Elementalist Skill Improvements

This thread is for suggestions to improve the many Elementalist skills that just aren't up to par, even within their own lines. From playing Ele for a long time I've got a nice long list of changes I would make.

All attribute ranges are 0...15

-Conjure Flame/Frost/Lightning: should affect Elementalist spell damage

Besides making these spells actually useful for an Elementalist primary, this would also help buff the currently weak damage over time AoE's like Firestorm. Also gives a way to give up a skill slot to improve, if only a little, the damage from other higher damage spells and set up some better combos.

-Mind Burn: should affect adjacent foes
-Mind Shock: increase damage to 10...65 on both hits, knockdown time should be variable 1...4
-Mind Freeze: should reduce attack speed by 50%, duration should be 2...12, should affect adjacent foes

All the Mind spells currently are way too close (or weaker than!) other non-Elite spells and need a boost

-Lightning Javelin: change to interrupt any foe using a skill, not just an attack

Currently useless, costs more than other lightning spells for the same damage and the chances of interrupting something useful are slim and none.

-Lightning Touch: Increase damage to 10...65

Lightning Touch does less damage than other Air spells that aren't conditional, don't require touch range, recharge faster, and cost the same energy. Hmmm.

-Crystal Wave: either this should really ignore magic resistance (like Iron Mist) or its description should be fixed.

-Eruption: should cause Blind each second instead of at the end, Blind duration 5 instead of 10

This spell is so weak and condition removal so common that most people don't even bother to get out when you cast it.

-Kinetic Armor: recharge should be 30 seconds, not 60

Hard enough to put this on and keep it on, at least make the big casting cost and cast time its biggest drawbacks.

-Magnetic Aura: rechage should be 30 seconds, not 60

I can't imagine bringing this when I can keep up Ward Against Melee forever. Blocking 50% of melee attacks all the time is better than 75% for a few seconds and then you're dead.

-Ether Renewal: see this thread.

-Ether Prodigy: Should not "Lose all Enchantments".

I'm not going to take a spell that's going to screw over my monks, especially not when it also causes Exhaustion and damage all for a spell that is barely better than other energy management elites in a best case.

-Aura of Restoration: really at a loss here. There's a reason this is only used to power Ether Renewal but I can't think of a way to really make it better without rewriting the skill. The fact is, it's design causes you to gain health all the times you don't need it. Maybe make it give you health when you start casting instead of finish? Suggestions welcome

-Lava Font: damage should be increased to 5...41

Should be better than Symbol of Wrath for 60 AL targets.

-Rodgort's Invocation: should cost 15 energy, should have 4 second casting time, should affect "all foes in the area" (i.e., large)

They buffed Fireball and left it's already insanely overpriced brother out in the cold (pun intended )

-Searing Heat: should cause burning for each second instead of at the end

Burning for 3 seconds that most people aren't in the AoE for is not worth 10 energy and Exhaustion. Not sure if this is either, but with the Conjure Flame above it might be.

-Ice Prison: should also reduce attack and spellcasting speed

Why take a spell that only does slowdown when you could take one of the others that also causes damage?

-Rust: recharge should be 30 seconds, not 45, should affect "nearby foes"

Most signets are either too weak or used long before you can throw on Rust to do anything about it and even with 30 seconds recharge and larger AoE it'd still be hard to use pre-emptively to stop Resurrection Signet, Signet of Judgement or Signet of Midnight. Even then, in most situations it's probably better to take /Me and go for Ignorance instead.

-Swirling Aura: Recharge should be 30 seconds, not 60

We really need better Ranger protection.

-All Glyphs: should have 1/4 activation time

As if 5 energy per spell wasn't enough and Elementalist casting times weren't long enough, we get to tack on 1.75 more seconds to get a relatively minor effect other professions can usually do better.

-Glyph of Renewal: should recharge the spell instantly.

Warrior and Ranger both get skills that can recharge multiple skills instantly, and very cheaply, and the best Elementalists get is "twice as fast". You could almost do better with Mantra of Recovery with a 0 in fast casting.


Wow, that was long. :P

Thoughts?

I agree with most of that (except for a few things, such as conjure boosting spell damage). I'd like to offer a quick and easy solution, because I don't see a wholesale rebalancing of elementalist spells happening.

The main problem with elementalist damage output is that it's too hampered by armor. Now necromancer and mesmer spells ignore armor but mesmer damage is mostly conditional and necro damage is single target and expensive in terms of energy costs. So that's a reasonable tradeoff. So the natural comparison is to the _physical_ attackers, rangers and warriors. These classes get attacks that add armor penetration, the bonus damage from their attacks (by and large) ignores armor, and they stack buffs from secondary professions to drive their damage up even higher. This means they can deal decent damage to even high (100 AL and above) targets which are increasingly common, while elementalists are mostly crippled.

Now elementalists have two existing mechanisms to get around this. The two damage lines (fire and air) have burning and armor penetration, so why not build on this? The two utility lines (earth and air) don't have as much damage, but we can at least add more utility to their nukes. The idea here is to give elementalists a bonus based on each point in an attribute above 12.

Fire: Adds 1-2 seconds of burn time to each spell. For spells that already inflict burning lengthen the burn time by that amount.

Air: Add 2.5% armor penetration per point

Earth: Add a 5% chance of knockdown per point

Water: Add a 5% decrease in attack speed per point

In terms of specific spells that need changing, completely rework the mind spells (I like your suggestions), make lightning surge work on bosses, reduce the cast time on RI (4 secs sounds good), boost the damage on lightning touch, and maybe reduce the recharge on crystal wave to 15 secs. Also the 1/4sec cast for glyphs sound good.

And Glyph of Sacrifice should only have a 30 second penalty.

I dont know, your suggestions seem cool.
Most of them seem like really good ones and others seem like good incentive to pick up primary elemenist.

Rodgort's Invocation however, Id make it different changes too.
Larger AoE like you suggest, and set on fire for 1-5 seconds.
and thats it.
This is a monster of a spell if 2 or more elementist use it under these conditions, even with cost and casttime. The recharge on this spell makes it a pretty reliable and steady heavy hitter.
Thats just my opinion.

Im surprised you didnt pick on a lot more water spells.

Ill give it a shot. (im not an experanced water elementist so I could be way off here)

-Frozen Burst should have a larger effect than "foes adjacent to you" (I dont want to be standing next to a foe if Im wearing elemental armor anyhow)
-Deep Freeze should have a have the AoE of a ward.
-Maelstorm should slow your movement for 2 seconds as soon as it hits.

The problem I've had with Frozen Burst is that Whirlwind is basically the same spell, has a wider area, and causes knockdown to attackers. Giving Frozen Burst a wider area plus causing it to give Crippling, instead of just slowing movement, would be a better skill all together

Adding on to the list:

Lightning Surge: Give it armor penetration, and a higher ammount that normal Lightning Spells. Like 30-35% Its an elite, and it doesnt even do as much damage as Lightning Orb does.

How I would remake this spell:

Lightning Surge {Elite}
After 3 seconds, target foe is knocked down and struck for 14-83 lightning damage. Adjacent foes are struck for 14-25 Lightning Damage. This Spell has 30$ Armor Penetration and causes Exhaustion.
Energy Cost 15
Exhaustion This spell causes exhaustion
Casting Time 3 seconds
Recharge Time 20 seconds
Skill Type Hex Spell
Linked Attribute Air Magic

This makes it more an Elite version of Chain, rather than a sorry excuse for a Hex version of Lightning Strike. Increasing the recharge time by 20 seconds, the casting time by 1 second, and increasing the energy cost to 15 decreases the spammability rate.

Actually, I'd prefer they left Lightning Surge alone, especially if changes involved increasing the recharge. It is currently very useful for spike combos and I'd hate to have to wait so long between each one. However, I don't think it'd hurt to give it the 25% armor penetration all the other Air spells have.

Elementist rock in PvE, but they are hard to manage in PvP, why?
NPCs dont move out of AoEs, but real players do.
So in PvP its often better to do hard single target damage than trying to waste the time and energy to do AoE damage.
Of course, with superior corridation a good team can make the most of AoEs, but often, this is rare and hard to find. (I personally have never had the pleasure)
So why not make the AoE spells a larger threat against intellegent opponents.

Some of this list may not need the boost I suggest. Im sort of shooting from the hip.
But I have used all of these skills in PvP and at one time or another (except light of dwayne), and this is what I felt the skills could use for me to actually be worth the trouble of using them.

Enlarge simple means making the AoE larger.
Tracking means make the AoE follow target.

If Im not specific on ranges or tracking speeds its because Im not completely sure what a good adjustment would be.

Whirlwind - Enlarge
Aftershock - Enlarge
Crystal Wave - Enlarge
Earthquake - Enlarge (ward)
Eruption - Enlarge
Firestorm - Tracking (33% slower)
FlameBurst - Enlarge
Inferno - Enlarge
Lave Font - Tracking (tracks caster)
Meteor Shower - Enlarge (ward)
Phoenix - Enlarge
Rodgorts Invoction - Enlarge (ward)
Searing Heat - Enlarge (ward)
Blurred Vision - Enlarge
Deep Freeze - Enlarge (ward)
Frozen Burst - Enlarge
Ice Spikes - Enlarge
Maelstorm - Tracking (33% slower)

Epidemic - Enlarge (ward)
Chaos Storm - Tracking (50% slower)
Energy Surge - Enlarge
Fevered Dreams - Tracking (by way of spreading all conditions when within range)
Channeling - Enlarge (radar)

Light of Dwayne - Enlarge (radar)

Barrage - Enlarge


In addtion to this idea to better judge the usage of AoE skills:

-In the form of a translucent circle for every attack AoE skill that you use there is an effect on your mini map. You can only see the AoE for the skills you use.
For attack or offensive spells/skills the effect would be red.
-In the case of spirits, the effects on the mini map will be showed to everyone.
For spirits the effect would be white.
-In the case of AoE heals it would show for your whole team.
For healing the effects would be blue.
(heal area only shows for only your team even though it can heal the other team)
-Traps layed by your team would show up as x with a circle around it visable by all of your teammates.
The x would be the trigger and the circle would be the AoE if it goes off.
-In the case of wards it would show to your team a yellow circle.

I thought about having wells in the mini map observational too, but then on second thought; due to thier offencive and defencive capablities, it seems better that they stay off the map.

Conjure spell idea, heck no. This is fine how it, and i see it used every now and then, so it's not that "useless"

Lightning touch is a "skill" not a "spell", and it works fine how it is. Avoids backfire and interupts as well. (Remember, they don't want all skills to be the same)

Crystal wave works. You're on drugs. Protective spirit, shielding hands, and warrior damage reduction effect this. Get use to it.

Everything else i agree with enough to say they're fine. Good post. Only minor tweaks.

But in order to do any real damage with it you had to cast a "spell" in order to have the Water Magic hex necessary. Additionally, is a "skill" over "spell" worth doing a fraction of the damage a lot less frequently for the same energy? It isn't to me. If I was going to take a touch "skill", I'd take Shock and do knockdown... which also lets me follow up with Aftershock and do REAL damage.

My point was that the spell says it ignores "magic resistance", which is undefined in the Guild Wars world. Obsidian Flame has the exact same armor ignoring effect but does not contain those words. That indicates to me that it's either a bug and Crystal Wave was meant to do more, or it's a terminology error and the description should be fixed. Yes, it's a minor thing. Perhaps it shouldn't have been included as a "balance change".

Without reading in loaddsss of detail i agree with some of this, especially the casting time on glyphs of energy.

[Elite] glyph of energy really should have no cast time..

Trust me as an extremely experienced earth elementist, they are very powerful if used correctly, crystal wave is fine as it is.. but if they were to make it better i wouldn't complain

I feel it is time that the skills other than Fire get a good fix. It astounds me that when looking at Meteor...costs 5 energy and causes exhaustion and then looking at Earthquake costs 25 energy and causes exhaustion but causes less damage.

There are some serious issues in the other elements where similar spells to Fire cost far more or have less effects for the same price. Yet once again we see more new fire skills with the introduction of Nightfall and the other elements left for dead.

PS There is still no Earth weapon spell, why??

Ick, my thread was way better.

And, lol, I just noticed that my thread is still on the FIRST PAGE OF THIS VERY FORUM.. Not sure how the original poster missed it.

Merge, plz.

And that it's over a year old. Don't merge it, it's completely outdated and should've been left in the depths of the forum where it was.

Use a secondary negative energy weapon set to avoid the "heartburn" of ether prodigy by switching right when the enchantment starts to wear off. A -5 sword and a forgotten/frozen/tattered fan. It won't screw over monks at all and with smart use of it you'll only take about 12 damage.

Honestly, I completely disregard somebody who knocks on the best PvP energy management spell in the game. Have you actually looked at the amount of energy you get. It is MILES above any other energy management elite.

WTF are you talking about. It's been around for less than month. Besides that, I had already updated the first post to reflect all NIGHTFALL spells several days ago. It's a far more extensive and handsome listing than yours.

Also, your suggestions are mostly (A.) not enough, or (B.) too much, or (C.) simply out of line with that the ability does.

I mean...you think ETHER PRODIGY needs a buff. LOL!

I meant this thread is a year old. I wasn't clear enough in saying so, but still, come on. It should have been obvious reading the suggestions. This was back when Ether Prodigy was +4 energy regeneration, Ether Renewal was broken, the Mind spells sucked, etc etc etc.

I am by no means even relatively familiar with ele spells. I'll come back and think harder on this when I'm less tired, but I'd thought I'd mention one thing. When fiddling with durations and whatnot, don't forget the effect this will have on someone using ele as their secondary, or simply using with a secondary.(I'm not saying you're stupid or that you hadn't considered these angles, I'm just putting it out there).

You say kinetic armor needs a shortened recharge time, but I recently acquired this when I went to go start unlocking some ele skills. If you reduced the recharge time to 30 seconds, I could keep it up perpetually without a second thought. As it is, I can keep it up anywhere between 30-45 seconds. The only reason I can't keep it up longer is because I've run out of enemies to smite or I no longer need to heal my henchies(enemies still dead).

While it would be fairly harmless for a monk to toss his leftover points into earth for the extra constant 44 armor(thats level 6, stuff I usually toss into prot so it gets SOME use while I'm smiting/healing), be careful of what, say, a mesmer or ranger might be able to do with fast casting and expertise. Just some food for thought.

But that's just my two cents
G'night yall.

edit: just saw the date, and didn't realize someone had activated the thread res sig. Umm.. if this stays open, my point will stand for anyone suggesting changes.

Oh.

I apologize.