ArenaNet:Skill feedback/Elementalist/Invoke Lightning

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Invoke Lightning

Issue -- 02:44, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Issue

Less powerful then Lightning Orb, since orb produces cracked armor, only cost 5 energy more, does the dame amount of damage, and is non-elite. Since you cant control where Invoke goes, it doesn't really count as AoE. Even if you use multiple copies at the same time, the chance of killing a target other then the main is low.

Suggestion

Add cracked armor to the skill, and change the conditional part of the skill to reflect how much more powerful this would make it, and drop the recharge so the skill could be used to reliably spike. Give the skill a 12 second recharge (higher then orb because it strikes more then 1 target), and change to "If your target is not enchanted, you suffer exhaustion"

the skill would look like this:

Elite Spell. Target foe and up to two other foes near your target are struck for 10...82...100 lightning damage and your target suffers from Cracked Armor. This Spell has 25% armor penetration. If your target is not under the effects of an Enchantment, this spell causes Exhaustion.

Notes

The condition allows you to constantly spike using this skill, since its relatively easy to hit a target every other spike thats enchanted, but still forces you to incur the exhaustion every once in awhile, making the skill truly conditional, as opposed to the joke condition right now that will happen every 1/20 times you spike with it.

Done25's Issue

Discussion

Issue

this skill is OKAY for a normal skill (kinda like the pre-nerf lightning chain) but as an Elite it is a bit lacking.

Suggestion

Add cracked armor to the skill to give eles and good Cracked Armor skill. (Shell Shock sucks and Orb Lighting is PvE only now). Also a way to make it more powereful would be to remove the 3 foe limit or lower it to Chain Lightning's 10 sec recharge. Also if you can cause the cracked armor to act like Orb's instead of Shell's that would be nice. (Infact why not fix Shell while you are at it?)

Example:

Elite Spell. Target foe and up to two other foes near your target are struck for 10...82...100 lightning damage. This Spell has 25% armor penetration. If you are under the effects of an Enchantment, this spell causes cracked armor. This spell causes Exhaustion.

86.26.89.66 11:50, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Issue

Very powerful multiple-target damage, but all damage other than the primary strike is uncontrollable, making it bad for spiking (certainly not useable for AoE spiking, at least not in big teams). Additionally, if you're stupid enough to use it without an enchantment (or have your enchantments removed), the exhaustion makes it terrible (whereas the whole exhaustion clause normally might as well not be there).

Suggestion

Instead of having two extra packets of random damage, make it clearly a single-target skill, while making the AoE effect actually useful (just not as powerful). Also, a few tweaks to the exhaustion bit might help. Something like:

Elite Spell. Target foe is struck for 10...82...100 lightning damage, and up to 1...4...5 foes near your target are struck for 8...58...70 lightning damage. This Spell has 25% armor penetration. For each additional foe struck, you suffer 2 points of Exhaustion.

You could also add something like:

If you are under the effects of an Enchantment, you suffer only half as much Exhaustion.

See also the page on Exhaustion.

Reasoning

It's now much more viable as an AoE skill, but yet clearly prefers to be used as a single-target skill (the more foes hit, the more exhaustion you suffer). This means that it will function at a reasonably similar power level regardless of the size of the battle rather than being overpowered in small groups (Shadow Nexus springs to mind) but useless in large ones as it was before.