Guild Wars 2

Now that Icebow 4 is getting nerfed none are OP which means except for niche situations or niche builds they are never going to be taken. (why would you ever want to replace 20 skills with 5?)

What if we made them more like engi kits? No cd, with a max of 1 out (on the ground for another person to use) at a time? Would that be more useful? Too OP?

Since no weapon individual skills are OP anymore (or will be in a few hours of this post) I can’t imagine it being OP to be able to have 100% uptime on a conjure unless I’m not thinking of something. Better question is, would it make them worth taking?

Yes – we’d gain a little bit more mobility/uptime with FGS. However, keep in mind rebound should actually be worth taking when HoT comes out. So we would actually have competition (mobility vs a team wide save/invuln ability.)

Its the only thing I can think of without a complete overhaul (No cd, max of one out). Anyone else have any ideas?

-Eliminate charges, keep cool down (weapon disappears after 1 minute; needs to be cast again.)

-Weapons stay where they are when dropped instead of disappearing.

-Earth Shield is instant cast, and breaks stun when summoned.

-All other Conjures have a cast time of 1/4 seconds.

-Conjurer trait:
Reduces all Conjure summon and weapon skill cool downs by 20%. Each Conjure creates an AoE effect where it is summoned:
Lava Axe: Flame Blast (like Staff Fire skill 3, but no damage)
Frost Bow: Cleansing Wave (like Evasive Arcana Water, but half the healing)
Lightning Hammer: AoE Knockback (like Updraft)
Earth Shield: AoE Magnetic Aura
Fiery Greatsword: AoE Might and Fury, in addition to its current damage and burning

IDK, just spitballing

Lose the fire aura on conjures pick up and give it when you have a conjures wepon in your hand you get a stack of stab. Much like eng Juggernaut.

Glenstorm.4059:

-Eliminate charges, keep cool down (weapon disappears after 1 minute; needs to be cast again.)

-Weapons stay where they are when dropped instead of disappearing.

-Earth Shield is instant cast, and breaks stun when summoned.

-All other Conjures have a cast time of 1/4 seconds.

-Conjurer trait:
Reduces all Conjure summon and weapon skill cool downs by 20%. Each Conjure creates an AoE effect where it is summoned:
Lava Axe: Flame Blast (like Staff Fire skill 3, but no damage)
Frost Bow: Cleansing Wave (like Evasive Arcana Water, but half the healing)
Lightning Hammer: AoE Knockback (like Updraft)
Earth Shield: AoE Magnetic Aura
Fiery Greatsword: AoE Might and Fury, in addition to its current damage and burning

IDK, just spitballing

you would nerf the only conjure weapon that is still useful if you give that cc to lightning hammer
it is very often casted during fight after ele blasted all his best attacks or it is put down for other classes with weak attack rotations
making it automatically cc the enemy where you drop it (and you always drop it on yourself ofc…) would kitten up defiance control….

and updraft would even make it worse when it actually knocks enemies around… your whole group would lose out on damage…

so please no CC on lightning hammer conjure

the basic idea of reworking the conjure trait is nice thouhg… because i have basically NEVER used more than the normal amount of skill uses before the weapon disappears anyway

Orangensaft.7139:

Glenstorm.4059:

-Eliminate charges, keep cool down (weapon disappears after 1 minute; needs to be cast again.)

-Weapons stay where they are when dropped instead of disappearing.

-Earth Shield is instant cast, and breaks stun when summoned.

-All other Conjures have a cast time of 1/4 seconds.

-Conjurer trait:
Reduces all Conjure summon and weapon skill cool downs by 20%. Each Conjure creates an AoE effect where it is summoned:
Lava Axe: Flame Blast (like Staff Fire skill 3, but no damage)
Frost Bow: Cleansing Wave (like Evasive Arcana Water, but half the healing)
Lightning Hammer: AoE Knockback (like Updraft)
Earth Shield: AoE Magnetic Aura
Fiery Greatsword: AoE Might and Fury, in addition to its current damage and burning

IDK, just spitballing

you would nerf the only conjure weapon that is still useful if you give that cc to lightning hammer
it is very often casted during fight after ele blasted all his best attacks or it is put down for other classes with weak attack rotations
making it automatically cc the enemy where you drop it (and you always drop it on yourself ofc…) would kitten up defiance control….

and updraft would even make it worse when it actually knocks enemies around… your whole group would lose out on damage…

so please no CC on lightning hammer conjure

the basic idea of reworking the conjure trait is nice thouhg… because i have basically NEVER used more than the normal amount of skill uses before the weapon disappears anyway

Fair; how about AoE blind on summoning? No effects on Defiance there.

How about-
*drop the CDs to your attunement time-
—on summon (max of one out at a time) put the three attunements you arent using on CD as well as the conjure. In other words youre in fire, you summon icebow icebow goes on CD for 10sec as well as water earth and air.

*Gain an affect on cast depending on summon (Icebow heals you, earth stab, fire might, etc)

*Cause damage on summoned spot (could also do condi dmg)

Makes them more powerful while giving the drawback of having 5-10 skills for ~10 sec while still keeping them very similar to what they are.

Cause them to write themselves to the current attunement as a second attunement of their appropriate element.

Example: Built full condi bunker, don’t need air attunement. Slot earth shield on a utilty and cast it while in air attunement to get a second earth attunement.

This would not only make conjures worth using, but fix one of the biggest issues with this class’ design, how we can’t create more thematically specific builds without abandoning the class mechanic that pretty much makes our entire class.

Make them useful by making them function identically to Engineer kits. Seriously, even the shield and fire axe will see play then.

Problem with conjures is as you said, you sacrifice having 20 skills for 5, and on most the conjures, it’s 4 damage skills and 1 control or defensive skill (LH stands out as it’s autoattack has a blind, it has a knockback and it has static field so 3 control skills and decently high damage on its autoattack)

If none of the damage skills are higher than your main weapon setup’s damage skills, why have the conjure? The 1 control skill? Why not just yank that 1 control skill from the set of 5 skills and turn it into a utility skill by itself? Why not remove ice bow and make deep freeze a utility skill by itself and just save a few button presses?

Just make deep freeze, fortify (if you want to give it a gw1 name just name it stone sheath since that skill would no longer exist either), thunderclap (might as well remove the other 2 skills from the chain and just make it a targetted aoe blind/blast finisher), and fiery whirl as utility skills and make a new elite skill from the ground up, and remove all conjures.

If you’re going to use conjures as temporary weapons, with both charges and a time limit, and give them mostly damage skills, those damage skills need to do more damage than your normal weapon skills, because you are sacrificing versatility of your normal weapon skills including swapping to other attunements, for a temporary boost in damage from the conjured weapon.

If they do the same damage or less damage than normal weapon skills then the entire conjure is not worth having and you should just remove the conjure and put the control skill as its own utility skill.

The only way to make it potentially useful otherwise is to make them work like engineer kits that can be toggled off and on at will no cooldown no charges, so that you are not SACRIFICING use of your normal weapon skills and attunements if you want to actually use that 1 minute cooldown for something.

I actually like them and would like to use them more. My only real problem is that they are a trade off for another skill I could have used instead and that I only can have them for a little while and constantly have to re-drop them.

I would love to be able to have some weapon switch mechanic where you get them and actually have them as long as you want to. Perhaps even as a kit or something.

I wouldn’t mind having a spec in the future that lets us wield them as a real weapon without charges. If not with all 20 skills, let each one have at least 2 attunements and focus on something.

Glenstorm.4059:

-Eliminate charges, keep cool down (weapon disappears after 1 minute; needs to be cast again.)

-Weapons stay where they are when dropped instead of disappearing.

-Earth Shield is instant cast, and breaks stun when summoned.

-All other Conjures have a cast time of 1/4 seconds.

-Conjurer trait:
Reduces all Conjure summon and weapon skill cool downs by 20%. Each Conjure creates an AoE effect where it is summoned:
Lava Axe: Flame Blast (like Staff Fire skill 3, but no damage)
Frost Bow: Cleansing Wave (like Evasive Arcana Water, but half the healing)
Lightning Hammer: AoE Knockback (like Updraft)
Earth Shield: AoE Magnetic Aura
Fiery Greatsword: AoE Might and Fury, in addition to its current damage and burning

IDK, just spitballing

I always use Earth Shield. Instant cast is way too broken I feel like. But maybe I am too harsh on myself.

Alekt.5803:

Glenstorm.4059:

-Eliminate charges, keep cool down (weapon disappears after 1 minute; needs to be cast again.)

-Weapons stay where they are when dropped instead of disappearing.

-Earth Shield is instant cast, and breaks stun when summoned.

-All other Conjures have a cast time of 1/4 seconds.

-Conjurer trait:
Reduces all Conjure summon and weapon skill cool downs by 20%. Each Conjure creates an AoE effect where it is summoned:
Lava Axe: Flame Blast (like Staff Fire skill 3, but no damage)
Frost Bow: Cleansing Wave (like Evasive Arcana Water, but half the healing)
Lightning Hammer: AoE Knockback (like Updraft)
Earth Shield: AoE Magnetic Aura
Fiery Greatsword: AoE Might and Fury, in addition to its current damage and burning

IDK, just spitballing

I always use Earth Shield. Instant cast is way too broken I feel like. But maybe I am too harsh on myself.

Well, the reason I suggested that is because I think every Utility should have a stun break, and Earth Shield just seems to be thematically most fitting. Although I could see why it could be powerful with a Lightning Rod/Tempest Defense build.

Glenstorm.4059:

Alekt.5803:

Glenstorm.4059:

-Eliminate charges, keep cool down (weapon disappears after 1 minute; needs to be cast again.)

-Weapons stay where they are when dropped instead of disappearing.

-Earth Shield is instant cast, and breaks stun when summoned.

-All other Conjures have a cast time of 1/4 seconds.

-Conjurer trait:
Reduces all Conjure summon and weapon skill cool downs by 20%. Each Conjure creates an AoE effect where it is summoned:
Lava Axe: Flame Blast (like Staff Fire skill 3, but no damage)
Frost Bow: Cleansing Wave (like Evasive Arcana Water, but half the healing)
Lightning Hammer: AoE Knockback (like Updraft)
Earth Shield: AoE Magnetic Aura
Fiery Greatsword: AoE Might and Fury, in addition to its current damage and burning

IDK, just spitballing

I always use Earth Shield. Instant cast is way too broken I feel like. But maybe I am too harsh on myself.

Well, the reason I suggested that is because I think every Utility should have a stun break, and Earth Shield just seems to be thematically most fitting. Although I could see why it could be powerful with a Lightning Rod/Tempest Defense build.

I use it on a Settler Lighting Rod build. And don’t dream about Tempest Defense’s damage increase on Lightning Rod; do you really think elementalist deserve something functionnal? Try with and without Tempest Defense; the damage of Lightning Rod does not increase.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Tempest-Defense-not-increasing-Lightning-Rod/first#post5498610

Alekt.5803:

Glenstorm.4059:

Alekt.5803:

Glenstorm.4059:

-Eliminate charges, keep cool down (weapon disappears after 1 minute; needs to be cast again.)

-Weapons stay where they are when dropped instead of disappearing.

-Earth Shield is instant cast, and breaks stun when summoned.

-All other Conjures have a cast time of 1/4 seconds.

-Conjurer trait:
Reduces all Conjure summon and weapon skill cool downs by 20%. Each Conjure creates an AoE effect where it is summoned:
Lava Axe: Flame Blast (like Staff Fire skill 3, but no damage)
Frost Bow: Cleansing Wave (like Evasive Arcana Water, but half the healing)
Lightning Hammer: AoE Knockback (like Updraft)
Earth Shield: AoE Magnetic Aura
Fiery Greatsword: AoE Might and Fury, in addition to its current damage and burning

IDK, just spitballing

I always use Earth Shield. Instant cast is way too broken I feel like. But maybe I am too harsh on myself.

Well, the reason I suggested that is because I think every Utility should have a stun break, and Earth Shield just seems to be thematically most fitting. Although I could see why it could be powerful with a Lightning Rod/Tempest Defense build.

I use it on a Settler Lighting Rod build. And don’t dream about Tempest Defense’s damage increase on Lightning Rod; do you really think elementalist deserve something functionnal? Try with and without Tempest Defense; the damage of Lightning Rod does not increase.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Tempest-Defense-not-increasing-Lightning-Rod/first#post5498610

Oh wow…I did not know this. Ugh.

Glenstorm.4059:

Alekt.5803:

Glenstorm.4059:

Alekt.5803:

Glenstorm.4059:

-Eliminate charges, keep cool down (weapon disappears after 1 minute; needs to be cast again.)

-Weapons stay where they are when dropped instead of disappearing.

-Earth Shield is instant cast, and breaks stun when summoned.

-All other Conjures have a cast time of 1/4 seconds.

-Conjurer trait:
Reduces all Conjure summon and weapon skill cool downs by 20%. Each Conjure creates an AoE effect where it is summoned:
Lava Axe: Flame Blast (like Staff Fire skill 3, but no damage)
Frost Bow: Cleansing Wave (like Evasive Arcana Water, but half the healing)
Lightning Hammer: AoE Knockback (like Updraft)
Earth Shield: AoE Magnetic Aura
Fiery Greatsword: AoE Might and Fury, in addition to its current damage and burning

IDK, just spitballing

I always use Earth Shield. Instant cast is way too broken I feel like. But maybe I am too harsh on myself.

Well, the reason I suggested that is because I think every Utility should have a stun break, and Earth Shield just seems to be thematically most fitting. Although I could see why it could be powerful with a Lightning Rod/Tempest Defense build.

I use it on a Settler Lighting Rod build. And don’t dream about Tempest Defense’s damage increase on Lightning Rod; do you really think elementalist deserve something functionnal? Try with and without Tempest Defense; the damage of Lightning Rod does not increase.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Tempest-Defense-not-increasing-Lightning-Rod/first#post5498610

Oh wow…I did not know this. Ugh.

Eh eh. Were you shopping for a new Line? Oh, don’t try combining Rune of Nightmare with Lightning Rod. The fear will cause your lightning rod to be permanently disabled until you re-spec.

+1 for earth shield stun break.

I always thought conjures should have half of the cooldown, and duration held.

kirima san.3760:

I actually like them and would like to use them more. My only real problem is that they are a trade off for another skill I could have used instead and that I only can have them for a little while and constantly have to re-drop them.

I would love to be able to have some weapon switch mechanic where you get them and actually have them as long as you want to. Perhaps even as a kit or something.

I wouldn’t mind having a spec in the future that lets us wield them as a real weapon without charges. If not with all 20 skills, let each one have at least 2 attunements and focus on something.

We shouldn’t need a new spec to make conjures usable. Especially since a new spec would support a new type of utilities.

Conjured weapons simply need to be reworked into a permanent option with no charge limitations and a swapping capability. The charges need to be removed, as well as that clunky bundle mechanic. If this change is to happen, Anet would have to remove the option to share coonjures with allies, as offering support to allies while getting unrestricted access would be OP. This is not a problem because the ele has tons of support option anyway and we are getting tempest as well.

There are 3 general ways to rework conjures:

1. Make them exactly like kits, which means that you can swap between them and weapon skills whenever you want. The problem with this is that giving these options to a profession with 20 weapon skills and having no cooldowns could facilitate some very broken combos. Engineer also has no weapon swap and kits are designed around that.

2. Make them be accessible through the weapon swap button when equipped and make them have a coodown. In this instance you would be able to always have 1 conjure as an alternative weapon that you can swap to, but if you want to use another conjure you would hace to put your current one on cooldown. This reduces the possibility of broken combos while maintaining the capability of using a permanent conjure alongside your attunements. The problem is that conjures would directly compete with each other, making it difficult or even impossible to have a conjure-focused build.

3. Make conjures replace their respective attunement while they have a cooldown to prevent rapid swapping. In this case using an earth shield would replace your earth attunement skills with those of the earth shield. If you want your earth attunement skills back you will need to wait for the cooldown of the conjure. The primary purpose of this would be to replace the skills of any attunement that you don’t like, which would increase build diversity. It is not designed to give you 40 skills which is why a lengthy cooldown would be in place or even the inability to swap between earth shield and earth attunement in combat. However, it could allow for full conjure builds that replace every attunement at the same time, while giving the ele more build options like professions who can choose what weapons to swap between in combat.

I like conjure very much the way they are right now, I mean, mechanically speaking. I just wish the picking up was not so slow and clunky.

As for the conjures themselves, they need help in a certain way in their abilities or cast time.

Alekt.5803:

I like conjure very much the way they are right now, I mean, mechanically speaking. I just wish the picking up was not so slow and clunky.

As for the conjures themselves, they need help in a certain way in their abilities or cast time.

The problem with the current design is that it is never good to take a conjure unless it has a completely overpowered skill. And then you just use that skill and drop the conjure. Even if they did somehow get decently balanced, you would still just blow all the conjure skill cooldowns and drop it, because it’s terrible to stay there and just auto-attack when you have so many weapon skills to choose from.

Also, picking them up will always be clunky. That’s just how bundles work in this game. The existence of a cast time is also pretty bizzare as well and contributes to the undesirability of conjures.

Ganathar.4956:

Alekt.5803:

I like conjure very much the way they are right now, I mean, mechanically speaking. I just wish the picking up was not so slow and clunky.

As for the conjures themselves, they need help in a certain way in their abilities or cast time.

The problem with the current design is that it is never good to take a conjure unless it has a completely overpowered skill. And then you just use that skill and drop the conjure. Even if they did somehow get decently balanced, you would still just blow all the conjure skill cooldowns and drop it, because it’s terrible to stay there and just auto-attack when you have so many weapon skills to choose from.

Also, picking them up will always be clunky. That’s just how bundles work in this game. The existence of a cast time is also pretty bizzare as well and contributes to the undesirability of conjures.

I am known to use Earth Shield all the time. It works pretty well for me. I also still use Icebow in PvP despite the nerf. Using both at the same time.

Since conjures are barely better than weapon skills (and in most cases worse), they justify neither their charges nor 60s CD. Also, having a cast-time on the conjure, ontop of balancing individual skills around already holding the weapon gives a double-penalty to using a conjure as an actual utility.

To make conjures useful, they need to make a few changes:
- All conjures have 0.25s or instant-cast, Earth Shield is a stunbreak
- Conjures last 30s, but only go on a 30s CD. Charges aren’t a thing anymore.

Individual conjures need to be changed to have a real purpose. As of now, only the shield has a real purpose, the others are just kind of confused.

Lightning Hammer: Melee damage + mobility (through leaps). Make the #5 skill static field castable while moving, normalize the knockback to punt as far as banish, and maybe staff eles would take it in pvp for when they get caught in a 1v1 to actually do some damage. With leaps ontop of the CC, any kind of melee ele could use this to frontline.

Ice Bow: Support. Autos should do more damage. Ice Storm should function like Guardian’s Bow. One of the skills should create a water field.

Earth Shield: Defense + Condi. This is already pretty good if it were more on-demand.

Flame Axe: Ranged pressure. The range should be increased past 900 range (maybe not 1200), or at least projectiles sped up big time. The fire field and execute make no sense if this is the theme.

Flame Axe Alt: Condi pressure. Every skill applies some kind of burn. Some skills apply bleeds, cripples, and blinds.

Glenstorm.4059:

-Conjurer trait:
Reduces all Conjure summon and weapon skill cool downs by 20%. Each Conjure creates an AoE effect where it is summoned:
Lava Axe: Flame Blast (like Staff Fire skill 3, but no damage)
Frost Bow: Cleansing Wave (like Evasive Arcana Water, but half the healing)
Lightning Hammer: AoE Knockback (like Updraft)
Earth Shield: AoE Magnetic Aura
Fiery Greatsword: AoE Might and Fury, in addition to its current damage and burning

IDK, just spitballing

This is an interesting idea. Combined with the above it could work.

If they aren’t going to do anything but just try to throw a trait at it, the trait needs to be OPAF, like pulsing aura depending on the conjure (2s of aura every 5s) while you hold it.

If all they do is add on-cast affect to conjures that is worth using, they’ll be as worthless as conjures as they are now, people will use them for the on-cast effect, maybe one skill use, and then drop them. If that’s the route they go, they might as well replace them with a skill type that just drops an effect without creating a weapon.

If they are ever to be of any use, as weapons, they need drastic changes to their base functionality. No amount of nerfs or buffs or added effects is going to fix them.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Make them useful by making them function identically to Engineer kits. Seriously, even the shield and fire axe will see play then.

It would be a great idea and it’s an idea that’s been proposed since launch. Sadly, no dev ever answered to it.

Though, some of the skills would need some tune down or a change to make them more like “utilities”. It would be a good moment to change the Icebow#4 into a potent aoe healing skill.

What about making it glyph like? While in fire it spawns an axe, water bow etc. That would make it quite nice to have with you, you can react on your current situation.
Also, ice bow should be able to heal alot more, the axe and the idea of those stacks should be looked at. More nice traits maybe like buffs when the stacks run out. Still, i doubt they’ll find the time to look at it properly with hot on it’s way, hope i’m wrong ^^.