Pistols Grant Elementalists the Choice between Greater Damage and Defense

[Jski.6180]

I think what has been lost comply here is ele is not about the weapon but about how they use the weapon. An pistol for an mages is not about the gun but about the bullet that is loaded. That why i am suggesting make is so player can use it as an 2h weapon with no off hand if they want to (it can still be used an an 1h weapon with an off hand) but add in an reload skill and an type of aimed shot or support shot using an magic bullet you created as an mage.

[Wulfhearth.7962]

3 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I think a big problem there is how unsuitable staff air is to dealing damage. That's typically the attunement, or one of the attunements, that really shines in power builds, but it completely falls down on staff leaving power entirely to the hybrid-esque fire and earth attunements. Only reason staff holds up as a power weapon at all is that staff earth is more of a hybrid rather than being almost fully condition-based like it is on other weapons.

I don't think air always HAS to be (or should be) the damage element. Having it focus on utility, mobility and CC is equally fitting for the element and provides some variety.

But yeah, then other elements, like water, would have to pick up the damage instead rather than following their more "traditional roles", otherwise it just lowers the DMG of the weapon.  The way ANet interpreted and implemented Purity of Purpose for the elements is one of the biggest things bothering me about the class. It becomes stale fast and is likely an artifact from the times traitlines were tied to specific attributes they carried on throughout the especs.  

[draxynnic.3719]

2 hours ago, Wulfhearth.7962 said:

I don't think air always HAS to be (or should be) the damage element. Having it focus on utility, mobility and CC is equally fitting for the element and provides some variety.

But yeah, then other elements, like water, would have to pick up the damage instead rather than following their more "traditional roles", otherwise it just lowers the DMG of the weapon.  The way ANet interpreted and implemented Purity of Purpose for the elements is one of the biggest things bothering me about the class. It becomes stale fast and is likely an artifact from the times traitlines were tied to specific attributes they carried on throughout the especs.  

The broad theme is that fire is hybrid, air is power, earth is condition, and water is healing (and a bit of power, but usually not enough that you'd use it in a DPS rotation except for hammer and maybe sceptre). There are a few other characteristics, like earth generally having damage reduction and air having mobility, but those are the basics.

Exceptions can certainly exist, but staff air has been powercrept so much that I'm pretty sure it's a DPS loss over just spamming Fireball, and as you mention, staff water doesn't exactly do anything to make up for it. Which means that staff only really has two damage attunements.

There's also an aspect to which the traits also push the attunements into specific roles. Air is the primary strike damage traitline (typically coupled with fire), and getting the most out of any of the elemental traitlines usually requires spending a decent amount of time in that attunement. So air being bad at damage means that you're losing at least some of the benefits you'd normally get out of the power DPS traitline.

It is, unfortunately, a consequence of elementalist's overall design that it's hard to have a coherent weapon that truly breaks out of the broad theme described above. It's going to be interesting to see if they manage to pull it off with pistol air.

[Wulfhearth.7962]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

There's also an aspect to which the traits also push the attunements into specific roles. Air is the primary strike damage traitline (typically coupled with fire), and getting the most out of any of the elemental traitlines usually requires spending a decent amount of time in that attunement. So air being bad at damage means that you're losing at least some of the benefits you'd normally get out of the power DPS traitline.

Yes, i think traits are the biggest aspect restricting what the elements can do in their current state. Currently traitlines tie specific themes/roles to specific elements and the minor traits require you to be in/attune to a specific element to get their bonuses, rather than having the minor traits be atunement neutral and the traits requiring a specific element being opt-in via major traits. 

They have recently been working on removing weapon and utility skill specific traits, so maybe there's hope for ele in that department as well, though it would be a bigger enterprise.

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

It is, unfortunately, a consequence of elementalist's overall design that it's hard to have a coherent weapon that truly breaks out of the broad theme described above. It's going to be interesting to see if they manage to pull it off with pistol air.

As it's a condition weapon, they probably wouldn't expect you to pick up the air traitline. The few condition traits that are in fire and earth are decently atunement-neutral; increasing burn/bleed duration and dealing more damage to burning/bleeding foes. 

Looking over the traits again, i did however notice that all of the traits/traitlines are geared heavily to hybrid damage, so that's interesting in view of us getting a pure condi weapon. 

[draxynnic.3719]

11 hours ago, Wulfhearth.7962 said:

Yes, i think traits are the biggest aspect restricting what the elements can do in their current state. Currently traitlines tie specific themes/roles to specific elements and the minor traits require you to be in/attune to a specific element to get their bonuses, rather than having the minor traits be atunement neutral and the traits requiring a specific element being opt-in via major traits. 

They have recently been working on removing weapon and utility skill specific traits, so maybe there's hope for ele in that department as well, though it would be a bigger enterprise.

As it's a condition weapon, they probably wouldn't expect you to pick up the air traitline. The few condition traits that are in fire and earth are decently atunement-neutral; increasing burn/bleed duration and dealing more damage to burning/bleeding foes. 

Looking over the traits again, i did however notice that all of the traits/traitlines are geared heavily to hybrid damage, so that's interesting in view of us getting a pure condi weapon. 

Yeah, that's my thought as well - you'll just generally be expected to go fire/earth by default with pistol. The traitlines do usually provide incentives to staying in those elements, though, so if pistol air is condi as well, it might need to be a little better at baseline than fire and earth to account for not having a supporting traitline.

[Squirrell.1493]

From their video and description,  elem seems pretty selfish. 

The data from gw2wingman show that this class is the least play in Raids, Fractals and Strikes since the balance patch of september 2023. I think it will be worth  soon if we don't give almost any boons to our party

Oh, and it's me, or in the video, 1 skill use the four bullets ? (0.13 s in the video)

[Doctor Hide.6345]

5 hours ago, Squirrell.1493 said:

From their video and description,  elem seems pretty selfish. 

The data from gw2wingman show that this class is the least play in Raids, Fractals and Strikes since the balance patch of september 2023. I think it will be worth  soon if we don't give almost any boons to our party

Oh, and it's me, or in the video, 1 skill use the four bullets ? (0.13 s in the video)

What's wrong with being a selfish DPS? Not everyone wants to boon share when they play games. Some people like me are happy it is basically a pure dps with the optional defense choices just for us. Too many people now are screaming bloody murder for support when it is not needed all the time for builds. It is ok to be a selfish dps. If people want to be support or share some stuff, then I say just play another spec or build or weapon and leave the gun alone.

[Wulfhearth.7962]

Additionally, there is already a dedicated boonsupport elite specialisation for elementalist. If that is not being played, it needs buffs not more boons on pistol. 

[Val.7826]

On 11/15/2023 at 6:19 PM, vrauns.3215 said:

You are aware that ele has fire, water, air and earth right, of corse it's condi, you are trolling?

Agree, in fact fire is hot so it should burn, air is not hot but they used lightnings in this element which are very hot, so air should burn, an then there is water, the thing you use to cook pasta, and boiling water is hot, so it should burn, and then there is earth, earth is brown, like wood, and you put wood in the fireplace to warm yourself, and that's hot, so it should burn too.

[draxynnic.3719]

5 hours ago, Val.7826 said:

Agree, in fact fire is hot so it should burn, air is not hot but they used lightnings in this element which are very hot, so air should burn, an then there is water, the thing you use to cook pasta, and boiling water is hot, so it should burn, and then there is earth, earth is brown, like wood, and you put wood in the fireplace to warm yourself, and that's hot, so it should burn too.

If you're justifying burning on everything, it'd be far easier to take the magma/ash route with earth than comparing it to wood (or more witches).

[Serephen.3420]

On 11/20/2023 at 12:43 AM, Doctor Hide.6345 said:

What's wrong with being a selfish DPS? Not everyone wants to boon share when they play games. Some people like me are happy it is basically a pure dps with the optional defense choices just for us. Too many people now are screaming bloody murder for support when it is not needed all the time for builds. It is ok to be a selfish dps. If people want to be support or share some stuff, then I say just play another spec or build or weapon and leave the gun alone.

I think the issue was that most ele weapons already are selfish, ranged condi scepter mainhand, melee power sword mainhand, dagger mh is a bit weird and a hybrid but has one or 2 support skills. So what ele was lacking is a ranged power mainhand and a support mainhand. Now that said I wasn't keen on pistol being a support mainhand but was definitely hoping they would finally fill the misding power gap or if condi to even have pistol offhand to pair with scepter.

[Doctor Hide.6345]

2 hours ago, Serephen.3420 said:

I think the issue was that most ele weapons already are selfish, ranged condi scepter mainhand, melee power sword mainhand, dagger mh is a bit weird and a hybrid but has one or 2 support skills. So what ele was lacking is a ranged power mainhand and a support mainhand. Now that said I wasn't keen on pistol being a support mainhand but was definitely hoping they would finally fill the misding power gap or if condi to even have pistol offhand to pair with scepter.

Don't get me wrong here, I was hoping it would have been power mh as well since I know we are lacking that. I am not too thrilled about it competing with scepter either, but it is what it is at this point. I will take it as is just hoping that scepter doesn't over power it, so it is actually used in builds. Or, that is doesn't over power scepter either.  That main comment was just on people disappointed it wasn't support weapon which all evidence previously kind of showed it wouldn't be. That evidence being the patch notes where most guesses of support weapons came to from those getting major buffs.

[Val.7826]

On 11/20/2023 at 12:46 AM, draxynnic.3719 said:

If you're justifying burning on everything, it'd be far easier to take the magma/ash route with earth than comparing it to wood (or more witches).

I just wanted to degenerate at some point, dehehe

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

12 hours ago, Serephen.3420 said:

I think the issue was that most ele weapons already are selfish, ranged condi scepter mainhand, melee power sword mainhand, dagger mh is a bit weird and a hybrid but has one or 2 support skills. So what ele was lacking is a ranged power mainhand and a support mainhand. Now that said I wasn't keen on pistol being a support mainhand but was definitely hoping they would finally fill the misding power gap or if condi to even have pistol offhand to pair with scepter.

I second this. It's not because I'm so dying to play support, but with everything Ele does is already selfish DPS to this point it would be a nice change to have something different. I guess I started to hope around the first few reveals (Ranger, Thief, Warrior, Revenant and Mesmer) when they said they were filling in weapon roles that the class was missing, and it didn't take too much putting 2 and 2 together to see that Ele was missing a support main hand to pair nicely with Warhorn, or a ranged power weapon. I genuinely thought that was what they were going to go with.

Instead it turned out to be something conceptually too similar to Scepter. I'm not gonna say I won't play it, but it does leave a slight disappointed feeling in me knowing that it could have been something more.

Edited November 21, 2023 by ZephidelGRS.9520

[CETheLucid.3964]

🤔

Edited November 22, 2023 by CETheLucid.3964

[Junkpile.7439]

Haven't notice that ele have any dps skills. At least when i use skills i don't see any dps skill numbers. Maybe pistol will be first one.
By the way whats up with ice bow? It barely do any damage. Been doing map comps couple char and funny play core ele after you got used soulbest 23k sword leaps and 130k axe spinning.

[WhimsicalPacifist.2943]

4 hours ago, Junkpile.7439 said:

Haven't notice that ele have any dps skills. At least when i use skills i don't see any dps skill numbers. Maybe pistol will be first one.
By the way whats up with ice bow? It barely do any damage. Been doing map comps couple char and funny play core ele after you got used soulbest 23k sword leaps and 130k axe spinning.

Oh Ice Bow?

Well you see in an era long past, the Devs once created Ice Bow.  They incompetently made it silly powerful as conjured weapons were the most clunky utilities in the game to use.  People noticed.  Ice bow was a means of nuking static objects and bosses with many hits on its AoE DoT.  It shocked the Devs at how powerful they had made it.  And the Devs resolved to "own" those elementalists, while not admitting to have made an error themselves.  Not one but two nerfs to Ice Bow followed with a mic drop on a livestream.

Ice Bow, the worst example of their incompetence at OP balancing had been slain and buried.  Everyone remembers an OP skill incompetently balanced.  No one remembers a weak noobtrap skill incompetently balanced.  Yet too embarrassed to admit culpability, they let it languish till this day.  And so Conjured Weapons remain a clunky "unique" utility mechanic to the Elementalist; no classes would want to pay money for the "joy" of Conjured Weapons.

[Eddbopkins.2630]

All I want for ele is off hand torch. Endless magic fire on a stick and it can't be used by a magic caster. I always thought it could be offhand aoe field based attacks. Earth can be lava themed with some invisibility access by melting the ground and going underneath it kinda thing. air would be plasma lighting dps based, water be water field or ice field related, and fire be some dps based.

But instead the game becomes over saturated with projectiles that aura share reflection will be a must have as a support now. 

Edited November 26, 2023 by Eddbopkins.2630

[Doctor Hide.6345]

I am kind of curious now on the 2 3 for the other elements. I wonder if 2 3 water cleanses, and 2 3 air gives quickness or something? Or if  2 3 fire gives might?

Edited November 26, 2023 by Doctor Hide.6345

[Skyroar.2974]

After watching the stream, I have 2 main issues with Pistol.

1. Not enough condition application outside of fire/earth. Anet devs were too conservative at adding additional condi-damage/bleeding sources to air/water attunements. There was one or two skills in water that did it, but still too few. It's Scepter v2.0 so far.

2. Not enough AoE/piercing damage. In contrast with Guardian's pistols, that felt more like grenade-launchers in contrast, Ele's pistol being mostly single target makes it underwhelming and unfavourable to the wider casual audience (open-world players).

Anything else, I won't comment until I get to try it.

Edited November 27, 2023 by Skyroar.2974

[psizone.8437]

14 minutes ago, Skyroar.2974 said:

Not enough condition application

I feel like they ran out of ideas and didn't think to make the water attacks do poison damage. Having it do bleeding makes it too similar to earth.

[Arheundel.6451]

The weapon set is lame , uninteresting and simply underpowered...not looking forward to it

[Skyroar.2974]

49 minutes ago, psizone.8437 said:

I feel like they ran out of ideas and didn't think to make the water attacks do poison damage. Having it do bleeding makes it too similar to earth.

I'm fine with no poison, it doesn't fits thematically. Bleeding, however, is a generic enough condition that you can put it in every class.

Condi elementalists usually deal most of their damage through burning; so, if pistol had 3 attunements with consistent bleeding application, it would, at the very least, make pistol a bit more unique in this aspect. Instead, it seems like fire/earth are still the only worth using, just like scepter, with fire specifically being the best out of the two, just like scepter. Also a very heavy focus on single-target skills (just like non-fire scepter, although scepter as a whole used to be a lot more focused on single-target than it is now, after its rework).

At the moment, pistol is scepter v2.0. They already occupy the same design space (ranged condi damage), and even rely on the same two attunements to do so (fire/earth).

Edited November 27, 2023 by Skyroar.2974

[Serephen.3420]

After seeing the preview, other than 2 interesting #3 skills in air and water of all places I'm really disappointed. It's 900 range just like scepter and in direct competition. If it ever gets used it will only be in pvp because scepter is more reliable overall. Most of the other bonus effects are uninspiring. Really only the ice road and air dash give it any real flavour.

Making another condi mh was a mistake. But hey, my bad for expecting something more😅

I sincerely hope they either rework the vast majority of it to either be a power weapon so it is unique or seriously work on those pitiful skills they have on it now. One can't help but compare it to guardian as well now. What a waste of time and resources.

Edited November 28, 2023 by Serephen.3420

[veritech.1048]

I am shocked, shocked, that this weapon looked awful.