So I was talking with a friend of mine about Conjures and improvements that could be done for them, and I think I came upon something that could really integrate them well into an Ele’s fighting style (even with the buffs coming for them) and make them something truly unique for an Ele, while still usable for everyone else as great temp items.
The general idea is this, when you use a Conjure, you get the one plopped on the ground, and the one spawned in your hands. At this point, instead of a “drop bundle” button, you get a “swap weapon” button. This will last for the duration of the conjure, depleted either when you run out of charges or time, and once you have lost all the charges or time, the Conjure skill starts its cooldown at that point (until then it’s a “Locked Skill” similar to Elemental summoning Glyphs). This feature will only be used for the Conjure that manifests in the Ele’s hands, if they pick up the one that was placed on the ground, it will act as a normal bundle and drop as they currently do. If they pick up another bundle of any kind, or use another Conjure, their current Conjure instantly poofs and goes on cooldown. So they can only have one swappable Conjure active at a time.
I think that this might actually give a really neat aspect to Conjures exclusive to Eles, letting them use the Conjures as their alt weapon sets would give them a great utility use, and expand their options to make Eles more versatile, which is what ANet seems to want to do with Eles. I would also have the stat boosts from all Conjures (Such as +Pow/ConDam with the Fire ones) only apply while actively wielding it, so as to not be used as passive stat boosters. Imagine how cool it would be to call up the Lava Axe, lay down a Fire Ring without need for Dagger off-hand, and then swap back to your normal weapon for Might stacking before swapping BACK into the Lava Axe to use the potential new Blast finisher and speedy Might stacking on the auto. It’d be something unique to Elementalists, and would play greatly on expanding our versatility in weapon skills.
Some might say this is too close to Kits, but those can be swapped instantly, have no limit on charges or how long you can have them out, you can use multiple Kits in combos all strung together (whereas there can only be one active Conjure with this idea) and also have no cooldown after they have been used up. Having them be a swappable item and then having a full minute where they’re inactive should be a good counterbalance to the power and utility this would provide, at least IMO.