Battle Standard of Honor. First, it's 8 seconds of no-scatter; second, it applies twice per second. Sure, that's only the best of possibilities, and many times you'll cast it on a melee and only cause half of its effect. But even then, it's worth it - no other elementalist skill that deals damage per second lasts so long without causing scatter.

Against Master of Damage, after EBSoH, my Double Dragon did 352 damage, 44DPS. If I bring a hero with me and put him on avoid combat, it's 704, 88DPS. If I use Tenai's Heat and Searing's Heat right after I cast DD, and then Fireball once for the time remaining, I get 109-120 damage per second the first 5 seconds, and 162-171 for the last 5 seconds, resulting in about 575+830= 1405 damage in 10 (or less?) seconds. Master of Damage said 1435 over 13 seconds, but I didn't even cast anything else after my first fireball, which was 1-2 seconds before DD ending. EDIT: And my single best damage spike were was at 7 seconds, over 350.

Not sure how good that can be compared to Searing Flames builds, though. Searing Flames damage is more constant, because it recharges so fast, while DD+Heats are one huge nuke spike that gets out of fuel right after.

Kunder

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Nov 2010

Quote:
Originally Posted by Swingline View Post
I use weaken armor on my MM at 5+1 curses(thats all you need). It may be only adjacent range but it's a 5 second recharge and the hero seems to use it all the time, that may be because of his build though. Since the update went live I rape shit faster than Insanity Wolf. I see SF constantly doing full damage because of weaken armor, on more than one mob to.
Problem is that if he is "using it all the time" then he's casting his other stuff a lot less. This is particularly bad for a MM, who already wants to spend 95% of their time either casting minion spells or BotM/OoU/whatever. Feels very unoptimal to slot Weaken Armor and measurably decrease the effectiveness of everything else he does.

Daesu

Daesu

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Oct 2008

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeydra View Post
@Daesu - what are the bars you're using in your Ele team?
I haven't had as much chance to play recently but the credit here should go to Chthon.

I simply took his Mist Form theory crafted build which he posted earlier, apply it to an ele heroes team and they work amazingly well so far.

I am sure if I look closer, I would find some AI deficiencies with the build, so I am still very much in the testing phase. I may have more time to test this out tomorrow.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...2&postcount=36

DiogoSilva

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Feb 2011

Girl

E/

I usually opt for more than one source of cracked amor. Have Weaken on my necro rit support/ healer, an Spirit Rift on my ritualist. Once melee AI gets better, I might add a dervish for extra cracked armor plus whatever he does best.

Kaida the Heartless

Kaida the Heartless

Desert Nomad

Join Date: May 2006

N/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ensign View Post
My general point is that I thought that in a couple particular circumstances (in particular, on Assassin's Promise casters with hero builds) that Invoke Lightning Eles were stronger than the 2nd and potentially 3rd Dom Mesmers. They clearly are not now.

It is also not at all clear to me that any new hero Ele build is superior to a Dom Mesmer. I'll likely be experimenting a bit with that the next few days, but again, I'm not really optimistic about it.

Searing Flames isn't a terrible hero; it is just extremely energy hungry, and it is more of a DPS hero than a burst hero (and it was the fast bursts from Air to trigger AP that I liked). So it's a bit harder to mash Command stuff on to, and doesn't really serve the same purpose - and *really* benefits from multiple copies. I don't really like them all that much, but I'd be a little surprised if you were able to get them to work in, say, Slaver's.
Agreed.

I don't think the SF Ele is stronger than a Dom Mesmer either, until you reach about the 3rd or 4th Mes in a party. At that point, Mesmers really start stepping on each others toes. This is one of the main reasons I'm really hoping the non-elite changes will open up [more] options.

Slaver's is actually one of the first places I got Searing Flames to work. There are plenty of targets to hit and the AI often doesn't know how to properly heal/prot when everything is on fire and taking constant spikes of damage. Having foes burn SoR or Dwayna's Kiss on the wrong target is a huge boon. Is it fast? Definitely not as much as Invoke, but I never minded sacrificing (some) speed in favor of that "unstoppable force" feeling where I can pretty safely clear most any mob.

bj91x

bj91x

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Dec 2005

I guess different people have different opinions on what is an acceptable behavior for an AI to handle exhaustion. For me, AI's shouldn't use exhaustion spells once they reach 75% energy. For skills like Mind Burn, it's very important for the caster to have high energy. Without that, this skill does poor damage and STILL causes exhaustion.

If exhaustion expires MUCH faster when outside of combat, I wouldn't mind it as much. Then having exhaustion would make sense. It would allow the caster to deal high damage at the initial stage of a fight, but have it slow down near the end of the fight to balance it out. By the time the next fight begins, the caster can restart from the beginning rather than suffer from a previous fight.

Kaida the Heartless

Kaida the Heartless

Desert Nomad

Join Date: May 2006

N/

The fact that the Heroes are even going to hit 75% in exhaustion implies that there will be a DPS loss once they inevitably hit that point. That's the issue.