Guild Wars 2

So, all of the argument back-and-forth between the “elites” and the “casuals” seem to address the idea of buffing and nerfing as an absolute – the idea of “buffing elementalists” is generalized to impact all levels of play for a class, while “nerfing other classes” are mistaken as nerfing all aspects of those classes. The idea is that any nerfs or buffs will ripple through all levels of skill and cause imbalances at the higher echelons of the game, somewhat like the insane builds that appeared at the BWE periods.

The only question that I ask is: why does balancing have to be that extreme? Many of us have already identified one of the core problems of the class, which is the very high minimum skill required to perform adequately with the class. In a nutshell:

• Elementalists are currently balanced at high skill levels and very weak at lower (average) skill levels.
• Numerical benefits and straight buffs will make the class balanced at lower (average) skill levels but broken at higher skill levels.

Thus, I would like to propose an alternate idea to balance the two levels of gameplay: adding a new weapon – the Greatsword – to the class.

The greatsword, for elementalists, will basically serve as a newbie-friendly, higher damage weapon with considerably lower versatility than any of the other weapons. Most of the skills on the weapon will deal damage close to BWE1-BWE2 levels, although the weapon will have much lower versatility and a lot of the abilities will become very similar to each other (possibly even with shared cooldowns to ensure the concept of “lower versatility” is enforced). The weapon will only have a single, long-cd fire combo field and fewer AoEs, would have mostly targeted condition infliction, and would have very low variety overall in favor of straightforward damage and a few elements of control, making it an less desirable weapon for upper echelons of play.

The idea for the greatsword is for it to be a weapon that is more friendly to newer players. A player using the GS can rack up competitive amounts of damage with relative ease compared to the other weapons, but would be restricted in the number of tricks that he has at his disposal (shared cooldowns, cloned skills between attunements, etc.). Because an elementalist does not have weapon swapping, this would allow the elementalist to be a bit more newbie friendly than it currently is without heavily impacting the “elite” players.

What do you guys think?

EDIT: To add to this, it would be nice if the greatsword could somewhat be a “learning weapon” of sorts to get players used to their traits, managing boons and cooldowns, and overall understanding the mechanics of the class. I do not know how this would be done or if this is possible, but it would get more players interested in a complex class like an elementalist without pushing them all away due to the initial barrier of entry.

Umm… what would be the point of playing an Elementalist like this? The whole idea behind the Elementalist is having a crap ton of versatility.

The problem with the elementalist is IMO not his skillset, but lackluster, schizophrenic and situational traits when compared to other professions.

Lol, we posted in the same moment it seems :P
I had similar idea, please treat it as a reply than xd Dont wanna rewrite all that stuff.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Facing-some-players-expectations/first#post232084

no i dont like this

see i would rather have the conjured weapons be useful for any playstyle, and the elementalist by nature is and always will be a niche high performance demanding class

also at the end of the day, people still min/max and if the weapon is amazingly powerful then even the elites will use it, where if it was not then a considerable amount of casual gamers will opt out of it

my idea would be trait skills deep in the trees that simply give you the weapon according to the tree you have built in (this would also mean the molten axe would become…. an arcane… axe?) it activates depending on your attunement and does not replace all your abilities depending on the weapon type (so if you picked earthen shield it would replace your offhand whenever you entered earth attunement and would only change the 4th and 5th skills, allowing continued scepter use where as greatsword would replace all 5 skills because its 2 handed), this is really an ideas guy thing however…… im not sure how it would work in practice and a combo like staff main weapon and conjured axe would kitten the player

its just an idea though, it would make conjured weapons more compelling and not waste a utility slot

GS to ele for balance? OMG! A caster in light armor, prefer CC and range combat.
Any way, the ele’s elite skill to summon that gigantic sword should be removed and place something more “caster” kind skill.

Its like to make ranger able to wear heavy gear for balance , )

echarizma.6327:

GS to ele for balance? OMG! A caster in light armor, prefer CC and range combat.
Any way, the ele’s elite skill to summon that gigantic sword should be removed and place something more “caster” kind skill.

Sigh… where do I start?

1. Just because it’s a greatsword, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be used at range. Take greatsword Mesmer for an example – you’re actually rewarded for being as far from the target as possible – the animation essentially has the Mesmer apply magic to the sword, spinning it and sending out a beam to damage the target

2. just because a caster has light armor, you shouldn’t dismiss his close range potential. Heavy melee mesmer, D/D and S/D elementalist, Arcane Warrior in Dragon Age and oldschool elemental mage in MMO that shall not be named are all examples of this. In fact, some say that the lightning hammer elementalist in Guild Wars 2 has the potential for the most powerful melee caster since Arcane Warrior.

When you see an ability that doesn’t fit your perception of the profession, don’t dismiss the ability. Instead, see how you may incorporate it into your perception or whether you need to shift your perception altogether. Often, a new spin on what you already know can drastically change how something plays, even to unexpected results.

That said, I believe the OP’s idea isn’t well thought out. You cannot have a training weapon, because you would be pidgeonholing your players into a certain playstyle. Now, if you want to retain uniqueness across the board, a player coming from that weapon to any other would essentially have to relearn the entire class again, thereby gaining nothing. I would also like to say that elementalist isn’t all that hard to start with – at low levels, even taking a hit or three, you won’t instantly get downed – it is therefore imperative, that players learn to swap attunements early, lest they be killed a lot come higher levels, further fueling the perception of the “hard to play profession”.

I also believe that the OP has a short-sighted view of the elementalist arsenal. Consider engineer, which likewise can’t swap weapons and actually has a smaller assortment of possible weapon types, yet may equip a number of utility skills that expand this arsenal. Elementalist has a similar mechanic in summoned weapons that interestingly enough don’t seem very popular, though builds are starting to emerge centered around them. I believe that in time, people will realize it was their perceptions and mostly preconceptions that were limiting them, not the class itself.

Therefore, I believe there is simply no need for the Greatsword in Elementalist’s arsenal.

Turbo Whale.1738:

Umm… what would be the point of playing an Elementalist like this? The whole idea behind the Elementalist is having a crap ton of versatility.

Because it addresses one of the main reasons people are complaining about Elementalist in PvP, without overstepping the balance concerns from the “elite” players.

Essentially, it allows people to play as a blasty mage that they’ve been used to in other games, while keeping the “blasty mage” quarantined to a single weapon. The weapon can’t interact with the existing weapons due to a lack of weapon swapping, so there would be no problems in competitive play.

madatom.5218:

see i would rather have the conjured weapons be useful for any playstyle, and the elementalist by nature is and always will be a niche high performance demanding class

also at the end of the day, people still min/max and if the weapon is amazingly powerful then even the elites will use it, where if it was not then a considerable amount of casual gamers will opt out of it

Changing conjured weapons is an alternative. The only problem I see with the idea is that elementalists are treading a very fine line of balance at the moment – buffing (or even changing) a currently existing feature like conjured weapons, especially in the manner that you are describing, can lead to some very shaky

Min/maxing of a single weapon is very easy to fix. Take a look at the warrior greatsword – very useful for newer players, but almost never used by the higher-up tPvP teams. Since it’s a single weapon that is separate from the others, it would be very easy to tweak the skills on that weapon to fit a easy to use, high damage, but very low breaking potential archetype, especially with the lack of weapon swapping.

(I’m not suggesting that it will be 100B on a mage class or anything like that, of course.)

echarizma.6327:

GS to ele for balance? OMG! A caster in light armor, prefer CC and range combat.

You’re looking too much at the weapon and not at the idea itself. I could replace “greatsword” with “two-handed doll” or “longbow” or “giant fish on a stick” and it wouldn’t change a thing about the idea.

tufy.7859:

That said, I believe the OP’s idea isn’t well thought out. You cannot have a training weapon, because you would be pidgeonholing your players into a certain playstyle. Now, if you want to retain uniqueness across the board, a player coming from that weapon to any other would essentially have to relearn the entire class again, thereby gaining nothing. I would also like to say that elementalist isn’t all that hard to start with – at low levels, even taking a hit or three, you won’t instantly get downed – it is therefore imperative, that players learn to swap attunements early, lest they be killed a lot come higher levels, further fueling the perception of the “hard to play profession”.

I also believe that the OP has a short-sighted view of the elementalist arsenal. Consider engineer, which likewise can’t swap weapons and actually has a smaller assortment of possible weapon types, yet may equip a number of utility skills that expand this arsenal. Elementalist has a similar mechanic in summoned weapons that interestingly enough don’t seem very popular, though builds are starting to emerge centered around them. I believe that in time, people will realize it was their perceptions and mostly preconceptions that were limiting them, not the class itself.

Please don’t make completely baseless assumptions about what I can and cannot perceive about my class.

There are already builds that are emerging based on lightning hammer; a single look on GW2GURU makes this pretty clear. Many of us know that frost bow is powerful in dungeons, and the main reason why there hasn’t been as much support for the greatsword is simply because it has a long cooldown as an elite skill. All of this, however, is in PvE only simply because the conjured weapons are not viable in a PvP setting (the flaming greatsword is very nice in WvW because of its range, but the elemental is far superior in sPvP/tPvP). With them taking up a utility slot, completing replacing the weapon skills, disappear on drop, and generally having limited versatility, it is not difficult to see why you would not expect the same quality result from, say, lightning hammer compared to having mist form or arcane blast on the same slot.

I’m mainly talking about sPvP and tPvP.

I don’t expect a training weapon scenario to play out perfectly; I added it as an afterthought because while it would be nice to have, a true training weapon with BWE1/BWE2 damage skills will be impossible to design and balance. The idea of a easier, more traditional mage-like weapon is the main point of the GS, though – while individuals may have their own opinions about the class, a lot of elementalist complaints are about how they need to work much harder than most other classes to get quality results. You may believe that the class’s skill floor is not actually that high in structured PvP settings, but the sheer number of complaints in the forum would suggest otherwise.

On the other hand, “improving” the performance of the elementalist – whether it’s damage buffs or otherwise – will have ripple effects and impact some of the top-level tPvP players out there, where elementalists are viewed as a very strong class. Sure, it’s a problem if a class is adequately difficult that most of its players cannot even play at an acceptable level with the class, but it’s also a problem if a class is way too good at the top skill levels.

The GS is intended to be a compromise. By adding a separate 2H weapon with a different set of skills, you can adjust that weapon so that it’s easy to use, high damaging, and not broken in the hands of a top player (translating roughly to better damage at the cost of versatility). Thus, the masses will be satisfied by having a weapon that performs up to their views while the metagame for the “elite” players would not change.

The conjured weapons as they are right now would not change a thing in PvP precisely because they are not quite viable choices in (not WvW) PvP. Feel free to prove me wrong on this point if you disagree.

why not just give them railgun and peacemaker gatling gun aswell they should both do 100k dmg per shot and grant permanent shield to projectiles!

tom.7468:

why not just give them railgun and peacemaker gatling gun aswell they should both do 100k dmg per shot and grant permanent shield to projectiles!

I’m all for the use of sarcasm, but it should at least tie back to the opinion that is actually mentioned in the thread. Otherwise, it would be like replying to “I like cake,” with “it’s totally not raining outside right now. You’re soooo right.”

tom.7468:

why not just give them railgun and peacemaker gatling gun aswell they should both do 100k dmg per shot and grant permanent shield to projectiles!

That’s fine, but then you gotta give thieves Sniper Rifles with Invisibility Cloaks, and Warriors get Nukes.

Ahhh, the good ole’ days of ASSAULT MUD…

Emerald.8653:

Please don’t make completely baseless assumptions about what I can and cannot perceive about my class.

There are already builds that are emerging based on lightning hammer; a single look on GW2GURU makes this pretty clear.

Please reread what I wrote. I was indirectly acknowleding the fact that there already are builds like that one emerging, backing my entire paragraph of why a melee elementalist is viable and why the quoted text about a melee caster is untrue.

All of this, however, is in PvE only simply because the conjured weapons are not viable in a PvP setting

Respectfully, I disagree. A staff (WvW) or Scepter/Dagger (sPvP) elementalist with Lightning Hammer as main weapon achieves similar flexibility as standard weapon swapping classes. The only things you have to be careful about here is that S/D uses a bit more condition damage, whereas Hammer uses pure power and that you’ll need more toughness and vitality in order to survive close range intact.

If you want a traditional caster, staff and scepter/focus or scepter/dagger combos offer plenty of choice for everyone without turning elementalist into something that it’s not ment to be.

P.S.: my observations aren’t baseless assumptions, as you put it. They are based exclusively on your words, specifically, you said elementalist had “high minimum skill required to perform adequately with the class,” then proposed a solution that would effectively remove the core of the class in order to make it easier for your average Joe. As a response, I stated that this isn’t necessary, as long as people abandon their perceptions of what a caster should or should not be.

The problem is, the only “hard” part about elementalist is learning to swap attunements. If you take that away with your greatsword, people will simply stick to that one weapon and complain how they have no versatility in choice. Worse yet, that kind of weapon, given its ease of use, would likely become synonimous with “noob gear” and a prime target of PvP fights, further fueling tear generation. All in all, it is – in my honest opinion – a bad idea.

tufy.7859:

Respectfully, I disagree. A staff (WvW) or Scepter/Dagger (sPvP) elementalist with Lightning Hammer as main weapon achieves similar flexibility as standard weapon swapping classes. The only things you have to be careful about here is that S/D uses a bit more condition damage, whereas Hammer uses pure power and that you’ll need more toughness and vitality in order to survive close range intact.

That’s fair. I admit to not being that good at PvP, so I tend to use a lot of more established builds. Since I haven’t seen very many people (any, really – videos or experience) use conjured hammer in PvP, my perspectives may be colored by that.

tufy.7859:

If you want a traditional caster, staff and scepter/focus or scepter/dagger combos offer plenty of choice for everyone without turning elementalist into something that it’s not ment to be.

I do disagree on “turning elementalist into something it’s not meant to be”, though.

In BWE, elementalists actually did considerably higher damage than they do now, which indicated to me that the original design that ANet had for elementalist did include them as a high damage class at first. The damage was removed as a function of balance and not because it was not intended to be a part of the class.

The suggestion was also not for my benefit; I’ve always saw the elementalist as a strong class, and I prefer to see any deaths in PvP as room for improvement rather than a fault with the class. However, the fact of the matter is that the elementalist is one of the most complained about class in both this forum and GW2GURU, which was what prompted me to make this suggestion in the first place. Personally, I feel that the class would be much better balanced if it had an isolated option for the newer/casual players (the “average joes” if you well) with the majority of the class mechanics remaining the same; that way, you keep the people that want traditional mages happy while not influencing tournament play, getting rid of most of the complaints on the elementalist forum as a side benefit.

EDIT:

tufy.7859:

The problem is, the only “hard” part about elementalist is learning to swap attunements. If you take that away with your greatsword, people will simply stick to that one weapon and complain how they have no versatility in choice. Worse yet, that kind of weapon, given its ease of use, would likely become synonimous with “noob gear” and a prime target of PvP fights, further fueling tear generation. All in all, it is – in my honest opinion – a bad idea.

I do have to respectively disagree with this, as well (not the swap attunements part, but the “noob gear” part).

The distinguished between “noob gear” and “non-noob gear” is not something new or novel – it already exists on a lot of classes. Warriors, for instance, has the very famous 100B build, thieves with the heartseeker spams, engineers with grenade spam, and rangers with the shortbow 1-spam builds. Sure, you have a lot of higher-up players trying to dissuade newer players from playing these, but it still stands that an “average joe” player could run one of these builds and still be effective in hot-join games.

And I’m not even proposing a button mashing GS weapon – merely one that trades versatility for the same damage that you would see in BWE2. The GS could still have some complexity to it, and as long as the perceived complexity is manageable at a slightly more casual level, people would be satisfied with it. It would at least keep starting elementalists in the class rather than dissuade them from it (and eventually, some of these same elementalists may start watching videos of TP or something and decide to push themselves to improve with the other weapons, resulting in a greater pool of skilled Ele players).

For the people that stick with the GS – well, there are quite a few elementalists that switch to thief and 2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2 even right now. Given that there’s currently no drama in the thieves forum about this, I don’t think it would be a significant problem.

Also, I’m not saying your observations are baseless assumptions. It’s more that the attack about short-sighted views that irked me (not that it’s not true as I admit I’m not a skilled elementalist by any means, but still).

I agree because greatswords look awesome

Sorry but i don’t think its a good idea. unless all other classes get a new weapon as well which defeat the purpose i guess?
they already have 75 weapon skills higher than any other class.

Elementalist is the only Scholar without a unique weapon option ( Mesmer has sword/greatsword, Necro has axe ). I would like to see us get one more option, but one unique apart from Mesmer and Necro. So not great sword.

Longbow/Shortbow might work for an arcane archer sort of angle and would give us a long range, single target damage option. Instead of the smattering of cones, AoEs and other “aimed” abilities we have littered through out our weapon sets.

Its hard to picture Ele with any more melee weapons though.

Long bow ele might be interesting. They’d have to find a way to differentiate from a warrior, though.

Warrior is largely AoE centric with longbow and technically only has 2 “elemental” moves with it, Fan of Fire and the Adrenaline skill. Wouldn’t be hard to differentiate at all. Ele already has a “Water longbow” with the frost bow conjure which is why it might work as a full fledged weapon for us.

Just work outwards from frost bow as a base design to the other 3 elements.

So would it be more bolt finisher centric instead of being more combo field centric like the staff?