Putting the "Chill" on Lightning

It see that Lightning is the "Flavor of the Month" and Lightning Ele's are ruling the Arenas. Has anyone used the ranger skill Winter to put a damper on them?
Am I right that changing the damage type to cold will remove the penetration bonus?
Is there a better solution to lightning than this?

winter spirit will make it cold dmg with armor penetration... ^^

Which can be fun if your team is the one doing the air spiking, opposing parties might try to counter with lightning defenses and suddenly get cold spike damage in the teeth instead.

Yep, could just be adding more fuel to the fire.

Mantra of Lightning!!...

Too bad it only works on the caster.

Fertile Season and Nature's Renewal will take most of the bite off any Elementalist, leaving them a burnt out husk. For bonus points, take Quickening Zephyr (and kill their Energising Wind) to make sure their "All Cannons Blazing" strategy doesn't work for any longer than a few casts.

I haven't seen a Spiking team win the HoH recently though.

A lot fo them get eliminated at the capture the relic round.

Others get eliminated elsewhere.

Yesterday in Scarred Earth we defeated 3 spiking teams, how? We just stood apart from each other. No chain lightning then.

The sudden bursts of lightning orb (at least I think that's the spell they use) where it's all timed out and stuff (caller goes 1 2 3 now on TS/Vent) hurt, but like someone said, with Fertile Season down it's just a really big scratch.


All the spiking teams I've been on have done well, don't get me wrong. But we also lost at the sigil CTF event cause we didn't have a meat shield to run the relic or kill their ghostly hero sooo not much we could do.

With quickening zephyr, if they know how to use their energy well, they could defeat you in 50% less time :P

Energising wind is pointless for air eles because the minimum cost is 10 energy, which most of the lightning spells cost any way - orb is 15 and strike is 5 energy.

That just seems Wrong.

Not that you are wrong, just that the damage keeps the penetration.
If they are going to keep a damage type with penetration instead of having armor weaknesses, changing the damage type should remove the bonus.

Armour penetration isn't inherent to Lightning damage, it's just tacked on to a lot of Air Magic skills. Winter just changes a skill that does Lightning damage with 20% armour penetration, to a skill that does Cold damage with 20% armour penetration.

R/Me or Me/R with winter and Mantra of Frost is an incredibly effective combo.

The original problem with mantra of ___ was that youre only protected versus one element, but if you convert all elemental damage to one type, well...

Fertile Season only works against people who aren't smart enough to either destroy the spirit or move out of it's range. Granted, it's quite potent in HoH and King of the Hill, but then you're going to HAVE to plant it in a spot where it can be taken out fairly easily. They just kill your spirits and go back to spiking.

Spreading out to avoid Chain Lighting actually kinda funny. I wonder what the other team thought of that.

I always thought one solution would to create a condition a player hit by lightning would receive for just half a second, that would reduce the damage of lightning attacks following. not by much, just like... if eight lightning orbs smash into one player at the same exact time, then the damage from each orb following the first is reduced. Some silly name I thought up, "Electric charge" or something XD

Then I realized that idea was stupid...

Yeah I'm just rambling now...

Surely there is a counter to Lightning ...

Ward Against Elements.
Shielding Hands.
Swirling Aura.
Armor of Earth.
Protective Bond.
Mark of Protection.
Healing Seed.
Life Barrier.
Protective Spirit.
Reversal of Fortune.
Shield of Regeneration.
Spellbreaker.
Amity.
Pacifism.
Migraine.
Power Block.
Cry of Frustration.
Power Leak.
Guilt.
Power Spike.
Mantra of Lightning.
Distracting Blow.
Lightning Surge.
Gale.
Shock.
Thunderclap.
Mindshock.
Whirlwind.
Disrupting Chop.
Backbreaker.
Devastating Hammer.
Earth Shaker.
Hammer Bash.
Heavy Blow.
Irresistable Blow.
Dwarven Battle Stance.
Griffon's Sweep.
Skull Crack.

...and spreading out. *cough*

[ ]

Some of those are horrible counters...

What do I mean? Healing Seed...horrible counter. Reversal might work, but I'm not seeing it.

Dude, most of those are crap. Shielding hands removes about 20 dmg, which is nothing. Same with healing seed. The armor increase from armor of earth is not as significant, due to armor penetration. Pacifism and Amity do absolutely nothing. All those mesmer hexes are quite insufficient since the spike build relies on 3 or more eles firing orbs at the same time, not just 1 that you can disable. All the warrior skills require the warrior to get close, and by that time someone is already dead.

The rest are good counters (prot. spirit, reversal, spellbreaker, obsidian flesh) but require timing/ can be avoided by changing target. It depends on the enemy team; if their coordination is good, you're gonna need a hell of a team to survive their attacks.

Armor of earth reduces the spike dmg more than you think despite the armor penetration. I could be wrong, but you can use the protection spell Guardian as a defensive measure against lightning orb. Lightning Orb can miss since its a projectile and it seems like Guardian can block orb based off experience. Just reading the descriptions, Guardian can block magical projectiles. Reasonable 5 energy, 50% block rate and pair it with reversal of fortune not a bad solution. Survives the "changing target" idea since its cheap but then again is ~50% block.

Lightning damage has a percentage of armour penetration. People seem to forget that percentage of armour penetration does not mean armour is pointless. It just means if you put some more armour on with a buff, then it does provide a bit further protection against penetration if I'm right about how damage is calculated.

Any mesmer skill csan kill ANY air ele (or 2)