ArenaNet:Skill feedback/Elementalist/Fire Storm

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Fire Storm

TimeToGetIntense's Issue -- 17:03, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Issue

Because of the small AoE size, it's not worth the 2 second cast time or the 30 second recharge. The damage isn't very good either.

Suggestion

Reduce casting time to 1 second, reduce recharge time to 15 seconds.

Suggestion

Don't change the stats but the range to nearby.

Reward active use of this skill

Issue

Long cooldown and duration reward passive use, adjacent AoE and 2 second cast don't mix well.

Suggestion

Increase AoE to nearby, reduce damage to 10...26...30, and reduce recharge to 15.

Change this skill

Issue

This skill actually looks quite good on the face of it, but it's main advantage is its long duration which is not as great as it seems since almost everyone will (and certainly should) move away when they get hit by it. That means you're paying for a long duration which you don't get much use out of.

Suggestion 1

Tweak it to make it more worthwhile. Decrease the duration (maybe to 7-8, since it would still be the longest AoE of its type, but not have quite so much useless time attached). Then cut hte recharge and/or decrease energy cost to 5 or activation to 1 (though I personally don't think the latter is a good idea). Thus you would get something like:

Fire Storm 10 2 20

Spell. Create a Fire Storm at target foe's location. For 8 seconds, foes adjacent to that location are struck for 5...29...35 fire damage each second.

Thus, this would still be fairly poor in terms of damage-dealing (Breath of Fire would probably be better), but its faster recharge would make it potentially more useful for pressuring foes (forcing them to keep moving et.c.) and whatnot.

Suggestion 2

On the other hand, I see doing pretty much the opposite as another viable solution. Whereas Suggestion 1 involved basically making you pay only for a shorter duration storm, which is all you normally get anyway, it would in fact be possible to make this more powerful instead (and possibly more expensive to compensate). By this I mean increasing the area (as suggested on the talk page), since that's one of the biggest factors in AoE power (the larger area of Searing Heat/Teinai's Heat make them much better choices than this), though there are other things you could do with this (especially given the great name, "Fire Storm"), such as:

Fire Storm 10 2 35

Spell. Create a Fire Storm at target foe's location. For 10 seconds, foes in the area of that location are struck for 5...29...35 fire damage every two seconds.

In the above suggestion, the spell becomes a more powerful (massively increased area) but slower spell, making it more useful for pressure - the large area means that you are sure to hit multiple foes. Despite its long duration, it's still hard for people to kite out of it since it's so large meaning that you're likely to get your money's worth out of it at least.

Admittedly, I appreciate that this doesn't exactly promote skilled play on the Elementalist's side (although I suppose it can be argued that aiming it at the middle of the battlefield is more important with this since then it can hit most people as opposed to on the edge where it will hit only some, as opposed to smaller AoEs which only need to be aimed at clumps), but there's probably an element of skill involved on the target's side, at least for monks, since here kiting out of the area means you risk being separated from your team (and how are you going to heal them then?) et.c. Even so, a simple area change to "nearby" would be sufficient to give this some more use, but having a more unique function (i.e. being the largest AoE around, if not the most powerful) would in my opinion be favourable.