it has a cast time? bleah
128 damage? what the heck.
k this thing is crap.
also, inb4 arcane wave’s damage is horribly nerfed to compensate for making it ranged
Not sure if Blasting Staff adds to the dps-output.
it makes more meteors hit due to increased area of effect per meteor
and since meteor shower is pretty much the strongest skill in the game, that alone is worth it
also being more able to hit targets that are being kited or changing targets or otherwise moving effectively ups your dps
While I do think Air 2 needs some love, I think it gets a bit too much hate. It does good damage in a nice AoE and can’t be avoided by simply sidestepping. And it AoE blinds. Sure it has a VERY obvious telegraph animation and a pretty long cast time, but some of that can be negated by using it at the right time. Like, I like to start casting it while I’m approaching but still out of range, such that it goes off just as I enter range, as an opening attack. In this way it has almost no opportunity cost.
well the idea is to do as much damage as possible, so yes
and tempest defense is getting a nice buff
also air 15+fresh air has great synergy even if you don’t want air’s spam skill. though I’ve never actually tried it in a serious build; not sure how easy it is to actually make use of when you also want to switch back out of air right away
anyway, I could also see taking 10 in earth for stone splinters and a bit of condition damage. but that’s not as awesome
I tried using DD PvP ele (full offense build)
sucked balls
but then I switched to staff (with a conjure sidearm) and started killin people. it’s so much more versatile
what’s most hilarious is when bad thieves jump on me and then instantly explode
additionally, lava axe grants might on skill 1, fire aura grants might when you get hit, and the heal glyph grants might when used in fire
and there are traits that grant might, yes
the one that gives might on attunement swap requires 10 points in the Arcana trait line
there are also equipment upgrades that grant might http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Might
seems to be missing the bit about lava axe as that was a relatively recent change, but it has most other things
I don’t see what the scale of the fight has to do with anything. Just about every multi-target spell has that 5 limit. venom share’s effects can be pretty powerful; it’s just that it consumes your entire build
Now this is an idealization, but
imagine if every 6th person were a venom share thief, and then everyone in the group attacks a different target. You open the fight by stunning everyone for 2-4 seconds, and then you stack a huge immob on everyone, then chill/poison/torment/whatever everyone. All the while giving everyone 6 stacks of might, doing an extra 350 damage per hit and healing for 350-700(healing power build) per hit. for 9-15 hits depending on how hardcore you want to go with your venoms. I’ve run a 4-venom build just to try it out; wasn’t too bad. Anyway, that’s kind of a lot of potential power
Unload needs to cost 1 less initiative so that P/P builds can keep up their only real source of damage without spending all traits just for that
OR it needs to do slightly more damage, so that the sacrifices it takes to keep using it are justified
OR do the same damage but over a shorter time frame, so that it’s more bursty
I only just started PvPing a lot a week ago, and I was extremely saddened when I found out that I can only do 8v8 Play Now games. I can’t learn anything when there are so many people throwing stuff everywhere that I can’t tell what’s going on.
use a build that isn’t reliant on boons and conditions, so that their corrupt boons and condition transfers do nothing
you now get hit with 500% fewer conditions
permanent burning is usually better than permanent poison, so missing out on poison isn’t so bad, but ele’s problem is that it isn’t good at applying bleeds. No attunements apply bleeding except earth, and the only skills that apply more than one stack of bleeding are impossible to actually hit anyone with. To reliably do any heavy bleeding, you have to spam earth 1 for a long time.
perma burning will be easier to achieve with the changes to the Burning Fire trait, but I don’t see anything beneficial to anything else condition related
The damage effects are delayed on Shield Smash, the second hit of the conjured Magnetic Shield’s chain attack.
The damage itself seems to be applied, but the pop up number, visual effect, and sound effect are all delayed by a few seconds. The result is very unsettling.
After using Glyph of Renewal in fire, if revived by Renewal of Fire, the cooldown resets from whatever it was to 165 seconds, regardless of the Quick Glyphs trait.
(Also, is Renewal of Fire supposed to be resetting the cooldown in the first place?)
Then there is Final Shielding … that 25% life can be completely be bypassed by most classes in a single hit which means the trait never fires.
needs to be re-coded to activate before the damage is applied for any hit that would reduce health to below the threshold. For all of these health-activated traits, really. would make that armor of earth trait more usable too
This is pretty great.
I love me some theorycrafting, and I’ve made many tests and spreadsheets back when I played this game a lot (a little too much, even), but this is much more thorough.
YES I can take 30 in air now since I only need 10 for Blasting Staff
nooo I no longer get Elemental Attunement. The protection, regen, and swiftness are all invaluably useful.
well, I guess my glass ele will be even glassier
I do everything on my 30/20/0/0/20 zero toughness/vit staff ele. I have no problems in PvE (except with the mega huge champion boss monsters, since they always 1-shot me). It’s a very versatile weapon.
I am kind of impressed. These are all generally very good changes, but more important (to my being impressed) are the reasonings supplied and the subsequent response posts. Do more of that.
Though at the same time I’m disappointed that the core problem with rangers (pet inability to dodge or hit moving targets) has yet to be touched. (I don’t even play ranger. but that’s part of why I don’t.)
How about air 3 and earth 5 as skillshots instead of targeted?
I use shockwave without a target half the time. it goes in the direction you’re aiming.
but making it ground targeted would make this a lot easier, yeah
idk, it seems kinda like how stuff like Pistol Whip + Quickness was, back in the day. in that it is great when abused but mediocre otherwise
One With Air is probably great when you spam it with Fresh Air but sucks otherwise. They should increase the duration (and let it actually work out of combat. please) but then give it an internal cooldown
With regards to gust, can you use it fast enough and switch back to burning retreat within 1.5 seconds?
Not trying to disagree with you lol, just curious.
EDIT: ah just noticed you said it’s difficult, but possible. Cool
It literally REQUIRES 30 in arcana. If you don’t have that, the buff wears off before the global attunement cooldown expires. It’s not really about gust so much as using burning retreat within 0.2 seconds of switching to fire
I don’t believe it’s generally possible to do. will not believe it until I see it
anyway, yeah, ele is pretty awful at stunbreaks on demand. but we do have a stunbreak trait, which is nice (least I think it breaks stuns. I haven’t used the thing since 2012). arcane shield is the only stunbreaker I can bear to use on ele. vs thief’s AMAZING infiltrator’s signet
edit: @ above. also have a pretty nice stability trait. but traits aren’t nearly as flexible as utility skills. having to take 20 in earth isn’t viable for most builds
yeah, I think that was the idea
make ele a better support class
ele sucks at 1v1s, and they are never going to fix that, but hopefully they will eventually make ele the best class to have in a group of 2-3, and I will be fine with that
