Guild Wars 2

You’ve all seen them on YouTube. Those builds which have different weapon sigils on, say a Greatsword/Rifle Warrior. Example, a player may have sigil of air and sigil of fire on the GS, then sigil of energy and sigil of leeching on Rifle.

Something bugged me about that, but I didn’t figure out what it was until recently. It was that Elementalists (and Engineers, now that I think about it) can’t swap weapons. That means their access to sigils is more restricted that that of other professions.

I’ve always thought it was silly to restrict professions that way, and now I think it’s even worse. The fix is simple: allow all professions to weapon swap. That will also fix those times when an elementalist is in combat and needs range but can’t use it because they can’t switch out daggers until they leave combat.

Swapping attunements as an ele acts as a weapon swap. Same applies for engineer kits.

Also, giving eles a weapon swap would have huge balance implications. Not being able to swap weapons is why they have access to 20 weapon skills by default.

Allowing ele weapons swap would be totally broken.

It’s quite possible that ANet noticed this 4 or 5 years or more back, when the professions were being designed before launch, and balanced the damage around it.

EvilTwin.4125:

You’ve all seen them on YouTube. Those builds which have different weapon sigils on, say a Greatsword/Rifle Warrior. Example, a player may have sigil of air and sigil of fire on the GS, then sigil of energy and sigil of leeching on Rifle.

Something bugged me about that, but I didn’t figure out what it was until recently. It was that Elementalists (and Engineers, now that I think about it) can’t swap weapons. That means their access to sigils is more restricted that that of other professions.

I’ve always thought it was silly to restrict professions that way, and now I think it’s even worse. The fix is simple: allow all professions to weapon swap. That will also fix those times when an elementalist is in combat and needs range but can’t use it because they can’t switch out daggers until they leave combat.

Ele probably benefits more than other professions with weapon sigil swap.

I’m all for giving Eles/Engis weapon swap outside of combat, but in-combat weapon swap would be nuts, and I main an Ele.

Redenaz.8631:

I’m all for giving Eles/Engis weapon swap outside of combat, but in-combat weapon swap would be nuts, and I main an Ele.

Which you already have.

Sartharina.3542:

Redenaz.8631:

I’m all for giving Eles/Engis weapon swap outside of combat, but in-combat weapon swap would be nuts, and I main an Ele.

Which you already have.

No we don’t. We don’t have one button we can press that will swap out our weapons when we’re out of combat. We have to open our inventory and double click on the weapons we want to swap.

The former is what is being talked about.

You do realize staff Ele as a ranged class out-DPSes most melee classes? Aside from the number of skills attunements give, conjured weapons is something you could consider if you needed flexibility.

Btw, in addition to what others have said about weapon swap sigils… using/dropping conjured weapons also trigger those sigils.

You make a good point. Let’s make the strongest class stronger because of a minor oversight.

Sartharina.3542:

Redenaz.8631:

I’m all for giving Eles/Engis weapon swap outside of combat, but in-combat weapon swap would be nuts, and I main an Ele.

Which you already have.

Not really, unless you consider everyone to also have armor swap, accessory swap, etc. I’m referring to “weapon swap” as a specific mechanic, where you get two extra equipment slots and can use a keybind to switch between them. Eles and Engis don’t have that.

Again, in-combat would be too powerful, but outside of combat would just be more convenient, considering we can already do it manually. They did improve it semi-recently, at least, so that swapping from two 1h weapons to a 2h weapon will try to keep the two 1h weapons together, instead of dropping one at the top of your inventory.

Access to 25-45 skills at a time is weak, so plz allow us 20 more…

Tman.6349:

Access to 25-45 skills at a time is weak, so plz allow us 20 more…

The actual complaint here isn’t a lack of skills, but lack of sigils.

Sartharina.3542:

Tman.6349:

Access to 25-45 skills at a time is weak, so plz allow us 20 more…

The actual complaint here isn’t a lack of skills, but lack of sigils.

Maybe it was.(?) So then, why was ‘it would also fix the ’problem’ of not having access to a ranged weapon while wielding daggers’ ever mentioned? It seems like other motives to me. Eles’ and Engis’ access to Sigils are fine how they are. In fact, at one time, staff Eles and rifle Engis only had access to a single Sigil. O.o Now they are both two of the best professions for taking advantage of Sigils.

Sartharina.3542:

Tman.6349:

Access to 25-45 skills at a time is weak, so plz allow us 20 more…

The actual complaint here isn’t a lack of skills, but lack of sigils.

True, but that’s still also a non-issue since attunement swapping triggers “on swap” sigils.

RoseofGilead.8907:

Swapping attunements as an ele acts as a weapon swap. Same applies for engineer kits.

Yes. Switching attunements on an elimentalist, or equipping/unequipping a kit on an engineer, will trigger any type of ‘on weapon swap’ thing, such as weapon sigils, traits, etc. And for engineers you don’t need to switch to a different kit. You can just drop the kit you’re using to switch back to your pistols, rifle, etc.

Also, if you have 3 kits on your engineer’s skill bar (such as grenade, bombs, and flamethrower), you can have up to 20 weapon skills like an ele.

Both professions take a bit of getting use to, but they are pretty fun once you get the hang of them.

Charrbeque.8729:

RoseofGilead.8907:

Swapping attunements as an ele acts as a weapon swap. Same applies for engineer kits.

Yes. Switching attunements on an elimentalist, or equipping/unequipping a kit on an engineer, will trigger any type of ‘on weapon swap’ thing, such as weapon sigils, traits, etc. And for engineers you don’t need to switch to a different kit. You can just drop the kit you’re using to switch back to your pistols, rifle, etc.

Also, if you have 3 kits on your engineer’s skill bar (such as grenade, bombs, and flamethrower), you can have up to 20 weapon skills like an ele.

Both professions take a bit of getting use to, but they are pretty fun once you get the hang of them.

Ele can have up to 45 skills and Engi can have up to 35. These builds aren’t exactly ‘viable’ but they ARE very integral/strong to potent Sigil use and that has been shown many plenty. Prenerf Energy Sigil for instance? Doom? Battle? Etc. In low-mid PvP tiers, an argument could even be made for their synergy with stat stacking Sigils like Bloodlust etc.

The point is, melee vs range swapping aside, any Sigils that rely on consistent procs/high uptime have always benefited Ele and Engi by far (except maybe Fast Hands Warrior builds here and there), and most other builds have used Sigils to ‘add a bit more’ or to cover a weakness or to supplement having to swap to bad weapon for just a couple skills or for utility reasons. Ele and Engi have been able to get the maximum out of just two Sigils more than any other profession. It also helps that their strongest Sigils are passively a part of their play. No Ele/Engi would ‘swap kits’ for a 1k passive lifesteal, BUT, be kitten sure, the don’t hate on a passive +1k damage/heal every 10 secs while they concentrate on other things. The lack of two Sigils is easily madeup for their passive nature of using strong Sigils.

Mods, maybe you’re slow, but this thread is about Sigils and single weaponsets, and applies to Engis as well..,.

To note: this thread is REALLY about the OP wanting to swap between D/X and Range on Ele, so disregard what I said before, which was based on the context of the title. (But we all, already knew that…)

onevstheworld.2419:

You do realize staff Ele as a ranged class out-DPSes most melee classes?

only against things that don’t move
damage to moving targets is worse than other ranged classes
by a lot

If Ele could have two identical weapon sets: Staff/Staff. No harm, +2 sigils options, but if someone want to implement that: there must be option: weapon swap also on attunements on/off.

Idk about what most benifiting thingy from weapon swap you’re talking. Effects on swap weapon sigils are time gated. + Ele must change attunement, but not always want to proc their sigils in that time;x

I woul like a weapon swap OPTION instead of ele swaping. But all on swap abilities must trigger and the swap time must be adapted to kompensate the loss of three elements.
So something like a wp swap on 5 sec in the first traited element woul be realy nice for feeling as ele. Eg: fire ele with staff + scepter/dagger. If combinable with tempest OL must not hinder swap just the next OL and no 5sec precharge because it´s one element.

Certain classes benefit from certain sigils more than others. The ones that proc on hit obviously benefit crit builds more than other builds. In the same way, because we have effectively 4 weapons in one, the weapon swap sigils favor us more, and others less. It’s not that we have less sigils, we just have different sigils that our class allows us to use very effectively.

no, we have fewer sigils
other classes can use both two on-crit sigils and two on-swap sigils

especially warriors. They can use two sets of on-swap sigils and trigger them on cooldown, with their 5 second weapon swap

RoseofGilead.8907:

Swapping attunements as an ele acts as a weapon swap. Same applies for engineer kits.

Um, you didn’t read what I said. I was specifically pointing out that Elementalists can only use 2 weapon sigils. And so what if they can change attunements? That still limits them to 2 sigils.

Redenaz.8631:

I’m all for giving Eles/Engis weapon swap outside of combat, but in-combat weapon swap would be nuts, and I main an Ele.

I agree, things should remain balanced. But that’s also one of my side points. If you have an ele, and you are dagger/dagger, then approach a wall and get attacked from it, you can’t return fire. Most ele stuff (incl. scepter) is 900 range or less, with only some staff skills have 1200 range. (I thing the fire signet has 1500, but it has a cooldown so it doesn’t count for what I’m talking about.) Other classes can swap b/t melee and ranged, and I have been annoyed the whole time I’ve been playing that ele’s can’t.

There is one alternative to giving ele’s weapon swap: allow them to have ranged attacks on melee weapons. This could be done by (a) using the unused weapon swap button as the ranged attack button; or (b) swapping ranged/melee but keeping the same weapon. Then scepter could have melee, which would benefit it as well. (Staff might be a problem, depending on how things work, but it has AoE’s that work close or far; fire auto & air auto, for example.) This would still leave them at -2 sigils…unless sigils were disassociated with weapons somehow. (But I haven’t figured out how I’d want that to work yet.)

<<<Removed because it offered nothing of value.>>>

I wouldn’t mind an elite spec which disabled two of an ele’s attunements but enabled weapon swap.

Fashion Mage.3712:

I wouldn’t mind an elite spec which disabled two of an ele’s attunements but enabled weapon swap.

Unless it threw in a whole lotta pork like Tempest did I could see that being very boring

Alex Shatter.7956:

Fashion Mage.3712:

I wouldn’t mind an elite spec which disabled two of an ele’s attunements but enabled weapon swap.

Unless it threw in a whole lotta pork like Tempest did I could see that being very boring

it would be amazingly strong, even with nothing else
hardcore dps builds already only use 1 or 2 attunements

Okay wait a minute. Someone said that elementalists are the the strongest class. Really? Is that just in PvP (which I don’t do) or everything? I’m wondering about this because I have a Lvl 80 Ele, and I get clobbered in PvE regularly. It may be that I will have to use some of the ideas I’ve seen on YouTube rather than my own, which I’ve somewhat resisted doing up to now, or I may just not be that good at ele. What do you guys think: Is ele the strongest class?

Ele is extremely good at pve (if you’re getting clobbered you’re doing something wrong), but there is no real strongest class. Every class is great at something.

reikken.4961:

onevstheworld.2419:

You do realize staff Ele as a ranged class out-DPSes most melee classes?

only against things that don’t move
damage to moving targets is worse than other ranged classes
by a lot

This only apply to staff tempest. Tempest dagger/horn, even if your target move you deal a really good amount of damage. All the skills can be used while moving.

But well you’re right since the initial reply was about ele as “ranged” class. But as a tempest staff, you should stay around melees because it’s a dps loss if you don’t.

EvilTwin.4125:

Okay wait a minute. Someone said that elementalists are the the strongest class. Really? Is that just in PvP (which I don’t do) or everything? I’m wondering about this because I have a Lvl 80 Ele, and I get clobbered in PvE regularly. It may be that I will have to use some of the ideas I’ve seen on YouTube rather than my own, which I’ve somewhat resisted doing up to now, or I may just not be that good at ele. What do you guys think: Is ele the strongest class?

It’s not the strongest class, but it’s one of (if not the better) best dps. But it’s also the most fragile, and if you have a staff, you can lose some dps while moving during a cast. You also lose dps when you have to switch with water attunement when you don’t want to die and need some heals or you want to heal others players, for some reasons.

Ele isn’t really bad at anything. They aren’t great in pvp this season unless you like being a healer but other than that I can’t think of anything a team wouldn’t want an ele for. I solo pve with my ele and have a blast