Update - January 5, 2012

Yes but by then, majority (if not all) of the enemies would be dead so one character doing less damage for the remainder of the fight doesn't mean a whole lot. Some skills/builds are meant to deal burst damage at the beginning of a fight as opposed to sustaining the same amount of DPS for the whole fight.

Unfortunately, exhaustion taking forever to expire often means that when the next battle starts, the caster is still severely exhausted, defeating the point of using exhaustion to give some builds burst damage without letting them sustain it.

Why have a char run options that will lessen their DPS at some point when you can run something that never loses it's DPS value and is just as effective?

I use the MM not as a source of damage but as field control and support. That's why hes AoTL + prot spells. I watch him cast all his skills frequently. It only takes 1-2 weaken armors to kill mobs in a VQ. I saw this in sparkly swamp, the ruptured heart and salt flats today. Minions are amazing ballers.

Idea for MoM: Stone Striker + Mantra of Earth and Prismatic insignia for some serious tanking ability and energy gain. Have more than enough attribute points to run whatever damage spells you like in a 2nd mesmer attribute along with all non-elite ele stuff. Could be new TanknSpank, and certainly opens up options otherwise.

The idea of exhaustion is that it should be the tradeoff for an over-powering spell. Making those spells worth the exhaustion would be part of the intended balance

On people, sure, but because Heroes will never understand the trade-off, it's better to run skills on them that won't hit the "exhaustion-cast-cap".

If its a sufficiently good spell and heroes didn't overload on exhaustion with it, I would see no problem. If, as I mentioned earlier, Chain Lightning inflicted cracked armor on all enemies it hit (before the damage too), I would consider it worth it. A PvE version of Invoke could probably use another 15-20 damage on top of that. That would be a good spell worth casting once at the start of battle to do a good 130ish damage and prime the 3 enemies with cracked armor. Rest of Air Magic would still be weak still, but it makes CL worth the exhaustion.

Don't get me wrong, I like MoM as an elite but as an enchantment on a hero I don't. Too much rides on this skill for an entire build to be effective and the heroes ability to cover it properly worries me greatly. I do realize its a 10s recharge but there a shit load of enchant strip out there. I would like to see a MoM team build tested.

I tried MoM on heroes and the problem is, the AI doesn't always cast it before casting other spells, which is a disappointment. Same problem as Symbolic Celerity. It may work some of the time or even most of the time, but at other times they are casting with 0 attribute.

On a human player yes, MoM should work great.

Prove it with screenshots, then. I've posted way too many screenshots in way too many areas (Swingline, you can / should go search the Heroes and AI forums) and they were all done with Invoke Eles, and they were all the fastest - beating out for example 5-Mesmer teams by half a minute or something in an area that takes 8 minutes to clear (Raisu HM).

Invoke Eles are not as strong as Me / Rt / Mo / N when you're playing with a physical, admittedly. But I'm an Ele primary.

You know nothing. AP is strong not because of Chain Lightning, but because of the PvE skills. AP + Chain Lightning does not work. Use that thing you have in between your ears. AP Air is the best bar for player Elementalist primaries whether you like it or not. You can call it not an Elementalist bar if you want, it does not change the fact that it is the best build possible with Elementalist primary.

Far as I'm concerned, I'm done with you. Have fun.

You and your theorycrafting ... just prove it with screenshots. Do something that we had /age screenshots with Invoke Eles of from pre-update, and do it now with SF Eles. Beat those times, if you can. I'm actually positive that post-nerf Invoke Eles are still better than SF Eles in most areas.

FWIW, SF loses to Invoke because of 1) armour and 2) you need the target to be burning before you get the damage. Ensign hit the bull's eye on why AP Air + Invoke Eles was so strong. I'll add that YMLAD + EBVAS from full range allowed superb shutdown of single targets, and you can pick the most dangerous of them to destroy first (e.g. Ruby Djinn, Stone Summit Defenders, etc). Pure damage output is valuable, but not necessarily stronger than having shutdown.

I have overall not had success with Searing Flames. There are too many conditions required out there: you need burning, EBSoH and Weaken Armour. Balling stuff without EBVAS is hard work and requires more healing than I have been running, while balling stuff with EBVAS but without AP has long cooldown. Balling stuff with AP Fire ... idk, maybe. I've not covered all the new ground, we'll see.

Daesu do you play the Mist Form Ele in that team? What is the full team composition? It doesn't matter if it's in the testing phase, I still want to see it.

As for MoM, the big problem is that it competes directly with Elemental Attunement, and as of now I can't see any reason to pick MoM instead of Elemental Attunement (save Prismatic Insignia).

You are joking right? Post Nerf Invokes hit exhaustion limits after a few battles. Simple DPS calculations aren't theorycrafting, they are cold facts. Its not like mesmers where the damage is variable, SF has the same AoE, does more damage and hits more things.

I can't do any speed runs at the moment, I have no characters with the ability to run the correct builds. Not that I give a crap in any case, speed runs are very poor indicators of build strength (considering the margin of error between runs), they are indicators of luck and practice abusing monster AI. The cold hard fact is that in any case you ran an Invoke before doing the exact same run but replacing it with an SF ele would be outputting more damage, unless it is against an uber armor enemy or something like destroyers.

Armor just got nerfed if you didn't notice, and the Burning is actually a net benefit in most cases, very rarely can it be a net loss. And if we are talking clear speed, pure damage output is pretty much all that matters.

Still, what makes you think you are unable to take YMLAD or EVAS just because you changed the eles from Invoke to SF?

No, you don't actually need any of those. SF is and always has been approximately equivalent damage against AL 80 enemies without EBSoH or Weaken Armor. With either of those it becomes significantly better.

There's definitely that. You really need to take advantage of a secondary to make MoM worthwhile.

/age is a poor way to compare builds between different people. Good pulling/aggro strategies and the degree to which you micro-manage will affect your speed a lot more than builds, but everyone pulls different, and there is no way to verify that two people have used the same method for pulling or microing heroes.

Bsurge is still OP, instead of a tapout, they gave it some freakin steroids, its not worse, spam blind, thats all you can do now with it and more dmg. increase the freakin recharge and lower the duration of blind!

This particular calculation happens to be a bit of a pain. Searing Flames has to account for the fact that some casts cause burning rather than damage. And then it gets even worse since how many casts go towards burning depends on how many other SF eles there are and whether something like Mark of Rodgort is also causing burning. Finally, the recycle time is so quick that casting other skills can have an effect on the actual cycle. On the flip side, the damage on Invoke/Chain does not scale with monster armor the same way everything else does, so we can't do a comparison at one arbitrary armor level and generalize the result for all armor levels.

All that said, my instinct is that you're correct. When I have time, someday I may sit down and check the math to verify that.

There's really no foolproof method of comparison. Having two different people run the builds that they champion leaves us unsure how much of the difference comes from the builds and how much from the differences between the players. On the other hand, having one person run two builds doesn't really take away the problem of a potential skill differential (I might be much better at playing a physway team than a casterball) and introduces problems of unconscious bias, self-deception/cognitive bias, and maybe even deliberate dishonesty. A third method (which has its own problems) is to try to model both builds mathematically. Every option has impediments to accuracy. The best we can do is try to pick the method whose impediments to accuracy are least strong in whatever case we're examining.

Although I have disagreed with Lanier in the past, I'm going to have to agree here. Jeydra...you yourself have admitted that your above average aggro control has more to do with your times than the builds you run.

When time differences are within a few minutes, I feel the it can be attributed to playstyle tactics rather than builds. It gets even more hazy if areas have cutscenes and other factors that can shorten time based on familiarity.

Based on one match against it, I have tentatively concluded that Stone Sheath is absolutely bonkers.

I ignored burning. Reason being that 5s of burning = 70 damage, the same amount that SF would do against 80 armor. 5s from first SF shot to death is probably pretty close to the average enemy lifetime. More time would increase DPS, less would decrease DPS. For the most part I think the difference is negligible, keep in mind it includes things that aren't the main target and are burning while you pummel the main target. In any case, when you have 4x SF casters about 90% of the casts are full on damage, so the minute change in burning DPS would only affect that minute 10% of casts.

Also ignored skills other than Invoke/CL/SF. Reason being that its almost exactly the same cycle time (SF is 1.75s / 3s, Invoke + CL is 4.5/7.75s). SF has the slight problem of shorter intervals, but CL has the problem that its recharge rate doesn't operate on the same wavelength as Invoke, causing them to clash and dip in casting speed as the battle drags on.

Interestingly enough, if you run just a single SF vs a single invoke, SF wins easily no matter how high armor goes because the burning is 100% armor ignoring. Against AL 140 you don't even need to cast SF a second time for damage, Invoke + CL's DPS is well under the 14 of burning alone. Not relevant to the discussion, but a fun tidbit.


The reason I propose the third method for this is because there really isn't much different from how the two builds operate. Its clear if one ele presses A to do 30 DPS in nearby range, then the other presses A to do 40 DPS in nearby range, and both sides have no other distinguishing features, the 2nd is more effective. With Ele vs Mesmer there is a large difference in how damage works (mesmer damage might not trigger, but might also stop healing), and the relative AoE sizes + hero intelligence in usage, so controlled tests are therefore more relevant.

I don't even want to bother trying to beat Jeydra's time that he has honed constantly on his own chosen mission with my heroes who I don't even bother to change the equipment on and my mesmer who still doesn't have a single PvE skill title. I have better things to do then to start rolling d20 vs enemy spawns until I get natural 20s for an entire mission.

Yeah. Trying to spike the equivalent of a backline warrior with crit immunity is rather futile.

Is it just me or is the 2 other foes "near" target of invoke...vs all foes "nearby" of SF being completely ignored in this debate? Btw "near" and "nearby" are the same range.

The proponents of Invoke usually said that in general pve, you wouldn't have 4+ monsters grouped up in most situations anyway. You can go looking through some of the old threads for quotes, but that was one of the caveats: "Invoke was better than X provided you aren't efficiently balling foes or dealing with abnormally large mobs."

Invoke Eles were something you ran for blowing through areas quickly. They were for charging a mob, spiking down a couple targets, and charging to the next mob. If you were taking the time to ball up foes, you should not be using Air guys.

You're taking my comment out of context. Essence asked why we weren't involving the ability of SF to hit more targets than Invoke and I merely provided the argument used. I myself used Invoke eles in a few team builds; I recognize their effectiveness.

Because SF really sucks and provides no burst damage power.

I'm done.

SF is not for high burst damage, its for sustained AoE pressure. Hence the burning and two second recharge. SH is another example with it's damage stacking every second with the previous damage. It's not a matter of debate for me because I see SF's new power first hand. After doing 10+ VQs with it in my team build(with zero armor ignoring damage) I must say it's quite powerful because of its pressure.

Air Magic has always been for burst damage, hence the 25% armor pen and lack of high damage, hit everything AoEs. It's popular in PvP because of its simplicity but causes a problem because its difficult to prepare for. This is exactly why skill splits are needed so.

The speed aspect can be debated, SF may be slower because of peoples lack of understanding for hero AI. Heroes won't spam SF if they have other spells to cast. You shouldn't load SF with 4 other fire damage spells. You should have 2 on your bar only, SF and Glowing Gaze for energy management. One SF hero might want to carry Mark of Rodgort but that's that persons decision if they want to or not.

I really like IL but I think of it as a gimmick just because of how every other element was useless in HM due to the insanely high mob armor. For me the debate of post nerf vs. pre nerf is silly, post nerf wins because it's how the game should have been in the first place. Still it was no reason to nerf it like Anet did and the only reason they did nerf it was because of their lack of ability to balance properly. They seem too wishy washy and probably talk too much about it and that tends to lead to screw ups. They are still trying to pump GW with their weird ideas instead of balancing the game as it is. Balance first, then new ideas.

So losing a 30 second faster completion is all it takes for you to rage about a skill nerf? Please carry on crying a river, I genuinely dont think that anyone else here cares as much as you do about this.

Whether you like it or not, or refuse to admit it, the best build (prior to this update) for Elementalist primaries is not AP Air, the best build would be E/Mo prot, something which you claim to have never played yet think you possess more knowledge than anyone else on playing an elementalist. E/Mo protting also requires some skill compared to simply mashing tab > ctrl space > 1-2-3.

Invoke HEROES are nowhere near as strong as Me / Ne / Rt even when playing an Elementalist primary youself because other than simply making an 8-10 min area a mere 30s faster to complete, they possess zero shut down and damage mitigation compared to those classes, which is exactly what makes so many harder areas of the game possible with Me / Ne / Rt heroes. Their usefulness was never about their pure damage output, it was always due to their crowd control and damage mitigation on top of their damage.

You also admit that armour ignoring is better:

The funny thing is, that in Jeydra's own thread on using heroes effectively, The advice given is to use a single Invoke hero. I simply cant see how the loss of one heroes build can be of so much significance, while everything else is relying on necros and rits, and while he? even states that armour ignoring is better.

Stone sheath looks awesome, but heroes won't ever use it since they're waiting on a foe to be near to get the damage bonus.

EDIT: yeah I'm back to smiting my pets, takes me a few years back lol. a team of smite monks and earth eles is pretty bad but very fun.

PVE is the only thing left to discuss in GW.

HA and GVG are both dead and beyond saving as Swingline said, almost no one plays them anymore.

The only thing that people still play these days is PVE, RA, JQ, FA, AB.

In fact when discussing the elly updates with my alliance, most people seemed to agree that ellys were still useless in both PVE and PVP after having spent a while testing them out. I asked 'How are ellys useless in PVP? Invoke has been a meta in RA / HA / GVG for a long time'.

The general reply was 'Oh, I dont play those, I meant AB / JQ / FA'. This is what the average person playing GW considers PVP these days.

Take AB out of that. The only PvP formats alive are RA, JA and FA.

Except elementalists are one of the strongest professions to play in those formats.

Now with HM changes and earth buffs, Savannah Heat, Searing Flames and Unsteady Ground (and Sandstorm?) are back to being PvE meta again, the doublecast skills are waiting for an AI buff that might happen, and the strongest new air/ water elites are depending on the second part of the update because they lack good common skills to go along with them.

The elementalist is now useful in all formats, and probably will only be more so after the update to common skills hits.

I know that ellys are useful now in all formats, but its not going to make the average PVE player drop their mesmer and necro heroes to fill up on ellys instead. I also still prefer having shutdown and caster damage mitigation. Ellys can completely shut down melees, but not casters so I require a domination mesmer, however I can replace my illusion mesmer with either an Air or Earth hero now.

Regarding damage mitigation, spirits and minions are still the best options available for that in PVE as they soak a lot of damage that would otherwise fall on your team. The only valid ways I see of damage mitigation on ellys is either armour of earth which slows them down, or stone striker + mantra of earth which is more slots wasted on top of energy management skills.

It does seem fun to use the new elly skills, but how many of them are really as useful as spirit rits, domination mesmers or necros? Eruption and Ward against Melee alone are far more useful and prevent a lot more damage than an Ineptitude mesmer does, so that for me was a definite improvement (other skills on the bar are now much more viable and they do more damage in HM now) but nothing else is.

Pretty much this. Some guy above mentionned that the update was pretty useless on PvP... Well the answer is simple : the update in itself is good and probably much could be done on it, but it is about SYNERGY between skills and builds... Almost every single organized PvP format is unplayable, so you can't test out anything there...

Having made some PvP changes first and then doing this update would have surely been perfect...

I really don't think there's a darn thing they could do to make people come back and play GvG and HA en mass.

Anything is possible with the right amount of work. Problem is they don't want to do the amount to save PvP in this game.

Its not that they cant do anything to make people come back to HA + GVG, its simply that they wont. If Anet ever do listen to the community, they dont act upon anything that receives many complaints for something like 2-4 years later than it was needed.

Before you think 'but most of the requests are silly', Im talking about things like the 6v6 change to HA, removal of TA + Hero Battles (no one wanted these, everyone that played and enjoyed them want them back), no one likes Codex Arena but they just wont listen, and in PVE .... Yes we have some elementalist tweaks now at last, but after how long? And what about Rangers and Paragons? Mesmers were complained about for their lack of effectiveness in PVE almost from day 1 of GW, and I think it took at least 4 years of complaining from the players for them to be made viable.

Random observation: Snowstorm is now a viable skill for caster classes, particularly in combination with EBSoH.

What about replacing the invoke ele with a death magic hero? I know people have strong negative feelings about discord, but seriously - is it that much worse? Skill by skill comparison:

Chain lightning -> Deathly Swarm - basically the same
Invoke 1s cast, 6s recharge, 3 targets -> Discord? 1s cast, 2s recharge, single target
Shock arrow -> Putrid Bile? Deathly Chill? - a little extra damage

Granted invoke is just better due to hitting more targets, but a necro has less reliance on enchantments, and the possibility of having extra minions.

Until non-elite spells get touched this update isn't going to change much.
I'm going to suspend my judge till that.

Getting more powerful/useful elites? I'm more than happy. Balancing a bit HM (we'll still have to see how much this point works) too. But that isn't enouhg to shake the Armor ignoring Dmg nuking power, and the lack of utility of Eles would make ppl prefer Mes/Nec/Rit even if dealing a bit less dmg, cause rupts/debuffing/support and all that stuff. (atm at least).

Also, i'd point out (dunno if someone else did in last pages) that all the core problems of Eles, mostly the untouched "attunements+cover enchs must-have cutting in half your bar" ( just for naming one) are still there.... no matter how much you'll change elites.

GvG/Organized PvP is dead because of smurfs and the fact that there are no titles associated with it. It's all about the HoM and GW2 now.

I think one of the strongest features of Invoke is (or was) that you could pack Utility with 'em. I can't find a build that I'm truly content with on Elementalists. Half the bar is still E-Management, it's still back-loaded, and 3 of the skills aren't even management that'll net you positively, they just keep you from going under faster. Insult to injury; 2 of the skills are enchantments. Furthermore, to get the positive energy return for speedy clearing, you are still stuck running /Rt or more likely, /Me.

I hope some of the base skill changes will add some more Energy Management options (this is all speaking about Heroes, of course).

And to further aggravate this, there are several nice enchant-rips that make that half bar useless. Some of the most fun I've had is taking out a necro in Elona and ripping the enchantments off the dervish and elementalist foes.

(I cannot speak to PvP issues; except for a rare foray into JQ, I'm a PvE only sort.)

To be honest, I actually do feel this fixed elementalists because it tackled the issue of armor in hard mode, and granted powerful support builds. Shockwave looks wonderful now!

Deathly Swarm is essentially the same skill, but it lacks the armor pen that made ChainL strong. Without it, DS is only decent.

Discord is, as it always has been, crap. Icy Veins is now the necro "big nuke" skill, but its usage is 180 degrees off of Invoke's usage. Invoke provides a big burst of initial punch to drop the first monster or two; Icy Veins builds the momentum from the first one or two kills into a chain reaction.

Shock arrow is really just e-management. Necros have Soul Reaping for that.

I've been working on a player variant of the necro "nuker" which is decent so far, good even, but not amazing. Higher Minion has been building a hero version. He'll probably post it when testing is done. I'm expecting it will be viable, but not a perfect replacement for the old invoke hero.

I've had some success using 3x SF heroes as damage. You can basically run Searing Flames, Glowing Gaze, GoLE, Fire Attune, and AoR, plus 3 optionals at 6 spec. I've been running one with Mark of Rodgort/SYG/FB, one with Fireball/Enfeebling Blood/Weaken Armor, and one with PS/SoA/Remove Hex and none of them are having energy problems. (There's a paragon providing the second copy of SYG and FB, along with They're on Fire!) It's not super spikey, but it chews through things with really high sustained DPS like back when Nightfall was new.

A snail moves faster than deathly swarm.