A new ranged spec for Ele is simply both undoable and boring.

[volca.7234]

Sorry for not responding, too many replies and got irl and EoD on my hands.

On 2/14/2022 at 12:34 PM, Sahne.6950 said:

There must be a deeper reason to why they dont make a ranged weapon on ele... because there is SO many good ideas. Either they dont play ele and dont notice that we are  missing a good ranged weapon (Ranged should be the standard version of a elemental caster in my books) or they fear that it wont be usefull in PvE content... as a majority of the playerbase is PvE and they need a selling point for the expansions. They tend to tailor everything towards a pve Community.. i even think they said they havent desigend EoD specs with PvP/WvW in mind... so they officialy stated that...   

Another cool ranged idea:

Trident! Very simple explanation: Weapon will focus on Hard cc via Bubbles that make you float. To completly mix it up Water is you CC related Element and doesnt provide sustain anymore -> various Bubble skills or similar things like a wave knockback or something. You can then use this Hard CC for some quick burst combos out of your other attunements! Hardcc into a devastating combo. A playstyle that we used to see from old Freshair. Theme everything around water (Fire attunement has Lava-like style; Water is water obviously; Air can be Mist or straight up electriccharged water ;earth has some...idk..small boulders being within the water(those skills would be the hardhitting ones because... Flippinrocks in a strong waterstream HURT). These Damageskills would have to be aimed like this one Mesmergreatsword skill or what we have with Staff atm, but it delivers instant damage and not over 5 seconds like we see on stafffields . So we are speaking High CC Skills with skills that have to be aimed, with a casttime even, but with devastatiing effects/damage. This would result in a potentially very high burst damageclass that needs to set up combos with CC to hold your enemy in place. Damage skills will be 1200 range whereas the CC skill from water are 900 to not make it too opressive. BANG! We have the traditional caster again ❤️

Fire and earth would be solely for Damagespikes (heat and flipin Boulders being thrown at you hurt obviously) ; Water is your CC attunement and used to setup Combos ( Bubbles that make you float for example) ; Air would be mobility (idk... skills like "ride the wave"lets the player Yeet 900 Units on a small wave;  and other needed sustain things that fit in the air theme like projectilehates)

This would result in a mobile,Squishy but very Deadly ranged class that has a high skillfloor and skillceiling!  Also it would finally give a meaning to the Watertrait that is completly useless outside of aurashare atm... FINALLY thoese Offensive traits in Water could be useful... They unfortunatly became obsolete the second coreFA died...  I can already see Arcane/water/air builds with trident.... #MakeCorerelevantagain 😄 

In all honesty they should just rework Staff 😄 It is so discouraging to use Staff... for example Firenormalhits dont even hit your enemys... They are not targeted they are just thrown at the current location of the enemy... Anything with swiftness that keeps moving will never be hit.
Staff is SOO OUTDATED and completly destroyed by nerfs and was just left at this stage for years....WTF ANET 😄

 

Ranged is the standared ele variant and most ele's weapons are mid to far ranged (scepter, staff, warhorn, focus) as oppose to (daggers, sword) and hammer being the hybrid ranged weapon.

Trident is a staff reskin for underwater (funnily enough lots of trident skins are actually litirally staff reskins) and its saving grace is the fact that its underwater which introduce 4D movement, not only that, water and air being CC and mobility attunments IS EXACTLY WHAT STAFF IS "Distance control run and gun kiter weapon"

"So we are speaking High CC Skills with skills that have to be aimed, with a casttime even, but with devastatiing effects/damage."
A kit made entirely of pile driver like skills and a simplified water = only distance control via slowing down enemies + air = only distance control via speeding you up, is a bastardized version of staff, Not only that staff is in this way a superior weapon design wise, because you find control on all attunments "fire4, earth2, earth4, earth5, water4, air3, air4, air5" allowing you to always have a kite button no matter what even in your heal and fire dmg phases, ie a more fun weapon.
 

 

On 2/14/2022 at 2:06 PM, Fueki.4753 said:

I think part of the problem why Elementalist doesn't get a ranged weapon is that they players early on basically decided that stacking is the correct way to play. Arenanet tried to combat that (the best example would be the numerous reworks of the spider boss in the Ascalonian Catacombs), but gave up and embraced stacking for most parts.

Most other professions can have ranged weapons for elite specializations, because weapon swap during combat exists, so they can have a melee weapon alongside a ranged specialization weapon. The lack of weapon swap during combat possibly is the reason why Elementalists and Engineers only get melee weapons to have the best possible performance when stacking. Jokesworn can serve as further proof of this idea, since it also lacks a real weapon swap out of combat (for no real reason) and the pistol turned out to be yet another melee weapon for a specialization without weapon swap.

So I think that the way for Elementalists to get a ranged weapon would be a specialization that enables weapon swap in combat. A possible trade-off would then be that Attunements can only swapped out of combat. This way, players can have both a new ranged weapon and a the elite specialization gives a play style that is not represented in core or any elite specializations: commitment to one attunement.

This would definitely be actual fresh air for playing Elementalist (unlike that trait that went stale after being over-used), as well as bringing in closer to how Elementalist was in GW1.

Shouldn't that idea make the Fire Attunement consist of boiling water and steam abilities? Lava is closer to molten rock than anything water-related. Air could be themed around storms with hail and lightning (since lightning is related to small ice particles in clouds). Earth could be themed around mud, with access to poison.

The idea that "we can have a ranged weapon only if we have weapon swap so we are able to switch between melee and ranged" is already included in catalyst in the fact that you got 2 ranged attunments and 2 melee ones as i already alluded to in an earlier reply
 

[Fueki.4753]

9 hours ago, volca.7234 said:

The idea that "we can have a ranged weapon only if we have weapon swap so we are able to switch between melee and ranged" is already included in catalyst in the fact that you got 2 ranged attunments and 2 melee ones as i already alluded to in an earlier reply

 

There is no actually ranged attunement on the hammer.

600 range is a joke and those two attunements still have abilities that require being close to be effective.

 

[Shadowflare.2759]

This whole thread is just pointless because a hybrid range weapon is a good idea, hammer was just implemented horribly because the "ranged" skills are barely ranged and hammer 3 skills screwed the flow of the weapon.

The Catalyst hammer could have had skills like the revenant hammer; long range and delivers damage quicker instead of aoe over time or delayed explosion spells, and more gapclosers/cc to allow for switching between melee and range. Instead they basically wasted all their development effort on the gimmick of hammer 3, and now are probably too attached to the idea to actually give 4 individual skills that has unique identities.

 

That being said, there's no reason to believe that if we had gotten bow as the new weapon, that it would need to be purely ranged. It can definitely have been made hybrid as well.
 

Edited March 4, 2022 by Shadowflare.2759

[draxynnic.3719]

23 hours ago, Shadowflare.2759 said:

This whole thread is just pointless because a hybrid range weapon is a good idea, hammer was just implemented horribly because the "ranged" skills are barely ranged and hammer 3 skills screwed the flow of the weapon.

The Catalyst hammer could have had skills like the revenant hammer; long range and delivers damage quicker instead of aoe over time or delayed explosion spells, and more gapclosers/cc to allow for switching between melee and range. Instead they basically wasted all their development effort on the gimmick of hammer 3, and now are probably too attached to the idea to actually give 4 individual skills that has unique identities.

 

That being said, there's no reason to believe that if we had gotten bow as the new weapon, that it would need to be purely ranged. It can definitely have been made hybrid as well.
 

A magic rifle could also make for an interesting hybrid weapon. Have some attunements be long-ranged, while others could behave more like a flamethrower or shotgun.

[Infusion.7149]

Well the hammer does roughly the same damage autoing at 600 range and in melee for both fire and air. It really ought to do more in melee if they're going for melee heavy spec. That way it is innately balanced as you lose both the  hammer orb DPS as well as damage from being ranged.

The best thing that can be done to salvage hammer right now (in terms of usability not DPS) is 900 range on fire and air , hammer orb being 8s instead of 5s,  as well as piercing/splash 130 or 180 radius cleave on fire and air IMO. The used 2-5 skills themselves are primarily held back by the range and the hammer orb Grand Finale is 800 range as well.

Edited March 5, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Jski.6180]

I think they need to make combo more important for both catalyst utility and dmg. So maybe adding in an added dmg effect to catalyst projectile finnish on orb firing off in a field would be nice to giving some more ranged attk to the hammer.

[volca.7234]

On 3/5/2022 at 8:23 PM, Jski.6180 said:

I think they need to make combo more important for both catalyst utility and dmg. So maybe adding in an added dmg effect to catalyst projectile finnish on orb firing off in a field would be nice to giving some more ranged attk to the hammer.

Adding the ability to choose between 4 instant cast fields that combo with your projectile is already an added buff for your projectiles, and since more combos = more auras that means a combo in catalyst is an access to the robust aura system ele already has meaning combos now can cleanse condis with smoldering aura, give protection or fury, or stability with the catalyst grandmaster, as well as the 2 other catalyst aura traits empowering and hardened auras.

As for the 3 finisher it reward you with a combo thats 3 or 4 separate projectile finishers in the same time. so its like having a x4 buff on projectile finishers but in numbers of projectiles rather than modifiers 

 

On 3/4/2022 at 6:49 AM, Fueki.4753 said:

There is no actually ranged attunement on the hammer.

600 range is a joke and those two attunements still have abilities that require being close to be effective.

 

 

On 3/4/2022 at 7:24 AM, Shadowflare.2759 said:

This whole thread is just pointless because a hybrid range weapon is a good idea, hammer was just implemented horribly because the "ranged" skills are barely ranged and hammer 3 skills screwed the flow of the weapon.

The Catalyst hammer could have had skills like the revenant hammer; long range and delivers damage quicker instead of aoe over time or delayed explosion spells, and more gapclosers/cc to allow for switching between melee and range. Instead they basically wasted all their development effort on the gimmick of hammer 3, and now are probably too attached to the idea to actually give 4 individual skills that has unique identities.

 

That being said, there's no reason to believe that if we had gotten bow as the new weapon, that it would need to be purely ranged. It can definitely have been made hybrid as well.
 

1-600 is the perfect range for a hybrid ranged weapon, 900 and you will compete with scepter and then hammer has to do less dmg than scepter to justify having AoE skills or risk becoming a scepter clone single target high dmg weapon which would be unfun and proves my point, that we already saturated the ele's ranged options, so going melee is the only way forward.

In 600 you have that ability to jump between ranged and melee faster reinforcing your hybrid ranged bruiser style, if you started in melee lets say earth you do 3 2 then 4 then 5 to immob, then you are free to switch air and air5 for the delayed stun taking advantage of that delay for a quick air4 to go into ranged for a nice hurricane of pain, then see your options, wanna keep at range? switch to fire, wanna sustain yourself? return to melee go for water, this tempo this dance would be much harder if the ranged options were 900 because at that point you forget about walking in and out of melee range, all your mobility will be either with superspeed or skills, which weaver already does with its middle trait rows being all about speed buffs and slot2 skills in sword as your kite and chase skills.

Catalyst is perfect gameplay wise with a 600 range if it was any higher it would be much worse both balance and gameplay wise.

 

2-Im not commenting on rev, im not familiar with rev and its meta game. but i know for a fact hammer rev is one of the slowest most deliberate weapons in game and focuses more on being safe not by kiting run and gun like ele's staff but by expending energy for a safe hit like hammer 3, or health steal from the dark field that the hammer 4 gives to combo with blasts for defensive blinds or projectiles for life leeching combos that link hammer to rev's life leeching meta game.

 

3-the orb is not a gimmick and is the most fluid part of the hammer kit, its the way catalyst communicate that melee phase the i.e the sustain phase is the phase where you build up energy as you sustain yourself since the orb circles at melee range meaning more energy build up for the jade sphere, why do you think that earth and water 2s has multi hit, and why do you think air's hurricane of pain is the highest multihit skill which also the one that gives quickness jade sphere the main boon of catalyst... no its not a coincidence, the energy metagame flow rewards you for sticking to melee sustain and then disengaging for a quickness jade sphere with hurricane of pain giving you enough energy to go for either another quickness or another attunment's boon sphere

 

4-Most people wanted longbow as purely ranged weapon, and were angry at hammer for being """another melee weapon"" i too won't mind longbow as hybrid, or if they reskined hammer as a longbow i won't mind it, but i don't think longbow makes much sense as melee weapon, animations and stuff.

Edited March 9, 2022 by volca.7234

[Jski.6180]

8 minutes ago, volca.7234 said:

Adding the ability to choose between 4 instant cast fields that combo with your projectile is already an added buff for your projectiles, and since more combos = more auras that means a combo in catalyst is an access to the robust aura system ele already has meaning combos now can cleanse condis with smoldering aura, give protection or fury, or stability with the catalyst grandmaster, as well as the 2 other catalyst aura traits empowering and hardened auras.

As for the 3 finisher it reward you with a combo thats 3 or 4 separate projectile finishers in the same time. so its like having a x4 buff on projectile finishers but in numbers of projectiles rather than modifiers 

 

 

1-600 is the perfect range for a hybrid ranged weapon, 900 and you will compete with scepter and then hammer has to do less dmg than scepter to justify having AoE skills or risk becoming a scepter clone single target high dmg weapon which would be unfun and proves my point, that we already saturated the ele's ranged options, so going melee is the only way forward.

In 600 you have that ability to jump between ranged and melee faster reinforcing your hybrid ranged bruiser style, if you started in melee lets say earth you do 3 2 then 4 then 5 to immob, then you are free to switch air and air5 for the delayed stun taking advantage of that delay for a quick air4 to go into ranged for a nice hurricane of pain, then see your options, wanna keep at range? switch to fire, wanna sustain yourself? return to melee go for water, this tempo this dance would be much harder if the ranged options were 900 because at that point you forget about walking in and out of melee range, all your mobility will be either with superspeed or skills, which weaver already does with its middle trait rows being all about speed buffs and slot2 skills in sword as your kite and chase skills.

Catalyst is perfect gameplay wise with a 600 range if it was any higher it would be much worse both balance and gameplay wise.

 

2-Im not commenting on rev, im not familiar with rev and its meta game. but i know for a fact hammer rev is one of the slowest most deliberate weapons in game and focuses more on being safe not by kiting run and gun like ele's staff but by expending energy for a safe hit like hammer 3, or health steal from the dark field that the hammer 4 gives to combo with blasts for defensive blinds or projectiles for life leeching combos that link hammer to rev's life leeching meta game.

 

3-the orb is not a gimmick and is the most fluid part of the hammer kit, its the way catalyst communicate that melee phase the i.e the sustain phase is the phase where you build up energy as you sustain yourself since the orb circles at melee range meaning more energy build up for the jade sphere, why do you think that earth and water 2s has multi hit, and why do you think air's hurricane of pain is the highest multihit skill which also the one that gives quickness jade sphere the main boon of catalyst... no its not a coincidence, the energy metagame flow rewards you for sticking to melee sustain and then disengaging for a quickness jade sphere with hurricane of pain giving you enough energy to go for either another quickness or another attunment's boon sphere

 

4-Most people wanted longbow as purely ranged weapon, and were angry at hammer for being """another melee weapon"" i too won't mind longbow as hybrid, or if they reskined hammer as a longbow i won't mind it, but i don't think longbow makes much sense as melee weapon, animations and stuff.

I am talking about a bigger hit say a burst dmg + condi on-top of the combo lets say on a 10 sec cd per atument. Over all i want to see more combo added effect base off of your atument. Just having an aura is not enofe for a combo class.

[volca.7234]

8 minutes ago, Jski.6180 said:

I am talking about a bigger hit say a burst dmg + condi on-top of the combo lets say on a 10 sec cd per atument. Over all i want to see more combo added effect base off of your atument. Just having an aura is not enofe for a combo class.

I see what you talking about and it would be cool flavor wise don't get me wrong, but don't you think arcane trait elemental surge, or cata's empowering empowerment giving stat buffs for combos already does that?

On 3/5/2022 at 6:59 PM, Infusion.7149 said:

Well the hammer does roughly the same damage autoing at 600 range and in melee for both fire and air. It really ought to do more in melee if they're going for melee heavy spec. That way it is innately balanced as you lose both the  hammer orb DPS as well as damage from being ranged.

The best thing that can be done to salvage hammer right now (in terms of usability not DPS) is 900 range on fire and air , hammer orb being 8s instead of 5s,  as well as piercing/splash 130 or 180 radius cleave on fire and air IMO. The used 2-5 skills themselves are primarily held back by the range and the hammer orb Grand Finale is 800 range as well.

Sorry for not quoting you thought i did, so heres the reply for what you asking for:

19 minutes ago, volca.7234 said:

1-600 is the perfect range for a hybrid ranged weapon, 900 and you will compete with scepter and then hammer has to do less dmg than scepter to justify having AoE skills or risk becoming a scepter clone single target high dmg weapon which would be unfun and proves my point, that we already saturated the ele's ranged options, so going melee is the only way forward.

In 600 you have that ability to jump between ranged and melee faster reinforcing your hybrid ranged bruiser style, if you started in melee lets say earth you do 3 2 then 4 then 5 to immob, then you are free to switch air and air5 for the delayed stun taking advantage of that delay for a quick air4 to go into ranged for a nice hurricane of pain, then see your options, wanna keep at range? switch to fire, wanna sustain yourself? return to melee go for water, this tempo this dance would be much harder if the ranged options were 900 because at that point you forget about walking in and out of melee range, all your mobility will be either with superspeed or skills, which weaver already does with its middle trait rows being all about speed buffs and slot2 skills in sword as your kite and chase skills.

Catalyst is perfect gameplay wise with a 600 range if it was any higher it would be much worse both balance and gameplay wise.

 

19 minutes ago, volca.7234 said:

3-the orb is not a gimmick and is the most fluid part of the hammer kit, its the way catalyst communicate that melee phase the i.e the sustain phase is the phase where you build up energy as you sustain yourself since the orb circles at melee range meaning more energy build up for the jade sphere, why do you think that earth and water 2s has multi hit, and why do you think air's hurricane of pain is the highest multihit skill which also the one that gives quickness jade sphere the main boon of catalyst... no its not a coincidence, the energy metagame flow rewards you for sticking to melee sustain and then disengaging for a quickness jade sphere with hurricane of pain giving you enough energy to go for either another quickness or another attunment's boon sphere

 

Edited March 9, 2022 by volca.7234

[Infusion.7149]

No it does not have to do way less damage than scepter when the whole weapon is used including hammer orbs. It would only need to do less damage than scepter if you camp fire+air. To insinuate that a weapon with both "ranged skills" and half melee skills needs to do less than a fully ranged weapon is baffling. A radiance DH for example with scepter or longbow loses maybe 2K DPS total versus using sword + greatsword, power virtuoso with 1200 range greatsword or 900 range daggers loses <1K, a sword holo gets no penalty from grenade kit, axe+axe with longbow or axe+axe with greatsword soulbeast gets no massive penalty, scourge is fully 900 range and so is harbinger except for pulsing PBAOE damage (which is similar to how hammer orb works , shocking) , condi rev uses a 900 range shortbow, condi berserker is played with a longbow as part of rotation , specter is 900 range with scepter dagger. You're thinking solely in the elementalist context when it is clear the hammer is made to replicate a weaponswap with a 900+ range. The baseline standard is 33K at 900 range, see condi soulbeast for a very long time ; scourge changed this paradigm by putting out 37K+ benchmarks at 900 range ; uncertain on shortbow condi renegade but prepatch it was 33K-36K depending on single or double shortbow.

Keep in mind the only single target portion of scepter is air and auto attacks. Dragon's Tooth/Shatterstone are not single target at all and are kept in check by delays.
If you look around there's a 37K Catalyst staff benchmark because jade sphere does a great portion of the damage to the tune of 20% on official benchmarks. A scepter grieving tempest with only fire attunement can push 32K+ , scepter condi weaver pushes 39K last I checked.

There is no "jumping between melee and ranged" when your gap closer is 20s cooldown even in PVE and is a heal. The mobility is shoddy and worse than daggers. Especially in WVW where 900 range is death from COR/Inspiring Reinforcement/guardian symbols/wells the 600 range makes it (catalyst on hammer) effectively melee at all times. 600 range is the leap on a spellbreaker with a hammer for CC.

The orb is indeed a gimmick in PVE. If you wanted to play it as a dual attunement or triple attunement then the orb timing is extremely tight. This could easily be rectified by extending orb default duration to 8s. Multi-hit doesn't really help if you have a channel time.

In the given timeframe for Rain of Blows you could get more hits from auto-ing and especially if you hit 5 targets instead of 3. From my testing stonestrike actually is the highest untraited autoattack of all 4 attunements.

Edited March 9, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

with respect to the Q: how will a new ranged spec differentiate itself from old ones? how does hammer really differentiate itself from dagger-dagger besides the gimmick of hammer 3? So far, all i keep seeing about hammer is that it's boring and clumsy, and is competing directly with weapons that already fill the same role, like dagger-daggert? and Augments feel just like stances, except they get an extra buff if cast in a jade-orb-combo-field (another gimmick), and the only people who really asked for hammer are PvPers (so like less than 1% of the elementalist community?) If the range of the ranged hammer skills was 900 or 100, maybe i'd give it a go, but as it stands, it's just a slower version of dagger-dagger, and feels like a complete waste of time.

 

Those of us who want a new ranged spec have been ignored for 3 expansions and all elementalist e-specs so far. our patience is running thin. and by the way, 2 fire skills on staff don't make it ranged DPS weapon. Anet themselves called it a support weapon at launch, and have never changed publicly that designation.

 

one old example of a longbow spec, based on GW1 skills:

Yes, that was one of mine, but there are many other good ideas from other posters here, including pistols, rifles, summoners, wards/wells, and many others.

[lLobo.7960]

It's very simple...

Staff is a slow cast, power focused, long ranged AoE weapon. It works best by stacking multiple fields and effects in an area and hitting multiple opponents to maximize dmg (or heals). It's the only ele weapon that is crap at condi dmg.

Scepter is a burst (slow cast big effects with some fast cast low dps fillers) mid range weapon, can be used as power or condi. It has some AoE on it, specially for burst (phoenix, shatterstone, dragons tooth).

 

How to make a different weapon? Here it goes:

Longbow - A fast casting, single target focused, long range burst weapon, with some AoE (hail of arrows style skill 5). Arcane archer style with imbued arrows in each attunement.

Quote

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)

 

Pistol - A single target focused, fast casting, mid range weapon with some burst (unload style skill 3).

Spellslinger style.

 

Also, with the number of attunments skills and core ele weapons, you could remove attunement-unique skills and create new weapon skills for core weapons as part of a new elite spec and it would be the same number of new skills as a new 2h weapon... This could make a new elite spec that would bring ele a really new playstyle:

[pallas.8150]

Would have loved an elemental archer. 😕

[Jski.6180]

11 hours ago, volca.7234 said:

I see what you talking about and it would be cool flavor wise don't get me wrong, but don't you think arcane trait elemental surge, or cata's empowering empowerment giving stat buffs for combos already does that?

Sorry for not quoting you thought i did, so heres the reply for what you asking for:

 

 

If your going to make a combo base class it needs to have effects for all combo types or you just have a "do combo" for one effect. It takes away from having different combo types and even from combing in different fields. At one point we had a lot of combo added effects yet anet took them out of them game but then they added in catalyst combo aimed class. Its very confusing what anet wants. I hope they bring back more combo effects.

[Avatara.1042]

New?  We do not even have a current one...

[volca.7234]

 

On 3/10/2022 at 7:15 AM, Avatara.1042 said:

New?  We do not even have a current one...

The ele whining thread is two blocks down, read the thread opening post before you reply.

On 3/9/2022 at 10:46 PM, pallas.8150 said:

Would have loved an elemental archer. 😕

Like the one in Dragon's dogma? same but then i remembered that i really only used the daggers on it, and the elemental bow was nothing but a fire exploding arrows machine... even in dragon's dogma it was meh at best

 

On 3/9/2022 at 10:26 PM, lLobo.7960 said:

It's very simple...

Staff is a slow cast, power focused, long ranged AoE weapon. It works best by stacking multiple fields and effects in an area and hitting multiple opponents to maximize dmg (or heals). It's the only ele weapon that is crap at condi dmg.

Scepter is a burst (slow cast big effects with some fast cast low dps fillers) mid range weapon, can be used as power or condi. It has some AoE on it, specially for burst (phoenix, shatterstone, dragons tooth).

 

How to make a different weapon? Here it goes:

Longbow - A fast casting, single target focused, long range burst weapon, with some AoE (hail of arrows style skill 5). Arcane archer style with imbued arrows in each attunement.

 

Pistol - A single target focused, fast casting, mid range weapon with some burst (unload style skill 3).

Spellslinger style.

 

Also, with the number of attunments skills and core ele weapons, you could remove attunement-unique skills and create new weapon skills for core weapons as part of a new elite spec and it would be the same number of new skills as a new 2h weapon... This could make a new elite spec that would bring ele a really new playstyle:

Already replied to this one at:

On 2/12/2022 at 8:12 PM, FrownyClown.8402 said:

Make skills ranged aoe that can be shot from behind and make earth melee and use the bow to bash enemies. Next question.

 

My idea from 2 years ago

 

 

 

On 3/9/2022 at 7:03 PM, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

with respect to the Q: how will a new ranged spec differentiate itself from old ones? how does hammer really differentiate itself from dagger-dagger besides the gimmick of hammer 3? So far, all i keep seeing about hammer is that it's boring and clumsy, and is competing directly with weapons that already fill the same role, like dagger-daggert? and Augments feel just like stances, except they get an extra buff if cast in a jade-orb-combo-field (another gimmick), and the only people who really asked for hammer are PvPers (so like less than 1% of the elementalist community?) If the range of the ranged hammer skills was 900 or 100, maybe i'd give it a go, but as it stands, it's just a slower version of dagger-dagger, and feels like a complete waste of time.

 

Those of us who want a new ranged spec have been ignored for 3 expansions and all elementalist e-specs so far. our patience is running thin. and by the way, 2 fire skills on staff don't make it ranged DPS weapon. Anet themselves called it a support weapon at launch, and have never changed publicly that designation.

 

one old example of a longbow spec, based on GW1 skills:

Yes, that was one of mine, but there are many other good ideas from other posters here, including pistols, rifles, summoners, wards/wells, and many others.

Couple of huge problems turning this Spec into an anti synergy nightmare:

1- And this is the killer for me, steam which is how Torment currently working require you to immobilize the target to get maximum damage, and your kit lacks any sources of immobilization or long stuns and knock downs, meaning that you have no way to get the higher damage from steam, and here already you are not outside staff's design space, Staff flat out does much better job in this, instead of steam staff has small high damage AoEs which hurt more if the target is immobilized and stunned, which staff has access to many such immob and stun distance control skills like E5 E4 A5 A3 E2 W4 etc.. not only that, this distance control is both its defensive run and gun style but also the way lava font and W2 do their dmg through sniping the already immobile target

2-The unblockable bounces while maybe fun is the pinnacle of gimmick, not many players have blocks let alone enemy mobs, so you have a class entirely built around interacting with a small small sliver of gw2 block-able mobs and classes

3-Prevention is Aegis + pure of heart trait from the guardian, and is even more OP by the fact it it stacks.

On 3/9/2022 at 6:08 PM, Infusion.7149 said:

No it does not have to do way less damage than scepter when the whole weapon is used including hammer orbs. It would only need to do less damage than scepter if you camp fire+air. To insinuate that a weapon with both "ranged skills" and half melee skills needs to do less than a fully ranged weapon is baffling. A radiance DH for example with scepter or longbow loses maybe 2K DPS total versus using sword + greatsword, power virtuoso with 1200 range greatsword or 900 range daggers loses <1K, a sword holo gets no penalty from grenade kit, axe+axe with longbow or axe+axe with greatsword soulbeast gets no massive penalty, scourge is fully 900 range and so is harbinger except for pulsing PBAOE damage (which is similar to how hammer orb works , shocking) , condi rev uses a 900 range shortbow, condi berserker is played with a longbow as part of rotation , specter is 900 range with scepter dagger. You're thinking solely in the elementalist context when it is clear the hammer is made to replicate a weaponswap with a 900+ range. The baseline standard is 33K at 900 range, see condi soulbeast for a very long time ; scourge changed this paradigm by putting out 37K+ benchmarks at 900 range ; uncertain on shortbow condi renegade but prepatch it was 33K-36K depending on single or double shortbow.

Keep in mind the only single target portion of scepter is air and auto attacks. Dragon's Tooth/Shatterstone are not single target at all and are kept in check by delays.
If you look around there's a 37K Catalyst staff benchmark because jade sphere does a great portion of the damage to the tune of 20% on official benchmarks. A scepter grieving tempest with only fire attunement can push 32K+ , scepter condi weaver pushes 39K last I checked.

There is no "jumping between melee and ranged" when your gap closer is 20s cooldown even in PVE and is a heal. The mobility is shoddy and worse than daggers. Especially in WVW where 900 range is death from COR/Inspiring Reinforcement/guardian symbols/wells the 600 range makes it (catalyst on hammer) effectively melee at all times. 600 range is the leap on a spellbreaker with a hammer for CC.

The orb is indeed a gimmick in PVE. If you wanted to play it as a dual attunement or triple attunement then the orb timing is extremely tight. This could easily be rectified by extending orb default duration to 8s. Multi-hit doesn't really help if you have a channel time.

In the given timeframe for Rain of Blows you could get more hits from auto-ing and especially if you hit 5 targets instead of 3. From my testing stonestrike actually is the highest untraited autoattack of all 4 attunements.

1- Comparing ele's ranged vs melee with other specs is fundamentally wrong headed due to the fact that ele's weapons are 4 weapons in one and its meta game is entirely different

a- In your examples, Mesmer defensive metagame is all about generating clones to dupe players into attacking them and distort, and virtuoso generally reducing the survivalbility of mesmer by taking away their clones and distort for a block bladesong that can be bypassed with unblockable skills and getting their distort by sacrificing utility slots and dmg traits allowing less DPS gap between ranged and melee due to lack of sustain.

b- DH doesn't lose much damage because the weapon has not much utility out side of CC, and most of the big numbers come from its symbol not true shot, a symbol with a boon that DH lacks "due to F2 not giving endurance like core" and a healing "if speced" so a DH to achieve its dmg has to choose to either use the symbol at range to gets it range DPS or at melee to get the boon and healing without the dmg, or use it while the enemy is in melee range for all sacrificing the long range itself

c- Condi slb sacrifice sustain in the form of having no pet sacrificing half of its HP and a second target for enemies for it to gets its dmg, etc.. etc..,

d- Ele unlike all of these cannot and should not sacrifice its sustain in the kit itself, because it would be boring, 4 dps attunment ele is BORING, Even our most glass cannon kits like scepter-dagger and dagger-dagger (excluding weaver) they got at least 5 sustain skills in each set between evades, blinds, weakness or vigor, healing etc..  and thats fun


2-The hammer isn't dealing the same DPS at range the same as Scepter because hammer has waaaaaaaay more sustain than scepter, scepter depending on how you count it has 5 sustain skills"E3, E2, A3, W3, F3", while Hammer has 6 NOT COUNTING any combos into jade orbs water and earth fields "E2, E4, E3, A5, A4, W5, W4, W3", with water field into account we add "F5, E5" not counting traits stability or hardened auras or aura effects in general, its safe to say that having access to 2 mag auras is kinda neet

3-which bring the other topic, the "no gap closer" and "" no jumping between melee and ranged"",

a-Hammer earth has many long range shutdowns by having it entire purpose built for the utter inhalation or projectiles with its E2, E4, E4-aura and any E5 combo for another mag aura, granted not all ranged DPS is projectiles based

 

b- For that there is another 2 gap closers, aboutface A4 and W4 and stability to make sure you reach there unhindered, and having your gab closer being a heal is perfect for catalyst because its a leap and water fields exists, its meant to be used at a low HP to keep its unique identity of being the only sustain bruiser weapon in ele's hands, evident by the fact that it heals for 4500ish base with 700ish FOR EACH foe struck, add to that a good 1300ish water field combo through water jade sphere and you looking for AT LEAST 6500 healing which is on par with a healing skill WITH ONE ENEMY ONLY, with 5 enemies the number jumps to 9300 which is higher than all other ele's weapon heals not counting other water field combos or signet/sootheing water augment etc..

The fact that melee is rewarded with higher DPS because you put yourself at risk using air and fire doesn't mean using them at range is a meme, it means much like the DH longbow symbol, that you have a choice between choosing the melee risk or keep safe at distance, all fully ranged weapons can still do their max DPS in melee, what makes them ranged is the fact that they have the ability of dealing the same dmg at lower risk from afar

[scarlettmoonbabe.6932]

2 hours ago, volca.7234 said:

 

The ele whining thread is two blocks down, read the thread opening post before you reply.

Like the one in Dragon's dogma? same but then i remembered that i really only used the daggers on it, and the elemental bow was nothing but a fire exploding arrows machine... even in dragon's dogma it was meh at best

 

Already replied to this one at:

 

 

 

Couple of huge problems turning this Spec into an anti synergy nightmare:

1- And this is the killer for me, steam which is how Torment currently working require you to immobilize the target to get maximum damage, and your kit lacks any sources of immobilization or long stuns and knock downs, meaning that you have no way to get the higher damage from steam, and here already you are not outside staff's design space, Staff flat out does much better job in this, instead of steam staff has small high damage AoEs which hurt more if the target is immobilized and stunned, which staff has access to many such immob and stun distance control skills like E5 E4 A5 A3 E2 W4 etc.. not only that, this distance control is both its defensive run and gun style but also the way lava font and W2 do their dmg through sniping the already immobile target

2-The unblockable bounces while maybe fun is the pinnacle of gimmick, not many players have blocks let alone enemy mobs, so you have a class entirely built around interacting with a small small sliver of gw2 block-able mobs and classes

3-Prevention is Aegis + pure of heart trait from the guardian, and is even more OP by the fact it it stacks.

1- Comparing ele's ranged vs melee with other specs is fundamentally wrong headed due to the fact that ele's weapons are 4 weapons in one and its meta game is entirely different

a- In your examples, Mesmer defensive metagame is all about generating clones to dupe players into attacking them and distort, and virtuoso generally reducing the survivalbility of mesmer by taking away their clones and distort for a block bladesong that can be bypassed with unblockable skills and getting their distort by sacrificing utility slots and dmg traits allowing less DPS gap between ranged and melee due to lack of sustain.

b- DH doesn't lose much damage because the weapon has not much utility out side of CC, and most of the big numbers come from its symbol not true shot, a symbol with a boon that DH lacks "due to F2 not giving endurance like core" and a healing "if speced" so a DH to achieve its dmg has to choose to either use the symbol at range to gets it range DPS or at melee to get the boon and healing without the dmg, or use it while the enemy is in melee range for all sacrificing the long range itself

c- Condi slb sacrifice sustain in the form of having no pet sacrificing half of its HP and a second target for enemies for it to gets its dmg, etc.. etc..,

d- Ele unlike all of these cannot and should not sacrifice its sustain in the kit itself, because it would be boring, 4 dps attunment ele is BORING, Even our most glass cannon kits like scepter-dagger and dagger-dagger (excluding weaver) they got at least 5 sustain skills in each set between evades, blinds, weakness or vigor, healing etc..  and thats fun


2-The hammer isn't dealing the same DPS at range the same as Scepter because hammer has waaaaaaaay more sustain than scepter, scepter depending on how you count it has 5 sustain skills"E3, E2, A3, W3, F3", while Hammer has 6 NOT COUNTING any combos into jade orbs water and earth fields "E2, E4, E3, A5, A4, W5, W4, W3", with water field into account we add "F5, E5" not counting traits stability or hardened auras or aura effects in general, its safe to say that having access to 2 mag auras is kinda neet

3-which bring the other topic, the "no gap closer" and "" no jumping between melee and ranged"",

a-Hammer earth has many long range shutdowns by having it entire purpose built for the utter inhalation or projectiles with its E2, E4, E4-aura and any E5 combo for another mag aura, granted not all ranged DPS is projectiles based

 

b- For that there is another 2 gap closers, aboutface A4 and W4 and stability to make sure you reach there unhindered, and having your gab closer being a heal is perfect for catalyst because its a leap and water fields exists, its meant to be used at a low HP to keep its unique identity of being the only sustain bruiser weapon in ele's hands, evident by the fact that it heals for 4500ish base with 700ish FOR EACH foe struck, add to that a good 1300ish water field combo through water jade sphere and you looking for AT LEAST 6500 healing which is on par with a healing skill WITH ONE ENEMY ONLY, with 5 enemies the number jumps to 9300 which is higher than all other ele's weapon heals not counting other water field combos or signet/sootheing water augment etc..

The fact that melee is rewarded with higher DPS because you put yourself at risk using air and fire doesn't mean using them at range is a meme, it means much like the DH longbow symbol, that you have a choice between choosing the melee risk or keep safe at distance, all fully ranged weapons can still do their max DPS in melee, what makes them ranged is the fact that they have the ability of dealing the same dmg at lower risk from afar

hammer is boring 🙂 would have prefered greatsword 

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

2 hours ago, volca.7234 said:

Couple of huge problems turning this Spec into an anti synergy nightmare:

1- And this is the killer for me, steam which is how Torment currently working require you to immobilize the target to get maximum damage, and your kit lacks any sources of immobilization or long stuns and knock downs, meaning that you have no way to get the higher damage from steam, and here already you are not outside staff's design space, Staff flat out does much better job in this, instead of steam staff has small high damage AoEs which hurt more if the target is immobilized and stunned, which staff has access to many such immob and stun distance control skills like E5 E4 A5 A3 E2 W4 etc.. not only that, this distance control is both its defensive run and gun style but also the way lava font and W2 do their dmg through sniping the already immobile target

2-The unblockable bounces while maybe fun is the pinnacle of gimmick, not many players have blocks let alone enemy mobs, so you have a class entirely built around interacting with a small small sliver of gw2 block-able mobs and classes

3-Prevention is Aegis + pure of heart trait from the guardian, and is even more OP by the fact it it stacks.

1- steam was suggested way back before torment was changed.... 

1b- staff is so focused on control that it's not fun for people who just want to DPS at range, and this particular variation of longbow brainstorming is focused on damage. the steam effect is to provide synergy in groups, and allows more damage when grouped up with party members who bring immobilize. just like combo effects. they are better when you have large groups contributing to the combos. the concept behind this iteration of the longbow is damage first, everything else second. btw, ranger longbow works just fine as a "one-shot" soulbeast build, even though many people call it gimmicky.

2-the "unblockable bounces" as you misnamed them, are alternate damage when the main damage of the skill is blocked. and generally speaking, is less than the main damage of the skill when said skill is not blocked. it's based on GW1 skills that ANET made. you may call it gimmicky, but it's something that's different and "new" to GW2. i can call hammer 3 a gimmick, too, as matter of fact, i can call the entire Catalyst e-spec a gimmick, but that doesn't change that Anet made a third frontline espec for elementalist.

3- prevention stacks, but each stack is removed from a single damage pulse, unlike certain warrior and herald heal skills, that convert all damage for a time-period into healing.

 

since you seem to call everything a gimmick, i think i'll just block you now and ignore anything else you have to say. please feel free to continue your melee-only rant. just don't expect me to listen or care.

[Avatara.1042]

5 hours ago, volca.7234 said:

 

The ele whining thread is two blocks down, read the thread opening post before you reply.

Like the one in Dragon's dogma? same but then i remembered that i really only used the daggers on it, and the elemental bow was nothing but a fire exploding arrows machine... even in dragon's dogma it was meh at best

 

Already replied to this one at:

 

 

 

Couple of huge problems turning this Spec into an anti synergy nightmare:

1- And this is the killer for me, steam which is how Torment currently working require you to immobilize the target to get maximum damage, and your kit lacks any sources of immobilization or long stuns and knock downs, meaning that you have no way to get the higher damage from steam, and here already you are not outside staff's design space, Staff flat out does much better job in this, instead of steam staff has small high damage AoEs which hurt more if the target is immobilized and stunned, which staff has access to many such immob and stun distance control skills like E5 E4 A5 A3 E2 W4 etc.. not only that, this distance control is both its defensive run and gun style but also the way lava font and W2 do their dmg through sniping the already immobile target

2-The unblockable bounces while maybe fun is the pinnacle of gimmick, not many players have blocks let alone enemy mobs, so you have a class entirely built around interacting with a small small sliver of gw2 block-able mobs and classes

3-Prevention is Aegis + pure of heart trait from the guardian, and is even more OP by the fact it it stacks.

1- Comparing ele's ranged vs melee with other specs is fundamentally wrong headed due to the fact that ele's weapons are 4 weapons in one and its meta game is entirely different

a- In your examples, Mesmer defensive metagame is all about generating clones to dupe players into attacking them and distort, and virtuoso generally reducing the survivalbility of mesmer by taking away their clones and distort for a block bladesong that can be bypassed with unblockable skills and getting their distort by sacrificing utility slots and dmg traits allowing less DPS gap between ranged and melee due to lack of sustain.

b- DH doesn't lose much damage because the weapon has not much utility out side of CC, and most of the big numbers come from its symbol not true shot, a symbol with a boon that DH lacks "due to F2 not giving endurance like core" and a healing "if speced" so a DH to achieve its dmg has to choose to either use the symbol at range to gets it range DPS or at melee to get the boon and healing without the dmg, or use it while the enemy is in melee range for all sacrificing the long range itself

c- Condi slb sacrifice sustain in the form of having no pet sacrificing half of its HP and a second target for enemies for it to gets its dmg, etc.. etc..,

d- Ele unlike all of these cannot and should not sacrifice its sustain in the kit itself, because it would be boring, 4 dps attunment ele is BORING, Even our most glass cannon kits like scepter-dagger and dagger-dagger (excluding weaver) they got at least 5 sustain skills in each set between evades, blinds, weakness or vigor, healing etc..  and thats fun


2-The hammer isn't dealing the same DPS at range the same as Scepter because hammer has waaaaaaaay more sustain than scepter, scepter depending on how you count it has 5 sustain skills"E3, E2, A3, W3, F3", while Hammer has 6 NOT COUNTING any combos into jade orbs water and earth fields "E2, E4, E3, A5, A4, W5, W4, W3", with water field into account we add "F5, E5" not counting traits stability or hardened auras or aura effects in general, its safe to say that having access to 2 mag auras is kinda neet

3-which bring the other topic, the "no gap closer" and "" no jumping between melee and ranged"",

a-Hammer earth has many long range shutdowns by having it entire purpose built for the utter inhalation or projectiles with its E2, E4, E4-aura and any E5 combo for another mag aura, granted not all ranged DPS is projectiles based

 

b- For that there is another 2 gap closers, aboutface A4 and W4 and stability to make sure you reach there unhindered, and having your gab closer being a heal is perfect for catalyst because its a leap and water fields exists, its meant to be used at a low HP to keep its unique identity of being the only sustain bruiser weapon in ele's hands, evident by the fact that it heals for 4500ish base with 700ish FOR EACH foe struck, add to that a good 1300ish water field combo through water jade sphere and you looking for AT LEAST 6500 healing which is on par with a healing skill WITH ONE ENEMY ONLY, with 5 enemies the number jumps to 9300 which is higher than all other ele's weapon heals not counting other water field combos or signet/sootheing water augment etc..

The fact that melee is rewarded with higher DPS because you put yourself at risk using air and fire doesn't mean using them at range is a meme, it means much like the DH longbow symbol, that you have a choice between choosing the melee risk or keep safe at distance, all fully ranged weapons can still do their max DPS in melee, what makes them ranged is the fact that they have the ability of dealing the same dmg at lower risk from afar

Sceptre + offhand >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Hammer sustain.

Please stop pretending you know how Hammer works (and staff), it is really sad.

Edited March 19, 2022 by Avatara.1042

[volca.7234]

4 hours ago, Avatara.1042 said:

Sceptre + offhand >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Hammer sustain.

Please stop pretending you know how Hammer works (and staff), it is really sad.

Wow didn't know fresh air ele was a tank class!!! thanks bro!, in all seriousness lets see first we will see quantity, then we will switch to quality of these sustain options:

Quantity:

Scepter+focus: (A heal, 2 blinds, Vigor, toughness bounce) + (2 projectile mitigation, an Invuln, an aura if speced) + combo finishers resulting in a heal when water field is active (2+2)

scepter+dagger: (A heal, 2 blinds, Vigor, toughness bounce) +(an evade, a heal condi cleanse, an aura)  + combo finishers resulting in a heal when water field is active (2+2)

Hammer: (A heal that scale with target number, a condi cleanse scaling with target number, earth orb bonus, water orb bonus, a block resulting in barrier and aura, 2 projectile mitigation) + projectile finishers resulting in a heal (4)

 

Quality:-

Scepter: 1.8k heal with regen(meaning condi clenase if speced), toughness bonus is nice, the 2 combo finishers cannot heal you while ranged unless you sacrifice their dmg or sacrifice the range so you get both the dmg and the healing

Focus: The de facto sustain off hand weapon, invuln and nice anti projectile skills, other than that not much 

Off hand Dagger: 1.5k heal that cleanse condis which is nice, ice arua is good and can be transumated for 0.05k healing and regen

Hammer: ahem A 4,659 HEAL + 776 FOR EACH TARGET STRUCK + A LEAP THAT COMBOS INTO A WATER FIELD FOR 1300 healing, at 20sec cooldown, good anti projectile mag aura on E4 and projectile block on E2, earth and fire blast combos are melee and thus no sacrifice in dmg or range to get the healing out of them

 

At this point i doubt you know what water combos are tbh because you don't take into account water combos at all..

7 hours ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

1- steam was suggested way back before torment was changed.... 

1b- staff is so focused on control that it's not fun for people who just want to DPS at range, and this particular variation of longbow brainstorming is focused on damage. the steam effect is to provide synergy in groups, and allows more damage when grouped up with party members who bring immobilize. just like combo effects. they are better when you have large groups contributing to the combos. the concept behind this iteration of the longbow is damage first, everything else second. btw, ranger longbow works just fine as a "one-shot" soulbeast build, even though many people call it gimmicky.

2-the "unblockable bounces" as you misnamed them, are alternate damage when the main damage of the skill is blocked. and generally speaking, is less than the main damage of the skill when said skill is not blocked. it's based on GW1 skills that ANET made. you may call it gimmicky, but it's something that's different and "new" to GW2. i can call hammer 3 a gimmick, too, as matter of fact, i can call the entire Catalyst e-spec a gimmick, but that doesn't change that Anet made a third frontline espec for elementalist.

3- prevention stacks, but each stack is removed from a single damage pulse, unlike certain warrior and herald heal skills, that convert all damage for a time-period into healing.

 

since you seem to call everything a gimmick, i think i'll just block you now and ignore anything else you have to say. please feel free to continue your melee-only rant. just don't expect me to listen or care.

1- I called it a gimmick, because it is and you yourself in your own thread did so as well so no need to get offended, there are not many blocks in the game to justify block bonus gameplay, where is the gimmick in catalyst? All its kit works all the time it doesn't rely on mechanics that are rare it rely on combos which is a core gameplay function of gw2 combat. 

2-DPS only ranged weapon is undoable on ele due to the fact "unlike ranger" that you don't have any other weapon to pair it with, even ranger longbow has a push back to control its distance, cripple aoe to make the ranged portion of the fight last longer and a stealth, and most importantly ranger has a second weapon to swap to that can have sustain in its kit, so even on ranger, longbow isn't purely DPS

3- Again this boon design space already been taken by aegis+pure of heart

See you space cowboy

7 hours ago, scarlettmoonbabe.6932 said:

hammer is boring 🙂 would have prefered greatsword 

Read the thread, its not about aesthetics or how cool another weapon is, by saying greatsword you already agree with the thread that a pure ranged weapon is not doable.

[scarlettmoonbabe.6932]

1 hour ago, volca.7234 said:

Wow didn't know fresh air ele was a tank class!!! thanks bro!, in all seriousness lets see first we will see quantity, then we will switch to quality of these sustain options:

Quantity:

Scepter+focus: (A heal, 2 blinds, Vigor, toughness bounce) + (2 projectile mitigation, an Invuln, an aura if speced) + combo finishers resulting in a heal when water field is active (2+2)

scepter+dagger: (A heal, 2 blinds, Vigor, toughness bounce) +(an evade, a heal condi cleanse, an aura)  + combo finishers resulting in a heal when water field is active (2+2)

Hammer: (A heal that scale with target number, a condi cleanse scaling with target number, earth orb bonus, water orb bonus, a block resulting in barrier and aura, 2 projectile mitigation) + projectile finishers resulting in a heal (4)

 

Quality:-

Scepter: 1.8k heal with regen(meaning condi clenase if speced), toughness bonus is nice, the 2 combo finishers cannot heal you while ranged unless you sacrifice their dmg or sacrifice the range so you get both the dmg and the healing

Focus: The de facto sustain off hand weapon, invuln and nice anti projectile skills, other than that not much 

Off hand Dagger: 1.5k heal that cleanse condis which is nice, ice arua is good and can be transumated for 0.05k healing and regen

Hammer: ahem A 4,659 HEAL + 776 FOR EACH TARGET STRUCK + A LEAP THAT COMBOS INTO A WATER FIELD FOR 1300 healing, at 20sec cooldown, good anti projectile mag aura on E4 and projectile block on E2, earth and fire blast combos are melee and thus no sacrifice in dmg or range to get the healing out of them

 

At this point i doubt you know what water combos are tbh because you don't take into account water combos at all..

1- I called it a gimmick, because it is and you yourself in your own thread did so as well so no need to get offended, there are not many blocks in the game to justify block bonus gameplay, where is the gimmick in catalyst? All its kit works all the time it doesn't rely on mechanics that are rare it rely on combos which is a core gameplay function of gw2 combat. 

2-DPS only ranged weapon is undoable on ele due to the fact "unlike ranger" that you don't have any other weapon to pair it with, even ranger longbow has a push back to control its distance, cripple aoe to make the ranged portion of the fight last longer and a stealth, and most importantly ranger has a second weapon to swap to that can have sustain in its kit, so even on ranger, longbow isn't purely DPS

3- Again this boon design space already been taken by aegis+pure of heart

See you space cowboy

Read the thread, its not about aesthetics or how cool another weapon is, by saying greatsword you already agree with the thread that a pure ranged weapon is not doable.

HAMMER IS BORING, I WOULD HAVE PREFERED GREATSWORD XD

[Avatara.1042]

Fresh Air Sceptre will last much, much longer than the equivalent Hammer build.  Also, there is no such thing as an 'earth field', earth F5 is a POISON field.

Stop trying to be some weird pseudo-intellectual, like some first year uni student.  It is sad.

[volca.7234]

2 hours ago, Avatara.1042 said:

Fresh Air Sceptre will last much, much longer than the equivalent Hammer build.  Also, there is no such thing as an 'earth field', earth F5 is a POISON field.

Stop trying to be some weird pseudo-intellectual, like some first year uni student.  It is sad.

... Its clear by earth field i mean earth jade orb that gives protection which is sustain, and if we count weakness as sustain the earth jade orb's poison field can dish lots of it with combos

Also didn't think that talking about game classes is what pass as "trying to be intellectual" guess i gotta smoke a pipe and wear a one-eye glasses before posting in this thread then

 

4 hours ago, scarlettmoonbabe.6932 said:

HAMMER IS BORING, I WOULD HAVE PREFERED GREATSWORD XD

...Again please read the thread, if you think hammer is bad on the basis of aesthetic thats your own taste and by god no one has the right to say no to you lmao, we are here in this thread talking about weapon gameplay design

[scarlettmoonbabe.6932]

15 minutes ago, volca.7234 said:

... Its clear by earth field i mean earth jade orb that gives protection which is sustain, and if we count weakness as sustain the earth jade orb's poison field can dish lots of it with combos

Also didn't think that talking about game classes is what pass as "trying to be intellectual" guess i gotta smoke a pipe and wear a one-eye glasses before posting in this thread then

 

...Again please read the thread, if you think hammer is bad on the basis of aesthetic thats your own taste and by god no one has the right to say no to you lmao, we are here in this thread talking about weapon gameplay design

i am 100% talking about the weapon and how it functions. i hate hammer on every single class and when i found out about catalyst i was big dissapointed but i held onto some hope in case it was better than i thought, after seeing how awful it felt during the beta, i still held hope that they would make at least a few changes to make it FEEL good to use. the truth is that hammer is slow and clumsy, without those orbs, what does it actually have? would have prefered something like the mesmer greatsword that has some actual range to it, like at least the auto attacks being 900 or something. i wouldnt even care about hammer dragging the class down if the orb mechanic happened on atunement swap or something, so i could run daggers and use the orbs and call it good. the traits are a total snoozefest, augments are a snoozefest, the jade sphere is a snoozefest, and hammer is a snoozefest. to me, mechanically. i like the spinny orbs though. just wish i didnt have to use hammer for them. the quickness is nice but literally any other class with quickness has much easier access to it. i'm 100% convinced catalyst is for hardcore masochists xD

edit: the hammer that you get for unlocking the spec i find actually very aesthetically pleasing to look at, the skills are ok too i guess as far as visuals go

Edited March 20, 2022 by scarlettmoonbabe.6932

[Infusion.7149]

Volca, please stop confusing PVE numbers with PVP/WVW numbers.
You wrote the following:
 

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1- Comparing ele's ranged vs melee with other specs is fundamentally wrong headed due to the fact that ele's weapons are 4 weapons in one and its meta game is entirely different

a- In your examples, Mesmer defensive metagame is all about generating clones to dupe players into attacking them and distort, and virtuoso generally reducing the survivalbility of mesmer by taking away their clones and distort for a block bladesong that can be bypassed with unblockable skills and getting their distort by sacrificing utility slots and dmg traits allowing less DPS gap between ranged and melee due to lack of sustain.

b- DH doesn't lose much damage because the weapon has not much utility out side of CC, and most of the big numbers come from its symbol not true shot, a symbol with a boon that DH lacks "due to F2 not giving endurance like core" and a healing "if speced" so a DH to achieve its dmg has to choose to either use the symbol at range to gets it range DPS or at melee to get the boon and healing without the dmg, or use it while the enemy is in melee range for all sacrificing the long range itself

c- Condi slb sacrifice sustain in the form of having no pet sacrificing half of its HP and a second target for enemies for it to gets its dmg, etc.. etc..,

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Hammer: ahem A 4,659 HEAL + 776 FOR EACH TARGET STRUCK + A LEAP THAT COMBOS INTO A WATER FIELD FOR 1300 healing, at 20sec cooldown, good anti projectile mag aura on E4 and projectile block on E2, earth and fire blast combos are melee and thus no sacrifice in dmg or range to get the healing out of them

It's only that high in PVE and in PVE you are using it as part of the damage rotation or as a gap closer. It isn't available to resustain if you use it as a gap closer and/or damage, which is why it's worse than say cleansing wave or water globe on tempest for example. More importantly in a team setting with instadown mechanics it is about as useless as anything that isn't a block/invuln and the skills on other weapons also heal others (even on sword weaver).

In addition, the hammer right now functions more akin to a 2 weapon class but without the advantage of 900 range on weapon swap, only 600. Nothing written here changes that. Even warrior mainhand axe throws 900 range. Keep in mind your "projectile blocks" are meaningless in WVW especially, the meta is and has been non-projectile (i.e. COR/Inspiring Reinforcement/Phase Smash, symbols, wells, lava font, meteor) and has been since at least POF with the introduction of firebrands. Even in PVE most things can't be projectile blocked.

edit: Your idea of "flow" is meaningless as unless you are doing something that requires getting off the target (in which case more range is superior) you would not move from melee and then the solution would be to give the gap closer 900 range to return to the target and making all 600 ranged hammer skills to 900 range. This is how warrior greatsword, ranger greatsword, and scrapper hammer work. There's nothing stopping them from implementing a damage bonus for hitting autos in melee on air/fire as well.

I tested it in WVW last beta and there's been no change since then as far as hammer ranged pressure and there's even a test by someone else in PVE, the range pressure on staff is higher than on hammer. In PVE I've played catalyst up until the nerf March 15.

I'm also unsure how someone is supposed to upkeep hammer orbs in any competitive scenario, people already struggle doing so in PVE.

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edit2: your claim about DH is incorrect, look at this log and also consider standing in Hunter's Ward will get you killed in WVW way faster than hard CC will due to stability

https://dps.report/yLI2-20210515-223426_golem

• Whirling Wrath is 20% of the damage
• Symbol of Energy (longbow) is 11%
• Symbol of Resolution (greatsword) is 11%
• True Shot is 9%

The claim about virtuoso is baffling as you can play dagger with focus + greatsword in PVE. Sword offhand phantasm makes up less than 9% of the benchmark for dagger with sword + greatsword (39K).

Soulbeast doesn't sacrifice sustain at all unless you are playing openworld or something and use a pet for aggro. You gain every attribute while merged  and natural healing in beast mastery as well as predator's cunning if you don't run beastmastery.

Edited March 20, 2022 by Infusion.7149