| Author |
 Topic  |
|
|
Xoren
Member
USA
46 Posts |
 Posted - 03/09/2009 : 7:48:41 PM
|
My power allotment:
5 to air, earth, fire and water magic.
33 to air, earth, fire, and water elemental. 33 to enchantment, with a +3 bonus, and 22 to mind magic.
Even with all those invested ranks (which leaves me no room for additional powers) my elementals were ridiculously useless. They were geared up with two rings with +100 damage and +100 attack, each (for a total of +200 attack/damage).
Even with all four elementals attacking an age 330 guardian spirit, they weren't able to take the spirit down passed the 50% mark, and the spirit more often than not managed to regenerate itself back to full health. (I spent half an hour in the node, with no end in sight.) Against my age 270 titan, all four of them, they were not very scary at all. (We won't even talk about what a walk in the park they were for my age 400 demon.)
Now, keeping in mind that all those power ranks have been invested into elementals and enchantment, I'm left pretty defenseless. I also am not able to mount any kind of offensive, since I no longer have the ranks to raise up mind magic or enlightenment. This renders an elemental build rather useless, worse when you consider that vampires, demons, and werewolves can make fairly decent pets with the expenditure of two or three maxed powers, and possibly two talents (and some runes/warps, of course).
So I'm either doing something wrong, or elementals really need an upgrade. They should get elemental binding, so that a mage could actually give them soak / bursting weapons (yes, I know this is doable if they take radiation), or actually allow them to cast magic (the air/fire/water elementals, at the very least).
I know that elementals are supposed to serve as distractions, but when an opponent can just easily shrug off the elemental's attacks, they're not likely to be very distracted by said pets. They'll ignore them, and come for the master instead, knowing that the master will effectively be too weak to defend him/herself properly.
And I don't see the point in air/fire/water elemental powers granting elemental bypass talents to the other elementals, since they don't deal that kind of damage anyway. (What's my fire elemental gonna do with great freeze or great shock? For that matter, what about the earth elemental who has burn, freeze, and shock, and all their upgrade talents, but doesn't actually do any elemental damage?)
The argument I'm expecting here, of course, is: Don't pour your powers into all of them, then, stupid. If such is your argument, then you've clearly missed my point. Sure, I could just have an earth elemental or fire elemental. Sure, I could do that and have enough ranks to tweak other parts of my build. But if the powers are supposed to compliment one another, and if there are actual summoner subclasses, then the summoned pets should be worth their weight. So far, the only big bonus I can see to elevating all four elemental powers is to raise each pet's health. The extraneous talents are, just that. Extraneous.
A hellhound or wolf pet can pounce and knock down his target, helping to lower his master's opponent's defenses. An imp can actually heal and throw fire bolts at range. Giant bats move like lightning, and hurt pretty bad, too. They all get pretty mean natural bypass on their claws/talons (compared to fully power-invested elementals).
Elementals? punch, punch, punch. Maybe a couple d or w techs (useless), but that's about it. They can't knockback, knockdown, or anything which might even give their master any tactical advantage. They're crippled by weapons, especially if they're weapons without any s techs, and even weapons that have such a tech are rendered less than useless by elementals. Earth elementals never use their stamp technique, water elementals are hindered by water, air and fire elementals walk rather than float...
Here's hoping that elementals will get some loving. |
|
|
kromaticorb
Member
USA
69 Posts |
Posted - 07/11/2009 : 01:47:04 AM
|
| i agree. elementals just suck. but at least my elementals killed a guardian spirit...just took 20 min of me standing there. age 210 with 210 elementals....two rings of as much damage as i could apply to one ring, and still 20 min of senseless bashing? i'm posting a log of my next spirit fight. but i do believe elementals do duel damage. not sure on that though. |
 |
|
|
KaVir
God Wars II Admin
Germany
3007 Posts |
Posted - 07/11/2009 : 1:20:13 PM
|
They do do dual damage (except earth).
I agree they need a boost, and it is on the todo, I just haven't decided how exactly they should be changed. I would like to make each elemental do something different though. Perhaps fire could have decent ranged attacks, water could heal the mage, earth could intercept melee attacks, and air could slow down attackers, or something like that?
May thy fangs stay ever sharp, thy soul ever dark. |
|
|
|
kromaticorb
Member
USA
69 Posts |
Posted - 07/11/2009 : 4:29:20 PM
|
| i like where your going with that. air and fire range. fire heavy range hitter, air faster ranger and more utility other than damage. earth is a tank. pure and simple. but allow earth to perhaps utilize different weapons? or maybe just large axes and large swords? water...idk about the heals. that could get ridiculous. 4 elementals with DOUBLE the health? you would have to almost kill the water to kill the mage. but you should be able to: say to air use magic. or say to air use melee. cause its not always prudent to cast spells :p and if someone is going to use all 4 pets, that is a lot of powers into pets. make them strong, but not too strong. i could see mages using nothing but elementals if they can tank anything. |
|
|
| |
Topic |
|
|
|
Elemental Uselessness
