Archive talk:E/any Searing Flames



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 * Archive 1

Hero build and 4 rating
There's more useful things than /Me, I don't think they deserve mainbar. Also, this build contends with EA for the strongest ele bar, pumps out massive AoE damage, and is not deserving of a 4. Please revote.
 * Not every caster hero needs 2 Mesmer skills, you save 1 space and the attribute point investment on an Elementalist hero if you just use a glyph. Most Elementalist spells are 10+ energy anyway, unlike monks. Random Weird Guy 20:09, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * After having gone through half of NF (normal mode), I haven't seen any energy problems whatsoever with my heroes running GoLE, Aura of Restoration, Fire Attunement, and Burning Gaze. Could probably drop AoR as well, but I like it for the cover enchant and it makes managing energy that much easier. -- Jai' s Computer -  20:23, January 12 2012 (UTC)
 * Energy hasn't been terrible even with "FB!" + "SYG!" (and slotting Blood Ritual on a random hero could help). Half the optionals are jokes. The new EA's are overrated, but both experience and math will fix that over time. Fianchetto 20:35, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Even GoLE isn't completely needed, I find Fire Attunement + AoR + Glowing Gaze is enough for most general PvE if I'm taking an SF hero. I only run GoLE if I'm going to be taking FB and SYG. Speaking of which, adding to optional. Random Weird Guy 21:03, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

3.0 rating
The latest 3.0 rating gave a pretty pathetic reason for the rating. can spam a medicore damage skill and nothing more? Isn't that what fire magic is? Spamming a damage skill? It's not mediocre when you run more than 1 SF ele. Do people not realize fire magic is not for single target DPS?...Blood Reizer 04:48, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The AoE is still rather pathetic for the amount of energy management you need with it. you're stacking multiple copies of a bad build in the hope they multiply enough to get something worthwhile. EA is better, but not by much. [[image:Chieftain Alex Sig.jpg|19px|link=User:Chieftain Alex]] Chieftain   Alex  05:27, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * So there's a build that deals more AoE damage for more or less energy in the same amount of time?-- Relyk 06:04, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I've used EA and quite frankly I haven't found it to be better. Sure, it has some pretty good energy management, but if you lose one attunement you're sunk. Not to mention how slow the casts and recharge times are on the EA build in comparison to SF. If used properly (with other SF eles) it's just that much more effective.. You shouldn't have to worry about energy because everything should be dead before its an issue, especially if you slot GolE onto SF. energy should be fine, even if you run rodgort's. The EA nuker has no real advantages over SF except that SF depends on burning, and pretty much everywhere except destroyers you can safely assume that stuff will be burning.Blood Reizer 06:57, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * First, as a player build, this is utter trash. The damage is poor compared to what can be achieved and the build is liable to collapsing. As a hero build, it's even more liable to collapse and achieves less and has limited potential. Hero builds that focus on pure damage are seldom effective and are far away from being the best use for a hero; Dual Attune builds on the other hand, whilst may not have a core that will quite pump the damage of a SF template, are much more robust and able to serve as a better platform form for whatever utility you want, work much better in a vacuum and tend to work better in the hero teambuilds that dominate the top. The only redeeming feature to SF is that it works well with stacked copies of itself; the problem then of course being, is that you've stacked multiple copies of a weak build in the hope the multiplicative boost makes up for so many shortcomings. - Xenomortis 10:21, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Xeno, you've spouted all sorts of crap about potential and a "better platform," but I've yet to see you come out with any kind of hard evidence for your stance. You can make anything sound good/bad by using lots of fluff words, When you have more than one copy of SF, you're not "stack[ing] multiple copies of a weak build," you're creating a situation where 100+ nearby AoE damage is being spammed about every second, which is something that no other build in the game can accomplish (though EA does provide very similar damage). In other words, it's fucking huge damage. Also, considering the amount of bar compression that SF gives you (EA brings 4-5 damage skills, SF brings 1-2 and accomplishes around the same AoE DPS), it doesn't matter that you have to bring a bunch of energy management, which, by the way, takes 2-3 skills, which is comparable to nearly any build, including your godly AP. Hell, simply looking at the mainbar of the two builds, SF is much more capable of bringing utility like command, curses, and so on, than EA is. -- Jai' s  Computer -  15:14, January 16 2012 (UTC)
 * Searing Flames doesn't spam 100 damage per second. Let's crunch some numbers: First assume rank 16 Fire Magic, so each non-dry SF cast will deal, at best, 106 AoE damage. With one SF spammer, you get two damaging casts for every three casts, one in three has to reapply burning. It is possible to insert a one second activating skill between each cast and not lose this ratio (however, a further delay of half a second results in you missing a cast). The Burning lasts 7 seconds and is applied after the first one second cast, but with this SF chain (where a 1 sec skill is inserted between casts; remember, you claim utility can be put in!), we get a 9.5-10 second chain. Anyway, crunch the DPS numbers ((7 secs of Burning + 2 * 106) / 10) and you get 31 DPS, or 310 damage over 10 seconds. Sure, that's not too bad, but it's 4 seconds before the build has actually done anything remotely meaningful; an EA build can contribute meaningfully within half that time (2 seconds on Rodgort's) and follow up with something else when SF would be ready to go again. Hell, within that 4 seconds something can very easily be killed when an AP build is used. Now perhaps what is most revealing is when you start calculating the damage done by additional SF casters: since we already have the burning condition being near maintained by the first SF spammer (we'll assume the heroes are all casting in sync, so it's always the first hero who has the dry casts), we can simply add 106 * 3 to our damage total; so we get 31.8 DPS (0.8 more than the first guy). Since, however, this is going to be the best we get from this skill, given imperfections in play and armour reduction, the first guy is likely to be the most damage efficient! A third copy of this bar would have us nearing 100 DPS, but that's across three heroes and is that truly good? So in fact I was wrong; SF's redeeming feature isn't that it stacks well, but that it's got nearby AoE. Now you can reduce the length of the chain slightly by cutting out the 1 second cast times in between SF casts (each one adds 0.5 seconds to the chain), but if this build is on heroes then their imperfections will mean you'll never get close to these numbers and any inconvenience from the enemy will cost you dearly; I guess this is where the worth of having multiple copies comes into play. Now, sure, these numbers aren't too poor, but the build doesn't contribute to early damage bursts like other hero builds do and such things characterise the dominating and most successful builds today. If you can ball things up and keep them balled for the multiple casts of SF to get through then sure, I guess it'll work ok, but then if you can do that, you can do a lot better than Searing Flames. - Xenomortis 16:18, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh, and I forgot to mention other bars. The core of an AP bar with Rodgort's Invocation and Fireball/Liquid Flame/whatever is better; stuff *will* die very quickly and you don't lose out on much AoE, you also have a good single target spike to start momentum going, get to spam the most powerful PvE skill and quickly secure the victory. As for the Dual Attune bar; there's no point putting more than three attack skills on it for a hero, I would only bother with two really, and the damage arrives upfront, much faster. - Xenomortis 16:36, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Sigh... I don't know why you bothered spending half of your wall of text saying that one SF ele by itself is crap. No one's trying to say otherwise on that part. However, if you added in Mark of Rodgort you'd of course get different numbers (not that it's going to be better than EA at that point). However, why are you doing calculations over something like a 10 second period? At 3 seconds with 3 SF ele's, you'll have dealt 572 damage (42 from 3 seconds of burning, (6-1)*106 for SF), and that's without having used any skills besides SF. At that point, adding in something like Mistrust, Wandering Eye, Inteptitude, or any other damage skill should push the damage up enough to kill any HM mob. And don't forget EBSoH either, which would add around 50-75 damage to just the SF ele's. I'd like to see AP do the same amount of (nearby AoE) damage in that same amount of time, with of course any two heroes accompanying it that you choose. -- Jai' s Computer -  16:37, January 16 2012 (UTC)
 * The same thing could then be achieved using any frontloaded nukes, they're not hard to find and several exist that do more damage, and not find yourself trapped into using three Elementalist heroes specced into Fire Magic. - Xenomortis 16:46, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * BTW Jai; EBSoH has better uptime and triggers more often on an AP Earth bar because of pulse damage. It does not trigger on burning condition and it's only +15dmg per cast of SF when a foe is already on fire. Churning Earth and Eruption both last for 5 seconds each; that's 150 extra damage from EBSoH over 15 from SF. [[image:Chieftain Alex Sig.jpg|19px|link=User:Chieftain Alex]] Chieftain   Alex  16:54, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * So then you can explain what makes EA superior in terms of numbers? Because I didn't see any. Also, I hope you factored in other skills on the bar for your DPS. Searing flames+liquid flame+fireball+glowing gaze at 16 fire magic does roughly 50 DPS, not 30, and that's against one single target. When you factor in the AoE it multiplies significantly. It has a longer burning duration, more spammage, and stacks with even just one other SF ele. Energy is a non-issue because stuff should be dead before it becomes a problem (when used properly).Blood Reizer 21:28, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Some more numbers on Rodgort's Invocation + Fireball under Dual Attunes. Starting again at 16 Fire Magic, EA gets us to 18 and we can very comfortably take Glyph of Elemental Power to get to 20. Rodgort's Invocation will deal 155 + 4 seconds of burning and Fireball does 147. An iterated cycle consisting of Rodgort's Invocation followed immediately by Fireball can be repeated every 10 seconds with fair bit of space between Fireball and the next Rodgort's for the casting of other skills. The DPS of this cycle comes to 35.8. Adding in pretty much any other damage skill (say Meteor, 147 on a 30(!) second recharge) pushes it to above 40 (40.7 with Meteor). The disadvantage over SF is a smaller AoE on Fireball, along with the that skill's Line of Sight requirement. However the damage comes much earlier, is totally unconditional, the build works better in a vacuum and is more robust for a hero. As for other damage skills on the bar; you can see they weren't factored in for any of these calculations; for neither the SF bar nor the EA bar, which also room for the addition of extra damage skills. But I really, really don't like damage calculations such as these; they don't really represent what actually occurs, for SF in particular. - Xenomortis 22:13, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Your numbers don't make sense to me. I can achieve 50 DPS with SF (no damage reduction). So unless you're adding in damage reduction I'm not sure how you got your calculations. Mind you, that's without glyph of elemental power. With that glyph I'd probably be close to 55-60 DPS with SF. Again, on a single target with 60 armor.Blood Reizer 23:04, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Wait, nukes can add up...so 2 Fireballers are better than 1? Inconceivable! (On a totally unrelated note, this does hit harder than EA. The +4s burning more than makes up for less (armor-respecting) dmg. Same reason why Star Burst also hits harder than EA. Just saying.) Fianchetto 16:38, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I just think it's stupid that they're arguing hero builds against player builds, what's even dumber is it's about eles (which still suck btw). I mean CORRECT ME IF I'M WRONG xeno, but does it not say PVE HERO on the page? Why are you tossing it up against a PLAYER bar? You too alex, stop derping in public. rąʂKƴɖooƿɭɘş 17:54, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * There is also a general tag on it, which is taken to mean players. If it's the issue we could always split the page. -- Toraen   confer  18:02, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Why not just delete the tag? No one is going to be using SF on a player (I hope). rąʂKƴɖooƿɭɘş 18:16, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Fuck you, I love running my SF ele!-- Relyk 18:19, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

................. &mdash; Skakid  Rally- kupo! 18:25, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Implying you play anything but warrior. rąʂKƴɖooƿɭɘş 00:03, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Just ran my three heroes (not going to convert razah for a fourth) on master of damage. The First test averaged 56 dps when my fire ele(runed for fire magic) attacked for 20 seconds by himself. Started a second test with the other two, which were not specced runewise for fire, and my dps went up to 126 dps over 20 seconds. I know 20 seconds is longer than needed but I wanted to check sustained dps. Damage skills were SF, fireball, liquid flame, and glowing gaze with mark of rodgort for sustained burning.-- Jarad 06:22, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Problem with that scenario is SF is nearby, and you're only hitting one target. 126 AoE DPS is pretty damn good.  RąʂKɭɘş ♣  14/f/japan  10:56, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * "126 AoE DPS" lol Cuilan 00:34, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
 * well it was taking out the dummies next to him as well (I assume they are calculated into dps but I dunno).-- Jarad 17:05, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * They do not. It's pretty easy to confirm that they don't by casting fire storm or some other single AoE-DoT on him. -- Toraen   confer  17:53, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * well then those values look even better.-- Jarad 20:40, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Signet of Corruption
Signet of Corruption (https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Signet_of_Corruption) would be a great alternative to Glowing Gaze in areas where you will be hitting 10+enemies with SF. At 13 E Storage with Aura of Resto, Glowing Gaze returns a total of 9 energy every 8 seconds. So, if you hit 10 enemies which are burning or have other conditions and hexes from heroes or other players, this could be a great alternative. Use for hex-/condi-heavy team builds or in areas with a lot of balled up foes.--Saxazaxx (talk) 18:55, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
 * It'd be okay if you're not using that PvE slot for anything else, but it has some pretty stiff competition and is only slightly better over time than Glowing Gaze in optimal circumstances. And that's assuming you get no HSR procs from your weapons (or potentially EBSoW) on Glowing Gaze. Toraen (talk) 11:31, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Page split
I suggest that we split this for players vs. heroes to allow more meaningful vetting. Two votes currently refer to hero usage, two votes separate between hero and player performance. Everything else could be anything. In case there is a page split, which page should keep the old votes? My impression is that most votes rather assume the position of a player build so the votes would be kept with the player build page and the hero page would require new vetting. --Krschkr (talk) 10:16, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Aaaaaaaany input? --Krschkr (talk) 23:36, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
 * The searing flames hero build has received a trash rating and is about to be deleted in the next days. --Krschkr (talk) 21:28, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Like this page, that one should probably also be archived (being split from a formerly great page). -Toraen (talk) 19:35, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Archive
Most of the great votes talk about how this is good in an SF-based team, but this is a single player build. It's honestly quite questionable that SF would be relevant even with a team dedicated to maximizing its potential. Suggesting archive rather than deletion since the build has been around for a long time and had reached Great in the past. The votes are trending towards trash so I think we may as well move this out of the Build space sooner rather than later. -Toraen (talk) 20:49, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
 * The end of an era. Fine by me. -- DANDY ^_^ -- 20:51, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
 * The build is definitely inferior to other ele builds, but why not just let it stay here? Some people just like running this build, and this article helps them with picking the right skills to fill up the bar. This bar might be the worst ele bar in builds at the moment, but it is not at meme level, like IW mesmer. ZStepmother (talk) 09:11, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * All votes from 2018, 2019 and 2020 are trash level votes. This build is only kept in the build namespace because of many 2012 votes, back when people were even worse than nowadays. I strongly support the archival. --Krschkr (talk) 12:58, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * It's not wiki policy to store "definitely inferior" builds. There's too many of them to reasonably document. -- DANDY ^_^ -- 13:07, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * If that is the policy, then so be it. But then we should take a look at some other builds too, because there are more builds that have the same power difference as SF vs Air/EA Fire. ZStepmother (talk) 13:49, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * We should look into them and decide carefully on a case by case basis. --Krschkr (talk) 14:30, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * The problem with just letting it stay here is that we are recommending a build that is not actually good. Also as the trash votes continue rolling in, the decision will be made for us. Archive is the sensible way to keep the build documented but indicate that it is surpassed. Nothing stops anyone from running a build that still "works" from the archive section. -Toraen (talk) 19:39, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I strongly agree. This build is outdated and (very) weak, particularly due to its anti synergy with the strongest current hero setups. I think my review summarizes why, but it’s low damage, high maintenance, unable to leverage its strengths (bar compression), and pushes you to “stack” it to bandage a weak kit. Discussing SF might be a good way to segue into a larger discussion of current Ele build ratings. Currently EA Fire and AP are listed as “good,” but in whose opinion are those builds lumped in the same category as at the “same” level as the demonstrably inferior EA Air and SF builds (Invoke and Dagger are OK, but require specific areas or different team comp, so we can leave them out)?If our goal is really to promote the best builds for a class, should only the E/Mo bonder be listed as Great? Aren’t we leaving most of the returning player base without a clear direction for what the best way to play the class in a standard manner (i.e., damage)? For ease of explanation we can put it this way—a returning player clicks on “Great,” looks for Ele builds and finds none that are non-supportive; they then click on “Good,” and see a smattering of builds, some of which are significantly weaker than others. What gives them direction for choosing AP or EA Fire over EA air or SF? That might be a broader discussion about the viability or lack there of for the class on whole, but we should probably consider the relative strength of a build for the class on a whole. —- Devuu ((Yuko Asakura [PhD]))  00:26, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm going to revert the page to pre-split and archive it in about two weeks. Until then people have time to chime in and object. --Krschkr (talk) 13:11, 6 May 2020 (UTC)