Guild Wars 2

Hello community, hello Anet-Staff.

I know this problem is as old as the class elementalist on its own. Every class seems to have one or two sets of utilities that are just plain bad for pvp. Therefore I appreciate Anet’s efforts to buff those utilities to make them viable. Up to now conjures recieved two major changes (passive stats when wielding a conjure and the skill-remodelling in the last patch), so it’s clear that you guys want elementalists to make use of conjures, not only in PvE but also PvP.

Like said, I appreciate your efforts, but sadly I think you’re approaching the problem in a wrong way. The problems aren’t that the spells are bad or the weapons deal too little damage or add no utility. The real problems are the following:

• Conjures contradict with our class-mechanic. Eles have 20 spells, therefore it hurts even more if we lock ourselves out of those spells replacing them with only 5 new ones (which are not bad – it’s just a bad exchange to give up your whole class-mechanic for a set of 5 new spells which are mostly on par with your other spells) and we even invest an utility-slot to do so.
• PvP (especially in GW2) is very fast-paced. We need to be able to cast a blind or a block or invulnerable, etc. exactly when it’s needed. Conjures however, are slow. We have to cast them (even with a targeting-circle) and then wait for the skills to be ready. While casting them we can even be CCed giving them an even greater cooldown.
  Example earth-shield:
  The AoE-pull or invul are really great spells, making it a potentially powerfull utility-slot (in theory way better than mist-form for example). However the problem is – in order to make use of these spells we have to already wield the shield to activate the skills when they’re needed. When there’s burst incomming and I first have to cast the earth-shield to get the invulnerability-spell I might already be dead until the cast is finished.
  On the other side, running around with an earth-shild permanently makes you laughably weak. The class with 20 spells is suddenly restricted to 5 spells, locking them out of any support, heal and the huge range of combo-fields and finishers. Just imagine any other class being restricted to 1/4 of their spells – it just won’t work.
• I don’t know why you make additional restrictions for using conjures by adding a time-limit and charges to them. I think locking yourself out of all other spells is restriction enough. To justify charges/time-limit conjures aren’t strong enough. All their spells can be found with some variations on normal weapon-sets of ele or other classes, so why further restrict the use of them? As far as I know engi-kits aren’t restricted at all.
  In order to make conjures viable in PvE (Lightning Hammer) we even have to specc 20 into fire for extra charges, otherwise lightning hammer may be useless even in PvE.

As you can see still nobody plays with conjures in PvP and still there’s only LH in PvE (and occasionally Frost-Bow for the AoE only). In order to change that I suggest that you either consider to implement some of the suggestions made by the community or give up entirely on trying to make conjures viable, since it’s a waste of time (as you have seen with your two attempts until now).

Possible solutions to the problem (you don’t have to implement all of them, they’re just ideas):

• I think the best solution might be to make conjures work similar to engi-kits (for ele only, the second conjured weapon that can be picked up should still have charges, so we don’t get a group of 5 people with all of them permanently wielding LH).
• The 5 spells of the conjure could either replace the spells of one attunement: Lava-axe replaces fire-spells, frost-bow water, lightning-hammer air and earth-shield earth or enable the weapon-switch which is standard for other classes (giving you 25 spells in total). You can switch to the new conjure-spells like you could switch to the normal attunement.
• Switching out of the conjure won’t cause it to be lost. This way the conjure can be cast pre-combat and is ready when it’s needed. The attunement-swap and attunements themselves stay the same with same CD, proccs and boosts through traits etc.
• Make them at least insta-cast (even FGS).
• Remove the time-limit and/or charges (since fiery greatsword is extremely powerfull I suggest to either nerf its spells a little or keep the charges on it anyway)
• Adjust some traits to make builds viable that make excessive use of conjures (like making piercing shards work for conjures only not for water only – since it’s used for LH only anyways), there are many traits that are rarely used – remodel them to boost conjures. If charges are kept the additional charges from the trait conjurer should be standard (25) and the trait itself can be redesigned. It should actually boost conjures and not be the only option to make them viable in the first place.

[continued in post 2]

Continued Solutions:

• Option to drop your conjure and pick it up with the charges it had before you dropped it (like warrior-banners).
• make Auto-Attacks consume no charges

If you insist on restrictions there are many ways to do so

• you could set all other attunements on a CD when activating the weapon (shouldn’t be too long, maybe standard attunement-switch-CD)
• of course you can/should further balance the spells taking it into consideration that they will be accessible permanently – I think most of the spells are just right at the moment – only problem would be Greatsword
• keep the charges for all weapons but remove the time-limit and still make them work like kits. When all charges are gone the weapon disappears and a CD for casting a new one is initiated.
• remove the second conjured weapon entirely (noone picks them up anyways except LH and FGS in PvE)

These are just some thoughts of my own or that I picked up in the forums. I know that these changes might lead to eles being kinda more “complicated” to play/understand and this contradicts your policy of easy to play classes. So it’s your turn now to add some thoughts. Feel free to add your own ideas, I can add them to my list.

Well thought out post. Most of the reasons that you point out are why I think they need work too. I think the easiest route to making conjures less clumsy would be:

1) Remove Time limitation, but keep charges
2) Conjures should all be instant cast to summon (even FGS. It is elite after all)
3) Default charges to 25 and replace “Conjurer” with something else
4) Tweak numbers that would be problematic with this functionality (FGS #1, maybe)

You need to be locked out of your skills from other attunements when you have a conjure up, because it is more functional and purpose driven than the typical weapon set skills for ele and is less predicated on attunement swapping, so I can see why they function that way. I don’t see a problem with keeping attunement swapping available while wielding a conjure (just your skills would stay the same), in fact I think you have to keep the attunement bonuses active while you have conjures up because so much of the profession design is based on attunement dancing.

Just make Conjured Weapons fill our invisible second weapon slot and be swappable to and from via the weapon swap mechanic already in the game.

It would become a virtual 5th attunement at that point.

The only thing better would be if they dropped the whole attunement theme of the weapons and made them all arcane that would work with all the Arcane traits already in the game.

PS: I would also make them base 25 charges and give the fire line a new trait … like something actually good.

Thanks for your responses. I added your ideas. Keep in mind that the mechanic shouldn’t get too complicated since Anet won’t implement such things. This may include the idea of eles having 25 spells available at any time (that’s the reason why I suggested to replace one attunement with a conjure). A DEV even stated before that according to his experience most eles only use one or two attunements anyways … I know that this is not true, but we should keep it in mind if that’s the way Anet thinks of eles.

You should be able to drop your conjure and pick it up with the charges it had before you dropped it.
I mean hell you can drop a banner by weapon swapping.

Funny, there are 5 dev posts in the front page, 3 of them are warriors. Most of them dont really offer much constructive criticism yet they got attention. This post is a very thought-out post but since it lacks “warrior” in its tittle or text and it has “ele” on it, I dont expect anyone to ever look at it. Anyways, let me stop before I risk anything, by now I think it is becoming too obvious Warrior is the golden child given how even their most underused build is fully buffed, yet some classes cough ele cough still dont have ONE fully functional build.

I agree with everything on the post. I was at work when I saw it so couldnt bump it or rate it. Despite all that, i will say that I have been experimenting with them for a bit, and they do bring some strenghts. It is too early to tell, perhaps someone figures it out and can make it work somehow. Personally I havent had much success because everytime I need some defense I have to drop the weapon, which makes it go for a 1 minute CD. Usually i dont have time to use the weapon more than one full rotation, IF anything.

I do agree on making it like engi’s kit ONLY for the ele, perhaps even make them our “switch” ~ weapon, while conserving charges and duration.

I actually disagree with your line of reasoning for many of the changes. I don’t view conjures as something that you should swap to quickly and use permanently, but instead utility weapons that have some unique skills that you want for situational uses, and also give ANOTHER team-mate skills they don’t have access to that are useful too. I think they are pretty close to where they need to be for that, but no team has tested them or is using them properly.

Ice bow, earth shield, and flame axe are potentially viable in high-level play, but they require a good deal of coordination to make use of. An example of the proper way to use the conjures (and why they are powerful):

Ice bow: this is actually an awesome skill for a team-fight because almost all of the shards would hit everything on-point. By sharing your ice-bow with another team-mate (like a thief, who has a weak-teamfight presence) you TWO very strong aoe nukes and should be able to secure kills/pressure off the point. I have heard some people say “well necro wells do the same thing” and that is true, but you get one well every 40-60s. With an ice-bow, you get two ice storms, plus the potential to coordinate the hardest CC in the game (deep freeze) 2×. After landing that cc, the target should be blown up in the next 1.5s of hard cc with proper coordination.

Earth shield: The pull is now unblockable. With 2x pulls, you should be able to get any point except graveyard neuted fairly easily. Further, because it pulls EVERYONE to one location, teams should try to set up a pull—>aoe nuke to do massive damage (imagine an s/d cannon-ele blowing up everyone pulled into the same area, which they can do as their burst is all aoe). Further, the shield can also support your bunker on point by giving them an extra block and a couple of cc’s to keep himself alive. Fortify is more of a last-ditch skill, but could be useful.

Flame-axe: This skill is seriously under-rated, and should be used for mobility (cam-flip—>burning retreat—>cam flip—>flame leap), which can be shared with a slow profession (necro), and is also an excellent kiting tool. I wouldn’t use this one in a team-fight, but for a less-squishy ele, this can be a great tool to gain some range and kite a bit, while building up might and preparing to blow up the enemy. Just remember that the axes can be thrown BACKWARDS (even targeted) like engineer’s grenades.

I really think people need to explore these possibilities a bit more before completely dismissing them.

That being said, the biggest buff I would want to see are:
-Stun-break on earth shield (like warrior’s stomp), 1/4 s cast time (this is one you want NOW), maybe even instant-cast.
-Shorter lifetime and shorter so that you can use the utils more frequently, as they aren’t meant to be used forever. This would disrupt the playstyle of people who want them 24/7 a bit, but would buff people who cast—>use a few spells—>drop.
-Auto-attacks don’t use charges (except maybe the elite, but even that is supposed to be an elite and is UP in pvp).

Friend, I totally agree with what you are saying, Anet is forcing us to play with conjures, which is counter intuitive, but do not give us much mobility or viability as the other classes, I love playing with elementalist but unfortunately I am forced playing with other characters simply because the elementalist be infeasible for pvp.

Even if you don’t like them being used for extended periods would you agree that the method for bringing them out is too clunky?
Also conjures lock us out of all of our support and survivability weapon skills that play a big part of our utility. So being able to quickly switch in and out of conjures with little in the way of a forced downtime for using your weapon skills on demand as the situation requires, I would think that would synergize better with encouraging people to both heavily using conjures while also still utilizing many of the weapon skills.

@BlackBeard:
I already said that the spells themselves aren’t the problem – they’re strong and can be used extremely well in specific situations. But the conjure-mechanic or let’s say their implementation prohibits a good use of the spells (take a look at my earth-shield example). I get and also like your idea of using conjures mainly situational (like frost-bow #4 in AC). In fact, that’s the only way they should/can be used in PvP. But especially this is the problem – you can’t use them this way. If you want to situationally use a spell you instantly need access to it in the right situation and not after 2s when the right situation is over. Therefore I suggested to make them insta-cast and/or to be able to swap to the conjure (of course also instantly) which is basically the same.

The reason why I want them to be permanent is the following: Why would I conjure a Frost-Bow only for #4 when I can just take glyph of storms instead? Why would I use an Earth-Shield for #5 when I can just use mist form instead? Why would I use a Flame-Axe for Mobility when I can take Flash instead? All other utilities can even be boosted by traits. Conjures only have “conjurer”, which is pretty useless in PvP.
Therefore I don’t really like your idea with the short lifetime (and shorter CD I assume?). It would also destroy the popular LH-Build in PvE.

One problem with conjures being permanent might be that they will exceed the popular cantrips in efficiency. That’s why I suggested them to overwrite 5 of your basic weapon-skills as a “drawback”.
I’m also taking into consideration that in theory you get all the spells from your conjure x2 because of the grounded weapon. But in practice the weapons are never picked up and the ele itself rarely needs the second weapon or even gets the chance to pick it up.

I seriously tried playing with conjures in PvP, with many different builds but it’s just too slow and clumsy. Everytime I encounter an ele-player who uses conjures (extremely rare though) I’m thankfull for the freekill. Never forget that you’re not only giving up 20 spells but also an utility-slot that are extremely important in PvP.

I agree though that conjures can be much better when used in a coordinated team-fight … but to be honest I wouldn’t balance conjures around tPvP since there aren’t any eles anyways (but that’s a different topic :P). Thanks for the feedback though, I’ll add the idea with auto-attacks not consuming charges.

btw: I’m wondering if engis would use their kits if they had the same mechanic as ele-conjures, I somehow doubt it. ^^

I agree that earth shield could be instant cast (1/4s max, not 3/4s), as you need defense when you need it. However, that comes from the mentality of the 3x cantrip ele that uses only defensive utils, which work best as instant-casts. If you take the right build, its o.k. to have utils with a cast time (most other professions take non-instant skills that are useful) for offensive skills. However, I feel like 1/4s cast (which is short enough) is justified for every other conjure as every skill is also balanced with its own cast time.

However, my primary point is that conjures can be powerful if used by a team that is smart enough to use both. It is a shame that you can’t train people to pick up that frost bow for the #4 and #3 skill (which is a nice burst from point-blank) to get some great on-point pressure. However, an enterprising tpvp team might be able to actually test this out and see how good it is (I think it would be pretty nice).

My idea for the shorter-CD (and thus shorter life, although not fewer charges necessarily) is that I view conjures as simply opening up 5 utility skills rather than being a full-time weapon kit. They can be a decent full-weapon kit when given to someone that gives them skills they don’t have (necro with flame-axe mobility for instance, so he can go OOC, heal up, and come right back). With that view, shorter CD/life means more access to those util skills when I want them.

In your glyph of storms example, by using a conjure I get not only an ice storm, but also a decent cc (on the #5 if it ever landed ), a decent burst (frost fan on #3 from point-blank), and some decent ranged kiting. Even more importantly, dropping a conjure with a smart team gets me 2x glyph of storms, which is a really heavy on-point nuke. Its pretty sub-par if your team doesn’t make use of it, though. If your team can be smart, this is strictly better than glyph of storms (not that the glyph is amazing, but has a use in the right situation).

However, I don’t think instant swapping as frequently as possible (like an engi kit) is necessary for all conjures because that would just give us more skills and make them nerf the ones we have. I’d like to have strong situational skill-set that gets even more powerful with team-play. Engies need the instant kit-swap, and taking kits are actually a tax as they use them as main-weapon abilities. As an ele with enough abilities already, I am happy if conjures give me 4 good utils for the price of 1. In fact, an s/f ele could run zerker reasonably, and survive for a really long time just by bringing earth shield to supplement the built in defensive skills.

The issue here is that there aren’t any teams actually coordinating to properly utilize the conjures available. It requires coordination to set up an earth shield pull-and-nuke (unblockable pull in 600 range, which is REALLY strong). It takes coordination to set up a 2x ice-storm nuke (both at the same time or chained 1 after the other). It even takes a little coordination to set up a pull→daze combo with someone else on-point to get a neut.

Finally, on a less serious note, conjures finally let eles troll properly in skyhammer. LH knock-back, earth shield pull/daze, fortify (to stall for another pull) and tornado are great for super-smash bros!

Though I’d love to see it more often your idea of coordinated team-fights is an utopia. Just take a look at the meta: Stunlock-Warriors which spam their spells, Condi-Nekros which spam their spells, Spirit-Pet-Rangers which just press autohit …
I watched some fights of the official tournaments so far … not even once I saw a good combination of CC from one class and damage from another or a combined CC-Chain. Everything is just spammed (even ele-playstyle is this way) – because this is the most rewarding playstyle. The game is too clunky and random to seriously combine spells. Even combining your own spells often fails – that’s why staff is bad at 1v1.
So like I said I really wouldn’t expect other players to use conjures coordinated (not even in tPvP) not speaking of balancing them based on coordinated team-play.

Finally, on a less serious note, conjures finally let eles troll properly in skyhammer. LH knock-back, earth shield pull/daze, fortify (to stall for another pull) and tornado are great for super-smash bros!

haha, yeah that’s great. I use staff though for Air #4 and Earth #3, #4 and #5 (magnetic aura makes rangers kick themselves off the cliffs ^^)

edit: Air #3 of course :P

Gorni.1764:

haha, yeah that’s great. I use staff though for Air #4 and Earth #3, #4 and #5 (magnetic aura makes rangers kick themselves off the cliffs ^^)

Hahaha, that is great, I love using magnetic aura and let rangers attack themselves, although I didn’t know it reflected the knockback too!. That is awesome!! Thanks!

shimmerless.4560:

A lot of stuff in the game needs brought down to the level of conjures, not vice versa.

That might be true in general (I think ele is a fairly well balanced class – not OP but can kill when properly played), but I think with their current spells conjures won’t be OP in PvP regardless of how much you buff their mechanic. My plans are to make them viable, not OP

any other ideas?

Just skimmed, might have already been suggested, but how about if they worked like an extra attunement while active? So you activate it, you get a ‘conjure’ button next to your attunement buttons, allowing you to switch between your conjured weapon and your standard weapon at will, provided the conjure still has charges+duration remaining.

You lose some of the flexibility to use them with things like piercing shards, but you remove the ‘locked out of your class mechanic’ problem. Alternatively they could behave like a kit or weapon swap while they have duration+charges. No matter which attune you’re in, you can swap to your conjure, and then back to your primary weapon set.