I Never Understood Why Fire=defense And Earth=attack. Shouldn't It Be The Other Way Round?

Fire burns things. It makes things hurt or feel pain. People don't use fire to protect themselves, they use fire to destroy things.

Earth crushes things, sure, but solid ground is a very hard thing to tackle.

If we did a switch of Fire and Earth today (just switching the names of the elements around, maybe some changed models, lore, and names), what impact would it have?

 

I don't entirely agree with this. Yes, I believe Earth to be more defensive than Fire, for sure. However, Fire doesn't represent Melee Damage at all, in my opinion. When I think of a big hitter, raw damage, I certainly think of Earth more. I think it's hard to make everything completely logical.
But yes, when I think of Fire, I think of an Elemental Attack, coming from like a Sorcerer or Wizard's Magic, or something, and usually they don't have great defense, so I don't think it's perfect by any means, but I think that's okay for now. Maybe in the future something will change, but who knows :)

 

I remember some admin or GM explaining it a while back, but they explained it like this:

- Getting hit by a rock will hurt a lot, hence why it's damage-based. Earth items are the "Brute" items generally.
- Fire is meant to represent courage, and therefore "Defense".

Anyway, this item system has been around for 3 years and it's probably too late to change it without everyone becoming very confused.

 

Eh In my opinion it would've made the most sense if it was attack (or something else) and defence instead of strength and defence with the fire and earth elements respectively. The main problem is that the skill point system existed before elements which made it so the elements wouldn't necessarily perfectly fit in with the different skills.

On the topic of the GM/Admin explanation. Getting hit by a rock hurts, but getting hit by fire also hurts. Could pretty much be said for everything. Furthermore I think its destructive power is the one characteristic of fire, whereas earth can pretty much do anything. While earth probably represents "strength" better than fire, it also represents defence better and I'd argue that if the damage stat weren't called strength but something else fire would fit better. The whole courage thing is just... whatever. Courage doesn't necessarily even represent defence and fire doesn't necessarily represent courage, especially since all the other elements (except water, since magic doesn't exist) are taken quite literally.

Also thunder is an element so everything should be taken with a grain of salt.

 

Well, there's a reason that one says something has a "burning flame of passion" or something like that.

Though some elements seem... odd. Thunder looks like a "light" element, but lots of items based around thunder are themed around dark magic. It's best not to think of it too much.

 

Getting hit by air

 

You see there is this thing called wind which results in pretty wacky things...

 

Just because you walz into a fight against a god with a lot of courage doesn't mean you wont get toasted.

Bob: NO! I CANT GIVE UP. I WILL DEFEAT YOU AND I WILL ENSURE YOU WILL NEVER HARM ANYONE ELSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Eye: Roflmao
Bitchslaps Bobby so hard into the wall the exit caves in.

The Eye: Well sh*t...

Everyone else: OH MY GAWD HE USED HIS LIFE FORCE TO SEAL AWAY THE EYE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

They also cited "fire burning down forests helps make new growth". Personally, what I'd say is that Earth fits melee damage better, and then by process of elimination they got stuck with fire = defense.

 

I can only really conceive of one valid explanation for fire, that being that fire also represents energy, but in a less offensive sense than thunder, so investing into it would bolster your life energy.

But I do think that Earth would better fit a defensive role than Fire, which would be better off offensively. Plus Strength basically adds both melee % and spell % currently, so yeah.

That said, it's kinda too late really.

 

A cow eat earth and lives off of it. You are also what you eat. Does that mean Salted's brutal, colder, heavier and tougher?

Wait does that mean........

 

Oh god, what have you done

 

I'm antihack location proof, your not getting my location because I got NORD VPN. Use the coupon below to get a 10% off your first month of NordVPN. Whenever you go on the internet, you may be at risks at hackers or advertisers who can snoop on what you are doing. That's why you use a vpn, but not any vpn but NORD VPN. Unlike other vpns I won't list, your vpns block 3000% more bad things and give you 1000% speed. Use NORD VPN because it's good.

104nosaltmanslookingatme204

 

Holy crap this thread blew up.

Also thanks everyone for explaining it

 

I mean, if anything, Fire would be a high DPS tool rather than a heavy hitter, so if fire becomes damage stuff, it wouldn't be a heavy hitter, instead a tool that attacks incredibly fast
Fire doesn't burn you instantly, it is a slow proccess that hurts a lot, so the most appropriate representation of fire from a tool perspective would be to make it low powered but incredibly fast, also very mana-heavy considering that fire needs tons of fuel to sustain itself and expand (which is done well by making fire builds tend to have little to no mana regeneration)

 

shouldn't that mean that it should be a slow hitting heavy hitter...?

 

It is slow because it takes its time to eat you alive
However, the pain is constant and consistent and so is the fuel demand, so it would deal low amounts of damage really quickly, essentially what fire does
It would feel like the arrow storm spell, tons of weak attacks executed at blinding speed, causing a massive attack