Guild Wars 2

The flame axe has the ability to provide might, fury, protection, and high aura up time (traited). However its damage is so bad that no one in the game runs it. In terms of burning and raw damage, heck even projectile velocity, its just plain bad.

I realize that the dream of running my flame axe build will likely remain just that: a dream. But WHAT IF it was viable? What would GW2 be like? That GW2 is just a small numbers tweak away…. yet so far away.

Just call this a feeling but i think all conjurer weapons are going to get a major change in HoT. (kind of a stretch i thing the eng elite spec is going to get conjurer weapons and that how we are going to get this info).

Other then that most conjurer weapons are on the week side mostly the shield hammer and flame axe at least these 3 need a buff in one way or another. To truly fix them you need to round out there effects so an attk a def skill a support skill then the last 2 can be related to the wepon it self i would love to see aura on the weapons build in.

If they truly made conjurer weapons viable you would see a lot of odd ball builds that the prime ideal of the build is going to be off one conjurer wepon i do not think you will see more then 1 or 2 (every one runs FGS).

Hey there.

I’ve been running Conjured Weapons for a while now in sPvP. I’ve been using Earth Shield, Frost Bow and Fiery Greatsword. My matchmaking rating is high (I fight very experienced players, or the bests). I have many things to say about Conjured Weapon.

First of all, don’t pick the Conjurer trait.
I’ve tried my hardest to see the good in that trait, I was very close to be convinced that it was alright; a lot of Fire Aura with One with Fire and the might it provided seemed to be good. It’s not bad, but you’ll notice that Fire Aura do not stack in duration.

Also, adding stacks to the conjured weapons is rarely good: you’ll want to get rid of the conjured weapon once the rotation is over most of the time (That’s how elementalist work!). The only exception would be for the Lightning Hammer in PvE. But, the hammer attacks are too slow for sPvP.

Solutions:
1. Allow Fire Aura to stack in duration.
2. Keep the increased stacks on the conjured weapons.
3. Add 20% cooldown reduction on conjured weapons, which also affects the cooldowns of the conjured weapon abilities.

Frost Bow

I’ve been using Frost Bow for a purpose outside of the classic “frost bow 5 and 4”. Of course, I use them, but I also like the Rapid Fire which has a 100% projectile finisher (5x). I place a fire field then use number 2.

I have two complaints about Frost Bow.

1. Give the chill condition from it a compensation for the fact that Chill can only be stacked 5 times. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/5-stacks-of-Chill-and-Frost-Bow/first#post5404490

2. Remove the enemy target dependency from the auto-attack for its healing portion. Make it like Water Bolt which can be aimed at an ally or onto the floor to heal in the area.

Earth Shield
This one is by far my favorite conjured weapon. Its power is unknown to most. I use it for condition damage and defense. The main issues with that weapon is the initial slow cast time, the lack of Combo Finishers and the Vitality it provides.

1. Casting the earth shield is the hardest part in my opinion. You need to be careful when you do it, and where you put the second copy of it. Chances are that you’ll lose momentum when casting it, or worse, you’ll be interrupted or too late to interrupt the enemy.

Reduce the cast time to 1/2 second (or 1/4 second) from 3/4 seconds.

2. Add a projectile finisher to the last auto-attack chain of the weapon that procs two times (it is a boomerang after all).
Add a leap finisher to the Magnetic Surge (number 3 charge)

3. The vitality on the earth shield or any bundles is a fake stat increase. And sometimes, it is hurtful because it reduces the relative effectiveness of your heal because it does not fill the health bar as much as it would had you not gained that vitality. The problems happen because you gain some extra maximum life just for a moment, and lose it later. You’ve gained nothing from it; but I may be wrong. Instead of vitality, why not increase condition damage while wielding it?

Remove the vitality bonus from earth shield, give condition damage instead.

Overall conjured weapon fix.

-Cast times from Lightning Hammer, Flame Axe, Frost bow’s rapid fire, need to be polished over all.

-The second conjured weapon on the floor needs to have its delay while picking it up adjusted greatly.

-Give a better way to distinguish enemy’s conjured weapon to allied conjured weapon in PvP.

-Delay while dropping bundle (dropping conjured weapon) needs to be removed.

-Dropping a conjured weapon mid-dodge roll (seems to be happening because of an on-swap sigil: Geomancy) needs to stop interrupting the dodge roll.

Alekt.5803:

First of all, don’t pick the Conjurer trait in PVP

For a S/X Hammer build in PvE, taking conjurer is almost mandatory.

Not to devalue your post which si a great analysis and provides good feedback (some of which I agree with, some of which I don’t). Just wanted to avoid confusions.

VodCom.6924:

Alekt.5803:

First of all, don’t pick the Conjurer trait in PVP

For a S/X Hammer build in PvE, taking conjurer is almost mandatory.

Not to devalue your post which si a great analysis and provides good feedback (some of which I agree with, some of which I don’t). Just wanted to avoid confusions.

It’s far from mandatory- when the conj runs out your burst in fire will be off cd and you can restack might and blast trhough your havy hitters- the trait should only be used when pugs steal your hammer… and in that case they dont deserve either your dps nor your utility and you should stick to the air aa :P

VodCom.6924:

Alekt.5803:

First of all, don’t pick the Conjurer trait in PVP

For a S/X Hammer build in PvE, taking conjurer is almost mandatory.

Not to devalue your post which si a great analysis and provides good feedback (some of which I agree with, some of which I don’t). Just wanted to avoid confusions.

I did say that I was speaking about Conjurer in “PVP”, and on my proposed changed to Conjurer, I do not remove the 25 stacks either.

But hey, just for the sake of discussion, what are the points you don’t really agree with, what points do you like the best?

@Alekt If you’re going to hijack this thread you could at least mention the flame axe in your list of conjure things you want changed. That’s what the thread is supposed to be about… Have you ever used the flame axe? It needs the most love from devs yet all you pointed out was cast times.

As for the conjurer trait, the aura is nice with the flame axe. It provides might and protection when traited which are both awesome.

The flame axe has 2 fire fields, a blast and leap finisher. You’d think you’d be able to camp in it until it exhausted its charges but you cant. It doesn’t have a high damage ability or cc, so it ends up being absolutely useless in its current state.

Ice Bow is king in pve and really good in wvw. Lightning hammer and earth shield have their place in dungeons. If flame axe doesn’t get any help it will remain useless across al game modes.

O purely about Flame axe well its 5 needs an evasion effect its 1 skill needs to be aoe and give might per person hit its ring of fire needs to remove conditions and its dash back needs to be a revers burning speed so a blast where you start and evasion on the roll back.

Spurrlock.3219:

@Alekt If you’re going to hijack this thread you could at least mention the flame axe in your list of conjure things you want changed. That’s what the thread is supposed to be about… Have you ever used the flame axe? It needs the most love from devs yet all you pointed out was cast times.

As for the conjurer trait, the aura is nice with the flame axe. It provides might and protection when traited which are both awesome.

The flame axe has 2 fire fields, a blast and leap finisher. You’d think you’d be able to camp in it until it exhausted its charges but you cant. It doesn’t have a high damage ability or cc, so it ends up being absolutely useless in its current state.

Ice Bow is king in pve and really good in wvw. Lightning hammer and earth shield have their place in dungeons. If flame axe doesn’t get any help it will remain useless across al game modes.

I did type about Flame Axe. I used to use it in PvP and also in PvE. The weapon is pretty good actually. It only needs a few cast speed polishing, velocity increase, and perhaps an pure instant cast time on the Conjured skill itself. After all, it is the smallest conjured weapon, hence easier to cast.

The problem now lies on how they decided to implement the new burning on the weapon. The Ring of Fire gives 1 stack, and the Fiery Leap gives another 1 stack, but a very long one. For the Fiery leap, it would make more sense to have a short buring with a decent amount of stacks for the difficulty to land (3 stacks over 4 seconds).

Josre also uses the Flame Axe in his staff build (sPvP).

Also, you might be commiting the mistake to think that a conjured weapon will make everything good. It needs to be used smartly. If you are staff, the flame axe offers the best auto-attack in range you can hope for when it comes to chasing a low enemy down. If you want, you can combine it with Pyromancer’s Puissance (which now works with Conjures!) and stack the might like no tomorrow.

Alekt.5803:

The problem now lies on how they decided to implement the new burning on the weapon. The Ring of Fire gives 1 stack, and the Fiery Leap gives another 1 stack, but a very long one. For the Fiery leap, it would make more sense to have a short buring with a decent amount of stacks for the difficulty to land (3 stacks over 4 seconds).

I agree. Ring of fire needs more burning. A burst burn on fiery leap would be good. Or it could have its ranged buffed a bit so its easier to land.

Also, you might be commiting the mistake to think that a conjured weapon will make everything good. It needs to be used smartly. If you are staff, the flame axe offers the best auto-attack in range you can hope for when it comes to chasing a low enemy down. If you want, you can combine it with Pyromancer’s Puissance (which now works with Conjures!) and stack the might like no tomorrow.

I just want this conjure to do something good, not everything. Its not good at chasing someone down at all. It has worse range than staff, no gap closer, no cc. Anyone could just blink or leap away.

You know what would be cool? If the last Conjure skill you use would become a weapon-swap on drop instead of disappearing. Keep the number of charges, and maybe the duration too, but make them more viable as real secondary weapons rather than emptying a few cooldowns and then dropping it.

Spurrlock.3219:

I just want this conjure to do something good, not everything. Its not good at chasing someone down at all. It has worse range than staff, no gap closer, no cc. Anyone could just blink or leap away.

You can Burning Retreat the opposite side, and chain it with Flame Leap. The range may be worse, but when was the last time you’ve actually managed to hit a moving target at 900+ range with staff?

Today. Just 20 minutes ago with an earth 4, 5, lava font combo. (staff)

Alekt, you were just talking about how hard it is to land flame leap! Are you playing devil’s advocate or do you honestly think that flame axe is in a good place right now?

Also, it would be really cool if instead of one big aoe for flame axe 2, it threw a spread of axes that had overlapping aoe in the middle of the spread, so that if you got someone right in the middle it would hit really hard. It would promote skillful play.

Hey guys, I wrote a very long document outlining changes that I think guardian, warrior, and elementalist all need to see that I sent in a while ago and I’d like to contribute what I wrote for Lava Axe in particular.

Here is what I wrote for it:

“Lava Axe

Currently Lava Axe has just about no use due to the fact that it doesn’t deal enough damage nor does it offer significant enough mobility or utility to justify using over something else.

What could be done to make this conjure more attractive:

1. Either increase the base damage of the autoattack slightly or increase the cast time, making it a noticeable DPS increase to use over regular weapons.
2. Change the third skill, Burning Retreat, to behave exactly like that of the staff counterpart’s version (same damage, same evade frame, same duration).
3. Change the fourth skill, Ring of Fire, to behave exactly like that of the dagger offhand counterpart’s version (same damage, same amount of burning stacks, same duration).
4. Increase the damage of Flame Leap significantly. This skill has the exact same animation as warrior’s Eviscerate, which is one of their most powerful burst skills available, but it is on a longer cooldown and deals less damage."