Guild Wars 2

Title is the subject of this thread, lets talk about it. Nothing but flamewall. SO! Lets get talking shall we? If you dont know what I am talking about probably because you don’t ever use focus OR that skill ,let me show you.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flamewall

You use flame wall to hit targets? I use it mainly as a a field for blast finisher when using my scepter skills. Imo the damage and burning is too low to use it over another skill unless the target won’t be moving.

It’s a bad field, with even worse damage. The fact that it’s ranged isn’t all that helpful considering you almost always want to use it to stack might at your location. And it’s got a longer CD than ring of fire. Should be replaced or completely redone.

It’s an extremely weak skill and the single biggest reason the Focus kinda sucks overall. Fire is supposed to be the damage attunement. The Focus lacking any sort of serious damage leaves the weapon lopsided.

Isn’t the focus more like a shield than a weapon? I wouldn’t expect it to do loads of damage.

Tarvok.4206:

Isn’t the focus more like a shield than a weapon? I wouldn’t expect it to do loads of damage.

Even so the fire skills are just too weak. Not much use offensively, and little use defensively. Even as a defensive weapon, I feel it should be able to do some moderate damage in it’s fire attunement if they aren’t going to be defensive skills.

Tarvok.4206:

Isn’t the focus more like a shield than a weapon? I wouldn’t expect it to do loads of damage.

The idea is that it’s an item to help concentrate your power. So thematically, Anet can get away with pretty much whatever they want, but typically it’s going to be skills of a more “traditional mage” variety. The other three professions with a focus get at least one high-damage spell on theirs. The Ele has more Focus skills than all three of them combined and yet not one of them deals significant damage.

A question i personally have for an anet dev regarding this skill. I completely understand this is in no way at all correlated, but, ive noticed that flamewall in dungeons from enemy npc’s (such as CoF and Fractals) does an incredible amount of damage compared to the elementalists flamewall. Why doesnt flamewall do more damage? Or, put more burning? Focus has some real wvw group fighting potential regarding swirling winds and comet and maybe flamewall. ( IF it atleast did something that would make the enemies think twice before running through. which it doesnt.) With a measly ONE second burn and literally the LOWEST damaging skill in the entire elementalists arsenal, it is quite literally the worst skill ive seen for the ele.

Flamewall is one of the worst weapon skills in this game.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Flamewall is one of the worst weapon skills in this game.

Flamewall is one of the worst skills ever designed for a videogame

How about if flamewall was replaced with the following skills?

Mark of Rodgort:
Place a mark on the ground that burns foes in the area. Destroy the mark to cast Rodgort’s Invocation

Rodgort’s Invocation:
Deal damage to foes and burn them

The idea is that the mark will be like a circular flamewall and then you can sacrifice the fire combo to deal greater damage to enemies. Maybe someone can do more work with the idea and polish it up.

That’s a nice idea. Just let us detonate the flame wall. Fit’s into the whole versatility idea too.

It seriously needs to be altered or changed completely.

One of the problems with it besides it being a thin line that I have watched people run through without taking damage, not even wasting a dodge on, is that the damage is horrible as many have already mentioned, and the cast time is rather high.

If they upped the damage, it still will only be a tiny AoE field that is cumbersome to create combos on. I have the feeling that they initially thought that we should have a fire field and created the skill with other players in mind. A ranger shooting through it to get burning arrows. But in reality it sucks, sadly.

I believe the best course of action would be to change it completely. Histerico’s suggestion is very neat.

While at it, I have a few ideas as well.

Fire Trail
Create a trail of fire in your wake that burns targets that pass through it while granting you swiftness.

Damage: ?
Burning: ? sec.
Swiftness: ? sec.
Duration: ? sec.
Combo Field: Fire.

and..

Searing Ash
Create a cloud of searing ashes that burns and blinds foes.

Damage: ?
Burning: ? sec.
Blindness: ? sec.
Duration: ? sec.
Combo Field: Fire.

Focus also needs some more snares because it has zero mobility and weak snaring; that isn’t an ok combo when you can’t switch weapons.

Flamewall —→Bed of Coals
1/4 second cast
15 second cooldown
Damage: comparable to lava font
Duration: 6 seconds
Cripple duration: 2 or 3 seconds (maybe give it a 8 second cripple instead, but it will only apply once per foe.)
Radius: 360
Fire field
900 range

ground target? sure, why not

O I long for the day that fire and water focus skills become god mode

Flamewall takes to long to cast and only offers 1s burning if it hits.

I like those ideas of burning trail and searing ash. A blind would do wonders for focus bunkering.

Anet, could you redo Flamewall somehow? It is beyond repair. If you can run across without triggering it, a buff to damage would do little.

I am rather curious why Ring of Fire covers a much larger radius, deals 13 times as much damage (My fire ring does 1,000 and firewall does 73), and applies six seconds of burns instead of 1, AND has a five second shorter cooldown. In exchange for all of that, Firewall lasts 2 seconds longer. Both skills is are fire 4 serving the same role.

Seriously Anet. I try to keep my posts as constructive as I can, but holy biscuits this was a terribly designed skill.

Also Firesheild is so weak it’s not even worth my time to get it from combo finishers or the signet trait in fire, much less a 40 second cooldown.

While I agree flamewall needs some fixing, I don’t find it to be the horribad skill everyone says it is, but it might just be how i play. I use it solely to set up combos if I’m solo, or slap it in the middle of my group to help them achieve combos (this is pve, wvw. I don’t play ele in pvp because I suck at it, I prefer ganking people with my thief lol). If you’re trying to use it like a ring of fire, then yes it’s gonna fail. It’s not a ring of fire, so stop trying to use it like one. When I get ready for my combos and bursts, I will swap to fire, cast DT then still have plenty of time to get flamewall down before it lands to get the combo and follow with pheonix and dodge out. The fact the burning on it is so unreliable is negligible. It will still do burning a little, and works even better when you’re throwing it into the middle of blobs. So it seems people are using it in the wrong situations as well as trying to play it like a ring of fire. Just remember before you flip your desks in rage though, I do still think it needs reworking, but it can still be playable now if you make it work for you.

I think a detonation would make this skill awesome.

Nay of the Ether.8913:

While I agree flamewall needs some fixing, I don’t find it to be the horribad skill everyone says it is, but it might just be how i play. I use it solely to set up combos if I’m solo, or slap it in the middle of my group to help them achieve combos (this is pve, wvw. I don’t play ele in pvp because I suck at it, I prefer ganking people with my thief lol). If you’re trying to use it like a ring of fire, then yes it’s gonna fail. It’s not a ring of fire, so stop trying to use it like one. When I get ready for my combos and bursts, I will swap to fire, cast DT then still have plenty of time to get flamewall down before it lands to get the combo and follow with pheonix and dodge out. The fact the burning on it is so unreliable is negligible. It will still do burning a little, and works even better when you’re throwing it into the middle of blobs. So it seems people are using it in the wrong situations as well as trying to play it like a ring of fire. Just remember before you flip your desks in rage though, I do still think it needs reworking, but it can still be playable now if you make it work for you.

I can agree with you, its not that bad, however, in terms of pvp it really is that bad!

Flamewall is useful in PvE where mobs are dumb, and it can be placed somewhere to stack some might. It is also useful when zerging if you want to make burning arrows. Beyond that, it is 100% useless. It is not a defensive deterrent to players (no defense), it is not damaging to players, and it is hard to combo with in the first place. Fire-shield likewise is just spammed off cooldown b/c it doesn’t do anything defensively except proc signet of restoration (if you run that). It could at least detonate to cleanse a condi/ push down. Fire in focus is pitiful, and it is the #1 reason that it isn’t used.

The Game Slayer.7632:

Nay of the Ether.8913:

While I agree flamewall needs some fixing, I don’t find it to be the horribad skill everyone says it is, but it might just be how i play. I use it solely to set up combos if I’m solo, or slap it in the middle of my group to help them achieve combos (this is pve, wvw. I don’t play ele in pvp because I suck at it, I prefer ganking people with my thief lol). If you’re trying to use it like a ring of fire, then yes it’s gonna fail. It’s not a ring of fire, so stop trying to use it like one. When I get ready for my combos and bursts, I will swap to fire, cast DT then still have plenty of time to get flamewall down before it lands to get the combo and follow with pheonix and dodge out. The fact the burning on it is so unreliable is negligible. It will still do burning a little, and works even better when you’re throwing it into the middle of blobs. So it seems people are using it in the wrong situations as well as trying to play it like a ring of fire. Just remember before you flip your desks in rage though, I do still think it needs reworking, but it can still be playable now if you make it work for you.

I can agree with you, its not that bad, however, in terms of pvp it really is that bad!

Pvp, most definitely, wvw, no. People act as dumb as pve mobs in wvw so it works just fine ;-) And yes I would love to see a detonation on it like was mentioned above. Would be pretty sick.