New Elite Spec - Disciple (Weapon swap and Longbow!)

[lLobo.7960]

The disciple is an elementalist that focus more on martial prowess than raw magic channeling.

Focusing on martial expertise and physical prowess, the disciple can swap weapons in combat but looses the ability to have different and unique skills in each attunment and magical attacks.

Instead, the disciple uses the elemental magic of attunements to boost its attacks and defenses and uses its weapons in martial combat instead of conduits to magic.

To compensate the lack of long range magic attacks, the disciple uses a longbow to deliver his attacks from distance and physical skills to be mobile and effective in combat.

 

New weapon: longbow  
New utility skills: physical skills

Traits:

minor adept: Disciple training - Gain access to weapon swap and longbow, looses all attunement specific skills on weapons and gain general weapon skills. Attunement recharge is increased to 10s.

major adept: Solid like stone - Gain stability and barrier when you block an attack.
major adept: Devastating Winds of fury - When you deal a critical hit to a disable foe, deliver a electric discharge to the foe. (high dmg secondary strike, 1s ICD)
major adept: Physical mastery - Physical skills have reduced cooldowns. Using a physical skill recovers some endurance.

minor master: Speed training - Gain superspeed (3s) when you gain swiftness, gain quickness (3s) when you gain superspeed (10s ICD)

major master: Fluid like water - Remove a condition and gain vigor when evading an attack.
major master: Impairing fires of torment - When you burn an enemy afflicted with movement impairing conditions, apply torment.
major master: Combat mastery - While in combat, any finishers (blast, projectile, leap, whirl) you trigger, are triggered twice.

minor grandmaster: Weapon training - Weapon swap cool down is reduced (5s) and gives boons based on attunement (fire: might, air: fury, earth: protection, water: regeneration)

major grandmaster: Path of the riverstone - You can attune to earth and water simultaneously, maintaining both attunements active at the same time. When both attunements are active, you convert 10% concentration into expertise and 10% expertise into concentration.
major grandmaster: Path of the burning winds - You can attune to fire and air simultaneously, maintaining both attunements active at the same time. When both attunements are active you convert 10% ferocity into condition damage and 10% condition damage into ferocity.
major grandmaster: Path of the universal balance - Whenever you have 3 attunements on cooldown, reset all attunements.

New weapon skills:

Instead of having one new weapon with 20 new weapon skills, the disciple gain 1 new weapon (Longbow) and new skills for each weapon. The new skills are not unique per attunement (no unique skills or independent CD), instead the skills are the same independent of attunement but with slightly different effects for each attunement. (Note: not including numbers - dmg/duration/CD -)

 

Dagger: Fast attacks and mobility
1: Auto-attack chain:

Quick strike: Strike your target twice dealing extra critical dmg to foes afflicted by dmging conditions (3 targets, 130 range)
Evasive strike: Spin around evading attacks and strike your target. If an attack is evaded, deal a condition based on attunement (A: vulnerability; F: burn; E: cripple; W: poison)
Elemental strike: Spin back striking up to 5 opponents close to you and dealing extra effects based on attunement (A: lightening strike hits foes; F: burn foes; E: bleed foes; W: heal allies)

2: Leap strike - Jump towards your target (300 range leap finisher) dealing a strong strike and releasing elemental magic at your location creating a field (A: static; F: fire; E: smoke; W: water)
3: Evasive spin strike - Jump and spin over your target (evade frame, whirl finisher x3) striking it 3 times and dealing conditions based on attunement (A: vulnerability; F: burn; E: cripple; W: poison)
4: Throw imbued dagger - Imbue your dagger with elemental magic and throw (projectile finisher) at your target dealing an effect based on attunement (A: stun; F: AoE burn; E: Knockdown; W: Chill)
5: Elemental furry - Quickly strike opponents in an arc in front of you (7 strikes) while dealing extra effects based on attunement (A: evade, F: burn with each strike; E: reflect projectiles; W: heal allies)

 

Staff: Melee PBAoE and control
1: Auto-attack chain:

Swipe: Strike foes around you (5 targets PBAoE, 130 range)
High spin: Spin your staff high hitting nearby foes and creating an effect based on attunement (A: gain static charge; F: gain might; E: block projectiles; W: heal nearby allies)
Low slam: Bring your staff down in a powerful slam dealing high dmg and creating a effect based on attunement (A: lightening strike at impact causes vulnerability to foes, F: fire blast burn foes around you; E: shrapnel blast bleeds foes around you; W: Ice blast chill foes around you)

2: Charged Wave - Swipe your staff in front of you creating a wave of elemental energy (300 range cone) based on attunement (A: lightening strikes foes; F: Burn foes; E: Cripple foes; W: Clear conditions from allies)
3: Spinning Elemental Wall - Spin your staff (whirling finisher) in front of you blocking attacks. For each attack blocked create and effect based on attunement (A: Gain fury and swiftness; F: cause a small explosion dealing dmg to foes around you; E: melee hits cause weakness on attacker, projectiles are reflected; W: heal allies)
4: Charged dash strike - Dash towards you foe (600 range) with elemental power delivering a uppercut swing with your staff (A: leave a static field on your path and knock back your target; F: Leave a fire field on your path and burn your target; E: cripple foes on your path and stun your target; W: leave a water field on your path and chill your target)
5: Elemental Blast - Spike your staff down into the ground releasing 3 massive blasts (blast finisher each) of elemental energy (600 radius) (A: knockback foes; F:burn and dmg foes; E: immobilize and cripple foes; W: heal and cleanse a condition from allies)

 

Scepter: Melee defense and counter-attack
1: Auto-attack chain:

Bash: Hit your foe across with your scepter
Smash: Smash your foe across dealing debilitating conditions based on attunement (A: weakness; F: Blind; E: Cripple; W: Chill)
Crush: Deliver a powerful final blow to your foe dealing high dmg and conditions based on attunement (A: vulnerability; F: burn; E: bleed; W: poison)

2: Elemental Bash: Strike down with a powerfull attack (blast finisher) and creating a small field based on attunement (A: Static; F: fire; E: smoke; W: water)
3: Use your scepter to block incoming attacks and deliver a strong counter attack based on attunement

Follow-up: Counterattack: (A: stun your target; F: cause a explosion dealing dmg and burning targets around; E: knockdown your target; W: heal allies around you)

 

Focus: defense

4: Elemental aura - Focus your elemental power into your core creating an aura based on your attunement;

Follow-up: Transmute your aura.

5: Elemental shield - Condense the elemental forces into a shield blocking attacks and causing special effects based on attunement (A: gain quickness for each attack blocked; F: gain might for each attack blocked; E: inflict weakness to foes that strike you; W: chill foes that attack you)

Follow-up: Release the concentrated force (blast finisher) causing an effect based on attunement (A: break stun and launch foes around you; F: Clear dmging conditions and burn foes; E: clear movement impairing conditions and reflect projectiles; W: Heal and grant regeneration to allies)

 

Longbow Long range (1200) weapon

1: Imbue shot - Fire an arrow with imbued energy giving it special properties based on your attunement (A: Static charge extra hit; F: AoE explosion; E: Pierce; W: Heal around target)
2: Quickshot - Fire multiple arrows in succession (projectile finisher) dealing conditions based on attunement (A: Vulnerability; F: Burn; E: Bleed; W: poison)
3: Fan shot - Fire four arrows in a fan in front of you dealing conditions based on attunement, if all arrows hit the same target create a special effect (A: daze/stun; F: burn/AoE dmg; E: Cripple/Immobilize; W: Chill/Frozen stun)
4: Charged shot - Charge a shot with powerful elemental magic and fire it for devastating effect (A: Push back foes on its path and cause a massive lightening bolt on its target; F: burn foes in its path and cause a large fire explosion in its target; E: immobilize foes in its path and knockdown its target; W: heal allies in its path and clear conditions around its target)
5: Elemental tempest - Fire multiple arrows up towards the target area causing multiple hits in a large area and creating a large elemental field (A: lightening strikes the area leaves static field; F: fire explosions strikes the area leaving fire field; E: crippling shards strike the area leaving uneven ground field that pulses cripple; W: Healing arrows strike the area healing allies and leaving an ice field)

 

Trident Some other time

New utility skills - Physical skills

Balance in all things (heal) - Quickly channel the power of elements to improve your physical capacity and battle prowess.

Four pulses one for each element (Fire: remove 2 dmging conditions and heal for each condition removed; Air: Recover 20 endurance and heal for endurance recovered; Earth: Remove 2 movement impairing conditions and heal for each condition removed; Water: final and largest heal)

Air rush - Stunbreak, gain fury and swiftness dash forward and jump 1200 units at great speed towards your target
Earth stomp - Deliver a powerful stomp to the ground creating a seismic shockwave that block projectiles and knocks-down and cripple foes around you

Fire blast - Use fire to lunch yourself forward (900 range) to the target area, dmaging and burning foes at your launch and landing locations (blast finisher)

Ice shards - Create and quickly throw a series (4) of ice shards towards your target (projectile finisher) each shard applies chill, if all hit the same target it will be stunned

Moment of clarity (elite 60s CD) - When you activate this skill, for the next 10 seconds any attunement you use will remain active even after swapping to another attunement, enabling you to gain the benefits of multiple attunements at the same time. When all attunements are active simultaneously you gain access to "all is nothing". (For other skill purposes, such as glyphs, the active attunement is the last to be activated) After 10 seconds (if you don't use the followup skill "all is nothing) all attunements are refreshed, the skill goes into full CD and you are left in the attunement you activated last.

All is nothing: When you activate this followup skill, you release a powerful burst of elemental energy dazing and transferring conditions to 10 foes around you, breaking stun and copying boons to 10 allies. "Moment of clarity" goes into doubled CD and all your attunements are refreshed.

 

TL/DR: Martial focus elementalist with long range dps as longbow, weapon swap instead of individual attunement skills, mobility, new conditions (torment and poison), and even stealth with combos. Instead of one weapon with 20 new skills, gains one weapon with 5 new skills and new skills for each old weapon (staff 5, scepter 3, dagger 5, focus 2). Staff and dagger become melee versions, scepter becomes akin to mace and focus akin to shield.

Edited April 7, 2022 by lLobo.7960
Reformating

[TheSwede.9512]

Concept is an interesting starting point with a fundamental change to how Elementalist is played, while also having a clear trade-off.

That being said, even if skills have the same animation they would, most likely, still be considered different skills mechanically if their properties changes with Attunement Swap. This especially so if we're talking additions of other animations such as lightning strikes and explosions. It's no longer 20 skills to design and balance, but still 80 Weapon Skills in total. And it goes without saying but that's A lot, definitely in the realm of "too much".

A better solution to the "No Attunements-tied Skills" would be to have Skill 2-5 simply be one of each element, giving each weapon a Fire/Water/Air/Earth set-up with the auto-attack either being Arcane or a Mix of all elements (Like a Melee Chain skill that has 4 chains, one for each element). Attunements could be reworked to instead give a static buff to Weapon Skills rather than change them (E. g. Air Attunement granting +X% Critical Hit Chance or Earth Attunement granting +X% Condition Duration).

There are a few things to note regarding skills and traits however: The Grandmaster traits are just straight-up Weaver's Profession Mechanic with the addition of a Crazy OP Cooldown Reset, and the Elite skill is for all practical intents and purposes just a worse version of the Weaver Elite. Many of the traits also seem lifted straight from other professions (Daredevil's Brawler's Tenacity and Warrior's Powerful Synergy are both there, for instance) and honestly feel like they're all over the place. The Specialization line is the meat of any Espec Concept and defines it not only for itself but against the other Especs as well. Try and work with the new mechanics some more: For instance improve upon the new venues afforded by weapon swap, such as the ability to fight at different ranges with different weapons whereas other Elementalist Specializations are relegated to a single one, by creating traits that urges and reward the player for kiting in and out of melee and range.

TL;DR - Concept is good, approach is interesting but execution is a bit over-optimistic and haphazard. It's a good first draft, however.

[derd.6413]

needs more work

also longbow seems to be choosen because you really wanted a longbow rather then being chosen because it fits the spec (which it doesn't)

[Dadnir.5038]

The concept of "giving up magic" doesn't feel like it fit the scholar aspect of the "elementalist".

Couldn't you have thread the path of being more of pure "arcanist" if the main point was to give a single set of skills per weapon? You'd have had room for staff and scepter to be range weapon which wouldn't have forced you to choose a range elite weapon not really fit for the way you designed the traitlines.

Outside of that, some critics:

• Core warrior have a GM trait with the exact same effect as combat mastery.
• Dagger AA is bound to be frustratingly slow due to the evade on the middle of the chain.
• Moment of clarity sound like a ranger thing ;)

[Auburner.6945]

Weapon and attunements:

Well! I love my 4 attunements although they might be the reason why the class is bad at the moment, but I would prefer it over weapon swapping. That being said, I won't mind a Longbow with 4 attunements, but here is a thing with any Ranged weapon, especially on Elementalist as there is no going out of it in any way whatsoever, and ranged weapons are the worst for close combat which is inevitable if you don't have crazy mobility/stealth/etc. to always disengage.

I would love Longbow to be some sort of a LB + Dagger, the dagger is built-in and it shares something like skills #2 and #4 on all attunements. The built-in dagger should provide the melee aspect to an extent, something like a breather until LB becomes worthy of using again. The LongbowxDagger should have evades/blocks/CC... it needs any sort of self-defense -> A necro has lots of damage, but it can't protect itself, so built-in survivability within the weapon is crucial, especially if you can't swap it out.

Utilities:

Need some work. Like we need some defense on utilities, mobility, boon control (my god! when i fight a boon spamming class and know that it will always have tons of boons during the duel). The utilities need strong effects. All is nothing: it seems good if its effects are attunement based.

Traits:

• Solid like stone: I mean if it's going to be block-based, then most weapons should have a block or two, at least the utilities.

• Devastating Winds of Fury: Air sigil came to mind as I read that, except that the sigil has an easier requirement.

• Physical Mastery: I don't know

• Speed training: I mean, if this provides the 2 boons most of the time as gaining superspeed normally is rare, might as well remove the superspeed and provide better damage when under the effect of quickness.

• Fluid like water: seems good

• Impairing fires of torment: we need movement impairing skills for that

• Combat mastery: I mean, we blast fields like crazy already, so it's fine for me

• Weapon training: Elemental attunement. I mean, there can be boons, but not on swap imo.

• Path of the riverstone and Path of the burning winds: I won't like this so much as it's not always these 2 attunments that work with each other, unless it's PvE vs raid bosses.

• Path of the universal balance: I like this one, it ups the pace of the gameplay.

[lLobo.7960]

@TheSwede.9512 said:That being said, even if skills have the same animation they would, most likely, still be considered different skills mechanically if their properties changes with Attunement Swap. This especially so if we're talking additions of other animations such as lightning strikes and explosions. It's no longer 20 skills to design and balance, but still 80 Weapon Skills in total. And it goes without saying but that's A lot, definitely in the realm of "too much".

I'm not sure how that works in terms of programming. Code implementation was not really my focus on this. That being said, particle effects change every time you have new weapons and such, so the particle effects can be added by the "attunement buff", so you can even have two particle effects at the same time.Likewise, there are many traits that change skills (making certain skills reflect projectiles or add conditions to them or add extra effects and fields or change durations, etc) so I can't think that this can be such a hard thing to add, again, to the attunement buffs (attunment buff here is the little icon that shows on your effect bar with the current attunement you are on, it already provides certain buffs to you based on your traits).So, basically the skills are just 20 (animation, dmg, CD, etc) but each attunement add extra effects (conditions or secondary properties) to them.In terms of programming, I think the skills will be simple (as any other skill) and the heavy part will be on setting all the attunement bonuses effecting them (like traits or stances)

@TheSwede.9512 said:A better solution to the "No Attunements-tied Skills" would be to have Skill 2-5 simply be one of each element, giving each weapon a Fire/Water/Air/Earth set-up with the auto-attack either being Arcane or a Mix of all elements (Like a Melee Chain skill that has 4 chains, one for each element). Attunements could be reworked to instead give a static buff to Weapon Skills rather than change them (E. g. Air Attunement granting +X% Critical Hit Chance or Earth Attunement granting +X% Condition Duration).

That could be done, yes, but feels to much removed from what the ele is.The goal was to have a more martial (as in martial arts) focused ele but without loosing too much versatility. You loose the 20 unique skills at your disposal, but you maintain a certain degree of versatility by tailoring some level of variation to each skill.The big trade-off is that if you decide to use a skill in one attunement then you wont have a similar skill on another attunement. Like, imagine that if you use churnning earth, your flame grab would go on CD...

@TheSwede.9512 said:There are a few things to note regarding skills and traits however: The Grandmaster traits are just straight-up Weaver's Profession Mechanic with the addition of a Crazy OP Cooldown Reset,They are not... weaver mechanic lets you combine attunements having skills of one in your main hand and other on your offhand with a combine skill in between. You can swap those attunements around and have a whole new set of skills. The 2 path Grandmasters lets you combine attunements gaining full benefits, so all your 5 skills will apply effects related to both attunements and you will have benefits (if traited) from both. Keep in mind that this means that leaving the double attunment will also place both of those under full CD.The CD reset is not so OP when you remember that your skills are not unique per attunement. It does not make you swap attunements faster (the GCD is still there) but lets you return to an attunement faster for combo purposes. Remember that swapping attunements here is not giving you fresh skills out of CD.

@TheSwede.9512 said:and the Elite skill is for all practical intents and purposes just a worse version of the Weaver Elite.Its similar, yes, but not the same... weaver elite gives you bonuses based on attunements that you swap around. This one lets you combine attunements improving your normal skills greatly. So for a few seconds you can boost your skills to deal effects from all attunements at once... keep in mind again, that there are only 10 skills at your disposal (with weapon swap) and in 10 seconds you might not have time to use all of them with the improved effect combo. The elite mostly lets you set a short combined burst of offense and defense.

@TheSwede.9512 said:Many of the traits also seem lifted straight from other professions (Daredevil's Brawler's Tenacity and Warrior's Powerful Synergy are both there, for instance) and honestly feel like they're all over the place.The similarity to warrior and daredevil traits is intentional, its meant to show the further training in martial style combat.The spec traitlines focus on:

• (top) path of earth and water - defense, durability, cleanse and fluidity;
• (middle) path of fire and air - critical burst and sustained dmg with conditions,
• (bottom) path of combat - more use of physical skills (mobility and control), combo finishers (buffs, stealth, dmg and control) and more freedom on attunement swap to use combos between fields from different attunements and weapons.

@TheSwede.9512 said:The Specialization line is the meat of any Espec Concept and defines it not only for itself but against the other Especs as well. Try and work with the new mechanics some more: For instance improve upon the new venues afforded by weapon swap, such as the ability to fight at different ranges with different weapons whereas other Elementalist Specializations are relegated to a single one, by creating traits that urges and reward the player for kiting in and out of melee and range.

TL;DR - Concept is good, approach is interesting but execution is a bit over-optimistic and haphazard. It's a good first draft, however.

Really appreciate the feedback!I don't think it will ever be implemented but I had a lot of fun thinking about it and wanted to put here as a way of getting out of my head so I can focus on other things.

[lLobo.7960]

@derd.6413 said:needs more work

also longbow seems to be choosen because you really wanted a longbow rather then being chosen because it fits the spec (which it doesn't)

The idea of the spec is a martial artist elementalist, where the attunements are more like fighting styles.Longbow was chosen due to it been a weapon used by martial arts and so that the elite spec can deliver its magical attacks at range, since it uses the other range weapons (staff and scepter) in melee (as martial art weapons)

[lLobo.7960]

@Dadnir.5038 said:The concept of "giving up magic" doesn't feel like it fit the scholar aspect of the "elementalist".

Yes, this is not a book scholar ele, its a martial artist scholar ele, using attunements more as fighting styles.

@Dadnir.5038 said:Couldn't you have thread the path of being more of pure "arcanist" if the main point was to give a single set of skills per weapon? You'd have had room for staff and scepter to be range weapon which wouldn't have forced you to choose a range elite weapon not really fit for the way you designed the traitlines.That could be some other elite spec that focus more on the magic and gives an arcane attunement. The focus was to make a martial style ele that focus more on the fight and less on the magic. The elemental magic is there to boost its combat skills but it uses the weapons in a martial arts style not magical channeling attacks.

@Dadnir.5038 said:Outside of that, some critics:

• Core warrior have a GM trait with the exact same effect as combat mastery.
• Dagger AA is bound to be frustratingly slow due to the evade on the middle of the chain.
• Moment of clarity sound like a ranger thing ;)The similarity to some warrior and daredevil traits is intentional, to show the marital arts and combat training in a similar way with an elemental twist.I see the dagger AA being more similar to thief and warrior AA, with a quick first strike, a slightly slower second and a fast third. Keep in mind you don't have multiple AA chains in different attunements (like weaver) so swapping attunements won't reset your AA chain, just slightly change the effects on it.Moment of clarity (and all is nothing) was based on a DnD monk thing. =]

[lLobo.7960]

@Auburner.6945 said:Weapon and attunements:Well! I love my 4 attunements although they might be the reason why the class is bad at the moment, but I would prefer it over weapon swapping. That being said, I won't mind a Longbow with 4 attunements, but here is a thing with any Ranged weapon, especially on Elementalist as there is no going out of it in any way whatsoever, and ranged weapons are the worst for close combat which is inevitable if you don't have crazy mobility/stealth/etc. to always disengage.

The attunements are still there in a way. But to have a elementalist that focus in martial arts style combat not having weapon swap would be weird, and having weapon swap with attunement skills would be too much...So giving up the unique skills (and separate CDs) but keeping some level of adaptability with attunement swap seemed to be a good way to go with it.Attunements become more like fighting styles.

@Auburner.6945 said:Utilities:

Need some work. Like we need some defense on utilities, mobility, boon control (my god! when i fight a boon spamming class and know that it will always have tons of boons during the duel). The utilities need strong effects. All is nothing: it seems good if its effects are attunement based.

The physical utilities are short CD (based on warrior and daredevil) and they focus on mobility (dashes, leaps and jumps) and control (knock backs, cripples, chills and stuns). The defense is placed on the new use of the staff, scepter and focus, each having a block, dagger having evade.Boon removal I didn't feel like it had a place here, and maybe could be the focus of some other, more magical focusing, elite spec.

@Auburner.6945 said:Traits:

• Solid like stone: I mean if it's going to be block-based, then most weapons should have a block or two, at least the utilities.Staff, scepter and focus have each one block, and you can use all 3 with weapon swap.@Auburner.6945 said:
• Devastating Winds of Fury: Air sigil came to mind as I read that, except that the sigil has an easier requirement.The requirement is to critical hit anything that is disabled (stun/daze/knocked/etc), and there is plenty of control on the weapons to make use of it.@Auburner.6945 said:
• Physical Mastery: I don't knowIt's a simple trait to reduce the CD of your new utilities and as they focus on mobility and control the trait gives you endurance to improve your avoidance in combat.@Auburner.6945 said:
• Speed training: I mean, if this provides the 2 boons most of the time as gaining superspeed normally is rare, might as well remove the superspeed and provide better damage when under the effect of quickness.The way its set up it combos better with both arcane and air. If you focus on air, you gain supperspeed when going into air, giving you quickness. If you trait into arcane, you gain swiftness going into air, that will then give you superspeed and quickness... that means that a air/arcane/disciple will be able to maintain a lot of quickness and superspeed (with freshair - 100% superspeed, 60% quickness uptime).

@Auburner.6945 said:

• Impairing fires of torment: we need movement impairing skills for thatThis trait promotes you comboing earth into fire, as many weapon skills can cause cripple/immob in earth and burn in fire.So going for instance with the longbow, going earth for a charged shot or AoE cripple/immob then swapping into fire and using quickfire will place both burning and torment with each hit improving your condi burst.

@Auburner.6945 said:

• Combat mastery: I mean, we blast fields like crazy already, so it's fine for meYes, but a lot of our ability to blast is related to having different skills in each attunement, when this is lost, we loose a lot of that combo capacity. This traits try to make up for it with the aid of weapon swap.

@Auburner.6945 said:

• Weapon training: Elemental attunement. I mean, there can be boons, but not on swap imo.This is a way to let you use an alternative to arcane, it also to help with boons as they are a important part of ele. You loose a lot of the sources of boons (you loose a lot of blast and leap finishers by not having attunement independent skills, you loose a lot of boon skills and aura skills) all this is somewhat compensated by the weapon swap, so the weapon swap needs to provide some of what is lost, not only the number of skills.

@Auburner.6945 said:

• Path of the riverstone and Path of the burning winds: I won't like this so much as it's not always these 2 attunments that work with each other, unless it's PvE vs raid bosses.Its mostly a focus on defense or offense. Again you loose the raw number of weapon skills, so instead of having multiple skills for defense you have fewer but with combined defensive values.I can see the offensive one being good for hybrid dmg in pve content, while the defensive one could be a good healer/tank in pvp/wvw.Keep in mind that keeping both attunements simultaneously will make them both go in CD when you swap to another attunement.

[DeathPanel.8362]

Probably should be Arcane Archer with a short bow. Arcane archer is already a well known fantasy archtype and would fit well. The main focus can be ranged conditions and condi damage. Attunement can be totally replaced by some other mechanic like an arcane meter which grants more effects based on how high it is such as conditions on hit and/or addition boons.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

this spec will be so easy to balance with 40 skills.../s

[lLobo.7960]

@DeathPanel.8362 said:Probably should be Arcane Archer with a short bow. Arcane archer is already a well known fantasy archtype and would fit well. The main focus can be ranged conditions and condi damage. Attunement can be totally replaced by some other mechanic like an arcane meter which grants more effects based on how high it is such as conditions on hit and/or addition boons.

The issue with tying the spec with the weapon like that is that, well, you still have access to other weapons and the elite spec should work with them.You can be an Arcane Archer with the proposed Disciple (using longbow and focusing on ranged dmg and condi with fire/air, fire/arcane, or fire/earth as the other trait lines) but the spec gives you more than just using a bow as an archer...

Also, icebow (or frostbow) is already a shortbow (based on looks, range and skills). The elementalist kit is missing a long-range (1200-1500 units) single-target weapon, not another mid-range (900 units) one.

The goal of the e-spec was to give that long-range single-target option for the ele, but also let it use weapon swap so it's not tied up to that. A new play-style for ele (10 skills and weapon swap) but without killing the core of the ele (attunements versatility).This comes at the cost of not having so many skills (one set on each attunment) with independent CD, while keeping a bit of versatility with attunements still providing some variation for the skills and flavor/versatility to the attunments.

[lLobo.7960]

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:this spec will be so easy to balance with 40 skills.../s

That's the funny thing with the ele now, giving it a new weapon with 40 skills (one set for each attunement) is the same as giving it one weapon with only 5 skills and 5 new skills for each old (core) weapon (Staff-5, scepter 3, focus-2, daggers-5, new wep-5) without counting the underwater one...

Alsoooo...If the spec has its own set of skills, the core ele and other specs don't need to be nerfed to balance the new one. This is a HUGE benefit, IMO.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

Ele woulda made for a good druid spec, maybe without the pet mechanic druid woulda actually been decent instead of wrecked due to balancing for the pet in mind.

[pinguadoido.6581]

Interesting idea, but I would prefer if they gave us Axe, so we could be a badass warlock:

[scureuil.4052]

If they give us the the shield, maybe we'll throw it like Tron discBut well, we are elem, and this weapon will be overpowered in our hands. To undertune this weapon, in each throw, a mist dog will jump believing it's a frisbee. 20% chance to catch the disc and bring it back to us

[ROMANG.1903]

I really like the idea of having a longbow with weapon swap as a mechanic, it's amazing. However I'm not sure I understand what you're doing with the attunements?

Here's an idea: Give the elementalist a revenant-style "attunement" swap. You can equip 2 attunements which work exactly the same as today, and swap between them with the F1 button, on the same cooldown as core elementalist. But you can't use those you haven't equipped. Perhaps there's something to do with a revenant-style resource bar too?

That would:

• Make the elementalist still feel like an elementalist (which would be a problem if you changed all weapons skills for the elite spec) by keeping the original weapon skills.
• Give a trade-off to the elite spec by removing two attunements.
• Give that elite spec its own unique feeling, especially if the longbow has some limitted mobility with things like slide-shot. I like the concept of a damage skill that we would aim in a direction, and our character would slide in this direction (300 range?) while evading attacks. The initial cast would interrupt others casts, but you could start a new one during the evade phase.

[Malice.2734]

I personally think the weapon swap skill is quite necessary for an elementalist especially the weavers

[Abelisk.5148]

I like this a lot. Technically this is balancing around 20 skills / 10 at a time because even if you swap attunements, a skill used previously would still be on CD. Staff seems fun in this iteration. Longbow 3 seems kinda weird to proc.

[lLobo.7960]

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:this spec will be so easy to balance with 40 skills.../sThe beauty of it is that by making a new single set of skills (5 skills) for each weapon (d/d - 5, staff - 5, s/f - 5, LB- 5 = 20 skills) you are developing the same number of skills than for a new 2-handed weapon in 4 attunements (5*4 = 20 skills), but you will not change older skills (and therefore affect balance of core or other specs).

@ROMANG.1903 said:I really like the idea of having a longbow with weapon swap as a mechanic, it's amazing. However I'm not sure I understand what you're doing with the attunements?

Attunements become like fight styles. They won't give you a new set of skills when you swap to them, but they will give some different effects to skills when you attune to them. So an attack that would deal single target dmg and cause vulnerability in air will instead cause some splash dmg and burn in fire. Its like having a buff that affects your skills, similar to how the signet of elemental power or arcane power skills add effects to your next few skills.The main change of this is that you can combine attunements simultaneously (like being attuned to both air and fire at the same time) with the appropriate traits, to apply both effects at the same time. So in the same example, the skill would cause direct dmg, splash dmg, burn and vulnerability. While this is great, leaving the double attune will place both attunements in CD. Also, due to the skills and CD not being ruled by the attunment, but by weapons, you can swap attunment without breaking auto-attack chains.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

@lLobo.7960 said:

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:this spec will be so easy to balance with 40 skills.../sThe beauty of it is that by making a new single set of skills (5 skills) for each weapon (d/d - 5, staff - 5, s/f - 5, LB- 5 = 20 skills) you are developing the same number of skills than for a new 2-handed weapon in 4 attunements (5*4 = 20 skills), but you will not change older skills (and therefore affect balance of core or other specs).

there is no beauty dood. its 40 damn skills. to get the same results as a warrior auto attacking with an axe. who the hell would want that? not many. ele really doesn't need another entire set of watered down skills that barely do anything. it would also be a balance nightmare cuz as soon as 1 or 2 skills are over performing then the whole weapon gets nuked to uselesstown when those skills get nerfed. oh guess what, that's basically ele in a nutshell.

[lLobo.7960]

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:there is no beauty dood. its 40 kitten skills. to get the same results as a warrior auto attacking with an axe. who the hell would want that? not many. ele really doesn't need another entire set of watered down skills that barely do anything. it would also be a balance nightmare cuz as soon as 1 or 2 skills are over performing then the whole weapon gets nuked to uselesstown when those skills get nerfed. oh guess what, that's basically ele in a nutshell.

The idea is exactly to reduce the number of skills per weapon and increase the power and effects of the skills based on attunement effects.It's not 40 skills. It's basically turning the ele weapons into regular weapons with a single set of skills, while attunements only add bonuses and effects to those (similar to how sigil of elemental power and arcane power add effects to your next few attacks, or how evasive arcana adds effects to your dodges).

The loss of 4 sets of skills per weapon is partially compensated by having with weapon swap, and partially by traits that allow extra combos, booms, and faster swap.The loss of the attunement versatility is partially compensated by adding some effects to weapon attacks based on attunements. So, although you won't have a full set of skills ready to go when you swap attunements, you will still be able to slightly change the effects of whatever skills you have out of CD.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

@lLobo.7960 said:snips

ah dude, i'm sorry. completely misunderstood. its interesting, could work idk.

[Drizzt.1796]

BOO

What would the elementalist be if it didn't have element based magic!

[steki.1478]

@Drizzt.1796 said:

BOO

What would the elementalist be if it didn't have element based magic!

A revenant.