Can we get an ele weapon with big lightning aoes?

[Twilightmage.8309]

Staff air just disappoints me, and just the overall lack of calling down big strikes of lightning in the ele kit. Theres no real line blasts of lightning either, and the fantasy of being a lightning mage just isn't there like fire or water is. Scepter/horn are alright, but i never jived well with the scepter air skills as they seem pretty boring and the cool ball lightning one is on the horn.

I'd love a ranged power weapon with more of an aoe and damage focus on air instead of whatever staff is. Maybe something like a mortar or grenade kit where its a lot of targeted aoes and line blasts like DH bow 3 and not much tab target stuff.
 

[draxynnic.3719]

Honestly, ranged air working at all would be good, although the upcoming scepter changes will help there. Having a second option would certainly be a plus, though.

[DivineDreaming.7206]

fresh air scepter and hammer has what you want, way air is designed in general outside of fresh air has always been cc/utility,

[Liewec.2896]

if you run fresh air tempest you can overload>switch attunement>switch back to air and you are ready to overload again several seconds later, might be what you're after!

i run the build for open world meta events with lots of mobs, throw in glyph of storms and lightning hammer and you become the God of Thunder!

i agree though that staff feels very underwhelming and doesn't really fit the theme, the skill 1 should be a bigger beefier version of scepter 1, with chaining.

i also wish tempest overloads would become ground targeted skills!

Edited June 3 by Liewec.2896

[Jski.6180]

Trident has an aoe daze hit Electrocute we maybe getting that in the coming expansion. Air seems more like an fast hitting set that only dose high dmg on crits OR its an cc set of skills.

[draxynnic.3719]

On 6/3/2024 at 7:45 PM, DivineDreaming.7206 said:

fresh air scepter and hammer has what you want, way air is designed in general outside of fresh air has always been cc/utility,

Hammer is only ranged on a technicality. You wouldn't use a hammer if you really wanted to go range. It's also mostly themed around wind rather than lightning.

Fresh air scepter is mostly about triggering Electric Discharge, which is single-target. Lightning Strike on sceptre itself did get buffed to hit three targets, and Arc Lightning/Plasma Beam can technically hit three targets if you line them up right, but even with the upcoming buffs sceptre air is still pretty singe-target oriented.

[rwknoll.7824]

On 6/3/2024 at 9:20 AM, Liewec.2896 said:

i also wish tempest overloads would become ground targeted skills!

This would make me so happy! I would love to play a setup that could actually do solid 1,200 ranged DPS instead of everything needing melee to get optimal damage. 

[Junkpile.7439]

Can we get weapon that do only power damage and doesn't have any finishers or combo fields.

[draxynnic.3719]

9 minutes ago, Junkpile.7439 said:

Can we get weapon that do only power damage and doesn't have any finishers or combo fields.

Probably not. But we might be able to get a weapon that only does enough burning and bleeding to trigger Pyromancer's Training and Serrated Stones respectively, and where the finishers and combo fields are at a more normal level rather than being a big part of the power budget.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

Be ready for landspear's mechanic, it's gonna be insane : pistol and hammer combined.

[Ram.5981]

1 hour ago, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

Be ready for landspear's mechanic, it's gonna be insane : pistol and hammer combined.

Don't forget to add that, naturally, Ele spear will be a range 130 melee weapon.

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

Air attunement is designed to be "superior single target damage" according to in-game descriptions. (Mouse over the profession skill F2, not F2 overload edit: trait line icon in the build panel.) 

So far, Anet hass failed this description, opting instead for inferior lower damage that spreads out over multiple targets.

They've also failed with the design description of "ranged class," by designing the minor master traits (like sunspot) to be point-blank AoE spells instead of ranged spells. Which is why I rarely ever trait water or earth lines, because I'm forced yo take minor traits that don't benefit allies at range, thereby forcing me to play frontline/  melee. I hate playing frontline/  melee on a caster class. I will NOT let this go...

Edited June 10 by Forgotten Legend.9281

[draxynnic.3719]

3 hours ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

Air attunement is designed to be "superior single target damage" according to in-game descriptions. (Mouse over the profession skill F2, not F2 overload) 

So far, Anet hass failed this description, opting instead for inferior lower damage that spreads out over multiple targets.

They've also failed with the design description of "ranged class," by designing the minor master traits (like sunspot) to be point-blank AoE spells instead of ranged spells. Which is why I rarely ever trait water or earth lines, because I'm forced yo take minor traits that don't benefit allies at range, thereby forcing me to play frontline/  melee. I hate playing frontline/  melee on a caster class. I will NOT let this go...

Air kinda was superior single target damage... once, if you were using sceptre. The numbers have been powercrept hard, though, and until the next patch, the buffs to air sceptre have been by giving it multiple targets rather than giving it good damage against a single target.

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

7 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Air kinda was superior single target damage... once, if you were using sceptre. The numbers have been powercrept hard, though, and until the next patch, the buffs to air sceptre have been by giving it multiple targets rather than giving it good damage against a single target.

I'd say for all the weapons... but the description is still in the game... I was wrong... the description is in the trait panel mousing over the trait line icon

[draxynnic.3719]

10 minutes ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

I'd say for all the weapons... but the description is still in the game... I was wrong... the description is in the trait panel mousing over the trait line icon

Eh, looking at the original weapons, even when staff air was decent, it was best when there were two targets for the chain lightning to bounce between (nowadays, I don't think there's any situation where switching to air on staff isn't a DPS loss over camping fire). Dagger air was always a melee cleaving weapon - was very good at that in its day, but not single-target focused. With expansion weapons, sword and hammer are basically melee cleave in all attunements (hammer technically has a single-target auto on air, but that's not the playstyle you actually use) and pistol air is purely for mobility and CC.

Calling the traitline focused on single-target damage is probably still fair, though - Electric Discharge is genuinely single-target focused, while the Fire and Earth equivalents are PBAoE and Water is a PBAoE heal. Apart from builds designed around maximising Electric Discharge, though, it is also possibly to use the Air traitline to enhance area attacks.

[Bunny.9834]

They should have given Tempest a grandmaster trait that makes your Overload skills RANGE GROUND TARGET. 

It's the opposite of the current overload. These ones  are channel skills that root you on the ground  but are now range and has bigger radii. 

Now that's a mage RP. 

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

2 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Air kinda was superior single target damage... once, if you were using sceptre. The numbers have been powercrept hard, though, and until the next patch, the buffs to air sceptre have been by giving it multiple targets rather than giving it good damage against a single target.

2 hours ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

I'd say for all the weapons... but the description is still in the game... I was wrong... the description is in the trait panel mousing over the trait line icon

2 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Eh, looking at the original weapons, even when staff air was decent, it was best when there were two targets for the chain lightning to bounce between (nowadays, I don't think there's any situation where switching to air on staff isn't a DPS loss over camping fire). Dagger air was always a melee cleaving weapon - was very good at that in its day, but not single-target focused. With expansion weapons, sword and hammer are basically melee cleave in all attunements (hammer technically has a single-target auto on air, but that's not the playstyle you actually use) and pistol air is purely for mobility and CC.

Calling the traitline focused on single-target damage is probably still fair, though - Electric Discharge is genuinely single-target focused, while the Fire and Earth equivalents are PBAoE and Water is a PBAoE heal. Apart from builds designed around maximising Electric Discharge, though, it is also possibly to use the Air traitline to enhance area attacks.

ugh, in my quote above... i meant to say : "i'd say for all the weapons, air has been mainly multi-target instead of single target... while the trait line actually describes the line as single target..." the joys of sometimes using the forums on my phone... /facepalm

Edited June 7 by Forgotten Legend.9281

[draxynnic.3719]

16 minutes ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

ugh, in my quote above... i meant to say : "i'd say for all the weapons, air has been mainly multi-target instead of single target... while the trait line actually describes the line as single target..." the joys of sometimes using the forums on my phone... /facepalm

Ah, the classic "got distracted and forgot that you hadn't already written an important part when you came back" or the equally classic "phone decided to randomly delete a line"?

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

53 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Ah, the classic "got distracted and forgot that you hadn't already written an important part when you came back" or the equally classic "phone decided to randomly delete a line"?

Oh, not at all... I forgot to write it when I thought I did, (you know how it is when you think faster than you can hunt-and-peck with one finger on a touch screen?) and i didn't scroll through the post on the tiny screen on my phone before hitting "submit"

Edited June 7 by Forgotten Legend.9281

[draxynnic.3719]

1 hour ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

Oh, not at all... I forgot to write it when I thought I did, (you know how it is when you think faster than you can hunt-and-peck with one finger on a touch screen?) and i didn't scroll through the post on the tiny screen on my phone before hitting "submit"

So, basically the first option, except that the distraction was your brain outrunning your typing. 😛

[The Ghost.3087]

On 6/3/2024 at 4:20 PM, Liewec.2896 said:

if you run fresh air tempest you can overload>switch attunement>switch back to air and you are ready to overload again several seconds later, might be what you're after!

i run the build for open world meta events with lots of mobs, throw in glyph of storms and lightning hammer and you become the God of Thunder!

i agree though that staff feels very underwhelming and doesn't really fit the theme, the skill 1 should be a bigger beefier version of scepter 1, with chaining.

i also wish tempest overloads would become ground targeted skills!

This ain't helping. For some reason the devs have a serious grudge towards Eles putting them always at the frontline with melee skills instead of properly adding equal amount of range, mid range and melee traits. I mean all Elite Specializations require the Ele to be at the front and a lot of players aren't happy with that. While we do understand the Battle Mage idea behind the Eles, but this doesn't mean that the Battle Mage needs to be at the front line. He can be terrifying at range as well.

I do want to see what they will come up with Land Spears but I seriously hope it will be 100% range type of weapon like Mesmer Virtuoso that could shoot even from further away than the Mesmer and covers huge AOE areas. Because we seriously need that. 

[Liewec.2896]

54 minutes ago, The Ghost.3087 said:

I do want to see what they will come up with Land Spears but I seriously hope it will be 100% range type of weapon like Mesmer Virtuoso that could shoot even from further away than the Mesmer and covers huge AOE areas. Because we seriously need that. 

i fully expect spear to be a ranged weapon, but still, i wish they'd rework staff to be better, and tempest overloads to be ground target skills,

because noone plays the archetypal mage class to throw spears, we want to use staffs!

my ultimate wish would be for the next ele elite spec to allow us to focus on one element instead of swapping and have staff as the main weapon

(with much more powerful spells to make up for lack of elemental swapping)

[draxynnic.3719]

10 hours ago, The Ghost.3087 said:

This ain't helping. For some reason the devs have a serious grudge towards Eles putting them always at the frontline with melee skills instead of properly adding equal amount of range, mid range and melee traits. I mean all Elite Specializations require the Ele to be at the front and a lot of players aren't happy with that. While we do understand the Battle Mage idea behind the Eles, but this doesn't mean that the Battle Mage needs to be at the front line. He can be terrifying at range as well.

I do want to see what they will come up with Land Spears but I seriously hope it will be 100% range type of weapon like Mesmer Virtuoso that could shoot even from further away than the Mesmer and covers huge AOE areas. Because we seriously need that. 

Weaver can be built to be full range with the possible exception of Sunspot and/or Earthen Blast. But acknowledging that is still condemnation with faint praise.

[Gud.6829]

ranged power should have been a pistol offhand option for the Elementalist.  That's really the only weapon that makes sense.

[draxynnic.3719]

21 hours ago, Gud.6829 said:

ranged power should have been a pistol offhand option for the Elementalist.  That's really the only weapon that makes sense.

How would pistol offhand make sense for ranged power? An offhand will, by nature, be subordinate to the mainhand weapon - you'd still need a good ranged power mainhand to go with it.