Conjure weapon change

[Dace.8173]

@Zelse.9780 said:

@Dace.8173 said:

@Stallic.2397 said:

@lLobo.7960 said:You can go melee with any ranged weapon. Staff and scepter work in melee just as much as they do at range. Dagger and sword both have good chasing skills to keep up with opponents. There is no

real

need to swap between range and melee in this game. You can easily do range weapons at melee and disengage and re-engage with melee weapons.

Eh, dagger has great chasing like forward evades and leaps, but given the tremendous amount of teleports and leaps other professions have, it's still tough to keep up. Swapping to 900 range, or even 1200 if a conjure ever offered that, would be the missing link plenty of ele builds need.

Ammo, kit, bundle, or whatever mechanic conjure goes under, it should be instant instead of the lagging swap it is now. I'm thinking of rock shield mostly, which grants invulnerability, a block, and barrier application. It's a great weapon, but impossible to use in sPvp given it's activation time.

Not every weapon/skill needs to be useful in PvP so long as they have a use somewhere in the game.

@Zelse.9780 said:I just really don't see the point in dropping the conjure weapons. I understand that in the past they were used to "help" your allies, however, no one uses it for that particular reason, not even the earth shield as a support option. I think that making them like a tool kit would be the best thing , as when slotted you don't have to run back to pick them up, and best of all no one else picks them! Not sure why Anet gavet an elite where others can pick it up at a 180 sec cool down like are you serious?

Dropping them for allies gives them a nice thematic feel and makes them more useful overall. However, using them in that way is really not for PUGing or PvP. It works best when you are playing with people you know, with whom you can coordinate attacks. Making them like a toolkit would still have the end result of their power being nerfed. I've been making heavy use of Conjure skills as of late on my sword Weaver build since Conjure Frost Bow and Conjure Flame Axe make great long range support for a melee build. I think one of three things would improve them: A. Keep the current recharge but turn them into an ammo skill, B. keep the skill itself the same but reduce the cooldown on it by half, C. keep everything else on it the same but increase the duration you can use it. As a weapon that doesn't have unlimited uses, they can be stronger than kits since they have a shorter life than the always-on possibility that kits provide.

I think elementalist as a whole got nerfed to the ground aside from sword weaver. I speak on behalf of the staff users who heavily rely on our conjur weapons to keep us afloat in relevancy. Not sure what changes the ammo skill adds other then to drop more of them at different intervals, or if you just want to drop more for people to pick up. There are internal cooldowns on the conjur weapon skills and as of now the rotations are just fine with the cooldown when it comes to personal DPS, so making them an ammo skill is just redundant and fixes absolutely nothing about the bigger issue with the conjure weapons as a whole. Also increasing duration you can use it also fixes nothing, as we only use them for only 1 skill before swapping to maintain our dps, everything about the conjure weapon other then that 1 skill is not worth using. Having it as a tool kit fixes the issue of 1 being a clunky utility, and also being situational (like you said about pugging and or pvp) which if they were used as tool kits would possibly be used in pvp. I think the good elementalist can time the internal cooldowns mentally on when certain skills will be up on their conjure of choice, and to swap to that particular conjure when certain skills are required fixes the situational part of what the conjure weapons bring as a whole when it comes to utility.

I tend to think ammo works better because it isn't as near constant as kit offers and I still see kit as problematic in terms of the power it offers the weapon set.

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Dace.8173 said:

@Stallic.2397 said:Eh, dagger has great chasing like forward evades and leaps, but given the tremendous amount of teleports and leaps other professions have, it's still tough to keep up. Swapping to 900 range, or even 1200 if a conjure ever offered that, would be the missing link plenty of ele builds need.

Ammo, kit, bundle, or whatever mechanic conjure goes under, it should be instant instead of the lagging swap it is now. I'm thinking of rock shield mostly, which grants invulnerability, a block, and barrier application. It's a great weapon, but impossible to use in sPvp given it's activation time.

Not every weapon/skill needs to be useful in PvP so long as they have a use somewhere in the game.

I have yet to see conjure earth shield and conjure fiery axe having some use somewhere in the game. Yes Lightning hammer, frost bow and FGS somehow manage to be used for very specific content, often making a mojority of their skill pointless, but earth shield which could be a good defensive skillset and fiery axe just don't have any use anywhere. The conjuration of the earth shield hurt the skillset to it's very core while fiery axe never managed to provide skills interesting enough to see some use in any content.

Fair. My overall point was that it didn't need to be a PvP so long as it has a use. If it has no use anywhere then clearly that needs to change.

@apharma.3741 said:To be honest I think the best way to deal with conjured weapons is to remove the ability to give them to other people. Yes it's a unique aspect gone but then ANet could actually make them decent by making them kits with something like a 15s recharge on popping in and out of them.

Makes it easier for PvE rotations and you can then add traits/effects to them like stunbreak on entering earth shield, AoE heal/cleanse on icebow etc. You also don't have to worry about any doubling up problems in the future where the ele + a friend abuse a weird buff to a conjured weapon skill that makes it unfun.

If they made them kits though you'd still have power issues. One of the problem Engineer kits faces is that some of them are underpowered due to the fact that you can stack more than one kit at a time and you can leave it on for as long as you need. It's one of the reasons why some of us feel that kits should have been worked in as a class mechanic that occupied the F5 slot so that it worked as a thematic selectable weapon swap. With fewer kits interacting indivudal kits would allowed to be powered up.

All the issues Engineer faces with their kits Elementalist would face if their Conjure skills were kits as well. I don't see that as an improvement on the current situation. You'd like still have one or two good ones and one or two bad ones. I also don't see them improving Conjure skills just on the fact that they removed its ability to be useable by others. I really don't see that as what limits Conjure skills.

I think one of the things that plague skills like these is the way they can interact with themselves and the fact that you can carry more than one at a time, thus giving you more weapon swaps than other people but also differing effects that no one else could theoretically compete with. In that regard, I think this mechanic type should have been worked in as a profession mechanic that rested on the F5 slot, giving you access to one but that one being stronger than it otherwise would have been.

I just don't see them going that far though.

[Dadnir.5038]

@"Dace.8173" said:All the issues Engineer faces with their kits Elementalist would face if their Conjure skills were kits as well. I don't see that as an improvement on the current situation. You'd like still have one or two good ones and one or two bad ones. I also don't see them improving Conjure skills just on the fact that they removed its ability to be useable by others. I really don't see that as what limits Conjure skills.

What limit conjure skills:

• cast time/"targeting" when you conjure the weapon: This make the "conjuring" slow and unresponsive, only really worse taking the risk to use them in a PvE environment where you are sheltered by allies. In other game modes the lack of QoL make the conjuration unsafe and only really worse using for fleeing or chasing.
• Uptime/freedom in use: The elementalist rely a lot on element swaping in a dynamic gameplay that make use quickly of a lot of different skillsets. Conjures lock the elementalist out of these different skillsets which cripple it's fastpace, making the elementalist unresponsive as well. The lack of the ability to go in and out of the conjure skillsets make it extremly difficult for elementalist to sacrifice an utility slot that will lock them out of their dynamic.

Changing "conjures" into "kits" would remove the unresponsiveness of the "conjure skillsets and allow elementalists to gain ease their ability to answer range issues in their fights. All in all, there is no need for the skillset to be improved, making them into "kits" just already make them more responsive and thus usable in a wider array of situations.

NB.: Fiery axe skillset being trash isn't new and ANet often buff it meaninglessly to see if somehow someone will end up making use of it. The issue of the skillset being mainly skills design and responsiveness of the skills, adding more damage or boons on it like they do is just useless.

[apharma.3741]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"Dace.8173" said:All the issues Engineer faces with their kits Elementalist would face if their Conjure skills were kits as well. I don't see that as an improvement on the current situation. You'd like still have one or two good ones and one or two bad ones. I also don't see them improving Conjure skills just on the fact that they removed its ability to be useable by others. I really don't see that as what limits Conjure skills.

What limit conjure skills:

• cast time/"targeting" when you conjure the weapon: This make the "conjuring" slow and unresponsive, only really worse taking the risk to use them in a PvE environment where you are sheltered by allies. In other game modes the lack of QoL make the conjuration unsafe and only really worse using for fleeing or chasing.
• Uptime/freedom in use: The elementalist rely a lot on element swaping in a dynamic gameplay that make use quickly of a lot of different skillsets. Conjures lock the elementalist out of these different skillsets which cripple it's fastpace, making the elementalist unresponsive as well. The lack of the ability to go in and out of the conjure skillsets make it extremly difficult for elementalist to sacrifice an utility slot that will lock them out of their dynamic.

Changing "conjures" into "kits" would remove the unresponsiveness of the "conjure skillsets and allow elementalists to gain ease their ability to answer range issues in their fights. All in all, there is no need for the skillset to be improved, making them into "kits" just already make them more responsive and thus usable in a wider array of situations.

NB.: Fiery axe skillset being trash isn't new and ANet often buff it meaninglessly to see if somehow someone will end up making use of it. The issue of the skillset being mainly skills design and responsiveness of the skills, adding more damage or boons on it like they do is just useless.

I think what hurts the conjures more than anything is that they lack purity of purpose as ANet called it.Earth shield is in an OK state after the changes but don't really know why it has bleeds on it.Frostbow doesn't know if it wants to do insane damage, healing or whatever and gives bonuses to boon duration and healing but gives no boons and only heals on auto?!Flame axe is power and condition damage but lacks cover conditions, only 3 skills apply burn, 2 are low duration and the power mods are bizarrely low kinda slow too.Lightning hammer is actually decent if you tune up the aftercasts and reduce a couple of the cool downs and cast times by 1/4s-1/2s.Fiery Greatsword is....largely a mobility aide due to it's massive cool down and as you mentioned locking out of weapon skills but the skills are pretty decent except fiery eruption needs a lower cast time. There's also a lot of overlap with flame axe, maybe it would be interesting to make it an elemental GS and it's skills change a little depending on your element and you can change the particle effects to reflect that, water = water bubbles, air = electricity, earth has dirt particles.

The other issue is the cool down where it's way too for single use and the game is mobile so you don't get the use out of the 2nd conjure in PvP/WvW. I don't want them to become exactly like kits where you hop into it to use a skill then back to weapon skills, some form of cool down fits ele and allows them to be useful and powerful without turning ele into engy for PvE because we all know that's what would happen if they were exactly like kits. I don't think they can keep the giving to allies aspect and have lower cool downs.

I'd also like the conjure trait to be a better trait, maybe make each conjure do something unique and fitting the theme on cast like earth shield stunbreaks for you and allies, frostbow heals and cleanses, flame axe does a high damage and burn explosion, lightning hammer casts lightning rod on everyone in 600 range, FGS creates a storm around you for a few seconds.

[Zenix.6198]

Personally I dont care much for the "for allies to pick up"-mechanic. If you are not familiar with the conjure skills, you will be hesitant to use it as a third player.And for organized PvE content, picking up your own conjure is just too woven into the ele rotations, that people usually know not to "steal" them anyway.

I dont like the idea of a kit either and the idea of dropping the conjure on the ground although you will be the one picking it up eventually anyway makes them weird as well. Like if you dont pick em up within 30 seconds they vanish, and if the encounter is designed to move often, its often weird to decide on where to drop it.

So imo.....just drop the "for allies to pick up"-mechanic, give the conjure skills 2 charges and be done with it.

[HotDelirium.7984]

Would love for CONJURE weapons to get another overhaul to some degree. Conjure skills are near useless when it comes to many modes. They are a novelty early on but the majority of the time players are not going to pick up weapons that don't synergize well with their build as well as not giving attribute bonuses. I would suggest revamping them in another way (if you don't wish to outright remove them) and take the traits that buffs them from only fire and distribute that to the attunements. They could even make them all elite skills which would add even more depth and playability for the profession.

[Jski.6180]

Anet willing to make shouts ammo base i think its time to make conja weapons ammo too.

[Redfeather.6401]

1 hour ago, Jski.6180 said:

Anet willing to make shouts ammo base i think its time to make conja weapons ammo too.

I'd like that too. We could store up two charges of a conjured weapon and then if we want to summon one for an ally we can, or keep it!

[Serephen.3420]

On 2/21/2022 at 2:49 PM, HotDelirium.7984 said:

Would love for CONJURE weapons to get another overhaul to some degree. Conjure skills are near useless when it comes to many modes. They are a novelty early on but the majority of the time players are not going to pick up weapons that don't synergize well with their build as well as not giving attribute bonuses. I would suggest revamping them in another way (if you don't wish to outright remove them) and take the traits that buffs them from only fire and distribute that to the attunements. They could even make them all elite skills which would add even more depth and playability for the profession.

I really like the idea of them being an attunment based elite skill. If in fire you get fgs, water you get frost bow etc. They can update the others to be elite worthy. It would also make it a far more versatile skill for a variety of builds. 

Edited February 22, 2022 by Serephen.3420
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