The state of conjured weapons, and why they should have their own elite spec.

[Emberheart.8426]

Introduction

The current state of conjured weapons is a subject that is frequently touched on in this sub-forum. Some say that conjures should have the ammo mechanic, while others want them to fully become like engineer kits. Whatever the case, it is almost universally agreed that conjure skills are currently lacking as a utility skill category and that they need serious work. Not only are they a failure in the elementalist community's eyes, but they are also a failure in regards to their original purpose. It is obvious that the developers at ArenaNet intended these to be supportive skills that help your allies get access to new weapon skills and do fun things with those. However, the optimal use of conjures has been to plug up the holes in an elementalist's rotation instead. You just cast a conjure and you fire the 1-2 good skills and then you drop it. The second conjure is picked up later so you can use the skills again, instead of giving it to your ally who usually doesn't have much use for it anyway.

Conjures are currently a redundant and outdated skill type for several reasons:

1. They do not serve their original purpose. Supporting allies with them is pointless and not optimal.
2. They add needless complexity to weaver rotations that are already complex enough.
3. Due to weaver DPS, conjured skills contribute to core weapon skills remaining worse than they should be, which can affect all game modes.
4. Conjures are very clunky, with a needless cast time and an annoying pickup time.
5. Most skills from conjures are useless, which makes conjures "fire and forget". You never want to keep a conjure for more than a couple of seconds.

Frequently Suggested Solutions

The most commonly proposed solution is to revamp conjured weapon skills so that they have the ammo mechanic instead of being dropped. This can also involve the removal of the cast time, since there is no conjure that is placed for your allies to take. This is a pretty good solution that solves some of the problems that conjure skills have. It removes the clunkiness and gets rid of the annoying pickups, which are arguably the biggest problems that conjures currently have. However, with this change it would be impossible to share conjures, like it was originally intended. They would still contribute to the complexity of weaver rotations, while also holding back much needed buffs to weapon skills. This solution would also do nothing to fix all the useless skills that the conjures have and you would still fire a couple of skills and drop the conjure. Theses useless skills could be buffed as well, but the problem with that is that Anet obviously doesn't want ele DPS to become even higher, so this is unlikely to happen.

Another solution that is proposed a lot is to turn conjures into kits. Similarly to the ammo suggestion this gets rid of the cast times and it removes the clunkiness of having to pick up second conjures. In addition, this solution makes it so that conjures can function as viable alternatives to different weapon ranges since they can always be summoned. However, once again kits would contribute the complexity of weavers rotation, but in this case they would arguably make weaver rotations even more complex than before. This would introduce a rotation complexity that has never been seen before in this game, due to weaver attunement mechanics combined with engineer kits. With these new rotations it is possible that ele weapon skills would get further nerfed, which nobody here wants. This also doesn't motivate the balance team to fix the useless skills of the conjured weapons, because that would come with a major risk of power-creeping ele DPS. The biggest issue with this is that it will likely never happen due to kits being an engineer-only niche that is supposed to make up for their lack of weapon skills.

From the above solutions I'd obviously go with the ammo mechanic, since it seems to be the easiest to implement and with the smallest amount of risk. But even that solution does not truly satisfy me. My proposal is to completely remove all of the conjured weapon skills and replace them with a new utility skill type. The new utility skill type could be anything really. Almost anything would be better than conjures at this point. However, just like with guardian tomes that were removed and then became an elite spec 2 expansions later, the same could happen with conjured weapons. So what would a conjurer elite spec look like? I haven't determined specific traits, utilities or even the weapon. The main purpose of this post was to determine what can be done about conjures, so I've only thought about the profession mechanic so far.

Conjurer Elite Specialization

There are many ways to implement conjures as a profession mechanic of an elite spec, but this is the best version that I came up with so far. This elite spec would add access to 4 conjured weapons as a profession mechanic. These would be conjured fiery greatsword, conjured frost bow, conjured lightning hammer, and conjured earth shield. Flame axe would not return since it is redundant. Only 1 conjure of each element is truly necessary. Above the F1-F4 attunements there would be arrows just like with revenant's F1 and F2 legends. These arrows would allow the conjurer to replace any given attunement with any conjured weapon outside of combat. This way the conjurer would retain 20 weapon skills, but they would get to choose to replace as many attunements as they want with conjures. Builds could be made with full conjures, or with only 1 conjure to replace that attunement that you never want to use in your build. Swapping into a conjure would be exactly the same as swapping attunements. This basically solves all the problems with conjures, except for them not serving their original purpose as support skills. However, even that could possibly be addressed. Perhaps the conjure could be pressed again while you are wielding it so you can drop a copy with a 30 second cooldown, or maybe dropping a copy of your wielded conjure could be part of a utility skill. This copy would be useless to you as you already have the conjured weapon permanently, but it could be useful to allies, especially if the skills of the conjures were better. The skills of the conjures could easily be better with an elite spec, because they replace weapon skills instead of adding more skills to the pool. They also cannot be used with weaver to increase DPS more.

I welcome feedback and more suggestions for what can be done with conjures instead of these ideas. While I currently think that my idea is solid, it is possible that there are some flaws that I have not noticed. Pointing these out if you can find them would be appreciated, so I can work on this concept a bit more. Also, if anyone would like to add weapon, utility and trait ideas for a conjurer specialization, I'd love to read those ideas as well.

[Dace.8173]

I feel like a Conjure Elite would be a wasted opportunity. That would be like fixing turrets on Engineer by turning it into an Elite. Elites are a chance to get something new to play with. It would be very unsatisfying to have a Conjure Elite while other professions are getting completely new toys. Sure one could argue that you are getting a new take or use on Conjure skills but that isn't the same thing as actually having something new and different from what people have played before.

[Dace.8173]

Also, I know Tomes were once a pair of Elite skills for Guardian but Tomes then are different from Tomes now. Elite skill Tomes were not a playstyle. They enhanced your play but you weren't exactly building entire builds around them. They had no interplay between them. You picked your one Tome and you couldn't change it out until the end of combat. As the Firebrand Tomes became an actual playstyle. There was interplay between the Tomes. You could switch Tomes as the situation demanded. This allowed your character to easily change job functions on the fly, from DPS to Healer to Control in a fashion that went well beyond anything that Tomes as an elite skill offered.

Conjure would be different. You can already create a playstyle around them. It's just that such a playstyle would be weak all things considered. As an Elite spec it may streamline things, improve upon them, and even give it a few unique tricks you can't currently do. However, the play experience would roughly be the same. You're just fixing a broken set of skills. Thus while the other professions would be getting something new that actually introduces a new way to play the profession Conjure as an Elite spec would offer you the same experience you can get now, just maybe better. I say maybe as there is nothing to guarantee that even as an Elite spec Conjure would be a worthwhile thing. If it turns out bad then people will feel robbed of getting something new and fun.

Could ANet do this? Yes, of course. They can pretty much do anything they want and it is within the realm of possibility. Should they do it? No, I think having a new and unique way to play Elementalist is a far better prospect than making use of Conjuring skills. All things considered, Elementalist already has an insane number of skills to begin with and all Conjuring does is give you even more skills possibilities. Functionally though, they are similar to what is done already.

[Jski.6180]

I realty think the conja weapons should lose there buffs but be on a 10 sec cd like an added atument with the ability to dropped from other players and putting it on a 1 min cd. It would fix a lot wrong with ele.

[Emberheart.8426]

@Dace.8173 said:Also, I know Tomes were once a pair of Elite skills for Guardian but Tomes then are different from Tomes now. Elite skill Tomes were not a playstyle. They enhanced your play but you weren't exactly building entire builds around them. They had no interplay between them. You picked your one Tome and you couldn't change it out until the end of combat. As the Firebrand Tomes became an actual playstyle. There was interplay between the Tomes. You could switch Tomes as the situation demanded. This allowed your character to easily change job functions on the fly, from DPS to Healer to Control in a fashion that went well beyond anything that Tomes as an elite skill offered.

Conjure would be different. You can already create a playstyle around them. It's just that such a playstyle would be weak all things considered. As an Elite spec it may streamline things, improve upon them, and even give it a few unique tricks you can't currently do. However, the play experience would roughly be the same. You're just fixing a broken set of skills. Thus while the other professions would be getting something new that actually introduces a new way to play the profession Conjure as an Elite spec would offer you the same experience you can get now, just maybe better. I say maybe as there is nothing to guarantee that even as an Elite spec Conjure would be a worthwhile thing. If it turns out bad then people will feel robbed of getting something new and fun.

Could ANet do this? Yes, of course. They can pretty much do anything they want and it is within the realm of possibility. Should they do it? No, I think having a new and unique way to play Elementalist is a far better prospect than making use of Conjuring skills. All things considered, Elementalist already has an insane number of skills to begin with and all Conjuring does is give you even more skills possibilities. Functionally though, they are similar to what is done already.

You are right about a few things, but I don't believe that a playstyle around current conjure utilities would be similar to a potential conjurer elite spec playstyle at all except for their theme. Even if current conjures allowed you to make a strong playstyle around them, you would still equip a conjure, fire it's skills and get rid of it. If you have permanent access to a conjure in place of your attunement, that changes the way that you would use the conjure to be much more similar to how core ele uses attunements. You can potentially swap to it every 10 seconds. This also resolves the complaint that some people have about ele not being able to have different weapons with different ranges. Also, I would expect the weapon skills of the conjures to get a revamp if they were to become an elite spec, so they do not have to be functionally similar to what we already have.

Admittedly the theme would be exactly the same as current conjures, with the weapons also looking the same. However, at the very least core ele would be getting a brand new set of utilities, which does provide something else to play with. It would also be similar to how core ele swaps attunements with no extra skills in combat like overloads or dual attacks, which does sound rather disappointing. However, this would not be the first profession that has an elite spec like that. Both of necromancer's elite specs replace its death shroud skills.

However, there is an alternative option for conjures that I believe has no chance to get implemented. Anet could make the current conjure weapon utilities replace attunements instead in some way. But I think that implementing this would be more difficult than simply making it a profession mechanic.

[Dace.8173]

@Ganathar.4956 said:

@Dace.8173 said:Also, I know Tomes were once a pair of Elite skills for Guardian but Tomes then are different from Tomes now. Elite skill Tomes were not a playstyle. They enhanced your play but you weren't exactly building entire builds around them. They had no interplay between them. You picked your one Tome and you couldn't change it out until the end of combat. As the Firebrand Tomes became an actual playstyle. There was interplay between the Tomes. You could switch Tomes as the situation demanded. This allowed your character to easily change job functions on the fly, from DPS to Healer to Control in a fashion that went well beyond anything that Tomes as an elite skill offered.

Conjure would be different. You can already create a playstyle around them. It's just that such a playstyle would be weak all things considered. As an Elite spec it may streamline things, improve upon them, and even give it a few unique tricks you can't currently do. However, the play experience would roughly be the same. You're just fixing a broken set of skills. Thus while the other professions would be getting something new that actually introduces a new way to play the profession Conjure as an Elite spec would offer you the same experience you can get now, just maybe better. I say maybe as there is nothing to guarantee that even as an Elite spec Conjure would be a worthwhile thing. If it turns out bad then people will feel robbed of getting something new and fun.

Could ANet do this? Yes, of course. They can pretty much do anything they want and it is within the realm of possibility. Should they do it? No, I think having a new and unique way to play Elementalist is a far better prospect than making use of Conjuring skills. All things considered, Elementalist already has an insane number of skills to begin with and all Conjuring does is give you even more skills possibilities. Functionally though, they are similar to what is done already.

You are right about a few things, but I don't believe that a playstyle around current conjure utilities would be similar to a potential conjurer elite spec playstyle at all except for their theme. Even if current conjures allowed you to make a strong playstyle around them, you would still equip a conjure, fire it's skills and get rid of it. If you have permanent access to a conjure in place of your attunement, that changes the way that you would use the conjure to be much more similar to how core ele uses attunements. You can potentially swap to it every 10 seconds. This also resolves the complaint that some people have about ele not being able to have different weapons with different ranges. Also, I would expect the weapon skills of the conjures to get a revamp if they were to become an elite spec, so they do not have to be functionally similar to what we already have.

Admittedly the theme would be exactly the same as current conjures, with the weapons also looking the same. However, at the very least core ele would be getting a brand new set of utilities, which does provide something else to play with. It would also be similar to how core ele swaps attunements with no extra skills in combat like overloads or dual attacks, which does sound rather disappointing. However, this would not be the first profession that has an elite spec like that. Both of necromancer's elite specs replace its death shroud skills.

However, there is an alternative option for conjures that I believe has no chance to get implemented. Anet could make the current conjure weapon utilities replace attunements instead in some way. But I think that implementing this would be more difficult than simply making it a profession mechanic.

You are just basically changing how people interact with Conjure skills, not the inherent playstyle itself. Even in the example of having permanent access to Conjure instead of Attunement the same basic playstyle is being done. You might change how that playstyle manifests but it is still a similar overall experience to what they offer now, just more focused. Also, a new set of Utilities is not the same thing as an actual new way of playing the profession. It creates new builds but it is still the same basic experience.

Necromancer is a poor comparison. Reaper changes the skills of Death Shroud but not the act of Death Shroud. Meanwhile, Desert Shroud actually changes the way you play Necromancer, in a fashion that some players will argue is better than the Death/Reaper Shroud mechanic.

[MyPuppy.8970]

Give conjure weapons to elemental summons, and make a new set of utilities. Like wards that buff allies / debuff ennemies within. Or whatever else that is not clunky or redundant. Get rid of the whole conjure thing. Even the trait is useless and fills a spot for nothing. I like icebow though, we have too few ice skills.

[Mithos.9023]

A good summary of the problems of conjures and their possible solutions. I have to say I am strictly for the kit approach. I prepared a comment on why so for another tread but never found the time to post it. For every one interested I'll add it here:

! Changing the conjures to ammo skills is not a solution. While it tries to solve the clunkiness of them, it is a short-sighted approach. It is seen from the pve aspect only, I have read it a few time now how banners often interfere with picking up the weapon in fractals or raids. The ammo mechanic seems like it has only this in mind, but we need an approach that solves all problems and not one that does nothing but improved their use in strict dps rotations. The ammo mechanic does nothing for PvP or wvw. These modes are far too mobile and fast pace for these skills, you never want to stick to them as switching and reacting on the fly is what keeps you going. Conjures simply can’t support this. And running around to pick the second one up is a no go as well. Redoing them as kits could on the other side improve their usage everywhere. As kits, you don’t have to pick them up anymore and compared to ammo mechanic your downtime is much lower. You could actually build around l them, as ammo skills they stay “fire and drop immediate” skills.!

As for the elite spec idea it might work just like guardian tomes. But I still don't favor it.I would rework the conjures first. They themselves need some work. There is no way around it. For example Frost bow has still a heal on the autoattack which simply does not fit the rest of the weapon. It is unnecessary and holds frost bow back. What it needs, is a clearer focus. It would be better in my opinion if a conjure heal skill was added and frostbow change to more focus on dmg or cc. Increase its range to 1200 would be nice as well as we lack a long range tool.Flame axe is the same, needs more focus. Here condition damage on mid range would be an option. But it needs some skills changes too. We have some range and some close range mixed, which in this combination is never useful.

But whatever it is, something has to be done, they simply feel terrible to use.

[Gustaff.6581]

Do we want conjures as a swaping mechanic? I mean, you can present me frost bow, but if you put ice storm in that same slot it would be the same to me or better, i mean, i can eliminate all the conjure skills and change them with simple damage utility skills and the effect will be better.

So, do we want these skills to stay as conjures?

[Emberheart.8426]

@Conqueror.3682 said:Do we want conjures as a swaping mechanic? I mean, you can present me frost bow, but if you put ice storm in that same slot it would be the same to me or better, i mean, i can eliminate all the conjure skills and change them with simple damage utility skills and the effect will be better.

So, do we want these skills to stay as conjures?

I was thinking of the possibility of completely removing conjures but then I realized that they could be made into an elite spec. If you look at it strictly from a PvE DPS rotation standpoint an extra ice storm skill would be more effective. However, from a design standpoint I believe that it would be better to keep conjures in some form and make them more useful. They can have some pretty useful utility and CC as well, such as deep freeze. Also, imagine how much better fiery greatsword would be if you could swap into it like an attunement. An ice storm utility skill would be pretty boring, especially since ele already has one on glyph of storms.

I wouldn't be completely opposed to outright removing conjures forever, but in that case the utility skills that would replace them and the next elite spec would have to be really good.

[BlackBeard.2873]

I personally feel that conjures need a change in focus. As they are, they are primarily used to get access to 1-2 powerful skills, then dropped, making them really just another clunkier attunement. Instead, conjures should be ele's version of a true weapon-swap, with the ability to get to a higher-damage melee weapon, or a greater-range/kiting weapon, etc. Earth shield, lightning hammer, and FGS all have the right abilities in their set to make a complete weapon you'd want to hold onto (assuming you could have them up without killing dps), but flame axe just feels weak, and ice bow has never been anything but ice storm + the occasionally deep freeze.

Alternative solutions for conjures:

• Make conjures instant-cast, put them on a 30s CD. This way they aren't quite kits, but can be used with 100% uptime as an alternative-range weapon for when you need it
• (Potentially with above) After equipping a conjure, ele gets a new ability in that slot to summon one for a friend that has its own 30s CD.
• Make the conjure that you cast have some effect when it is summoned to justify needing a cast time to get to weapon skills. For instance, lava axe can also drop a fire circle where it is cast that acts like ring of fire.

Bare minimum solution:

• All conjures have 1/4 s cast time, 40 s CD, FGS has 90s CD.
• Make earth shield a stunbreak + 0.25 s cast time (or instant cast).
• Make Ice bow or flame axe 1200 range
• Make Ice bow either do more condi damage, or focus on power damage, It currently gives + healing and + condi duration...but only the auto heals and only the #4 skill applies damaging condis.
• All autos need to do more damage than normal ele autos. Conjures are currently the only option eles have to switch range, so there will be encounters when they are forced to be used as the only weapon an ele has. If conjures are going to be a consistent weapon rather than "use 1-2 skills then drop" then all of the autos need to be as good as autos on other classes. A flame axe or ice bow with a decent auto would make sword/x ele feel a lot better for encounters that are heavily anti-melee (and there are many).

[MoriMoriMori.5349]

I think a combination of few other suggestions would do pretty well

1. Current implementation substitutes your weapon skill panel for all attunements - that's the main reason why the weapon is instantly dropped after firing a couple of most powerful its skills
2. Then you have to spend some time picking it up from the ground to use it again

Instead, I like idea suggested by somebody else above, about conjured weapons becoming accessible by weapon swap hotkey:

1. Conjured weapons are all combined in a single skill; the type of weapon you conjure is defined by your current attunement
2. When you conjure one, it will immediately swap your current attunement's skills away, and will substitute them; you still can immediately swap them back with the usual swap weapon hotkey, as normal
3. That swap happens individually for each of your attunement skill panel, and for each attunement the utility skill used to conjure weapon has its own cooldown timer (it still takes one utility skill, just its type rotates while you change attunements, as Ghyps do - but with notable exception of each of the attunments having its own cooldown timer); so, for example, you could summon the Axe, use some of its skills, swap it away, getting back your usual fire weapon skills, go to water and summon the Bow immediately (as Conjure Weapon skill has a separate cooldown there), but don't use it, and go immediately to earth, use some weapon skills, go back to water - and as you didn't swap away bow last time you were there, you'll see its skills right away there - use them, swap the bow away, use your normal water weapon skills, go to fire, see the usual weapons skills as you swapped the Axe away last time, swap Axe back, use its skills which already have been recharged.
4. Your already conjured weapons will have duration of 30 seconds, each of them will have its own duration; the Conjure Weapon skill will have cooldown for, say, 35 seconds (a separate one for each attunement as well); optionally, the timer could be 60 seconds, and cooldown, say, 70 seconds - as maintaining 2 or more conjured weapons with short duration will be huge PITA, and Ele's rotations is already a huge enough PITA
5. Each time you conjure, you drop that weapon on the ground as well, as usual, but if an ally will pick it up, they won't benefit from that advanced new mechanics, it will work as a bundle for them, like it works now
6. The problem with FGS can be solved by either substituting Axe with it (perhaps, with some adjustements as it's more powerful), or leaving it where it is, in Elite skills

So, basically, what this approach does is that it allows Ele to expand their attunements with new skills at will, getting ability not just switching through attunements "horizontally", but also "vertically". At any time Ele can swap each of their attunement's skill panel individually to skills of corresponding conjured weapon, then either move to another attunement (where they will get the regular its weapon skills, unless they also conjured weapon for this attunement before), or swap this weapon away while its skills are being recharged, and continue to use the regular weapon skills of the current attunement. They also will be able to "pre-conjure" their weapons and continue with their regular rotation - while still being able to easily fall-back to that weapon if they suddenly need one of its powerful skills (like, switch back to Earth and use the Shield's 5, then immediately to water and use the Bow's 5)

Basically, we transition from 1-dimensional rotations to 2-dimensional this way))

[ROMANG.1903]

@"Ganathar.4956" said:

Introduction

The current state of conjured weapons is a subject that is frequently touched on in this sub-forum. Some say that conjures should have the ammo mechanic, while others want them to fully become like engineer kits. Whatever the case, it is almost universally agreed that conjure skills are currently lacking as a utility skill category and that they need serious work. Not only are they a failure in the elementalist community's eyes, but they are also a failure in regards to their original purpose. It is obvious that the developers at ArenaNet intended these to be supportive skills that help your allies get access to new weapon skills and do fun things with those. However, the optimal use of conjures has been to plug up the holes in an elementalist's rotation instead. You just cast a conjure and you fire the 1-2 good skills and then you drop it. The second conjure is picked up later so you can use the skills again, instead of giving it to your ally who usually doesn't have much use for it anyway.

Conjures are currently a redundant and outdated skill type for several reasons:

1. They do not serve their original purpose. Supporting allies with them is pointless and not optimal.
2. They add needless complexity to weaver rotations that are already complex enough.
3. Due to weaver DPS, conjured skills contribute to core weapon skills remaining worse than they should be, which can affect all game modes.
4. Conjures are very clunky, with a needless cast time and an annoying pickup time.
5. Most skills from conjures are useless, which makes conjures "fire and forget". You never want to keep a conjure for more than a couple of seconds.

Frequently Suggested Solutions

The most commonly proposed solution is to revamp conjured weapon skills so that they have the ammo mechanic instead of being dropped. This can also involve the removal of the cast time, since there is no conjure that is placed for your allies to take. This is a pretty good solution that solves some of the problems that conjure skills have. It removes the clunkiness and gets rid of the annoying pickups, which are arguably the biggest problems that conjures currently have. However, with this change it would be impossible to share conjures, like it was originally intended. They would still contribute to the complexity of weaver rotations, while also holding back much needed buffs to weapon skills. This solution would also do nothing to fix all the useless skills that the conjures have and you would still fire a couple of skills and drop the conjure. Theses useless skills could be buffed as well, but the problem with that is that Anet obviously doesn't want ele DPS to become even higher, so this is unlikely to happen.

Another solution that is proposed a lot is to turn conjures into kits. Similarly to the ammo suggestion this gets rid of the cast times and it removes the clunkiness of having to pick up second conjures. In addition, this solution makes it so that conjures can function as viable alternatives to different weapon ranges since they can always be summoned. However, once again kits would contribute the complexity of weavers rotation, but in this case they would arguably make weaver rotations even more complex than before. This would introduce a rotation complexity that has never been seen before in this game, due to weaver attunement mechanics combined with engineer kits. With these new rotations it is possible that ele weapon skills would get further nerfed, which nobody here wants. This also doesn't motivate the balance team to fix the useless skills of the conjured weapons, because that would come with a major risk of power-creeping ele DPS. The biggest issue with this is that it will likely never happen due to kits being an engineer-only niche that is supposed to make up for their lack of weapon skills.

From the above solutions I'd obviously go with the ammo mechanic, since it seems to be the easiest to implement and with the smallest amount of risk. But even that solution does not truly satisfy me. My proposal is to completely remove all of the conjured weapon skills and replace them with a new utility skill type. The new utility skill type could be anything really. Almost anything would be better than conjures at this point. However, just like with guardian tomes that were removed and then became an elite spec 2 expansions later, the same could happen with conjured weapons. So what would a conjurer elite spec look like? I haven't determined specific traits, utilities or even the weapon. The main purpose of this post was to determine what can be done about conjures, so I've only thought about the profession mechanic so far.

Conjurer Elite Specialization

There are many ways to implement conjures as a profession mechanic of an elite spec, but this is the best version that I came up with so far. This elite spec would add access to 4 conjured weapons as a profession mechanic. These would be conjured fiery greatsword, conjured frost bow, conjured lightning hammer, and conjured earth shield. Flame axe would not return since it is redundant. Only 1 conjure of each element is truly necessary. Above the F1-F4 attunements there would be arrows just like with revenant's F1 and F2 legends. These arrows would allow the conjurer to replace any given attunement with any conjured weapon outside of combat. This way the conjurer would retain 20 weapon skills, but they would get to choose to replace as many attunements as they want with conjures. Builds could be made with full conjures, or with only 1 conjure to replace that attunement that you never want to use in your build. Swapping into a conjure would be exactly the same as swapping attunements. This basically solves all the problems with conjures, except for them not serving their original purpose as support skills. However, even that could possibly be addressed. Perhaps the conjure could be pressed again while you are wielding it so you can drop a copy with a 30 second cooldown, or maybe dropping a copy of your wielded conjure could be part of a utility skill. This copy would be useless to you as you already have the conjured weapon permanently, but it could be useful to allies, especially if the skills of the conjures were better. The skills of the conjures could easily be better with an elite spec, because they replace weapon skills instead of adding more skills to the pool. They also cannot be used with weaver to increase DPS more.

I welcome feedback and more suggestions for what can be done with conjures instead of these ideas. While I currently think that my idea is solid, it is possible that there are some flaws that I have not noticed. Pointing these out if you can find them would be appreciated, so I can work on this concept a bit more. Also, if anyone would like to add weapon, utility and trait ideas for a conjurer specialization, I'd love to read those ideas as well.

I would like a conjurer elite spec. The problem is that this will not happen because people will be disappointed of not having new stuff. They like to see things they never seen before, even if that hype will effectively last a month or two. Even if this would be better on the long term...

I wouldn't be against replacing Tempest shouts with conjured weapons. No one uses shouts anyway, they don't bring mutch outside of their respective auras, which don't bring mutch by themselves either. Wait, actually, now that I think about it the whole concept of Tempest is garbage. Overloads are a joke of a mechanic that was rushed because that was the last elite spec they worked on and they didn't have time to come up with something interesting. So I wouldn't like having to play Tempest in order to access conjured weapons, unless that spec receives a full rework...

[Auburner.6945]

I believe conjures are one of the reasons why ele won't have a proper weapon for their e-specs. Axe, Bow, Shield, Hammer, GS, all are already taken for the current/upcoming e-spec(s). Ele stands at 7 weapons currently, on land, most of them are unusable and most of them are usable only on one hand (dagger only is for both hands), the versatility in weapons on ele is already lacking while some other professions have almost the full set of weapons and if not - at least they have more both-hands single-hand weapons, and conjures are pretty much an excuse that ele has the same number of weapons, which is not the case. And I do not believe improving the conjures in a way that makes them actually weapons would feel good, that a utility is used over the core of the profession, better switch places then, which is why I didn't like playing engineer, kits are most likely the weapons. They also can't be treated as kits or have charges, because the number would have to go down, just like kits' damage isn't the same as the 20s LH skill 4.

Conjures should be introduced as core ele weapons, at least some of them, with some skill modification, they may work. They also have some boons ele would dream of, 3s Quickness on LH skill 2 and some cc, maybe ele can actually make use of conjures when modified to be weapons. But conjures now have 5 skills only and not 20 as the already existing weapons, maybe combine the 5 conjures skills to come up with 2 core ele weapons. Engineer wasn't that fun for me when I went for kits, I want to play with weapons and feel that utilities add a taste to the trait lines and playstyle, not become the weapon, and conjures even if they become viable, you will either be sw/d weaver or LH/FB weaver, you will let go of your weapons most of the time because something else, a utility has better options.

[MyPuppy.8970]

Conjured weapons are the best example of "more is worse". The best buff they could get is to be deleted. So many skills, so useless skills.

[Emberheart.8426]

@"MyPuppy.8970" said:Conjured weapons are the best example of "more is worse". The best buff they could get is to be deleted. So many skills, so useless skills.

That was basically what I initially thought as well. But then I wondered if it could work out as an elite spec, by making conjures replace existing skills in attunements instead of adding more. I really think that conjures hold the profession back at the moment.

[MyPuppy.8970]

@Ganathar.4956 said:

@"MyPuppy.8970" said:Conjured weapons are the best example of "more is worse". The best buff they could get is to be deleted. So many skills, so useless skills.

That was basically what I initially thought as well. But then I wondered if it could work out as an elite spec, by making conjures replace existing skills in attunements instead of adding more. I really think that conjures hold the profession back at the moment.

Yep, but skills would be redesigned for balancing purpose, since you have little defensive and utility skills . But having both range and melee weapons available would be nice.

[Arcaneus.6931]

I want conjures to be in the elite spec instead and be based on your current attunement, as for axe conjure maybe it can be optional with the greatsword, so it spawns axe and greatsword together so player can choose which to pick up to use with better stats and short cooldown. The free space can be used for more valuable skills like defensive and healing/support. As of now conjures are useless.

Waste of space if you ask me, there is nothing worse than using close range weapons on the most squishiest class, its just asking for insta kill.

[Lonami.2987]

@"Ganathar.4956" said:

Introduction

The current state of conjured weapons is a subject that is frequently touched on in this sub-forum. Some say that conjures should have the ammo mechanic, while others want them to fully become like engineer kits. Whatever the case, it is almost universally agreed that conjure skills are currently lacking as a utility skill category and that they need serious work. Not only are they a failure in the elementalist community's eyes, but they are also a failure in regards to their original purpose. It is obvious that the developers at ArenaNet intended these to be supportive skills that help your allies get access to new weapon skills and do fun things with those. However, the optimal use of conjures has been to plug up the holes in an elementalist's rotation instead. You just cast a conjure and you fire the 1-2 good skills and then you drop it. The second conjure is picked up later so you can use the skills again, instead of giving it to your ally who usually doesn't have much use for it anyway.

Conjures are currently a redundant and outdated skill type for several reasons:

1. They do not serve their original purpose. Supporting allies with them is pointless and not optimal.
2. They add needless complexity to weaver rotations that are already complex enough.
3. Due to weaver DPS, conjured skills contribute to core weapon skills remaining worse than they should be, which can affect all game modes.
4. Conjures are very clunky, with a needless cast time and an annoying pickup time.
5. Most skills from conjures are useless, which makes conjures "fire and forget". You never want to keep a conjure for more than a couple of seconds.

Frequently Suggested Solutions

The most commonly proposed solution is to revamp conjured weapon skills so that they have the ammo mechanic instead of being dropped. This can also involve the removal of the cast time, since there is no conjure that is placed for your allies to take. This is a pretty good solution that solves some of the problems that conjure skills have. It removes the clunkiness and gets rid of the annoying pickups, which are arguably the biggest problems that conjures currently have. However, with this change it would be impossible to share conjures, like it was originally intended. They would still contribute to the complexity of weaver rotations, while also holding back much needed buffs to weapon skills. This solution would also do nothing to fix all the useless skills that the conjures have and you would still fire a couple of skills and drop the conjure. Theses useless skills could be buffed as well, but the problem with that is that Anet obviously doesn't want ele DPS to become even higher, so this is unlikely to happen.

Another solution that is proposed a lot is to turn conjures into kits. Similarly to the ammo suggestion this gets rid of the cast times and it removes the clunkiness of having to pick up second conjures. In addition, this solution makes it so that conjures can function as viable alternatives to different weapon ranges since they can always be summoned. However, once again kits would contribute the complexity of weavers rotation, but in this case they would arguably make weaver rotations even more complex than before. This would introduce a rotation complexity that has never been seen before in this game, due to weaver attunement mechanics combined with engineer kits. With these new rotations it is possible that ele weapon skills would get further nerfed, which nobody here wants. This also doesn't motivate the balance team to fix the useless skills of the conjured weapons, because that would come with a major risk of power-creeping ele DPS. The biggest issue with this is that it will likely never happen due to kits being an engineer-only niche that is supposed to make up for their lack of weapon skills.

From the above solutions I'd obviously go with the ammo mechanic, since it seems to be the easiest to implement and with the smallest amount of risk. But even that solution does not truly satisfy me. My proposal is to completely remove all of the conjured weapon skills and replace them with a new utility skill type. The new utility skill type could be anything really. Almost anything would be better than conjures at this point. However, just like with guardian tomes that were removed and then became an elite spec 2 expansions later, the same could happen with conjured weapons. So what would a conjurer elite spec look like? I haven't determined specific traits, utilities or even the weapon. The main purpose of this post was to determine what can be done about conjures, so I've only thought about the profession mechanic so far.

Conjurer Elite Specialization

There are many ways to implement conjures as a profession mechanic of an elite spec, but this is the best version that I came up with so far. This elite spec would add access to 4 conjured weapons as a profession mechanic. These would be conjured fiery greatsword, conjured frost bow, conjured lightning hammer, and conjured earth shield. Flame axe would not return since it is redundant. Only 1 conjure of each element is truly necessary. Above the F1-F4 attunements there would be arrows just like with revenant's F1 and F2 legends. These arrows would allow the conjurer to replace any given attunement with any conjured weapon outside of combat. This way the conjurer would retain 20 weapon skills, but they would get to choose to replace as many attunements as they want with conjures. Builds could be made with full conjures, or with only 1 conjure to replace that attunement that you never want to use in your build. Swapping into a conjure would be exactly the same as swapping attunements. This basically solves all the problems with conjures, except for them not serving their original purpose as support skills. However, even that could possibly be addressed. Perhaps the conjure could be pressed again while you are wielding it so you can drop a copy with a 30 second cooldown, or maybe dropping a copy of your wielded conjure could be part of a utility skill. This copy would be useless to you as you already have the conjured weapon permanently, but it could be useful to allies, especially if the skills of the conjures were better. The skills of the conjures could easily be better with an elite spec, because they replace weapon skills instead of adding more skills to the pool. They also cannot be used with weaver to increase DPS more.

I welcome feedback and more suggestions for what can be done with conjures instead of these ideas. While I currently think that my idea is solid, it is possible that there are some flaws that I have not noticed. Pointing these out if you can find them would be appreciated, so I can work on this concept a bit more. Also, if anyone would like to add weapon, utility and trait ideas for a conjurer specialization, I'd love to read those ideas as well.

I think removing conjures would be the best solution. Turn the interesting ones (Shortbow and Greatsword) into weapons, and give elementalists weapon swap. Then replace them by a new set of slot skills, maybe minions, splitting them from glyphs.

I know it sounds pretty drastic, but I don't think there's any way to make them work properly. I hold the same idea for all transformation/bundle slot skills, I'm fine when those transformations are part of a profession mechanic (Celestial Avatar, Reaper's Shroud, Tomes, etc) but absolutely despise them when they're slot skills (Lich Form, Rampage, etc).

And yes, this includes engineer kits. I think those should be turned into a profession mechanic, replacing the tool belt. Equip two kits in F1 and F2, just like ranget pets and revenant legends.

Transformation/bundle profession mechanics are fine, because they will always be there, making it easy to account for balance. Once they become something you can equip or not, the whole thing becomes a mess, which leads to said transformations/bundles being overpowered, or just terrible. There's never a middle ground.

[Jski.6180]

@Lonami.2987 said:

@"Ganathar.4956" said:

Introduction

The current state of conjured weapons is a subject that is frequently touched on in this sub-forum. Some say that conjures should have the ammo mechanic, while others want them to fully become like engineer kits. Whatever the case, it is almost universally agreed that conjure skills are currently lacking as a utility skill category and that they need serious work. Not only are they a failure in the elementalist community's eyes, but they are also a failure in regards to their original purpose. It is obvious that the developers at ArenaNet intended these to be supportive skills that help your allies get access to new weapon skills and do fun things with those. However, the optimal use of conjures has been to plug up the holes in an elementalist's rotation instead. You just cast a conjure and you fire the 1-2 good skills and then you drop it. The second conjure is picked up later so you can use the skills again, instead of giving it to your ally who usually doesn't have much use for it anyway.

Conjures are currently a redundant and outdated skill type for several reasons:

1. They do not serve their original purpose. Supporting allies with them is pointless and not optimal.
2. They add needless complexity to weaver rotations that are already complex enough.
3. Due to weaver DPS, conjured skills contribute to core weapon skills remaining worse than they should be, which can affect all game modes.
4. Conjures are very clunky, with a needless cast time and an annoying pickup time.
5. Most skills from conjures are useless, which makes conjures "fire and forget". You never want to keep a conjure for more than a couple of seconds.

Frequently Suggested Solutions

The most commonly proposed solution is to revamp conjured weapon skills so that they have the ammo mechanic instead of being dropped. This can also involve the removal of the cast time, since there is no conjure that is placed for your allies to take. This is a pretty good solution that solves some of the problems that conjure skills have. It removes the clunkiness and gets rid of the annoying pickups, which are arguably the biggest problems that conjures currently have. However, with this change it would be impossible to share conjures, like it was originally intended. They would still contribute to the complexity of weaver rotations, while also holding back much needed buffs to weapon skills. This solution would also do nothing to fix all the useless skills that the conjures have and you would still fire a couple of skills and drop the conjure. Theses useless skills could be buffed as well, but the problem with that is that Anet obviously doesn't want ele DPS to become even higher, so this is unlikely to happen.

Another solution that is proposed a lot is to turn conjures into kits. Similarly to the ammo suggestion this gets rid of the cast times and it removes the clunkiness of having to pick up second conjures. In addition, this solution makes it so that conjures can function as viable alternatives to different weapon ranges since they can always be summoned. However, once again kits would contribute the complexity of weavers rotation, but in this case they would arguably make weaver rotations even more complex than before. This would introduce a rotation complexity that has never been seen before in this game, due to weaver attunement mechanics combined with engineer kits. With these new rotations it is possible that ele weapon skills would get further nerfed, which nobody here wants. This also doesn't motivate the balance team to fix the useless skills of the conjured weapons, because that would come with a major risk of power-creeping ele DPS. The biggest issue with this is that it will likely never happen due to kits being an engineer-only niche that is supposed to make up for their lack of weapon skills.

From the above solutions I'd obviously go with the ammo mechanic, since it seems to be the easiest to implement and with the smallest amount of risk. But even that solution does not truly satisfy me. My proposal is to completely remove all of the conjured weapon skills and replace them with a new utility skill type. The new utility skill type could be anything really. Almost anything would be better than conjures at this point. However, just like with guardian tomes that were removed and then became an elite spec 2 expansions later, the same could happen with conjured weapons. So what would a conjurer elite spec look like? I haven't determined specific traits, utilities or even the weapon. The main purpose of this post was to determine what can be done about conjures, so I've only thought about the profession mechanic so far.

Conjurer Elite Specialization

There are many ways to implement conjures as a profession mechanic of an elite spec, but this is the best version that I came up with so far. This elite spec would add access to 4 conjured weapons as a profession mechanic. These would be conjured fiery greatsword, conjured frost bow, conjured lightning hammer, and conjured earth shield. Flame axe would not return since it is redundant. Only 1 conjure of each element is truly necessary. Above the F1-F4 attunements there would be arrows just like with revenant's F1 and F2 legends. These arrows would allow the conjurer to replace any given attunement with any conjured weapon outside of combat. This way the conjurer would retain 20 weapon skills, but they would get to choose to replace as many attunements as they want with conjures. Builds could be made with full conjures, or with only 1 conjure to replace that attunement that you never want to use in your build. Swapping into a conjure would be exactly the same as swapping attunements. This basically solves all the problems with conjures, except for them not serving their original purpose as support skills. However, even that could possibly be addressed. Perhaps the conjure could be pressed again while you are wielding it so you can drop a copy with a 30 second cooldown, or maybe dropping a copy of your wielded conjure could be part of a utility skill. This copy would be useless to you as you already have the conjured weapon permanently, but it could be useful to allies, especially if the skills of the conjures were better. The skills of the conjures could easily be better with an elite spec, because they

replace

weapon skills instead of adding more skills to the pool. They also cannot be used with weaver to increase DPS more.

I welcome feedback and more suggestions for what can be done with conjures instead of these ideas. While I currently think that my idea is solid, it is possible that there are some flaws that I have not noticed. Pointing these out if you can find them would be appreciated, so I can work on this concept a bit more. Also, if anyone would like to add weapon, utility and trait ideas for a conjurer specialization, I'd love to read those ideas as well.

I think removing conjures would be the best solution. Turn the interesting ones (Shortbow and Greatsword) into weapons, and give elementalists weapon swap. Then replace them by a new set of slot skills, maybe minions, splitting them from glyphs.

I know it sounds pretty drastic, but I don't think there's any way to make them work properly. I hold the same idea for

all transformation/bundle slot skills

, I'm fine when those transformations are part of a profession mechanic (Celestial Avatar, Reaper's Shroud, Tomes, etc) but absolutely despise them when they're slot skills (Lich Form, Rampage, etc).

And yes, this includes engineer kits. I think those should be turned into a profession mechanic, replacing the tool belt. Equip two kits in F1 and F2, just like ranget pets and revenant legends.

Transformation/bundle profession mechanics are fine, because they will always be there, making it easy to account for balance. Once they become something you can equip or not, the whole thing becomes a mess, which leads to said transformations/bundles being overpowered, or just terrible. There's never a middle ground.

Ya most ppl find that conjure weapons where so badly made and updated that the best chose is to delete them and comply rework them as kits or as some type of attk much like Spirit Weapon where given massive reworks from being pets to being real skills. Keep in mine there no way ele will get the same treatment as a guardian (anet favorite son).

[draxynnic.3719]

I think the OP is missing the point of conjure weapons by regarding them as just one more thing that goes into a rotation.

Sure, they can get used that way, but... their primary role is to give elementalist an opportunity to fake having a regular weaponswap. Elementalist weapons tend to have the same (or at least very similar) optimal ranges regardless of attunement - staff is a slow, long-range weapon oriented towards area effects and fields, scepter is a more responsive, shorter range weapon that's more single-target oriented, dagger is a close-in weapon without actually being melee, and sword is actual melee. Conjures give you a weapon option that actually does something different. If you have a long-range weapon, conjure earth or lightning gives you a weapon that will help you out in melee. If you have a close-range or melee weapon, fire or water will give you a ranged weapon.

I'd argue that this is particularly important for weavers because if they're using a sword, they're pretty much an obligatory melee character. You can get away with that sometimes, but that's similar to regular weaponswap professions going with melee weapons on both sets. Sometimes, you want a ranged weapon on a melee build. Most professions cover this using one of their swaps. Sword weavers have conjures.

Is there room for streamlining and other improvement? Certainly. But their intended function requires that they remain part of the core profession.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

I'll throw my 2 copper in. Conjures should function more like Engineer Kits. By that I mean there should not be a CD on them. Balance that out by not having a duplicate summoned.

So no more ground targeted 1200 range conjures. Instead it just falls into your hand, and with no CDs to them you could juggle between them as well as your regular attunements.

Just my thoughts on it, so take them for what they are worth.

[Lonami.2987]

@Jski.6180 said:

@Lonami.2987 said:

@"Ganathar.4956" said:

Introduction

The current state of conjured weapons is a subject that is frequently touched on in this sub-forum. Some say that conjures should have the ammo mechanic, while others want them to fully become like engineer kits. Whatever the case, it is almost universally agreed that conjure skills are currently lacking as a utility skill category and that they need serious work. Not only are they a failure in the elementalist community's eyes, but they are also a failure in regards to their original purpose. It is obvious that the developers at ArenaNet intended these to be supportive skills that help your allies get access to new weapon skills and do fun things with those. However, the optimal use of conjures has been to plug up the holes in an elementalist's rotation instead. You just cast a conjure and you fire the 1-2 good skills and then you drop it. The second conjure is picked up later so you can use the skills again, instead of giving it to your ally who usually doesn't have much use for it anyway.

Conjures are currently a redundant and outdated skill type for several reasons:

1. They do not serve their original purpose. Supporting allies with them is pointless and not optimal.
2. They add needless complexity to weaver rotations that are already complex enough.
3. Due to weaver DPS, conjured skills contribute to core weapon skills remaining worse than they should be, which can affect all game modes.
4. Conjures are very clunky, with a needless cast time and an annoying pickup time.
5. Most skills from conjures are useless, which makes conjures "fire and forget". You never want to keep a conjure for more than a couple of seconds.

Frequently Suggested Solutions

The most commonly proposed solution is to revamp conjured weapon skills so that they have the ammo mechanic instead of being dropped. This can also involve the removal of the cast time, since there is no conjure that is placed for your allies to take. This is a pretty good solution that solves some of the problems that conjure skills have. It removes the clunkiness and gets rid of the annoying pickups, which are arguably the biggest problems that conjures currently have. However, with this change it would be impossible to share conjures, like it was originally intended. They would still contribute to the complexity of weaver rotations, while also holding back much needed buffs to weapon skills. This solution would also do nothing to fix all the useless skills that the conjures have and you would still fire a couple of skills and drop the conjure. Theses useless skills could be buffed as well, but the problem with that is that Anet obviously doesn't want ele DPS to become even higher, so this is unlikely to happen.

Another solution that is proposed a lot is to turn conjures into kits. Similarly to the ammo suggestion this gets rid of the cast times and it removes the clunkiness of having to pick up second conjures. In addition, this solution makes it so that conjures can function as viable alternatives to different weapon ranges since they can always be summoned. However, once again kits would contribute the complexity of weavers rotation, but in this case they would arguably make weaver rotations even more complex than before. This would introduce a rotation complexity that has never been seen before in this game, due to weaver attunement mechanics combined with engineer kits. With these new rotations it is possible that ele weapon skills would get further nerfed, which nobody here wants. This also doesn't motivate the balance team to fix the useless skills of the conjured weapons, because that would come with a major risk of power-creeping ele DPS. The biggest issue with this is that it will likely never happen due to kits being an engineer-only niche that is supposed to make up for their lack of weapon skills.

From the above solutions I'd obviously go with the ammo mechanic, since it seems to be the easiest to implement and with the smallest amount of risk. But even that solution does not truly satisfy me. My proposal is to completely remove all of the conjured weapon skills and replace them with a new utility skill type. The new utility skill type could be anything really. Almost anything would be better than conjures at this point. However, just like with guardian tomes that were removed and then became an elite spec 2 expansions later, the same could happen with conjured weapons. So what would a conjurer elite spec look like? I haven't determined specific traits, utilities or even the weapon. The main purpose of this post was to determine what can be done about conjures, so I've only thought about the profession mechanic so far.

Conjurer Elite Specialization

There are many ways to implement conjures as a profession mechanic of an elite spec, but this is the best version that I came up with so far. This elite spec would add access to 4 conjured weapons as a profession mechanic. These would be conjured fiery greatsword, conjured frost bow, conjured lightning hammer, and conjured earth shield. Flame axe would not return since it is redundant. Only 1 conjure of each element is truly necessary. Above the F1-F4 attunements there would be arrows just like with revenant's F1 and F2 legends. These arrows would allow the conjurer to replace any given attunement with any conjured weapon outside of combat. This way the conjurer would retain 20 weapon skills, but they would get to choose to replace as many attunements as they want with conjures. Builds could be made with full conjures, or with only 1 conjure to replace that attunement that you never want to use in your build. Swapping into a conjure would be exactly the same as swapping attunements. This basically solves all the problems with conjures, except for them not serving their original purpose as support skills. However, even that could possibly be addressed. Perhaps the conjure could be pressed again while you are wielding it so you can drop a copy with a 30 second cooldown, or maybe dropping a copy of your wielded conjure could be part of a utility skill. This copy would be useless to you as you already have the conjured weapon permanently, but it could be useful to allies, especially if the skills of the conjures were better. The skills of the conjures could easily be better with an elite spec, because they

replace

weapon skills instead of adding more skills to the pool. They also cannot be used with weaver to increase DPS more.

I welcome feedback and more suggestions for what can be done with conjures instead of these ideas. While I currently think that my idea is solid, it is possible that there are some flaws that I have not noticed. Pointing these out if you can find them would be appreciated, so I can work on this concept a bit more. Also, if anyone would like to add weapon, utility and trait ideas for a conjurer specialization, I'd love to read those ideas as well.

I think removing conjures would be the best solution. Turn the interesting ones (Shortbow and Greatsword) into weapons, and give elementalists weapon swap. Then replace them by a new set of slot skills, maybe minions, splitting them from glyphs.

I know it sounds pretty drastic, but I don't think there's any way to make them work properly. I hold the same idea for

all transformation/bundle slot skills

, I'm fine when those transformations are part of a profession mechanic (Celestial Avatar, Reaper's Shroud, Tomes, etc) but absolutely despise them when they're slot skills (Lich Form, Rampage, etc).

And yes, this includes engineer kits. I think those should be turned into a profession mechanic, replacing the tool belt. Equip two kits in F1 and F2, just like ranget pets and revenant legends.

Transformation/bundle profession mechanics are fine, because they will always be there, making it easy to account for balance. Once they become something you can equip or not, the whole thing becomes a mess, which leads to said transformations/bundles being overpowered, or just terrible. There's never a middle ground.

Ya most ppl find that conjure weapons where so badly made and updated that the best chose is to delete them and comply rework them as kits or as some type of attk much like Spirit Weapon where given massive reworks from being pets to being real skills. Keep in mine there no way ele will get the same treatment as a guardian (anet favorite son).

That's an interesting solution too, most people only use conjures to cast the one useful skill and then drop them anyway.

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:I'll throw my 2 copper in. Conjures should function more like Engineer Kits. By that I mean there should not be a CD on them. Balance that out by not having a duplicate summoned.

So no more ground targeted 1200 range conjures. Instead it just falls into your hand, and with no CDs to them you could juggle between them as well as your regular attunements.

Just my thoughts on it, so take them for what they are worth.

At that point, just turn them into weapons, and give elementalists weapon swap.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

@Lonami.2987 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@Lonami.2987 said:

@"Ganathar.4956" said:

Introduction

The current state of conjured weapons is a subject that is frequently touched on in this sub-forum. Some say that conjures should have the ammo mechanic, while others want them to fully become like engineer kits. Whatever the case, it is almost universally agreed that conjure skills are currently lacking as a utility skill category and that they need serious work. Not only are they a failure in the elementalist community's eyes, but they are also a failure in regards to their original purpose. It is obvious that the developers at ArenaNet intended these to be supportive skills that help your allies get access to new weapon skills and do fun things with those. However, the optimal use of conjures has been to plug up the holes in an elementalist's rotation instead. You just cast a conjure and you fire the 1-2 good skills and then you drop it. The second conjure is picked up later so you can use the skills again, instead of giving it to your ally who usually doesn't have much use for it anyway.

Conjures are currently a redundant and outdated skill type for several reasons:

1. They do not serve their original purpose. Supporting allies with them is pointless and not optimal.
2. They add needless complexity to weaver rotations that are already complex enough.
3. Due to weaver DPS, conjured skills contribute to core weapon skills remaining worse than they should be, which can affect all game modes.
4. Conjures are very clunky, with a needless cast time and an annoying pickup time.
5. Most skills from conjures are useless, which makes conjures "fire and forget". You never want to keep a conjure for more than a couple of seconds.

Frequently Suggested Solutions

The most commonly proposed solution is to revamp conjured weapon skills so that they have the ammo mechanic instead of being dropped. This can also involve the removal of the cast time, since there is no conjure that is placed for your allies to take. This is a pretty good solution that solves some of the problems that conjure skills have. It removes the clunkiness and gets rid of the annoying pickups, which are arguably the biggest problems that conjures currently have. However, with this change it would be impossible to share conjures, like it was originally intended. They would still contribute to the complexity of weaver rotations, while also holding back much needed buffs to weapon skills. This solution would also do nothing to fix all the useless skills that the conjures have and you would still fire a couple of skills and drop the conjure. Theses useless skills could be buffed as well, but the problem with that is that Anet obviously doesn't want ele DPS to become even higher, so this is unlikely to happen.

Another solution that is proposed a lot is to turn conjures into kits. Similarly to the ammo suggestion this gets rid of the cast times and it removes the clunkiness of having to pick up second conjures. In addition, this solution makes it so that conjures can function as viable alternatives to different weapon ranges since they can always be summoned. However, once again kits would contribute the complexity of weavers rotation, but in this case they would arguably make weaver rotations even more complex than before. This would introduce a rotation complexity that has never been seen before in this game, due to weaver attunement mechanics combined with engineer kits. With these new rotations it is possible that ele weapon skills would get further nerfed, which nobody here wants. This also doesn't motivate the balance team to fix the useless skills of the conjured weapons, because that would come with a major risk of power-creeping ele DPS. The biggest issue with this is that it will likely never happen due to kits being an engineer-only niche that is supposed to make up for their lack of weapon skills.

From the above solutions I'd obviously go with the ammo mechanic, since it seems to be the easiest to implement and with the smallest amount of risk. But even that solution does not truly satisfy me. My proposal is to completely remove all of the conjured weapon skills and replace them with a new utility skill type. The new utility skill type could be anything really. Almost anything would be better than conjures at this point. However, just like with guardian tomes that were removed and then became an elite spec 2 expansions later, the same could happen with conjured weapons. So what would a conjurer elite spec look like? I haven't determined specific traits, utilities or even the weapon. The main purpose of this post was to determine what can be done about conjures, so I've only thought about the profession mechanic so far.

Conjurer Elite Specialization

There are many ways to implement conjures as a profession mechanic of an elite spec, but this is the best version that I came up with so far. This elite spec would add access to 4 conjured weapons as a profession mechanic. These would be conjured fiery greatsword, conjured frost bow, conjured lightning hammer, and conjured earth shield. Flame axe would not return since it is redundant. Only 1 conjure of each element is truly necessary. Above the F1-F4 attunements there would be arrows just like with revenant's F1 and F2 legends. These arrows would allow the conjurer to replace any given attunement with any conjured weapon outside of combat. This way the conjurer would retain 20 weapon skills, but they would get to choose to replace as many attunements as they want with conjures. Builds could be made with full conjures, or with only 1 conjure to replace that attunement that you never want to use in your build. Swapping into a conjure would be exactly the same as swapping attunements. This basically solves all the problems with conjures, except for them not serving their original purpose as support skills. However, even that could possibly be addressed. Perhaps the conjure could be pressed again while you are wielding it so you can drop a copy with a 30 second cooldown, or maybe dropping a copy of your wielded conjure could be part of a utility skill. This copy would be useless to you as you already have the conjured weapon permanently, but it could be useful to allies, especially if the skills of the conjures were better. The skills of the conjures could easily be better with an elite spec, because they

replace

weapon skills instead of adding more skills to the pool. They also cannot be used with weaver to increase DPS more.

I welcome feedback and more suggestions for what can be done with conjures instead of these ideas. While I currently think that my idea is solid, it is possible that there are some flaws that I have not noticed. Pointing these out if you can find them would be appreciated, so I can work on this concept a bit more. Also, if anyone would like to add weapon, utility and trait ideas for a conjurer specialization, I'd love to read those ideas as well.

I think removing conjures would be the best solution. Turn the interesting ones (Shortbow and Greatsword) into weapons, and give elementalists weapon swap. Then replace them by a new set of slot skills, maybe minions, splitting them from glyphs.

I know it sounds pretty drastic, but I don't think there's any way to make them work properly. I hold the same idea for

all transformation/bundle slot skills

, I'm fine when those transformations are part of a profession mechanic (Celestial Avatar, Reaper's Shroud, Tomes, etc) but absolutely despise them when they're slot skills (Lich Form, Rampage, etc).

And yes, this includes engineer kits. I think those should be turned into a profession mechanic, replacing the tool belt. Equip two kits in F1 and F2, just like ranget pets and revenant legends.

Transformation/bundle profession mechanics are fine, because they will always be there, making it easy to account for balance. Once they become something you can equip or not, the whole thing becomes a mess, which leads to said transformations/bundles being overpowered, or just terrible. There's never a middle ground.

Ya most ppl find that conjure weapons where so badly made and updated that the best chose is to delete them and comply rework them as kits or as some type of attk much like Spirit Weapon where given massive reworks from being pets to being real skills. Keep in mine there no way ele will get the same treatment as a guardian (anet favorite son).

That's an interesting solution too, most people only use conjures to cast the one useful skill and then drop them anyway.

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:I'll throw my 2 copper in. Conjures should function more like Engineer Kits. By that I mean there should not be a CD on them. Balance that out by not having a duplicate summoned.

So no more ground targeted 1200 range conjures. Instead it just falls into your hand, and with no CDs to them you could juggle between them as well as your regular attunements.

Just my thoughts on it, so take them for what they are worth.

At that point, just turn them into weapons, and give elementalists weapon swap.

At that point they are like Engineer kits and ele's would still be denied weapon swap. Its just my opinion that the 30s Duration and 60s CD is dumb. They would be better and more used if they functioned more like Engineer kits.

[Jski.6180]

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@Lonami.2987 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@Lonami.2987 said:

@"Ganathar.4956" said:

Introduction

The current state of conjured weapons is a subject that is frequently touched on in this sub-forum. Some say that conjures should have the ammo mechanic, while others want them to fully become like engineer kits. Whatever the case, it is almost universally agreed that conjure skills are currently lacking as a utility skill category and that they need serious work. Not only are they a failure in the elementalist community's eyes, but they are also a failure in regards to their original purpose. It is obvious that the developers at ArenaNet intended these to be supportive skills that help your allies get access to new weapon skills and do fun things with those. However, the optimal use of conjures has been to plug up the holes in an elementalist's rotation instead. You just cast a conjure and you fire the 1-2 good skills and then you drop it. The second conjure is picked up later so you can use the skills again, instead of giving it to your ally who usually doesn't have much use for it anyway.

Conjures are currently a redundant and outdated skill type for several reasons:

1. They do not serve their original purpose. Supporting allies with them is pointless and not optimal.
2. They add needless complexity to weaver rotations that are already complex enough.
3. Due to weaver DPS, conjured skills contribute to core weapon skills remaining worse than they should be, which can affect all game modes.
4. Conjures are very clunky, with a needless cast time and an annoying pickup time.
5. Most skills from conjures are useless, which makes conjures "fire and forget". You never want to keep a conjure for more than a couple of seconds.

Frequently Suggested Solutions

The most commonly proposed solution is to revamp conjured weapon skills so that they have the ammo mechanic instead of being dropped. This can also involve the removal of the cast time, since there is no conjure that is placed for your allies to take. This is a pretty good solution that solves some of the problems that conjure skills have. It removes the clunkiness and gets rid of the annoying pickups, which are arguably the biggest problems that conjures currently have. However, with this change it would be impossible to share conjures, like it was originally intended. They would still contribute to the complexity of weaver rotations, while also holding back much needed buffs to weapon skills. This solution would also do nothing to fix all the useless skills that the conjures have and you would still fire a couple of skills and drop the conjure. Theses useless skills could be buffed as well, but the problem with that is that Anet obviously doesn't want ele DPS to become even higher, so this is unlikely to happen.

Another solution that is proposed a lot is to turn conjures into kits. Similarly to the ammo suggestion this gets rid of the cast times and it removes the clunkiness of having to pick up second conjures. In addition, this solution makes it so that conjures can function as viable alternatives to different weapon ranges since they can always be summoned. However, once again kits would contribute the complexity of weavers rotation, but in this case they would arguably make weaver rotations even more complex than before. This would introduce a rotation complexity that has never been seen before in this game, due to weaver attunement mechanics combined with engineer kits. With these new rotations it is possible that ele weapon skills would get further nerfed, which nobody here wants. This also doesn't motivate the balance team to fix the useless skills of the conjured weapons, because that would come with a major risk of power-creeping ele DPS. The biggest issue with this is that it will likely never happen due to kits being an engineer-only niche that is supposed to make up for their lack of weapon skills.

From the above solutions I'd obviously go with the ammo mechanic, since it seems to be the easiest to implement and with the smallest amount of risk. But even that solution does not truly satisfy me. My proposal is to completely remove all of the conjured weapon skills and replace them with a new utility skill type. The new utility skill type could be anything really. Almost anything would be better than conjures at this point. However, just like with guardian tomes that were removed and then became an elite spec 2 expansions later, the same could happen with conjured weapons. So what would a conjurer elite spec look like? I haven't determined specific traits, utilities or even the weapon. The main purpose of this post was to determine what can be done about conjures, so I've only thought about the profession mechanic so far.

Conjurer Elite Specialization

There are many ways to implement conjures as a profession mechanic of an elite spec, but this is the best version that I came up with so far. This elite spec would add access to 4 conjured weapons as a profession mechanic. These would be conjured fiery greatsword, conjured frost bow, conjured lightning hammer, and conjured earth shield. Flame axe would not return since it is redundant. Only 1 conjure of each element is truly necessary. Above the F1-F4 attunements there would be arrows just like with revenant's F1 and F2 legends. These arrows would allow the conjurer to replace any given attunement with any conjured weapon outside of combat. This way the conjurer would retain 20 weapon skills, but they would get to choose to replace as many attunements as they want with conjures. Builds could be made with full conjures, or with only 1 conjure to replace that attunement that you never want to use in your build. Swapping into a conjure would be exactly the same as swapping attunements. This basically solves all the problems with conjures, except for them not serving their original purpose as support skills. However, even that could possibly be addressed. Perhaps the conjure could be pressed again while you are wielding it so you can drop a copy with a 30 second cooldown, or maybe dropping a copy of your wielded conjure could be part of a utility skill. This copy would be useless to you as you already have the conjured weapon permanently, but it could be useful to allies, especially if the skills of the conjures were better. The skills of the conjures could easily be better with an elite spec, because they

replace

weapon skills instead of adding more skills to the pool. They also cannot be used with weaver to increase DPS more.

I welcome feedback and more suggestions for what can be done with conjures instead of these ideas. While I currently think that my idea is solid, it is possible that there are some flaws that I have not noticed. Pointing these out if you can find them would be appreciated, so I can work on this concept a bit more. Also, if anyone would like to add weapon, utility and trait ideas for a conjurer specialization, I'd love to read those ideas as well.

I think removing conjures would be the best solution. Turn the interesting ones (Shortbow and Greatsword) into weapons, and give elementalists weapon swap. Then replace them by a new set of slot skills, maybe minions, splitting them from glyphs.

I know it sounds pretty drastic, but I don't think there's any way to make them work properly. I hold the same idea for

all transformation/bundle slot skills

, I'm fine when those transformations are part of a profession mechanic (Celestial Avatar, Reaper's Shroud, Tomes, etc) but absolutely despise them when they're slot skills (Lich Form, Rampage, etc).

And yes, this includes engineer kits. I think those should be turned into a profession mechanic, replacing the tool belt. Equip two kits in F1 and F2, just like ranget pets and revenant legends.

Transformation/bundle profession mechanics are fine, because they will always be there, making it easy to account for balance. Once they become something you can equip or not, the whole thing becomes a mess, which leads to said transformations/bundles being overpowered, or just terrible. There's never a middle ground.

Ya most ppl find that conjure weapons where so badly made and updated that the best chose is to delete them and comply rework them as kits or as some type of attk much like Spirit Weapon where given massive reworks from being pets to being real skills. Keep in mine there no way ele will get the same treatment as a guardian (anet favorite son).

That's an interesting solution too, most people only use conjures to cast the one useful skill and then drop them anyway.

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:I'll throw my 2 copper in. Conjures should function more like Engineer Kits. By that I mean there should not be a CD on them. Balance that out by not having a duplicate summoned.

So no more ground targeted 1200 range conjures. Instead it just falls into your hand, and with no CDs to them you could juggle between them as well as your regular attunements.

Just my thoughts on it, so take them for what they are worth.

At that point, just turn them into weapons, and give elementalists weapon swap.

At that point they are like Engineer kits and ele's would still be denied weapon swap. Its just my opinion that the 30s Duration and 60s CD is dumb. They would be better and more used if they functioned more like Engineer kits.

Conja weapons would of always been better as a wepon swap for a given time with its old charge system. You could be in normal ele or you could have the conja wepon out. So more like a manta but with a lot more charges and a lot longer cd and maybe cast time if they ever wanted to do it right. I guess you could make other classes get a 3ed wepon swap with conja weapons if they pick one up.