Guild Wars 2

The elementalist should be given the option of weapon swapping like the other classes to increase it’s effectiveness at diff ranges and diff situations.

Limiting the elementalist to a particular range is something the other professions – at least the 4 others that I’ve leveled to 30+ – do not contend with.

My Warrior carries a rifle to be effective at long range.

My Mesmer carries a weapon set for aoe and swaps to another to increase single target damage – again effective at any range.

My Guard carries a staff or scepter for effectiveness at range.

My Thief carries a shortbow for ranged combat.

Among these professions, only the elementalist is locked into melee range if he goes d/d for better damage (and the damage here is arguably not enough to justify the greater risk of melee combat).

Each weapon set for the elem locks them into a particular range of effectiveness. This limitation to gameplay I find to be unfun – and makes the profession sub-par compared to the other 4 I listed.

In addition I do not see this limitation as needed for balancing purposes. Nothing to my mind would overpower the elementalist given weapon swapping cooldowns and the inability to combo between diff weapon sets.

Weapon swapping would increase the fun and effectiveness of the elementalist, with negligible (if any) consequences to balancing. It’s something to consider.

In my opinion …
You provided evidence that the elementalist is one of the least versatile class in the game.

Well, I do see why they would want to disallow Eles from swapping weapons.

Take this scenario in sPvP.
I have dual dagger primary and a scepter on secondary.

I use earth 3, 4. Swap to lightning to use 5 and 3. Swap to fire 3, 4, 5, Arcane Wave. Swap to scepter. Use Signet of Earth. Use fire 2, 3.
And most those skills are AoE.
Yeah, I would demolish everyone.

Being able to use up to 40 skills in pretty much succession is way too much utility.
If the cooldowns carried over on swap, then maybe. But there is no way the normal weapon swap system can be given to Eles and not have them be overpowered.

drogon.3546:

In addition I do not see this limitation as needed for balancing purposes. Nothing to my mind would overpower the elementalist given weapon swapping cooldowns and the inability to combo between diff weapon sets.

Weapon swapping would increase the fun and effectiveness of the elementalist, with negligible (if any) consequences to balancing. It’s something to consider.

I completely disagree in giving elementalist access to an additional 20 spells. Especially when they are already arguably the best support. People playing against them would have way to much cc to dodge.

Static field, Gust, Shockwave, frozen ground, Unsteady ground, Earthquake, updraft.
That would be about 6 seconds of hard cc followed by 2 second snare and if they had been sitting in frozen ground and unsteady ground a ludicrous about of chill and cripple. Mind you I am using s/d and staff for this example if you went d/d as your first set you would have a few more. Now factor in the damage you put out from them being forced to sit there for all that time, be it from dragons tooth, lava font, eruption, fire grab, etc..

The sheer amount of support you could put out from that would be absolutely ridiculous as well. I would go into another clump of text about it but it would basically be a repeat of what I said above but focused more on the fact that ontop of all that cc you would have 4 heals instead of 2 and more blast finishers to heal with.

I feel the only thing elementalis requires (aside from bug fixes) at the moment are a few number changes, be it on other classes or the ele itself, simply due to one button builds currently outdamaging quite a few of our potential damage rotations.

I agree with Rehero. Giving us the ability to swap weapons would lead to an OP class.

I personally feel that Elementalists do need another weapon option though (ie. sword). While we have lots of spells available, the limited weapon set gets boring compared to other classes.

The elementalist should be given the option of weapon swapping like the other classes to increase it’s effectiveness at diff ranges and diff situations.

to do this would make the class horribly, absurdly overpowered.

Staff has no minimum range, so being in melee range with a staff (although dangerous) does not prevent you from doing damage and controlling the fight. Dagger/Dagger has the shortest range of all the weapon sets and pretty much limits you to melee range. This might seem limiting at first, until you realize that this weapon set comes with a plethora of gap closers, crowd control, and aoe type skills (especially when paired with smart utility skills). D/D has more ways to bring the fight to the enemy than any other weapon/class combo in the game for the most part.

No, to in-combat weapon swapping, it would break the class and make us gods. You could probably kill any other class without being hit more than once or twice, tops…

Weapon swapping would increase the fun and effectiveness of the elementalist, with negligible (if any) consequences to balancing.

If you know, for example, the staff and D/D skills sets intimately, there is literally no reason why anyone could believe this and state it with a straight face. People need to stop asking for weapon swap and simply ask Anet to concentrate on fixing the many bugs that currently plague the class. That alone would go ridiculously far in “balancing” and “fixing” the class.

If such a feature were to be implemented, it’d be much better if it couldn’t be activated in combat. That would make it easier to switch roles in let’s say dungeons, but would still block the Elementalist from being able to acces 40 skills in combat.

we’d be OP if allowed to switch weapons. staff+ d/d would wreck face if anybody tried to run. dat CC. 2 aoe slows, 2 aoe snares, 2 knockdowns, an interrupt, a blind… not to mention 2 distance closers.
scepter/dagger+ dagger/dagger would wreck face with the insane amount of sustained burst…
heck, d/d+d/d would wreck face too: cycling through fire element alone will deal 10k damage and burst for 6-8k of it.
imagine if Anet eventually fixed Arcana XII so that churning earth works instead of tickling your opponent. weapon switching would wreck face because stacked with this, you’ve got 3 churning earths at your disposal. considering that with lightning flash + dodging, you’re guaranteed to get off 2 churning earths already, each dealing 2-3k damage + 4-5k bleeding… we’d wreck face.

frankly speaking, faces would be wrecked… and not an elementalist’s, for once :P

If such a feature were to be implemented, it’d be much better if it couldn’t be activated in combat. That would make it easier to switch roles in let’s say dungeons, but would still block the Elementalist from being able to acces 40 skills in combat.

Except that already exists…
Press H. Double click. Bam, swapped out of combat…

I agree with OP.

The only thing stopping me from playing the Elementalist is that they lack a weapon swap like the rest of the classes.

D/D is the way I wish to play.. I am however locked as a MELE class when I am a spell caster!

Big flaws.

The only way I can think of that would actually make this work is if Eles are also forced to swap attunements when they swap weapons. Being able to chain spells of the same attunement together from different weapon sets just gives too much of that utility.

Ukaei.8694:

I agree with OP.

The only thing stopping me from playing the Elementalist is that they lack a weapon swap like the rest of the classes.

Again, it would be absurdly overpowered. Weapon swapping is not needed on an Ele unless they rework and nerf all the skills of the entire class, which frankly, is not going to happen.

D/D is the way I wish to play.. I am however locked as a MELE class when I am a spell caster!

Big flaws.

D/D has so many gap closers that one should have no trouble getting into, and staying in melee range if one so desires. If RTL is ever fixed, and magnetic grasp possibly buffed to have a faster travel time (I don’t think this would be unreasonable) you could stay in your targets back pocket all day if you wished…

imagine if Anet eventually fixed Arcana XII so that churning earth works instead of tickling your opponent.

In all honesty, I think that the “churning earth” unleashed by evasive arcana is working as arenanet intended. I see it listed in every “bug” thread for Ele’s, but I don’t think it’s bugged at all.
If one could get a non-channeled, instant cast, full-power CE every 10 seconds simply by dodge rolling it would ALSO be absurdly overpowered (although not as much as weapon swapping). They HAD to nerf the direct damage, and especially the bleed damage component else the skill would be WAY overpowered (the other option would be to give it a huge internal cooldown, say 40 seconds since the real CE skill has a 30 second cooldown AND a channel time. The internal cd would have to be greater than the real skill cd to avoid making it overpowered. I much prefer it the way it is.)

No one would ever even bother to cast the real thing, why sit through the 4 second channel time when you could just roll every 10 seconds to melt faces?

Isn’t that why there are conjured weapons?
Y’know to give you the option of having a weapon capable of fighting at a different range.

The only design flaw I can see there is that Ice Bow has a 900 range, not 1200.

I’ll doubt we’ll ever, ever, get a (midcombat) weapon swap for the entire duration of GW2’s existence. If elementalists are already hard to balance as they are, they would have been a mess with 4x the skills of other professions from normal weapons alone.

What seems to need to be fixed here is the usefulness of conjures. IMO, conjures should be one of the most important utilities for the elementalists, much like how arcanes and cantrips already are, because conjures in theory solve several of our problems: gives us flexibility in range, give us “easy to use” skillsets, and gives us single-target damage when we don’t have it (usually with staff), etc.

Polish how conjure weapons work (IMO, make them instant-cast like kits, to start with, and much better trait support), and we’ll probably be at a much better state.

elementalist has only one real flaw (except for the usual bugs), it is its really really really really really really to the infinity+1 low hp. I don’t know wth Arenanet was thinking nerfing their damage while nerfing their HP to oblivion and I am not sure how it manage to leave private beta in its current state ( a little overly dramatic I know).

Why don’t they give the Ele weapon swap, but have it different then that other classes.
Say it’s called “Summon Weapon” where they have to channel the swap for 3 seconds.
This would help prevent chaining other combos skill.

Bsquared.3421:

Ukaei.8694:

I agree with OP.

The only thing stopping me from playing the Elementalist is that they lack a weapon swap like the rest of the classes.

Again, it would be absurdly overpowered. Weapon swapping is not needed on an Ele unless they rework and nerf all the skills of the entire class, which frankly, is not going to happen.

D/D is the way I wish to play.. I am however locked as a MELE class when I am a spell caster!

Big flaws.

D/D has so many gap closers that one should have no trouble getting into, and staying in melee range if one so desires. If RTL is ever fixed, and magnetic grasp possibly buffed to have a faster travel time (I don’t think this would be unreasonable) you could stay in your targets back pocket all day if you wished…

I wasn’t referring to the gap closers ,or the Elementalist ability to chase down its enemy. I am saying that sometimes as a D/D Elementalist I’d like to switch to range type weapons like all other classes can. Sometimes in that HUGE zerg ahead I’d just like to pew pew from afar.. and when things look positive I’d ZAP away into the ZERGS face.

Hopefully they can balance and add Weapon switch in the future.

That’s the point! Other professions use builds to limit themselves to roles, and then fulfill those roles in all ranges, while the Elementalist limits itself to a range and fulfills all roles in that range! It’s a challenging, new way to look at a game you’ve already mastered. (Or the first way that will cause that reaction when you try a different profession.) Here’s a fun challenge: play in an all-Ele party, and have each member pick a different range. Suddenly you’re a ball team!

silvermember.8941:

elementalist has only one real flaw (except for the usual bugs), it is its really really really really really really to the infinity+1 low hp. I don’t know wth Arenanet was thinking nerfing their damage while nerfing their HP to oblivion and I am not sure how it manage to leave private beta in its current state ( a little overly dramatic I know).

That’s very true, but there’s waaaay more than just that. Admittedly though low HP is not really a flaw in it’self provided there were sufficient compensation to make up for it. Like a fellow Ele (now warrior) said “I’d have liked a little cannon to go with my glass!”

Here’s a few others, just off the top of my head..

There’s the fact that traits to increase damage are tied to attunements rather than weapons making them considerably less effective than similar traits for other classes.

The relatively Poor Elite skills (Tornado lol).

The lousy Downed state abilities making Downed Ele’s a free stomp in PVP as well as proving nearly useless in PVE.

But worst of all is the attempt to balance a low dps AND low health profession on the basis of their high utility in a setting where other professions have higher dps and hp, not to mention ample utility.

Frankly I’d say that the last is the biggest design flaw of the Ele.

I’m not a fan of giving Ele’s weapon swapping but I agree there is some need to look at the range diversity within the individual weapon sets. As it is each weapon effectively pigeon holes the Ele to a particular play style. For all the diversity present within the class design this seems like something of a glaring oversight.

What really kills me about elementalist is the damage disparity, for being so incredibly squishy and having the lowest HP of them all, the damage is about half that of other classes, maybe I could understand this better if elementalists could get a higher crit chance.. But they seem to get the lowest even when fully loaded for getting crits.

My other characters are around level 40-ish and are already doing more damage and surviving multiple enemies than my level 80 ele, even in aoe, its actually very sad. I guess elementalist is intended to be a support class, not damage.

Dynamite.6584:

If such a feature were to be implemented, it’d be much better if it couldn’t be activated in combat. That would make it easier to switch roles in let’s say dungeons, but would still block the Elementalist from being able to acces 40 skills in combat.

Except that already exists…
Press H. Double click. Bam, swapped out of combat…

Could you please expand on this? I pressed H and double clicked on the weapons and nothing happened.

The problem is this: if the elementalist is supposed to use attunement swapping instead of weapon swapping, then different attunements need to not replicate each other with regards to effective range, AoE, etc. Rather than every dagger attunement being full of short range spells, dagger fire needs to be one thing, dagger air another, dagger earth something else, (short range, long range, single-target, AoE, etc). Right now, attunement swapping is not an effective alternative to weapon swapping. It fails to give the kind of versatility that weapon swapping does, and the profession essentially takes on a huge disadvantage without sufficient compensation or any way to cope with situations it hasn’t be tailored for.

well put Galatea. +1

Galatea.8263:

The problem is this: if the elementalist is supposed to use attunement swapping instead of weapon swapping, then different attunements need to not replicate each other with regards to effective range, AoE, etc. Rather than every dagger attunement being full of short range spells, dagger fire needs to be one thing, dagger air another, dagger earth something else, (short range, long range, single-target, AoE, etc). Right now, attunement swapping is not an effective alternative to weapon swapping. It fails to give the kind of versatility that weapon swapping does, and the profession essentially takes on a huge disadvantage without sufficient compensation or any way to cope with situations it hasn’t be tailored for.

Well put and good idea. Right now attunement swapping does give us more skills which is a great way of being versatile, so we get more CC, more and different types of damage, buffs, heals, combo fields, etc. So that’s all great, but we’re still locked into one style and range based on the weapon, whereas other classes get the extra skills and also different style/range. Whether or not the extra 20 skills makes up for that loss is debatable I think.

OP has a very valid point about dagger/dagger. You’re locked into close range combat and that’s not viable in numerous situations. It’s an issue that needs addressed, among numerous other in game issues. I would dislike an ANet response of “Don’t use d/d in PvP,” but we know they want d/d to be a valid option for the ele and the same for any other weapon set.

The solution to the d/d range lock is not to allow for mid-combat weapon swapping however. There are 3 solutions that make sense without impacting overall balance.

1) Increased survivability within d/d
2) Creating or adding ranged functionalities to d/d skills
3) A combination of the above two

The important thing is that balance be maintained whatever the changes are, and the above solutions mitigate risk for creating an imbalance.

OMG All other classes don’t have 4 skill bars that’s such a big design flaw …..

The only design flaw related to elementalist was Arenanets failure to put a disclaimer underneath the class selection screen. That way bad players dont pick one of the most difficult, but one of the best, classes in the game.

The class is fine. Stop griping.

So from what various people are saying, we want an ele who has access to 40+ skills, has tons of health and can deal more damage than any other class. Gratz internet, you win again.

Seriously, I long ago stopped thinking of the Elementalist as a ranged class. It’s a melee-to-mid range class with a long range support option. I also have no problem with the lower HP and often play with between 12 and 13k hp while solo farming Orr and WvWing with my guild. I don’t need to stack vit or toughness to fix my ele, I just need to be on my toes, throwing out dodges and gap closers, stunning and grappling and constantly moving.

Yes, many of us feel tricked. We expected to be playing a mage. We expected to be raining down fire and lightning on our enemies and for that to be enough. But it didn’t turn out like that. You just have to roll with the punches or change your class.

Want lots of hp, high damage and the ability to change between melee and ranged? Go play a Warrior.