Single Attunement Elementalists

[ronkul.1320]

IMHO I think that new elementalist elite/specialized core specializations can be like guild wars 1 inspired elementalists, where they can specialize in one specific attunement. These single attunement elementalits should be buffed and/or changed in a way to create a playstyle they heavy focus on (more of what the attunements are doing now i.e. fire is damage aoe and raw and burning damage, air is single spike damage, water is sustain and group healing and maybe chill, and earth is damage prevention sustain and group protection and bleeding damage). These single attunement elementalists should be able to weapon swap to make up for the lack of attunement swapping. I think that the highly specfic playstyles of individual attunement builds will create niche roles for elementalists for pve and pvp in group and solo play that is hard to replicate with the current elite specializations. This idea came from the youtuber wooden potatoes for the general idea.

What are your thoughts and how would you implement this as recommendations if anet would try to make an implementation of it?

[CafPow.1542]

Mmh….

only for the protocol, i would love it more if conjure weapons would be kits in this scenario than having a weapon swap okay but despite that….

2 elements. Not 1. 2.

why?

let‘s say you wanna do fire pewpew. You pick firetrait, arcanetrait and spec-trait.

cause why pick earth, air or water?

you would mostly lock out 3 traitlines in every given spec wouldn’t you? Cause every traitline you can’t attune into, is kinda nerfed per default.

tho when i think about it, even arcane would be dumb cause you never swap anything and a lot of traits rely on swapping.

so i hope you can see my point that you‘d need at least 2 atunnemends. Then, the idea could work out i think. But it’s not that new tbh.

[ronkul.1320]

Maybe make the traits work in a way that they are not tied to attunements or aspects of attunements and give general bonuses when in this special one attunement mode? like how scourge and reaper have different shroud mechanics and traits related to those mechanics change depending on the elite specialization?

[Fueki.4753]

1 hour ago, CafPow.1542 said:

tho when i think about it, even arcane would be dumb cause you never swap anything and a lot of traits rely on swapping.

They could make it so swap traits trigger on weapon swap for that hypothetical one attunement specialization.

1 hour ago, CafPow.1542 said:

cause why pick earth, air or water?

When I played Elementalist, I pretty much exclusively camp fire on Tempest, and I used Earth for my second trait line.

Strength of Stone synergizes well enough with my Trailblazer equipment. Since I used Signet of Fire and Signet of Restoration, I also liked Written in Stone. If you choose to use Sigil of Earth, you also gain a bit of bonus from Serrated Stones.

If one prefers power builds camping Fire, Air offers quite a bit for that as well.

 

Edited January 16 by Fueki.4753

[tiagotatico.6304]

i really dislike this idea because removes part of the flavor of elementalist and also you will have some problems with weaver, its my favorite profession by far and it would need a complete rework and prob killing its identity, like what you are going to do with double elemental attack, weaver self, the most fun elite in the game, weaver passives on elemental change, etc

[Fueki.4753]

11 minutes ago, tiagotatico.6304 said:

i really dislike this idea because removes part of the flavor of elementalist and also you will have some problems with weaver, its my favorite profession by far and it would need a complete rework and prob killing its identity, like what you are going to do with double elemental attack, weaver self, the most fun elite in the game, weaver passives on elemental change, etc

You have Core, Tempest, Weaver and Catalyst for your beloved Attunement-swapping.

Having one elite specialization that focusses on camping an attunement wouldn't hurt you or what you consider to be "the flavour of Elementalist".

This idea is not asking for a complete rework of Elementalist, it's asking to improve a playstyle that already exists.

Edited January 16 by Fueki.4753

[tiagotatico.6304]

2 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

You have Core, Tempest, Weaver and Catalyst for your beloved Attunement-swapping.

Having one elite specialization that focusses on camping an attunement wouldn't hurt you or what you consider to be "the flavour of Elementalist".

This idea is not asking for a complete rework of Elementalist, it's asking to improve a playstyle that already exists.

sorry, i missread it, i tough every elementalist class would play by this rule, but dont get ur hopes up, i dont think we will have another elite especialization, its too hard to balance them all in all the game modes and too costly to make, they will prob stick to weapons only until the next game, if it happens

[Fueki.4753]

1 minute ago, tiagotatico.6304 said:

sorry, i missread it, i tough every elementalist class would play by this rule, but dont get ur hopes up, i dont think we will have another elite especialization, its too hard to balance them all in all the game modes and too costly to make, they will prob stick to weapons only until the next game, if it happens

As a Warrior main, I'm used to neither get hopes up, nor have any for this game to begin with.

[Riba.3271]

While it sounds interesting and fun I think issue here is that such concept would be very strong with certain combinations, and lackluster with others. This would lead to lot of skills getting nerfed and other ele specs shafted.

 

Now what Id like to see is 5th element where the skills would have different effects and combo fields depending on last element attuned. So you can double down on being fire mage or support, but it still requires pressing buttons in certain order. Of course it would be lot of work to make skills for each weapon, but maybe weapon could only decide weapon skills 1-3 while 4 and 5 are same regardless of weapon.

[CafPow.1542]

7 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

They could make it so swap traits trigger on weapon swap for that hypothetical one attunement specialization.

Yeah it would be some things to do and adjust in the other lines. And it should only count for that hypothetical scenario.

still iwould want 2 atunments not just 1.

again let’s say you play fire. You can weapon swap with D/F and Sc/Wh equipped.

how do you CC?

with only one atunement available, you would gut yourself. In all terms this would be just bad i think.

but 2 atunements could work out fine.

this is just how i think about the idea.

[draxynnic.3719]

6 hours ago, tiagotatico.6304 said:

sorry, i missread it, i tough every elementalist class would play by this rule, but dont get ur hopes up, i dont think we will have another elite especialization, its too hard to balance them all in all the game modes and too costly to make, they will prob stick to weapons only until the next game, if it happens

They explicitly rebuffed the idea that elite specialisations were done in a recent interview. Which is more of an 'it's still on the table' than any sort of promise that there will be elite specs in the future, but they are, well, still on the table. It's still worth putting forward ideas.

People really need to consider the context that it was never going to be viable to go from a set of elites every 2-4 years to annual releases. The minipacks needed something that required less investment.

I do think that two attunements are far more viable than one, though. They'd also need to make the attunements a little more equal in value so it doesn't just end up being 'fire and not-fire'.

[Fueki.4753]

9 hours ago, Riba.3271 said:

While it sounds interesting and fun I think issue here is that such concept would be very strong with certain combinations, and lackluster with others. This would lead to lot of skills getting nerfed and other ele specs shafted.

They could split abilities and traits between specializations to circumvent such concerns.

3 hours ago, CafPow.1542 said:

how do you CC?

I'd CC the same way I'd do these days on my Elementalists: not at all.

Not every playstyle needs CC.

3 hours ago, CafPow.1542 said:

with only one atunement available, you would gut yourself. In all terms this would be just bad i think.

There are players who already do exactly that. There already are players who only play one Attunement, because they enjoy that more than the swap-swap-swap playstyle that Elementalist currently is designed around.

I'm not saying they need to make this specialization have top end cookie cutter performance, because not everything has to be that way. But it'd be nice to have for people who already camp anyway.

3 hours ago, CafPow.1542 said:

but 2 atunements could work out fine.

If it was two attunements, they'd still find a way to worm the "need" to swap attunements into the specialization, which means it would end up being the literal opposite of what the original idea intends to do.

3 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

They'd also need to make the attunements a little more equal in value so it doesn't just end up being 'fire and not-fire'.

I'd love for Water to have decent damage options, instead of being demoted to being little more than a support Attunement.

Edited January 17 by Fueki.4753

[CafPow.1542]

30 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

I'd CC the same way I'd do these days on my Elementalists: not at all.

Not every playstyle needs CC.

Okay maybe for pve this is legit x)

 

30 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

There are players who already do exactly that. There already are players who only play one Attunement, because they enjoy that more than the swap-swap-swap playstyle that Elementalist currently is designed around.

I'm not saying they need to make this specialization have top end cookie cutter performance, because not everything has to be that way. But it'd be nice to have for people who already camp anyway

It’s alright but i lack the understanding of this. It’s like driving a racing car and then bit*h about it accelerating to quick.

it‘s part of the playstyle. There are 8 other professions that don’t have that. It’s „the Thing“ of elementalist. But… alright i guess.

and: i don’t need to be „top anything“ at all cause those benchmarks lack reality anyways for most players but there’s a difference between „idc about benchmarks“ and „i only use 10% of my professiona potential“…

 

30 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

If it was two attunements, they'd still find a way to worm the "need" to swap attunements into the specialization, which means it would end up being the literal opposite of what the original idea intends to do.

Yeah but it’s one button. Swap in and out. Realistically playing condi you pick fire / earth anyway. Playing zerker you pick air/water (fresh air) anyway.

so if you trait fire/earth and buff earth-stuff, i think it’s silly to not be able to swap in earth. But again, we dispute a hypothetical e-specc and we can only argue based on our opinionated „vision“ of said specc. I accept your aspect of argument.

 

i mean if they do something like that, they really need to overthink the whole atunment-philosophy. Question stays if it is an elementalist stil, what is left afterwards.

Edited January 17 by CafPow.1542

[Dadnir.5038]

3 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

They explicitly rebuffed the idea that elite specialisations were done in a recent interview. Which is more of an 'it's still on the table' than any sort of promise that there will be elite specs in the future, but they are, well, still on the table. It's still worth putting forward ideas.

People really need to consider the context that it was never going to be viable to go from a set of elites every 2-4 years to annual releases. The minipacks needed something that required less investment.

I do think that two attunements are far more viable than one, though. They'd also need to make the attunements a little more equal in value so it doesn't just end up being 'fire and not-fire'.

I do think they intend to sell us new "weapons" as "elite specs" in the futur. The upcoming batch of weapons almost all have new "mechanisms" that can be argued as being "elite worthy". How it will unfold from there is unknown, thought. Still, I doubt that the attunment mechanism at the core of the elementalist is going anywhere.

[Fueki.4753]

2 hours ago, CafPow.1542 said:

Yeah but it’s one button. Swap in and out. Realistically playing condi you pick fire / earth anyway. Playing zerker you pick air/water (fresh air) anyway.

The idea is camping an Attunement and not swapping at all. Even just one button that swaps attunements regularly is the opposite of what the idea intends to do.

2 hours ago, CafPow.1542 said:

it‘s part of the playstyle.

And this idea is aspecialization that changes up how Elementalist can be played, leading to potentially more players trying to enjoy it.

What if I want to play a Fire magician, not a swap-swapper?

What if I want to play an Air magician, not a swap-swapper?

What if I want to play a Water magician, not a swap-swapper?

What if I want to play an Earth magician, not a swap-swapper?

A no-swapping specialization could improve on these character fantasies.

If you enjoy your swap-swap-swap play style you can always play Core, Tempest, Weaver and Catalyst. These are not going away. But other people should have the chance for a specialization suits them better.

2 hours ago, CafPow.1542 said:

There are 8 other professions that don’t have that.

"Just play a different profession" doesn't solve anything, when players want to have a specific fantasy.

2 hours ago, CafPow.1542 said:

Question stays if it is an elementalist stil, what is left afterwards.

Why would it no longer be an Elementalist? It still uses elemental magic. It can still (temporarily) summon Elementals.

claiming that using only one element makes it no longer be an Elementalist, is equal to claiming most Elementalists in GW1 never really were Elementalists in the first place.

Edited January 17 by Fueki.4753

[CafPow.1542]

@Fueki.4753 it’s okay. I just don’t agree with you. I think only 1 atunment would be stupid. Is all.

i wouldn’t want necros to have an elite specc with no shroud at all (no, scourge doesn’t count he has even more buttons ontop of the weapon bar)

i wouldn’t want engineers to have their toolbelt removed entirely (not replaced by a pet bar)

etc etc.

you can simplify atunment swapping like i said. Make it 2.

make it only 1 tho means, remove the professions special mechanic without to replace it. (Weapon swap is not a replacement for me)

 

i mean if you wanna strictly camp fire, then do that. Don’t swap. You already can. You don’t need an e-spec for that one do you?

why it is suboptimal? Cause you don’t use all the potential elementalist has. To invent an espec that does that, and then buff said especc by design so it compensates the self implied weakness is a thought i can’t really share. I hope it’s okay to be on different opinions here, and honestly: IF they decide to introduce said especc, i am free to not play it and be fine as you said.

or: I’m not saying they won’t or shouldn’t implement 1-atunment eles, I’m saying that i think it’s bad but that’s just me personal. 🙂

Edited January 17 by CafPow.1542

[xellink.7568]

1 hour ago, Fueki.4753 said:

The idea is camping an Attunement and not swapping at all. Even just one button that swaps attunements regularly is the opposite of what the idea intends to do.

And this idea is aspecialization that changes up how Elementalist can be played, leading to potentially more players trying to enjoy it.

What if I want to play a Fire magician, not a swap-swapper?

What if I want to play an Air magician, not a swap-swapper?

What if I want to play a Water magician, not a swap-swapper?

What if I want to play an Earth magician, not a swap-swapper?

A no-swapping specialization could improve on these character fantasies.

If you enjoy your swap-swap-swap play style you can always play Core, Tempest, Weaver and Catalyst. These are not going away. But other people should have the chance for a specialization suits them better.

"Just play a different profession" doesn't solve anything, when players want to have a specific fantasy.

Why would it no longer be an Elementalist? It still uses elemental magic. It can still (temporarily) summon Elementals.

claiming that using only one element makes it no longer be an Elementalist, is equal to claiming most Elementalists in GW1 never really were Elementalists in the first place.

Fire ele camping works on tempest at 40k dps now. I think they should support camping other elements on tempest. 

Otherwise firebrand or condi willbender are other options. 

For ice eg. Condi reaper is the first thing that comes to mind. 

Planning is needed so each will retain their identity.

54 minutes ago, CafPow.1542 said:

@Fueki.4753 it’s okay. I just don’t agree with you. I think only 1 atunment would be stupid. Is all.

i wouldn’t want necros to have an elite specc with no shroud at all (no, scourge doesn’t count he has even more buttons ontop of the weapon bar)

i wouldn’t want engineers to have their toolbelt removed entirely (not replaced by a pet bar)

i mean if you wanna strictly camp fire, then do that. Don’t swap. You already can. You don’t need an e-spec for that one do you?

why it is suboptimal? Cause you don’t use all the potential elementalist has. To invent an espec that does that, and then buff said especc by design so it compensates the self implied weakness is a thought i can’t really share. I hope it’s okay to be on different opinions here, and honestly: IF they decide to introduce said especc, i am free to not play it and be fine as you said. 

🙂

I think each espec adds a lot of flavour and variety to play. Soulbeast removes the pet mechanic. Mechanist removes the toolbelt. Scourge removes the second health bar. Spectre removes steal for shroud. Bladesworn removes bursts for a weapon kit. Virtuoso removes clones and so on. 

I think tempest can have a workaround passive grandmaster trait that allows mastery of a single element

eg. Elemental bastion - switching attunements causes you to have elemental conditioning status which grants elemental bastion after 10s. Elemental bastion: Provides a permanent stat bonus based on the elemental attunement. You lose elemental bastion when you switch attunements. 

Fire - Condi damage and Vitality

Water - Power and Healing Power

Air - Precision and increased movement speed

Earth - Expertise and Toughness 

[draxynnic.3719]

4 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

There are players who already do exactly that. There already are players who only play one Attunement, because they enjoy that more than the swap-swap-swap playstyle that Elementalist currently is designed around.

I'm not saying they need to make this specialization have top end cookie cutter performance, because not everything has to be that way. But it'd be nice to have for people who already camp anyway.

If it was two attunements, they'd still find a way to worm the "need" to swap attunements into the specialization, which means it would end up being the literal opposite of what the original idea intends to do.

Too much of the profession is already based around some level of swapping. Every core traitline has minor traits that require swapping, and taking a second core traitline is going to be substantially weakened without having a second attunement. Like it or not, that's how ele is designed. And any new elite specialisation has to at least have a chance at being competitive. I don't think many people are going to be too happy about one of elementalist's few remaining elite specialisation slots going towards a pure spec.

I think there is value in having two over one from a thematic perspective as well. Sticking to just one attunement means you're completely restricted to what Arenanet decided to include in that attunement. Two attunements allows players to have a bit more agency with respect to theme. Avatar firebender? Run Fire/Air to work in lightning-bending. Volcanic theme? Fire/earth. Storm theme? Air/water.

And at least it would block off another "gotta swap through all four attunements" skill.

[Fueki.4753]

11 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Too much of the profession is already based around some level of swapping. Every core traitline has minor traits that require swapping, and taking a second core traitline is going to be substantially weakened without having a second attunement.

As already mentioned, these could trigger on weapon swap for that specialization instead.

12 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

And any new elite specialisation has to at least have a chance at being competitive.

I very much prefer flavour over numbers, so I'm not in the camp that needs to have everything be competitive with all the other things.

14 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I don't think many people are going to be too happy about one of elementalist's few remaining elite specialisation slots going towards a pure spec.

As mentioned, these players already have Core, Tempest, Weaver and Catalyst for their swap-swapping.

People who do not like that on their Elementalist could be allowed to have an option tailored for them, too, if there was a specialization that doesn't cater towards the swap-dwapping.

18 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I think there is value in having two over one from a thematic perspective as well. Sticking to just one attunement means you're completely restricted to what Arenanet decided to include in that attunement. Two attunements allows players to have a bit more agency with respect to theme.

That'd be a different theme than proposed with this idea.

And I'd very much prefer having one attunement and weapon swap than having two attunements and no weapon swap.

But I doubt this'll happen anyway, so it's all just potentially fun ideas. If they ever release more elite specializations, I doubt it's be anywhere close to this.

28 minutes ago, xellink.7568 said:

Otherwise firebrand or condi willbender are other options. 

For ice eg. Condi reaper is the first thing that comes to mind.

These have different flavours than a fire magician or a water caster.

[CafPow.1542]

1 hour ago, xellink.7568 said:

I think each espec adds a lot of flavour and variety to play. Soulbeast removes the pet mechanic. Mechanist removes the toolbelt. Scourge removes the second health bar. Spectre removes steal for shroud. Bladesworn removes bursts for a weapon kit. Virtuoso removes clones and so on. 

No see…

it doesn’t „remove“ … it replaces those with something else.

petbar is gone on ranger, but you get those soulbeast abilities

toolbelt is gone, but you get a petbar

shroud is gone, but you get shroudabilities to press.

 

now with OPs idea, atunments are gone and all you get is a weapon swap.

nahh. I don’t like that.

 

maybe, what i thougt is, if you specialize on an element, give 4 specific elemental abilities for F1-F4. Elementally themed of course. That could work out ans those abilities could … „replace“ the stuff you lose in other atunments.

like on fire you get a CC and a movement and a healing ability on your F -skills or something. That could be interesting.

[Infinity.2876]

Every profession has a way to swap between at least 2 different weapon types. Without making necessary changes to conjured weapons this would be a nerf in options and playability.

[draxynnic.3719]

3 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

As already mentioned, these could trigger on weapon swap for that specialization instead.

And the other core traitline? You'd be looking at pretty much a complete overhaul to how core traitlines work for that to even have a chance to work.

3 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

I very much prefer flavour over numbers, so I'm not in the camp that needs to have everything be competitive with all the other things.

As mentioned, these players already have Core, Tempest, Weaver and Catalyst for their swap-swapping.

I think two is still better flavour than one, since it allows for more nuanced concepts.

Considering that even if we get additional elite specialisations at all they're likely to be released no faster than one every three years or so, many ele players already consider catalyst to be a wasted slot, and all of them have been to a greater or lesser extent melee-oriented, I think there'd likely be a riot if elementalist's next elite specialisation is a fire wizard RP spec that's only functional in open world PvE. There just aren't enough elite specialisations being made to have one that's built on such weak foundations that it's not competitive anywhere. And, frankly, if you just don't care about efficiency at all and just want to camp a single element... you can already camp fire if you don't care about effectiveness. Teapot demonstrated that a map full of fire wizards could beat the Dragon's End meta.

Restricting to two is still a significant shift, and I think the "swap" players will also appreciate having a ranged elite specialisation at some point.

3 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

People who do not like that on their Elementalist could be allowed to have an option tailored for them, too, if there was a specialization that doesn't cater towards the swap-dwapping.

That'd be a different theme than proposed with this idea.

Again, we're not going to be getting enough elite specialisations to have both.

3 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

And I'd very much prefer having one attunement and weapon swap than having two attunements and no weapon swap.

You say that like two attunements and weapon swap isn't more likely. For better or worse, elementalist weapon skills are balanced on the basis of having twenty of them - it would probably be easier to balance two attunements with swap than one attunement with swap.

3 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

But I doubt this'll happen anyway, so it's all just potentially fun ideas. If they ever release more elite specializations, I doubt it's be anywhere close to this.

These have different flavours than a fire magician or a water caster.

Fantasy doesn't always agree on what fits into a specific element. There are a lot of skills that ArenaNet has assigned to one element where a reasonable argument could be made that it could fit into another element. Two attunements allows for six combinations instead of just four.

Moreover, I find it very telling that you use fire magician and water caster specifically - because those are the only attunements that would really be viable without an even bigger rework than the trait changes that would be needed to even approximate being worthwhile. Air just plain sucks on staff and looks like it will also suck on pistol, is very reliant on Fresh Air (ie, attunement swapping) on sceptre, hammer would simply be completely nonfunctional for this concept, and while sword and dagger might work, air only working with sword and dagger kinda defeats part of the value of having a weapon swap (in addition to melee builds really not being what most people have in mind for a lightning specialist). Earth is in a little better shape, but in practice it's pretty much always running second fiddle to fire. I miss GW1 elementalists too, but even GW1 elementalists had some cross-element synergies, and two elements would reflect that. 

[Fueki.4753]

18 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

And the other core traitline? You'd be looking at pretty much a complete overhaul to how core traitlines work for that to even have a chance to work.

As already stated, Someone camping Fire on a condition build can benefit from a few traits in Earth, especially when using Toughness gear Trailblazer. Power Builds can use Air as their second trait line.

If people want to camp, they will find something that fits. As a matter of fact, we already do that. It may not produce cookie cutter numbers, but as already mentioned, not everything needs to do that.

21 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I think two is still better flavour than one, since it allows for more nuanced concepts.. 

And that is something that boils down to personal taste. You'd prefer two for nuance, I'd prefer one for being more straight forward.

22 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Considering that even if we get additional elite specialisations at all they're likely to be released no faster than one every three years or so, many ele players already consider catalyst to be a wasted slot, and all of them have been to a greater or lesser extent melee-oriented, I think there'd likely be a riot if elementalist's next elite specialisation is a fire wizard RP spec that's only functional in open world PvE.

If we ever get new specializations, I fully believe that Elementalist will get yet another swap-swapper anyway. I do not beleive Arenanet will even try to make a specialisation based on camping one Attunement.

But that doesn't stop me from indulging in these types ideas and thinking about how they could look like.

26 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

if you just don't care about efficiency at all and just want to camp a single element... you can already camp fire if you don't care about effectiveness.

I already do that, when I play my Elementalists. But I think it'd be fun to have a few more tools tailored towards that.

29 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Restricting to two is still a significant shift, and I think the "swap" players will also appreciate having a ranged elite specialisation at some point.

Since specialisation weapons aren't restricted anymore, so if the camping specialisation came with a Longbow, they could still use that on the other specialisation.

And I don't think that having two attunements is all that significant of a shift, as the resulting gameplay would likely still be tuned around being swapping between those two, which notably is not what the idea of this thread was going.

35 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I find it very telling that you use fire magician and water caster specifically - because those are the only attunements that would really be viable without an even bigger rework than the trait changes that would be needed to even approximate being worthwhile. Air just plain sucks on staff and looks like it will also suck on pistol, is very reliant on Fresh Air (ie, attunement swapping) on sceptre, hammer would simply be completely nonfunctional for this concept, and while sword and dagger might work, air only working with sword and dagger kinda defeats part of the value of having a weapon swap (in addition to melee builds really not being what most people have in mind for a lightning specialist). Earth is in a little better shape, but in practice it's pretty much always running second fiddle to fire. I miss GW1 elementalists too, but even GW1 elementalists had some cross-element synergies, and two elements would reflect that. 

As you can see from what I quoted, I used fire magician as a response to Firebrand and Willbender, as those deal with fire in a different flavour. Likewise, I used water caster as a response to Reaper being mentioned as an Ice themed example that is a different flavour to Water Elementalists.

I never considered Water to be an especially strong Attunement to camp for DPS. Even Earth was better for me. But Air always has been the most unimpressive attunement for me in GW2, even though I loved Air in GW1.

46 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

You say that like two attunements and weapon swap isn't more likely. For better or worse, elementalist weapon skills are balanced on the basis of having twenty of them - it would probably be easier to balance two attunements with swap than one attunement with s

Let's assume we get two attunements and weapon swap. How will the swap-related traits respond to that? Will they work on both weapon swap and attunement? Will they work only on weapon swap for this specialisation? Or will they only work on attunement swap as they always did?

[Liewec.2896]

i've been suggesting this for years! i'd call the elite spec "Acolyte" and we basically focus on an element and choose to be an Acolyte of Fire/Earth/Water or Lightning.

this would disable the stance-dancing of current ele and focus everything on that one element.

i'd make staff the weapon of the elite spec and dial up the power of the skills (since you only have 5 instead of 20!)

being an Acolyte of Fire would see you focused on large area damage, becoming the quintessential RPG fire mage!

an Acolyte of Lightning would get massive single target damage, (skill 1 would be replaced with a super-buffed version of scepter 1.)

Acolytes of Water would be capable of main healing for a raid through very potent water healing spells.

and an Acolyte of Earth would be able to tank with the best of them!

 

the only thing that would be tricky is the trait tree because typical trait trees have 3 choices, obviously with 4 elements we'd need 4 choices.

perhaps we could get REALLY crazy and make the elite specs all have their own tree? basically 4 elite specs. 😄

like the Acolyte of Fire elite spec would give you options for condi (spreading blazing fires around) power damage (enhancing the direct damage of the massive metoers you'll be hurling around) and maybe a 3rd hybrid that would enhance both condi and power to a lesser extent, maybe this 3rd option would also be where you would get a bit of survival.

Edited January 18 by Liewec.2896

[draxynnic.3719]

8 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

As already stated, Someone camping Fire on a condition build can benefit from a few traits in Earth, especially when using Toughness gear Trailblazer. Power Builds can use Air as their second trait line.

If people want to camp, they will find something that fits. As a matter of fact, we already do that. It may not produce cookie cutter numbers, but as already mentioned, not everything needs to do that.

And as already mentioned, it'd really suck for one of elementalist's few elite specialisations to be something that's only useful for open world RPing, especially after Catalyst was basically Weaver But With Boons.

Sure, you can get some benefit from air or earth with a campfire build, depending on whether you're going power or condi. However, each have traits, including a minor trait each, that don't work if you're not swapping to them at least sometimes. Just because you can find a build that works for them that's less bad doesn't mean you're not giving up on utility. What success it has is coming from the fact that on most weapons fire is overloaded enough compared to other weapons that you can just about afford that - but that basically means that the spec would just be the fire spec without doing anything for the other elements.

8 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

And that is something that boils down to personal taste. You'd prefer two for nuance, I'd prefer one for being more straight forward.

If we ever get new specializations, I fully believe that Elementalist will get yet another swap-swapper anyway. I do not beleive Arenanet will even try to make a specialisation based on camping one Attunement.

But that doesn't stop me from indulging in these types ideas and thinking about how they could look like.

And it doesn't stop me from raising criticism just in case ArenaNet does take these ideas seriously. 

8 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

I already do that, when I play my Elementalists. But I think it'd be fun to have a few more tools tailored towards that.

If you're already doing that, I dare say that you'd likely still be better off doing that with a two-attunement elementalist elite spec.

8 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

Since specialisation weapons aren't restricted anymore, so if the camping specialisation came with a Longbow, they could still use that on the other specialisation.

The weapon isn't the point. It's the mechanics and utility skills that make the existing elite specs melee-oriented, at least in PvE. Weaver less so than the others if used with a ranged weapon, but utilities and trait interactions are still pointed towards melee

8 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

And I don't think that having two attunements is all that significant of a shift, as the resulting gameplay would likely still be tuned around being swapping between those two, which notably is not what the idea of this thread was going.

Again, I don't think building around no swapping at all is viable due to how much of core elementalist is built around the idea of swapping. ArenaNet built elementalist around the concept of swapping, for better or worse: there is a very real sense that other professions exist if you really don't like it. You've repeatedly said that you do it anyway and don't care if it's inefficient, so you can probably do it on a two-attunement elite spec and still be better off than you are now, while the people who do care aout efficiency will still have a usable elite specialisation that trades some of the attunement swapping for other benefits, such as a weaponswap. The big shift is a tighter theme (you're an elementalist that does specialise instead of at least theoretically trying to do everything) and the weaponswap (a big deal as it introduces the option to have one ranged set and one melee set).

8 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

As you can see from what I quoted, I used fire magician as a response to Firebrand and Willbender, as those deal with fire in a different flavour. Likewise, I used water caster as a response to Reaper being mentioned as an Ice themed example that is a different flavour to Water Elementalists.

I never considered Water to be an especially strong Attunement to camp for DPS. Even Earth was better for me. But Air always has been the most unimpressive attunement for me in GW2, even though I loved Air in GW1.

Yeah, camping water, if it was ever going to happen, would purely be a healer thing, and in PvE at least that being viable would require also having boon access, and a boon healer would likely want to also have access to at least one other attunement for more boons.

So unless other attunements were really to be buffed massively, the one-attunement-only proposal would probably end up being exactly that, and the attunement would be Fire.

8 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

Let's assume we get two attunements and weapon swap. How will the swap-related traits respond to that? Will they work on both weapon swap and attunement? Will they work only on weapon swap for this specialisation? Or will they only work on attunement swap as they always did?

Mathematically, I think it would be reasonable to work on both. Weaver already has the ability to trigger on-swap effects at an accelerated pace (which is part of the reason why it's melee-oriented: Sunspot and Earthen Blast are PBAoEs, so even if a weaver is using a scepter, a condi weaver will probably want to be in melee range to benefit from those procs), so if the cooldown for swapping back to an attunement remains at 10s, I don't think getting swap-related traits on weaponswap would break anything.