Preface Thoughts

• This is all hypothetical and done in a day.
• Main goal here was to give Elementalist a weapon kit that provided decent mobility, fair defensive options and balanced attack options that could smoothly transition between ranged and melee engagements.
• GW2 is one of the games in most desperate need for a skill compaction that I have ever seen.
• Elementalist in particular is constantly hampered by clunky or irredeemably bad “filler” skills across every single one of its weapon sets despite only having 4 available as core choices.
• As absolutely nuts as it sounds, the best scenario might be to just outright delete off-hand focus and main-hand dagger, and then merge every valuable ability or idea remaining in that collective portfolio into main-hand scepter and off-hand dagger.
• It's very possible to compress everything remotely fun about the Elementalist's core weapon types into just two weapons which can stand next to staff as an alternative and viable play-style option. More importantly, in the act of cherry-picking the “good” elements, it's possible to preserve some basic elements of what one could consider “fair and rewarding” play within the context of a PvP environment while also giving the new weapon kit a valuable PvE role.
• A handful of auras got a rework here because auras are mostly terrible to use and unfun to play against.

SCEPTER (MAIN-HAND)

FIRE

![Dragon's Claw] (1)!Cast-time: ¾s!Fling fire in a claw-shaped spread.! Damage per projectile: (0.4)! Range: 400

![Dragon's Tooth] (2)!Cast-time: ¾s / Recharge: 5s!Drop an explosive dragon's tooth on the target location, leaving behind a field of fire.! Number of targets: 5! Initial damage: (2.25)! Field burning (1½s): [damage]! Interval: 1s! Duration: 4s! Combo Field: Fire! Radius: 180! Range: 1000

![Drake's Breath] (3)!Cast-time: 2¼s / Recharge: 2½s!Spray a cone of fire at foes. For each burning foe struck by this skill's first three strikes, this skill's final strike deals increased damage.! Number of targets: 5! Normal strike damage (3x): (1.5)! Final strike damage: (1.5)! Increased final strike damage per burning foe struck: 10%! Maximum damage increase: 100%! Maximum Count: 2! Count Recharge: 10s! Range: 400

!Combination of [Drake's Breath] baseline conical AoE threat along with [Fire Grab]'s conditional spike damage potential (now tied into a time-sink commitment). The relatively low-recharge and ammo count feature allow this skill's new final strike to be a relatively constant source of spacing or skill-use pressure with the trade-off that the user must engage in relative melee range (range shortened from 400 to 300). Since Fire Grab was removed from the dagger off-hand rework, it might be best to just paste that skill's respective visual and sound effects over the last strike of this re-worked [Drake's Breath].

WATER

![Vapor Blade] (1)!Cast-time: ½s!Strike adjacent foes with a whirling attack and cast out a vapor blade which returns to you.! Number of targets: 5! Whirling strike damage: (0.35)! Whirling strike radius: 150! Vapor Blade damage: (0.35)!* Vapor Blade range: 600

![shatterstone] (2)!Cast-time: ½s / Recharge: ½s!Cast out a volley of ice bolts which damage foes upon impact and then explode again after a delay.! Number of targets: 5! Number of ice bolts: 3! Initial damage: (0.4)! Delay damage: (1.0)! Radius: 120! Maximum Count: 2! Count Recharge: 8s! Range: 1000

!The skill now functions like Engineer grenade skills except that the multiple impacts now each generate individual shatterstones which explode akin to the current skill. Delay damage animation and sound effects are identical to the current skill's “growing crystal” animation. Radius per shatterstone reduced from 180 to 120 in order to balance it as a strong field hazard without being too obnoxious.

![Cleansing Tide] (3)!Cast-time: ½s / Recharge: 25s!Surround yourself with a roiling pool of water that heals allies and cures conditions.! Number of allies: 5! Healing per pulse: 808 (0.2)! Conditions cured per pulse: 1! Pulses: 4! Duration: 4s! Combo Field: Water!* Radius: 240

!Water field follows the user akin to Berserker [Flames of War].

AIR

![Lightning Whip] (1)!Cast-time: ¾s!Lash your foe with lightning.! Number of targets: 3! Damage (2x): (1.4)!* Range: 300

![invoke Lightning] (2)!Cast-time: ¾s / Recharge: ½s!Invoke lighting at the target area, inflicting foes with vulnerability.! Number of targets: 5! Stage 1 damage (3x): (0.45)! Stage 2 damage (3x): (0.9)! Stage 3 damage (4x): (1.796)! Vulnerability (4s) per strike: +1% Incoming Damage; +1% Incoming Condition Damage! Duration: 3s! Radius: 150! Maximum Count: 2! Count Recharge: 10s! Range: 1000

!Arc Lightning as a fixed-location AoE threat; a more pronounced field hazard yet still something that can be fairly avoided without having to resort to leaving sightlines or stealth.

![shocking Aura] (3a)!Recharge: 25s!Briefly stun adjacent foes. Gain a shocking aura. While under the effects of this aura, striking a foe with vulnerability increases your critical chance and critical damage.! Number of targets: 5! Initial stun: 1s! Stun radius: 180! Unblockable! Shocking Aura (4s): Striking a foe with vulnerability increases your critical chance and critical damage.! Critical Chance per stack: +1%!* Critical Damage per stack: +1%

!This aura effect functions identically to the mechanic behind the Reaper trait [Decimate Defenses].

![Transmute Lightning] (3b)!Recharge: 10s!Detonate your shocking aura, blinding and revealing nearby foes while granting faster movement to all nearby allies.! Number of targets: 5! Blind (3s): Next outgoing attack misses.! Revealed (5s): You cannot stealth.! Number of allies: 5! Swiftness (8s): 33% Movement Speed! Superspeed (3s): Movement Speed is greatly increased!* Radius: 240

EARTH

![stone Daggers] (1)!Cast-time: ¾s!Stab with your scepter in melee while launching a stone dagger which shatters on impact, damaging adjacent foes.! Number of targets: 3! Stab damage: (0.75)! Stab range: 150! Dagger damage: (0.5)! Dagger bleeding |2| (6s): [damage]! Dagger blast radius: 150!* Dagger range: 1000

!*This skill's projectile uses the same arc and movement speed as Elementalist [Fireball]. Both the melee and ranged projectile attack can hit up to three targets respectively, and both attacks can hit the same target.

![Ring of Earth] (2)!Cast-time: ¾s / Recharge: ½s!Raise a ring of rocky spikes at the target location, bleeding and immobilizing foes.! Number of targets: 5! Damage: (1.0)! Bleeding |3| (8s): [damage]! Immobilize (1½s): Unable to move.! Blocks Missiles! Radius: 240! Maximum Count: 2! Count Recharge: 20s!* Range: 1000

!The rock ring model generated by this skill now remains present for 2 seconds before disappearing in order to better represent the full duration of the skill's projectile destruction property being active on the field.

![Dust Devil] (3)!Cast-time: 3½s / Recharge: 25s!Blind adjacent foes and become a spinning dust devil. While spinning, you destroy incoming projectiles, damage adjacent foes and launch out blinding dust clouds in the target direction.! Number of targets: 5! Initial blind (3s): Next outgoing attack misses.! Spin damage (15x): (5.95)! Spin bleeding (6s) per strike: [damage]! Blocks Missiles! Spin radius: 180! Dust cloud damage (5x): (2.5)! Dust cloud blind (3s): Next outgoing attack misses.! Dust cloud radius: 180! Dust cloud range: 1000

!While performing this skill, the user will have a directional reticle (similar to the ones on many raid bosses) which appears directly in front of the character and denotes the direction in which the player is currently facing. This denoted direction is what the skill's tool tip refers to when referencing the “target direction” in which the skill would fling out a dust cloud.

!This skill triggers up to 5 whirl finishers during its full cast.

DAGGER (OFF-HAND)

FIRE

![burning Speed] (4)!Cast-time: ¾s / Recharge: ¾s!Slide forward and gain superspeed while leaving behind a line of fire that burns foes. If you are already moving with superspeed when you activate this skill, you also evade attacks.! Superspeed (3s): Movement Speed is greatly increased.! Number of targets: 5! Fire wall damage: (0.85)! Fire wall burning (2s): [damage]! Duration: 4s! Combo Field: Fire! Superspeed evade: ¾s! Maximum Count: 2! Count Recharge: 15s! Range: 600

![Fire Shield] (5a)!Recharge: 30s!Burn nearby foes and briefly destroy incoming projectiles. Gain a fire aura. While under the effects of this aura, you deal increased damage and take less damage from burning foes.! Number of targets: 5! Initial burning (5s): [damage]! Burn radius: 240! Initial Missile Block: 2s! Fire Aura (4s): Deal increased damage and take less damage from burning foes.! Damage increase: +5%!* Incoming damage from burning foes: -10%

![Transmute Flame] (5b)!Cast-time: ½s / Recharge: 15s!Detonate your fire aura and damage foes with a ring of fire which burns those that pass through it.! Number of targets: 5! Damage: (1.2)! Pass-Through Burning|2| (6s): [damage]! Duration: 5s! Combo Field: Fire! Radius: 240

!This is where [Ring of Fire] went.

WATER

![Frost Aura] (4a)!Recharge: 25s!Cure conditions and gain a barrier. Gain a frost aura. While under the effects of this aura, you gain bonus toughness, and your strikes chill foes that are within 600 range of you. Each foe can only be affected by this chill once every 3 seconds.! Initial conditions cured: 3! Initial barrier: 3550 (0.25)! Frost Aura (4s): Gain bonus toughness, and your strikes chill foes that are within 600 range of you (only once per 2 seconds per foe).! Toughness: +250!* Chilled (2s): -66% Skill Recharge Rate; -66% Movement Speed

![Transmute Frost] (4b)!Cast-time: ½s / Recharge: 10s!Detonate your frost aura and create a giant shatterstone at your location. When it explodes, it chills and knocks back nearby foes.! Number of targets: 5! Damage: (1.5)! Chilled (3s): -66% Skill Recharge Speed; -66% Movement Speed! Knockback: 600! Combo Finisher: Blast! Radius: 240!* Unblockable

!This shatterstone has a delay of 2 seconds, and it's model is scaled up to be considerably larger than those of the scepter weapon version.

![Comet Streak] (5)!Cast-time: ¾s / Recharge: 25s!Call down a volley of comets that cascades outwards in front of you. Each strike dazes and chills foes. Each attack area is a blast finisher.! Number of targets: 3! Number of impacts: 3! Damage: (0.5)! Daze: 1½s! Chilled (3s): -66% Skill Recharge Speed; -66% Movement Speed! Radius: 180! Combo Finisher: Blast! Range: 1200

!Same functional idea behind Revenant [Echoing Eruption].

AIR

![Ride the Lightning] (4)!Recharge: 25s!Ride the lightning to your foe, then strike all nearby foes with an electrical burst.! Number of targets: 5! Damage: (1.0)! Radius: 180! Range: 1200

!Players can now use this skill in mid-air.

![updraft] (5)!Recharge: 5s!Evade backwards and gain increased movement speed. For a brief moment, you jump higher, take reduced fall damage, and strike nearby foes with a bolt of lightning if you do take fall damage.! Evade: 1s! Swiftness (12s): +33% Movement Speed! Superspeed (4s): Movement Speed is greatly increased.! Maximum Count: 2! Count Recharge: 30s! Updraft (4s): Your next jump is amplified, you take less falling damage, and you strike nearby foes with lightning if you take falling damage.! Fall Damage reduced: 75%! Number of targets: 5! Fall Damage lightning strike damage: (1.0)! Radius: 180

!The evade animation and travel distance remain unchanged from the skill's current form.

!The 4-second “Updraft” effect listed in the tool-tip modifies the user's jump to match something similar to that of a no-charge Springer mount jump (high vertical distance and high model control while airborne; superspeed helps amplify the model control and improves airborne mobility).

EARTH

![Earthquake] (4)!Cast-time: ¾s / Recharge: 25s!Leap to the target location and knock down foes when you land.! Number of targets: 5! Damage: (0.4)! Knockdown: 1s! Radius: 240! Combo Finisher: Blast! Range: 600

![Churning Earth] (5)!Cast-time: 2s / Recharge: 30s!Make the earth churn, removing boons and crippling nearby foes before unleashing a powerful seismic wave which strikes for critical damage. Churning earth strikes knock down foes with superspeed.! Number of targets: 5! Cripple (1s) per strike: -50% Movement Speed! Boons removed per strike: [stability]; [Aegis]; [Resistance]; [Protection]! Knockdown vs superspeed: ½s! Seismic wave damage: (1.5)! Seismic wave bleeding|12| (8s): [damage]! Radius: 360! Combo Finisher: Blast!* Unblockable

!The critical damage guarantee along with a (1.5) damage modifier ensures that it will consistently hit as hard as a detonated [Arcane Shield]. This allows the big investment on this skill to be a high and consistent pay-off should it land.

!All aspects of the skill are unlockable, including the crippling, boon-stripping strikes in the lead-up.

Closing Notes

• Elementalist off-hand focus is the most uninspired trash weapon that exists in GW2, and the only reason anybody even contemplates taking it is because it lets people cheese opponents by simply pressing 4 and 5 while in earth attunement for free escapes or damage. Well, that and [Gale], which is a FOUR-SECOND knockdown which offers very little fair counterplay due to its instant ranged travel off of a generic gesture animation.
• Main-hand dagger is super straightforward to use to the point that it's pretty boring and thoughtless; funny enough, due to this very nature of the weapon, it is currently downright suicidal to use it against most any player (it's basically just Warrior with less crutches, which means it dies for free). The vast majority of remotely satisfying d/d ele play always came from the off-hand anyway.
• Making a weapon rely too much on GW2's targeting system is always a bad idea if you are also randomly mixing in free-form abilities. This is why this whole re-work removed nearly all instances of things like the current [Arc Lightning], and gave free-form secondary damage options to the remaining ranged attacks which still did rely on selected target in order to reliably confirm hits.
• Plasma Beam should really be something like a 400-range cone with slightly less damage for it to be remotely balanced and fair to play against. All other Weaver scepter skills are incredibly boring and uninspired. Weaver in general shows how far the spec's design team were creatively over-reaching when somebody must have said “You know that one class with possibly the highest percentage of worthless skills in relation to its overall weapon type options? Let's give those same weapon types even more random skills!” [Fiery Frost]? Are you kidding me? And it was so horrifically bad that someone slapped a pity evade onto it for absolutely no justifiable reason. A complete joke. The other skills are really not much better, including those on other weapons.

Scepter was already almost there but they nerfed a ton different skills for their damage, most notably Plasma Beam with weaver. Fresh Air weaver was almost viable and needed just a few buffs to be in a good place, a challenging high risk but high reward spec that could be used to great effectiveness in skilled hands.

@mortrialus.3062 said:Scepter was already almost there but they nerfed a ton different skills for their damage, most notably Plasma Beam with weaver. Fresh Air weaver was almost viable and needed just a few buffs to be in a good place, a challenging high risk but high reward spec that could be used to great effectiveness in skilled hands.

But it's super clunky to use and relies entirely on tab targeting and peeking sightlines. It's basically just Deadeye without stealth, so it's even more gimmicky: zero mobility and utter dependence on a mechanic which removes player responsibility in timing and aiming anything. Why would anyone try to defend FA Weaver when it's effectively just core Weaver with an extra Arc Lightning that could deal an extra 8-10k every 14-ish seconds, particularly after FA got even less fun due to everyone swapping to off-hand focus just so that they could freely spam the lightning rotation a little bit longer without dying?

I play DD temp for a reason, if I wanted focus like skills then I would take focus.

@sephiroth.4217 said:I play DD temp for a reason, if I wanted focus like skills then I would take focus.

That's the thing: nobody takes focus because it's fun to use; they take it because it's cheesey. The only reason that sword weaver is so common to see in PvP is because it functions effectively like a mainhand focus (low-effort, reactive, damage negation rotation with minimal movement), and that allows players to take off-hand dagger--which actually is sort of fun to play.

And I feel like the only reason you would say what you did is because you didn't actually read anything beyond the intro bit. Considering how mainhand dagger is nothing but one-off cones and PBAoEs with no lingering presence, restructuring the ele's core, single-weapon mainhand option into a multi-ranged, field hazard threat while moving all decent mobility to off-hand dagger means that nothing is lost.

The whole kit would only stand to gain by having persistent field damage and ranged options in addition to retaining good mobility and CC while also picking up some more self-defense abilities. The important thing is that effectively everything would be free-aim rather than always relying just on selected targets. That means that even at range, it could still play more or less as naturally as the current dagger mainhand.

@Swagg.9236 said:

@"sephiroth.4217" said:I play DD temp for a reason, if I wanted focus like skills then I would take focus.

I read your change proposal but my reaponse was short and blunt and to the point. Ill explain a bit more in detail but don't find it offensive like most forum members.

People find different things to be fun, I personally find the DD kit to be extremely fun while also having lots of available tools..

If you remove ring of fire and fire grab, you remove a lot of burst damage and fields and finishers that can be used with water 3 and earth 3 4 and 5.. (thats a huge loss on might gain, 10 or so stacks of might actually.We already have burning speed on fire 3 and would be completely senseless to have 2 burning speeds on 3 and 4.We dont need a transmute flame when the kit already has access to 2 transmutes with water and air which is more than other kits, also when traited properly you also get the extra cleanses from attunement swapping.

Air changes to updraft you removed the CC effect for superjumps? Super jump wont stop a rez or stomp nor will it proc lighting rod, the DD kit only has 2 hard CC and your proposal is too move it to water attunement, which is a defensive attunement, super impractical. You don't go to water to CC someone on the build, you use water to cleanse and heal.

You want to remove cleansing waters which might have a slow cast time for the current meta but its still really useful for dealing with condi cleanses and the heal is somewhat nice, especially if you play an arcane version of the kit. Double cleansing waves that is.

And whats the point in having double leaps when attuned to earth? Earthquake is really easy to land, I miss it from time to time when my muscle mmory follows rotations but still easy to land so it does not need that handicap built in.

Because you made an assumption of my reading capabilities, Ill make one about your playtime with ele based off your proposal, youve been playing the kit for 6 months or so.. I make that assumption due to the fact that by your posting of the class, youve got no idea how to properly utilize the skills at your disposal and this is evident just on your fire changes alone, just about all old school eles will maximise the ring of fire combos and even more use ring of fire for an easy firegrab proc on the extra damage from burning but more importantly to gain Might stacks, which is the core of our damage, just about all Elementalist players know this too. More evidence of this is when you say Ring Of Fire is skill 5 when in fact its skill 4.

I hope that was detailed enough, this isn't the best idea but dont be discouraged from coming up with ideas, the points I didn't touch on like RTL wasn't so bad and was similar to some tweaks I posted about a month or so ago.

The DD kit is already a free casting kit too...

I wont speak for Weaver or core but currently the DD tempest build could see some tweaks to keep up with the meta such as more stab on some skills, especially the overloading trait or even on aftershock but it certainly doesn't need an overhaul.

Now, I'm not the best Tempest or player, but this video of me trolling a fire/air build will show you how much I use those fire fields and finishers and how I try to maximize my kit efficiently, keyword is try. I use those fields to attain the most might stacks I can gain, which is extremely important for builds like Celestial such as the one in the video. Your changes would gut my damage and take away the fun of the kit.

If you're looking to change up the Sc/D build, then why not propose changes to Scepter? Offhand dagger works really well with main hand dagger as it is. Offhand dagger already provides fields, CC, High damage and good sustainability, in fact, most of the "spike" damage comes from Offhand dagger being Firegrab and Churning Earth and they don't hit all that hard unless you have built up might, and your idea takes away alot of the might gain which essentially neuters the build and class.

TLDR: you want to give elementalists more presence in the fight by gutting the damage, it also appears you want to drastically lower the skill floor so you can button mash your way to victory like most other post HoT/PoF builds without comprehending that your ideas will gut the damage and leave us a bunch of skills that have no synergy together, it would be a complete mess.

This is just my opinion based off my playstyle with DD temp, im sure other ele players like @Lasiurus.4067 @apharma.3741 or @Fortus.6175 may feel differently about it as im sure they play different builds and different playstyles.

@sephiroth.4217 said:

@Swagg.9236 said:

@sephiroth.4217 said:I play DD temp for a reason, if I wanted focus like skills then I would take focus.

I'll preface this with the same hope that you don't take it in an insulting light; that is by no means my goal. I also apologize for making any rash assumptions.

If you remove ring of fire and fire grab, you remove a lot of burst damage and fields and finishers that can be used with water 3 and earth 3 4 and 5.. (thats a huge loss on might gain, 10 or so stacks of might actually.

• Except that the Fire Grab threat was moved to the end of Drake's Breath, and was given two charges. In a clumped PvP fight, this new version is basically a titanic buff in its killing power and general threat potential.
• As for the fire fields, re-worked Scepter 2 produces one pretty consistently if you read that. Not only that, but Burning Retreat makes one as well if you didn't realize (and its effective area is quite generous if you've ever had to blast anything on it); and now you get two of those. As for Ring of Fire, it's on the re-worked Transmute Flame. Given all this, the kit really loses nothing; only gains.

We already have burning speed on fire 3 and would be completely senseless to have 2 burning speeds on 3 and 4.

• Burning Speed was moved to 4. It isn't on 3 at all. That's the re-worked Drake's Breath. Moreover, since this is a hypothetical re-work of all of the core, single-hand weapon set-ups, taking both scepter and dagger here means nobody misses out on anything listed.

We dont need a transmute flame when the kit already has access to 2 transmutes with water and air which is more than other kits, also when traited properly you also get the extra cleanses from attunement swapping.

• Fire Shield made it into the final kit mainly because of the re-work to the fire aura itself, not because of the transmute ability. If fire aura granted allies an extra 5% outgoing damage (i.e. something useful and engaging for once), it could make Tempest or some other Fire Magic variant spec meta in PvE as party damage support while the skill itself would still provide projectile defense and mild damage mitigation in PvP. For the same reason, the re-worked shocking aura would also increase Elementalist desirability in PvE while also giving the class a powerful burst tool that synergizes with its own kit.

Air changes to updraft you removed the CC effect for superjumps? Super jump wont stop a rez or stomp nor will it proc lighting rod, the DD kit only has 2 hard CC and your proposal is too move it to water attunement, which is a defensive attunement, super impractical. You don't go to water to CC someone on the build, you use water to cleanse and heal.

• GW2 mobility is so scripted that it's a joke, so I was going for something creative that people with some decent forethought could use. It also gives superspeed, provides self-defense with the evade, and synergizes into Ride the Lightning (once more usable in midair with this re-work) for more damage--that's a lot of options. Giving it a 2-ammo count adds even more flexibility to the skill. Therefore, it felt too strong to keep the launch, but I understand what you are saying. It still would pain to me to imagine keeping it the same since it's ultimately a very stationary and one-dimensional skill at the end of the day in its current form. Adding all of that re-worked flexibility onto an already-present launch would probably require that it be a single-use, 30s CD, and that's also painful since the main idea with this re-work was to add a lot of flow options to a re-worked core ele weapon kit.
• As for the water attunement comment, the identity of any particular attunement is entirely just a flavor-based assumption which doesn't necessarily reflect anything in reality. If you've ever played staff then you'd know that water attunement isn't defensive or reactive at all, but rather more efficiently used as a strong area control and set-up for CC and damage (unless you snap to it for a quick rez); it has Healing Rain for support, but it's never really going to be enough to save anyone from strong focus. This sort of paradigm is also evident in how earth attunement is described in-game as a "superior access to damage-over-time abilities" when nobody uses earth for DoTs but rather for reactive defense or CC. Moreover, this re-work to water skills still features plenty of healing and sustain.

You want to remove cleansing waters which might have a slow cast time for the current meta but its still really useful for dealing with condi cleanses and the heal is somewhat nice, especially if you play an arcane version of the kit. Double cleansing waves that is.

• The water kit cleanses up to 7 conditions, grants barrier, gives bonus toughness, zones with damage and CC and still has a baseline health generation potential equivalent to permanent, baseline regeneration if it's cast off CD (3232HP over 25s without healing power investment--which is pretty good for a mobile, ranged/melee kit).

And whats the point in having double leaps when attuned to earth? Earthquake is really easy to land, I miss it from time to time when my muscle mmory follows rotations but still easy to land so it does not need that handicap built in.

• Magnetic Grasp was removed. Earthquake change was made to somewhat make up for it. No, it's not difficult to land as it is, but giving it a 600 leap would not only add to the Elementalist's field threat and target pressure flexbility (can go from pressuring one opponent to saving a nearby ally or CC'ing a suddenly more important target), but it would also just help make up for the lack of the Mag Grasp skill (although, that loss is also addressed collectively by double Burning Speed, a shorter CD on Ride the Lightning, and plenty of superspeed).

Because you made an assumption of my reading capabilities, Ill make one about your playtime with ele based off your proposal, youve been playing the kit for 6 months or so.. I make that assumption due to the fact that by your posting of the class, youve got no idea how to properly utilize the skills at your disposal and this is evident just on your fire changes alone, just about all old school eles will maximise the ring of fire combos and even more use ring of fire for an easy firegrab proc on the extra damage from burning but more importantly to gain Might stacks, which is the core of our damage, just about all Elementalist players know this too. More evidence of this is when you say Ring Of Fire is skill 5 when in fact its skill 4.

• All of that stuff is elementary if you're literate. I said Ring of Fire on skill 5 because I moved it there for the transmute re-work because spawning a Ring of Fire has a lot more impact on the field than randomly burning foes and giving some short-lived might to allies that probably already have a passive 20+ stacks.

I hope that was detailed enough, this isn't the best idea but dont be discouraged from coming up with ideas, the points I didn't touch on like RTL wasn't so bad and was similar to some tweaks I posted about a month or so ago.

The DD kit is already a free casting kit too...

• That doesn't necessarily mean that it's engaging to use and viable on its own. Notice that nearly all of your most threatening damage comes from off-hand dagger and pressing your attunements again. Moreover, it's very, very easy to escape d/d. At least this re-work would address a core ele mainhand-offhand kit by giving it range transition options that provide real field threats and area denial.

I wont speak for Weaver or core but currently the DD tempest build could see some tweaks to keep up with the meta such as more stab on some skills, especially the overloading trait or even on aftershock but it certainly doesn't need an overhaul.

• I WILL STOP YOU RIGHT THERE. See, that's how you know that the mechanics behind d/d have some issues and how keeping the kit relatively the same will do no good for the game at large. Stability, among all of the overbearing "features" of combat in this game, is at least Top 5 in what stops GW2 from being truly good. You're not asking to make d/d more fun to play or more flexible in the hands of players, you're asking to make it easier to play so that anyone who picks it up will be guaranteed to get away with basic rotations regardless of the kind of counterplay that enemies employ. This is what makes spellbreaker, holo, guardian, thief, weaver, and mesmer so unfun to play against. There is no real sense of spacing or timing involved; it's just a long-winded rhythm game with a beat pace set on whole 30-second intervals because that's just how long people's passive defenses hold out. This game NEEDS skill compression and a lot of overhauling if it's going to be something that is remotely skill-based or intuitive to play. Giving d/d some easy/passive stab to its rotation wouldn't mean that you would opponents would need to think about how to play with you; it just means that they would need to walk away and wait while you pressed 2 buttons before they could adequately respond.

Now, I'm not the best Tempest or player, but this video of me trolling a fire/air build will show you how much I use those fire fields and finishers and how I try to maximize my kit efficiently, keyword is try. I use those fields to attain the most might stacks I can gain, which is extremely important for builds like Celestial such as the one in the video. Your changes would gut my damage and take away the fun of the kit.

• The fun of that kit is being able to walk at people and cast powerful skills while still sponging damage without worrying too terribly much. That has always been the nature of every cele build; and particular every cele ele build (which is why the build was so infamous during its prime: it was the baby mode; and the fact that it's enough to get into plat is just evidence to how bad the powercreep of Tempest is despite the nerfs to the celestial amulet itself). Try getting into plat on core marauder staff.
• Also, I feel like I could keep 25 might up on staff if I went and took Strength Runes. A 50% duration increase to might on top of using Persisting Flames would probably make that entirely possible without much effort despite the staff kit having less baseline blast access than yours.

If you're looking to change up the Sc/D build, then why not propose changes to Scepter?

• Because at this point, changing single main-hands is not going to fix any problems. There are too many unfair skills and worthless filler skills that litter every single one of ele's core single-hand options. At the same time, taking each one by itself, there are just not enough skill slots available in order to make any single one of them better without just doing full anet and overbuffing something by removing user risk, thought and timing (ala, let's give this skill evade or stability). Furthermore, taking it one by one would still leave one of the worst issues unchecked: that being an infestation of one-off skills which take 0.75s or less to cast and then 35-40 seconds to recharge. This weapon bar re-work for scepter/dagger is an effort to promote a more prolonged and flexible flow to fair but powerful offensive and defensive options. Things like the increased overall mobility and ammo system damage options complement this goal.

Offhand dagger works really well with main hand dagger as it is. Offhand dagger already provides fields, CC, High damage and good sustainability, in fact, most of the "spike" damage comes from Offhand dagger being Firegrab and Churning Earth and they don't hit all that hard unless you have built up might, and your idea takes away alot of the might gain which essentially neuters the build and class.

• Again, if you're worried about fire field availability and blasts, there are still plenty of both in this re-work. You also get two potential firegrabs now with how Drake's Breath works. Also Churning Earth now hits harder, is unblockable and removes critical boons. The latter two things honestly equal the damage itself in field impact, making the skill very flexible in its goal (it can always pressure bunkers now even without necessarily worrying about the final hit; but you also still do the 2012 Flash strat with it for the damage).

TLDR: you want to give elementalists more presence in the fight by gutting the damage, it also appears you want to drastically lower the skill floor so you can button mash your way to victory like most other post HoT/PoF builds without comprehending that your ideas will gut the damage and leave us a bunch of skills that have no synergy together, it would be a complete mess.

• Honestly, demanding that people free-aim ranged abilities that can zone the field or defend allies really isn't lowering the skill ceiling. If anything due to how the fire, earth, Invoke Lightning, and Shatterstone-reworks went, it probably only gained damage--damage which can still be either missed by a user or fairly avoided by an aware opponent.

@Swagg.9236 said:

@sephiroth.4217 said:

@Swagg.9236 said:

@sephiroth.4217 said:I play DD temp for a reason, if I wanted focus like skills then I would take focus.

If you remove ring of fire and fire grab, you remove a lot of burst damage and fields and finishers that can be used with water 3 and earth 3 4 and 5.. (thats a huge loss on might gain, 10 or so stacks of might actually.

• Except that the Fire Grab threat was moved to the end of Drake's Breath, and was given two charges. In a clumped PvP fight, this new version is basically a titanic buff in its killing power and general threat potential.
• As for the fire fields, re-worked Scepter 2 produces one pretty consistently if you read that. Not only that, but Burning Retreat makes one as well if you didn't realize (and its effective area is quite generous if you've ever had to blast anything on it); and now you get two of those. As for Ring of Fire, it's on the re-worked Transmute Flame. Given all this, the kit really loses nothing; only gains.

We already have burning speed on fire 3 and would be completely senseless to have 2 burning speeds on 3 and 4.

• Burning Speed was moved to 4. It isn't on 3 at all. That's the re-worked Drake's Breath. Moreover, since this is a hypothetical re-work of all of the core, single-hand weapon set-ups, taking both scepter and dagger here means nobody misses out on anything listed.

We dont need a transmute flame when the kit already has access to 2 transmutes with water and air which is more than other kits, also when traited properly you also get the extra cleanses from attunement swapping.

• Fire Shield made it into the final kit mainly because of the re-work to the fire aura itself, not because of the transmute ability. If fire aura granted allies an extra 5% outgoing damage (i.e. something useful and engaging for once), it could make Tempest or some other Fire Magic variant spec meta in PvE as party damage support while the skill itself would still provide projectile defense and mild damage mitigation in PvP. For the same reason, the re-worked shocking aura would also increase Elementalist desirability in PvE while also giving the class a powerful burst tool that synergizes with its own kit.

Air changes to updraft you removed the CC effect for superjumps? Super jump wont stop a rez or stomp nor will it proc lighting rod, the DD kit only has 2 hard CC and your proposal is too move it to water attunement, which is a defensive attunement, super impractical. You don't go to water to CC someone on the build, you use water to cleanse and heal.

• GW2 mobility is so scripted that it's a joke, so I was going for something creative that people with some decent forethought could use. It also gives superspeed, provides self-defense with the evade, and synergizes into Ride the Lightning (once more usable in midair with this re-work) for more damage--that's a lot of options. Giving it a 2-ammo count adds even more flexibility to the skill. Therefore, it felt too strong to keep the launch, but I understand what you are saying. It still would pain to me to imagine keeping it the same since it's ultimately a very stationary and one-dimensional skill at the end of the day in its current form. Adding all of that re-worked flexibility onto an already-present launch would probably require that it be a single-use, 30s CD, and that's also painful since the main idea with this re-work was to add a lot of flow options to a re-worked core ele weapon kit.
• As for the water attunement comment, the identity of any particular attunement is entirely just a flavor-based assumption which doesn't necessarily reflect anything in reality. If you've ever played staff then you'd know that water attunement isn't defensive or reactive at all, but rather more efficiently used as a strong area control and set-up for CC and damage (unless you snap to it for a quick rez); it has Healing Rain for support, but it's never really going to be enough to save anyone from strong focus. This sort of paradigm is also evident in how earth attunement is described
  in-game
  as a "superior access to damage-over-time abilities" when
  nobody
  uses earth for DoTs but rather for reactive defense or CC. Moreover, this re-work to water skills still features plenty of healing and sustain.

You want to remove cleansing waters which might have a slow cast time for the current meta but its still really useful for dealing with condi cleanses and the heal is somewhat nice, especially if you play an arcane version of the kit. Double cleansing waves that is.

• The water kit cleanses up to 7 conditions, grants barrier, gives bonus toughness, zones with damage and CC and still has a baseline health generation potential equivalent to permanent, baseline regeneration if it's cast off CD (3232HP over 25s without healing power investment--which is pretty good for a mobile, ranged/melee kit).

And whats the point in having double leaps when attuned to earth? Earthquake is really easy to land, I miss it from time to time when my muscle mmory follows rotations but still easy to land so it does not need that handicap built in.

• Magnetic Grasp was removed. Earthquake change was made to somewhat make up for it. No, it's not difficult to land as it is, but giving it a 600 leap would not only add to the Elementalist's field threat and target pressure flexbility (can go from pressuring one opponent to saving a nearby ally or CC'ing a suddenly more important target), but it would also just help make up for the lack of the Mag Grasp skill (although, that loss is also addressed collectively by double Burning Speed, a shorter CD on Ride the Lightning, and plenty of superspeed).

Because you made an assumption of my reading capabilities, Ill make one about your playtime with ele based off your proposal, youve been playing the kit for 6 months or so.. I make that assumption due to the fact that by your posting of the class, youve got no idea how to properly utilize the skills at your disposal and this is evident just on your fire changes alone, just about all old school eles will maximise the ring of fire combos and even more use ring of fire for an easy firegrab proc on the extra damage from burning but more importantly to gain Might stacks, which is the core of our damage, just about all Elementalist players know this too. More evidence of this is when you say Ring Of Fire is skill 5 when in fact its skill 4.

• All of that stuff is elementary if you're literate. I said Ring of Fire on skill 5 because I moved it there for the transmute re-work because spawning a Ring of Fire has a lot more impact on the field than randomly burning foes and giving some short-lived might to allies that probably already have a passive 20+ stacks.

I hope that was detailed enough, this isn't the best idea but dont be discouraged from coming up with ideas, the points I didn't touch on like RTL wasn't so bad and was similar to some tweaks I posted about a month or so ago.

The DD kit is already a free casting kit too...

• That doesn't necessarily mean that it's engaging to use and viable on its own. Notice that nearly all of your most threatening damage comes from off-hand dagger and pressing your attunements again. Moreover, it's very, very easy to escape d/d. At least this re-work would address a core ele mainhand-offhand kit by giving it range transition options that provide real field threats and area denial.

I wont speak for Weaver or core but currently the DD tempest build could see some tweaks to keep up with the meta such as more stab on some skills, especially the overloading trait or even on aftershock but it certainly doesn't need an overhaul.

• I WILL STOP YOU RIGHT THERE. See, that's how you know that the mechanics behind d/d have some issues and how keeping the kit relatively the same will do no good for the game at large. Stability, among all of the overbearing "features" of combat in this game, is at least Top 5 in what stops GW2 from being truly good. You're not asking to make d/d more fun to play or more flexible in the hands of players, you're asking to make it easier to play so that anyone who picks it up will be guaranteed to get away with basic rotations regardless of the kind of counterplay that enemies employ. This is what makes spellbreaker, holo, guardian, thief, weaver, and mesmer so unfun to play against. There is no real sense of spacing or timing involved; it's just a long-winded rhythm game with a beat pace set on whole 30-second intervals because that's just how long people's passive defenses hold out. This game NEEDS skill compression and a lot of overhauling if it's going to be something that is remotely skill-based or intuitive to play. Giving d/d some easy/passive stab to its rotation wouldn't mean that you would opponents would need to think about how to play with you; it just means that they would need to walk away and wait while you pressed 2 buttons before they could adequately respond.

Now, I'm not the best Tempest or player, but this video of me trolling a fire/air build will show you how much I use those fire fields and finishers and how I try to maximize my kit efficiently, keyword is try. I use those fields to attain the most might stacks I can gain, which is extremely important for builds like Celestial such as the one in the video. Your changes would gut my damage and take away the fun of the kit.

• The fun of that kit is being able to walk at people and cast powerful skills while still sponging damage without worrying too terribly much. That has always been the nature of every cele build; and particular every cele ele build (which is why the build was so infamous during its prime: it was the baby mode; and the fact that it's enough to get into plat is just evidence to how bad the powercreep of Tempest is despite the nerfs to the celestial amulet itself). Try getting into plat on core marauder staff.
• Also, I feel like I could keep 25 might up on staff if I went and took Strength Runes. A 50% duration increase to might on top of using Persisting Flames would probably make that entirely possible without much effort despite the staff kit having less baseline blast access than yours.

If you're looking to change up the Sc/D build, then why not propose changes to Scepter?

• Because at this point, changing single main-hands is not going to fix any problems. There are too many unfair skills and worthless filler skills that litter every single one of ele's core single-hand options. At the same time, taking each one by itself, there are just not enough skill slots available in order to make any single one of them better without just doing full anet and overbuffing something by removing user risk, thought and timing (ala, let's give this skill evade or stability). Furthermore, taking it one by one would still leave one of the worst issues unchecked: that being an infestation of one-off skills which take 0.75s or less to cast and then 35-40 seconds to recharge. This weapon bar re-work for scepter/dagger is an effort to promote a more prolonged and flexible flow to fair but powerful offensive and defensive options. Things like the increased overall mobility and ammo system damage options complement this goal.

Offhand dagger works really well with main hand dagger as it is. Offhand dagger already provides fields, CC, High damage and good sustainability, in fact, most of the "spike" damage comes from Offhand dagger being Firegrab and Churning Earth and they don't hit all that hard unless you have built up might, and your idea takes away alot of the might gain which essentially neuters the build and class.

• Again, if you're worried about fire field availability and blasts, there are still plenty of both in this re-work. You also get two potential firegrabs now with how Drake's Breath works. Also Churning Earth now hits harder, is unblockable and removes critical boons. The latter two things honestly equal the damage itself in field impact, making the skill very flexible in its goal (it can always pressure bunkers now even without necessarily worrying about the final hit; but you also still do the 2012 Flash strat with it for the damage).

TLDR: you want to give elementalists more presence in the fight by gutting the damage, it also appears you want to drastically lower the skill floor so you can button mash your way to victory like most other post HoT/PoF builds without comprehending that your ideas will gut the damage and leave us a bunch of skills that have no synergy together, it would be a complete mess.

• Honestly, demanding that people free-aim ranged abilities that can zone the field or defend allies really isn't lowering the skill ceiling. If anything due to how the fire, earth, Invoke Lightning, and Shatterstone-reworks went, it probably only gained damage--damage which can still be either missed by a user or fairly avoided by an aware opponent.

My perspective is a happy DD player.Your perspective is a disgruntled scepter/X player.

Im sure many main eles would pick up the keyboard who dont frequent the forums and get a nasty shock or "wtf did anet do" moment, which is another thing, your proposal puts pve and wvw on the side bench too, so across 3 modes you gut DD because you are not satisfied with scepter/x..

Question is, does it make sense to gut one of the many beautiful ele playstyles instead of proposing ideas to help your own kit?

One must not read roughly the OP thread because I did and what I understood is gold!

I understood that Ele's dagger MH and focus were boring to use so he suggested scepter and dagger OH changes.

No, seriously, if one want to propose changes to some weapon, one need to argument on these weapons and why they need change. Bashing the other weapons don't really justify those changes in any way.

@sephiroth.4217 said:

@Swagg.9236 said:

@sephiroth.4217 said:

@Swagg.9236 said:

@sephiroth.4217 said:I play DD temp for a reason, if I wanted focus like skills then I would take focus.

If you remove ring of fire and fire grab, you remove a lot of burst damage and fields and finishers that can be used with water 3 and earth 3 4 and 5.. (thats a huge loss on might gain, 10 or so stacks of might actually.

• Except that the Fire Grab threat was moved to the end of Drake's Breath, and was given two charges. In a clumped PvP fight, this new version is basically a titanic buff in its killing power and general threat potential.
• As for the fire fields, re-worked Scepter 2 produces one pretty consistently if you read that. Not only that, but Burning Retreat makes one as well if you didn't realize (and its effective area is quite generous if you've ever had to blast anything on it); and now you get two of those. As for Ring of Fire, it's on the re-worked Transmute Flame. Given all this, the kit really loses nothing; only gains.

We already have burning speed on fire 3 and would be completely senseless to have 2 burning speeds on 3 and 4.

• Burning Speed was moved to 4. It isn't on 3 at all. That's the re-worked Drake's Breath. Moreover, since this is a hypothetical re-work of all of the core, single-hand weapon set-ups, taking both scepter and dagger here means nobody misses out on anything listed.

We dont need a transmute flame when the kit already has access to 2 transmutes with water and air which is more than other kits, also when traited properly you also get the extra cleanses from attunement swapping.

• Fire Shield made it into the final kit mainly because of the re-work to the fire aura itself, not because of the transmute ability. If fire aura granted allies an extra 5% outgoing damage (i.e. something useful and engaging for once), it could make Tempest or some other Fire Magic variant spec meta in PvE as party damage support while the skill itself would still provide projectile defense and mild damage mitigation in PvP. For the same reason, the re-worked shocking aura would also increase Elementalist desirability in PvE while also giving the class a powerful burst tool that synergizes with its own kit.

Air changes to updraft you removed the CC effect for superjumps? Super jump wont stop a rez or stomp nor will it proc lighting rod, the DD kit only has 2 hard CC and your proposal is too move it to water attunement, which is a defensive attunement, super impractical. You don't go to water to CC someone on the build, you use water to cleanse and heal.

• GW2 mobility is so scripted that it's a joke, so I was going for something creative that people with some decent forethought could use. It also gives superspeed, provides self-defense with the evade, and synergizes into Ride the Lightning (once more usable in midair with this re-work) for more damage--that's a lot of options. Giving it a 2-ammo count adds even more flexibility to the skill. Therefore, it felt too strong to keep the launch, but I understand what you are saying. It still would pain to me to imagine keeping it the same since it's ultimately a very stationary and one-dimensional skill at the end of the day in its current form. Adding all of that re-worked flexibility onto an already-present launch would probably require that it be a single-use, 30s CD, and that's also painful since the main idea with this re-work was to add a lot of flow options to a re-worked core ele weapon kit.
• As for the water attunement comment, the identity of any particular attunement is entirely just a flavor-based assumption which doesn't necessarily reflect anything in reality. If you've ever played staff then you'd know that water attunement isn't defensive or reactive at all, but rather more efficiently used as a strong area control and set-up for CC and damage (unless you snap to it for a quick rez); it has Healing Rain for support, but it's never really going to be enough to save anyone from strong focus. This sort of paradigm is also evident in how earth attunement is described
  in-game
  as a "superior access to damage-over-time abilities" when
  nobody
  uses earth for DoTs but rather for reactive defense or CC. Moreover, this re-work to water skills still features plenty of healing and sustain.

You want to remove cleansing waters which might have a slow cast time for the current meta but its still really useful for dealing with condi cleanses and the heal is somewhat nice, especially if you play an arcane version of the kit. Double cleansing waves that is.

• The water kit cleanses up to 7 conditions, grants barrier, gives bonus toughness, zones with damage and CC and still has a baseline health generation potential equivalent to permanent, baseline regeneration if it's cast off CD (3232HP over 25s without healing power investment--which is pretty good for a mobile, ranged/melee kit).

And whats the point in having double leaps when attuned to earth? Earthquake is really easy to land, I miss it from time to time when my muscle mmory follows rotations but still easy to land so it does not need that handicap built in.

• Magnetic Grasp was removed. Earthquake change was made to somewhat make up for it. No, it's not difficult to land as it is, but giving it a 600 leap would not only add to the Elementalist's field threat and target pressure flexbility (can go from pressuring one opponent to saving a nearby ally or CC'ing a suddenly more important target), but it would also just help make up for the lack of the Mag Grasp skill (although, that loss is also addressed collectively by double Burning Speed, a shorter CD on Ride the Lightning, and plenty of superspeed).

Because you made an assumption of my reading capabilities, Ill make one about your playtime with ele based off your proposal, youve been playing the kit for 6 months or so.. I make that assumption due to the fact that by your posting of the class, youve got no idea how to properly utilize the skills at your disposal and this is evident just on your fire changes alone, just about all old school eles will maximise the ring of fire combos and even more use ring of fire for an easy firegrab proc on the extra damage from burning but more importantly to gain Might stacks, which is the core of our damage, just about all Elementalist players know this too. More evidence of this is when you say Ring Of Fire is skill 5 when in fact its skill 4.

• All of that stuff is elementary if you're literate. I said Ring of Fire on skill 5 because I moved it there for the transmute re-work because spawning a Ring of Fire has a lot more impact on the field than randomly burning foes and giving some short-lived might to allies that probably already have a passive 20+ stacks.

I hope that was detailed enough, this isn't the best idea but dont be discouraged from coming up with ideas, the points I didn't touch on like RTL wasn't so bad and was similar to some tweaks I posted about a month or so ago.

The DD kit is already a free casting kit too...

• That doesn't necessarily mean that it's engaging to use and viable on its own. Notice that nearly all of your most threatening damage comes from off-hand dagger and pressing your attunements again. Moreover, it's very, very easy to escape d/d. At least this re-work would address a core ele mainhand-offhand kit by giving it range transition options that provide real field threats and area denial.

I wont speak for Weaver or core but currently the DD tempest build could see some tweaks to keep up with the meta such as more stab on some skills, especially the overloading trait or even on aftershock but it certainly doesn't need an overhaul.

• I WILL STOP YOU RIGHT THERE. See, that's how you know that the mechanics behind d/d have some issues and how keeping the kit relatively the same will do no good for the game at large. Stability, among all of the overbearing "features" of combat in this game, is at least Top 5 in what stops GW2 from being truly good. You're not asking to make d/d more fun to play or more flexible in the hands of players, you're asking to make it easier to play so that anyone who picks it up will be guaranteed to get away with basic rotations regardless of the kind of counterplay that enemies employ. This is what makes spellbreaker, holo, guardian, thief, weaver, and mesmer so unfun to play against. There is no real sense of spacing or timing involved; it's just a long-winded rhythm game with a beat pace set on whole 30-second intervals because that's just how long people's passive defenses hold out. This game NEEDS skill compression and a lot of overhauling if it's going to be something that is remotely skill-based or intuitive to play. Giving d/d some easy/passive stab to its rotation wouldn't mean that you would opponents would need to think about how to play with you; it just means that they would need to walk away and wait while you pressed 2 buttons before they could adequately respond.

Now, I'm not the best Tempest or player, but this video of me trolling a fire/air build will show you how much I use those fire fields and finishers and how I try to maximize my kit efficiently, keyword is try. I use those fields to attain the most might stacks I can gain, which is extremely important for builds like Celestial such as the one in the video. Your changes would gut my damage and take away the fun of the kit.

• The fun of that kit is being able to walk at people and cast powerful skills while still sponging damage without worrying too terribly much. That has always been the nature of every cele build; and particular every cele ele build (which is why the build was so infamous during its prime: it was the baby mode; and the fact that it's enough to get into plat is just evidence to how bad the powercreep of Tempest is despite the nerfs to the celestial amulet itself). Try getting into plat on core marauder staff.
• Also, I feel like I could keep 25 might up on staff if I went and took Strength Runes. A 50% duration increase to might on top of using Persisting Flames would probably make that entirely possible without much effort despite the staff kit having less baseline blast access than yours.

If you're looking to change up the Sc/D build, then why not propose changes to Scepter?

• Because at this point, changing single main-hands is not going to fix any problems. There are too many unfair skills and worthless filler skills that litter every single one of ele's core single-hand options. At the same time, taking each one by itself, there are just not enough skill slots available in order to make any single one of them better without just doing full anet and overbuffing something by removing user risk, thought and timing (ala, let's give this skill evade or stability). Furthermore, taking it one by one would still leave one of the worst issues unchecked: that being an infestation of one-off skills which take 0.75s or less to cast and then 35-40 seconds to recharge. This weapon bar re-work for scepter/dagger is an effort to promote a more prolonged and flexible flow to fair but powerful offensive and defensive options. Things like the increased overall mobility and ammo system damage options complement this goal.

Offhand dagger works really well with main hand dagger as it is. Offhand dagger already provides fields, CC, High damage and good sustainability, in fact, most of the "spike" damage comes from Offhand dagger being Firegrab and Churning Earth and they don't hit all that hard unless you have built up might, and your idea takes away alot of the might gain which essentially neuters the build and class.

• Again, if you're worried about fire field availability and blasts, there are still plenty of both in this re-work. You also get two potential firegrabs now with how Drake's Breath works. Also Churning Earth now hits harder, is unblockable and removes critical boons. The latter two things honestly equal the damage itself in field impact, making the skill very flexible in its goal (it can always pressure bunkers now even without necessarily worrying about the final hit; but you also still do the 2012 Flash strat with it for the damage).

TLDR: you want to give elementalists more presence in the fight by gutting the damage, it also appears you want to drastically lower the skill floor so you can button mash your way to victory like most other post HoT/PoF builds without comprehending that your ideas will gut the damage and leave us a bunch of skills that have no synergy together, it would be a complete mess.

• Honestly, demanding that people free-aim ranged abilities that can zone the field or defend allies really isn't lowering the skill ceiling. If anything due to how the fire, earth, Invoke Lightning, and Shatterstone-reworks went, it probably only gained damage--damage which can still be either missed by a user or fairly avoided by an aware opponent.

Honestly, I really only play staff, and it's fine that you're satisfied with d/d; I don't really have a reason to take issue with your opinions. However, your satisfaction isn't really relevant in the discussion of how core ele has basically no decent single-hand weapons which aren't instantly made better by equipping an elite spec or just left aside entirely for different options. This is a matter of side-grades, build effectiveness, team play and play-style flexibility; not whether or not I like one weapon more than any other weapon.

And you know how little I'm attached to the scepter? Read the title. It doesn't say "Remove these weapons;" and honestly, I could just go and change two words around and make the first heading all about a big main-hand dagger overhaul instead of a scepter. It doesn't matter. It's just flavor. This isn't about how much any particular player likes his weapon type; it's about giving core ele a flexible damage, self-defense and team support option that isn't just staff. Current scepter is braindead and selfish; current dagger main-hand is slow and about as straightforward as Warrior; current off-hand focus is immobile, unfun to play against, and taken primarily for only 50% of its skills. Current off-hand dagger is really the only non-staff weapon which shows even a remote sliver of flexible play potential, so it's mostly a matter of molding everything above into one kit which actually manages to promote decision-making flexibility and a good combat tempo.

Again, it's fine that you're satisfied with main-hand dagger, or d/d ele in general, but it doesn't mean that you aren't still using what is objectively the least comprehensively useful Elementalist set-up in the game in both PvP and PvE. Besides, if I liked main-hand ele scepter, I probably would have kept the tracking beam and instant damage on Air Attunement since that's the only thing for which that weapon is used.

@Dadnir.5038 said:One must not read roughly the OP thread because I did and what I understood is gold!

I understood that Ele's dagger MH and focus were boring to use so he suggested scepter and dagger OH changes.

No, seriously, if one want to propose changes to some weapon, one need to argument on these weapons and why they need change. Bashing the other weapons don't really justify those changes in any way.

It's not a suggested change to scepter and off-hand dagger; it's a compression of multiple weapon kits into a single set which actually has a lot of potential team support with some specs/traits while also just giving the user a lot more flexibility with mobility, damage and decision making. This set could be dagger/dagger, dagger/focus, scepter/focus, heck, we could just make it axe/mace. I don't care. It doesn't matter. It's about the skills; not the weapons to which they are bound: that part is just flavor.

@Swagg.9236 said:

@sephiroth.4217 said:

@Swagg.9236 said:

@sephiroth.4217 said:

@Swagg.9236 said:

@sephiroth.4217 said:I play DD temp for a reason, if I wanted focus like skills then I would take focus.

If you remove ring of fire and fire grab, you remove a lot of burst damage and fields and finishers that can be used with water 3 and earth 3 4 and 5.. (thats a huge loss on might gain, 10 or so stacks of might actually.

• Except that the Fire Grab threat was moved to the end of Drake's Breath, and was given two charges. In a clumped PvP fight, this new version is basically a titanic buff in its killing power and general threat potential.
• As for the fire fields, re-worked Scepter 2 produces one pretty consistently if you read that. Not only that, but Burning Retreat makes one as well if you didn't realize (and its effective area is quite generous if you've ever had to blast anything on it); and now you get two of those. As for Ring of Fire, it's on the re-worked Transmute Flame. Given all this, the kit really loses nothing; only gains.

We already have burning speed on fire 3 and would be completely senseless to have 2 burning speeds on 3 and 4.

• Burning Speed was moved to 4. It isn't on 3 at all. That's the re-worked Drake's Breath. Moreover, since this is a hypothetical re-work of all of the core, single-hand weapon set-ups, taking both scepter and dagger here means nobody misses out on anything listed.

We dont need a transmute flame when the kit already has access to 2 transmutes with water and air which is more than other kits, also when traited properly you also get the extra cleanses from attunement swapping.

• Fire Shield made it into the final kit mainly because of the re-work to the fire aura itself, not because of the transmute ability. If fire aura granted allies an extra 5% outgoing damage (i.e. something useful and engaging for once), it could make Tempest or some other Fire Magic variant spec meta in PvE as party damage support while the skill itself would still provide projectile defense and mild damage mitigation in PvP. For the same reason, the re-worked shocking aura would also increase Elementalist desirability in PvE while also giving the class a powerful burst tool that synergizes with its own kit.

Air changes to updraft you removed the CC effect for superjumps? Super jump wont stop a rez or stomp nor will it proc lighting rod, the DD kit only has 2 hard CC and your proposal is too move it to water attunement, which is a defensive attunement, super impractical. You don't go to water to CC someone on the build, you use water to cleanse and heal.

• GW2 mobility is so scripted that it's a joke, so I was going for something creative that people with some decent forethought could use. It also gives superspeed, provides self-defense with the evade, and synergizes into Ride the Lightning (once more usable in midair with this re-work) for more damage--that's a lot of options. Giving it a 2-ammo count adds even more flexibility to the skill. Therefore, it felt too strong to keep the launch, but I understand what you are saying. It still would pain to me to imagine keeping it the same since it's ultimately a very stationary and one-dimensional skill at the end of the day in its current form. Adding all of that re-worked flexibility onto an already-present launch would probably require that it be a single-use, 30s CD, and that's also painful since the main idea with this re-work was to add a lot of flow options to a re-worked core ele weapon kit.
• As for the water attunement comment, the identity of any particular attunement is entirely just a flavor-based assumption which doesn't necessarily reflect anything in reality. If you've ever played staff then you'd know that water attunement isn't defensive or reactive at all, but rather more efficiently used as a strong area control and set-up for CC and damage (unless you snap to it for a quick rez); it has Healing Rain for support, but it's never really going to be enough to save anyone from strong focus. This sort of paradigm is also evident in how earth attunement is described
  in-game
  as a "superior access to damage-over-time abilities" when
  nobody
  uses earth for DoTs but rather for reactive defense or CC. Moreover, this re-work to water skills still features plenty of healing and sustain.

You want to remove cleansing waters which might have a slow cast time for the current meta but its still really useful for dealing with condi cleanses and the heal is somewhat nice, especially if you play an arcane version of the kit. Double cleansing waves that is.

• The water kit cleanses up to 7 conditions, grants barrier, gives bonus toughness, zones with damage and CC and still has a baseline health generation potential equivalent to permanent, baseline regeneration if it's cast off CD (3232HP over 25s without healing power investment--which is pretty good for a mobile, ranged/melee kit).

And whats the point in having double leaps when attuned to earth? Earthquake is really easy to land, I miss it from time to time when my muscle mmory follows rotations but still easy to land so it does not need that handicap built in.

• Magnetic Grasp was removed. Earthquake change was made to somewhat make up for it. No, it's not difficult to land as it is, but giving it a 600 leap would not only add to the Elementalist's field threat and target pressure flexbility (can go from pressuring one opponent to saving a nearby ally or CC'ing a suddenly more important target), but it would also just help make up for the lack of the Mag Grasp skill (although, that loss is also addressed collectively by double Burning Speed, a shorter CD on Ride the Lightning, and plenty of superspeed).

Because you made an assumption of my reading capabilities, Ill make one about your playtime with ele based off your proposal, youve been playing the kit for 6 months or so.. I make that assumption due to the fact that by your posting of the class, youve got no idea how to properly utilize the skills at your disposal and this is evident just on your fire changes alone, just about all old school eles will maximise the ring of fire combos and even more use ring of fire for an easy firegrab proc on the extra damage from burning but more importantly to gain Might stacks, which is the core of our damage, just about all Elementalist players know this too. More evidence of this is when you say Ring Of Fire is skill 5 when in fact its skill 4.

• All of that stuff is elementary if you're literate. I said Ring of Fire on skill 5 because I moved it there for the transmute re-work because spawning a Ring of Fire has a lot more impact on the field than randomly burning foes and giving some short-lived might to allies that probably already have a passive 20+ stacks.

I hope that was detailed enough, this isn't the best idea but dont be discouraged from coming up with ideas, the points I didn't touch on like RTL wasn't so bad and was similar to some tweaks I posted about a month or so ago.

The DD kit is already a free casting kit too...

• That doesn't necessarily mean that it's engaging to use and viable on its own. Notice that nearly all of your most threatening damage comes from off-hand dagger and pressing your attunements again. Moreover, it's very, very easy to escape d/d. At least this re-work would address a core ele mainhand-offhand kit by giving it range transition options that provide real field threats and area denial.

I wont speak for Weaver or core but currently the DD tempest build could see some tweaks to keep up with the meta such as more stab on some skills, especially the overloading trait or even on aftershock but it certainly doesn't need an overhaul.

• I WILL STOP YOU RIGHT THERE. See, that's how you know that the mechanics behind d/d have some issues and how keeping the kit relatively the same will do no good for the game at large. Stability, among all of the overbearing "features" of combat in this game, is at least Top 5 in what stops GW2 from being truly good. You're not asking to make d/d more fun to play or more flexible in the hands of players, you're asking to make it easier to play so that anyone who picks it up will be guaranteed to get away with basic rotations regardless of the kind of counterplay that enemies employ. This is what makes spellbreaker, holo, guardian, thief, weaver, and mesmer so unfun to play against. There is no real sense of spacing or timing involved; it's just a long-winded rhythm game with a beat pace set on whole 30-second intervals because that's just how long people's passive defenses hold out. This game NEEDS skill compression and a lot of overhauling if it's going to be something that is remotely skill-based or intuitive to play. Giving d/d some easy/passive stab to its rotation wouldn't mean that you would opponents would need to think about how to play with you; it just means that they would need to walk away and wait while you pressed 2 buttons before they could adequately respond.

Now, I'm not the best Tempest or player, but this video of me trolling a fire/air build will show you how much I use those fire fields and finishers and how I try to maximize my kit efficiently, keyword is try. I use those fields to attain the most might stacks I can gain, which is extremely important for builds like Celestial such as the one in the video. Your changes would gut my damage and take away the fun of the kit.

• The fun of that kit is being able to walk at people and cast powerful skills while still sponging damage without worrying too terribly much. That has always been the nature of every cele build; and particular every cele ele build (which is why the build was so infamous during its prime: it was the baby mode; and the fact that it's enough to get into plat is just evidence to how bad the powercreep of Tempest is despite the nerfs to the celestial amulet itself). Try getting into plat on core marauder staff.
• Also, I feel like I could keep 25 might up on staff if I went and took Strength Runes. A 50% duration increase to might on top of using Persisting Flames would probably make that entirely possible without much effort despite the staff kit having less baseline blast access than yours.

If you're looking to change up the Sc/D build, then why not propose changes to Scepter?

• Because at this point, changing single main-hands is not going to fix any problems. There are too many unfair skills and worthless filler skills that litter every single one of ele's core single-hand options. At the same time, taking each one by itself, there are just not enough skill slots available in order to make any single one of them better without just doing full anet and overbuffing something by removing user risk, thought and timing (ala, let's give this skill evade or stability). Furthermore, taking it one by one would still leave one of the worst issues unchecked: that being an infestation of one-off skills which take 0.75s or less to cast and then 35-40 seconds to recharge. This weapon bar re-work for scepter/dagger is an effort to promote a more prolonged and flexible flow to fair but powerful offensive and defensive options. Things like the increased overall mobility and ammo system damage options complement this goal.

Offhand dagger works really well with main hand dagger as it is. Offhand dagger already provides fields, CC, High damage and good sustainability, in fact, most of the "spike" damage comes from Offhand dagger being Firegrab and Churning Earth and they don't hit all that hard unless you have built up might, and your idea takes away alot of the might gain which essentially neuters the build and class.

• Again, if you're worried about fire field availability and blasts, there are still plenty of both in this re-work. You also get two potential firegrabs now with how Drake's Breath works. Also Churning Earth now hits harder, is unblockable and removes critical boons. The latter two things honestly equal the damage itself in field impact, making the skill very flexible in its goal (it can always pressure bunkers now even without necessarily worrying about the final hit; but you also still do the 2012 Flash strat with it for the damage).

TLDR: you want to give elementalists more presence in the fight by gutting the damage, it also appears you want to drastically lower the skill floor so you can button mash your way to victory like most other post HoT/PoF builds without comprehending that your ideas will gut the damage and leave us a bunch of skills that have no synergy together, it would be a complete mess.

• Honestly, demanding that people free-aim ranged abilities that can zone the field or defend allies really isn't lowering the skill ceiling. If anything due to how the fire, earth, Invoke Lightning, and Shatterstone-reworks went, it probably only gained damage--damage which can still be either missed by a user or fairly avoided by an aware opponent.

Only if youre new to the kit, rotations are well balanced once you know how tooIf you find it slow its probably because youre not rotating attunements properly as its very slow and strait forward if you were to camp attunements.

current off-hand focus is immobile, unfun to play against, and taken primarily for only 50% of its skills. Current off-hand dagger is really the only non-staff weapon which shows even a remote sliver of flexible play potential, so it's mostly a matter of molding everything above into one kit which actually manages to promote decision-making flexibility and a good combat tempo.

Already got this with DD temp

Again, it's fine that you're satisfied with main-hand dagger, or d/d ele in general, but it doesn't mean that you aren't still using what is objectively the least comprehensively useful Elementalist set-up in the game in both PvP and PvE. Besides, if I liked main-hand ele scepter, I probably would have kept the tracking beam and instant damage on Air Attunement since that's the only thing for which that weapon is used.

I said from the start as DD Temp.. The DD kit goes well with Temp...

How bout making all these changes to staff then? (Actually dont because staff is my 2nd fav kit)

Its also obvious about scepter...I keep saying leave my DD temp alone and you keep talking about scepter which is why im saying to propose changes to scepter kits

I think you should knuckle down on the dd kit before you say the things youre saying because with each post you make about it you show how little youve played the kit.

DD temp is also probably the fastest rotater in game now too with the magnetic leap change, I can actually chase down thieves and mesmers since that change and they are widely known as the "too much mobility" classes.It has everything you already looking to gain, good damage, good support, good mobility and extremely flexible playstyles for what ever class youre fighting. It has good presence in the fight if the player isnt a dud, the player just needs practice...