Guild Wars 2

I’m not sure if i am the only one that felt disappointed that I’m forced into using Water if i want to cast ice spells. After seeing the svanir casting better (at least looking) ice abilities I’m feeling a bit lack lustre using my support water abilities with a few ice based ones thrown in the mix. I always thought water would be the bleeder through high pressure cutting and ice and earth being the defendy vulnerability stacker as it can smash through armour shrug silly me.

My point being, wouldn’t a full ice based damage dealer be a nice addition? maybe implemented with a new type of weapon (whip for a random example) or even through a new profession (Shaman for random example) as i have yet to see an mmo that does a GOOD ice based caster… heck id even settle for an ice melee profession/weapon.

What is everyone’s thoughts on this? I apologise if this has been brought up before.

I would recommend a sword and to be possible to carry only in main hand if you refer to elementalist. As for shaman, or any other profession – i doubt. I think this is idea is nice but problem is that probably won’t get in any consideration.

Water Magic has never been high damage in guild wars that was always left to the Fire nukes and Air spikes. At least water actually gets used in GW2 it was almost never used in GW1

I’m another person who loves ice mages and wishes that there was an option to have this playstyle. Chill your foe and kite them, use ice as shielding, and do damage using ice.

I get that GW2 eles are supposed to switch attunements, and I’ve grown fine with that. Right now I spend most of my time in Air for damage, and I like ride the lightening. And the icebows been fun. But I want to see ice damage. I want to beat the kitten out of things with ice. I want to see lots of chilled enemies.

One of the big things GW2 toted was getting rid of dedicated healers.
…Yet most of the water line is healing and/or support, and water damage is way below the other elements. I’m glad that people who want to be a water healer/support can play that way, but I aslo wish the way I want to play elementalist would be supported too.

Here’s my suggestion:

In the next expansion, give eles a new weapon.

Keep the fact that eles can’t switch weapons in combat because they’re supposed to switch attunements.

With this new weapon, put the high damage skills in the water line. Flip the expectations! Make one of the other attunements the healing/buff/support line. There’s still damage, support, control and healing all balanced, it’s just using the elements in new ways (that are perfectly in tune with the concepts of those elements).

With earth, you could emphasize healing, growing and growth (Sylvari’s would love this). Or with air you could have “gentle breeze” or “breath of life” that heal and air bubble shields. You could even make fire fill that role — Cleansing Flame already cures conditions. Rift did this with a fire-healing Cleric build called the Purifier. There are lots of ways that the other elements could be used for healing/control/support, the same that water/ice can have more ways of being played than it does currently. Those who wanted to play that playstyle (whether it was ice-y damage dealer or it was a firey healer) could chose that weapon. It would mean that they’d have to chose that weapon but one option would be better than none.

The water line already has traits that support damage. If one of the other elements was designated the heal-y one, heal-y types can put their traits in the water line choosing the heal-y benefiting traits in addition to their main element. It could work: people could play their way, elementalists would have more flexibilty.

Your suggestion is pretty much what i said to my boyfriend Udolpho and i’m happy to see i’m not the only one that thought this way. Gw2 being the go to guys on trying new things and thinking outside the box a bit, i’m hoping this may be something they eventually try not just for Water/ice sake, but maybe all the elements could swap roles for different weapons. I can see it working well and would fill my Ice magic craving

@inkubus i had a water ele alt in GW1 and though it wasn’t META it did some nice burst damage. They thought out of the box with most aspects of the game so it doesn’t mean they have to fall back to old guild wars rulings on professions either, as long as its not lore breaking.

while leveling my ele to 80, i did wish the water attunement did more damage, i completely agree with everything ive heard about this, while leveling i swapped to water from time to time to throw heals down and thats all i used it for, i think best way to do it is to give them the ability to equip the 1 handed sword or axe or something and give it a few decent damaging abilities. i don’t like the attunement pigeon holing where you have to be fire or wind to do the big hits.

Oh come on.

The quadruplet fire/earth/air/water has a lot of history.

indeed it has..but some people like a specific element over others. and it takes to long to kill anything as water.

True. The elements have SO much history that they are not limited to one-dimensional clichés. The have a wealth of associations that support a more well-rounded and creative interpretation.

Why have more than one class? Damage is damage is damage. But we have classes for flavor, because people like to imagine what fantasy hero they are representing. They want to be a hulking warrior and bash stuff, they want to be a necromancer and be all dark and creepy. Ice mages fit perfectly into Elementalists — or they could with a little bit of work.

… Ice isn’t an element in itself, so it wouldn’t really fit the elementalist.

Considering Ice is just cold water that has frozen over due to drops in temperature, Ice would be a combination of Air and Water, whereas I imagine air has the ability to control temperature, which could be wishful thinking.

Under a normal circumstance, for ice to become really solid it will have to linger in one place for a really long time to reach the potential that rock has.

Nah, the elementalist is fine with the current weapons IMO.

Ice is water. That has changed states, from a liquid state to a solid state. >_>

Ice is already built into the water line, as you can see from these abilities:

Ice Spike
Ice Shards
Ice Globe
Ice Wall
Frozen Ground
Frozen Burst
Frost Aura
Freezing Gust
Cone of Cold
as well as Conjure Frost Bow and most of its ice themed abilities.

Ice is already built into Elementalists; it just hasn’t been developed to its full potential.

Udolpho.1209:

Ice is water. That has changed states, from a liquid state to a solid state. >_>

Doesn’t really work that way. Water is a chemical. Soil and Air are combinations of chemicals, whereas Fire is just a reaction.

The basis for the quadruplet doesn’t come from chemistry, it comes from Greek philosophy of nature.

If the developers want to pay homage to such a classic, you should respect that.

I once made a suggestion on the elementalist forum built around the idea of a character specializing in one element. People suggested bonuses for ‘locking’ yourself into an element but I suggested a type of ‘major/minor’ element mechanic thrown in.

Basically there’d be a button to lock yourself into…water element, for instance (like the weapon swap button). Once locked into water, water becomes a ‘Major’ element while the other 3 elements become minors (and basic button presses rather than toggling on as your current attunement).

The idea would be, combine your major element with another to make a minor element so Water+Air would be Ice while Air+Water would be Storm. Something like Water+Earth would be Swamp while Earth+Water would be Plants. These would add special effects (and visuals!) for a time to emphasize the combination.

I’m personally more interested in metal and magnetism as magic/superpowers. We sort of do have some magnetic abilities like Magnetic Grasp and Wave but not much beyond that, sadly. I want to combine Air and Earth to make metal :P