Will elementalists ever get to swap weapons in combat?

[Silverpoopoo.1476]

As an ele main since launch, this is something I have wanted for years.

Nothing sucks more than entering combat with a staff equipped, only to have the enemy get up close and personal and now you can't swap to your dagger/dagger combo like you want to.

Although it would increase complexity of rotations available to us, it would actually be a huge buff to elementalists because we could use the best skills from 2 different weapons as our rotation instea of all the skills from just 1.

[Salt Mode.3780]

Simple answer is no.

Reason for this is ele already has 20 skills per set skills 5 per 4 element, allowing them to swap weapons will give them a total of 40 skills to swap, i cannot begin to explain how strong this is in competitive play.

Oh and how hard it is to balance. 

Edited July 1, 2022 by Salt Mode.3780

[Gorani.7205]

Simple answer is no 😉

Reason for this is that Firebrand has weapon swap + three tomes for a total of 25 skills on a wide variety of ranged options that clearly is too hard to balance for Anet and therefore hasn't been really dealt with in years.
Anet tried with a profession with slightly lesser skills (Necros) and found a sweet spot with Shroud skills where rolling over the keyboard with your head solved all damage, condition and boon problems the past years.
Catalyst hammer gave your an awesome mix of ranged and melee skills across your attunements that are so magnificent and exalting to use in a divine rotation, both easy for non elite piano players and fun for the casual player to execute, I have no idea why you could think that more skills would solve any problems...

** deep breath & end of sarcasm **

[Fueki.4753]

If there was ever going to be an elite specialization that locked Elementalist into one attunement while on combat, that elite specialization might give Elementalist access to weapon swap in combat.

However, it appears that Arenanet likes their attunement switching far too much to even consider such a specialization.

[Zunki.3916]

49 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

If there was ever going to be an elite specialization that locked Elementalist into one attunement while on combat, that elite specialization might give Elementalist access to weapon swap in combat.

However, it appears that Arenanet likes their attunement switching far too much to even consider such a specialization.

The problem here are also traitlines. They are still very attunement centric and locking them out would force you into arcane+1 element.

[Fueki.4753]

15 minutes ago, Zunki.3916 said:

The problem here are also traitlines. They are still very attunement centric and locking them out would force you into arcane+1 element.

In my opinion, the whole issue with the "while in X Attunement" trait requirement should have been removed 10 years ago. Why should my traits only be active 25% of the time? This is not an issue on other professions either. There might be some issues with traits like Stone Heart, but that can be circumvented by slapping on an iCD in sPvP.

But Elementalists focussing on one Element, as most Elementalist builds were played in GW1, is something that ought to be supported and encouraged with at least one elite specialization. A specialization, that ideally doesn't involve a mechanic that is just busywork resource managing.

Edited July 1, 2022 by Fueki.4753

[Qori.9671]

Before staff was nerfed into the ground it was an ok trade off to have really strong ranged damage and if you let someone get all up in your face that was your fault , but now there has been so many teleports and gap closers and super speed added to stuff it is just not possible even if it did get all of it's damage nerfs reverted.  I think Condi staff Tempest with Wizard runes when staff #3 and signet of fire and arcane surge + glyph and arcane power still had the higher burn stacks was one of my favorite build in PvP. It let you do respectable ranged damage , but you could pop all those instand CD's and Overload fire if anyone got up in your face and get a ton of burn on them . Enough that they would back the hell off or die.  And no one ever expects to get condi bombed by a staff ele haha. 

[Ragnar.4257]

21 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

In my opinion, the whole issue with the "while in X Attunement" trait requirement should have been removed 10 years ago. Why should my traits only be active 25% of the time? This is not an issue on other professions either. There might be some issues with traits like Stone Heart, but that can be circumvented by slapping on an iCD in sPvP.

But Elementalists focussing on one Element, as most Elementalist builds were played in GW1, is something that ought to be supported and encouraged with at least one elite specialization. A specialization, that ideally doesn't involve a mechanic that is just busywork resource managing.

Many other classes have traits that are tied to a particular weapon, and don't do anything when that weapon isn't equipped. Attunments are the Ele equivalent of weapons, so, it somewhat makes sense that the same treatment gets applied.

Only difference is that with other class' weapons traits, they might be inactive 50% of the time, but Ele attunement traits are down 75% of the time. Could maybe be solved by allowing the trait to 'linger' after leaving the attunement for, say, 5 seconds.

Edited July 2, 2022 by Ragnar.4257

[ATMAvatar.5749]

On 6/30/2022 at 11:09 PM, Salt Mode.3780 said:

Reason for this is ele already has 20 skills per set skills 5 per 4 element, allowing them to swap weapons will give them a total of 40 skills to swap, i cannot begin to explain how strong this is in competitive play.

Oh and how hard it is to balance. 

Given how balance patches go for ele, they'd probably cut damage in half to account for the fact you have twice as many skills available 🙃

[Fueki.4753]

32 minutes ago, Ragnar.4257 said:

Many other classes have traits that are tied to a particular weapon, and don't do anything when that weapon isn't equipped. Attunments are the Ele equivalent of weapons, so, it somewhat makes sense that the same treatment gets applied.

Only difference is that with other class' weapons traits, they might be inactive 50% of the time, but Ele attunement traits are down 75% of the time.

Many of the weapon traits these days do things without their weapon. And none of the weapon traits (except elite specialization proficiencies) are minor traits.

Edited July 2, 2022 by Fueki.4753

[Artyport.2084]

Dreaming of a spec with one attunement 

with an arcane mode that has to be charged up. 
while in arcane mode you are technically attuned to all elements 

 

once charged gain 5 ranged arcane skills 

Mainhand focus is still my personal dream 

 

Option for melee or ranged depending on element

can weapon swap. 

 

lore: Arcanist focus primarily on one element becoming complete masters of that energy. 
In battle they reach a trance like state tapping into raw arcane power.

 

[Stallic.2397]

It would definitely have to be an elite spec. 

 

Player chooses three Traitlines- Elite Spec/First Attunement/Second Attunement. The two Attunements chosen are the weapon skills available. 

2 Attunements per weapon. 20 skills in total

 

Tradeoff-Arcane cannot be chosen. 

 

I've heard good arguments to add a "shroud" weapon set, or whatever you want to call it, to add an additional 5 skills. Preferably I'd choose Arcane- The fifth attunement swap. It'll include chaos fields, chaos auras, and all the other good stuff. 

Edited July 3, 2022 by Stallic.2397

[Qori.9671]

8 hours ago, Ragnar.4257 said:

Could maybe be solved by allowing the trait to 'linger' after leaving the attunement for, say, 5 seconds.

We had something like that originally but it was removed. Lingering elements.  was in the arcane line as the minor I think. 

Edited July 2, 2022 by Qori.9671

[Labjax.2465]

I don't think it would make sense unless (like someone mentioned in here, iirc?) it was a specialization or trait locked to a specific element. The way ele is now, it's already sorta like they have 4 weapons to swap between, just you're range-locked as far as that aspect of it goes. Which is a tradeoff I'm generally fine with. There isn't much benefit I've seen to being able to swap between ranged and melee specifically, in other classes, since the weapon skills don't necessarily match for the same build to begin with. In other words, switching alone may not mean much anyway, if the weapons you're switching between don't synergize.

[crosknight.3041]

would have to be an elite spec that "takes away attunements"
one idea i have is that the attunements become tomes like firebrand tomes mixed with engie kits (no page limit instead all tome casts cost an energy mechanic that builds up while out of tome). when not using an elemental tome your weapon skills are a neutral "arcane" attunement.

[Syronus.7605]

If they go the route of only having elements based on what trait lines are seletected I don't see them creating new skills on each weapon for Arcane, they may instead opt for something similar to how they've done the Bladesworns gunblade and just have 1 set of 5 skills independent of weapon choice.

Edited July 4, 2022 by Syronus.7605

[Ragnarox.9601]

no, but at least they could increase Ele's hp or dmg by 30% at least.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

Elementalist already gets nerfs to all skills whenever there is a newborn e-spec or meme build, so the balance with 2 weapon sets ... ? 🤨
I know elementalist is/feels underwhelming, but each weapons set-up with eelements have great responses for a lot of situations.

 I clearly think it will not help the average elementalist to handle its class;
giving more skills  will just rise up the skill ceiling. Uber players will break the meta with scepter/focus-sword/d and festival of CC+plasmabeam/pyrovortex 👉 "balance to nerf everything by 50%"; while most of elem will still die miserably because they don't have enough hands on the keyboard.

Edited July 7, 2022 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[Downstate.4697]

They would need to implement it in a way that doesnt cause constraints with its design. Locking out attunements is not a viable option. Creating 1 arcane attunement is also not viable.

The best way to do it imo is give them an 18s weapon swap cd. They could have traits that lower this cooldown or an elite that resets the cooldown. The new mechanic is weapon swapping and the design could be built around it.

[Ptolomy.6984]

I think they should do an f5 or a regular weaponswap but what it would do is flip eles skills into a range/melee version of those skills. So the functionality would e the same but the damage and range will adjusted. So staff would become a melee staff and daggers gain 900 range. Now what they could do is for core have this on like a 15 ssec cd but for the elite specs on like a 30 or 35 sec cd. It will fix the stuck in 1 range problem  and also give core an edge albeit a small one over elite specs. Then skills can be balanced around being melee or range and not weird abominations like catalyst hammer or skills doing less dmg than melee because they have slightly more range.

[Salt Mode.3780]

Based on catalyst and the recent balance changes including the balance patches over the years do you think its realistic for them to implement weapon swap for Ele...?

[Eddbopkins.2630]

I would love to see in some kind of new spec the ability to make 2 attunements per weapon set. For example, fire and air can be equipped with scepter/focus, and water and earth would be equipped with staff. That way there will be more variety in weapon sets and combat abilities.

Or dagger/dagger fire and air, and dagger/focus with water and earth.

Edited July 13, 2022 by Eddbopkins.2630

[Serephen.3420]

On 7/8/2022 at 4:41 AM, Ptolomy.6984 said:

I think they should do an f5 or a regular weaponswap but what it would do is flip eles skills into a range/melee version of those skills. So the functionality would e the same but the damage and range will adjusted. So staff would become a melee staff and daggers gain 900 range. Now what they could do is for core have this on like a 15 ssec cd but for the elite specs on like a 30 or 35 sec cd. It will fix the stuck in 1 range problem  and also give core an edge albeit a small one over elite specs. Then skills can be balanced around being melee or range and not weird abominations like catalyst hammer or skills doing less dmg than melee because they have slightly more range.

Maybe a lot of work but for some reason I seriously love that concept. It has the potential to make the spec feel truly unique on all weapon sets not just the elite weapon. 

And has a lot of added gameplay.

Just imaging running melee staff with the ground target aoes being pbaoe and changed in some way. MS more like Vindi's requiem etc.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

I would be okay with a weaponswap on Ele and Engi on like a 60sec cooldown, just so you can swap weapons during long encounters but not gain an advantage in shorter fights.

 

The problem is if you accidentally press the key it would mess you up.

 

I've mained Ele for I think seven years now, and I can tell you that the class would be too powerful with access to two weapons constantly; when properly mastered its already almost unkillable 1v1 in PvP and can solo almost anything in the game in PvE except maybe raids bosses (but I think this has been done too).

 

We really just need more damage, at least 25% more.

Edited July 14, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[pallas.8150]

At this point I don't think it would be OP given the power creep from most other professions. In the case of sword Weaver, it evens the playing field as they are forced into a melee only spec.