Can we please improve water attunement?

[FrozenEve.6875]

This is mostly just a post inspired the latest bunch of changes for elementalist which has deadened my resolve to continue my favourite flavoured class. 

 

Can we please stop with the trope of each element having a particular combat niche such as water being associated with healing? It reduces the amount of fun the class has access to and with gorgeous and deadly water animations from Soo-Won, it just seems so old fashioned and conceptually flawed. Locking damage and healing around particular attunements seems to be doing more harm than good when players are then forced to only spend time in certain attunements.

[soulknight.9620]

Atm water has some nice dps traits in there, but the problem is that other trait lines are just plain better at it. 

[AliamRationem.5172]

10 minutes ago, soulknight.9620 said:

Atm water has some nice dps traits in there, but the problem is that other trait lines are just plain better at it. 

It would help if water had a damage trait option in grandmaster and every weapon had some damage in water attunement instead of just CC, cleansing, and healing.

[soulknight.9620]

15 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

It would help if water had a damage trait option in grandmaster and every weapon had some damage in water attunement instead of just CC, cleansing, and healing.

Well hammer actually does decent dps in water. But yeah, thats the only one. And agree about GM traits. 

[Jski.6180]

Cleansing water is simply out classed by aura clears they need to make cleaning water have more effect with reg (make reg stronger, more out going healing when you have reg, or simply 2 clears per reg.)

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

It is a very nice spec with a lot of synergy with weaver. 
A change Cleansing Water would be a HUGE nerf to Weaver (woven-stride, twist of fade, Swift revenge... ) and arcane (elemental lockdown and the other one).  Unless you make it 2 Conditions 🙂
Still play this build in WvW roaming, I break a lot of mouths : http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAgilZwkYRYmYybl9SB-w

 

Actually I think Soothing Power need a rework, and so may be a "damage buff" trait.  "Inflict vulnerability when entering water" "Chill inflict damage" etc..

Edited June 30, 2022 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[Sunshine.5014]

We should also stop having traits that only applies within an attunement. Many Ele traits have 1/4 uptime, while Mechanist has +33% bleed minor trait with 100% uptime.

[Kyon.9735]

How about giving Water line a GM trait that gives a good amount of barrier similar to Necro's Blood Bank or Scrapper's Impact Savant?

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blood_Bank

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Impact_Savant

 

Reapers can get 10k barrier bursts during shroud and FT Scrappers can consistently get 3k+ barrier in largescale fights where they're hitting multiple targets. If Eles had a trait that gives sufficient barrier then it would open up melee DPS builds. A hefty sum of barrier is one of the reasons why these builds can play full marauder with scholar runes in WvW (on top of their base HP & Armor tier).

1. Do not lock it behind defensive actions like Invigorating Strikes does (gain barrier when dodging). Preferably when dealing damage or receiving healing (including external sources) so it gets better when used in a group/against a group.
2. Make the barrier of this trait scale from offensive stats so support builds can't abuse it. Make it scale properly so it's still serviceable in small scale fights like sPvP.
3. Put it in a core trait line so it can be used by any specialization.
4. Put it in a defensive trait line since it's a defensive trait and it makes sense that builds need to spec for it. I imagine putting it in an offensive trait line would make it too powerful as you can still pick other offensive traits plus another offensive trait line.
5. Rework Weaver's Invigorating Strikes as it already gives barrier on dodges.

I'd welcome more DPS traits in Water but personally I'd prefer having a decent amount of barrier as it would open up Melee DPS builds to cover for Ele's pitiful base HP and Armor for large scale fights. 

 

[Bleikopf.2491]

I don't even think the traits are so much of a problem here.

Every element has a few identities and subidentities. They're making it easy to define Traitlines, and easy to pick traitlines.

I'm much more bothered that those identities choke the actual weapon skills of that attunement. Water heals, and it's the only one that does, and it doesn't do a lot of other stuff.
While it does make sense to give the ""Jack-of-all-Trades"" class some restrictions (attunement cooldowns), this basically takes entire attunements out of some encounters, or even builds.

Especially auto-attacks should at least have a reason to exist. Water isn't just choking, it's drowning.

[JPUlisses.8756]

Increase damage based on barrier % and replace a minor water trait.

[Jski.6180]

12 hours ago, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

It is a very nice spec with a lot of synergy with weaver. 
A change Cleansing Water would be a HUGE nerf to Weaver (woven-stride, twist of fade, Swift revenge... ) and arcane (elemental lockdown and the other one).  Unless you make it 2 Conditions 🙂
Still play this build in WvW roaming, I break a lot of mouths : http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAgilZwkYRYmYybl9SB-w

 

Actually I think Soothing Power need a rework, and so may be a "damage buff" trait.  "Inflict vulnerability when entering water" "Chill inflict damage" etc..

Well on-top of having 1 clear from reg (i guess just +1 more clear for the 2 clears per reg.)

[Zeesh.7286]

Water is fine. Have you looked at arcane? That's the real dumpster fire right there. 

 

 

 

 

[JPUlisses.8756]

9 hours ago, JPUlisses.8756 said:

Increase damage based on barrier % and replace a minor water trait.

Or increase damage while enemy has vunerability but also another extra when you have regen.

 

Also

Cleasing Water along with cleaning 1 condi on regen also improves regen by 20%

Or

Change Smoothing Waters to give regen and give regen upgrade already bundled in. (Kinda a loss of healing still)

Then make more traits to work while you have regen similar to a few mesmer llines. Specially tuned for offensive power.

Edited July 1, 2022 by JPUlisses.8756

[Einlanzer.1627]

On 6/30/2022 at 5:46 AM, AliamRationem.5172 said:

It would help if water had a damage trait option in grandmaster and every weapon had some damage in water attunement instead of just CC, cleansing, and healing.

 

Yes. This is almost 100% a problem of how water skills are designed and has relatively little to do with water traits. It is completely unjustifiable having water's damage coefficients be so low when it's different sets of gear/traits that influence damage, healing, and support.

Water skills should only be a little weaker than other attunements in damage output - not anywhere near as much as they actually are. 

Edited July 1, 2022 by Einlanzer.1627

[Ragnar.4257]

Guardian swaps into Staff/Tome to do healing, while doing less DPS.

Engi swaps into Medkit to do healing, while doing less DPS.

Druid swaps into Staff/CA to do healing, while doing less DPS.

Why would Ele swapping into Water be any different?

Why do you think the idea of swapping in/out of dps/healing 'modes' is bad design? Surely having everything do everything in a mediocre way is far less interesting than having some things be good at one thing and bad at another? 

[Jillian.4502]

I think the problem is not the Attunement itself, cause Vulnerability and Chill are very good conditions to focus on and they do provide extra DPS against enemies who are chilled and vulnerable. 

 

THE PROBLEM I PERSONALLY HAVE WITH THE WATER ELEMENTALIST THOUGH

 

The weapons are too weak in that attunement.

1. Water Dagger is too high risk and "meh" reward. Skill 1 is beautiful to look at, but it often misses the target on its way forward or on its back; 
2. Water Staff is too slow, where you rely heavily on the AoE slow of skill 4 to land your big damage in skill 2 (People forget that Ice Spike actually does good damage and isn't just a combo skill). Skill 1 is too slow even for healer Tempests, and the damage is so minimal it almost feels like you're healing your enemy as well;
3. Water Scepter... Well, it doesn't exist. Skill 2 will never hit a moving target, skill 1 is too slow and does nothing but some symbolic damage and skill 3, being the only thing good about Water Scepter, is a slow as kitten AoE that even support Tempests don't rely on, because it forces us to predict even our allies movement now;
4. Water focus is the best weapon for water. Comet being an AoE 2 seconds Daze and Freezing Gust being a point and click Chill? Very strong in my opinion. But then you have no actual dps on any Main Hand water weapon to follow up, so you're forced to use the Focus skills and immediately change to Air or Fire. 

•  

[Jillian.4502]

I think some weapons, like Dagger, could be reworked to be an aggressive DPS focused weapon. Instead of Healing in skill 2, make it inflict chill per tick and do more damage to chilled enemies. 

And on other hand, make some other weapons, like staff, be full support oriented. Make Water Blast target allies only, remove its damage and double its healing on the main target + doing half as much healing in an AoE around the target. Make Healing Rain provide shields per tick, increasing the shield value per condition cleansed. 

[Einlanzer.1627]

1 hour ago, Ragnar.4257 said:

Guardian swaps into Staff/Tome to do healing, while doing less DPS.

Engi swaps into Medkit to do healing, while doing less DPS.

Druid swaps into Staff/CA to do healing, while doing less DPS.

Why would Ele swapping into Water be any different?

Why do you think the idea of swapping in/out of dps/healing 'modes' is bad design? Surely having everything do everything in a mediocre way is far less interesting than having some things be good at one thing and bad at another? 

 

Have you ever actually done an analysis on these weapons? Because I think you'll be surprised. Yes, duh, a healing set should do less damage. But there are multiple convoluting problems here. The two most important are:

- elementalists lack weapon swap and are designed around accessing all four of their attunements. Other classes can easily omit healing sets from their builds when they aren't spec'd for healing and therefore sets designed for healing never need to be part of their rotations. 

- the damage output on the weapons you mentioned above is roughtly 2-3x the damage output of water at least on staff.  It's the size of that gap that's the problem - not the fact that weapons optimized for healing do less damage. It means that any time you need to access water for its utility, your damage effectively drops to nothing for however long you remain in that attunement. 

Bottom line is your line of thinking is likely the same one the devs have, which is why water AND staff are in such bad shape, and it's built on an undercritical analysis of how these weapons actually do and need to work. The autoattack skill on Water staff is inexcusably weak and its damage literally needs to be buffed by about 200% even if that means nerfing its healing output. Earth isn't much better, either, and even Air needs some love. 

The truth is I think the whole design is erroneous. First of all, water should come much closer to the DPS of other attunements than it does. Secondly, not every single healing skill should be concentrated into water. They should probably transfer at least a small portion of it to another attunement like Air or Earth. 

Edited July 2, 2022 by Einlanzer.1627

[Ragnar.4257]

1 minute ago, Einlanzer.1627 said:

 

Have you ever actually done an analysis on these weapons? Because I think you'll be surprised. Yes, duh, a healing set should do less damage. But there are multiple convoluting problems here. The two most important are:

 

- elementalists lack weapon swap and are designed around accessing all four of their attunements. Other classes can easily omit healing sets from their builds when they aren't spec'd for healing. 

 

- the damage output on the weapons you mentioned above is roughtly 2-3x the damage output of water at least on staff.  It's the size of that gap that's the problem - not the fact that weapons optimized for healing do less damage. It means that any time you need to access water for its utility, your damage effectively drops to nothing for however long you remain in that attunement. 

 

- 

Funny, because the people above you in this thread seemed to be implying that water-attunement should do the exact same DPS as all the others.

You are in agreement with my position, that perhaps some buffs are needed, but that the idea of Water doing the exact same DPS as Fire is silly.

[Dadnir.5038]

I must say that what bother me the most is that even Icebow is affected by this "healing" concept force onto the water element.

[Qori.9671]

Ele's are balanced around being a jack of all trades , but they are not in reality. Their weapons and attunements are most of the time celestial by default but Ele's still have to spec like everyone else leaving a lot of their skills pointless. If someone like Necro was spec'd for power damage they simply wouldn't take something like scepter for their mainhand , Ele's are forced to take the unoptimal weapons because they are baked into half of the skills on their weapons. They could maybe raise the baseline on all of the skills and lower the coefficients that are gained from stats , that would make the jack of all trades master of none theme fit much better. Your stat choices would just make you a little better at what you focus on. 

Edited July 2, 2022 by Qori.9671
typo

[Cindaria.6379]

9 hours ago, Jillian.4502 said:

And on other hand, make some other weapons, like staff, be full support oriented. Make Water Blast target allies only, remove its damage and double its healing on the main target + doing half as much healing in an AoE around the target. Make Healing Rain provide shields per tick, increasing the shield value per condition cleansed. 

Please no! Staff is the only real range weapon ele has. Staff is good as it is, just buff it (at least in PvE).

For the next exp. I wish to have a spec with specialize on one element (or Arcane) but enables weapon swap (swap beween melee and range). Water doesnt need to be full heal.

Edited July 2, 2022 by Cindaria.6379

[volca.7234]

"Lets make water a less effective air attunment surly this will be awesome guys we swear!!!!!"

No, having an access to flat out healing skills on the weapon slot is one of the most unique things about ele, only other classes that can do that on base class are staff rev and staff guardian, Why are people all of a sudden demanding ele to be de-ele-ified, if you hate attunment swapping and attunment themes just play other classes with weapons that got elemental death animations and you will be happy.

 

 

Edited July 2, 2022 by volca.7234

[Qori.9671]

Yeah staff would be fine it is just a 2012 weapon that has been nerfed heavily on top of it being very outdated.  I think tempest water overload is probably the only water skill that is worth the DPS drop by being in water , because it is essentially a second heal slot , nothing else in water on any weapon is worth that. 

[Qori.9671]

I think the old old class design for ele was to have resource management , and swapping attunements was more of a big deal. It locked you out of the last one longer , and so you chose to say "play the healer" and swap to water , and you could use all those skills but they cost mana or w/e , or you could play DPS and swap to fire but that probably stepped on the toes of something like thief , or why would anyone play anything else if an ele is all roles even if they can only be one at a time , so it was scrapped but a lot of the class was already designed and so it still has a lot of that mentality behind a lot of its skills , you can see it in old pre-beta videos where Staff ele's are throwing Phoenix , and dumping something that looks like churrning earth at range with staff. It's almost like FB with it's tomes was them revisting that old alpha ele .