AoE DoT spell comparison

I was curious about the ballance between skill-lines for area-of-effect
(ie, encourage the opponent to move) kind of skills. All of these skills
have a 30 second recharge. The damage listed shows the total damage if one says in the area of effect for the time period (unlikely in GvG or PvP),
per energy point expended.

How do I take into account the affects of armour? holy damage skips armor, does chaos damage?

The most efficient spells in this group are Firestorm (/w 16 dmg/energy expanded) and Maelstrom (/w 11 cold damage/ energy point). Both of these also have a large area of effect. Maelstrom has the added advantage of interrupting casters, however, it causes exhaustion. This makes the 'cold' line innappropriate unless you are a dedicated elementalist.

Eruption is interesting. Its five seconds might be short enough so that a bulk of the damage is dealt before the individual leaves the area of effect, also if you can keep the opponent from moving, they are blinded after this period. However, the damage dealt isn't very good -- mass blindness is the real goal of of this spell. The cost is quite expensive, and the area of effect is tiny.

I'm not sure how to evaluate chaos storm (although my mesmer uses it to great effect). The biggest problem (in PvE) with chaos storm is getting your team mates to stop running (and drawing the target out of the storm). Nothing more irritating than setting up a sure-kill for 3 low level monsters surrounding a monk (who can heal themselves) and have the monk run away. In GvG, I'd think chaos storm would not be effective at all. It has a very small area of effect and I can't imagine any real player wanting to stay in it for long.

The most obscure of these (to me) is holy wrath. I'm not sure what the area is, if it is just a 1 foot cone centered at the target, then it is almost use less unless you target casters that are too involved with their chaining to notice.

If you were to create a 'build' around one of these (yes, it wouldn't be a great build), assuming a 'Arcane Echo' or something like that, which would you pick and why?


spell details...

Symbol of Wrath (smiting)
15 energy, 2 seconds cast, 30 seconds recharge
For 5 seconds, foes in this location take 6-27 holy
damage each second.

Chaos Storm (domination)
15 energy, 2 seconds cast, 30 seconds recharge
For 10 seconds, foes near target foe's location
suffer 5-12 damage per second. Chaos drains 1-6
energy whenever it strikes a foe casting a spell.

Maelstrom (water magic)
25 energy, 4 seconds cast, 30 seconds recharge
For 10 seconds, foes in the area are struck with
8-29 cold damage each second. Maelstorm interrupts
spell casting when it hits. This spell causes
exhaustion

Fire Storm (fire magic)
15 energy, 4 seconds cast, 30 seconds recharge
For 10 seconds, area around target foe is struck
for 5-24 fire damage each second.

Eruption (earth magic)
25 energy, 3 seconds, 30 seconds recharge
For 5 seconds, foes near this location are struck
for 5-28 earth damage each second. When eruption
ends, foes in the area of effect are blinded.

Ive had a build with Symbol of Wrath that was quite effective in PvP.

He was primary monk/mesmer
12(+2)smite
Balthazar's Aura 17damage a second for 10 seconds
symbol of wrath 30damage a second for 5 seconds
signet of judgement 75aoe + knockdown

It worked pretty well, im sure u can figure out what i went mesmer for. Most people target monks first anyways, so i didnt have to work too hard to get surrounded.. Unfortunately though you take a lot of damage as a monk primary, but it might be good paired with earth elem for a armor buff.

omg please use [ CODE ] tags and tabulation if you want to post tables


IMHO there is no reason to focus a build around it.
Probably Maelstorm or Chaos Storm is the best against a target №1 - monks. They'll be forced to move, and most likely they'll be under a slow (harmstring etc.) so it will take some time.
2 spells in a row with 4 sec casting time is not efficient. Also, 2 spells with energy cost 25 and another 15 for Arcane Echo is probably too much. So either SoW or CS IMHO. But maybe it's better to use Maelstorm with Arcane Echo on a Water Trident - you force to move and knockdown moving targets.

If you want to focus on AoE spells, then IMHO it's better to have several AoEs on a several characters (so to cast simultaneously) including at least AoE slow and probably AoE knockdown if possible so to make AoE DoT spells more efficient and effectively shutdown enemies for a longer time.

here are the definitions as I know them (please correct):

term: location
diameter: 1 yard, enough to get a single person, but no more
example: symbol of wrath

term: near
diameter: 5 yards, enough to get 2-3 individuals that are close
example: chaos storm, eruption

term: area
diameter: 20 yards?, enough to get an entire mob
example: ward against melee, firestorm

'

I think that Symbol of Wrath is a PBAOE spell, meaning it's centered on you. Last time I tried was the first BWE however, it might have changed since then.

If it is, then most people would find it useuless, like I did. 15 energy is more than most monks have to spare, not to mention a 2 second cast time is asking to be interrupted, and you're not likely to have points in smiting anyways. On top of that, you're only going to affect the warriors standing right in front of you, and it's unlikely they're the target of focus fire.

Warrior's will eat up a monk casting symbol of wrath- that's when it's time to bust out Savage Slash, Disrupting Chop, your Knockdown, Distracting Blow, etc...bust out your interrupt and the monk loses 15 energy + the side effect from your interrupt of choice. Even if they somehow get the spell off, stand there and attack through the pain- that means the monk isn't going anywhere either, and you still shouldn't be in any danger from 100-130 damage.

P.S. It'd be useful to either spell out the names of the spells in your table, or have a legend. They're not as intuitive as it may seem to someone who has been thinking about them for the last few days.

yes, symbol of wrath is pbaoe. And in most situations it is very ineffective, but for 15 energy it can do 130+ aoe armor ignoring damage. The smiting line is probably the most scoffed at attributes in the game, but those that over look it can be beat by it later.