Great weapons feature for the next expansion?

[Iustitian.9176]

ArenaNet published in an interview in Dec. 2023 that they will focus on weapons for the next expansion.

[Dadnir.5038]

Whatever it is, it will most likely somehow fall into my definition of "broken OP"...

[Beddo.1907]

What do selectable skills even mean in the context of other classes.

[Iustitian.9176]

3 minutes ago, Beddo.1907 said:

What do selectable skills even mean in the context of other classes.

That weapon skills have selectable skills, like the ranger hammer (without untamed specialisation). There you can select per weapon skill slot the offensive or defensive variant. 

[Beddo.1907]

1 minute ago, Iustitian.9176 said:

That weapon skills have selectable skills, like the ranger hammer (without untamed specialisation). There you can select per weapon skill slot the offensive or defensive variant. 

Seems like a lot more work and a lot of weapons don't have right design for it, so I doubt Anet would go for it.

[Eekasqueak.7850]

I actually kind of expect more utility skills might get added. Maybe tied to masteries.  

[Iustitian.9176]

There is one weapon feature i forgot in the list: mode switching. Like the thief rifle skill 5. I love that and perhaps we will see more of that in the future like

Warrior rifle can switch between normal mode and shotgun mode with strong close range attacks

Engineer rifle can switch between trick shots (net and jump) and power shots (explosions and strong damage)

Mesmer rifle can switch between power and heal shots/weapon skills

and more. That would be a great in-flight possible to get more from the weapons. 

[Bleikopf.2491]

1 hour ago, Iustitian.9176 said:

There is one weapon feature i forgot in the list: mode switching. Like the thief rifle skill 5. I love that and perhaps we will see more of that in the future like

Warrior rifle can switch between normal mode and shotgun mode with strong close range attacks

Engineer rifle can switch between trick shots (net and jump) and power shots (explosions and strong damage)

Mesmer rifle can switch between power and heal shots/weapon skills

and more. That would be a great in-flight possible to get more from the weapons. 

What would the mode switching for Elementalist look like? 

I can only imagine melee-ranged. 

[Iustitian.9176]

7 minutes ago, Bleikopf.2491 said:

What would the mode switching for Elementalist look like? 

I can only imagine melee-ranged. 

Demands on the weapon. But i think the elementalist is the last one who should get that with all his 20 weapon skills ^^

[Leo G.4501]

55 minutes ago, Iustitian.9176 said:

Demands on the weapon. But i think the elementalist is the last one who should get that with all his 20 weapon skills ^^

Would that not extend to engineer too (to a lesser degree than elementalist tho)?

[Iustitian.9176]

29 minutes ago, Leo G.4501 said:

Would that not extend to engineer too (to a lesser degree than elementalist tho)?

yeah, but really a lesser degree:

Maximum amount of all available skills as elementalist are 25 to 47 if you take only summoning weapons in your slot skills and are a Weaver with dual attack skills.

Maximum amount of all available skills as engineer are 15 to 40 if you take only kits in your slot skills (what set your toolbelt skills to a static skills too) and are a Holosmith with photon forge. 

The only other profession that get >= 25 skills is the firebrand with 30 skills.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Selectable weapon skills would be great. 

Even just to give us versions of skills which don't knockback. 

Imagine warrior hammer 4 that is a knockdown/stun/daze instead of knockback. (PVE ONLY. Same breakbar dmg) 

 

[draxynnic.3719]

6 hours ago, Iustitian.9176 said:

yeah, but really a lesser degree:

Maximum amount of all available skills as elementalist are 25 to 47 if you take only summoning weapons in your slot skills and are a Weaver with dual attack skills.

Maximum amount of all available skills as engineer are 15 to 40 if you take only kits in your slot skills (what set your toolbelt skills to a static skills too) and are a Holosmith with photon forge. 

The only other profession that get >= 25 skills is the firebrand with 30 skills.

Flipside of that, though, is that elementalist weapon skills are usually individually weaker than other professions and/or only half of them work with your build, you've got no ability to customise in order to build synergies or contingencies that aren't built into the weapon, conjures are mostly too clunky to be much more than a gimmick, and elementalist utilities aren't all that great.

People pay a lot of attention to that big scary 20-26 weapon skills number, and don't consider how much elementalist has already given up for the sake of a number that might, if anything, be hindering more than it helps.

[FrozenEve.6875]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Flipside of that, though, is that elementalist weapon skills are usually individually weaker than other professions and/or only half of them work with your build, you've got no ability to customise in order to build synergies or contingencies that aren't built into the weapon, conjures are mostly too clunky to be much more than a gimmick, and elementalist utilities aren't all that great.

People pay a lot of attention to that big scary 20-26 weapon skills number, and don't consider how much elementalist has already given up for the sake of a number that might, if anything, be hindering more than it helps.

Thank you so much for this reply. This really touches on a class philosophy that I've had issue with elementalist as a profession for so long. It necessitates the piano playing playstyle of the profession which for some is rewarding but for others frustrating and it invalidates the use of certain elements by design given that certain attunements will result in drastic lowering of dps. The profession just seems so kitten when it has 4 elemental attunements but only really 2 elemental skill sets it can use at a time to put damage out. I'm not really an elementalist. I'm a pyromancer dabbling in some earth or lightening. 

Edited March 27 by FrozenEve.6875
Spelling

[draxynnic.3719]

On 3/27/2024 at 6:15 PM, FrozenEve.6875 said:

I'm not really an elementalist. I'm a pyromancer dabbling in some earth or lightening. 

Yeah, from a thematic perspective, this is probably my biggest gripe with GW2 elementalist. Sure, in theory you've mastered all the elements, but in practice, PvE builds that aren't using hammer are pretty much all pyromancers briefly dabbling in something else before switching back to fire. Yes, even support tempest. The rotation usually spends more time in fire than it does in water. The identities the other elements had in GW1 (and often have in other properties) have been pretty much consigned to being fire's support cast.

And if you ARE using hammer, the identity of all the elements are subsumed into hammer - the only real change to playstyle when changing attunements with hammer is that some attunements require placing ground target reticules and others don't.

I like single- and dual-element concepts, but if most of such a concept isn't "fire", you're probably better off looking somewhere else to scratch that itch. 

[Gaiawolf.8261]

6 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Sure, in theory you've mastered all the elements, but in practice, PvE builds that aren't using hammer are pretty much all pyromancers briefly dabbling in something else before switching back to fire

Sounds like you need to get out for some Fresh Air. 😆

[draxynnic.3719]

20 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

Sounds like you need to get out for some Fresh Air. 😆

In PvE? It mostly only benefits Tempest, although I guess you could make it work with Catalyst. Nerfs to air overload have made it barely better than sword autoattacking, and if you insist on running power instead of celestial in open world (you're probably not taking FA to instanced content), you'd probably still get better results running sword weaver and bouncing between air and, you guessed it, fire. 

And even if you look past all that, it doesn't really feel that different to a standard condi tempest. If you're using scepter or dagger, you'll get noticeably different skills (but those are currently weaker weapons on DPS/solo tempest - and hopefully it's clear why I'm not even considering staff or pistol), but mostly the difference in how you play is basically one of how large the radius of the overload is and which graphics it has.

Contrast that with GW1, where each element had its own role and playstyle.

[Dadnir.5038]

46 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Contrast that with GW1, where each element had its own role and playstyle.

I do believe that in GW2 the role and playstyle of each elements are more defined than it was in GW1. And it's not necessarily a good thing. Quite a few of us are frustrated by the water element being pidgeonholed into healing, a flaw that GW1 didn't have.

For elementalist, the difference between GW1 and GW2 is more that specializing in a single element was encouraged in GW1 while GW2 encourage the player to actively use many elements. The gameplay philosophy for the elementalist between the 2 game couldn't be any different (Just like it was a lot better for necromancer to try to lower it's health pool as much as possible in GW1 while in GW2 having a large health pool benefit the necromancer more than any other profession.)

[draxynnic.3719]

On 3/31/2024 at 7:51 AM, Dadnir.5038 said:

I do believe that in GW2 the role and playstyle of each elements are more defined than it was in GW1. And it's not necessarily a good thing. Quite a few of us are frustrated by the water element being pidgeonholed into healing, a flaw that GW1 didn't have.

Yes and no, but mostly no. Water has been mostly pigeonholed into healing, but in the process it's mostly lost its GW1 identity as a soft-CC oriented damage line, so it mostly comes out in the wash there.

With fire, earth, and air, the main distinction in most cases is which damage stats they prefer. The melee weapons, sword, hammer and dagger? Swapping attunements can give you access to specific defensive skills, but offensively, it mostly just changes the shape of your AoEs. Similar observations can be made with staff and pistol - it's a crude oversimplification to say that the main reason you swap attunements is usually to trade skills on cooldown with fresh skills that you'll be using in mostly the same way, but not a wholly inaccurate one. Scepter is the only weapon where some vestige of the GW1 distinctions remain. In GW2, the primary choice is generally whether you're running power, condi, or healing, and the element choices follow from there, without much real difference in how you play for the DPS options.

In GW1, by contrast, the element you chose had a significant effect on how you'd behave. Water, as previously discussed, was largely focused on AoE snares. Fire was usually straight AoE damage. Earth tended to focus a lot on disabling the enemy through knockdowns, weakness, and blind, while air generally picked one target and made their life miserable through focused attacks and a range of CC options.

There's overlap, of course, like the infamous triple meteor shower builds, but in GW1 it really felt more like each element did a different thing, rather then in GW2 dps and solo builds where generally what air and earth do is be a little better than continuing to camp fire when your fire skills on cooldown.

Edited April 1 by draxynnic.3719

[Ragnarox.9601]

pls more weapons for ele like pistol, cause we love crap weapons.