Glyph of Lesser Elementals Should be an Ammo Skill

[FalsePromises.6398]

I recently got into playing elementalist more and I really like the use of Glyph of Lesser Elementals, but I find it awkward that I have to build them up out of combat to have more than one out at a time (barring in long duration fights), not to mention that's not feasible if I'm using a mount. I think Glyph of Lesser Elementals should be an ammo skill, so you can summon more elementals when a battle starts and reduce the rampup time of the skill. As an ammo skill, it will also make less lost value from delaying a Glyph of Lesser Elementals cast to make sure you're in the right attunement (because it'll start recharging the next ammo), which is very useful if you're on an alacrity-dps tempest and need to focus more on overload rotation for alacrity upkeep instead of your elemental upkeep. At least two charges would make the skill a LOT more user friendly, but three charges is probably the optimal number (since three is the maximum number of elementals you can upkeep without alacrity). 

tl;dr making Glyph of Lesser Elementals an ammo skill would streamline the skill's cooldown efficiency in a rotation and make it more immediately useful with less rampup time.

[the krytan assassin.9235]

Glyph of lesser elementals need a complete overhaul. The skill was designed to only summon a single elemental for a short duration (60 sec with 45 sec cd). Now its 120 sec, multiple ele's and a 40 sec cd. The dmge output of Fire elementals is ridiculously high due to burning damage scaling with the caster's condi dmge and expertise ( a single fire ele already deals roughly 800 dps on a condi build). On top of that the ele's are basically immune to all damage in most of the instanced PvE content. 

2 ele's deal already more damage then most of the other alternatives for condi or power (incase you're using flame legion runes). The only reason why not every ele is running this glyph is due to its inconveniences. 

Best fix would probably be to reduce total summons back to 1, make them permanent and to give them an interesting flipover skill instead(like necro pets). 

[FalsePromises.6398]

16 hours ago, the krytan assassin.9235 said:

Best fix would probably be to reduce total summons back to 1, make them permanent and to give them an interesting flipover skill instead(like necro pets). 

As someone who was originally a necromancer main, I am always hesitant to make anything "like necro pets" because necromancer minions are rather unengaging and boring. They're quaint flavor skills, but using them in a serious context (excluding competitive) always feels like a utility slot sacrificed for a puny dps increase with the added uncertainty of bad AI pathing, instead of something that can actually synergize with your build. Even using them in a non-serious context just feels lazy since there's so little you can do to synergize with them, unlike elementalist.

With tempest's free boons on overloads and lots of infrastructure for boons, the elementals fit. Reducing it from 3-4 to 1 elemental would mean cutting out the flexibility of it being capable of summoning a decent composition of elementals too (e.g. throw in an earth elemental to tank among your fire elementals if you're soloing something). I think the flavor of the skill is right, and if there's a problem they can fix the burning scaling instead, like how mechanist's mech uses its own stats.

As it stands, the only problem I see is the problem with mounts and the long ramp time of it... but perhaps that should remain as a balancing factor, implying shorter fights might encourage burstier skills in their place? 

Edited March 4, 2023 by FalsePromises.6398

[Luki Hofi.9058]

I think i have an idea how it could work with ammo type,

3 ammo or 2 if too op

1s cast time
internal cooldown 40s
if ammo count = 3, summoned elemental has 40s duration

if ammo count = 2, summoned elemental has 80s duration

if ammo count = 1, summoned elemental has 120s duration

 

so every 40s a elemental dies, like before.

If one or more dies "to too much damage = before 40s" and you summon with ammo 1 the next elemental has 120s like before so you need to slowly build up to 3 like before

Tell me if i am wrong but that should be mostly like the old behaviour except that you can cast more at the start.

to fix the mount question -> refill the ammo when mounted

 

PVE Only.
I am scared that it could lead to strange things in wvw or pvp.

 

Edited March 9, 2023 by Luki Hofi.9058

[Jski.6180]

I am still of the mind glyph should be part of the arcain line trait and arcan skill should be part of the air line. So by putting lesser elemental on the arcain line you can add in when swap or when overload  you and your elemental gives out the swap boon. At the same time you could add in your elemental applays the condi base off of the atument your in. Making the pet more into an arcain elemental that always shift base off of your atument (and i hope make it an perma pet.)

The elite pet glyph should be something other then an pet.

[Stx.4857]

I enjoy summoning an army of elementals.  I wouldn’t want it changed to just one.  An ammo skill would be okay if you could still maintain five at once.  

Edited March 11, 2023 by Stx.4857

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

I'm revisiting the Elementalist ~ 4-5 times per year. About half the time I end up making a summoner-build. It looks good and I usually try to make it a true summoner build = you support your summons and they work for you. But that never really works out. Their damage output is too low, except for FE and buffing/healing them will not get the job done in an acceptable time.

Last night, I've done an experiment at the golem and abused the skill-refresh, just to see how far I can get. Had an army of 5/5/5/5+1 elementals and the damage was still not very good. I'm glad this is not possible in any other place, due to the massive lagg this would cause.

My main motivation to try on this system is to make an easy Elementalist build that plays like a traditional caster/summoner/nuker from other (MMO)RPGs. Concept is ok, but performance is too bad. Especially for expansion content.

I like how the glyph works at the moment, where you are busy constantly re-summoning the elementals. I would not remove that option, as there has to be one downside of using it. But it should be more beneficial to actually do so. It would be nice to have a boon-share mechanic with the elementals and some kind of reward system. The more elementals you have, the more powerful they become. Maybe with a stat or boon enhancement for each element. So people do not just summon fire elementals only.

Would not even mind the skill being turned into an ammo-skill. But the way the summons currently work, it is wasted potential. Rework/Overhaul would be great.

[FalsePromises.6398]

On 3/11/2023 at 6:52 AM, HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

...About half the time I end up making a summoner-build. It looks good and I usually try to make it a true summoner build = you support your summons and they work for you. But that never really works out. Their damage output is too low, except for FE and buffing/healing them will not get the job done in an acceptable time...

...It would be nice to have a boon-share mechanic with the elementals and some kind of reward system. The more elementals you have, the more powerful they become. Maybe with a stat or boon enhancement for each element...

I think the problem isn't that the summons are too weak or not rewarding, but rather that you're expecting too much from one gimmick utility skill with zero infrastructure for further use. The only truly successful summon builds in this game usually take entire traitlines and multiple utility skills (often an entire utility bar) to be effective. You're asking to compete with those on the basis of a single utility skill. 

Also, despite my low experience with ele, I've found that if you're spending more time buffing and not outputting control or damage, you're already at a disadvantage unless you're specifically playing a boon role for a squad. That's just how ele is: it's low healthpool and low armor with lots of control to compensate. That's why ele duelists are so scary, because of their debilitation, control, interrupts, and opportunism, not so much because of their buffs (at least that's how it was last time I did any kind of PvP). 

To conclude though... no, I don't think they need to buff the elementals or the skill effect-wise. It would be so disrespectful to rangers and mechanists to see ele getting free baked-in boon sharing for minions when they have to either drop another utility slot, constantly spam a heal skill, or take an entire support traitline to get that same effect. Even just a stat boost would be kinda a slap in the face to soulbeast when they... yknow... have to take their pet off the battlefield to get those stat boosts. 

[EphemeralWallaby.7643]

I think I'd like it as an ammo skill.  But, I'd also like it if it were a permanent summons like how necromancers pets function, BUT you can summon one per attunement... and therefore have 4 different elementals following you about, but when any dies you'll have to swap to its matching attunement to resummon.

As much as I love my ele, I'm kinda sad at the lack of summons support in the prof.  Focusing on pets would make for an exciting next elite spec, imo, if we even get any more.

 

~EpWa

Edited March 28, 2023 by EphemeralWallaby.7643

[PolarBear.3961]

A pet focused ele would be so good oh... now im sad...

[EphemeralWallaby.7643]

This is slightly tangential to the OP, but I've started to play around with the glyph of lesser elementals more, and I'm finding I'm enjoying using it.  First I started experimenting with a dps-water build that utilized ice elementals, and that works ok (that was an interesting challenge to make).  But, then I tried it with my current weird d/d air-only weaver tank build... and I think I'm going to continue to use it.  I set it to auto-cast, which makes it easier to cast when off cd.  I'm enjoying running around with multiple mobile turrets that give me near-constant regeneration (trait) and swiftness.  Yeah, I can't really use my mounts, but my swiftness is upgraded (not sure by how much, I'm getting conflicting information on that), so it works out well enough that I don't need them a lot of the time.  Plus, when I off-staff WBs and such, having the air elementals supplement my staff AA looks and feels pretty cool.

 

Still wouldn't say no to the glyph/elementals getting a bit of an upgrade, though.  🙂

 

~EpWa

Edited April 8, 2023 by EphemeralWallaby.7643

[FalsePromises.6398]

On 4/8/2023 at 1:29 PM, EphemeralWallaby.7643 said:

...Yeah, I can't really use my mounts, but my swiftness is upgraded (not sure by how much, I'm getting conflicting information on that), so it works out well enough that I don't need them a lot of the time...

I remember hearing something about swiftness and movement speed boost mechanics. Anyone correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I heard movement speed caps at 400 units per second, and base out of combat movement speed is 300 units per second, while in-combat is 200 units per second. No matter what, you cannot go above 400 units per second, in or out of combat. Base swiftness, giving +33% movement speed, will give you effectively maximized movement speed (in terms of just moving, not leaping or teleporting) while out of combat, because 300*1.33=399 which is basically 400. Superspeed (+100%) will give you max movement speed in combat because 200*(1+1)=400. 

[JPUlisses.8756]

Play minion mancer