Guild Wars 2

^Why do we have them?^

Aside from bonuses for swapping attunements (which could easily have been implemented with internal cooldowns), what reason is there for being locked out of attunements? It’s not like they allow us to alter our effective range as with a weapon swap, our skills generally have longer cooldowns and/or are weaker than comparable skills for other classes, the ability to quickly adapt to a situation is supposed to be an ele’s thing…

…Am I missing something? I mean, if attunement cooldowns were removed so many new builds would become viable, and it’s not like the traits of the Arcana line aren’t good enough to justify putting a bunch points in it even without a secondary statistical bonus (and if you’re really worried maybe the Boon Duration it provides could be doubled or something).

Because otherwise we’d be too much like Engineers (even though they’re basically the same class mechanic except feels better because of the no cooldowns and still doesn’t lose utilities slots for having the kits because of toolbelt).

Why u want no cd on attunements when our skills cd are 30-45 sec long? if u look at Dagger off hand skills almost all are between 25-45 sec cd.

Because attunements proc,cast and are usually rotated.

Mahedros.9103:

Why u want no cd on attunements when our skills cd are 30-45 sec long? if u look at Dagger off hand skills almost all are between 25-45 sec cd.

Magnetic Aura? The ability to use a Water Attunement skill without being locked out of my heals afterward? Condition builds?

Fuzzion.2504:

Because attunements proc

9 second internal cooldown on on-swap effects would solve this problem, as I mentioned in the OP.

cast

What?

and are usually rotated.

Precisely why I want this change. I’d like to use whatever attunement is best suited for the situation, rather than be forced to cycle through them and be subsequently locked out of skills I might want. (Once again, condition builds are a perfect example.)

Am I not seeing something that would cause no cooldown attunement swapping to be so powerful that I deserve hostile responses?

Because Anet wants you to actually understand what you are doing with your ele and use your resources reasonably rather than spamming skills as soon as they are available.

Here is how I use my resources in a wvw situation.
Air attunement in the start enemy blob stacks and buffs then move in our general direction > Static field for that awesome 2 sec stun and switch to earth > first encounter hand to hand with enemy > Use skill 4 and 2 on earth to slow them down more switch to fire > spam skill 2, 3 and 5 and switch to water > if your your blob needs heal throw it down with skill 5 and 3 or else cc enemy with 4 and then skill 2. :-)

Managing resource. If you dont have attunement cd yeah that AK-47 seems like a good idea hehe

Well here is my opinion, it is only my opinion so you may discard it as fast as you neurons allow for it:

Removing the attunement cooldown would make us completely over-powered.

This has been stated over and over, that’s why at some point we might as well bring the AK-47 argument. Also if you want to play engi, just go play engi.

Zelyhn.8069:

Well here is my opinion, it is only my opinion so you may discard it as fast as you neurons allow for it:

Removing the attunement cooldown would make us completely over-powered.

This has been stated over and over, that’s why at some point we might as well bring the AK-47 argument. Also if you want to play engi, just go play engi.

ow let me try your type of argumenting:
NOT removing the attunement cd are making the ele COMPLETELY overpowered! thats why ak argument is completely valid to troll with….
-.-

first off NO it wouldnt. secondly the few issue’s which could be created would be EASILY rebalanced to fall within the acceptable mergin.

thirdly: i want to play a SPELL CASTER! using ELEMENTAL spells this is the primary reason most people choose elementalist or mages or wizards etc. in ANY game..
the mechanics which they then bring on top of this concept have little impact to weather or not a person want to play that concept class..

So you want to play engi but with fire and ice instead of tech?

Zelyhn.8069:

So you want to play engi but with fire and ice instead of tech?

if you switched the mechanics 100% so engi now had attunement (with tech names and graphics) and the ele now having “elemental tools” which you equepped to use different elements (same mechanic as engi have now, but with elemental graphics, names and feels)

then i would STILL play the ele! (and so would most other people i would bet you).
the reason people Choose the ele in the first place wasnt becouse of the mechanics but becouse of it being a “mage type” with “elemental magic”
(for the VAST majority, and in the start most people didnt even know how exactly it would all function, people choose on concept they like, you will never see a pure worriar type player play a magic only class and the other way around no matter the mechanic build around it)

If I understand correctly your answer is yes.

Well you’d better be posting in the subforum dedicated to animations and graphics instead!

Maybe in the future if you ask politely enough Anet will release BLTC cosmetic items to change the animations for the player

There are trait lines associated to switching elements like air gives speed. now imagine a fire to air switch and then air to fire multiple times. How many stacks will I have of might and speed after a few secs? though that can be addressed by again putting an internal cool down on the trait line. Again a cd on a specific trait is still needed so it is alright where it is I guess instead of putting gazillion cd on each thing that turns over powered they simply put it on one thing that can cause it.

No cooldown but ICDs? = engis

Something definitely needs to be done with arcane and attunement cooldown and lessening the dependency of it.

huh arcane attunement or does that mean arcane trait?

Attunement cooldowns:
- intended to prevent people from spamming skills to their heart’s contents
- yet is what prevents people from switching away from fire attunement on staff in pve yet the other attunes do kitten damage

And so we have the dilemma of devs thinking we are baed and need to L2P when in actuality it is a design flaw/eles are outdated. Way back when when projectile finishers all had a 100% chance proc rate it was a valid excuse to stop spamming but as always Anet nerfs without compensating.

I wouldn’t mind if kits were more like conjures and conjures were more like kits.

Makes more sense too, more realistic for other people to pick up kits and run out of ‘ammo’ than it is for a conjured weapon to be picked by someone else and run out of ‘charges’.

PS: hates engies nade spamming behind them while they run.

I’ve said before that Conjures might get more builds dedicated to one or more if they were more like Weapon Kits.
As they are, they are basically severely nerfed versions of Weapon Kits.
The timer is much lower (Weapon Kits CAN run out, but it takes long time), they have charges, which imo needlessly limits them on top of the timer, and their cooldowns tend to take a long time as well.
2 of these 3 limitations on Conjures I can work with. All 3 of them is just too much.

On a more related note: Ele skills are already limited by the immense cooldown on the individual skills. Why should we get locked out of an attunement for 10~15 seconds?

All this current system encourages is for Ele’s to blow all their CDs, swap to next attune, blow those CDs, swap to next attune, blow THOSE CDs, swap to next attune, blow some more CDs, swap to first attune and repeat the whole cycle till their target(or they themselves, seems more likely in some cases) are dead.

Put internal CDs on the swapping traits, and let us be the versatile mage class we were meant to be.
I don’t think Ele’s would suddenly become over-powered in the AK-47 sense.
They still have their massive skill cooldowns they need to worry about.

Ryld.1340:

Because otherwise we’d be too much like Engineers (even though they’re basically the same class mechanic except feels better because of the no cooldowns and still doesn’t lose utilities slots for having the kits because of toolbelt).

No. Engies with 3 kits have 4 f skills, 20 weapon skills, a heal and an elite for a total of 26 possible skills because the utility slots are the kit swap buttons.

Eles have 20 weapon skills a heal, 3 utilities and an elite for a total of 25 skills UNTIL you count conjures, which give you stat bonuses AND can be shared. Swap out 3 utilities and an elite for conjures and you have 41 total skills possibly available.

Kits are good, but engies don’t get invited to speed runs for our Fiery Great Sword.

Source: I have both and got my Dungeon Master title with my engineer. After 2 weeks, I am speed-running on my ele and haven’t brought my engie to a dungeon in days.

Edit:

DarkKnightJin.6372:

I’ve said before that Conjures might get more builds dedicated to one or more if they were more like Weapon Kits.
As they are, they are basically severely nerfed versions of Weapon Kits.
The timer is much lower (Weapon Kits CAN run out, but it takes long time), they have charges, which imo needlessly limits them on top of the timer, and their cooldowns tend to take a long time as well.

wut.

Have you actually ever played an engineer? What weapon kits are you even talking about, and how is it that having a conjured weapon that buffs you and another person is not as good as a weapon kit? I run Lightning Hammer and FGS, and I keep the LH up like 90% of the time, and when it’s on cooldown, I am generating might stacks and fury up to 30-40 seconds at a time.

Attunement cooldowns exist because swapping attunements should be a commitment of some kind. This game has enough forgiving and thoughtless elements to it. There needs to be some kind of counterplay and consequences for making a bad move. Removing attunement cooldowns would be a bigger deal than you realize because chilled would no longer affect it. I have literally died because chilled prevented me from swapping when I needed to. If you leave an attunement at a bad time, you should be penalized for it. Having consequences for your actions just makes for a better more engaging game. Why should a game not punish you for making a mistake?

The “just give swapping traits an ICD” idea would not be the same as it is now. Attunement cooldowns start when you leave the attunement. The cooldown on swapping traits with 30 arcana is 9 second plus how long you stay in that attunement, not just 9 seconds. The traits have variable cooldowns based on how long the player chooses to stay in said attunement; you can’t replicate that with a static number. Do you give the traits the minimum cooldown that they can have now? Are you going to allow people to sit in an attunement and get the swap trait just as frequently as they can now? Do you give them 15 second cooldowns so eles that swap out of an attunement quickly will be hurt? Do you make the traits feel awkward by making them trigger once you leave an attunement? That would make people swap in, out and back into an attunement just so they can access a trait and still use the skills they want. Removing the swap cooldown would bring up too many issues that have no good answer. Not to mention, you’d be taking some control away from the player while making the dumb decision to sit in one attunement more forgiving.

Zelyhn.8069:

Removing the attunement cooldown would make us completely over-powered.

How? I’ve already addressed that attunement swapping doesn’t alter our effective range and that we have long skill cooldowns to deal with as it is.

lunyboy.8672:

DarkKnightJin.6372:

I’ve said before that Conjures might get more builds dedicated to one or more if they were more like Weapon Kits.
As they are, they are basically severely nerfed versions of Weapon Kits.
The timer is much lower (Weapon Kits CAN run out, but it takes long time), they have charges, which imo needlessly limits them on top of the timer, and their cooldowns tend to take a long time as well.

wut.

Have you actually ever played an engineer? What weapon kits are you even talking about, and how is it that having a conjured weapon that buffs you and another person is not as good as a weapon kit? I run Lightning Hammer and FGS, and I keep the LH up like 90% of the time, and when it’s on cooldown, I am generating might stacks and fury up to 30-40 seconds at a time.

Conjures can be quite useful in PvE, but in PvP they’re inferior to kits in just about every way.

Tei.1704:

Removing attunement cooldowns would be a bigger deal than you realize because chilled would no longer affect it. I have literally died because chilled prevented me from swapping when I needed to.

Chilled doesn’t affect kit cooldowns, yet I don’t see anyone complaining. The important thing is that it affects skill cooldowns.

Tei.1704:

If you leave an attunement at a bad time, you should be penalized for it. Having consequences for your actions just makes for a better more engaging game. Why should a game not punish you for making a mistake?

Because swapping attunements isn’t a mistake, it’s what you need to do to maintain any degree of effectiveness. You’re saying that if I want to cast Unsteady Ground I have to give up the ability to cast Magnetic Aura reactively; you’re saying that if I want Rock Barrier I have to pass on Earthquake for the next 9+ seconds or use the skills together.

Tei.1704:

…Not to mention, you’d be taking some control away from the player while making the dumb decision to sit in one attunement more forgiving.

Why should remaining in one attunement be punished when some builds require it? Anyway, I figured it’d just be a 9 second cooldown once you swap away like it is now, and an icon would appear on your bar to show that it’s ready. Clunky, sure, but the class mechanics can’t get much clunkier at this point.

UnknownRH.4592:

Because Anet wants you to actually understand what you are doing with your ele and use your resources reasonably rather than spamming skills as soon as they are available.

as opposed to using every skill that’s off cooldown in your current attunement, swaping and repeating the process? because that takes so much more awareness. (spoilers: it’s about 3x as braindead)
-

Anyway, the real reason is that removing the cooldown adds too much hidden power. It’s the same reason weapon swapping for every other class ever has a cooldown.

Oooor they could just buff most of our 1 attacks to be more useful? Maybe make 30 traits that make your 1 attack in X attunement more powerful?

reikken.4961:

Anyway, the real reason is that removing the cooldown adds too much hidden power. It’s the same reason weapon swapping for every other class ever has a cooldown.

Chaosky.5276:

How? I’ve already addressed that attunement swapping doesn’t alter our effective range and that we have long skill cooldowns to deal with as it is.

Attunement swapping is something eles need to do just to maintain effectiveness. I get that, say, warriors might take two melee weapon sets and switch in a similar manner, but it’s different in that if both sets perform similar functions then they don’t really lose much by being locked out of one, and if the weapons perform different functions they don’t need to switch until the appropriate situation arises.

Even Fresh Air builds, which probably have the least trouble with attunement cooldowns, still have to swap frequently to get off more Electric Discharges, which means you may very well not have access to that really important Earth skill when you need it.

Attunement reduction should be based on your playstyle: 20 points in air = 20% air reduction on a 9s base cd, leaving arcana free to spec for boon duration and something else. A 20/20/10/30/0 build would basicaly give 7.2s/7.2s/8.1s/6.3s for each attunement.

MyPuppy.8970:

Attunement reduction should be based on your playstyle: 20 points in air = 20% air reduction on a 9s base cd, leaving arcana free to spec for boon duration and something else. A 20/20/10/30/0 build would basicaly give 7.2s/7.2s/8.1s/6.3s for each attunement.

Or take advantage of the fact that we already have long CD and turn arcane into a global skill CD reduction but cap it 20%, so it would be nice to have but not really needed.

remove attunement change CD. WE should be able to react and NOT get punished. The ele is all about having the right tools and yet we get punished if we want to use the right tools (jack of all fail).

We’re already punished by being a target on feet. Though i take advandage of it to play an innocent and naive girl picking up daisies in the fields, ready to kill.

People making the comment about removing the CD making eles like engis would do well to note that eles not only existed before engis, they also previously had almost no internal cd on their attunements. It was on-attune effects/rapid cycling between optimal damage combos that caused the cd change, but the problem is that eles are no longer capable of doing that kind of damage without sacrificing the bulk of their survivability.

Erebus.7568:

thirdly: i want to play a SPELL CASTER! using ELEMENTAL spells this is the primary reason most people choose elementalist or mages or wizards etc. in ANY game..

This…not all of us want to play as “auramancers” or whatever Elementalists are forces to be now.