AoE's should = small damage against many targets

Isn't that the whole point of an area of effect attack? Good against many enemies, but when fighting just one it would a ridiculous thing to use, one would use big single target attacks.

I know a change is coming, and that's good. At today's tournament AoE's were the primary attack in one on one fights. That makes zero sense.

Kill many spiders with your fire ring, yes. Kill one equal strength person with it (or meteor shower), no. That's broken.

 

(And for Moon spell, how about "Asteroid Strike", a single attack, high damage, but not an AoE.

 

Shardfall Strike.

 

Thanks for reiterating this. The first few times I saw AoEs used to melt waves of elite mobs, I was shocked that it had that sort of damage output. Shocked in the 'how did an idea that out of bounds manage to make it to live' sort of way. I followed my urge to shout at the screen about the shenanigans. Why do competitive single-target DPS to just one target when you can round up 8 and get 'em all.

 

As a cloth wearing mage you really have to be able to take out two rather than one archer, unless you want to be constantly retreating.

 

It depends in the build. My friends single target can totally outpace me if I run an aoe of 1-3 mobs usually. Excluding undead of course.... (I'm a higher life build then he is.)

• Now in regards to single target..... the key is charging abilities. This however has the downside of needing to balance attacks. Cycling isn't the way to go.
• The other issue is if you build for a single class archetype, you run out of abilities to use.
• You can stack more aoe-type damage abilities then single target abilities. This is partly due to how melee damage is played.
• There are three ranges of attacks that are all overlapping. Your aoe attacks that are mid-range are all damage over time abilities.

With these points you start to realize that we are casting are mid-range attacks at such a time as they will enter the field distance. Use the range attacks to pull them in and then the single target abilities to affect detrimental effects. Most people use their st to burn down the highest HP mob or to balance damage taken.

In regards to running pvp bs; some aoe attacks offer stuns; which allows us to finish you off. It's not for the damage.

Ranged missiles are only semi effective.

 

I think this comes from the (odd) choice to have every melee weapon hit multiple targets with every attack, even auto-attacks. Magic follows that.