Guild Wars 2

When you conjure a weapon you gain the ability to weapon swap between it and your main weapons (IE your staff, daggers or whatever).

The conjured weapon will retain its charges while it has been swapped out.

I understand how this could be used to exploit cool downs on conjuration utilities but i think the weapons themselves have an internal summoning time where the only last that long right? If not that can be easily implemented.

The main reason i don’t use conjure stuff is because it stops me from using 20 skills in favor of 5… If i could swap back and forth with the conjured weapons they would be so much more viable and earth shield would see a LOT more play.

Lava axe is still overshadowed by fiery greatsword, but i have a fix for this

Remove lava axe, change to Arcane Axe (although id rather have a 1h sword but w/e)

Skill 1: Bouncing ranged attack, Projectile finisher.
Skill 2: Aoe pulse on self, friendlies fury, weakness enemies. 10sec c/d
Skill 3: Cone attack, cripple. 15sec c/d
Skill 4: Targeted Aoe high damage/ confuse. 25sec c/d
Skill 5: Single target leaping daze (2sec). Leap finisher. 30sec c/d

(This next part is off topic but has buffs id love to see)

Glyph of Elemental Power:
Fire: Blinding (we have FAR MORE than enough burning)
Rest: Stay the same

Armor of Earth: Reduce c/d to 75 sec. or at least 80. 90 is too high for what it does.

Frozen Burst: I would love to see this Dag #3 ability gain a significant dmg buff… but its water so w/e water is strong as is for what it does.

Lightning Whip: Now has a 20% chance to grant fury for 4 seconds. 5 second internal cool down. This would make dag air actually useful to stay in.

Ride the Lightning: Increase dmg by 100-125% (1400-1750 total) so it acts as a nuke. Honestly this wouldnt be imbalanced with the low-ish nuke potential we have and would fix the several problems with S/D Air and D/D air crit/crit dmg dps builds.

Just some thoughts. What do u think?

Rump Buffalo.2594:

Lava axe is still overshadowed by fiery greatsword

this is because greatsword is an elite, while lava axe is a noraml utility

I was going to respond but there are too many of these posts about making conjures work.
They do work. Lava ax works well with d/d. i use it in spvp and pve.
There are only 2 things simply wrong with conjures as they stand.
ground target.
many require standing still to cast.

standing still stops the ele tank and that is deadly. Anything that requires me to stand still had better make up for the chance im taking. most conjures dont.
all ax casts are mobile.

Encaladus.5291:

Rump Buffalo.2594:

Lava axe is still overshadowed by fiery greatsword

this is because greatsword is an elite, while lava axe is a noraml utility

Yes but it still does its job better where the same isnt said for the other weapons. My main point on that though is that they are both fire, purely an aesthetic issue, since we have 2 fire weapons and no arcane one while both air and water are covered.

also yes conjures do WORK, but they are severely limiting to the user and have also NO traits to go with them besides the one in fire where they gain more charges. Conjure builds, for those reasons, are simply non-existent in any viable way.

Allowing the ele to weapon swap while wielding a conjure would almost fix the problem all together, although id still like so see some conjuration based traits like:

Trait 1: Conjured weapons deal 10% more damage and their the cooldowns of their weapon skills are reduced by 20%

Trait 2: Conjured weapons grant a boon to allies near the summon/impact site
Fire: Might (3 might for GS)
Air: Fury ( or swiftness?)
Water: Regeneration
Earth: Vigor

Trait 3: Your conjuration utilities have a 30% chance to summon an additional weapon

Trait 4: Upon using the LAST charge of your conjured weapons they will apply a skill centered on you.
Axe: Flame Burst
Hammer: Updraft
Bow: Cleansing Wave
Shield: Ring of Earth
GS: Burning Retreat

My friend runs S/D with the flame axe and there is usually 2 fire walls up on a point, as well as 16 seconds of burn when he pulls it out + all the other crap it gives you, like fire shield and some decent damage. This weapon is alright vs people without condition removal, but not so good elsewise.

I would like to either A. be able to change to a weapon and back once summoned, or B. have that weapon replace its elements skills, e.g. water would become frost bow till dropped.

Scrap the axe. Remove all conjure spells and add the following:

Glyph of elemental armory
180 CD
90 Duration
Eliteskill

Activates Weapon swap for 90 seconds with all elemental weapons as second set, according to the attunement. No charges.

Thats a pretty cool idea galrond but i dont think it would be feasible as it would force the creation of 4 more utilities that are an entirely new sub-set

Rump Buffalo.2594:

Encaladus.5291:

Rump Buffalo.2594:

Lava axe is still overshadowed by fiery greatsword

this is because greatsword is an elite, while lava axe is a noraml utility

also yes conjures do WORK, but they are severely limiting to the user and have also NO traits to go with them besides the one in fire where they gain more charges. Conjure builds, for those reasons, are simply non-existent in any viable way.

All traits apply to conjures just like they do to equipped weapon skills. or they should where the traits are not broken.

ax does more damage than most of the normal weapon skills + a lot of movement.

they surely could use some work as they have some glaring short comings but I forced myself to use them and found that the ax is the easiest more fluid one.

Conjures surely could use more tweaking but they are not broken.
What they are is hard to learn. Just like most of the ele.

you can use conjures from any element.
so for instance I have worked with a 0/25/0/25/20 to get vulnerability on crits and use waters +%20 damage while target is vulnerable. +auras + waters +2% per boon.
conjures can be mixed and matched all that way.
ax has a built in aura combo.

the main issue with conjures are
ground targetting which makes them slow to cast.
several have skills that require no movement which is just hard and dangerous to use.
flaming great sword has to stand still to cast which limits it use tremendously.
they drop easy.
hit the weapon swap button and they are gone.
hit water for a swim for a split second gone.
mist form gone.
down gone.
If weapon swap just dropped the weapon that would be OK too.

if I could move while using the bow ae and the deep freeze i could use it with d/d more aggressively. same with the FGS.

I would like to see something like this done to conjures as well.
make the skill a 2 step skill.
hit it once and i get the weapon with no ground target.
if i drop it then it goes away and the CD is reduced depending on the number of charges left in the weapon.
hit it again while holding the weapon and i get ground target when i can cast the second weapon which starts the full CD.

then i get a sort of weapon swap effect and in fact i could use the weapon swap button to clear it. Hell go all out and tie it into the weapon swap like has said been said over and over but…
hit it once it clears it. hit is again and it recasts it for my personal use just as if i had pressed the button. the CD has to have timed out for the recast.

cast the axe. use 3 charges. swap it out. instead of 60 second cool down its about a 10 second cool down. hit weapon swap again when that timer has expires to cast it again or just hit the skill. weapon swap just remembers the last conjure used.

hit the actual skill button while holding the axe to get the ground target cast and get a full CD.

also tie in arcane so that the arcane skill increases the recharge rate of the ax.

yeah i like that better.
in stead of a cool down on the weapon recast give it a recharge rate enhanced by the arcane skill.
so i can cast and swap the conjure over and over until it runs of out charges. when its not in my hands it recharges to get a full charge by 60 seconds.
Then the fire trait that adds 10 more charges would instead bump the recharge rate.

casting the ally version of the weapon reduces the recharge for 60 seconds.

The OP is right – conjures are a waste of time for as long as they replace your 20 weapon skills with 5 mediocre ones that you can’t swap between.

mjharrison.3209:

The OP is right – conjures are a waste of time for as long as they replace your 20 weapon skills with 5 mediocre ones that you can’t swap between.

seriously… each time you swap atunments you block out 15 other abilities.
with maybe 2 or 3 of the 5 that you are likely to use.
And you block them out for longer than the conjure will. Or at least 5 skills for longer. if you have the conjure out for longer than it takes to get back to what you need to cast… you’re doing it wrong.

what you really replace is 1 utility slot. Thats not a minor issue. ele needs all of their utility to work with their build.

currently a person has to be really good with ground targetting to get the conjures to actually be a .25 cast.
or use fast ground targetting.

Swapping attunements doesnt block 15 other abilities, u can swap to them at will without losing the attunement u were just in (cool downs aside because they are short and are up soon enough, especially with arcana)

If i have a conjure i lost 20 skills for the duration of that conjure, or i switch off and waste the utility. Without being able to swap to and from it the conjure is VERY limiting. This is exacerbated when you take into account also losing the utility slot.

I dont need to stay in a conjure forever.
i use them just as long as i need. then i ditch them.
just like i do with attunments. they work almost identically in the short term.

where do you use conjures?

im glad conjures work for you the way they are…

they doesnt make them good, viable, or worth while in a build

Rump Buffalo.2594:

im glad conjures work for you the way they are…

they doesnt make them good, viable, or worth while in a build

tell me how you use the conjures so i can see where you are coming from.
if you dont currently use them then start.
replace one utility that you dont absolutely have to have.
like arcane wave for staff maybe or armor of earth for d/d

I would suggest ax or bow as the conjure as the others have a rather slow cast time.

I have a pretty in depth tweaking of conjured weapons idea here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Fixing-Conjured-Weapons/first#post825467

i use them as a weapon for a specific purpose IE:

Axe: pretty much never cuz i usually run d/d and dont need the extra mobility

Lightning Hammer: Awesome melee wep with blinding, allows me to set up vulnerability fields and stay in melee with the frequent blind to tank normal mobs / fight heavier classes in pvp and hve some cc

Bow: usually to throw down some aoe or kite / support (Also kill burrows and the like)

Shield: Defensive, stay alive, interrupt.

I would like these things to just not be 1 hit wonders and then dropped. Being able to swap between them and have some conjure specific traits would make them so much more able to be a smart choice and not just highly situational or gimmicky uses. being able to swap to it means i dont have to PRE-DETERMINE the usefulness of the weapon. I can have it on the ready when i need it.

ax is the conjure that goes easiest with d/d
because its fast to cast and fast to use and has dd friendly skills. it also has light impact on the build by swapping out armor of earth.
try using it.

You can spec for the conjure without taking specific conjure traits.

i use fast ground targeting to keep the cast time of the ax down to .25 seconds.

Those are both true, however, my point is that a conjure build id non-existent in terms of viable builds. They are a gimmick utility. While DD does benefit from the axe the most i use 30/0/25/15/0 atm and love my signet build because of aoe blind, and the immob signet. I can dance in melee all day long and be fine, there is no need for the axe it just slows me down since i rely on shocking aura / frost aura to grant me protection at times.

I also fast cast

My issue with conjures is that they restrict you from using the weapon skills that all ele traits are centered around and that all build are generally built around. Your weapons go away and you have no way of regaining their use without destroying your conjure.

I know how to use conjures, i have used them to a certain level of effectiveness that they allow and they are fun to use and snazzy looking. The issue comes from viability, not ignorance.

Please tell me, and im not trying to be abrasive, how weapon swapping with conjures wouldnt fix large amounts of their problems in terms of build viability? This isnt a thread to educate one on the use of conjures, it is to make suggestions and talk about how to best fix an unviable and gimmicky utility.

Weapons swap, combine some stacking/redundant/useless traits (IE 5% dmg in melee or to bleeding, why cant this be 1 trait, the several useless traits in fire, the weapon specific traits in arcana while are just laughable) and replace them with conjure specific traits and i think it would make them a build-worthy utility.

I dont think you are being abrasive. I just want to know that you know how to use the weapons. I surely should have been more upfront with that and i appologize.

This is about both issues. how to make them better and how to use them.

In order to propose useful changes you have to indicate where you use them and how they are deficient there. You have to demonstrate that you have some skill there. The ele is hard to learn. the conjures are no different. I have over 100 spvp games using conjures when i decided to try and learn them. what do you have?

I want to talk to you about how you use the ax. where you use it. what your actual issues are with it. not just what you want to change. “I dont use it because” is not good enough. I am not trying to be a jerk.

lets look at just the statement that ax is overshadowed by greatsword.

greatsword can not be cast on the run.
has 3x’s the cool down.
it has at least one skill that requires the user to stand still.
it has burst but its slow to bring it off.

the ax is fast in all respects.
it does pretty good damage for an ele.
it has ele style burst.
it has no stand still to cast requirements. neither in skill nor cast.
it has a built in aura.
it has a roll back dodge.
I would not mind seeing the ae case on ax 2 to be not ground targeted.

In almost every combat situation i would rather cast the ax than the greatsword.
In combat casting the greatsword will generally kill me because i have to stand there for a second casting it unless i use up lightning flash or mistform and the damage it puts out after its cast is not bursty enough to stand still.
However its pretty good for objects and moving around wvw save that i can not use it in emergencies as standing still for a second will generally kill me.

you want to change the ax all together. I dont think the ax needs any great changes. maybe some tweaking and balancing and all the weapons need some casting changes. Otherwise it has skills that compliment dagger/dagger pretty well.

swapping might be good but it drastically changes how the weapons work.
Is that a good idea? I dont know… maybe. who knows. seems like it but its untested and will greatly change how they work. It makes sense to me that they would work better that way but hell i may not be using the conjures correctly now and if i were i might see that this change would break them. there may be a very effective way to use them that i just havent figured out. the ele is complicated.

so lets be realistic.

Can we agree that there is an issue with the casting of the weapons and that the stand still requirements are very bad?

I dont think that they are unviable. I think the ele has some general build restrictions which makes it hard to use ANY build outside of a 30water 30 arcane setup.

so what is the most viable build for an ax conjure.

in my humble opinion there are not any builds better than a straight up d/d cantrip setup outsde of staff bunker and such. however replacing armor of earth with the ax does work. it reduces some defense for more offense.
so some things that i have tried are
25 air for vulnerabilty on crits fury with auras and one other air skill.
30 water with one water skill being +20% damage
and 15 arcane.
however a build around 10 air 30 water and 30 arcane is still better overall.
thats not a problem exactly with the ax. its just how the ele works.
the ax itself is not a new profession and it should not be i do not think. it doesnt and should not replace all my other abilities. i get where you are coming from but i think your angle of attack there is inaccurate. thats a problem with the ele overall not with the ax. whenever the ax is not out i need to be effective and i dont think any amount of reasonable changes to the conjures in general will change that.

the ax can be pretty effective using a standard dagger/dagger build. run through the initial combo and then cast the ax rather than use an auto attack or run away.
what hinders that is the ground target cast of the ax which greatly slows down the weapon.
greatsword is almost completely locked out of that playstyle due to its cast time and the need to stand still.

@Crunchy Gremlin
Most people taking the slot to use the conjure are looking to use it for its full duration/charges. I was like this at a time, would whip out the bow and get frustrated with the CDs. Then I learnt they were gonna turn us into lunch, that’s when I knew I had to escape.

Now I summon the bow, teleport bow 5 in your face, point blank 3 then 4 then drop and go back to d/d CC abilities to keep you out of the ring (pvp of course) then hope that no one steals my other bow while I internally count down as to when bow 5 will be off cd. I’m usually running cleansing fire, frost bow, lightning flash and fgs depending on map.

Haven’t tried to much of flame axe, as I said before my friend uses it in pvp to great effect (16 sec burning). I use the FGS because it is awesome at breaking the door to the lord. Takes about 2 seconds with 2 people and 2 FGS.

FGS whilst immobed and the enemy is at point blank is ridiculous. Not being able to cast whilst moving on an elite is horrid though.

BTW, 10 fire, 15 air, 25 water, and 20 arcane is nice for this setup. You can still change attunements whilst using the conjures. So swapping just before bow 3, or swapping before bow 4 and then again when possible is quite good extra fury ftw. I also have a habit of using my cantrips offensively at the start of the fight, then holding them after the 20% reduced cd towards then end of the fight.

So that lightning flash into bow 3 into your face is 3 stacks of might (fire trait) + regen and vigor (water trait) + x buff from whichever attunement I just went to (if not fire or water that’s 1 more buff) + 3 more might on swap (sigil) + fury from swap + 10% damage (water 25 trait [f,m,r,v,p or s]) + 1k damage if you switch to air + bow 3 for most of them to crit (almost guaranteed vigor from arcane trait) swap again bow 4 (fury and same buffs as last time sigil might on internal cd) drop into cleansing fire and try to land fire grab as they are going for their heal, or just interrupt if they aren’t a silly block all attacks whilst healing / I now have 10 mins of stability class (Exaggeration on that second part).

I have actually been trying to start trying to use the bow myself as it too has a .25 second cast time like the ax. what initially drew me away from that was the immobile casting of 4 and 5.
Seems you found a way around that.
there was another thread about the staff bunker build and the proposed chill build that got me to appreciate the effect of the projectile finisher on bow skill 2.

that alone is a fairly powerful ability.

In pve the bow seems very powerful against single targets that i have the jump on. feels a lot like a typical mage using the bow.
drop them before the get to me.

It seems to me that i have tried that build you are talking about and it did work some although i still feel more powerful in a standard build.

I have not really tried much with the bow in spvp but i think it has potential.

how do you deal with the ground target with the conjures initial cast?

Just a point, if you press the button again for any template ability it will cast wherever your mouse happens to be (if you aren’t using fast cast) so with conjures you can just double tap the key to instasummon.

I mostly use the hammer in dungeons because my usual group has 3 eles and a ranger and the constant blast and leap finishers are wonderful with all the fields and my auras

I hope anet add more conjure traits or add conjure bonuses into existing traits, they are a lot of fun to use.

I supposed that double tap would work… i was a little discouraged to use it initially as the double tap does not feel natural to me.
ill try working on that.

i agree that forcing in ele to stand still in 99.9% of situations is bad. My main beef with the axe, as i said in the first post is mainly aesthetic and that we have 2 fire weapons and no arcane weapons. The skills themselves were secondary to that problem(mainly just for fun) and in terms of job i was merely speaking of damage but yes there are very concise and noted differences between the two and advantages of the axe.

While i understand where you’re coming from you have nailed the inherent problem of the ele, something this post is trying to address, lackof build variety. My main problem with conjures is the get close to no attention in the traits when we have MANY redundant and useless traits that could be combined/removed for more interesting and effective ones, and that they completely negate a lot of builds while they’re active, they are counter-intuitive to use as quick casting functions (although it can be done) and their inability to be swapped out/to makes them counter-intuitive to use as a functional weapon to rely on as a secondary apart from your main set.

Given the state of how the elementalist operates they are poorly designed in their function.

P.S. The only skill that locks u in place with FGS is #2… so ive never really had an issue with it on that front but i understand where #3 and #4 being mobile but on a set track could be annoying

Just have conjured weapons follow you like a Guardian the difference however should be that they only attack the target that you attack. Have them mirror you.

that would be way way way too powerful

Rump Buffalo.2594:

that would be way way way too powerful

Depends on the damage of said conjured weapons.
Depends on their health and how quickly they can be killed.
Depends on the base skill cooldown.
Depends on many things.

Such a change could be easily balanced with all the above.

well consider leaving ax the way it is. although arcane ax sounds cooler, how about about an arcane great sword? Or arcane dagger for elite.
“You shall not pass!”

Rump Buffalo.2594:

that would be way way way too powerful

It would also be extremely boring. There’s the potential for huge group utility with the conjured weapons, making them autonomous would remove it entirely.

^ agree with carighan… half the fun of the conjure is changing up your gameplay. I just want them to be able to swap with your normal weps and to have either the axe or gs changed to be arcane instead of fire so we represent all the trait lines.

Is that too much to ask?