Guild Wars 2

While many are upset that FGS is now useless for doing damage, I can understand you want to make the ability to stack slightly less efficient in PvE (it will still be the best strat however). However, I without the high-dps from the 4 skill (and making the 4 skill 140% damage is still terrible dps, given that an ele has to give up all the utilities and elite slot), can we at least make FGS useful by increasing its use in the niche of increasing mobility?

How would I do that, you ask? Well, by decreasing the CD on summoning the sword. This would still give it a use as a mobility skill, which would be useful in certain situations, without the risk of unbalancing PvE by making a huge DPS increase available. Before anyone was using FGS4 against a wall, nobody ever used the skill, except people occasionally for mobility. This use could be even greater now that ele mobility has seen significant nerfs that hurt its viability in various places (RtL nerf hurts in wvw roaming and pvp roaming).

At its current, I think FGS will only see use by roaming eles in wvw, and nobody else. In pvp it may seem some use, but the glyph is 1000% better now that you can control the water heal/ fire burst/ air ’rupt. To keep the skill viable, you could make it more available to eles who need to get around a map more than once every 3 minutes. This would make it more useful in all game-modes.

Pros:
-FGS still has a niche use

Cons:
-none now that there is no risk of further unbalancing dps output

Proposed CD change:
90 or 120s

TLDR:
FGS doesn’t really have any use without the #4 rush for insane dps, except spot-uses for mobility. 3 min ICD is not justified for higher mobility. For skill to see actual use, decrease ICD so that it can be used as a reasonable-CD mobility skill.

Agreed. I don’t see any justification for the 3 minute CD.

3 Minute CD was justified b/c it would imbalance PvE previously, but the skill no longer actually increases DPS significantly (if at all). There is no more potential for abuse.

3 Minute CD is no longer justified.

well it’s still a pretty strong skill, it’s just not your boss instagibbing skill anymore. but yeah, lower the CD. just not by too much.

BrunoBRS.5178:

well it’s still a pretty strong skill, it’s just not your boss instagibbing skill anymore. but yeah, lower the CD. just not by too much.

I would disagree that it is a strong skill now, besides it mobility. The dps is generally lower than not locking yourself out of your 4 attunements, and spending 1s to get there. For an elite skill, there is nothing good about it except for mobility. Let’s just make it a usable option for that mobility, so the skill sees use in pvp roaming dps builds, wvw builds, and even pve getting around.

So you want nike elementalists too? Arent nike warriors enough in WvW?

Mayama.1854:

So you want nike elementalists too? Arent nike warriors enough in WvW?

Enough for what, exactly?

1. Putting a 90s or 120s CD on FGS hardly puts ele mobility on-par with warrior’s.
1a. A major reason Nike Warriors are OP is b/c they are IMMUNE to all control condis, straight dps (maybe x2 Endure pains it traited), and even all-condis on-demand (zerker’s stance), on-top of the “sturdy body” and never-quit healing signet. Eles will never have the tankiness of warriors without constant healing (so no 4 in earth traitline for condi immunity), and their signet requires actually casting skills to tick, so they are susceptible to cc and not regen-ing much using 1 skill every 1.5s.

2. Squishy ele builds require mobility to survive many situations in wvw that can go bad. FGS is good for that, but it still has the weakness of trying to protect a 1s cast just to get the sword, and you lose the sword if you use any transform (mistform) that would otherwise protect you. Imagine if all you had to do was interrupt 1 warrior rush and they couldn’t do squat – not so nike, plus magical counterplay.

3. FGS is an ELITE skill that is taken SOLELY for mobility. In pvp, being slightly faster getting to a point 1x every 3 mins will not be worth it over the new glyph heal/burst/interrupt for ANYONE.