Expanded Weapon Proficiencies Beta Feedback: Elementalist

[Rubi Bayer.8493]

Expanded weapon proficiencies are coming in 2024 during the second major update for Secrets of the Obscure, bringing a new weapon and skills for each profession. The expanded weapon proficiency beta event is live now and will run until 10:00 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-8) on December 3.

You can leave your feedback for the elementalist in this thread.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

I mean, the meta for pistol will be spamming 2>3 for everything beside water being 3>2. It has really not enough benefits to go in opposite rotation at all.
Air Pistol 3 (Aerial Agility) being in total 3 skills is weird to say the least. It should be at most 2: Aerial Agility : Evade then pewpew immediately, if enemy gets hit obtain a flip skill for second evade with or without Aegis and that's it.
The damage overall feels small. If it's supposed to be "condi" focused weapon it needs more conditions. Dazing Discharge could get Confusion on Air Bullet consumption, Raging Ricochet instead of this PvE buff could add some Slow condition and 1-2 more Burn stacks. Shattering Stone could inflict Torment instead of Bleed on Earth Bullet consumption.
I also don't understand why Fire, Air and Earth "defensive" options for consuming bullets are on "3" but then Water has it on "2", what's the reasoning for this? It's confusing.
 

[Panda.1967]

The Elemental Unload skill on autoattack when you have all 4 elemental bullets needs to be buffed A LOT... as it is currently, it has a massive cost for such little payout and it is not even remotely worth losing access to the bullet benefit of any of the other skills.

 

It might be a good idea to change the auto attack into an attack chain that cycles through all 4 elemental auto attacks starting at your current attumenent and then finishes on the unload... this would remove the need to buff the unload since it would become a basic part of the AA chain and your next attack would always stock your current attunements bullet anyways which means you don't lose out on too much then... As things are now, the bullet mechanic is too clunky to make real use of and the Elemental Unload skill on Auto Attack is pathetically weak.

 

A better idea though would be to change the pistol into an off-hand weapon… add the AA effects into the other 2 skills and then probably just remove Elemental Unload entirely.

Edited December 3, 2023 by Panda.1967

[Vennyhedgie.5369]

The visual effect for the bullets should be pulled further back on Charr, as it currently gets clipped into their body by the recoil of the shooting animation, making the water and air bullets quite hard to see.

[Zeesh.7286]

Terrible weapon. Auto attack speed is slower than engi rifle autos and they're all single target, engi pistol autos hit 5 targets at least compared to ele pistol. OH and no piercing lmao trash weapon 

The dash on air 3 dashes for the distance you move in a single dodge while having less evade time!! Compare that to the warrior dash on staff right now. Heck dagger fire 3 and earth 3 dashes are better than this. The bullet mechanic is TERRIBLE and so time consuming to set up especially since you only get them on skills 2, 3. Water 3 improves movement speed by 33% so like.. swiftness but worse since its only on the field and it lasts for like just 4 seconds? 

Not even surprised by how clunky and bad it is. At least give us access to new condis if the weapon isn't going to do much except be worse than everything else we already have on Ele WHILE being single target. Maybe I dunno add torment/poison/confusion access on pistol?? 

[Mimiga.9815]

At first glance from a PvP perspective, and from a general outlook, the bullets need more than a character-locked visual indicator above your head. The system is simple and binary, but it is extremely difficult in such a visually overloaded game to tell which bullets you have and don't have, especially on Weaver. I find it easier to just roll my keyboard over which skills I need at the moment than worry about the bullet mechanic at all, barring very specific interactions I'm attempting to get (Air 2 , Air/Earth 3 for a double interrupt). The bullet system itself is underexplained and strange. I may just be forgetful but I don't recall if the bullets have effects outside of their respective attunements, apart from that pitiful unload skill.

I was very much hoping for more damage coming out of this weapon. Freshweaver is my favorite build, but the power coefficients and base damage on nigh all of the pistol skills are negligible, and I have yet to find a reasonable rotation to provide any real damage. The condition damage itself is largely understated, and has been mostly been tempered by the coverage that the Fractal Relic provides during burst windows. Ele has always been a class that had to really work for its cover conditions, but it doesn't feel like there's quite enough to work with. A Signet condition build would work well regardless of which primary weapon you were using anyway. 

I will say that I am pleased to see that every core skill apart from water attunement and the auto-attacks do not require facing to cast. This at the very least makes it somewhat competitive with scepter, which still outshines this weapon in most regards. The capacity for a ranged weapon to operate while still controlling space is huge for viability. Air 3 acting as a dash, being able to the follow-up at the target you're fleeing from, then getting another dash feels good. This is all still in the realm of first impressions so perhaps some of these issues have resolutions somewhere in the kit that I haven't found yet. 

[Arheundel.6451]

Complex weapon set..without any reason to play it over what is available now, this is another button smashing weapon hammer style  where you need to rotate through all the attunements like a madman to accomplish what other professions reach the same goal with 1/4 of the effort! TRASH!

 

[nfranceschi.9231]

it wasn1t cool, there was no creativity in using the pistol, its horrible, no have animation and damage, there was a lack of creativity in the class.

Edited November 28, 2023 by nfranceschi.9231

[Razarei.2809]

If I actually put feedback here, will it actually be listened to? At this point, you guys really need to have almost a test user group to help voice and design your classes going forward because honestly, I'm lost for words. This is a very negative post, I understand that, but unfortunately that is the tone. This is strictly from a PvP/WvW environment perspective. 

Identity issues:

• A weapon that's 900 range.
• A weapon that shares it's 900 range with Scepter, which doesn't shoot projectiles and can't be reflected generally.
• A weapon that has, less condition application, less power damage, less speed, less combo potential, than virtually all available weapons, despite this being labelled as a condition-based weapon.
• Effectively steals the hammer orb mechanic and somehow makes it worse, and forces you to camp attunement OR go through a complete rotation to make use of consuming the bullet, for mediocre effects. Nothing was learned from the design of "Grand Finale", and how it's objectively better to never press the skill.
• Little to no defensive utility or mobility. 
• The projectiles are too slow.
• Brings nothing new to the table.
• Ultimately, no reason to use over existing weapons.  It feels like A MH pistol has been designed, purely for the sake of having a pistol on the class.
   

This is just a perfect example of why design and balance using inanimate options with no threat; citing high DPS numbers as a modicum for "this might be too good".  Despite the above, this weapon has potential but needs a LOT of changes. I'm thinking along the lines of Shulk's Monado abilities in Smash Bros. Each attunement should have the good and bad.

Things that need to be looked at:

• If the design isn't going to be changed, the CD of "2 skill" needs to be lowered significantly, or bullets need two charges between 2 and 3.
• Condition applications on Fire and earth should be pulsing 2s applications over a three second period.
• All of the skills need a 20% combo finisher added, that way planning and interacting with your self generating fields can yield results and encourage attunement swapping, and a smarter way to apply conditions without having to inflate stats.
• Lightning bullets need to be faster and 1/4 cast time on the auto if all its going to do is apply vulnerability.
• Decide whether retaining the bullet provides a benefit or not. If not, then getting rid of the bullet needs to have huge bonuses. The bonuses that are there at the moment are lacklustre.
• Remove the unload. There's no reward for this, and ANET themselves practically said this situation shouldn't happen. If you're going to keep unload, please make sure that the payoff is a very big one. 
• Lastly, bake unique modifiers into the attunements which are passively applied while you're in them OR when consuming bullets for a duration- bringing something unique to the weapon set. In weaver, it only applies to the main attunement. They last one second while leaving the attunement. Something like Fire = +33% condition damage -25% power damage, Air = 1s alacrity pulse to self every 1s, +30% endurance regen. You get the gist.
  
   

 

[Kirevey.5079]

It would be nice to have a visual indicator for what bullets we have that was above each element F skill, kind of like mesmer clone count works. That way it would be way easier to know what bullets we have instead of trying to look at your character (imagine on a zerg lol).

[SoulGuardian.6203]

40 minutes ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

Complex weapon set..without any reason to play it over what is available now, this is another button smashing weapon hammer style  where you need to rotate through all the attunements like a madman to accomplish what other professions reach the same goal with 1/4 of the effort! TRASH!

 

This.

As much as I tried to like double pistols on ele... I must say; what a wasted effort.

Double pistols would have gone much better with mesmer.

This is a total failure, and more of the same, just different reskins.

Bah. Next...

[itspomf.9523]

I'm trying to decide whether this is Catalyst hammer 2.0 or just a clunkier version of scepter, but whatever it is, this ain't it, captain.

[hugo.4705]

OK so here's my feedback for that new weapon: (Through I do think that it lacks utility/elite skills to be like other specs)

Character animations:  Static but it is a pistol, but i expected all skills 1 to be little more impressive or slightly different poses between them, here like engie shorbow or guardian pistols, it is really just standing there and using regularly the weapon without conviction or doing impressive stuff.

Skills animations: The bullets are tuned to the magics, but the casting aren't impressive. There are some efforts for most of skills 3, but skills 1 or 2 are bad looking and not impressive. I do still wonder why just a pistol and not a rifle, but in same time, why not, it allows a great versatility to use others weapons as off hand.

Mechanics: Interesting that skill 3 charge elemental bullets gloating near you and then you can just release all of them at once on target, it do feels like catalyst hammer gimmick of rotating elemental charges around you. What i find interesting is that water is not straightly healing but do heavy bleeding too.

Damages and effects:  Good damage. Played as tempest, really cool. To sum up, Fire is for burning, Water is for bleeding, Air is for weakening, Earth is also for bleeding. It is a pretty cool condi spec weapon.

In final words, a pretty cool spec weapon. I do find it fun with the elemental bullets piling up for 3 skills, fast paced, not long cooldown, good damage. Yes. I play a lot sword/dagger weaver or sword focus. But I can totally see myself become pistol focus elemental assassin.

[ippy.9048]

Here's my feedback for Pistol.

I believe that with some improvements, this weapon could become a very good one.

 

1: we should create a bullet when we change attunement, every time.

2: prepare the second stage of the bullet.　

change attunement, and use 2, then, we have a second stage bullet for more effect.

3: make effect COOOOL.

4:make "Elemental Unload" bind to another button, like 5th utility. please do not mix to auto attack.

5:make effect so COOOOL ( ele should be better at EFFECT than other proff, normally. please make this too.)

6: Every bulltes ( attacks ) should be projectile and laser EFFECT.

 

THANKS!

[Flaming.4250]

A little bit of feedback for you. Keep the sound efects for Earth atunement as it gives a nice weighty THUNK sound. 😁

I feel like some of the skills shoud be projectile finishers or blast finishers. Blast finishers on Earth and Fire 3. Elementalists have plenty of ways to make fields but at the moment the pistol can not realy take advantadge of them.

I am not a fan of Air 3 as a gap closer. We are a squishy elementalist we should not be fighting this close. Maybe a disengage insted?

 

After playing with the pistol a bit more I have had some more thoughts about it.

It feels a bit clunky it does not flow well in combat I find that I have to stop and think what would be the best skill to use next. I do also agree with the people that say that the amunition display needs to be a bit bigger or more visible.

 

Edited November 29, 2023 by Flaming.4250
Added more thoughts.

[Panda.1967]

1 hour ago, Razarei.2809 said:

Decide whether retaining the bullet provides a benefit or not. If not, then getting rid of the bullet needs to have huge bonuses. The bonuses that are there at the moment are lacklustre.

This... Very much this...

They should all have a passive benefit with a predictable universal effect for each bullet type... something like passive boons or a unique effect per element (like fire bullets adding burning damage to attacks)... 

[Markus.6415]

Back to the drawing board i say! The abilities are disgraceful and don't belong into Guild Wars 2.

[TwistedAlga.4235]

Well... I am speechless about this one.

It's Catalyst 2.0 pretty much.

Edited December 1, 2023 by TwistedAlga.4235
Removed 'hammer'

[bluberblasen.9684]

better "create" a bullet after a short time from "magic" ( alone ) instead of pressing button ( create  bullet ) 

i have the feeling either i waste skill 2 or skill 3 :/

 

 

[Razarei.2809]

Just now, TwistedAlga.4235 said:

Well... I am speechless about this one.

It's Catalyst Hammer 2.0 pretty much.

It's not Hammer 2.0 its Hammer -10.0. Hammer is actually an amazing weapon.

[Chromatic Drake.3168]

I won't talk about animation, the weird slow feeling or anything, but I seriously don't understand what pistol is supposed to bring to elementalist. 

If you compare each elements between scepter and pistol, you have :

Fire : both have burning on auto, 3 targets skill that burn on 2, targeted burning AoE on 3

Water : both have AoE freeze, and self healing (and pistol more damage for whatever reason) 

Earth : both auto have bleeding, and each weapob have a defensive tool (barrier on one side, toughness on the other) 

Air : no condi damage here but power, pistol have dash and cc, scepter have some burst and AoE blind. Not to similar here, finally! 

 

I don't even think I can talk about a bad design, as there is simply none. I'll never have an answer, but I would love to know what they tried to do here, and what I'm supposed to do with this. 

Edited November 28, 2023 by Chromatic Drake.3168

[Ram.5981]

A few initial thoughts from a wvw weaver perspective:

• Pistol has some potential with some tweaking
• I like that the stored bullets persist and do not time out like the hammer orbs. However, mounting removes the bullets. They should persist through this as well, to allow being able to do an initial attack of the unload.
• Disappointed with the range, but is on par with most other classes (except warrior with it's melee range, and mesmer with it's long range). You'd expect being magically enhanced bullets, it would give it extra range, and make it unique to the ele.
• The #3 dual attunements needs finishers added to them. having to dual attune to get any kind of a finisher is a hinderance. More finishers in general would be nice to be added.
• Make an auto-attack chain for #1 and make the unload skill the F5, like how the catalyst bot is setup. This can give more utility/damage to the weapon.

Edit #1:

• Bullets need a better visual. they easily get lost with other effects (sublime mistforged chest effect, if you leave the trinkets visuals on, etc)
  • Perhaps higher over the character instead of hovering over the shoulders?

Edited November 28, 2023 by Ram.5981

[Galisaa.8304]

Things I like:

f3/w3 animation. How easy 20 stacks of bleeding are (Can 100% uptime with earth alone at 40% duration).

Animation:

Charr bullet height took me a while to finally notice them. They seem low/inside character.

P1 - Animation needs additional effects during startup. The lag time between using 1 and an particle effect makes it feel slow; currently only the projectile shows up. Project does not feel like it is tied to my character since it spawns so far away (for instance, shooting into the ground has the paritical almost already clipping). About the same dmg as necro p1 but does not bounce..

Air is comically larger than other projections. Earth smaller.

Game-play:

Air 3 flip tool-tip is confusing.

There is not any indication for some of the skills. fire1 + fire2 look the same but one is far deadlier.

Air feels a little weak on the base strike dmg. Even water 2 does more with power.

Bullet mechanic feels lackluster. Offensively I always want the extra damage and defensively I instinctive go for offhand skills first.

Comparison to existing:

Necro p1 to f1/e1 feel similar in damage amount but necro also bounces. w2 and np2 have same duration but one shoots 6 vs 5 times.

Other:

Water 2 (Bug?) is a project finisher when not using a bullet. With the ordering of the tool-tip I expected to not have the effect unless a bullet is ready.

Water 3 (Bug?) is an ice field even when not using a bullet. Tool-tips could use the extra spacing harbinger elixirs have.

Edited November 29, 2023 by Galisaa.8304
Addtional feedback and formatting.

[Skyroar.2974]

This weapon needs a lot of polish.

It's slow > a few improved cast or aftercast times would help.

Too focused on single target, making it really underwhelming in OW > needs more piercing or AoE skills.

Not enough condi-damage application outside of fire/earth > all water skills should apply bleeding regardless of bullets (AA included; make it ice-themed instead of water-themed); air skills should have some synergy with condi damage beyond vulnerability.

Water's bullet chains should be standardized so that skill number 2 has enhanced DPS instead of number 3.

Water's and air's #3 skills are the most enjoyable and creative, so they should be further capitalized: give water #3 a lower cooldown and air #3 ammunitions.

Skill effects are a bit bland, some of them are barely distinguishable from AAs > Anet should add a few more bullet flurry effects, I think, and perhaps fit a "aoe bullet barrage" somewhere in there. Perhaps a "laser" effect like Virtuoso's elite, for example? As it is now, there is too little mechanical variation.

[Kaz.3196]

The skills themselves are nice, but playing pistol didn't feel much different from hammer. The skills (and even the attunements) should have shorter cooldowns to give it a bit more differential play than other ranged Elementalist options... even if it comes at the expense of landing weaker hits. There's a lot of fun combo effects that can be pulled off here to keep gameplay interesting and tactical.

The F5 skill doesn't make a whole lot of sense for me. Not sure why. I would probably have expected something a bit more thematic to an elementally charged firearm like some sort of overdrive that deals additional damage per strike at the expense of a short debuff following... not too dissimilar from the berserker rage I suppose. Just my two cents.

Edited November 28, 2023 by Kaz.3196
Additional context