Expanded Weapon Proficiencies Beta Feedback: Elementalist

[draxynnic.3719]

4 hours ago, Sweetbread.3678 said:

- It's got a lot of theoretical depth, but it's also just kind of boring? Feels like it'll shine the most under Weaver (probably even more so with Unravel), but otherwise it's just 2>3, swap, 2>3, swap, 3>2, swap, etc., etc. . Even on Weaver though it only really feels better because you have an extra bullet to generate, not because the dual skills are particularly interesting.
- Skill effects might be somewhat varied, but the actual gameplay is incredibly one-note; basically every ability besides Water 3 and Air 3 is just a medium range pistol shot. 
(snip)
- A lot of memorization here. Just the 2 and 3 slots have 16 unique variations and that goes up to 34 variations on Weaver. I don't mind a deep skill pool, but it feels like a lot of the depth/complexity here just comes from skill knowledge as opposed to tactical gameplay choices. It's less depth and more an artificial barrier for entry.

I think this is a big part of why I have an overwhelming feeling of 'meh' to it. Fire 3 also stands out, but otherwise it's a collection of "fire a projectile that does a thing" skills. It's the same problem that grenade kit has, IMO - a pack of skills where the gameplay is identical, and picking which to use at a particular time is a matter of memorising precisely what damage, conditions, and other effects a particular grenade skill is going to do in the blast area. They're trying to make the bullet mechanic pistol's "thing", but as you pointed out, if anything it makes the problem even worse because it's still "fire a projectile that does X", it's just that that X can become X+Y depending on whether you have a bullet or not creating even more to memorise.

This is a significant contrast to sceptre, where while there are some common threads among the skills, they all nevertheless feel different. There's no skill 2 among the sceptre skills that feel a bit like they're like skill 1 but stronger, or like a skill 2 of a different element except that they have a different power coefficient and inflict a different condition.

I recognise that elementalist weapons involve a lot of skills and therefore a lot of work, but I think that just makes it all the more important that they feel distinct - because if they're all or mostly all "fire a projectile that has X effect" and you can only really tell the difference by looking at the text, that's all the more skills where players are having to rely on memorising the text rather than seeing a fiery stalactite appearing over someone's head and immediately recognising it as the skill that does damage and burning in an AoE when it comes down. Furthermore, other professions can handle a few "boring but it works" weapons, because they're a relatively small part of their build. Harbinger pistol, for instance, can be said to have a similar "all you're doing is firing different kinds of bullets" behaviour, but when you combine it with shroud and a weaponswap, it's a fairly small part of a greater whole, and three skills are relatively easy to tell apart. For an elementalist, on the other hand, the weapon choice is usually the core of a build's identity. A boring weapon on an elementalist build means a boring build.

More than any other profession, the core of elementalist is in the weapon skills, and there are a lot of them. Giving them different gameplay makes them both more interesting to use, and easier to remember how to use them when situations come up when mindlessly following a set rotation without understanding how it works won't cut it.

[Spytav.3192]

From a casual and creative perspective

I don't typically write feedbacks but for once I must agree with the fact elementalist's pistol was the disappointment of most classes or perhaps I simply had too high hopes what the new  weapon could be. Likewise I do understand that always making a new weapon for Ele is challenge itself due to the fact they already get so many skills thanks to their element switching policy + when you add the weaver into the pot you get a lot of work but I still believe its not an excuse to make the weapon kit boring or mimic Catalyst's hammer and just make a bullet version of it because sadly enough that's what it feels like.

The 1 Skill for all elements wasn't much of an issue in my opinion because it is the basic pistol auto attack move you do constantly so it doesn't have to be flashy or too unique. So just flash out the animations and make the bullets more elementally and we good to go on that department.

Skills 2 and 3 however are where I believe the biggest issues come from.  Pardon me for saying but Skill 2 for all elements is just plain, boring and pretty much hammer 2.0 which I don't say lightly but it's really hard not to see it, we instead just get an orb familiar on our shoulder. Now I understand that perhaps they did this so they could save some time & effort but they also ruin the uniqueness of Ele's skills in the process. When you look at Ele's other weapons like, staff, scepter and dagger all of their skills have unique animations and effects which makes it very engaging to play and I too understand that this new weapon is pistol but even so, Ele's use magic so there is a plenty of room for creativity they don't all have to be basic pistol shots. More over when looking at other classes new weapon sets, especially Guardians double pistol, this just feels like a joke for those who enjoy playing Elementalist.

Skill 3 This is perhaps the only thing that has potential to fix the issue of the second skill if they choose to go along with it, which they most likely will. I know the animations and effects are still work in progress, but please make Skill 3 POP because right now in beta they all, (except water's ice bridge )just felt very underwhelming, especially the air skill 3 just felt super clunky with the dash. Now if they want a dash in there then just simply fix it and make it better but I personally was waiting for something like a thunderstrike with air skill 3, you charge for a second and release a thunder from the pistol but that is just my own creative take on it. The Fire skill 3 was meh but I get where they  are going with it, so with a little tune up I think it could work and Earth skill 3 was just.....a boulder which was very underwhelming  like as in it felt they didn't even try.  You could have just made I don't know a shot that erupts the ground. Like you shoot at the ground and it erupts, again just a quick idea out there.

All in all, creative and casual wise the new pistol doesn't seem to offer anything new to the Elementalist, it feels boring which makes it less then a satisfactory but at the same time I do understand it's never easy to make something new for this class.

 

[Ludwigvontreu.6840]

Hi guys! I think some people already made some of these comments, but here I go with some UI/UX feedback for Ele pistol:

- It's currently missing the firing off animation so the projectiles just popups way too far off the character (tested on Human & Norn), the only one that looks decent on this aspect is the air one but I think that's because its currently using a placeholder projectile (I think it's air staff?) that looks way too big and has long tail.

- Autoattack sound FX should have altered versions more in tune with the attunement.

- Bullet mechanic should have an audio cue that is also unique to each attunement: when it loads and also when it fires the special bullet. This could be paired with other people's feedback about giving it aditional UI visuals on the combat bar but could be even more useful at visually heavy loaded instances where it's even hard to stare at the UI.

- More unique character or projectile visual animations should be added to skills #2 except water wich seems to be fine on this.

Also more piercing skills could be appreciated. I know this could make it to similar to scepter but at least land it on the air derpatment pls?!

Ty!

[Agrios.9071]

I know it isnt real feedback but i just want to say this.

I expected nothing from pistols for elementalist, because pistols on other classes arent exactly the most interesting weapon gameplay wise. Somehow the laziness of the design still manages to disappoint.

Many people said this for the catalyst hammer aswell and nothing was changed, but i will say it again here. Just start over and design a useful weapon for elementalist.

(My PoV is mostly from wvw zerging where pistols in its current itteration will never see play.)

[Vissarion.6509]

I am sorry devs but this ain't it. For now the weapon feels bad to use, all the skills are mostly the same animation over and over, no variety, no depth, no fun mechanics other than the bullet which is mostly passive and happens automatically.

Things that the weapon needs:

• Autoattacks need some kind of AOE., either pierce or bounce would be fine.
• Faster projectiles.
• More combos overall.
• Some condi damage on AIR attunement, since this is a heavy condi weapon.
• If it's possible, spice up the animations a bit to not feel ALL the same across all attunements.

All in all, if you manage to make it I believe it can be a cool weapon to use.

[Markus.6415]

15 hours ago, Razarei.2809 said:

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

Hammer was a kitten show at release and needed a lot of month of patching back and forth to get it into a somewhat stable state. It still has the silliest thing i've ever witnessed in the game: a skill that does 1 damage. In my opinion the hammer skills could have gotten epic effects and animations, but it turned out mostly boring and uninspired.
But yeah, compare it to the pistol and it's really amazing 😅

[Hasmadad.4293]

Pistol is a really good condi weapon that I'd never touch Air with. Combos really well with Warhorn and Tempest.

Autoattack is very weak, but who even uses AA when you can go through 23 (or 32 in Water) and then toot your Warhorn.

Water feels amazing, 10 stacks of bleed in two skills that isn't Earth? Love it.

Air dash feels very clumsy and the attack comes way too long after the dash. It's a massive damage loss.

[Feduddle.5209]

PLEASE give us some sort of icon/buff indicator for which bullets we have active!!!  It's literally impossible to see your active bullets with all the visual clutter in the game!!

[Redfeather.6401]

15 hours ago, Panda.1967 said:

I've been thinking... what if they just remove the auto attack and turn Pistol into an Off-hand weapon? As others have pointed out, its way too similar to Scepter as is... so why not just make it an offhand and let it complement the Scepter?

It would be awesome to have a spammable mid range offhand! 😍

[Redfeather.6401]

Right now it's just a lackluster weapon, but making it an offhand would make sword/scepter/dagger builds extremely interesting. It's probably too late to rework it as the elementalist topic is asking, but if you remove the auto attack, BOOM it can now be an offhand. So easy.

[Kris Knives.8513]

After playing with pistol I have to agree it currently feels lack-luster.  The bullet mechanic feels very "Meh", and isn't very fun on it own.  If this design is indicative of the final release I don't see myself playing pistol often.  I think the design was intended to avoid static rotation and force players to consider the order of their shots strategically but it doesn't seem to achieve that end in practice.

Negative:
1.)  Generating and spending bullets doesn't feel great, nor did it lead to many interesting combat choices.  This style of play isn't very interesting on it own and it doesn't tie into anything else going on with the profession.  Further the "generate a bullet/spend a bullet" pace is not very fun.  Worse spending elemental bullets feels very clunky at the moment.  I hate when I switch away from an element and then that bullet is just left stranded till I switch back.

I'd like to see ammo generation triggered by something else like switching attunement or generating an aura rather than what it is now.  Further this one bullet per element system feels awful.  I'd much prefer to be able to generate a stack of elemental ammo and then spend them as I see fit.

2.)  Too much overlap with Scepter.

I agree with the feedback that in its current form it would work better as an offhand weapon rather than a main hand one.

3.)  Dull auto attack
This is probably on purpose but the auto attack feel so disconnected from the rest of the weapon in a very odd way.  While this is typical for Elemental weapons, it seems odd on the pistol given its ammo theme.

I think my ideal version of main hand pistol would see you build up charges with the auto attack, then when you switch attunement those become ammo which you can use strategically similar to the flow of Pyromancer's Puissance.  This way you could stay on one element for a while a build up ammo for a big pay off or rapidly shift through elements but only getting one or two shots off.

4.)  Bolder Blast feels out of place
I know for the most part elementalist weapons are a grab bag of powers but getting barrier off a pistol shot doesn't match theme.  Am I shooting myself persona style?  This doesn't seem right on an aggressive ranged weapon.

Positive:
1.)  I like that the auto attack lays down conditions.

2.)  Some of the effects are are cool things we haven't seen before, particularly the cluster grenade like fire splash.

3.)  Soothing Splash really captures the aggressive feel of the pistol with its increased healing per effect stacked on an enemy.

4.)  I like the 4 shot special, even if I don't think it is likely to get used much.  It is a nice touch and since it doesn't take up space in the weapons kit it can just be there as an odd option that comes up now and then even if not something you would try to spam deliberately.  I really like how it was tucked into the design without taking away from the limited space on the pistol and I feel like it adds a little something extra.  It just like it, its a cool little extra!

Overall:
While far from unplayable the Ele pistol is mostly unenjoyable and sometimes even frustrating with its ammo gimmick.  It doesn't seem to have any special synergy with any elite so it seems to play equally mediocre with all of them.

[Razarei.2809]

3 hours ago, Markus.6415 said:

Hammer was a kitten show at release and needed a lot of month of patching back and forth to get it into a somewhat stable state. It still has the silliest thing i've ever witnessed in the game: a skill that does 1 damage. In my opinion the hammer skills could have gotten epic effects and animations, but it turned out mostly boring and uninspired.
But yeah, compare it to the pistol and it's really amazing 😅

Compared to all Ele weapons hammer is great! Even at release! But yeah Pistol really needs a huge rework, or they could simply bake skills 2 and 3 together and make it an off-hand weapon. Hammer Gameplay

[TheAgedGnome.7520]

• Pistol should never have been on ele.
• Boring, low-feature, clunky, and unfun.
  • Graphics and sounds are hopefully placeholder, because they only compound the unfunness.
• I feel like this weapon was designed and tuned on the golem with full buffs, and then the unbuffed solo play was not examined. Unbuffed, I feel like this is the painfully slow playskool version of a pistol, not a fast-paced, fluid instrument of death.
• Ground-targeting on fire3 is clunky. I'd rather have it enemy-targeted, with splash AOE.
• Air3 repositioning is too short and slow. Suffers also the same terrain issues as so many repositioning skills in GW2.
• Bullet mechanic is BAD
  • 'Consume bullet' mechanic is impractical; it may work in certain pre-planned rotations, but the two-step requirement of create bullet + consume bullet is not adding value for most situations, as the attunement swaps and CDs to pull the particular 2-step sequences you need at that moment make most of the consume features unavailable when needed.
    • This is also reducing flexibility, not enhancing it.
  • Bullets get deleted on weapon swap or mounting. I suppose if they didn't then if one wep-swapped, the bullet(s) would stay there forever until map swap or logout, which could be annoying. But this just reiterates that the bullet mechanic is not good.
  • Hammer already exists; don't make hammer 2.0.
  • Scepter/staff/focus/dagger/warhorn/sword don't need orbs/bullets, so don't put them on pistol.
• I can't think of when I would choose pistol over scepter.

 

  

[OddFinrir.6801]

I barely do any damage with pistol. Having to choose between 2 or 3 to get the bonus on it feels like a fake choice because the bonus on 2 for every element is bad, so you always need to go 2 > 3. Air 3 is just clunky and feels like it was tacked on because it's a short movement dash on a pistol, which is strange. Fire 2 is the only thing that does decent condition damage provided all the second hits connect, which btw, is a blast skill that is missing on the skill info.

I don't see why you would every use this weapon in its current state. Other weapons do everything else better and they have more visual and audio impact when using the skills as well, where with pistol I feel like it's just firing air.

[Markus.6415]

1 hour ago, Razarei.2809 said:

Compared to all Ele weapons hammer is great! Even at release! But yeah Pistol really needs a huge rework, or they could simply bake skills 2 and 3 together and make it an off-hand weapon. Hammer Gameplay

Don't get me wrong, hammer has the good abilities and numbers for being good. But I mean in terms of class fantasy and unique effect/animation design, it's extremely boring and not very detailed. Compared to other weapon abilities like, summoning a wave behind you to crush down, sand tornados, summoning a meteorshower with a unique cast animation, a fire pheonix, a dragons tooth. Hammer effects are so bland compared to those.

[Lavafrost.2830]

I also forgot to mention a couple of things.

Air could be made way better if it was given Confusion, like the electricity based attack on the Engineer Pistol.
Huge points lost for not having an Air Attunement skill on the Pistol be named Shell Shock. Works with the naming conventions AND is a GW1 skill.

[Aalter.2950]

I'll start by saying that I love the design.
It gives the player decision points relating to the rotation they choose in each attunement for different effects, and each element does what you would expect it to do.

My main problem is that it feels a bit clunky, especially in PvP.
Pistols should (by design) be quick, medium-range weapons with the primary drawback being few AoE abilities and the potential for having projectiles blocked or reflected.

The skills feel a tiny bit slow - the cast time, aftercasts, and missile speed of the abilities add up to skills that can be avoided by enemy players at 600-900 range if they are simply strafing or running. With the amount of reflects in the game, there isn't much risk in reducing the cast times/aftercasts and/or increasing the missile speed on some of the slower skills. Searing Salvo in particular feels maybe even slower than it should be.

Furthermore, the damage (power coefficients and conditions) on the Pistol skills are considerably low, especially when compared to the Guardian Pistol skills being released simultaneously. I'd strongly recommend increasing these to make it a competitive option. Piercing Pebble and Scorching Shot specifically could use a boost.

Otherwise, one specific suggestion would be that Dazing Discharge (Air 3)'s consume effect should be increased to 8-10 seconds. 5 seconds can be quite short of a window to swap to another attunement and cast a Pistol skill.

Anyway, I'd like to add that I think these weapons are really well-designed and fun to play! I'm suuuuuuper excited for them to be added to the game.

Keep up the great work! 😄

[Gimli.9461]

Hello! My feedback after trying pistol on Elementalist, keep in mind pls I am not into build crafting so it's purely focused on how good the combat felt:

- SOUNDS: was very excited for elementalist pistol! I quickly realized that I expected the SOUND for pistol on elementalist to not just be the pistol regular boom bam shot. I wonder if you considered making the sound more magicky, eg HOPE sounds comes to mind; or add magical undertones/flavor to the shot? Thinking on this further, maybe bullets when they exist could also have a corresponding sound, to help be aware they exist

- More Oomph pls: the only skill that gave me happy juice was water 3! that field is nice! so huge and icy 🙂 The 4 bullets collected shot needs a lot of OOMPH added, and also the dash on air feels suuuper durpy - it's very short? and clunky to use. Eg it took me ages to realize I need to press the skill again after dashing to shoot, then i gotta dash again? I feel like dash + shoot must be combined, and maybe make the dash longer and copy an existing good dash animation?

- What did work: The bit that did land for me was how 'complex' the weaver variant fell - it felt in-line with what Weaver is overall. I like the idea of Elementalist remaining the big-brain class that's hard to comprehend with this new weapon addition. 😄 

Also, I am not sure if I just saw this on Laranity stream, or also experienced it without realizing what was going on until I saw it on stream:

- It appears that some skills have a CAST time, HOWEVER the character is executing no animations or very hard to see animations/very still ones during that cast time. That must never happen! As I engage with combat it is very strange to be looking at my screen and character seemingly doing nothing - I think nothing's happening and the skill is broken (because my eyes aren't glued to some cast bar). If this is in fact is the case for some skills, I'd fix it with ensuring proper animations are aligned with the cast bar, which I think is the case for all existing combat currently.

So overall I'd love more sound flavor/polish, and more engaging animations/awesome feels 😄 I think GW2's strongest point is how enjoyable its combat is second to second, would hate to lose that.

 

[Twilightmage.8309]

I would enjoy more power damage on it so it can be a more hybrid weapon.

[Reig.8173]

First of all, this is a pistol, and pistols shoot. That's ok.
I don't care about the high-numbers cause that is for guilds that make speedruns, and yes, this weapon have good DPS (condition), this is most talking about the feelings of the pistol.

Sincerely,
when you have all the ideas of weapons in the board (Staff, Scepter, Dagger, Sword, Hammer, and the Conjured as Bow, Axe, Greatsword, Lightning Hammer and Shield)
it's easy to compare the Pistol to the others.

• Fire

[Scorching Shot] Pistol 1 in Fire do the same damage as Hammer Fire 1 with the range of Scepter, one target and reflectable projectile. This one need at least pierces, AoE or bounce balls and a fix of Strike Damage.
[Raging Ricochet] Pistol 2 in Fire bounce shot with self might. Self buff as Flame Wheel (Hammer Fire 3). Can you add Strike Damage to the buff too?
[Searing Salvo] Pistol 3 in Fire it's looking great but feels lower, it's like a Throw Grenade of Engineers with re-skin of Fireballs. Maybe a fast projectile speed?

• Water

[Soothing Splash] Pistol 1 in Water Self-Healing and more damage than Air, its fine. It need bleeding.
[Frigid Flurry] Pistol 2 in Water the first and the unique pew-pew (ignoring weaver fire+water 3)
[Glacial Shot] Pistol 3 in Water this is good. 

• Air

[Electric Exposure] Pistol 1 in Air its not the first time that Air doesn't have Strike Damage, lower than Water. Please fix this.
[Dazing Discharge] Pistol 2 in Air a daze and a cooldown reduction for the next Pistol skill
[Aerial Agility] Pistol 3 in Air it feels clunky, its like you're running over the Ice Field of Water 3 [Glacial Shot], it's a skill with 3 uses, dash, shot, dash, maybe you can change the movement from a running Leap to a Ground Target Area or Superspeed.

• Earth

[Piercing Pebble] Pistol 1 in Earth this is a Stone, should be a Combo Finisher Physical Projectile. Scepter have already in Stone Shards, Pistol should too.
[Shattering Stone] Pistol 2 in Earth a rock that explodes in shards, despite the visual effect the shards target the enemies like missiles. It's fine.
[Boulder Blast] Pistol 3 in Earth rock delivery. Good.

• Elemental Unload

In concept, its the same as Grand Finale (Hammer) but worse, there's no rewards for keep the 4 bullets to Unload it. Can be a good idea to start a fight with them but no to use in fight, and bullets are deleted when using mounts.

• Honorable Mention

Appreciate that you desing skills for Weaver and not just copy-paste as the Hammer.
Weaver Water+Air Pistol 3 [Flowing Finesse] with the Evade backward and Superspeed feels BETTER than [Aerial Agility] 

The question here maybe is this is a Secrets of the Obscure weapon designed more for Core Elementalist that doesn't have expansions and because that don't have Tempest, Weaver nor Catalyst, in that case is fine...

The UI indicators, well... I think when the icons will be included them will make differences between 2 and 3 (empowered and non-empowered versions) and the weapon is just another Piano Elementalist.
 

• Final

The weapon feels clunky, I didn't feel the "mobility" labelled in the web post until I try the Weaver... and even so, its on Weaver
Elemental AmmunitionThe pistol is a condition-focused weapon that brings some mobility, crowd control, and a large amount of damage.

Maybe this is the first one-target based weapon of the Elementalist but this is not cause it have AoE skills, and it don't have too much Combo Finishers.
Maybe this is the first condition based weapon of the Elementalist but this is not cause there's the Dagger, Scepter and Sword that was used for years as Condition weapons, even the Hammer can be used as Condition (lower damage but there is)
Maybe this is the first mobility based weapon of the Elementalist but this is not cause the Dagger exists since 2012 and his mobility got nerfed months ago.

Something is sure... this is the first pistol of the Elementalist.
And this exist.

It's a bit late to ask for long bow, short bow or rifle for Elementalist but I hope you can make Staff viable as Power 1200 range weapon. Please?
Thank you.

[Awn.1327]

The pistol is OK. Although I am happy with it thematically (it shoots bullets and is not a pseudo-flamethrower or mud-dispenser), it feels a bit clunky (and slow) and doesn't really work too well with catalyst but that all is probably not too hard to tweak.

What bothers me most is that the pistol is not different enough from scepter. I would have wished for pistol to be a power weapon and scepter to become a condition-focused weapon ... but the other way round would work, too, it's just not as cool (to me). But right now, we got a condi-focused pistol and a kinda-condi-but-also-a-little-power-but-not-great scepter.

I hope we'll get some clearer separation of those two in the future.

Edited November 30, 2023 by Awn.1327

[Tempest.8479]

I've been following the feedback and I think my thoughts and criticisms of the pistol have been echoed by multiple people on this thread. I feel like the pistol has potential, but its auto-attacks are lackluster and feel disconnected from the bullet mechanics. It also lacks AoE and condition damage on certain skills.

 

An easier fix to the auto-attacks could be to add AOE splash damage or piercing to each one, so each could look something like this:

• Scorching Shot: this skill now explodes on impact, damaging and burning up to 3 enemies.
• Soothing Splash: this skill now splashes damage on impact, damaging up to 3 enemies and healing for each enemy struck
• Electric Exposure: this skill now pierces up to 3 targets in addition to its previous effects 
• Piercing Pebble: this skill now pierces up to 3 targets in addition to its previous effects 

If you wanted to keep some of them as single target for variety, like Electric Exposure for example, then the power coefficient/additional effects should be buffed in my opinion.

 

In addition, I think auto-attacks could be used to help generate elemental bullets. Doing so would allow them to better connect to the pistol mechanics, as well as creating a new layer of decision-making for the weapon as a whole. 

This could be accomplished by letting successful auto-attacks grant a unique, stacking effect that would trigger the creation of an elemental bullet when it reaches max stacks:

• Elemental Armory (effect) (5s): Coalesce elemental magic into magical ammunition. Consume all stacks to create an elemental bullet of the current attunement after reaching maximum stacks. Gaining a new stack refreshes the duration of all stacks of this effect. Stacks do not consume unless there is no active bullet in the current attunement.

This effect could have anywhere from 3-5 max stacks, depending on how balance would shake up.

 

Lastly, I feel that certain skills, especially in air attunement, could use an actual damaging condition. I feel that confusion is the perfect thematic candidate for these skills, and I could see a skill like Dazing Discharge being reworked into something like this:

• Shell Shock: launch a volley of electrified missiles that crash down as lightning strikes at a target area, damaging, dazing, and confusing enemies. 
  • Number of strikes: 3
  • Strike Interval: 1/2s
  • Daze per strike: 1/2s
  • 2 Confusion (6s) per strike
  • Number of targets: 5
  • Radius: 180
  • 900 range
  • 10s CD

P.S. thank you to @Lavafrost.2830 for the inspiration for Shell shock

[Grand Marshal.4098]

I really liked the cold field produced by pistol water 2 iirc.

Is basically scorched earth but cold. Would be funny if it got some decent pulsing damage, so a catalyst can use it twice and get some decent spike in dps metrics in wvw.

Maybe have the field pulse chill and vuln with dmg so water dmg traits which improve vuln can be utilized for something.

I kinda like large/long aoes that deal dmg like scorched earth, cof and prime light beam. 

Edited November 30, 2023 by Grand Marshal.4098

[Jski.6180]

From what limited play i saw it feels like pistol is an in-between spcter and dagger with mostly selfish effect and an few group use though soft cc and 1 field (the frost field i think is the weapon saving factor as its the only other frost field that ele oddly has).

If "ice" is going to have bleed on it then the "air" needs to have burning on it (it realty should be torment and confusion but anet dose not seem to want that).

The lack of aoe is going to be an issues even an 3 target aoe would be enofe to make the weapon far better over all.

I would love to see reloading from the off hand weapon as well say if you use an 4/5 skill on your off hand you reload the related ammo type. So it would let you get more use out of the 2/3 skill on the pistol but at the cost or your off hand cd or the other way of looking at it your MH weapon pistol gets an added effect of your off hand weapon (maybe then we can have an ammo holding and unloading 4 max of the same element type letting you push the added effect even more then just eating 1 bullet effect of an given element type.) Example would be getting 4 earth ammo changes if you hold for your off hand earth skills for an very strong 2/3 skill on pistol. At the same time other ammo element types should effect the other 2/3 by simply adding burn heals bleeds clears barrier etc..

I hope this opens up over all reworks for the other core wepon maybe eleit spec wepon as well. I want to see dagger get faster move speed and attk speed, staff get empower effects from combos, scpter gets cdr during channel effects, sword get effects from evasion and inturipion, and hammer already has orbs but maybe stronger effects from the orbs for the other hammer skills. I am not sure what to do with the off hand effects other then just simple buffs.

[Iustitian.9176]

- Skill 1 and 2 (Fire): No Projectile Combo Finisher info in tooltip
- Skill 1 and 3 (Water): No Projectile Combo Finisher info in tooltip
- Skill 1, 2 and 3 (Air): No Projectile Combo Finisher info in tooltip
- Skill 1 and 2 (Earth): No Projectile Combo Finisher info in tooltip