Pistols Grant Elementalists the Choice between Greater Damage and Defense

[ChronoPinoyX.7923]

Could have at least given dual pistols, not just main hand.

Guess I'll wait a bit longer before I make an Ele character lel

[Serephen.3420]

39 minutes ago, Mandarinduck.6705 said:

What's up with the fascination of balls (orbs) in ele recently? The dev trying to tell us something?

That they just love to kick balls(eles) around?

[dimiran.7921]

Ok very cool I guess, now what kind of conditions it provides in air and water attunements? If it doesn’t have damaging conditions or at least cc what makes it better than scepter? Besides, as others raised this point, pistol projectiles can be reflected while fire/air scepter cannot.

also, why projectiles in the video are so slow?

[Phyrak.7260]

32 minutes ago, dimiran.7921 said:

Ok very cool I guess, now what kind of conditions it provides in air and water attunements? If it doesn’t have damaging conditions or at least cc what makes it better than scepter? Besides, as others raised this point, pistol projectiles can be reflected while fire/air scepter cannot.

also, why projectiles in the video are so slow?

I would expect torment and confusion.

Sided with some vulnerability.

[Eekasqueak.7850]

3 hours ago, Serephen.3420 said:

Wvw is not the only game type, but since you mention it, most dps in a zerg are power. Condi bombs are less effective due to group cleanses. 

Isn't staff also pretty good in WvW though? 

[Jski.6180]

Though it would be kind of cool if you could just MH the pistols with no off hand and have the "ammo" in the other 3 slots or some type of reload /aimed shot command.

[Szatko.8132]

16 hours ago, LichOverlord.6329 said:

I feel like as far as support goes, elementalist is in an odd place because technically every weapon is both a support weapon and not a support weapon due to the existence of water attunement

So idk if it would be feasible to have a weapon be a support weapon across all four attunements, and have it be balanced - then again, im not on the balance team, so what do I know?

I do agree with you on the power, though, but you still run into the issue of no weapon being just power because earth and fire tend to have conditions (burning/bleeding) attached to them, and the closest we have is staff

Elementalist is a weird class in general due its attunements, and they're so ingrained into the class identity itself that at this point it's impossible to circumnavigate them, and basically you're just forced to work within them when designing skills

Scepter doesn't provide any team healing since the rework, so technically not every weapon is a good support option. The problem is that from the beginning of the game every ele's weapon had everything in it, depending on its attunement, but apparently it got changed, so all the weapons now have a specific purpose - and I don't mind it tbh, but in case of elementalist most weapons should be hybrids. Currently there is no mh weapon to provide boons and good healing, which is something that ele was lacking, ele didn't need another condi weapon! 

[Szatko.8132]

15 hours ago, Wulfhearth.7962 said:

I'm actually surprised that it's not a hybrid weapon. 

I'm getting my hopes up for offensive water/ice skills actually being allowed to do good damage rather than the just usual healing. 👌

I guess it will be some damage with personal sustain or team healing. I don't think it's a good design choice for ele to make water attunement purely dps.

[Marckan.9526]

1 hour ago, Szatko.8132 said:

Scepter doesn't provide any team healing since the rework,

 

Currently there is no mh weapon to provide boons and good healing, which is something that ele was lacking, ele didn't need another condi weapon! 

I only play Ele for a few hours every two years so I'm out of the loop, when was this reword done? Perhaps they're making space for Scepter being reworked again as a support weapon?

[Ragnarox.9601]

Pistol needs blasts finishers or some kind of finishers for tempest and catalyst fields.

[scerevisiae.1972]

Super relieved it's a ranged weapon. You guys really messed up with hammer being melee.

 

Super disappointed it's pistol. An arcane caster shouldn't be using a pistol.

Edited November 16, 2023 by scerevisiae.1972

[draxynnic.3719]

11 hours ago, dimiran.7921 said:

Ok very cool I guess, now what kind of conditions it provides in air and water attunements? If it doesn’t have damaging conditions or at least cc what makes it better than scepter? Besides, as others raised this point, pistol projectiles can be reflected while fire/air scepter cannot.

also, why projectiles in the video are so slow?

ArenaNet has a tendency to associate electricity damage with confusion (condition mechanist is a good example here), so if they're committing to every attunement being condition, that would make sense for air. Water is harder to pick, since chill has been coupled with bleeding on reaper and torment on rev. They could also go with a 'tainted water' theme and go with poison.

[Wulfhearth.7962]

3 hours ago, Ragnarox.9601 said:

Pistol needs blasts finishers or some kind of finishers for tempest and catalyst fields.

I'm sure there's gonna be plenty of projectile finishers at the very least. 

 

As for conditions, if the skills are ice themed bleeding and vuln would work well for water and burning and/or torment on air. 

[Shade.7240]

Visually this mechanic would had worked better with the scepter. Wonder if they are are gonna add a mechanic/gimmick to the older weapons. 

[Flaming.4250]

1 hour ago, Shade.7240 said:

Visually this mechanic would had worked better with the scepter. Wonder if they are are gonna add a mechanic/gimmick to the older weapons. 

I hope they don’t add a mechanic gimmick to older weapons.

[ScottBroChill.3254]

See's 3 of the 16 new ele skills

"Man, this weapon sucks, redo it"

This is the coolest weapon from the batch and ele time and time gets the coolest skills due to it getting 4x the amount per weapon, allowing it to have more character. This is probably my favorite ele weapon from a thematic standpoint. We'll see how the balance and rest of the skills go, but I really like the idea of the ammo mechanic. I like ele for it's complexity and piano playing, and I just think another long ranged weapon like longbow or rifles would be about as interesting as staff is, which isn't a lot.

So anyway, I started blasting.

[Helgaley.3619]

On 11/15/2023 at 8:05 AM, Helgaley.3619 said:

Noooo it's condi focused and not power 😭

I'm even more annoyed after seeing guardian pistol gives them the ranged condi weapon they were missing while else still doesn't have a great ranged power weapon. Meh. 

[Batalix.2873]

Should have been rifle, imo. I think some granularity to the blastiness and effects would have been appreciated. I think ele really wanted a 1200 range weapon more than a 900 range. And I would have more readily believe these were some kind of cannonball rather than bullets.

Half-fail. Like most of the design for the past few years.

[WhoWantsAHug.3186]

On 11/15/2023 at 9:31 PM, dimiran.7921 said:

Ok very cool I guess, now what kind of conditions it provides in air and water attunements? If it doesn’t have damaging conditions or at least cc what makes it better than scepter? Besides, as others raised this point, pistol projectiles can be reflected while fire/air scepter cannot.

also, why projectiles in the video are so slow?

Well for starters you can use  fire/earth balls in water/air

Edited November 17, 2023 by WhoWantsAHug.3186

[James Saulot.4851]

I'm mostly happy that it isn't rifle or longbow.

[Sythus.2396]

The preview does look interesting but I am still disappointed we aren't getting a SB or LB 🥲
There's always next expansion I guess.

Edited November 17, 2023 by Sythus.2396

[Mini Crinny.6190]

nice to see Guardian pistols looking a lot cooler than eles

[Matt H.6142]

I honestly cannot relate to those saying scepter is not a power weapon for ele.  It’s just slow is what you mean. Dragon Tooth, Phoenix, lightning strike and even shatterstone have a lot of burst.  You don’t use those for condi. 

[Emberheart.8426]

Scepter is more of a hybrid weapon. It's just that the power side is probably a bit undertuned in numbers.

Staff is the ranged power weapon an we all know how undertuned that is.

[draxynnic.3719]

8 hours ago, James Saulot.4851 said:

I'm mostly happy that it isn't rifle or longbow.

Why?

2 hours ago, Emberheart.8426 said:

Scepter is more of a hybrid weapon. It's just that the power side is probably a bit undertuned in numbers.

Staff is the ranged power weapon an we all know how undertuned that is.

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.