Intensity -- not feeling it

My first reaction to the new Sunspear elementalist skill was to be impressed.

But it's not making my skillbar. +24% damage, 50-60% of the time? Not terribly exciting.

That said, I haven't played Searing Flames on a Three Nuketeers team since the skill became available. There, it might make sense.

I like it. It's nicely balanced imo. It doesn't increase damage by 200% like perhaps you would have liked.. *shrugs* ..but I don't think it should be kept up indefinitely either. PvE-Only skills shouldn't be "Look at target foe causing Target Foe and all adjacent Foes to die instantly"...

I've been underwhelmed by it as well. If you're going all-in on Searing Flames, it's a good skill to put on the bar in one of the discretionary slots if utility isn't needed - you can usually drop the Mark on your heroes, and the like.

But on any of the other bars I'm used to playing it feels like a waste of a slot, one that I'd rather spend on another ability.

Basically, unless you're playing a bar that's just chaincasting DDs with no other responsibilities, you shouldn't bother with the skill. It's energy and time efficient damage, but doesn't provide any additional flexibility to your bar - while consuming one of the few slots you'd have available for such things.

Just for kicks, I put it on my skill bar with Invoke Lightning and Glyph of Ele Power. It was a fun combo that put some good 3 digit numbers on high lvl enemies, but overall I still think the skill is rather meh.

These new sunspear skills are like hotcakes, I can't get enough of them!

You guys are nutz.
I've spent the mojority of the weekend spamming 170-190 dmg SF's.
The skill says +25% damage. What more do you want?

I agree that its not so great of a skill that it warrants a spot on every bar, but its great in some situations. One place it really shines is in the Deep. The added damage to the nukes in the first rooms shaves a lot of time off of that area since it makes killing all the enemies in one nuke possible. The added damage really adds up when you loose 5 or 6 high power skills in the duration, especially AoE.

Its annoying to constantly refresh, but if it were maintained or the duration increases it would become too overpowered.

I wonder what you think of it now?

Quote: Originally Posted by The Great Al

agreed. skill's as usefull in pve as Rust.

Quote: Originally Posted by ArKaiN

are you guys serious, i love this skill it brings HM silver armor farming to a whole new level.

Which is it's only use now... Nuke style farming builds.
Well done, A-Net, thanks for kicking the ele in the balls.
Pfeh, at least we still got SF... (take that, messies )

Quote: Originally Posted by G E A R S

I've having trouble thinking of zone where I'd take the post-nerf Intensity to farm rather than a copy of Crystal Wave/Tenai's Crystals. Maybe in a build where energy was really short, and adding an enchantement to the Ether Renewal pile was better than having a slightly more expensive spell.

But with the slower recharge, that play doesn't even work so well. Give it the same same 30 second recharge as Sliver Armor and Ether Renewal and it's worth considering. At 45 seconds it's useless for my farming builds.

Maybe it's still good for E/A boss farming; I wouldn't know as I don't do that.

i'd rather take liquid flame on my bar than intensity...it had potential....until they ruined it

Hmm. Let's consider Intensity on a Searing Flames bar. Say you cast it and get off 5 Searing Flames while it's up, most of which hit for damage rather than burning. Plus the odd Glowing Gaze. Then it will have added a little bit more to damage output than a single casting of your elite, cost less energy, and had a recharge of 45 seconds vs. 2 seconds for the elite. And if you have Serpent's Quickness build and really get off more SFs under it, Intensity's damage boost is even more.

Liquid Flame, by way of contrast, costs more energy, does as much damage as SF but only conditionally so, and recharges nominally in 15 seconds but frequently more often (if you're using a 20/20 set).

Hmm. If I really think I can fry the enemies (or at least thin them substantially) in the first burst of an SQ/SF flamefest, Intensity might have a place. Even so though there's no perfect way to arrange the timing of all of SQ, Intensity, and GoLE.

Conversely, in a really long fight Intensity could be pretty energy efficient.

EDIT: Ack. The duration is only 10 seconds. Blech.

Quote: Originally Posted by G E A R S

Apparently Anet was feeling the intensity and decided to nerf it. Of course it was as a response to complaints from PvP'ers because they were saying that it was too powerful in PvE. After all, it's always those PvP'ers that mess up our PvE game.

I think it just comes down to the fact that Eles are already the damage dealing power houses of PvE and other classes were still falling behind. As a result of this, I believe they wanted to give other classes a buff instead of just making eles even more powerful than they already are.