Conjure weapon build and love

[evilcat.6817]

Conjured weapons are not that popular. Which is a shame since that means elementalist have a whole line wasted.

There could be a way to make conjured weapon great again, or first time.

Reduce cld on fiery greatsword to 90sec.

In Arcane line add perk somewhere your conjured weapons have double duration. Could on Bountiful Power. So we can use our summon weapon as long as we wnat.

When we summon a weapon it counts as attument to element. So we trigger all effects on attument.

In each specialization line there is one perk which buffs specific weapon. So for example Fire Power Overhelming makes your Flame Axe add extra fire damage with each weapon attack.

When you summon weapon it actually does something, like gives allies buffs, damages enemies and gives them condition.

Second weapon for pick up is not particulary useful, if someone is already speced to make good use of Flame Axe, they probably have weapon which deals enought burning damage. And if someone is not speced for sick burns, then why to pick flame axe? Poluting screen with pick ups is double edge, as there could be so many particles effect and glow that  is hard to see what is going on anyway. So no need for pickups, just make it cool for elie, my own, my precious.

Generally do something to move conjured weapons a part of sensible builds, not just wasted utility line. Or remove them and add elemental circles line of skils which would be useful.

Work on synergies, if water line likes vulnerability, regeneration, chilling and vigor give that boons, condition to frost bow.

Considering how not present conjured weapons are there is a lot of space to buff them before they become OP meta and wvw manace.

 

Edited March 23 by evilcat.6817

[draxynnic.3719]

My general starting proposition is to remove the second weapon (nobody really wants to share conjures any more) and cut the cooldown of each conjure weapon in half. That way, you could use a single non-elite conjured weapon indefinitely if that's what you need to do.

Then make sure each has a clearly defined function. They shouldn't be something that you pull out just for one or two powerful skills and then drop, they should instead be something that allows elementalist to compensate for the lack of weaponswap by taking a conjure that covers for weaknesses of their primary weapon.

 

[evilcat.6817]

Some more thoughs:

1. Lack of thematic cohesion with each weapon is main issue. Sometimes weapons are blant, they just deal some damage, same as daggers, which makes it hard to build any synergy with that. Each weapon should have theme, and favorite boons/condition/effect

Flame Axe - this one is problematic as 1 and 2 have no burning, and whole weapon has no fury, and after that it is blant.

Earth shield - this one is actually good, as it fallows the theme of barriers and bleeds, and blocks, and there is even some stun. Fortify 5 could have an eruption option, so we can blast it if nobody is attacking us.

Frost Bow - almost good, we almost stick to the theme of healing, vulneribility and chill play, but frost storm has random bleeding which is too much in one set. Frost Storm could be swap for some refreshing breeze skill which would heal regen and cleanse allies. And leave bleeding to earth. Not enought healing in this one. Or add vulnerability stacks to 1st attack, and just accept that this weapon is not that much healing but ok power dps.

LIghting Hammer - we deal some damage and overall it is boring, we could just run with sword/dagger. or actual hammer. Lighting Leap could also grant furry to fallow this ferocity charged attack theme. And invoke lighting coud daze to fallow the theme of crowd control.

Fiery Greatsword - i dont know where to start, maybe with cooldown 180sec which makes it hard to use. even Tornodao is easier to use. And the skills... they do not trigger any condition or boons so hard to trigger synergy. This weapon should be rewordker so it grant offensive elements of all weapons, so burns, vulnerability, bleeds, blinds, fury, quickness for pure violence.

2. Cooldown, the whole 60sec cld, 30sec dur can work with that, as long as weapon itself is worth it. Having it 60/60 cld/dur would be ease of use. So we can keep it for a whole fight. And there is a major problem with fiery greatsword which have cld not workable.

3. Pickups. The weapons are so balanced (weak) to not couse anyones envy. So it low probability that anyone will kill for extra conured weapon. one way to go is if picking a weapon granted boons, so we could always pick a weapon for boons and then drop it down to return to our orginal set. Like Fire: Might and fury, Air Swift and Quick, Eart Protection and Stability, Water Regen and Vigor.

4. Some interaction with specialization paths, either with boons/condition or auras. So we can trigger our perk. Our there could be direct call in specialization to improve the conjured weapon in some way in similar fashion as it possible to improve signet with stone perk.

There is also an option to split Frost Bow into Frost Bow which would be pure offensive vulnerability chill weapon. And Water Trident which would be a pure healing support weapon (under healing skill)

 

Edited March 22 by evilcat.6817

[Coolster.2536]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Then make sure each has a clearly defined function. They shouldn't be something that you pull out just for one or two powerful skills and then drop, they should instead be something that allows elementalist to compensate for the lack of weaponswap by taking a conjure that covers for weaknesses of their primary weapon.

 

Those sound like the same thing to me, since I doubt there's many situations where you would want to camp a conjure weapon

[Jski.6180]

If you can support your self with out our wepon skills you can pull off an conja wepon build. The new arcain update kind of helps with this but i think the heal and arcain shield are still not there for it. If the heal gave more then just protection and the shield gave a few more stack of stab it would go a long way.

That the issues with conja wepon you lose all of your utility of your wepon witch is most of what ele gets and the conja weapons them self lack any thing outside of there "kit" roll.

[Howluffu.7259]

make them engi kits or bladegun set alike.

[vardeleanu.8972]

Is it already time for the yearly begging for conjure reworks post with useful brainstorming of ideas ? It's only march.

Not like it matters anyway, we all know it's going straight in the trash.

[nofo.8469]

At least remove the share thing so if eles want to try and make this jank work they don’t subject others to it

[draxynnic.3719]

On 3/22/2024 at 11:26 AM, Coolster.2536 said:

Those sound like the same thing to me, since I doubt there's many situations where you would want to camp a conjure weapon

You're using sword, and something just happened so you can't stay in melee. Just to give one example.

I don't think any build should be expecting to regard a conjure as their main weapon, but they could work as a backup in situations where your main weapon has weaknesses that a conjure can shore up. If their mechanics were suitably streamlined and skills adjusted where needed to give them a solid identity (flame axe in particular is a mess).

[Iustitian.9176]

There could be two good ways to make them more usable: 

1. Reduce cooldown of conjured weapons to 30 seconds and re-introduce the stack mechanic (3 Stacks, every skill of the conjured weapon, except the auto attack, consumes a stack. When all stacks are consumed, the weapon will disappear.) 

2. Change the conjured weapons to kits (like engineer), but only available in the right element (else it would be too much compared to engineer who don't have attunements)

[Tinker.6924]

On 3/21/2024 at 7:58 PM, draxynnic.3719 said:

 

My general starting proposition is to remove the second weapon

 

Absolutely!!!!

No one will pick up the weapon intentionally because it will screw their rotation for something totally unfamiliar

 

 

[evilcat.6817]

Things which will never happen:

Create Water Trident summon weapon, as healing skill, which will summon.... water trident weapon, with kit based around healing and support, more support than you will need. With regen, protection, cleanse full service. There will also be some intial heal as it is healing skill so it is part of the package.Not particularry great as dps stick.

Sample skill line, note that all dps is generally low, but some is existing

Waterstream - simple range splash, however every 3rd attack heals allies around target, and steal some extra health from enemy, so deal extra and give us some.

Favouravle Current - pathway area spell which gives resistance and swiftness while crippling enemies, with some low damage.

Healing Spring - circle aoe which just splash regen, and initial heal on allies in 3x1sec pulses, water field, no damage

Etheral Myst - circle aoe with breeze effect 3x1sec pulses cleansing 1 condition, and giving alies resolution, smaller heal, etheral field, no damage

Tsumani - epic skill with long cld, which splash big waterfall, knocking down enemies, dealing ton of damage, and doing blast finisher.

Passive: We get 180 healing power, similar to other summon weapon.

Frost Bow will still remain, but the kit will be about... frost, chill, vulnerable and generally making enemies miserable. Without healing component.

 

Edited April 10 by evilcat.6817

[Jski.6180]

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGwAg2JlNwEZIMF2JOUXutdA-DWZYVBLGdhbYnggfCwC9jWAA-w

Maybe? Mostly roming and small numbers fight in wvw. I am not sure if you can give up much more for another conja wepon.

[Bleikopf.2491]

58 minutes ago, evilcat.6817 said:

Things which will never happen:

Create Water Trident summon weapon, as healing skill, which will summon.... water trident weapon, with kit based around healing and support, more support than you will need. With regen, protection, cleanse full service. There will also be some intial heal as it is healing skill so it is part of the package.Not particularry great as dps stick.

Frost Bow will still remain, but the kit will be about... frost, chill, vulnerable and generally making enemies miserable. Without healing component.

 

This actually sounds good. Always hated that Frost Bow is split the way it is. Although it probably aligned with the 2012 idea of elements better. 

[draxynnic.3719]

23 hours ago, evilcat.6817 said:

Things which will never happen:

Create Water Trident summon weapon, as healing skill, which will summon.... water trident weapon, with kit based around healing and support, more support than you will need. With regen, protection, cleanse full service. There will also be some intial heal as it is healing skill so it is part of the package.Not particularry great as dps stick.

Sample skill line, note that all dps is generally low, but some is existing

Waterstream - simple range splash, however every 3rd attack heals allies around target, and steal some extra health from enemy, so deal extra and give us some.

Favouravle Current - pathway area spell which gives resistance and swiftness while crippling enemies, with some low damage.

Healing Spring - circle aoe which just splash regen, and initial heal on allies in 3x1sec pulses, water field, no damage

Etheral Myst - circle aoe with breeze effect 3x1sec pulses cleansing 1 condition, and giving alies resolution, smaller heal, etheral field, no damage

Tsumani - epic skill with long cld, which splash big waterfall, knocking down enemies, dealing ton of damage, and doing blast finisher.

Passive: We get 180 healing power, similar to other summon weapon.

Frost Bow will still remain, but the kit will be about... frost, chill, vulnerable and generally making enemies miserable. Without healing component.

 

I wonder if it even really needs to be in the form of a weapon. Could simply summon a globe of water that the elementalist manipulates to activate the various skills.

[zeyeti.8347]

first thing to do is completely get rid off the cast time , second is this design is overshadowing the ele main mechanic who is "i have 20 weapon skills" "now i have 25 with a conjure" , while with engi it make a lot of sense cause it's basically 5 weapons skills with 5 toolbelt (3mech skills) making it very understandable , but with ele it's overlapping the most with your already 20 weapons skills. (and more if weaver ...)

We don't need another set of 5 weapon skills we already have 20 of them ! that's enough ! that's the problem with conjure and why ppl mostly don't like it , then you have the problem of the actual skills ... what is this clusterf*** ? ice bow is meh heal/aoe damage /cc , axe is garbage tier , hammer is i don't know a cc weapon ? shield is a poor wish made in china version of firebrand tome 3 and Gs when u see it's used  for skill 5 then drop down ... for me it should change your utility skills kind of like revenant has , with impactfull skills , maybe not an elite and a healing skills (that would be too much) but i can see the 3 utilitys being replaced by a conjured skill , and make the weapon have a clear design and purpose , axe could be a condi weapon , hammer a full cc oriented weapon , bow a healing weapon , shield a defensive support , and Gs a strike damage kind of what it is now.

But we had arcane skills changed that literally nobody asked for , cmc like the ele in pvp/wvw , so pve -> bullsh** design ! Kind of got tired of the balance team with their narrow vision of pve , pve is not a golem benchmark worldboss ! stop balancing around this freaking stupid pinata...

What i think is conjure weapon where there at the start of the game and the spaghetti code for their design must be weird to the actual balance team , so completely changing 1 weapon = changing 5 skills who will result in big bugs in returns, while engi weapon kit must work like a weapon swap , conjure with the stupid 2nd weapon drop must be kind of weird. That's the problem when the devs team change and the old go away without doing a proper recovery delivery and your are left with a game where you don't understand the code of 33% of the skills ... and for those who say "not true" , see how many bugs we have to face every patch !

[Mem no Fushia.7604]

Idea for conjure frost bow:

- stats power and precision or ferocity,

- skill 1 - 1200 range and increase of speed and damage,

- skill 2 increase damage and range to 1200,

- skill 3 - rework - shot arrows that will circle around character, each arrow can hit one time enemy, radious 240, number of arrows 5,

- skill 4 - increase range to 1500 and increase number of impacts,

- skill 5 - rework - launch one enemy by 300 distance and launch range 300, high damage, high defiance break.

Special mechanic for conjure frost bow: with each second of handling conjure frost bow you gain 2% of damage increase. Duration of conjure frost bow 20s. Additionaly with each succesfull hit frost bow gets bigger which impact its skills:

- skill 2 - gain one additional arrow per 5 seccesfull hits,

- skill 3 - gain one additional arrow per 5 succesfull hits and increase radious by 20,

- skill 5 - at 20 succesfull hits it become aoe launch with high damage.

This idea is for damage conjure frost bow that gets stronger by using it. It would be nice if conjure frost bow would get bigger and bigger to reflect its current power. Removing second conjure frost bow would be good.

 

 

 

[Leo G.4501]

On 3/22/2024 at 4:56 PM, nofo.8469 said:

At least remove the share thing so if eles want to try and make this jank work they don’t subject others to it

At the expense of sounding whimsical, I disagree with this suggestion as it is a cool trick that still astounds new players. They need to make more skills cool, fun and flavorful, not less. Even if it's not meta, that shouldn't really matter since the game shouldn't be bending the knee to the meta anyway.

I think it's fun and I often pick up conjured weapons when I'm on other professions.

If I were suggesting changes to conjures, it'd be the trait (a fire aura seems rather bland for picking this up). I'd propose adding a drop/expiration effect; could be an icy burst around you if you drop/use up the time on Frost bow or maybe a "minor cantrip" when you drop a lightning hammer (to maybe tie into cantrip traits). That and I'd shift the bonus granted from holding a conjure weapon to AFTER you're done with the weapon but cut down the duration of that buff to 15sec instead of 30 (potential) sec. 

[EDIT: I'd probably also boost the effects like adding +% healing received to earth shield, +% burning damage to flame axe, +% outgoing healing to frost bow, +% stun duration to lightning hammer and +% max HP to Fiery Greatsword. Basically, they'd be nice short term effect you can grant yourself or one ally.]

Overall, it's to emphasize using the skills you *need* from the conjure and putting it down rather than attempting to hold onto it for the whole of the duration.  It'd be to add affects to summoning it and dropping it to further coincide with the fluidity of the Elementalist playstyle. A lot of past suggestions for conjures focus on ease of use (acting like a weapon swap). I think making conjures something you want to summon with an AoE effect + using 1 or 2 skills with it and dropping it for an additional affect + a stat bonus after seem easy, fluid, vibes with how it's currently used and maintains the fun quirkiness the skill type was created with. It'd really embody an attunement of its own since that's how we often use attunements now.

Edited April 10 by Leo G.4501

[draxynnic.3719]

16 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

first thing to do is completely get rid off the cast time , second is this design is overshadowing the ele main mechanic who is "i have 20 weapon skills" "now i have 25 with a conjure" , while with engi it make a lot of sense cause it's basically 5 weapons skills with 5 toolbelt (3mech skills) making it very understandable , but with ele it's overlapping the most with your already 20 weapons skills. (and more if weaver ...)

Oh, hey, the "elementalist already has 20 weapon skills" argument being hauled out again...

The problem is that elementalist actually ends up getting less utility out of twenty weapon skills than most professions get out of regular weaponswap. Most builds have attunements that they just don't use, unless they're looking to trigger Weave Self or something like that. The skills on the attunements you do use have lessened effects so you're just pressing more buttons to achieve the same performance.

And most significantly, elementalist cannot change their range of engagement like other professions can. Other professions can have a melee weapon and a ranged weapon (engineers would use kits to do this. Elementalists can't. The closest is hammer, followed by dagger, but in practice their ranges, projectile speeds, and in dagger's case damage is too low to be anything more than a token.

Conjures could be the tool to resolve this. Use your main weapon when it's practical, swap to a conjure when it's not.

11 hours ago, Leo G.4501 said:

At the expense of sounding whimsical, I disagree with this suggestion as it is a cool trick that still astounds new players. They need to make more skills cool, fun and flavorful, not less. Even if it's not meta, that shouldn't really matter since the game shouldn't be bending the knee to the meta anyway.

Problem is that it's a cute trick that most people grow out of. Conjures have been nerfed heavily enough, and other professions have been powercrept enough, that the most efficient thing to do if you accidentally pick up a conjure is often to drop it again. Fiery greatsword might be an exception to this, but you wouldn't use someone else's lava axe, frost bow got nerfed to the point where you wouldn't need it unless you really needed an extra CC (and that CC has a long cast time so you hopefully don't need it right away), lightning hammer wasn't nerfed quite as hard as frost bow but has ended up in about the same state, and earth shield... maybe you would use it, and maybe in the process you've taken something that the elementalist needed for their own survival.

It's become a gimmick, but because the conjures need to be balanced according to the gimmick, they can't be balanced so they're actually useful to the elementalist themselves either.

[evilcat.6817]

Weapon pickup: from other player perspective, if i am full gear out and specced into burning weapons, then picking random frost bow will not help me at all. So it is stars allign scenerio, when you drop fiery greataxe, and someone is speced in fire, and has not the best setup themselves for some reason, which will never happen, since if you want to spec in fire berzerker then berzerker probably supports fire spec. The other thing is that conjured weapons are sooo balanced, it is even more balanced than most of the game. Unfortunetly players prefer to use everything which is not balanced, and is just too good.

You have 20 skills so shut up: well we already have conjured weapons in game, so someone thought it was good idea. We could remove them completly and introduce elementalist wells that would work to, but more work so AN would not do that. By picking conjured weapon you sacrifize something at least signet, this stuff aint cheap.

[crosknight.3041]

personally, i'd like conjures to be transferred into something like spirit weapons. sure you lose the weapon skills of them but it also gives each weapon far more purpose on the utility bar and i think that's what's needed. like, seriously, when was the last time the axe conjure had any relevance? plus usually only one or 2 skills are used then the weapon is dumped anyway most of the time.

granted, ele just needs to have it's core traitlines and core utilities reworked in general.

[Codename T.2847]

4 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Oh, hey, the "elementalist already has 20 weapon skills" argument being hauled out again...

The problem is that elementalist actually ends up getting less utility out of twenty weapon skills than most professions get out of regular weaponswap. Most builds have attunements that they just don't use, unless they're looking to trigger Weave Self or something like that. The skills on the attunements you do use have lessened effects so you're just pressing more buttons to achieve the same performance.

And most significantly, elementalist cannot change their range of engagement like other professions can. Other professions can have a melee weapon and a ranged weapon (engineers would use kits to do this. Elementalists can't. The closest is hammer, followed by dagger, but in practice their ranges, projectile speeds, and in dagger's case damage is too low to be anything more than a token.

Conjures could be the tool to resolve this. Use your main weapon when it's practical, swap to a conjure when it's not. 

You can already do this; in fact I'm already doing this in WvW where I usually play with scepter/focus, meaning I have decent 900 range weapon skills, even though the big burst happens in full melee, and if the need calls I can use Earth Shield to either pull someone with skill 4 to get them close or daze them and try to bash them that way with AA chains (which do a lot of damage if you have barrier, mind you) 

What I'm getting at is, you can already use conjures the way you imagine them to be used, as viable sidegrades. (Well, earth shield mostly xD) 

The only gripe I have with ele is that they still don't have usable 1200 range weapon, neither in their normal arsenal nor among the conjures. : /

[Leo G.4501]

4 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

 

It's become a gimmick, but because the conjures need to be balanced according to the gimmick, they can't be balanced so they're actually useful to the elementalist themselves either.

If you've managed to do and complete the content without conjures being useful, I'd argue you can survive with conjures being slightly less than useful but keeping their interesting share mechanic.

[Dadnir.5038]

On 3/21/2024 at 8:29 PM, evilcat.6817 said:

There could be a way to make conjured weapon great again

It's not that conjured weapons are bad, some of their skills are, in fact, pretty powerful. From my point of view, Conjured weapons have 4 problems:

• The ground targeted 2nd weapon: it's a relic of the past, nowaday, it mainly act as an unwelcome pollution on the field.
• Some are unwieldy (especially fiery axe): The gameplay "flow" of some of the conjured weapons is atrocious if you add to this "flow" the pointless shenanigans that are supposed to "increase" the output through forcing the player into a juggling with skills... It's just an horrendous experience.
• The "extra stats" associated: I cry a little deep in my heart each time I see healing power and expertise slapped onto the Ice bow. I also cry a little in my heart each time I see the pathetic amount of ferocity given to ligthning hammer.
• The trait: Why is such a pointless and useless thing wasting a trait slot in fire magic?

On 3/21/2024 at 8:29 PM, evilcat.6817 said:

When we summon a weapon it counts as attument to element. So we trigger all effects on attument.

Hell no! I'm sorry to have to say it, but the only thing that somehow redeem those conjured weapons is that they aren't tied to any specific attunment.

 

From my point of view:

The most needed thing is to remove the 2nd weapon spawned on the field. At worst, if the devs really want to keep the possibility, the 2nd weapon should be tied to the conjurer trait.

The second thing to do is to simplify the kits. Simple is good. There is no point in forcing someone in using 2 AA to get 2 additional impact on a skill that land 24 impact and lose 10% damage on each impact.

The third thing... make weapon kit coherent in gameplay and skills. I want to use an Ice bow not a water bow. I want my Ice bow to deal damage, why is my ICEBOW plagued with this unsightly waterbow Auto Attack? Fiery axe... Please, pretty please, make this weapon AA a melee cleave! Each time I use this skill kit I just want to rage quit beacause the flow of the weapon bring me close to the foe but I end up throwing my crappy axe to the face of my foe. And the worse is that I'm punished if I use more than 1 AA in between skills... Why am I punished? Why do I need to be "fired up!" in order to deal less insignificant damage to a single foe once (not twice, not thrice, not even for the full 4s duration of the "fired up!" buff... Only once!). The design choice of those conjured weapons just drive me crazy.

As for the extra stats... Please make those consistent and make them feel rewarding. Healing power on a weapon that only heal with it's AA is just infuriating. Expertise on a weapon that produce barely useful short lasting condition feel more like an insult than anything else. 75 point of ferocity when all other stat increment are in the 180 range is laughable, can't we have a bit of consistency here?

As for the trait... Please make a real trait. 4s of fire aura when picking up a conjured weapon is just insulting and wasteful.

[draxynnic.3719]

8 hours ago, Leo G.4501 said:

If you've managed to do and complete the content without conjures being useful, I'd argue you can survive with conjures being slightly less than useful but keeping their interesting share mechanic.

Oh, so I've completed all story except the most recent one with all professions so no profession has any problems whatsoever, right? Right?

The big one here is this: There are many areas where, despite how much ArenaNet was trying to make elementalist into an exclusively melee profession, you really, really don't want to be exclusively melee. As an example, any region where you might run into a boss with unstable ley energy modifiers (so, most of open world from PoF on), there's a high chance you're going to run into an effect that makes you really wish you had a stand-off capability, but they're not the only examples.

How did I get through this? Scepter, mostly. Now, scepter's cool and all, but for a lot of that period it was a competition for the bottom between scepter and staff, and it really sucked that I couldn't use the cool new (at the time) sword because the content was built on the assumption that everyone had a ranged backup weapon. There are a lot of regions I still feel the need to default to scepter in, and some strikes where you're really disadvantaging yourself if you don't have that capability.

Meanwhile, conjures! Except that the ranged conjures are all bad, because they've been balanced so they're not OP when two are used simultaneously, which has translated into being so bad in practice that nobody who knows the numbers wants to pick them up (elite excepted, but that's balanced with a prohibitively long cooldown). And if an elementalist does need that standoff capability for longer than short bursts, you either need to carry two (goodbye utility slots, hope you don't need too many stunbreaks...) or to hope that they can pick up that spawned weapon at as close to 30s as possible without it despawning first, and that somebody else doesn't pick it up by accident or out of a sense of 'novelty'.

Face it, it's a cute gimmick, but it's a gimmick that's holding back an entire group of skills, a group that without that handicap could be the solution to a problem that elementalists have struggled with pretty much since release. "You managed so it must be okay" is just not a good counterargument.