Update: Here are the current rules for an elemental team, below these are historical notes.
Meeting time: Tuesdays 9:30 PM EDT for 1-2 hours.
Concept: a team of elemental casters, with one character representing each element. Together they will prove that a balanced team of elemental nukers can in fact defeat hard mode.
Rules: Each character has an associated elemental attribute and damage type, and have some rules they must follow accordingly.
1) Must invest max points into their attribute. (Runes up to you.)
2) Must equip at least 5 skills from the attribute or at least referencing their element. (the elemental type must appear in the skill description)
3) Must use a staff or wand from their attribute or element for their weapon.
4) No consumeables!
5) Any skill outside of your attribute that references a damage type or deals it indirectly to enemies (including degen/life steal) must reference your element.
- In other words, earth mages can bring dust cloak or summon naga shaman, but not ice spikes. (even if winter is up)
- This restriction includes things such as minions, splinter weapon, and damage conversion like winter or sensitivity like the mantras.
- Damage amplification such as cracked armor or standard of honor is unrestricted.
- Skills within your attribute don't have to deal the right damage. Air eles can use Gust (and so can water), while earth eles can use obsidian flame.
- Skills with mixed damage types are eligible by one type, so for example, both water and blood can use winter's chill.
These are the 8 elemental damage types and their associated attributes;
Fire / Fire Magic
Cold / Water Magic
Lightning / Air Magic
Earth / Earth Magic
Holy / Smiting Prayers
Shadow / Blood Magic
"Light" (Direct Heals) / Healing Prayers
"Dark" (Life Steal) / Restoration Magic
---- First post follows ----
Wyrm mentioned something about starting up a new team variant and getting allies involved, and I've been playing a bit of PS2 console RPGs lately; the two got me thinking along this track, as well as the old "elemental strike team" from D2. This is still a WIP though, I could really use some input to come up with a workable variant.
As mentioned in the title, the idea is to create a team focused on the four elemental types (earth, fire, water, air). In the old days of guild wars, a horde of fire eles slaughtering everything bunched up by a tank was really common, but with hard mode and various additions such as high armor and scatter, this has mostly fallen to the wayside, and eles relegated to defenses such as blind and wards. So let's make a variant appropriate for some hard mode stretch (EotN missions?) to prove that nukers still have what it takes!
Here a few KISS variants I've thought of so far, but I'm not satisfied with any of them yet.
1) Elementalist skills only (+ rez?)
Aside from being fairly character limited, healing is a real challenge with just aura/glyph of restoration and the new elemental lord, all of which only work on ele primaries. Eles do have a wide variety of defense and shutdown skills that can be stacked, so this would positively emphasize that, but there'd possibly still be a few spots or bosses that the eles can't shut down very well. Emphasis could easily shift to an obsidian flesh tank taking most of the hits and herding into nice balls; this isn't necessarily easy in HM against most enemies without a heal source, but it could still be boring and slow paced.
2) Elemental damage only
This broadens the skill criteria by allowing non-eles to contribute more. Necros could weaken armor and provide anti-melee, mesmers could augment FC elemental damage with inspiration interrupts, etc. Technically physical classes could just equip an elemental weapon and use a regular bar, but that's no fun, so we'd stipulate that all the +damage attack skills don't count as "elemental" damage. Physicals would instead focus on equipping conjure element and attacking as fast as possible, along with support such as knockdowns or interrupts; dervishes with their crazy enchant stack abilities would be favored.
What I don't like about this one is that defenses can be done any way you want, which includes imbagons, curses, ether renewal prot spirit spam, and the like. I fear this would just pass by all the great defensive options elementalists have.
3) Non-elementalist skill restrictions
Allowing other skills from every class, but with severe limitations that favors the elementalists. This still lets every class make their own unique contribution. There are several ways to do this, but this is my thought so far on allowed non-elementalist skills:
Primary attribute skills are allowed, as are non-attribute skills and skills from these lines:
Motivation
Healing
Wilderness Survival
Inspiration
Blood
Deadly Arts
Restoration
Earth and Wind Prayers
Tactics
Additionally, any skill referencing an element is also allowed.
You can still spend points on forbidden attributes (e.g. invest in scythe mastery), just can't take any skills.
Instead of going by attribute line, we could instead ban non-elementalist skills by type:
attack skills
rituals
hexes
enchantments
corpse-exploiting
condition-causing
PvE
The intent of these approaches is to put the primary focus on elemental damage and defenses, leaving the rest for support such as healing, interrupts, and energy management.
4) Assigned party roles
This approach was really popular in some D2 variants, but it depended both on reliable players every week and the ability to play characters on someone else's account. Still it could work with heroes and some flexibility about primary. Something like:
4 Eles (secondary OK), each fully representing one element (max attribute & 5+ skills from the line)
1 flexible or "prismatic" ele (master of magic, signet of illusions, at least one skill from each element)
3 completely non-elemental defensive support characters (self/ally/party targeting skills only; heal/prot/emanage/tank/etc.) - perhaps allowing another ele if extra support isn't needed.
Fairly simple and flavorful, but not that accomodating to random guests dropping in and out who may only have or want to use X character. It also doesn't let you play as much to enemies weak to a specific element.
Anyway could use some input, even if it's just picking your favorite number from these ideas.
Meeting time: Tuesdays 9:30 PM EDT for 1-2 hours.
Concept: a team of elemental casters, with one character representing each element. Together they will prove that a balanced team of elemental nukers can in fact defeat hard mode.
Rules: Each character has an associated elemental attribute and damage type, and have some rules they must follow accordingly.
1) Must invest max points into their attribute. (Runes up to you.)
2) Must equip at least 5 skills from the attribute or at least referencing their element. (the elemental type must appear in the skill description)
3) Must use a staff or wand from their attribute or element for their weapon.
4) No consumeables!
5) Any skill outside of your attribute that references a damage type or deals it indirectly to enemies (including degen/life steal) must reference your element.
- In other words, earth mages can bring dust cloak or summon naga shaman, but not ice spikes. (even if winter is up)
- This restriction includes things such as minions, splinter weapon, and damage conversion like winter or sensitivity like the mantras.
- Damage amplification such as cracked armor or standard of honor is unrestricted.
- Skills within your attribute don't have to deal the right damage. Air eles can use Gust (and so can water), while earth eles can use obsidian flame.
- Skills with mixed damage types are eligible by one type, so for example, both water and blood can use winter's chill.
These are the 8 elemental damage types and their associated attributes;
Fire / Fire Magic
Cold / Water Magic
Lightning / Air Magic
Earth / Earth Magic
Holy / Smiting Prayers
Shadow / Blood Magic
"Light" (Direct Heals) / Healing Prayers
"Dark" (Life Steal) / Restoration Magic
---- First post follows ----
Wyrm mentioned something about starting up a new team variant and getting allies involved, and I've been playing a bit of PS2 console RPGs lately; the two got me thinking along this track, as well as the old "elemental strike team" from D2. This is still a WIP though, I could really use some input to come up with a workable variant.
As mentioned in the title, the idea is to create a team focused on the four elemental types (earth, fire, water, air). In the old days of guild wars, a horde of fire eles slaughtering everything bunched up by a tank was really common, but with hard mode and various additions such as high armor and scatter, this has mostly fallen to the wayside, and eles relegated to defenses such as blind and wards. So let's make a variant appropriate for some hard mode stretch (EotN missions?) to prove that nukers still have what it takes!
Here a few KISS variants I've thought of so far, but I'm not satisfied with any of them yet.
1) Elementalist skills only (+ rez?)
Aside from being fairly character limited, healing is a real challenge with just aura/glyph of restoration and the new elemental lord, all of which only work on ele primaries. Eles do have a wide variety of defense and shutdown skills that can be stacked, so this would positively emphasize that, but there'd possibly still be a few spots or bosses that the eles can't shut down very well. Emphasis could easily shift to an obsidian flesh tank taking most of the hits and herding into nice balls; this isn't necessarily easy in HM against most enemies without a heal source, but it could still be boring and slow paced.
2) Elemental damage only
This broadens the skill criteria by allowing non-eles to contribute more. Necros could weaken armor and provide anti-melee, mesmers could augment FC elemental damage with inspiration interrupts, etc. Technically physical classes could just equip an elemental weapon and use a regular bar, but that's no fun, so we'd stipulate that all the +damage attack skills don't count as "elemental" damage. Physicals would instead focus on equipping conjure element and attacking as fast as possible, along with support such as knockdowns or interrupts; dervishes with their crazy enchant stack abilities would be favored.
What I don't like about this one is that defenses can be done any way you want, which includes imbagons, curses, ether renewal prot spirit spam, and the like. I fear this would just pass by all the great defensive options elementalists have.
3) Non-elementalist skill restrictions
Allowing other skills from every class, but with severe limitations that favors the elementalists. This still lets every class make their own unique contribution. There are several ways to do this, but this is my thought so far on allowed non-elementalist skills:
Primary attribute skills are allowed, as are non-attribute skills and skills from these lines:
Motivation
Healing
Wilderness Survival
Inspiration
Blood
Deadly Arts
Restoration
Earth and Wind Prayers
Tactics
Additionally, any skill referencing an element is also allowed.
You can still spend points on forbidden attributes (e.g. invest in scythe mastery), just can't take any skills.
Instead of going by attribute line, we could instead ban non-elementalist skills by type:
attack skills
rituals
hexes
enchantments
corpse-exploiting
condition-causing
PvE
The intent of these approaches is to put the primary focus on elemental damage and defenses, leaving the rest for support such as healing, interrupts, and energy management.
4) Assigned party roles
This approach was really popular in some D2 variants, but it depended both on reliable players every week and the ability to play characters on someone else's account. Still it could work with heroes and some flexibility about primary. Something like:
4 Eles (secondary OK), each fully representing one element (max attribute & 5+ skills from the line)
1 flexible or "prismatic" ele (master of magic, signet of illusions, at least one skill from each element)
3 completely non-elemental defensive support characters (self/ally/party targeting skills only; heal/prot/emanage/tank/etc.) - perhaps allowing another ele if extra support isn't needed.
Fairly simple and flavorful, but not that accomodating to random guests dropping in and out who may only have or want to use X character. It also doesn't let you play as much to enemies weak to a specific element.
Anyway could use some input, even if it's just picking your favorite number from these ideas.
