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Idea of the day: Elementalist weapon-skills.


Blogert.7510

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Good day fellow Tyrians.

This is the first of my 'Ideas of the day' idea. I tend to get a lot brimming in my head that would be interesting to see in Guildwars 2, mostly to do with changing core specializations, or to do with other core-game mechanics or designs. Perhaps treat these ideas as going around to the creative end of Arenanet whilst banging a flint and steel together hoping for a spontaneous spark. Guildwas 2 is by far my favorite mmo, but that's why I tend to think about it quite a bit.

To begin with, weapon skills for core elementalist (and weaver, too.)I think it's well understood that there is a significant lack of 'purity of purpose' in all of the elementalist weapons. There is some differentiation in place for the elementalist weapons to begin with, I do not think these differences suit the game-play of the enviroment or build creation when it comes to stats. The staff is understandably a long-range large-aoe 'support' tool, used for dealing long ranged firepower, crowd control, and a healthy amount of long-ranged healing. The scepter is more of a mid-ranged tool with many bursty abilities. And the daggers are a close ranged tool with greater mobility. I believe that the general idea is well and good, but that these types of differences should be rolled into the attunements instead of the weapons.

When crafting any build in Guildwars 2, you must consider what you want your build to do. Perhaps focused around crit damage, condition damage, hybrid damage, or healing and support. As it currently stands, all of the elementalist weapons can do all of these things, and the problem there is that half if not more of the weapon skills become too terrible to bother using depending on what type of build you want to run. It seems to defeat the point of having attunements instead of weapon-swapping. (For example, a warrior would rarely run duel-swords and then a greatsword as their second weapon. Nor would a warrior run a longbow and then a rifle as their second weapon.)

I would like to see the elemental attunements change the play-style of the weapon, and then see each weapon work with the various build options we have in the game. I've made an example below!

Fire - Heavy area of effect damage.Water - Soft crowd-control, chill, vulnerability, cripple, ect. With small amounts of healing.Air - Greater long ranged damage and mobility.Earth - Close-ranged damage and survivability.

StaffAssuming we want staff as our 'power' weapon, we might then give the fire attunement a flamethrower like auto-attack with middling range. Water attunement might have an auto-attack that chills for .5 seconds with a slower auto-attack speed. Air might have chain-lightning rolled into a different skill, and simply summon a single hard-hitting lighting bolt to replace the old fire-attuned auto-attack. And earth might then brandish the staff like a melee weapon, building a small amount of barrier with each auto-attack.

ScepterOur scepter might then be our 'condition' weapon, the fire attunement weapon-skills would all have some interaction with the burning condition, pheonix perhaps healing nearby allies depending on the number of burn-stacks on the enemy, and dragons tooth might cast faster with a smaller power-scaling. Water attunement might replace the vulnerability on the ice-shards with a cripple. Air attunement might slowly stack torment on the auto-attack (keeping the enemy far away, ect.) And earth attunement would keep its heavy bleeding focus, perhaps launching shards of earth in a fan like pattern to deal more damage to closer enemies.

FocusFocus might work for a more support/defense focused tool, like the warhorn on tempest. The fire skills might be granted a bit more 'oompf', maybe setting all nearby enemies on fire when casting the fire-shield. The water weapon skills might then be focused more on personal healing, perhaps creating a shattering ice-effect around the user to daze foes instead of the comet. The air skills I would likely keep as they are, promoting mobility and positioning over the enemy. And the earth skills I would not likely change either.

DaggersThe daggers might be our more 'hybrid' weapons. Put all of the fire-field leaving mobility skills on the fire-attuned daggers. Just all of them. Really set everything ablaze around you with the daggers. The water attunement on the daggers is in a nice place I feel. The air attunement on the dagger could then use a long-ranged auto-attack, like throwing lightning-daggers. The earth skills I might keep quite similar, perhaps actually just stabbing the enemy with the weapons when attuned to earth, drawing in salt from the ground to torment the enemies open wounds on the end of a melee auto-attack chain.

These are just examples, of course. The real idea I want to hone in on is granting all the elementalist weapons a mixture of purpose, and versatility. As it stands, if you aren't using celestial stats, then having 4 attunements is simply a waste when sacrificing the option to swap weapons.

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@"Blogert.7510" said:ScepterOur scepter might then be our 'condition' weapon, the fire attunement weapon-skills would all have some interaction with the burning condition, pheonix perhaps healing nearby allies depending on the number of burn-stacks on the enemy, and dragons tooth might cast faster with a smaller power-scaling. Water attunement might replace the vulnerability on the ice-shards with a cripple. Air attunement might slowly stack torment on the auto-attack (keeping the enemy far away, ect.) And earth attunement would keep its heavy bleeding focus, perhaps launching shards of earth in a fan like pattern to deal more damage to closer enemies.

As much as I love playing a Sc/F core elementalist, my biggest problem with the scepter is that most of the auto attacks except the air one are really bad. Here are my suggestions on improving these auto attacks:

  1. Flamestrike

Increase the damage so that it is the 2nd best damaging auto attack after the air auto attack and reduce the cast time from 1 second to 0.5 seconds. I'd also would like it if you could actually kite with the auto attack, meaning that you can have your back turned against foes and it will still hit them as long as you're within range. Either keep the auto attack as it is or change it into a ground targeted skill that allows you to attack behind you, it would be somewhat of a Phoenix light, only it applies burning on multiple foes upon impact.

  1. Stone Shards

Increase the damage so that it is the 3rd best damaging auto attack and reduce the cast time from 1.50 seconds to 0.75 seconds. It would also be nice if it applied weakness as its' condition along with the bleed. It's not meant to be used as a high damaging auto attack, but more as a way to defend yourself against power professions like warrior and thief. The weakness can give the elementalist some sustain.

  1. Ice Shards

While I don't think that this auto attack is bad, it isn't that good either. It would be better if the trait Piercing Shards was changed so that it allows you to apply vulnerability on foes regardless what skill you use as long as you're attuned to water. That way you can stack vulnerability on foes just with the auto attack. Ice Shards should be the weakest auto attack in terms of damage, but if Piercing Shards was ever changed into the way I suggested it would be even better.

FocusFocus might work for a more support/defense focused tool, like the warhorn on tempest. The fire skills might be granted a bit more 'oompf', maybe setting all nearby enemies on fire when casting the fire-shield. The water weapon skills might then be focused more on personal healing, perhaps creating a shattering ice-effect around the user to daze foes instead of the comet. The air skills I would likely keep as they are, promoting mobility and positioning over the enemy. And the earth skills I would not likely change either.

The focus is an amazing weapon that gives you utility, but it too has skills that can be a lot better:

  1. Flamewall

Increase the damage and change the fire field from a line to a radius. It can be useful to defend yourself against multiple foes if you could create a fire field that sets enemies on fire, similar to the engineers' Fire Bomb.

  1. Fire Shield

Increase the burning when enemies attack you and it gives you protection instead of might when you use it. It would be similar to Obsidian Flesh, only this time it gives you protection and reduced damage taken while using the Fire Shield. This skill has little to no purpose other than using it to regain health with Signet of Restoration.

  1. Freezing Gust

Make it so that it applies chill on foes behind you. This would make it an amazing skill for kiting, but that's not the case here. Instead of that , you have to turn towards your foe and then use the skill. If not, change it into a water field skill and change either Shatterstone or Water Trident into a blast finisher. That way you can use those skills to heal yourself and allies.

  1. Comet

Make it apply chill along with dazing foes. This skill hits behind you so it would be a lot better if it applied chill on foes. Freezing Gust might as well be a water field that heals you and allies and you can use blast finishers to further increase the healing, so why not make Comet apply chill on foes?

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@Blogert.7510 said:The real idea I want to hone in on is granting all the elementalist weapons a mixture of purpose, and versatility. As it stands, if you aren't using celestial stats, then having 4 attunements is simply a waste when sacrificing the option to swap weapons.

I don’t think I understand what you’re saying; but I’ll give my interpretation of the situation anyway.

Elementalists are currently built with versatility within their weapons (through attunements). Other professions have versatility across their weapons. This is what makes certain skills lose purpose for elementalists and weapons lose purpose for other classes. Using your example, a warrior specced for condi will find little use for greatsword due to the lack of condi skills or even support skills. Similarly, an elementalist specced for dps will never use water attunement to its full potential because they have 0 healing power to make any of the healing skills impactful in any way. Versatility does have its use in PvP environments; otherwise, it becomes entirely redundant in PvE scenarios. As it currently stands, the current iterations of the elementalist weapons already follow a guideline listed below:

  • Fire: all damage goes here, both power and condi
  • Water: mainly support skills, healing and soft cc. Near non-existent damage capability
  • Air: ‘single target’ power damage and hard cc
  • Earth: condi damage, both hard and soft ccThis type of categorisation has certain issues. The most important issue is that there is always going to be certain skills and even whole attunemnets that will have little use depending on build - Water will usually be almost useless for dps specs, Air for condi, Fire for support...

Ironically, one thing that isn’t versatile on the elementalist is weapon skill range. All elemantalist weapons are range-locked, with the worst offenders being the sword and dagger MH. The conjures are supposedly meant to be our escape from this issue, but the way they are currently implemented makes it hard to even consider them as an possible alternative. Elementalists are already versatile as they are (besides skill range). Outside of PvP environments, unless the roles of the attunements can be directly changed, there will always be two or more ‘useless’ skills in the elementalist’s weapon kit.

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If I were to suggest one change to the current system, I would advocate for a trait in the water trait line that changes the water attunement into a normalised (to reduce amount of rework) set of damage skills (power) no matter the weapon. Of course, a great deal of trait shuffling will have to be done to accomodate this new trait but its purpose is purpose is to provide an alternate role from its usual lackluster form for dps specs. Allow it to be a fast casting 1200 range skill set with decent dps if camping water attunement, providing a simpler damage rotation (perhaps outdpsing untraited campfire staff dps). This is to break up certain weapon dynamics, such as the slow nature of staff or the short range ability of daggers and the complexity of them all. I am aware that this may look like a buff to current elementalist power specs but keep in mind that using these skills would require traiting in water - a traitline I know isn’t really considered in the meta dps weaver. For PvP purposes, change the water attunement icon to ice or whatever to indicate that one of your defensive attunements have been replaced by something that might actually kill them.

The reason why I suggest this trait is because I’m trying to refer back to the fixed roles of attunements and attempting to break them up. Additionally, I decided to look at water due to the abundance of damage traits that already exist within the water traitline - Piercing Shards and Aquamancer’s Training (32% damage increase if both conditions are met) and the fact how water currently doesn’t do much damage at all. This could be an opportunity to reshuffle traits, deleting or modifying some (cough Cleansing Water cough) to improve other areas of elementalist. This new trait could be one in many that can change the current role of certain attunements and could potentially give elementalist more build diversity by creating other attunement chaging traits as well.

Besides, do you remember the last time you saw an elementalist trying to do damage in Water? I think some of us would appreciate having a choice to make an offensive water/ice mage or at least an alternative to the skills we have now.

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@"Noodle Ant.1605" said:Ironically, one thing that isn’t versatile on the elementalist is weapon skill range. All elemantalist weapons are range-locked, with the worst offenders being the sword and dagger MH. The conjures are supposedly meant to be our escape from this issue, but the way they are currently implemented makes it hard to even consider them as an possible alternative. Elementalists are already versatile as they are (besides skill range). Outside of PvP environments, unless the roles of the attunements can be directly changed, there will always be two or more ‘useless’ skills in the elementalist’s weapon kit.

This is the key thing that got me thinking about this in the first place. As it currently stands there are many fights in fractals, PoF+ content, and I want to say in some raids too, where you either need a ranged option, or a melee option. Turning conjured skills into proper kits like the engineer has might be an easier fix, but I would still love to see some greater "true" flexibility in the actual elementalist weapons. A ranged auto-attack on the weaver's sword with perhaps water or air, is another example.

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@Blogert.7510 said:I think it's well understood that there is a significant lack of 'purity of purpose' in all of the elementalist weapons.

That's actually what makes elementalist so much fun, and what makes it different from other professions. You'll always be able to do more than one thing with your weapon set. Staff is not just a power weapon for example, it's also a support weapon and you can actually pull that off even when speccing for power (the blast finishers can be used in multiple combinations if needed). It's the trade-off for being weapon-locked (I don't like to use the term range-locked because in practice range is not an issue in any of the elementalist's gameplay, save some niche scenario's that serve as a good gameplay balance for the ele's unique versatility). I'd rather not see it changed to be honest, because that's exactly what I like about the ele. From what I read of your suggestions, it would just turn ele into a different flavor of engineer (or worse, revenant).

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