Skills - Ice Spear

You can view this database entry at: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/skill/453-ice-spear/.
You may add your comments in this thread.

where do i get this spell? it seems it does more dmg then flare and is it better or...not?

Lion's arch, but flare is overpowered as far as i'm concerned. 16-40, full range, spammable, ice spear is a bit too weak, stone daggers...3-20 x2 = 6-40...so kinda sucks and lightning strike...well it's decent, but not as spammable.

Conjure Flame+Frenzy+Wand>Flare

This spell is one of the biggest jokes in the game. Don't even bother getting it.

ice spear is decent enough... but... just take water trident...

anyway... the thing about frenzy+conjur+wad > flare/stone dagger... you are talking about using 2 skills on an 8 skills bar for doing not too much more damage... not worth it... and with frenzy there, you better bring another stance too to switch it off... considering you will be an early target to begin with... so it end off, it is more of a paper tactic... don't use it. Oh and flare / stone daggers... don't use those either... it really doesn't help very much.

Ice Spear is not decent enough. Its worse than wastrels worry and that skill is god awful itself. There aren't many I can think that are worse than it.

The conjure+frenzy+wand is just to illustrate how bad flare is because that will outdamage it for a fraction of the cost. Nobody is going to use the former for damage purposes anyway, just as an illustration.

Yea I can see, but some might not know... the post is not targeted at you.

There are just some people who can't think for themselves... then later they would go call the person who illustrated the idea an idiot after finding out it sux.

Ice spear is a decent skill in PvE, it is pratically by force that you need to use it... or just do nothing for the next 10-15 sec. If you go water... although I don't know why you would...

I have a pure PvE Hydro build... it's actually quite a damage dealer. Ice Spear is a great skill, imo (albeit the range sucks), and it's at its best when you have water attunement on then flip on Ether Renewal. Very quick rate of fire, decent damage (my water skill's at 16) and reloads the energy bar for flipping out Deep Freeze, Maelstrom, or any other juicy high energy skills.

If it was full ranged... it'd be perfect.

yea... unforunately that fire do better AoE against most creature, lightning do more damage on a single target, earth are capable of doing ignore armor damage, and water... uhh... water... hmm... ok, i gtg.

and with the little simple skill called "winter" everyone can turn into a hydromancer too... that really kill the feeling of being hydromancer.

Nothing wrong with you going hydromancer... I mean heck, it is not about being the strongest in the world all the time... beat them with styles.

GvG is where water shine.

Quote: Originally Posted by MSecorsky

Quote: Originally Posted by Enigmatics

I was being mock-naïve, but the calculations were helpful. I had thought that Ice Spear and Flare both had the same damage, but apparently not.

Conjure + Frenzy requires that you be not only an elementalist, but also a warrior. It also means that you become more vulnerable to enemy attack...taking double damage hurts. It also requires you to use more skill slots, prevents you from using any other Stance while you fight, makes you vulnerable to a huge variety of miss/evasion skills (aegis, blind, price of failure, spirit shackles, etc.), and strips any other enchantments you're using when you Conjure. I don't think I'd necessarily call that "better" than Ice Spear.

The Fast Casting calculations above are purely hypothetical (since you can't get 16 Water Magic if you're Mesmer primary), but they also are based on the old (weak) way that Fast Casting worked; now a Fast Casting skill of about 3-4 will cause a spell that's normally a 1 sec cast to cast pretty much instantly. By my calculations, that means 4 Fast Cast + 12 Water Magic would let you use Ice Spear for around 60 dps, which is quite respectable if you can overcome the energy problem somehow.

Even without doing something so specialized, having a small spell that casts fairly quickly and has no recycle timer will let you fill an idle moment or get in that last critical burst of damage if you can't use other skills at the moment (due to recycle time or higher energy cost). Not every skill has to be the centerpiece of your strategy.

Also keep in mind that a lot of the really high-damage Elementalist spells also cause exhaustion, which can cause a problem if you get into a prolonged battle.

If you are playing a water ele you are not doing it for damage but control.

Two words. Spinal. Shivers.

Why use Ice Spear when you can Conjure+wand and save yourself that 5 energy a pop?

Personally. I like the skill.

Being mainly a warder with my ele, it means I use earth and water. Because of my specific build, I have 3-4 more points in water than I do earth, so that means I use this spell for damage. I like it because people tend to have less resistence to it. And how man ele's have hydromancer armor? I can hit a good 55 or so damage every hit. Sure, the half distance can be crippling sometimes, but overall I find it's a good spam spell when you have energy to waste.

I like this skill a lot, but it seems that the people saying to use Conjure Frost never use this effectively

Quote: Originally Posted by gameshoes3003