Elementalist synergies have really fallen apart, and even new weapons aren't that exciting. Some retrospect, some review, and a lot of recommendation.

[Noodle Ant.1605]

a lot can be done just by buffing autoattacks (and some #2/3 skills). outside of condi scepter fire and power sword autos, ele has some exceptionally bad autoattacks, which means many attunements on weapons simply arent worth staying in (fire also tends to have the least bad auto). it also heavily encourages mindless attunement cycling which is completely fine for 1-2 weapons/especs, but isnt what ele has really been about

buffing autos also helps address the issue of dps plummeting when visiting “utility” attunements and being locked out of damage attunements, while lowering the skill floor (particularly if players are role playing and not using fire) without significantly affecting the ceiling

a lot of other weapon skills are in need of coefficient updates. the issue seems to be that they arent used in the meta builds/rotations and therefore rarely see buffs, which is annoying for ele since it has a rather huge skillset and build options that all need to be updated with increasing powercreep

[draxynnic.3719]

1 hour ago, Noodle Ant.1605 said:

a lot can be done just by buffing autoattacks (and some #2/3 skills). outside of condi scepter fire and power sword autos, ele has some exceptionally bad autoattacks, which means many attunements on weapons simply arent worth staying in (fire also tends to have the least bad auto). it also heavily encourages mindless attunement cycling which is completely fine for 1-2 weapons/especs, but isnt what ele has really been about

buffing autos also helps address the issue of dps plummeting when visiting “utility” attunements and being locked out of damage attunements, while lowering the skill floor (particularly if players are role playing and not using fire) without significantly affecting the ceiling

a lot of other weapon skills are in need of coefficient updates. the issue seems to be that they arent used in the meta builds/rotations and therefore rarely see buffs, which is annoying for ele since it has a rather huge skillset and build options that all need to be updated with increasing powercreep

Thiiiis. There seems to have been a tendency in the last few years for fire to be updated but for other attunements to be left behind. You mention scepter fire, but good old-fashioned fireball is so much better than Chain Tickling and Stoning it just isn't funny.

[Shaman.2034]

I think what holds Chain Lightning back is the fact that it can bounce back to the first target for double damage when there's exactly 2 targets in range. So, they should just double the power coefficient and make it unable to bounce back to a target already struck -- or, since that's probably too much computational load to put on an autoattack (having to constantly create and delete don't-bounce-back-here flags), have the chaining effect be something kinda like mirage greatsword ambush, where it sends 2 secondary bolts outward in a radius from the original target.

That would open up an opportunity to add synergies to the skill, such as increasing the number of secondary targets to 4 when the primary target is Blinded, which gives it an interaction with Lightning Surge. Something worth the long cast time and slow projectile speed in an otherwise non-damaging attunement.

Or, if staff air attunement is just meant to be a CC machine, take Virtuoso dagger auto flurry mechanic and give it to Chain Lightning, where every 3rd successive hit on the same primary target causes a bonus electrical shock that deals 1/4s Daze. That has trait synergy with Lightning Rod, and again makes it worth the long cast time and slow projectile speed -- it would take 4 seconds + projectile travel time to stack up to 3 consecutive hits, so a tiny Daze is totally worth the setup, especially since it's a projectile that can be further interacted with.

Adding a flurry mechanic also gives staff more potential to be used with Catalyst. Say that the flurry does 3x rapid weak hits, each applying a stack of vulnerability, and then the 4th Dazing hit is a modest burst of extra damage (0 damage in competitive modes as usual for CCs). That would let staff charge Catalyst energy faster, allowing it some more synergy.

Ultimately staff suffers from a lack of identity, and would benefit from having some identity firmly established. It has more problems than just Chain Lightning, but they can't really be solved until staff has a solid identity. Is it damage? Is it control? Is it support? It's trying to be all three at once in different attunements, which is anti-synergistic with modern elementalist that wants to be constantly rotating through attunements. That creates dead spaces in your rotation no matter how you're trying to use a staff. If you're playing support, Fire is a dead space. If you're playing control, Fire is still a dead space. If you're playing damage, Water and Air are dead spaces. At this point, I don't even have a strong preference toward a specific identity, I just want it to have any cohesive identity so I can feel good about using a staff in some build.

[draxynnic.3719]

I don't think 'control' is really an identity, it's more that DPS and support builds can have varying amounts of control built in. I think there is potential for staff to function as either depending on build, but any given build really needs to have at least two attunements where staff is useful. Earth could be given some barrier or something like that, perhaps.

Regarding Chain Lightning: having it decide the targets when cast would probably work well. Personally, I'm partial to making it a non-projectile myself. Select a target, activate the skill, and the server picks the enemy closest to the target, and then the next enemy closest to that target, and hits them all with lightning. Animation is a lightning effect that goes from the caster to the primary target, then to the secondary target, and then to the third target, instantaneously. Which would make it both closer to the GW1 skill and to the lightning fantasy in general. If they're REALLY ambitious, they could also make the bolt from the caster to the first target able to catch a couple of enemies on the way, but ArenaNet seems to prefer most autoattacks limited to three targets.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

They should be inspired by what they did with necro's traits to adapt with scourge and the lost of DS : Instead of "While attuned to X element : Y", something like "When using the 3rd skill : blast a Flame expulsion (Icd?) Earn Quickness. Inflict Immobilize" ...

[Vooksa.2941]

17 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

You know that most of the information you're asking for is on the wiki, right? Right? The aftercasts, and thus the true cast times of skills, can be a little opaque, but otherwise...

Oh I know, but so far as I'm aware there's nowhere where the exact coefficient, number of strikes, and amount of condi is all available on a single table. I'm not trying to build a rotation calculator, just to try to estimate what the value of staying in an element for the 10 seconds you'd need to bounce back to your main one of choice is actually doing to your damage.

4 hours ago, Shaman.2034 said:

Chain lightning bounce

Lightning flurry

Staff lacks identity

4 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I don't think 'control' is really an identity

This is kind of what I mean in my OP, when I say that there's issues with Ele weapons, and introducing more is only going to dig the hole deeper until something is done about it. Ele has multiple traits built around disables, and numerous weapon options to do smaller, weaker disables, and yet it somehow doesn't feel like it really matters as a build, not compared to a class like Ranger, who has powerful disable tech on all three elite specs. It has lots of play with multi-strike, including all non-Fire autos on scepter (water and earth have 3x, air has TEN HITS), secondary strikes on Air sword, even a Catalyst augment for inflicting secondary attacks, but the traits that might actually benefit from these, Burning Precision, Arcane Precision, Raging Storm, all have 3-8 second iCD, and only Persisting Flames has any kind of tech advantage in the vein of Engi's Aim-Assisted Rocket, Willbender virtues, or Virtuoso bleed-on-blade (seriously, 100% chance is insane, nobody gets that).

For example, staff is an amazing control weapon, but that's only valuable in WvW, PvP, and instanced PvE, in descending order. I wish other professions had even half as many area-denial options as Ele has just on staff alone, with knockback walls, dazing rings, fire fields, immobilizing waves, meteor shower, Gust, frozen ground... the Ranger and Kalla spirit reworks were a missed opportunity. And, on the launch of GW2, the Arcane traitline had a trait that increased the radius of staff AOEs even more than they are, so it makes sense that it's supposed to be a WvW or meta-event weapon for cleaving lots of enemies. But then, if it's meant to cleave, why does Earth AA only hit one target? If staff is meant to be support, why does Fire have five damaging skills instead? If you're not a Fire Wizard, are you meant to bluff with the fire fields?

Like, concept: What if instead of AirStaff2 being almost a clone of AirScepter2, we improved it's cleave? Staff2 is on a lower cooldown, but the targeted enemy becomes a superconductor for 10s. Attacks targeting the superconductor are piercing, and arc lightning between the superconductor and up to 5 enemies within 300 range for a weaker, secondary strike.

Or, why don't we update the Lightning Rod trait, that has you build charges every time you critically strike a foe, 5 charges if you disable an enemy, and performs a bonus AOE lightning strike to a target once you hit 10 stacks, granting barrier and fury to allies in the radius? Not that Ele has any explicit barrier play without Relic of the Scourge, but it'd mean Lightning Rod is a half-dps/half-group support traitline, instead of a THIRD damage-increasing grandmaster. Air scepter autos proc this trait all by itself, but several Ele weapons could, as well as utility options on every elite spec.

_____

Long story short, it might suck, but before we can have real solid Ele builds and be excited about new weapons, some weapons will have to have some things taken away, and/or given to other weapons. I've shelved the notion that traits are responsible for Fire Wizard supremacy in terms of damage output, but I really do seriously believe that they simply aren't designed in the capacity to make us have really interesting decisions regarding our builds, not like on other classes, or that if they are, they don't do anything to communicate that, being trapped behind a few hundred calculations involving stats we don't have access to in the game.