Can we please improve water attunement?

[Markus.6415]

On 6/30/2022 at 6:12 PM, Kyon.9735 said:

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. 

 

Ehhw.... please no barrier to water attunement, that's in no way fitting. Give it a stronger regen boon maybe or some small heal splashes on critical hit? Barrier could see good fit in the earth traitline though, since the GM traits are all a bit meh. Removing the cripple on attuning to earth and let it spread some barrier to 5 targets (scaling with healing power). Also some barrier to warhorn eart 4 or 5 could be great.

So a healtempest isn't completely locked out of health support when leaving water attunement. Stronger protection, stronger regeneration + the soothing mist would help a lot.

[Bleikopf.2491]

1 hour ago, Markus.6415 said:

Barrier could see good fit in the earth traitline though, since the GM traits are all a bit meh.

Agree, Barrier fits thematically more to Earth.

1 hour ago, Markus.6415 said:

Removing the cripple on attuning to earth and let it spread some barrier to 5 targets (scaling with healing power).

For some reason, spreading Barrier ended up in Weaver. Seems like they listened to the complaint that Weaver is too selfish, but.. what?

1 hour ago, Markus.6415 said:

So a healtempest isn't completely locked out of health support when leaving water attunement.

I think that comes back to wanting to spread Water's identities a bit around. Having Water attunement be the sole source for condi cleanse and healing and regen is.. restricting.
And now we got Fire as a source for condi cleanse as well, and it just.. feels great!

There's nothing against having Water be the "oh kitten, I need healing" attunement. But It'd be helpful for the class if we didn't have to access our "I need healz NOW" attunement to fix some boo-boos just because we are so low on defenses.
On the other hand, I think spreading the sustain also takes some pressure from water and would allow for more interesting weapon skills more based on control (chill) or damage (vulnerability).

Fire already got the condi cleanses.
Earth is a great candidate for more barriers as a more pro-active kind of ""heal"".
There might be merit in looking for something in Air, maybe slight regen to keep some self-sustain up for power builds.
The flavour would be something like "refreshing winds".

[Kozumi.5816]

On 6/30/2022 at 6:46 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.

Why shouldn't going into water be good for healing, though?

The issue is autoattacks and healing power scaling.

[AliamRationem.5172]

55 minutes ago, Kozumi.5816 said:

Why shouldn't going into water be good for healing, though?

The issue is autoattacks and healing power scaling.

I meant more that the original concept of water being only about healing is problematic.  It makes utilizing the attunement a damage loss which is not a penalty other classes suffer when utilizing the healing skills they're balanced around.  I'm not suggesting they remove healing and CC from water attunement, just that it shouldn't be a negative for the class.

[Einlanzer.1627]

On 7/2/2022 at 6:02 PM, volca.7234 said:

"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.

 

 

 

I don't think you understand what the argument is or why it's being requested.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

There is clearly a lot of things to do with Chill ( staff ice field, focus #4, dagger  #3, signet of water, ice elemental, glyph of storm, frost aura, ... but also for e-specs with primordial stance, the shattering augment, the frost aura shout...).

 

Why not add a trait on Chill ? Chill inflict burning (with icd), chill steal life , increase  ferocity against chilled foes, chilled foes heal allies arround ...

Edited July 7, 2022 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

In my ideal scenario the damage from water would be increased significantly (nearly doubled) in PVE.  Not to make water the DPS element, but to make it far less punishing when using water attunement to self-heal.  Catalyst has already proven that it isn't a problem to make water do damage, so this treatment should be given to every other weapon. 

[Einlanzer.1627]

On 7/3/2022 at 7:40 AM, Bleikopf.2491 said:

Agree, Barrier fits thematically more to Earth.

For some reason, spreading Barrier ended up in Weaver. Seems like they listened to the complaint that Weaver is too selfish, but.. what?

I think that comes back to wanting to spread Water's identities a bit around. Having Water attunement be the sole source for condi cleanse and healing and regen is.. restricting.
And now we got Fire as a source for condi cleanse as well, and it just.. feels great!

There's nothing against having Water be the "oh kitten, I need healing" attunement. But It'd be helpful for the class if we didn't have to access our "I need healz NOW" attunement to fix some boo-boos just because we are so low on defenses.
On the other hand, I think spreading the sustain also takes some pressure from water and would allow for more interesting weapon skills more based on control (chill) or damage (vulnerability).

Fire already got the condi cleanses.
Earth is a great candidate for more barriers as a more pro-active kind of ""heal"".
There might be merit in looking for something in Air, maybe slight regen to keep some self-sustain up for power builds.
The flavour would be something like "refreshing winds".

 

This is pretty much exactly in line with how I perceive the problems with the class and what they need to do to spruce it up. The bottom line is that eles are almost forced to use all four attunements, but the attunements don't flow naturally with each other and instead are over-specialized, creating these abrupt cliffs in things like damage & healing that make the class needlessly difficult to play and also just clunkly in how it feels to play.

It. needs. to. flow. by reducing the level of specialization embedded in each attunement and allowing them to overlap in a more natural way. This is not-coincidentally why staff in particular feels awful, because it's the worst example of this problem.  It's flat-out alarming to me that devs have gone almost a decade without even realizing this, let alone addressing it. 

Water needs to be capable of dealing respectable (not great) DPS, and a more minor form of healing needs to be available from another attunement, likely Air. 

 

Edited July 27, 2022 by Einlanzer.1627

[FrozenEve.6875]

Thanks everyone for the wonderful comments on this post. Some really creative discussions and I was taken aback by how easy it could be to male the water traitline more interesting. Reaper was able to functionally utilise chill as a damage applying condition. Why can't elementalist have something similar or play into vulnerability a bit more. 

 

The core fact is that playing attunement swap elementalist feels bad because of how overspecialised the attunements are. There are so many ideas the devs could get looking at how water attunement skills from GW1 performed. Why not have water weapon skills that deal bonus AoE damage if a target is already inflicted with chill à la fire ele's bonus damage with burning. 

 

The class fantasy of a water elementalist being able to perform respectable damage is just one that I feel is sorely missing from the game. 

[Sifu.9745]

Water Attunement should be healing and support only. NO dmg at all! Now only Staff do some nice healing in Watter, all other weapons are more or less doing nothing in Water: very low dmg and some useless defensive buffs + one or two useless healing spells.

Just take a look at Firebrand  for example, that's how healing and support should look like: F2 (Tome of Resolve) provides only healing and support spells, no dmg and stupid Vulnerability at all. Why Elementalist has to do dmg in Water attunement is beyond my understanding.

Edited August 20, 2022 by Sifu.9745

[William.3871]

2 hours ago, Sifu.9745 said:

Water Attunement should be healing and support only. NO dmg at all! Now only Staff do some nice healing in Watter, all other weapons are more or less doing nothing in Water: very low dmg and some useless defensive buffs + one or two useless healing spells.

Jut take a look at Firebrand as example, that's how healing and support should look like: F2 (Tome of Resolve) provides only healing and support spells, no dmg and stupid Vulnerability at all. Why Elementalist has to do dmg in Water attunement is beyond my understanding.

say you never played GW1 or have some understand of the game without saying it.

[Markus.6415]

On 7/26/2022 at 9:28 PM, Einlanzer.1627 said:

Water needs to be capable of dealing respectable (not great) DPS, and a more minor form of healing needs to be available from another attunement, likely Air. 

Mh... Air feels wrong for heals to me. But a "minor form of healing" I'd really like to see would be more barrier on Earth.

[FrozenEve.6875]

On 8/20/2022 at 4:14 PM, Sifu.9745 said:

Water Attunement should be healing and support only. NO dmg at all! Now only Staff do some nice healing in Watter, all other weapons are more or less doing nothing in Water: very low dmg and some useless defensive buffs + one or two useless healing spells.

Just take a look at Firebrand  for example, that's how healing and support should look like: F2 (Tome of Resolve) provides only healing and support spells, no dmg and stupid Vulnerability at all. Why Elementalist has to do dmg in Water attunement is beyond my understanding.

Water elementalists had respectable damage and were capable of some fantastic AoE and CC in GW1 and that is a class fantasy still missing from our current elementalist class in GW2. With the introduction of bleed conditions in the water attunement for pistols, I'm huffing copium that the design team might be slowly working in the back to allow for single or dual attunement options in the future that aren't pigeon holed by role. 

Just let me throw tsunami waves and ice shards in end game content without it hamstringing my squad, @Cal Cohen.2358!

[Mascarun.7910]

Weird to see an old thread revived, but I want to give my opinion on this without relating it to GW1 which I never played: 

I understand that the game is 10+ years old and would never allow such a drastic change, but I believe elementalist's elements should have never been pigeonholed into the roles they are in now. Water, for example, has anyone seen the destructive force of water? Tsunamis? Floods? Including ice, avalanches and blizzards? We could never have a class fantasy that properly utilises water as a physically powerful force because no one is willing to move past the mindset of "water should be healing and support only". If I were to redesign elementalist, I would focus the core specialisations such that they would strengthen the properties of all elements to allow for them to potentially "do anything", i.e. Power damage, Condition damage, Support, Self-defence and Arcane. In this case, further thought should be given to how the elements interact so that there would still be purpose for swapping attunements aside from having the equivalent of 4 weapons: for example, using water (ice) attacks makes enemies vulnerable to fire and viceversa. There's so much more that could have been done, but now there's nothing more than can be done because they aren't going to change how a spec works fundamentally after so many years 😔

[Phyrak.7260]

Considering that the water line has a vulnerability trait - it'd be nice if said abilities actually inflicted some reasonable vulnerability.

Perhaps in tandem with chill to make chill a little more dangerous.