Buffing FA ele's damage in pvp?

[Razor.6392]

Playing FA ele well can at most make you go even against an average skilled rev, thief, guard, and for other builds, not even that is enough (bad matchups).

 

Anyone else thinks it's unfair how hard-to-play builds get downright obliterated in raw numbers by AI builds and press-1-button-to-do-8k damage builds? I mean, when Lightning Strike (scepter 2) or any of the arcane insta-crit "nukes" do 1500-2000 damage at most in pvp and Dragon's Tooth (probably top 3 hardest skill to land on players in the game) does 4k, you know there's an issue going on. Especially when, comparatively, a single ranger pet autoattack can do over 4800 damage, smoke assault 6k, most classes autoattacks do well over 2500 damage, unrelenting assault 7k (and the followup precision strike for 4k) shadow shot does 4k and zealot's defense over 6k. I could spend an entire paragraph naming the endless list of skills, passives (such as reckless dodge) and autoattacks that do more damage than Lightning Strike, yes it's instant and ranged, it's still a core part of FA ele's "burst" combo.

 

I firmly believe that increasing damage is the answer. Ele already got plenty of usability fixes for Scepter and even off-hand dagger. Yet in pvp they still hit like a wet noodle. Sure, if you line up (as you should) at least 5 spells together, you can land a decent burst (1 single dodge can shut down 5+ of your cooldowns, as opposed to only wasting 1 measly cd for other classes), still, it remains as too high risk for so little reward.

 

Increasing Electric Discharge damage by 50%, Lightning Strike damage by 20%, Dragon's Tooth by 50% and Ring of Fire / Earthquake by 20% would help Ele be more on par with classes whose AI pets can rival a nicely crafted burst setup of yours. What do you guys think? I realize this sounds like an extreme L2P post, but quite frankly I'm tired of landing my stuff, and still be outsustained, outdamaged and out cc'd by pretty much every meta build in the game.

[Abelisk.4527]

A good FA ele can beat a good power Thief.

 

Axe warr is tricky for eles because of gap closers.

 

Mesmers are impossible.

[Razor.6392]

> @Abelisk.4527 said:

> A good FA ele can beat a good power Thief.

>

> Axe warr is tricky for eles because of gap closers.

>

> Mesmers are impossible.

 

Power Thief is doable. Condi S/D Thief is next to impossible unless he sucks.

 

A good Rev / DH is downright impossible for me to beat. Too many blocks, heals and must-dodge skills.

 

Power necro even though not as powerful, is really painful to beat. Condi necro might even be easier.

 

Axe warriors just chase you down spamming 1, the moment you fail to dodge shield bash / headbutt and your cd's are down, you're dead. Meanwhile they can continue to mess up repeatedly and eat your damage.

 

Power mesmer is doable. Condi mesmer is doable only if he's bad.

 

Mender's ranger is impossible. You don't have enough damage and eventually they wear you down with staff / LB spam and that annoying pet. If they're in trouble, heal to full with celestial avatar.

 

Engi's are a funny one. Rocket charge has lower cd than phoenix, and does more damage than your entire burst combo. Blocks, immune to blind, and sneak gyro as a final F you to your matchup chances. 3-7 matchup IMO.

 

Not enough damage to put a dent on healbot ele, unless they repeatedly mess up.

 

FeelsBadMan

[Abelisk.4527]

Have you tried Arcane Blast?

[Razor.6392]

Of course, it's in my utility bar 24/7.

 

 

[Nutshel.7264]

Agreed, fa ele needs buff. In both damage and usability. Cooldown on combo is too long to be threatening and missing it/getting dodged/stun broke means you have to stale for 30-40 sec which is in most cases enough to kill ele. Outside of combo ele does not do enough damage in comparison to survivability to put pressure on most classes. So pretty much what have been already said - too much risk to little reward. Too often I get feeling that I am heavily outplaying the opponent only to lose to him because I made single mistake(he did many) or just because his class is stronger. Truth is if two equally skilled players with equally powerful builds duel the one with build harder to execute will always lose. Don't take me wrong, I do like that ele is difficultish to play but as is the reward is lesser than other classes and punishment for messing up is way more severe.

[posthumecaver.6473]

It was working before specially when we could get Bolt to Heart and Fresh Air, at the moment we burst people, bring them %30 then we have nothing pressure them and we have to 10s for the next burst session.

 

Devs will never buff FA S/X Ele because if you chain your combos, we just annihilate baddies, and ANet will never let that, off course semi competent people prevent your burst with blocks, evade, blinds and you will have nothing to do next 10s does not interest them.....

[Axl.8924]

To all you friendly eles out there dpsing:Friend me and i'l help you guys beat up the nasty thieves and teach them a lesson in exchange for you guys going bunker ele, and group with me.

[Razor.6392]

> @Nutshel.7264 said:

> Agreed, fa ele needs buff. In both damage and usability. Cooldown on combo is too long to be threatening and missing it/getting dodged/stun broke means you have to stale for 30-40 sec which is in most cases enough to kill ele. Outside of combo ele does not do enough damage in comparison to survivability to put pressure on most classes. So pretty much what have been already said - too much risk to little reward. Too often I get feeling that I am heavily outplaying the opponent only to lose to him because I made single mistake(he did many) or just because his class is stronger. Truth is if two equally skilled players with equally powerful builds duel the one with build harder to execute will always lose. Don't take me wrong, I do like that ele is difficultish to play but as is the reward is lesser than other classes and punishment for messing up is way more severe.

 

People keep mentioning BttH but I don't think I would ever consider replacing superspeed on air attunement for it.

[ZhouX.8742]

In terms of PvP , Fresh air is really good the only problem is condi thief exists. If it was removed, Fresh air would be easily the meta spec for PvP but it's not and it completely hard counters FA.. I would suggest learning more about other classes and testing combos better. Also, watch Phantaram play FA to get a good insight on attunement usage and combo setups against specific matchups in PvP.

 

Also, if you were to remove super speed on air attunement then you would destroy what makes FA. You would essentially kill the build's survivability and the build all together as it would have no very little gap creation at that point.

[BlackBeard.2873]

Lightning strike is fine, its instant and does a lot of damage. They need to fix the following casts:

- Phoenix: CD reduced to 12 or 15s.

- Fire auto-attack: now takes 0.75s or 0.5s. Damage adjusted accordingly (so you can get in more frequent hits, and synergizes with signet heal).

- Dragon's tooth: cast time reduced to 0.25s or 0.5s OR the drop time is only 0.25 after the full 1s cast.

- Air auto-attack: precast reduced so that damage starts ticking immediately. Damage per-pulse is equalized rather than backloaded.

- FGS: CD reduced to 90s or 100s (especially now that you can only hold it for 30s).

- Water traitline: Piercing shards now does +7% damage against vuln enemies in every attunement.

 

I would REALLY like if the also reduced the CD of lightning flash to 30s baseline, but that also helps non-dps builds b/c every ele build forever takes LF.

[Razor.6392]

> @BlackBeard.2873 said:

> Lightning strike is fine, its instant and does a lot of damage. They need to fix the following casts:

> - Phoenix: CD reduced to 12 or 15s.

> - Fire auto-attack: now takes 0.75s or 0.5s. Damage adjusted accordingly (so you can get in more frequent hits, and synergizes with signet heal).

> - Dragon's tooth: cast time reduced to 0.25s or 0.5s OR the drop time is only 0.25 after the full 1s cast.

> - Air auto-attack: precast reduced so that damage starts ticking immediately. Damage per-pulse is equalized rather than backloaded.

> - FGS: CD reduced to 90s or 100s (especially now that you can only hold it for 30s).

> - Water traitline: Piercing shards now does +7% damage against vuln enemies in every attunement.

>

> I would REALLY like if the also reduced the CD of lightning flash to 30s baseline, but that also helps non-dps builds b/c every ele build forever takes LF.

 

This might be valid, but I really feel like skills on the 4 and 5 slots with cooldowns of 20 seconds or higher (such as ring of fire, comet and earthquake) shouldn't hit only 2k on a crit. That's just absurd.

 

Also Fire Grab is still ridiculously hard to land.

[BlackBeard.2873]

> @Razor.6392 said:

> > @BlackBeard.2873 said:

> > Lightning strike is fine, its instant and does a lot of damage. They need to fix the following casts:

> > - Phoenix: CD reduced to 12 or 15s.

> > - Fire auto-attack: now takes 0.75s or 0.5s. Damage adjusted accordingly (so you can get in more frequent hits, and synergizes with signet heal).

> > - Dragon's tooth: cast time reduced to 0.25s or 0.5s OR the drop time is only 0.25 after the full 1s cast.

> > - Air auto-attack: precast reduced so that damage starts ticking immediately. Damage per-pulse is equalized rather than backloaded.

> > - FGS: CD reduced to 90s or 100s (especially now that you can only hold it for 30s).

> > - Water traitline: Piercing shards now does +7% damage against vuln enemies in every attunement.

> >

> > I would REALLY like if the also reduced the CD of lightning flash to 30s baseline, but that also helps non-dps builds b/c every ele build forever takes LF.

>

> This might be valid, but I really feel like skills on the 4 and 5 slots with cooldowns of 20 seconds or higher (such as ring of fire, comet and earthquake) shouldn't hit only 2k on a crit. That's just absurd.

>

> Also Fire Grab is still ridiculously hard to land.

 

I think focus is honestly pretty good, although fire is quite underwhelming. The fire-line CD being 20s doesn't make sense, especially because the field is so small harder to combo in. Fire shield is used for either: aura cleanse+heal with tempest specs, or proc a LITTLE extra healing when using signet heal, it doesn't really mitigate damage effectively or apply significant counter-pressure. I do think comet is quite ok, as it is EXCELLENT against downed bodies (due to it being aoe). Freezing gust could do more damage or, apply a longer chill. That being said, Those changes to focus are just being nit-picky.

 

When it comes to dagger off-hand, oh boy do they have a lot of work to do....but that isn't really applicable to fresh air. RtL CD needs to be 15s (with no-on-hit thing anymore), Earthquake should be a shorter CD. Churning earth is STILL way too weak for the fact that it has a long cast AND roots you in melee. Firegrab is still nearly impossible to hit (and doesn't hit hard enough given how hard it is to land + its CD + the necessity to make sure the target is burning). Off-hand dagger just doesn't offer enough of anything to ever be worth it, especially in modern times where damage is through the roof and hard mitigation is at a premium. I don't expect that to change. OH dagger REALLY wants to be used in a high-risk dps spec or bruiser spec, but ele just can't play those roles, especially without focus.

[Phantaram.1265]

A misconception I see all the time is that FA ele is about burst. Sure it can do big burst but FA eles need to focus on how to optimize consistent damage. If you just keep that air 1 going and get off air 2/attune to air on your target as often as you can you'll find you don't even need burst against a lot of targets, especially with arcane blast. The consistent damage can often open up the opportunities to do the burst damage as they go on the defensive and use their cooldowns on your consistent damage.

 

Arcane blast makes earth a very scary attunement for enemies while you are in it as just a simple air 1 -> swap to earth -> arcane blast(immob) -> air attune -> lightning strike is huge damage. Especially if you happen to have barrier up and throw the rocks or even hit with Magnetic Wave. This is essentially your secondary burst combo alongside phoenix.

 

If the enemy team doesn't have a condi thief or a good s/d power thief, you are golden on FA ele. Although I'm feeling more and more that necros sort of restrict the playing field for you and are quite powerful against FA eles but against them you have the option of going somewhere else if it's too much trouble. Thieves will just chase you down and kill you though.

 

Anyways, if you asked me I think FA ele damage is fine.

[Shirlias.8104]

Are you sure it's about dmg? FA ele has a decent burst, and he lacks surv like other dps classes. ( but it seems quite fine cause most of his dps is from distance ).

[Razor.6392]

Well, guess off hand dagger is the one that needs help mostly.

 

RtL, RoF, Earthquake all do 2k damage on 20-30s cooldowns while fire grab remains really hard to land.

 

RtL I would either reduce the CD a little more or give it an evade for the duration.

RoF simply needs more damage. 20% more or so.

Earthquake is AoE CC alright, but considering it's melee the payoff isn't really worth it. Either extra damage, stab, faster cast time idk.

 

Then there's dragon tooth.

 

I felt ele needs more damage simply because skills by themselves do almost no damage compared to something like 3k scrapper autoattacks.

[PierPiero.9142]

For soloing i find FA easier than Tempest becouse in tempest if you don't have a good team it is really hard to do something ...