Guild Wars 2

Im talking about ground based PBAoE for certain professions, especially staff elementalist, staff mesmer, staff guardian (and Im not sure up to what extent with staff necros). This could also apply to large PBAoE in other professions.

In a game where there is an AoE cap of 5 I think it is wise to balance in between a middle ground for single targets and max cap AoE 5 targets. I believe 3 would be the perfect break point in between single and AoE damage.

I will break it down into 3 points:

1. Break-even point
2. People learning to leave the red circle.
3. Possible new mechanic, AoE —> “Isolation”

For number 1; Break point

Let me put a arbitrary numerical value;

Lets say that single target is 1000.

AoE Abilities would do 333 damage instead of 1000, which is 33% or 1/3 of the damage a single target would do. In order to “break even” with single target damage you would need 3 targets (333 x3 = 999 ~ 1000), but if 5 targets are hit then it would be 333 x5 ~1500 , which would not be a punishement for AoE weapons. Im looking specifically at staff ele which suffers from having 19/20 AoE skills and which you need 5 targets to stand still to break even with a mesmer which can pretty much kill someone and leave the another one half dead with collateral damage, it would give staff ele a fighting chance in small skirmish scenarios like 2v2 and 3v3, or even a 1v1.

Second Point; People learning to leave the red circle

I think it is safe to say that by now most people have learn that staying in red circle is a NO-NO in Guild Wars 2 as proven by liadri and countless of other bosses, now that the learning phase is over and that we can take the learning wheels off, we can up the damage of AoE, because this is the most important part; most people can walk out or dodge out of AoE and that has to be taken into account, specially staff ele which heavily depends on people inaptitude to walk out of the circles or having to coordinate or “waste” utilities into CC (which we only have one in long CD) just to land a extra tick. A skill should be rewarding enough to land 2/5 or even 1/3 of its duration, not a requirement that they stay the entire duration.

Last point; possible new mechanics for AoE——> Isolation"

Let me explain back into the arbitrary number of point 1; 1000 damage. Basically, if you hit 3 targets then you would hit each for 333, but what isolation would do is; check # of enemies in AoE, base damage (1000) divided by # of players. Basically it would go something like this, if there is only one target, it gets hit by 1000 damage, if there are 2, then 500 each, 3 gets hit by 333, you get the idea. Now, im sure there would be some technical implications and of course AOE cap would be included, since otherwise it would hit for 0.0001 in a crowd, but this would not punish certain gameplays for some classes which dont have the choice to change weapons mid fights. Of course so that single target classes dont get screwed over maybe the damage can be something ike 750 or 800 instead of 1000, I would much rather have that than the current 200 regardless ofhow many people are around

Thoughts? Possible improvements please?

-Reserved for further improvements.-

Just want to remind everyone the 1000 is just an arbitrary number for easy understanding purposes, Im sure Anet can tweak it and make it so it isnt too linear, giving the edge to single targets and not making single target classes useless , for example, instead of hitting 1000 in isolation it would hit 750 or 800. Would give single target the upper edge (200-250) more damage but would also give the AoE class a fighting chance instead of the now “200 damage” regardless of how many people are around.

Bottleneck people if using staff for ele? (Tunnels, hallways, at the edge of cliffs, people stuck inside Guardian Hammer #5)

Or use different weapons? Maybe daggers or something?

You can always swap weapons inbetween combat.

Certain tools are more effective in one situation than another. Use the appropriate tool for the appropriate situation. A hammer is great for driving a nail, but not so good at unscrewing a bolt.

DigitalKirin.9714:

Bottleneck people if using staff for ele? (Tunnels, hallways, at the edge of cliffs, people stuck inside Guardian Hammer #5)

Or use different weapons? Maybe daggers or something?

You can always swap weapons inbetween combat.

Certain tools are more effective in one situation than another. Use the appropriate tool for the appropriate situation. A hammer is great for driving a nail, but not so good at unscrewing a bolt.

here is the thing, a weapong shouldnt be held back because of a niche situation in which many of players dont get involved. Not everyone plays WvW 24/7, heck, not everyone even cares about WvW too much since that game mode should be recalled ZvZvZ, Zerg Wars 2. Im sorry but balancing a weapons around the prospect that you can have 5 people bottlenecke into a place is not healthy balance. Staff is in dire needs, and Im certainly not interested in WvW. I want to be able to bring staff into a PuG dungeon and be on par in damage with other classes. I want to be able to hold my own in tPvP instead of needing 5 people to be standing still on a point. You see where Im trying to get at?

Eles lack “options” , whereas you have a hammer, a dog, an architect and a spaceship, I only have a hammer and a starved cat, we cant “swift weapons” in combat and switching attunements inst very helpful when they ALL bring the same thing to the table; AoE.

Another thing I hear often is; “well, you got caught with staff? well, too bad, thats part of your ‘weakness’”, well, then give me an strenght, because right now staff is underwhelming in ALL aspects of the game, and dont give me the “jack of all, master of none” excuse, an engi or guardian not even specced into pretty much anything will out do us while still retaining threat. A guardian will outdo us in pretty much anything, even a fully specced damage dealer guardian brings more support and healing to a table than a fully support/healing ele, while the ele cant even kill most targets if you go in this direction.

Interesting. See, I have ele to 80 as well. I have staff, 2 daggers, a scepter and a focus for her. Most groups that have melee classes actually Like when mobs group up (so they can cleave and AoE them down easier).

In “target rich” environments, you will be maximizing the use of your staff. In dungeons, you can always swap weapons between fights, when running from one to the next. When you learn the fights, you can optimize which tool to use and when.

Now, would it be nice if staff did more damage? If ANet happened to change it, I certainly wouldn’t complain, but instead of always being in the “Every weapon should do the same kind of damage”, start thinking “Every weapon has its place and purpose.”

Elementalists can actually do pretty awesome damage. But you must be flexible with your choices.

So your #3 allow your AOE dmg to do same dmg as single target skill, as well as with added benefit of AOE???

Talk about bias… Moving on, nothing to see here

DigitalKirin.9714:

Interesting. See, I have ele to 80 as well. I have staff, 2 daggers, a scepter and a focus for her. Most groups that have melee classes actually Like when mobs group up (so they can cleave and AoE them down easier).

In “target rich” environments, you will be maximizing the use of your staff. In dungeons, you can always swap weapons between fights, when running from one to the next. When you learn the fights, you can optimize which tool to use and when.

Now, would it be nice if staff did more damage? If ANet happened to change it, I certainly wouldn’t complain, but instead of always being in the “Every weapon should do the same kind of damage”, start thinking “Every weapon has its place and purpose.”

Elementalists can actually do pretty awesome damage. But you must be flexible with your choices.

I have 2 daggers, a scepter and I dont have a focus. 2 set and a half sets, zerker and PVT, a couple of knight trinkets. I run back and forth between LA and dungeons to switch builds for dungeons. I have done all dungeons and currently run at least 4 exp every day. I know my “fights” thank you, please dont assume just because we are asking for buffs we havent tried everything. I have tried hammer, I have tried conditions, I have tried bunker, I have tried zerker (which is what im currently running). Truth of the matter is; even when the best conditions are achieved, we fall behind.

Hell Avenger.7021:

So your #3 allow your AOE dmg to do same dmg as single target skill, as well as with added benefit of AOE???

Talk about bias… Moving on, nothing to see here

hence the second posting, dont want a linear scaling, so that single DPS isnt outscaled, please read again or yes leave, I dont need people like you which dont read the entire thing and then just bash, you contribute to nothing in the discusssion, so I guess good riddance.

Fortus.6175:

Truth of the matter is; even when the best conditions are achieved, we fall behind.

/shrug

Possibly not the best conditions are met. Eles are very strong in DPS. A group that can meet your needs is ideal for a LH Ele. I may suggest asking the dungeon forum for their opinions. People are quite knowledgeable there since your concern seems to be dungeons.

Edit: Better yet, if you’d like, we can just crosslink to the dungeon forum and just invite a few people to give their opinion.

DigitalKirin.9714:

Fortus.6175:

Truth of the matter is; even when the best conditions are achieved, we fall behind.

/shrug

Possibly not the best conditions are met. Eles are very strong in DPS. A group that can meet your needs is ideal for a LH Ele. I may suggest asking the dungeon forum for their opinions. People are quite knowledgeable there since your concern seems to be dungeons.

Edit: Better yet, if you’d like, we can just crosslink to the dungeon forum and just invite a few people to give their opinion.

-sigh- Im not getting through am I? I already did all that, I already tried it all, we ARE lacking, it isnt a l2p issue at all….

Fortus.6175:

Hell Avenger.7021:

So your #3 allow your AOE dmg to do same dmg as single target skill, as well as with added benefit of AOE???

Talk about bias… Moving on, nothing to see here

hence the second posting, dont want a linear scaling, so that single DPS isnt outscaled, please read again or yes leave, I dont need people like you which dont read the entire thing and then just bash, you contribute to nothing in the discusssion, so I guess good riddance.

Your posts are extremely bias. Of course it needs some bashing. This is not a suggestion, this thread is all about you you you. Power trip the Ele especially.

Learn to think in grand scheme of thing, not so narrowly on one class that you main is.

Fortus.6175:

Hell Avenger.7021:

So your #3 allow your AOE dmg to do same dmg as single target skill, as well as with added benefit of AOE???

Talk about bias… Moving on, nothing to see here

hence the second posting, dont want a linear scaling, so that single DPS isnt outscaled, please read again or yes leave, I dont need people like you which dont read the entire thing and then just bash, you contribute to nothing in the discusssion, so I guess good riddance.

TIL disagreeing with someone means you’re contributing nothing to the discussion.

It’s not that you’re not getting through. It’s just that we disagree. I understand your concern, but there are many successful Elementalists out there who run dungeons. Many of them have top tier DPS. If you’re not satisfied with your results, perhaps you can check with them to see what they are doing differently.

Right now, neither of us are giving more than our own opinion. We don’t have data to back up the strength of an ele compared to some of the other classes. The closest thing would be “peer review” which I suggest by going and talking to the Dungeon forum, who are very passionate about digging down into hard data and valuing that over anecdotal observation.

I also fundamentally disagree with the premise of your discussion, Fortus. Screaming at the top of your lungs that elementalists are underpowered isn’t going to make it more true. They’ve been decent at several aspects of the game for a long time and while they might be wavering here and there overtime, they’re not by any means terribly underpowered.

In fact, elementalists are often appreciated in dungeons. So… I dunno. Really sounds like a L2P issue where you expected that sleeving into a new build meant you were automatically going to be better instead of actually learning how to utilize it.

Kirschwasser.3972:

I also fundamentally disagree with the premise of your discussion, Fortus. Screaming at the top of your lungs that elementalists are underpowered isn’t going to make it more true. They’ve been decent at several aspects of the game for a long time and while they might be wavering here and there overtime, they’re not by any means terribly underpowered.

In fact, elementalists are often appreciated in dungeons. So… I dunno. Really sounds like a L2P issue where you expected that sleeving into a new build meant you were automatically going to be better instead of actually learning how to utilize it.

It is understandable that it can come out like that, but Im not saying eles are underpowered, just that they need some work in some lacking areas, aka staff. I believe everything else i eles work well, minus the emblematic weapon of said class.

Lack of experience in the class isnt, lack of skills isnt since otherwise I wouldnt have been able to beat liadr, though beating liadri is preobably not the bet example, it is the only one I can provide in this scenario.

Staff needs work, a weapon that has 19/20 skills AOE suffers of its own strenghts, as simple as that.

as a guardian i can tell you that staff might be somehow ranged but you can´t even hit stuff 3 inches above your horizontal plane, and the dps is low. people who use staff on pvp is to tag targets in order to recieve loot from them. it is not an effective mechanism of killing anything with intelligence. And the 4# 5# does no dmg we can´t nuke anything, we just poke things until they get tired or rarely die.

In pve i would say yea it is quite good, monsters are idiotic beings who don´t heal or move to higher ground and being able to hit 5 target at the same time makes up for the low atack speed dps and lack of dmg of higher CD skills