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Suggestion: Conjured Weapon recall skill


BenaSPACE.6028

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As it stands, Ele has one major flaw in its conjured weapon skills-- You have to be sure that random people don't pick up your weapons when you drop them; Even though they look enticing, and it's fun to share weapons with other players.

My proposed solution is to have a skill that replaces your conjured weapon skill when cast:

For 30 seconds (or until expended) you have a buff that lets you use a "Recall Weapon" skill which (after a brief cast time, close to the time it takes to pick it up off the ground normally), you can resummon the conjured weapon back into your hand.

 

The only downside is that maybe there'll be an extra thrown in cast of firestorm from the adjacent warrior, or something, but I don't think that would be so bad.

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It's conjured, implying it appears in hand - just do away with second item and extend the duration.

Years ago there was perhaps some utility in providing the weapon to an ally but for the life of me I cannot recall using it that way anymore.

If they don't want to do that then give it an ammo count of two. Simple.

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On 4/1/2023 at 5:17 PM, MarzAttakz.9608 said:

It's conjured, implying it appears in hand - just do away with second item and extend the duration.

Years ago there was perhaps some utility in providing the weapon to an ally but for the life of me I cannot recall using it that way anymore.

If they don't want to do that then give it an ammo count of two. Simple.

I think there's a strong degree of that. Conjure weapon sharing is something that was strong once... too strong, such that all the weapons ended up being completely nerfed. Which hinders their ability to act as a backup weapon for the elementalist in situations where the primary weapon is unsuitable. Removing the second weapon, shortening the cooldown, and reverting some of the nerfs would go a long way to improving elementalist adaptability.

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10 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I think there's a strong degree of that. Conjure weapon sharing is something that was strong once... too strong, such that all the weapons ended up being completely nerfed. Which hinders their ability to act as a backup weapon for the elementalist in situations where the primary weapon is unsuitable. Removing the second weapon, shortening the cooldown, and reverting some of the nerfs would go a long way to improving elementalist adaptability.

Conjure wepons fill only one roll to the point where they cant stand on there own and locking out the ele form its others skills is such an high cost to pay the roll that conja wepon fill should be powerful.

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28 minutes ago, Jski.6180 said:

Conjure wepons fill only one roll to the point where they cant stand on there own and locking out the ele form its others skills is such an high cost to pay the roll that conja wepon fill should be powerful.

Honestly, I'd be okay with the non-elite conjures being a little weaker than a base weapon with the same purpose, for the following reasons:

1. They offer versatility. If conjures were something you could realistically have indefinitely, you could pack fire or frost to use when you need range on an otherwise melee build, and vice versa for air or earth.

2. You can continue to swap attunements without it affecting your skills, which allows you to rotate your attunements to best effect for triggering traits and other mechanics rather than your attunement choice being primarily driven by which weapon skills you want to use next.

3. Your regular weapon skills will still be recharging while using a conjured weapon, allowing you to potentially unload a bunch of long-recharge skills after dropping a conjure, followed by conjuring a new one while they recharge.

YMMV, but IMO conjures should be more like a utility tool or backup weapon than your primary weapon. Currently, though, they don't even really do well with that unless you only need them for short bursts.

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On 4/3/2023 at 11:41 AM, draxynnic.3719 said:

Honestly, I'd be okay with the non-elite conjures being a little weaker than a base weapon with the same purpose, for the following reasons:

1. They offer versatility. If conjures were something you could realistically have indefinitely, you could pack fire or frost to use when you need range on an otherwise melee build, and vice versa for air or earth.

2. You can continue to swap attunements without it affecting your skills, which allows you to rotate your attunements to best effect for triggering traits and other mechanics rather than your attunement choice being primarily driven by which weapon skills you want to use next.

3. Your regular weapon skills will still be recharging while using a conjured weapon, allowing you to potentially unload a bunch of long-recharge skills after dropping a conjure, followed by conjuring a new one while they recharge.

YMMV, but IMO conjures should be more like a utility tool or backup weapon than your primary weapon. Currently, though, they don't even really do well with that unless you only need them for short bursts.

The conja weapons them self dont realy have offer versatility. There is some versatility having the ability to have kind of an combat change from your wepon (that is locked) but the ability to go form melee to ranged using conja weapons seems very lacking. That seems to be more of the issues for conja weapons and because of that they are mostly worthless made even worst with the drop pick up effect.

Frost bow is the long range conja wepon but its also an healing wepon? Hammer is the melee cc wepon that at best is a 1 -2 skill use wepon then thow away. Axe feels like an mostly worthless close ranged wepon that has an doble hit on its auto attk only (that is way too slow moving to hit any thing moving slighting to the left or right). Shiled is a good def wepon but that about it. FGS is mostly an movement skills with an slight burst dmg effect.

The full conja utility dose not seem like a good utility set over all and is missing so many effects. Just asking for an bit of user friendly updates like the main post would in no way make the cure conja weapons too powerful as the base line of the conja weapons are simply not worth it most of the time.

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What about removing Axe, Hammer, Bow, Shield and Greatsword completely?

Replace them all with a new Elite - Conjure Elemental Weapons (Double Charge, Current duration, whatever cooldown is balanced).

When used you can still cycle through your attunements with Fire becoming Greatsword, Water becoming Frost Bow, Air becoming Hammer and Earth becoming Shield. Some of the skills revised to be more inline with 2023 and not 2012.

Then again we're just wasting our collective breath coming up with new ideas that fall down a black hole into nothingness.

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6 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

The conja weapons them self dont realy have offer versatility. There is some versatility having the ability to have kind of an combat change from your wepon (that is locked) but the ability to go form melee to ranged using conja weapons seems very lacking. That seems to be more of the issues for conja weapons and because of that they are mostly worthless made even worst with the drop pick up effect.

Having some form of combat change to the weapon IS versatility - having one on your bar is, at least in theory, giving you another set of skills. The ability to go from a melee weapon (weaver sword, say) to a ranged conjure or vice versa is technically there. Problem is that it's generally not worthwhile. The numbers are weak, and the mechanics make it awkward to use, including having a short uptime if you're not able to pick up the second weapon (something another player can potentially deny without intending to). Removing the second weapon could address this - cooldown and duration can be adjusted so that the elementalist is no longer dependent on other players not picking up a weapon on the ground in order to have the weapon when they need it, and the skills themselves could be balanced more aggressively due to removing the possibility that they're coming from a second character.

Buffing them so much that elementalists would start using them by preference over their main weaponset, however, is something I would consider to be overkill. Elementalists aren't engineers - they should be utilities that fill in when the main weapon isn't suitable, they should not be the main weapon themselves.

6 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

Frost bow is the long range conja wepon but its also an healing wepon?

Didn't stop it from being part of the dominant DPS build at one point, though. Mind you, I certainly wouldn't complain if the heal was to be removed in exchange for more damage - staff is probably better for healing, and if you're not on a healing power build, you're not going to be healing much anyway. I suppose a healing conjure COULD be useful for a dagger/warhorn support tempest to have ranged heals when necessary...if it was more available.

6 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

Hammer is the melee cc wepon that at best is a 1 -2 skill use wepon then thow away.

I wouldn't characterise it as 'CC', although it does have some CC on it. It could do with better coefficients, to be sure, but it does also bring the utility of having a blast finisher on a relatively short autoattack chain. Give it coefficients that are behind what a weaver sword or catalyst hammer rotation can do, but which are still decent, and fix the availability problems, and it would br a decent tool to have in the box for an otherwise ranged build that finds range to be impractical at that moment.

6 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

Axe feels like an mostly worthless close ranged wepon that has an doble hit on its auto attk only (that is way too slow moving to hit any thing moving slighting to the left or right).

The main skills are 900 range, although the 3-5 skills encourage jumping in, dropping a fire field, and getting out again (the cooldowns even line up). Speed up the projectiles, give it decent coefficients, address the availability issue, and it would be decent.

6 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

Shiled is a good def wepon but that about it.

And good defence weapons have their place.

6 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

FGS is mostly an movement skills with an slight burst dmg effect.

Largely because it's balanced based on being able to pull off that burst twice.

6 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

The full conja utility dose not seem like a good utility set over all and is missing so many effects. Just asking for an bit of user friendly updates like the main post would in no way make the cure conja weapons too powerful as the base line of the conja weapons are simply not worth it most of the time.

I never said they shouldn't have usability updates. In fact, I've been saying they SHOULD, even at the cost of not generating the second weapon for an ally to use. They'd be much more user-friendly if the second weapon was removed and the cooldown was reduced to 30s for non-elite conjures, for instance.

I do, however, disagree with the premise that they have a high cost to pay and therefore should be powerful. More powerful than they are now? Probably. But the desired balance point for the non-elite conjures should be such that it gets treated more like being a fifth set of weapon skills that complements the four you have from the base weapon, rather than being so powerful that people would use them exclusively. I'd make an exception for FGS because an elite is supposed to represent a power boost for a limited timeframe, but if a situation occurs where a non-elite conjure is ending up as the primary weapon of a build replacing the attunement system entirely, I'd consider that a step too far.

 

4 hours ago, MarzAttakz.9608 said:

What about removing Axe, Hammer, Bow, Shield and Greatsword completely?

Replace them all with a new Elite - Conjure Elemental Weapons (Double Charge, Current duration, whatever cooldown is balanced).

When used you can still cycle through your attunements with Fire becoming Greatsword, Water becoming Frost Bow, Air becoming Hammer and Earth becoming Shield. Some of the skills revised to be more inline with 2023 and not 2012.

Then again we're just wasting our collective breath coming up with new ideas that fall down a black hole into nothingness.

I've seen this idea proposed before. Suffice to say that I disagree. Conjures are more likely to perform their intended function working at least similarly to how they currently work rather than as you propose.

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@draxynnic.3719

But do you use all of the conja weapons in all 3 game types?

I would love to see the builds using say axe or bow with an d/d ele build for wvw. Seeing how that the combo that is kind of needed for the game type. I find the bow to not do enofe dmg and the axe is often to slow to hit vs any thing with any type of brain. Hammer and shield even GS just do the same thing the d/d build already dose so its kind of pointless.

That the big point if your current wepon fill the roll of the conja wepon then that conja wepon is pointless and more or less just a 1-2 skill use utility on a very long cd. Now if the conja wepon fills an roll that your current wepon dose not then it of real use. Sadly its only ranged skills that missing for the ele kit melee is not.

If you could make the conja weapons into there 1 or 2 skills on your skill bar and not even need to cast the wepon it would be far better for the ele class.

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14 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

@draxynnic.3719

But do you use all of the conja weapons in all 3 game types?

I would love to see the builds using say axe or bow with an d/d ele build for wvw. Seeing how that the combo that is kind of needed for the game type. I find the bow to not do enofe dmg and the axe is often to slow to hit vs any thing with any type of brain. Hammer and shield even GS just do the same thing the d/d build already dose so its kind of pointless.

That the big point if your current wepon fill the roll of the conja wepon then that conja wepon is pointless and more or less just a 1-2 skill use utility on a very long cd. Now if the conja wepon fills an roll that your current wepon dose not then it of real use. Sadly its only ranged skills that missing for the ele kit melee is not.

If you could make the conja weapons into there 1 or 2 skills on your skill bar and not even need to cast the wepon it would be far better for the ele class.

You're not arguing against the point I'm making. Conjures do need buffs to fit the paradigm I am envisioning.

However:

1) I think that to achieve that, giving out conjured weapons to allies at all might need to be sacrificed, so they don't need to be balanced according to the assumption that there are two of them.

2) They should not be so powerful that they replace the core weaponset entirely.

I do disagree with the claim that they'd be better if they were just a single utility skill on the bar. For 3/5, that already exists with Glyph of Storms anyway. What I'd see as a reasonable target would be for it to be viable for a sceptre or staff ele to pack lightning hammer or earth shield for more defence if forced into melee, or for dagger ele, sword weaver, or hammer catalyst to bring frost bow or lava axe for a bit more reach when needed.

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The problem, apart from the actual mechanic, is that all conjures are still balanced around the 2012-2014 meta.

The time when fields and finishers for boons were how you did things. Hammer slapped back then, and an extra static field was often used in GvG openers. Lava Axe was purely for might stacking. Frost Bow for downed burst. Earth shield was used but not as much as today due to there being far lower burst and our defence being able to handle it well. Fiery Greatsword outside of meme PVE was used the same as today and more for supplementing our mobility (a greatsword + sword/wh Warrior could outrun a thief and the only thing that chase it was a dagger/dagger Ele with FGS).

Everything has changed and nothing has been updated, so we sit with 3/5 of a particular utility type being essentially useless. Arguably the only subjectively useless utility for Engi are turrets if we're making a comparison. Thinking through the other classes I'm battling to find a "just as useless" comparison - Necro, Mesmer, Ranger, Thief, Warrior (maybe reworked banners but a big maybe), Guardian, Revenant nothing stands out apart from the odd utility here and there.

The reality is that Anet prefer to ignore this class for a myriad of reasons, and while the recent attention we've received is grudgingly welcomed, its simply not enough to change my perception over ten years of neglect.

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18 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

You're not arguing against the point I'm making. Conjures do need buffs to fit the paradigm I am envisioning.

However:

1) I think that to achieve that, giving out conjured weapons to allies at all might need to be sacrificed, so they don't need to be balanced according to the assumption that there are two of them.

2) They should not be so powerful that they replace the core weaponset entirely.

I do disagree with the claim that they'd be better if they were just a single utility skill on the bar. For 3/5, that already exists with Glyph of Storms anyway. What I'd see as a reasonable target would be for it to be viable for a sceptre or staff ele to pack lightning hammer or earth shield for more defence if forced into melee, or for dagger ele, sword weaver, or hammer catalyst to bring frost bow or lava axe for a bit more reach when needed.

That good its hard to tell if ppl are not ok with ideal because they think the skills are already too powerful on there own.

Conja weapons are not good support they most of the time get in the way for your team then help. Even the cast time of picking them up can cause a lot of harm to ppl over all game play. It would be like being able to cast moa on your team mates (a lot of ppl would love it but its not real support that a player would want in an fight.) Like old moder kit where it was an placable siges like tool for any one to jump on (all be it fun) over all was useless in real game play. Conja wepon support had a roll as an effect at one point but due to (needed) nerfs they have become worthless for any one else to pick up.

If they are not better then any core wepon then why would any one use them at all as an support effect? Conja wepons should fill one very simple roll be it melee dmg or ranged or even healing support and they should do that roll stronger then any wepon could as they are very limented in there duration and very locked into that effect. Like making transformation stronger then the class they are used on.

If conja weapons where some other utility that simple used the 5 skill or what ever the "best" effect. You conja an wepon and use an skill in one effect. Is simply better then casting an conja wepon and replacing your skills and getting in the way of some one picking it up.

We could even make it like an manta where you charge your conja wepon and lose your utility bar for that of the conja wepon skills with an ammo like effect much like it use to be BUT keep your wepon skills (no auto attk but more of an strong auto attk skill) would be FAR better then what we have now.

Most ppl understand there no one good fix and more then likely Anet cant do cool things with conja wepons. So the best chose is to let ppl chose though more of an ammo system if they want to put down an conja wepon for support or keep it for there own use. Its the only real way to have that "every one is ok" with an real conja wepon update.

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If they were better than the core weapons used by elementalist, we'd end up with a meta where they're all that gets used. I don't think that's a desirable result.

Versatility is the key here. Lava axe or frost bow don't need to be better than staff and scepter to be good enough for a dagger ele or sword weaver (or hammer catalyst, although I still think that should have the range on air and fire skills increased) to use in situations where they need a bit of ranged. Lightning hammer and earth shield don't need to be better than sword or dagger to be good enough that a scepter or staff ele might bring it for when things get a little close for comfort or there's some projectile hate in play.

Although if they end up being used for ten seconds or so in a rotation, that's okay too, as long as it's not just 'use one skill and drop'.

Of course, none of this applies to fiery greatsword. That's supposed to be a low-uptime power boost. But I don't think any of the others should be so powerful that the raid meta becomes camping conjures.

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On 4/8/2023 at 7:18 PM, draxynnic.3719 said:

If they were better than the core weapons used by elementalist, we'd end up with a meta where they're all that gets used. I don't think that's a desirable result.

Versatility is the key here. Lava axe or frost bow don't need to be better than staff and scepter to be good enough for a dagger ele or sword weaver (or hammer catalyst, although I still think that should have the range on air and fire skills increased) to use in situations where they need a bit of ranged. Lightning hammer and earth shield don't need to be better than sword or dagger to be good enough that a scepter or staff ele might bring it for when things get a little close for comfort or there's some projectile hate in play.

Although if they end up being used for ten seconds or so in a rotation, that's okay too, as long as it's not just 'use one skill and drop'.

Of course, none of this applies to fiery greatsword. That's supposed to be a low-uptime power boost. But I don't think any of the others should be so powerful that the raid meta becomes camping conjures.

Why not just have one conja wepon then fiery greatsword at that point lol.

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19 minutes ago, Jski.6180 said:

Why not just have one conja wepon then fiery greatsword at that point lol.

Why not just have one build then greatsword warrior with all signets by that thinking lol.

There are four non-elite conjures. Two melee, two (mostly) ranged. The design of the melee conjures are such that they'd fit different playstyles and work better in different situations, and the same can be said of the ranged conjures.

The balance is out, but you're 'they should be powerful' rhetoric, combined with your opposition to my points, implies that you are looking for a situation where camping a conjured weapon, or possibly bouncing between two of them, would be an optimal DPS rotation. I don't think that would be a good thing for elementalist.

What I think would be a good thing? Being able to bring sword weaver to a fight with some form of temporary melee hate - a phasing bounty, for instance, or the green watchknight - and being able to use frost bow or lava axe to not be completely useless during that mechanic. Or an equivalent situation for fighting something with mechanics that occasionally punish ranged attacks. Options for adapting to circumstances.

Edited by draxynnic.3719
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You know what? Time to lay cards on the table.

My core point is that conjures should not be made so powerful that camping them becomes the meta. You can concede, or you can admit that you want conjure camping to be the meta and we can discuss why that would be a bad idea. Because that's what would happen if conjures were made more powerful than rotating through attunements with the core weapon. Unless recharges were increased to the point where all conjures were effectively elites in utility slots (also a bad idea), people would just bring enough conjures to ensure they always have one.

If I had complete control, I'd make conjures more like engineer kits. Reduce the cooldown to match the duration, or even remove the duration altogether and start a (shorter) cooldown when you drop it. You can camp it if you want to, but engineers wanting to maximise damage output usually don't camp one weapon or kit (apart from riflemechs, but if a low-intensity ele build that does ~33k camping a conjure shows up, I wouldn't complain as long as it's not the best ele DPS build). 

Now, there are engineer builds for open world that camp flamethrower or grenade kit, but I'm not going to object if we end up with Lord Hizen or the like coming up with some near-unkillable solo build camping earth shield or something like that. What I don't want to see, though, is elementalist's primary gameplay style being subsumed entirely due to conjures being buffed so much that juggling lightning hammer and lava axe (and the occasional FGS) becomes the optimal elementalist DPS build.

Edited by draxynnic.3719
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See i am the type that wants kits to be more like conja wepons with an cd after you swap out of them much like say an wepon or atument swap.

I like that conja wepons have long cd so there real risk to using them and droping them but i think they should have a very well defind use to them and they should be very good if not the best effect in that slot for doing that one well defind thing.

I want to see an healing skill conja wepon as well say an water maces that will replace forst bows healing effect letting the forst bow fill an ture ranged dmg cc roll.

I think the ele should be able to chose to use there conja wepons as support for there team or have the non eleit conja wepon have pement up time for the ele (giving up the flexibility of the wepons skills but not giving up the abitly to use on swap effects.) I would also like to see ele get more effects when holding an conja wepon (like flame thrower stab for eng) at the same time i would want to see conja wepons moved to earth line (more of an creation line then fire.)

I would like to see an "drop skill" as well when you or any one who has an conja wepon in there hands and they deside to give it up the conja wepon "use up all of its magic power" to have an strong effect. Say you thow the conja wepon or fire off an big shot or you brake it some how buffing your self and your team. (It would be funnly to see some one thow the FGS into an group.)

My ideal is that conja wepons are there own effects and i would like to see other classes get conja wepons though there eleit classes. The effect of using conja wepons should be able to stand on there own for an utiitly aimed ele build or what ever class gets them. That means conja wepons need to be flexable in there effects and use BUT well defind in there roll so you cant use say the earth shield to do dmg cc and def all in one go kind of like it is now.

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You're still not really answering my question, unless you're saying that all conjure weapons should be specialised into doing something that isn't damage and therefore none of them should do significant damage. Which I think would be unfortunate.

While I'm not advocating for removing the cooldown, I do think that (non-elite) conjures should be able to act as a kind of adjunct for the main weaponset, either providing a function that the main weaponset does not (the most obvious being a ranged weapon for a sword weaver), or acting as a kind of fifth attunement that you might jump into to use a few key skills before getting out. The key here is that for the first of those functions to work, the elementalist has to be able to maintain a conjure indefinitely if they want to, albeit at the cost of not having the same output they would have if they used the rest of their skill bar. At the moment, that really isn't practical. Mechanics that might force you to switch modes aren't always a 'thirty seconds or less, at most once a minute' thing, and while you can technically maintain uptime by picking up the second weapon just before it expires, that requires both good timing and, critically, nobody else picking it up.

Water mace as a slot-6 skill could definitely be interesting. Frost bow really should lose the healing - there's no healing except on the autoattack, and the only time I can see that being even remotely useful is a dagger tempest trying to provide some token healing at long range.

Not sure I agree with moving Conjurer into Earth. I see where you're coming from, but ultimately, the conjures are each made from the element being conjured, and currently there are two fire and only one from each other element. That's probably the logic behind it. Strictly speaking, they should probably be Arcane since there's at least one themed around each element, but that logic also applies to other skill types like glyphs and cantrips that cover multiple skill types, but nevertheless have traits in an elemental line. I also don't really see an Earth trait I'd replace. Maybe expand Earth's Embrace to also grant barrier when generating a conjure.

A drop skill could be interesting - I have a feeling there was a point where there was an effect on the ground where a weapon is conjured, or perhaps that was something that was only discussed. Could be an interesting way to retain the 'share' functionality - activating the conjure skill while the weapon is already in your hands allows you to throw it to a location where an ally can pick it up and use it... however, doing so extends the recharge of the conjure, or possibly the skill is blocked from recharging altogether until the weapon despawns. (Maybe, to go back to the OP, there could be a third flipover skill to call the weapon back, or to detonate it...)

I'm sceptical about other professions getting conjures - like I've said, I tend to think that the intent of conjures is, at least in part, to be compensation for elementalists being limited to just one weapon set. With other professions (except engineer, and they have kits) not having this problem, I don't think there's really a space to be filled with conjures, although the precedent of Bladesworn suggests there could be an elite specialisation without weaponswap on another profession in the future which might employ conjures to broaden out its options. 

When it comes to magnetic shield - I'm not sure what you'd do with it if the damage and CC was pared back or outright removed? Having a weapon that's just pure defence would, I think, end up being pretty silly - at that point, it might be simpler to just skip a step and make Fortify into a utility skill directly. CC is something that can contribute to defence in ways that aren't just increasing your own invulnerable frames, and provides a means to peel for someone else. And almost any weapon is going to have at least some damage.

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I have some time thoughts on this as well. For me the biggest issue with conjures is availability. In a scenario where you have to move around it's unlikely that you'll get to pick up your second conjure. To that end I have a proposal.

 

Give the conjures a 30 second CD and 2 charges. They will no longer drop a weapon on the ground. If you cast the conjure again while you're already using it, it will now drop one for allies to use. 

 

FGS would receive the same functionality but have a higher CD. 60 or 90 seconds.

 

I'd also update the conjured weapons trait in the fire traitline. It would now give an extra ammo to the conjured weapon for a total of 3. It would also increase the stat bonuses the ele gets from the conjures by 50 or 100%. 

 

I think this would make conjures a lot better to use. And if you use the trait there would be a reason to keep the conjure rather than dropping it immediately. 

 

Fire axe also definitely needs some sort of buff. Give it better tracking and access to unblockables and it might become useable.

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9 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

You're still not really answering my question, unless you're saying that all conjure weapons should be specialised into doing something that isn't damage and therefore none of them should do significant damage. Which I think would be unfortunate.

While I'm not advocating for removing the cooldown, I do think that (non-elite) conjures should be able to act as a kind of adjunct for the main weaponset, either providing a function that the main weaponset does not (the most obvious being a ranged weapon for a sword weaver), or acting as a kind of fifth attunement that you might jump into to use a few key skills before getting out. The key here is that for the first of those functions to work, the elementalist has to be able to maintain a conjure indefinitely if they want to, albeit at the cost of not having the same output they would have if they used the rest of their skill bar. At the moment, that really isn't practical. Mechanics that might force you to switch modes aren't always a 'thirty seconds or less, at most once a minute' thing, and while you can technically maintain uptime by picking up the second weapon just before it expires, that requires both good timing and, critically, nobody else picking it up.

Water mace as a slot-6 skill could definitely be interesting. Frost bow really should lose the healing - there's no healing except on the autoattack, and the only time I can see that being even remotely useful is a dagger tempest trying to provide some token healing at long range.

Not sure I agree with moving Conjurer into Earth. I see where you're coming from, but ultimately, the conjures are each made from the element being conjured, and currently there are two fire and only one from each other element. That's probably the logic behind it. Strictly speaking, they should probably be Arcane since there's at least one themed around each element, but that logic also applies to other skill types like glyphs and cantrips that cover multiple skill types, but nevertheless have traits in an elemental line. I also don't really see an Earth trait I'd replace. Maybe expand Earth's Embrace to also grant barrier when generating a conjure.

A drop skill could be interesting - I have a feeling there was a point where there was an effect on the ground where a weapon is conjured, or perhaps that was something that was only discussed. Could be an interesting way to retain the 'share' functionality - activating the conjure skill while the weapon is already in your hands allows you to throw it to a location where an ally can pick it up and use it... however, doing so extends the recharge of the conjure, or possibly the skill is blocked from recharging altogether until the weapon despawns. (Maybe, to go back to the OP, there could be a third flipover skill to call the weapon back, or to detonate it...)

I'm sceptical about other professions getting conjures - like I've said, I tend to think that the intent of conjures is, at least in part, to be compensation for elementalists being limited to just one weapon set. With other professions (except engineer, and they have kits) not having this problem, I don't think there's really a space to be filled with conjures, although the precedent of Bladesworn suggests there could be an elite specialisation without weaponswap on another profession in the future which might employ conjures to broaden out its options. 

When it comes to magnetic shield - I'm not sure what you'd do with it if the damage and CC was pared back or outright removed? Having a weapon that's just pure defence would, I think, end up being pretty silly - at that point, it might be simpler to just skip a step and make Fortify into a utility skill directly. CC is something that can contribute to defence in ways that aren't just increasing your own invulnerable frames, and provides a means to peel for someone else. And almost any weapon is going to have at least some damage.

I was not aiming to answer your question just my view on things.

Ideally you would have conja wepons fill a very set roll shield for def axe for 900 ranged dmg frost bow for 1k - 1.2k dmg hammer for melee dmg and the water maces for support. Now you could use these as support for an player who fill these given rolls to "brake balancing" for a time much like giving an boon to an class though support that dose not come by it nativly.

Eles wepons skill are strong because they are flexible and can jump from dmg to support to def in sec. Using an conja wepon locks you into that roll with an massive cd. If you want to play an conja ele build you should be able to as they are far more then use 1 use utitilys say an cantrip.

Idealy the utitilys need to be moved for there trait line and with anet removing the cdr effect on trait lines for utitily its a good time to make that suggestion. Fire should be cantirps earth should be conja wepons arcain skill should be on air (with a new names) glyph skill should be on arcain line (maybe new name not sure) sigent should be on water (and more support aimed). Trait lines utitily effects should be more about the use of that utitily so just getting an fire aura on cast and pick up on conja wepons alone is an comple waist of an utitily and realy should be more on the lines of getting pulsing boon base off of the conja wepon you holding.

Well you have to have some other effect to help utitilze the wepons roll. Melee wepons offten need cc to do dmg and ranged wepon needs way to stay at range. Even def wepon need ways to get it self out of danger as well as means of making you a real threat to make other want to attk you. Support wepons need ways to protect it self out side of the support effects. CC and movment effects are allways added on to wepons to help fill there rolls.

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15 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

I was not aiming to answer your question just my view on things.

It's an important thing to establish, especially since you appeared to be strongly objecting to my "conjure weapons shouldn't be TOO strong" position.

Make a damage-oriented conjure weapon too strong, and the elementalist DPS meta is going to become camping that weapon for as long as possible. Do you want that?

Make a defence-oriented conjure weapon too strong, and people will start to use it to create unkillable bunkers. Do you want that?

Make a CC-oriented conjure weapon too strong, and it'll get used for killer CC chains. Do you want that?

Which is, I think, part of the reason why we don't see hyper-focused conjures like you seem to be asking for. Focusing earth shield towards just being defence probably still wouldn't allow it to provide much more in the way of defensive benefits than it already has, for instance - but incorporating a few other effects like CC, mobility, and moderate damage makes it a weapon that is still defensively focused but still somewhat well-rounded, comparable to a warrior using mace/shield. Most weapons in the game have some degree of versatility, since a weapon being focused on doing just one thing tends to mean that it's either so good at that one thing that it becomes a balance issue, or it doesn't have any real advantage compared to the more versatile choices so that the versatile choices end up being better in most situations.

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Suggestion: Delete entire skill group as a concept; replace with Glyph of Conjuration.
New functionality: Conjures an elemental weapon based on your attunement. Swapping out of it doesn't "dump" it; the weapon replaces the element's weapon skills for the duration. No copy is spawned on the ground.

There. And then give Ele a new and actually useful skill type that actually does something.

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8 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

It's an important thing to establish, especially since you appeared to be strongly objecting to my "conjure weapons shouldn't be TOO strong" position.

Make a damage-oriented conjure weapon too strong, and the elementalist DPS meta is going to become camping that weapon for as long as possible. Do you want that?

Make a defence-oriented conjure weapon too strong, and people will start to use it to create unkillable bunkers. Do you want that?

Make a CC-oriented conjure weapon too strong, and it'll get used for killer CC chains. Do you want that?

Which is, I think, part of the reason why we don't see hyper-focused conjures like you seem to be asking for. Focusing earth shield towards just being defence probably still wouldn't allow it to provide much more in the way of defensive benefits than it already has, for instance - but incorporating a few other effects like CC, mobility, and moderate damage makes it a weapon that is still defensively focused but still somewhat well-rounded, comparable to a warrior using mace/shield. Most weapons in the game have some degree of versatility, since a weapon being focused on doing just one thing tends to mean that it's either so good at that one thing that it becomes a balance issue, or it doesn't have any real advantage compared to the more versatile choices so that the versatile choices end up being better in most situations.

The ideal is that conja wepons lock you out of your wepon skills and for ele that is an massive cost so the conja wepons should reflect that risk reward. They should be stronger in there one roll. Even fire skill have some def effect or to some point support effect for the ele wepon skills but the ability to swap atument for other skill rolls is the important part of the risk reward.

I always though of conja wepons more of an become an non mages and hold an wepon that use your magic (locked your skills set from 20 to 5.)

Ideally it would be more about becoming an tank roll with in the conja wepon (i would be for having dmg - effects when holding the shield or the tank wepon as well as having - def when holding an aggsive conja wepon say the axe and what i want bow to be.) This game dose not really seem to do much with - effects only + something missing form the game in gear runes and effects over all.

You need the cc for letting an conaj wepon fill its roll  so not cc aimed but cc part of its skill set.

A player should be able to use an conja wepon how they want to. If its just for one skill and thow away that is up to them. If its for support wepon skill set for there one other play that is up to them too. But the system of being forced to drop it is just not good game play and over all flawed way to balance the conja wepon. That alone is the issues with conja wepon and any balance talk is pointless with out that one effect being updated. So the suggest of being able to recall the conja wepon is a good way of making it work with out an ammo system most ppl suggest.

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