Guild Wars 2

These ideas have been sitting around for a while so I figured that I would post some. A lot of them came from general ideas revolving around culling the amount of invulnerability, blocking and stability in GW2, but there were a lot of Elementalist-related ideas that came out of it; so here they are:

FOCUS
Flamewall

• Damage increased from 30 to 85.
• Now cripples (3 seconds) foes.
• Now grants might (2 stacks; 10 seconds) to allies.
  • The might works similarly to how swiftness is awarded to players crossing the Mesmer’s [Temporal Curtain]. If a player already has might, he/she won’t be granted might from the [Flamewall].

Fire Shield

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: ½ second
• Recharge: 35 seconds
• Whirl in place, striking adjacent foes and gaining a Fire Shield. If you combo this skill within a fire field, you gain aegis and create a [Lava Font] at your location.
• Damage (2x): 185
• Fire Shield duration: 5 seconds
• Aegis: 3 seconds
• Combo Finisher: Whirl
• Range: 130
  • [Cyclone Axe]

Freezing Gust

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 1½ seconds
• Recharge: 25 seconds
• Create a freezing gust that whirls over target location for 3 seconds, chilling foes. The final gust of wind also immobilizes foes.
• Damage (3x): 255
• Chill (3): 1 second
• Immobilize: 2 seconds
• Duration: 3 seconds
• Pulse: 1 second
• Radius: 240
• Range: 900

Comet

• Now uses ground-targeting.

Swirling Winds

• Now cripples (5 seconds) foes upon activation (400 radius).
• Now grants swiftness (8 seconds) to caster and allies upon activation (400 radius).
• Affects up to 5 foes and allies respectively.

Gale

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 1½ seconds
• Recharge: 40 seconds
• Channel a cone of wind in front of you that blinds and cripples foes before knocking them down.
• Damage (4x): 350
• Blind (4): 1 second
• Cripple (4): 1 second
• Knock-down: 2 seconds
• Range: 600
  • This skill hits up to 3 targets.
  • The final damage tick is the tick that inflicts knock-down.
  • [Healing Breeze] cone

UTILITIES
Arcane Shield

• Recharge lowered from 75 to 50 seconds.
• Duration lowered from 5 to 2 seconds.
• Explosion generated from exhausting blocks now dazes adjacent enemies (180 radius; 2-second daze).

Mist Form

• Recharge reduced from 75 to 60 seconds.
• Duration reduced from 3 to 2 seconds.
• Invulnerability reduced from 3 to 2 seconds.
• Now also cures immobilize, crippled and chill upon activation.
  • Now chains into another skill upon use: [Cold Front].

Cold Front

• Cast-time: ¼ second
• Recharge: 5 seconds
• Dash in a target direction, chilling foes that you strike along the way.
• Damage: 111
• Chill: 2 seconds
• Evasion: ¾ seconds
• Range: 450
  • [Whirlwind Attack]

Armor of Earth

• Recharged reduced from 90 to 50 seconds.
• Stability (5 stacks) reduced from 6 to 4 seconds.
• Protection reduced from 6 to 4 seconds.
• Duration reduced from 6 to 4 seconds.

Lightning Flash

• Recharge reduced from 40 to 30 seconds.

Cleansing Fire

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Recharge reduced from 40 to 30 seconds.
• Cast-time increased from 0 to 1½ seconds.
• Channel a cleansing fire that pulses around you three times, damaging and burning nearby foes while cleansing 1 condition from yourself and nearby allies with each pulse. The final pulse knocks back nearby enemies.
• Damage (3x): 387
• Burning (3): 1 second
• Knock back: 180
• Radius: 240

Mist Form – Now also cures immobilize, crippled and chill upon activation.
Now chains into another skill upon use: [Cold Front].
Cold Front – Dash in a target direction, chilling foes that you strike along the way.

These 2 are really interesting!, really nice idea there. It should probably retain the 3 seconds and a 60 second cooldown as it’ll become quite the escape skill.

I can’t say I’m fond of the change to Obsidian Flesh as a Focus user, It seems rather overly complex to me idk, personally I like the simplicity of Obsidian Flesh, I like being free to cast and move however I like while Invulnerable, it’s quite a unique skill really, allows for great counter play being instant cast, adding a cast time would honestly kill it for me.

The other changes are quite nice as well, nice post

Thanks for the thoughts, I Bud. Well, like I said, the original force behind these suggestions was “You know what is really silly? Invulnerability, blocking and stability.”

That’s not to say that they’re unnecessary or completely out of the question in GW2, but they could stand some culling. That’s also why my [Mist Form] suggestion moves 1 of the 3 original seconds of invulnerability into a 1-second active ability that the player can trigger. Truth be told, if you wanted to, you could wait right until the end of [Mist Form] and trigger [Cold Front] to earn another 3/4 seconds of evasion. This effectively lengthens the invulnerability timeframe back to 2 3/4 seconds as well as provides the Elementalist some breathing room from enemies.

What happened with Obsidian Skin was just me longing for more charge-up mechanics. [Churning Earth] used to have an effect based on how long you channeled it. I honestly have no idea why they took that out. Maybe because it made the skill unpredictable for opponents, but I’m not really sure. In any case, I think that the charge-up mechanic should be implemented far more often that it is seen in-game. It also shows up in my [Cleansing Fire] and [Freezing Gust] skills with their final tick procs. Players could stand to be rewarded for using channeled skills outside of “Hurray, you finished holding down the button!” Since mana is no longer a balance mechanic in GW2, the closest thing to it would currently be channeled or charge-up skills since skill activation time are now the only real limiting factors to DPS outside of enemy CC when unleashing an opening burst.

Swagg.9236:

Thanks for the thoughts, I Bud. Well, like I said, the original force behind these suggestions was “You know what is really silly? Invulnerability, blocking and stability.”

That’s not to say that they’re unnecessary or completely out of the question in GW2, but they could stand some culling. That’s also why my [Mist Form] suggestion moves 1 of the 3 original seconds of invulnerability into a 1-second active ability that the player can trigger. Truth be told, if you wanted to, you could wait right until the end of [Mist Form] and trigger [Cold Front] to earn another 3/4 seconds of evasion. This effectively lengthens the invulnerability timeframe back to 2 3/4 seconds as well as provides the Elementalist some breathing room from enemies.

What happened with Obsidian Skin was just me longing for more charge-up mechanics. [Churning Earth] used to have an effect based on how long you channeled it. I honestly have no idea why they took that out. Maybe because it made the skill unpredictable for opponents, but I’m not really sure. In any case, I think that the charge-up mechanic should be implemented far more often that it is seen in-game. It also shows up in my [Cleansing Fire] and [Freezing Gust] skills with their final tick procs. Players could stand to be rewarded for using channeled skills outside of “Hurray, you finished holding down the button!” Since mana is no longer a balance mechanic in GW2, the closest thing to it would currently be channeled or charge-up skills since skill activation time are now the only real limiting factors to DPS outside of enemy CC when unleashing an opening burst.

I can understand you’re thoughts on culling invulnerability, but honestly Ele only has 2 sources excluding Fortify on Earth Shield, namely with Mist Form and Obsidian Flesh, and Mist Form locks out all skills, I’m not against extra chain skills or more interesting mechanics, I’d welcome such changes, but with Obsidian Flesh at least, I think the skill has great synergy as it involves correct timing, has a long cooldown and an obvious animation, It’s one of those skills that’s incredible when utilized in the right moment in the right way, but can be useless if used incorrectly or you are out-played during it’s duration. Also I do like the extra conditional effects you’re using, it does add another layer to skills, I use a similar concept in some of my traits in my Ele redesign

I guess I’m just attached to my Obsidian Flesh anyway, It’s like my super Mist Form haha, can’t imagine a focus without it

I Bud.7593:

I can understand you’re thoughts on culling invulnerability, but honestly Ele only has 2 sources excluding Fortify on Earth Shield, namely with Mist Form and Obsidian Flesh, and Mist Form locks out all skills, I’m not against extra chain skills or more interesting mechanics, I’d welcome such changes, but with Obsidian Flesh at least, I think the skill has great synergy as it involves correct timing, has a long cooldown and an obvious animation, It’s one of those skills that’s incredible when utilized in the right moment in the right way, but can be useless if used incorrectly or you are out-played during it’s duration. Also I do like the extra conditional effects you’re using, it does add another layer to skills, I use a similar concept in some of my traits in my Ele redesign

I guess I’m just attached to my Obsidian Flesh anyway, It’s like my super Mist Form haha, can’t imagine a focus without it

Invulnerability skills and blocks are pretty selfish and don’t have any team-fight capabilities; they’re just there to soak up layers of battle activity. Two seconds is honestly quite enough for most of these skills since the typical player will try to rapidly taper off an attack chain when suddenly confronted by BLOCK-BLOCK or INVULNERABLE-INVULNERABLE. If we combine this combat nature with skill chains to give players something meaningful to do or contemplate while briefly invulnerable, we can safely lower invulnerability times while also promoting more team-oriented skill use.

More specifically in the case of Elementalist focus, most of its skills are single-target or self-target. It’s a very selfish skill set that doesn’t really do much for players outside of a ranged knock-down on a long cool-down and [Swirling Winds]. I wanted to suggest changes that could make Elementalist focus more of a team-player than what it is now and that involved replacing “Haha, I’m invincible for 5 seconds” with “Let me turn this immediate area into very dangerous dodge-bait.” It’s more damage, it’s AoE, it’s CC (with the cripple if you’re casting it on the spot) and it adds more depth to a team-oriented combat situation than simply having a single player with mediocre burst damage be immune to everything for 5 seconds.

Also, I read your thread about Elementalist reworking. Looks pretty interesting. While I won’t agree with everything, I do like how you seem to enjoy putting skill chains onto almost everything. It’s pretty wacky, but in a good way. Skill chains really are good things.

STAFF

Burning Retreat

• Damage increased from 37 to 85.

Ice Spike

• Cast-time reduced from 1 to ½ second.
• Now inflicts 2 seconds of immobilize if it strikes a chilled foe.

Lightning Surge

• Cast-time reduced from 1½ seconds to 1¼ seconds.

Gust

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 1 second
• Recharge: 30 seconds
• Channel a gust of wind that strikes foes twice. The first gust rips up to 2 boons from foes that it hits. The second gust knocks back foes.
• Damage (2x): 256
• Knock-back: 400
• Range: 600
  • [Healing Breeze] cone
  • Hits up to 5 targets.

Windborne Speed

• Now also grants Super Speed for 2 seconds.

Static Field

• Now also removes up to 1 boon from foes that it hits.

Eruption

• Cast-time reduced from 1¼ seconds to 1 second.
• Reduced delay between cast-time completion and effect from 3 to 2 seconds.

Magnetic Aura

• Recharge reduced from 30 to 25 seconds.
• Duration reduced from 5 to 4 seconds.
• Now steals up to 1 boon from foes that strike you (this effect can only trigger once every 5 seconds per attacker).

Shockwave

• Cast-time reduced from ¾ to ½ second.
• Recharge reduced from 30 to 25 seconds.
• Now inflicts 3 stacks of bleed for 8 seconds instead of 1 stack for 20 seconds.

UTILITIES

Glyph of Renewal

• Cast-time reduced from 3¼ to 2½ seconds.
• Recharge reduced from 165 to 150 seconds.

Glyph of Storms

• Recharge reduced from 60 to 50 seconds.
• Damage increased from 129 to 179.

Glyph of Elemental Power

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 40 seconds
• Recharge your elemental attunements and unleash a wave of energy at your location that damages nearby foes. The next time you swap attunements, you morph the ground around you according to that attunement.
• Wave damage: 336
• Radius: 240
• Combo Finisher: Blast
• Breaks stun.
  • Swap to Fire attunement: Create a [Ring of Fire] at your location.
  • Swap to Water attunement: Create a [Geyser] at your location.
  • Swap to Air attunement: Create a [Lightning Storm] at your location.
  • Swap to Earth attunement: Create [Unsteady Ground] at your location.

The charge up was taken away to mask how much the damage to Churning Earth has been nerfed. It was very high damage at first as a reward for actually managing to stand still that long and still hit the enemy. Actually, it was more to punish the enemy for not stopping the cast than to reward the Ele. It would be so nice to get the original version of Churning Earth. Anyone thinking it through would realize that Churning Earth needs to

Part 1 – during channeling
Cripple(1s) – instant inflict, plus 1 stack every 1/2 second inside the radius

Part 2 – cast complete
Knockdown(3s)
Bleeding(6s)x3
direct damage equal to base dps * cast duration

ImProVocateur.5189:

The charge up was taken away to mask how much the damage to Churning Earth has been nerfed. It was very high damage at first as a reward for actually managing to stand still that long and still hit the enemy. Actually, it was more to punish the enemy for not stopping the cast than to reward the Ele. It would be so nice to get the original version of Churning Earth. Anyone thinking it through would realize that Churning Earth needs to

Part 1 – during channeling
Cripple(1s) – instant inflict, plus 1 stack every 1/2 second inside the radius

Part 2 – cast complete
Knockdown(3s)
Bleeding(6s)x3
direct damage equal to base dps * cast duration

I’d actually be pretty for this: re-introducing the charge-up gimmick in [Churning Earth]. I’m not totally sure that it needs a such a buff that you’ve described to its would-be final stage, but it’d be cool to get something new for it. It’s pretty powerful as it stands.

As for why that mechanic was taken from [Churning Earth] in the first place, I still think it might be because it made the skill too unpredictable. Although, that’s just speculation, such a mechanic does give the Elementalist a lot of wiggle room with a single attack. I’m not saying that that’s a bad thing either, I’m just trying to make sense of why they would remove such an interesting mechanic. Truth be told, I’d like to see it more often in game outside of siege weapons. It thought that maybe even [Shockwave] (Staff earth 5) could be a good candidate for it:

Shockwave

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 4 seconds
• Recharge: 30 seconds
• Create a shockwave at target location that damages and cripples foes. Continue to channel, charging an aftershock to release at same location that damages foes based on how long you channel it.
• Shockwave damage: 203
• Cripple: 3 seconds
• Aftershock 0 – 1 second channel: Damage: 256; Bleeding (1): 5 seconds; Immobilize 1 second
• Aftershock 1 – 2 second channel: Damage: 314; Bleeding (3): 5 seconds; Immobilize: 2 seconds
• Aftershock 2 – 3 second channel: Damage: 408; Bleeding (6): 5 seconds; Immobilize: 3 seconds
• Aftershock full channel: Damage: 618; Bleeding (6): 5 seconds; Immobilize: 3 seconds; Knock-down: 2 seconds
• Radius: 240
• Range: 1200
  • Movement interrupts channeling.
  • The aftershock channel takes a ¾ second to cast, the remainder of the channel is devoted to charging the aftershock. The Ranger skill [Swoop] is an example of this type of channel bar (part of it is a thin channel bar that is the initial running start while the rest of the bar is much wider and dedicated to the big leap).

Is that overpowered? Probably, but it’s more to serve as an example of what the mechanic could do. Also, I wish staff had more reliable damage options outside of the relatively slow/delayed-effect #1 and #2 skill slots and [Meteor Shower], so maybe that’s my bias.

I’m not sure this was already suggested but if they are going to add new skills, what I would like to see is some AOE healing skill. I know some weapon sets have an over abundance of AOE party-wide healing skills but I just noticed that ele has zero team-oriented healing skill and I would like to slot for one when I’m using Scepter/Focus which have like little to no AOE healing skill.

I dislike the functionality change for Obsidian Flesh, but I’ve already discussed my reasoning for that in whatever the other thread was where this was brought up.

To be clear, I don’t think your concept is bad. I just prefer the invulnerability.

Swagg.9236 your Obsidian Flesh, Freezing Gust and Cleansing Fire proposed changes aren’t great ideas. Obsidian Flesh already has a wonderful affect that works very well and synergizes with both sceptre and dagger.

Freezing Gust idea for say a d/f would hurt the fluidity of the synergy with the dagger as you need to stand in one place. It would also not really benefit the sceptre as well for how long it would take to reach the immobilize as someone would have dodged it or mitigate it in some way.

Cleansing Fire change would not be a significant benefit for one skill already in place with a better overall affect “Ether Renewal”. You would virtually only see usage for it in skyhammer, unfortunately tornado would actually be a better option for that map along with your idea for Arcane Shield.

You also failed to even touch on swirling winds, you could have said something like “make it an air field to proc swiftness off from it” or introduce an idea for a secondary mechanic in play once cast.

Gallrvaghn.4921:

I’m not sure this was already suggested but if they are going to add new skills, what I would like to see is some AOE healing skill. I know some weapon sets have an over abundance of AOE party-wide healing skills but I just noticed that ele has zero team-oriented healing skill and I would like to slot for one when I’m using Scepter/Focus which have like little to no AOE healing skill.

Elementalist focus water doesn’t really have any room for support outside of CC as it stands. It would require an entire remodel of one or both of the skills to really give it something like a water field. In general, s/f ele is a support build with some spike capabilities. However, the support that comes from s/f isn’t “Heal allies at target area,” but rather, “Interrupt target foe” or “Mitigate this incoming damage.” It’s a different flavor of support and I wouldn’t really vote in favor of giving ele focus any more than that. Staff is already king of ele support and I think that that set-up has a good thing going for it.

Imagi.4561:

I dislike the functionality change for Obsidian Flesh, but I’ve already discussed my reasoning for that in whatever the other thread was where this was brought up.

To be clear, I don’t think your concept is bad. I just prefer the invulnerability.

I understand, and I do recall that other conversation that we had. To be honest, I’m starting to feel a little less zealous about my [Obsidian Flesh] suggestion. I mean, sure it would give the focus ele more AoE threats and damage, but I guess that five seconds of invulnerability is so ingrained into focus ele combat that it might not be the best idea to change it outright. I still think that “Click button; receive 5 seconds of god-mode” is THE CHEESIEST, laziest design for a skill, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t incredibly useful.

The Primary.6371:

Swagg.9236 your Obsidian Flesh, Freezing Gust and Cleansing Fire proposed changes aren’t great ideas. Obsidian Flesh already has a wonderful affect that works very well and synergizes with both sceptre and dagger.

Point taken. I was actually thinking about these off-handedly and thought that a 2 1/4 second cast-time for Cleansing Fire was too much. I thought that a 1 1/2 second cast-time would better serve it.

I changed Freezing Gust to an independent AoE. This gives the focus ele some breathing room against foes attempting to close in on him/her, and could function as a good opener to a fight or a powerful time-out skill (despite its cast-time) in case things got hairy. I gave it such a long cast-time, because I was thinking more in the line of [Glyph of Storms] or some of the very powerful Staff AoEs that typically have some delay or a long-cast time (or maybe both, yeesh). It’s for the sake of balance.

You can refer to the post above for my continued thoughts on [Obsidian Flesh].

The Primary.6371:

You also failed to even touch on swirling winds, you could have said something like “make it an air field to proc swiftness off from it” or introduce an idea for a secondary mechanic in play once cast.

[Swirling Winds] is already a very strong skill. As for having it grant swiftness, that’s not necessarily something out of the question, but making a 400-radius lightning field (that would allow for a blast finisher combo for swiftness) sounds really scary given its dazing leap property and the 6-second duration.

The other suggestion that I thought of for that skill would be to maybe have it pulse swiftness on allies each second (maybe 3 seconds). This would add up greatly over 6 seconds, but it wouldn’t really be ideal as a swiftness skill on the move since players would probably cross through it before getting even 3 ticks of the swiftness buff.

The last suggestion for that idea would be to have the skill grant bulk swiftness to allies upon creation (10 – 15 seconds or so) and leave it at that.

However, even after all that, I’m still not sure that [Swirling Winds] needs anything tacked onto it outside of what it does now. It’s a unique and very powerful skill for the focus-inclined Elementalist.

Swagg.9236:

[Swirling Winds] is already a very strong skill. As for having it grant swiftness, that’s not necessarily something out of the question, but making a 400-radius lightning field (that would allow for a blast finisher combo for swiftness) sounds really scary given its dazing leap property and the 6-second duration.

The other suggestion that I thought of for that skill would be to maybe have it pulse swiftness on allies each second (maybe 3 seconds). This would add up greatly over 6 seconds, but it wouldn’t really be ideal as a swiftness skill on the move since players would probably cross through it before getting even 3 ticks of the swiftness buff.

The last suggestion for that idea would be to have the skill grant bulk swiftness to allies upon creation (10 – 15 seconds or so) and leave it at that.

However, even after all that, I’m still not sure that [Swirling Winds] needs anything tacked onto it outside of what it does now. It’s a unique and very powerful skill for the focus-inclined Elementalist.

I enjoy Swirling Winds as it is because I think it fills a helpful niche, but I would love to see it grant swiftness, even if it’s only outside of combat.

One of the reasons that offhand dagger is preferred over focus is that it provides better mobility in addition to better damage, but I’ve never quite grasped that design. Shouldn’t a utility-based offhand weapon include mobility as part of that package?

Imagi.4561:

Swagg.9236:

[Swirling Winds] is already a very strong skill. As for having it grant swiftness, that’s not necessarily something out of the question, but making a 400-radius lightning field (that would allow for a blast finisher combo for swiftness) sounds really scary given its dazing leap property and the 6-second duration.

The other suggestion that I thought of for that skill would be to maybe have it pulse swiftness on allies each second (maybe 3 seconds). This would add up greatly over 6 seconds, but it wouldn’t really be ideal as a swiftness skill on the move since players would probably cross through it before getting even 3 ticks of the swiftness buff.

The last suggestion for that idea would be to have the skill grant bulk swiftness to allies upon creation (10 – 15 seconds or so) and leave it at that.

However, even after all that, I’m still not sure that [Swirling Winds] needs anything tacked onto it outside of what it does now. It’s a unique and very powerful skill for the focus-inclined Elementalist.

I enjoy Swirling Winds as it is because I think it fills a helpful niche, but I would love to see it grant swiftness, even if it’s only outside of combat.

One of the reasons that offhand dagger is preferred over focus is that it provides better mobility in addition to better damage, but I’ve never quite grasped that design. Shouldn’t a utility-based offhand weapon include mobility as part of that package?

Focus Elementalist has always been slow because they’re supposed to be able to take it with the condition clears, invulnerability, CC and projectile mitigation. The only truly weak attunements in focus are fire and water. As much as I enjoy mobility, I’m not sure that giving it to every weapon set is a good idea. Focus Elementalist is already a very turtly set-up to begin with. Adding swiftness onto [Swirling Winds] just because it’s slow feels a little “tacked-on.”

Furthermore, there are always the ele swiftness traits (gain swiftness and fury on aura application and when attuning to air). I know that the latter is getting a nerf by the looks of the patch notes (moved to master in arcana), but I used to run d/f a lot and never had swiftness issues because I could just chain attunement swaps and auras. It’s a selfish build, but focus Ele is pretty selfish in design. It’s a sort of tank in many respects.