Changes to Underused Weapon's Skills

Changes to Underused Weapon's Skills

in Elementalist

Posted by: rsq.3581

rsq.3581

So, for some time now there’s been a clear weapon set that frankly outperforms all the others. In an effort to give other weapons more utility and have them see more use, I thought we could list some proposed changes to weapon skills. Here are a few that I’ve been considering. I’m interested to see what other Elementalists think and suggest! If enough people weigh in on specific changes, I will update the OP to reflect the community’s thoughts.

Scepter
Scepter, for the most part is a well balanced weapon. However, it has two glaring oversights — the ability to land Dragon’s Tooth and the uselessness that is Shatterstone. Some ideas to change the weapon:

Dragon’s Tooth
The idea to reduce the casting animation time for the attack to hit has been thrown out many times. This simple change could improve the weapon immeasurably.

Shatterstone
Potentially, a combo field would make for some more interesting play, ideally an ice or water field. Alternatively, the spell could be changed to a skill-shot ability that immobilized a target (Icy Grasp?) for long enough for a Dragon’s Tooth to land if the Ele switched immediately to Fire. This would give Scepter more utility/control as well as cause the player to thoughtfully consider their use of Water attunement — should they save it to time their burst or to heal?

Focus
My biggest complaint with focus is that it has practically no damage output. Most of the abilities perform well with one another but when compared to Dagger off-hand there is no contest. Disregarding damage (assuming that the focus is meant for more defensive play), I think this is because the dagger has so many AoE CC abilities, while all of Focus’ are single-target (Why doesn’t Gale have an AoE component?!). Some ideas to improve the weapon:

Flamewall / Fire Shield
Focus is inarguably weakest in Fire attunement, which is odd as fire should be our source for damage. I think this could be solved if they combined the two abilities into one. It could change to be just a flamewall that provided Fiery Aura/Fire Shield to allies that pass through and Burning to foes that passed through. It would make for an interesting terrain-based ability as well as open up Fire 5 for a pure damage spell.

Gale
It would not only make sense conceptually but would improve the Focus’ viability compared to Dagger if Gale was AoE. Perhaps it could push a wall of wind at the target that would affect all foes nearby in a linear fashion, rather than be a circular AoE effect like Updraft.

Very interested in hearing others’ opinions!

Salphir | Salfir | Falana
jo0 Binder

Changes to Underused Weapon's Skills

in Elementalist

Posted by: Minion of Vey.4398

Minion of Vey.4398

I think flamewall should summon a flamewall, lets say about 1550 range long that the elementalist quickly sprints across.

15s cooldown sounds about right.

Changes to Underused Weapon's Skills

in Elementalist

Posted by: rsq.3581

rsq.3581

I agree that the RtL nerf was not the most well thought out. That being said, I think it is a sad state of affairs when the Ele subforum front page is cluttered with complaints about nerfs yet no one is willing to talk constructively about things to improve the impression.

Salphir | Salfir | Falana
jo0 Binder

Changes to Underused Weapon's Skills

in Elementalist

Posted by: ChaosTerragoth.4738

ChaosTerragoth.4738

+1 rsq.

I like the idea of modifying the focus to make it more useful. I have considered switching to it many times, and in fact, I do use it quite often situationally. However, I find the skills on it in water and in fire sub-par, so I always wind up switching back to my dagger as soon as whatever fight I needed focus for is over. In fire, the skills are nearly useless, fire shield doesn’t last long enough and trying to do anything other than combo projectile finishers through flame wall is almost impossible (though you can still stack might if you time it VERY well). In water, you get 2 mediocre offensive spells and sacrifice healing to do so, which imho, even considering the added defense you get from air and earth, is not worth it.

At the very least, the skills in fire attunement need to be fixed or boosted a little, and it makes no sense that in water, our healing spec, we LOSE healing skills on what is meant to be a defensive weapon. I would be happy if fire shield had a longer duration and flame wall had a slightly larger area of effect (wider wall/longer line so you can actually use it for area denial?). And the water issue could be fixed by giving comet an aoe heal to allies near the target (so if you or your teammate were in range it would apply regen or heal for a small amount, kind of like water trident on scepter).

Earth and Air attune are acceptable in my opinion (not ‘good’ … just ‘acceptable’ lol).

Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead.
Do not walk before me, for I may not follow.
Don’t walk next to me either, just go the heck away…