Guild Wars 2

Ohoni.6057:

Again,. that’s my argument. They have done it with other classes, which is why they have no reason to also do it with the Ele. If you want to wandsword, pick one of the wandswords.

So then your actual position must therefore be ‘never add anything, because something like it has already been done’, right?

That’s also completely against what you said about following Anet’s pattern. 6 out of 9 of the first generation of elite specs all gained a skill type that another class already has. From what Anet has already done it would appear that their idea was ’we’ve already done it with this class, but how could we do it with that class?’.

It was speculated before the Tempest reveal that Eles will get a sword. I believe a sword would be a great option. I know a lot of people don’t like seeing their Elementalists in melee range but I loved playing D/D back in the day it was strong and now fresh air D/W in PVE is always fun.

A Melee burst DPS weapon would be nice, something that combines Thief and Elementalist, high mobility, lots of burst DPS, close range, gap closers, escapes etc

I doubt we’ll get a bow, hammer, greatsword, shield or axe because we have those as conjured weapons.

So then your actual position must therefore be ‘never add anything, because something like it has already been done’, right?

Nope, coincidentally enough, my actual position is exactly the words I’ve actually said. I’m sorry if I was somehow unclear about that, it was not my intent.

That’s also completely against what you said about following Anet’s pattern. 6 out of 9 of the first generation of elite specs all gained a skill type that another class already has.

A skill, sure, skills are shared between classes, but they behave completely differently for each class. The trick is, “what makes this thing fundamentally different for this class than for other classes?” Adding another Wandsword to Eles would add nothing. Would it add Wandswords to the game as a novel option? no, as we’ve acknowledged, other classes already do that. Would it add a “wand” ability to the Ele? No, Eles already have Scepters for the “waving a thing around and magic happens.” All a wandsword would do is be Scepter 2.0.

Melee sword would at least be a variation, but between the six classes that already have MH sword, for a grand total of 21 different abilities, I doubt they would be able to make another 12 abilities that aren’t mostly the same, just with flame or lightning effects added, whee! Hell, three of the existing ones are already Blurred Frenzy, two of them are Savage Leap, and pretty much every one of them have the same basic attack string, just with a different proc on the finish.

Could they do it? Yeah. Would it be a significant and novel change to the game? Not especially, given the options already available.

A Melee burst DPS weapon would be nice, something that combines Thief and Elementalist, high mobility, lots of burst DPS, close range, gap closers, escapes etc

So like. . . dagger.

Nowadays everybody wanna talk like they got something to say
But nothing comes out when they move their lips
Just a bunch of gibberish
And motherkittens act like they forgot about Dagger. ^

^ intended purely for mirth and merryment

I wonder if these chat links still work:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Sword-Ele-Confirmed/first

I’m not in game and can’t check atm

Ohoni.6057:

I present the “taste” argument as it is, a matter of personal preference, although I do think that “gun wands” make more sense, because with a sword-wand, you could be waving anything you want, and for some reason it just has to be a sword. Why?

If I wanted to use sword in a traditional way, I wouldn’t be an ele. That’s the point. Why not use the sword in a crazy spell sword kind of way? They did daggers justice after all.

It’s a preference thing. You have yours and I have mine. You can’t argue personal taste, try as you might. lol

Ohoni.6057:

With a “gun wand,” it’s not that you’re waving a pistol around and magic happens, it’s that you’re employing it’s actual function, you are firing projectiles out of its barrel, and these projectiles have magical effects upon impact. It’s using the device as intended, which cannot be said for a wand-sword, as swords are meant to impact things, not be waved around.

See, the way you describe it sounds even less intuitive than I thought possible. Come on. No channeled magical elemental bullets that just manifest or something?

You’re honestly thinking the ele is reloading with actual ammunition and giving it a little magic umpf or something on the way out? lol

You can have that one for free.

I am fully with Ohoni. But i don´t mind what we get. It should fit in and not dublicate something.
So what ele doesn´t have:
1.) A dedicated condi weapon, ele´s have hybrid weapons but non focused.
2.) A 900 range offensive offhand weapon.
3.) A pure melee (130 range). But this would be very close to dagger.

Of course it´s a matter of taste. An offhand pistol 900 range with condi focus and a bit defence in earth as usual but no healing in water would fully fit. I prefer this type.
Also a 130 range condi weapon would be an option. I personaly won´t like it but others will.
I can imagine a lot of things. Greatsword would be no problem at all. Granted many skills might be simila to others (also from other classes) but whats about an ele that can only have one elment traited geting a weapon swap instead of 4 elements? Suddenly balancing 5 skills gets much easier.
We will see waht we get and than i can decide if i like it or not. Might be that i stick to tempest anyway.
Most cruel thing would be power creep. Another round of this might drive me away from the game.

If I wanted to use sword in a traditional way, I wouldn’t be an ele. That’s the point. Why not use the sword in a crazy spell sword kind of way? They did daggers justice after all.

Dagger was just their shorthand for “Bending,” They wanted to have a melee range Ele class, and that’s what Dagger ended up being. Given Dagger, given Scepter, there just really isn’t room for Sword to bring anything particularly novel to the table. It would either be the generic sword attacks from other sets only now they trail fire or ice crystals, or they would be scepter attacks that do different stuff.

It’s a preference thing. You have yours and I have mine. You can’t argue personal taste, try as you might. lol

That’s exactly what “preference” is, arguing your personal taste.

See, the way you describe it sounds even less intuitive than I thought possible. Come on. No channeled magical elemental bullets that just manifest or something?

No, you’d be firing shots, mostly at the target, some at the ground, a few into the sky, and then things would occur when they hit because, as an ele, your bullets would be enchanted with magical properties. If there weren’t bullets involved there would be no point to it being a pistol, it would be like having a shortbow where you never actually shoot any arrows. Or ponies, as the case may be.

You’re honestly thinking the ele is reloading with actual ammunition and giving it a little magic umpf or something on the way out? lol

Magic ammunition, their own blend. Of course it wouldn’t be a hassle, just like the other pistol classes that never have to bother reloading. It might not even be physical bullets, they could just “conjure” bullets into the chamber as needed, but the point is that they point the gun where they want it hit, pull the trigger, combustion occurs, a projectile flies out, and then something happens when the bullet hits.

Ohoni.6057:

That’s exactly what “preference” is, arguing your personal taste.

Have fun with that.

Ohoni.6057:

It might not even be physical bullets, they could just “conjure” bullets into the chamber

Aye. You’re welcome. First one was a freebie, if you want more elaborate thoughts for your argument you’ll need to pay up.

Ohoni.6057:

I’ll tell you right now, I think it’s brutally unlikely that ANet will ever add another two-hander to the class, not unless it comes with a restriction to only two elements. There’s just no way to balance the effort. Most classes would be getting 5, 3, even just 2 abilities out of their new weapon, and Eles would be getting 20? No way. Even just ten would be double anyone else.

The only basis we have for this is your assertion.

Yes, it would require designing more skills. However, elementalist skills, particularly in the 1-3 slots, tend to be simpler than those of other professions, which is probably a function of them having so many in the first place. For instance, elementalists are the the only profession to have a ‘press this on recharge to do more damage’ skill (Lightning Strike) – on any other profession, that would be rolled into autoattack and the #2 skill will be something that requires a little bit more tactical thinking.

Yes, it probably would be more effort for them overall… but if they do take the ‘no new 2H weapons for eles because they’re hard’ route, then it’s going to become increasingly obvious that they’re avoiding it out of laziness over time.

Again,. that’s my argument. They have done it with other classes, which is why they have no reason to also do it with the Ele. If you want to wandsword, pick one of the wandswords.

By the same reasoning, there’s no reason to make a pistol that fires elemental shots, because engineer already does that.

So basically nerf Staff so you can have a sword? I think more people would be upset by that than pleased by it.

Nah, they nerfed staff to make the DPS figures in raids more even between the professions.

This is typically limited by Traits though. If you equip both a ranged and a melee option, you typically have to focus on making one or the other great, and the other will just be ok compared to builds that focus on it.

Not really, in my experience. Yes, you can get better results by hyperspecialising… but the difference between someone who’s doubled up on melee (or ranged, for that matter) versus someone who has a bit of both is not that large. Most of the good PvP builds are competitive both in melee and at range.

Plus, even with weapon swapping you only get ten skills, while an ele automatically gets twenty, AND can rotate through them faster than weapon swapping. You can’t just say “I want everything they have AND what and ele gets,” there will always be tradeoffs. Because you get what eles have, you can’t have some of the things other classes can do.

I have already addressed this here.

No. Dagger Ele is meant to operate in close, within the full 0-600 range. The other weapons are designed for longer ranges. I don’t see them making a purely melee Ele that is actually stronger in melee range than a Dagger Ele already is.

And a pistol would also be intended to operate in which range? 900? Then it’s stepping on sceptre. And so on.

A melee option could do more damage than dagger as a tradeoff for actually having to melee rather than still being able to dance just out of range of the cleavefest. A melee option might have similar damage but more defences so they can better survive the cleavefest. Or it might have a longer range – up to 900, say – for the long-range attunements, balanced against needing to truly go into melee when they do jump in. There are several ways that a weapon that is melee in some attunements could have different tradeoffs to dagger.

Pistol, now… as a mainhand weapon, it’s most likely to be just another 900-range standoff weapon, just like sceptre. As an offhand… it would be just another set of 4-5 skills that are designed to be compatible with either dagger or sceptre. (This is a common theme with offhands – they’re usually designed with versatility in mind so you don’t get an offhand which can only realistically be combined with a melee weapon or with a ranged weapon. The exception being warrior offhands, which are all melee-oriented because all of the warrior’s ranged weapons are two-handers.)

I present the “taste” argument as it is, a matter of personal preference, although I do think that “gun wands” make more sense, because with a sword-wand, you could be waving anything you want, and for some reason it just has to be a sword. Why? With a “gun wand,” it’s not that you’re waving a pistol around and magic happens, it’s that you’re employing it’s actual function, you are firing projectiles out of its barrel, and these projectiles have magical effects upon impact. It’s using the device as intended, which cannot be said for a wand-sword, as swords are meant to impact things, not be waved around.

See, what you cite as a weakness, I consider a strength.

Swords have a wide range of different animations that can be used, including various means of waving it around, pointing it, throwing it, and, yes, hitting someone with it. Guns pretty much have one basic animation. Point, shoot. You could vary it up by shooting at the ground, or at the sky, or having the gun hovor as it shoots, but ultimately it would be a lot of variations on pointing and shooting.

Aye. You’re welcome. First one was a freebie, if you want more elaborate thoughts for your argument you’ll need to pay up.

I have no idea what you’re talking about. You do understand that this is a forum, right? A place for discussion? I mean, you don’t have to participate, but nobody cares if you choose not to.

Yes, it probably would be more effort for them overall… but if they do take the ‘no new 2H weapons for eles because they’re hard’ route, then it’s going to become increasingly obvious that they’re avoiding it out of laziness over time.

But also balance, that it wouldn’t be fair to give one class four times as many abilities as anyone else gets. Remember, Ele only launched with a total of three weapon sets, while most launched with six or more. If they keep adding one weapon per expansion evenly, then an added offhand is already more than a two-hander for another class. Again, I don’t see them ever adding a new two-hander unless a) they skip them on weapons entirely for the previous or subsequent expansion, or b) they restrict elements so that the new Elite spec can only use one or two of the elements. That’s just my assertion, sure, but I believe it’s based in a reasonable logic.

By the same reasoning, there’s no reason to make a pistol that fires elemental shots, because engineer already does that.

No, Engi pistol fires gimmicks. It’s not magical. But again it’s a combined argument. Wandsword is pointless because it is covered BOTH by Scaper/Focus already doing wand-sword things, AND by other classes already having wandswords. It’s novel in no way, and thus makes little sense for expansion.

Not really, in my experience. Yes, you can get better results by hyperspecialising… but the difference between someone who’s doubled up on melee (or ranged, for that matter) versus someone who has a bit of both is not that large.

I’m not saying that you do have to double up on melee/range, I usually don’t, but my point is that if you spec your traits into melee, you likely won’t be very good at range, and vice versa, so you can either be a ranged build with the option to do a little melee, or a melee build that is not completely useless at range, but you can’t be great at both in a single build. There are trade-offs to be made.

And a pistol would also be intended to operate in which range? 900? Then it’s stepping on sceptre. And so on.

Again, I’m looking for Offhand, so it would be in the same general range as Focus, but Focus is mostly based on defense/avoidance, pistol would be focused more on damage and gap-closing. It would be the offensive ranged offhand, which gives it a new role to fill. Do you see a melee sword as offering a non-DPS role? Something the Dagger doesn’t already do?

If they did do mainhand, then yeah, it would be mostly similar to Scepter, although ideally with at least a few 1200 range attacks, to give a one-hand standoff range option, and more aggressive than Scepter. But again, I don’t see it as the most likely or desirable option, so I’m not really defending it as an ideal choice.

A melee option could do more damage than dagger as a tradeoff for actually having to melee rather than still being able to dance just out of range of the cleavefest.

They couldn’t offer a melee Ele enough damage to make that a worthwhile trade. It would either be not enough damage to be worth using, or too much damage to be balanced with other classes.

Swords have a wide range of different animations that can be used, including various means of waving it around, pointing it, throwing it, and, yes, hitting someone with it. Guns pretty much have one basic animation. Point, shoot. You could vary it up by shooting at the ground, or at the sky, or having the gun hovor as it shoots, but ultimately it would be a lot of variations on pointing and shooting.

Sure, but the point is not in the firing animation, we’ve already seen every sword animation they’re likely to use anyway (there are only currently abut 3-4 different sword animations in use already across two dozen attacks)).

The visual novelty would be in what happens after the shot is fired. A few I’d like to see, for example, would be like a shot that summons phonenixes to harass the enemy, like the Ranger Warhorn skill’s eagles. Or another where you fire directly at the target, which causes a cloud to grow over his head (with a dodge telegraph growing at his feet), and then after a second or so a strong bolt comes down, forcing him to dodge or take significant damage. Another where you fire a shot into the dirt and it does the burrowing animation to your target before sending a giant stone spike up at them, that sort of thing. There can be a lot of fun effects to be had.

Calm down guys, don’t want to get this thread locked.

To make it short.

Mainhand sword is liked by many for it´s “Style” and skins. But it won´t have much new options and lot´s of classes have it.

Offhand pistol as 900 range offensive weapon would be a logial and missing piece an expansion might offer but is less popular.

I don’t think how the weapons will “look” like or “feel” like are really important.

So what ele doesn´t have:
1.) A dedicated condi weapon, ele´s have hybrid weapons but non focused.
2.) A 900 range offensive offhand weapon.
3.) A pure melee (130 range). But this would be very close to dagger.

1.) Staff is a dedicated power weapon and has 1200 range (it’s also 2-handed). A 2-handed condition based 1200 range weapon might be needed to keep things “fair”. Disregarding the conjured weapons, we are left with Rifle and a Bow (is Frostbow a Short or a Long bow?)

2.) A 900 range offhand to be paired with Scepter, more dps than the other off hands but less support (conditions or hybrid). A Pistol would fit nice.

3.) This is where a Sword fits. Something more similar to a Thief sword with evades, together with mobility. Dagger main hand doesn’t have evades (burning speed is meh for evades)

So I’d say Rifle (ranged condi), Pistol (900 offhand dps), Sword (melee)

Wolfric.9380:

To make it short.

Mainhand sword is liked by many for it´s “Style” and skins. But it won´t have much new options and lot´s of classes have it.

Offhand pistol as 900 range offensive weapon would be a logial and missing piece an expansion might offer but is less popular.

It will also depend heavily on the next specialization mechanic. I want a sword because it has auto attacks, unlike an offhand weapon, as well as it fits in melee range.

What I’d imagine as far as specializations go is for the new mechanic to be about swapping attunements fast, the complete opposite of Overloads which want you to stay in one Attunement. Then, the skills will provide additional effects based on which attunement you swap to.

In a sense all 3 attunements can have the same 3 sword skills, but each attack would provide an extra benefit based on your attunment, in a way similar to how Glyphs work but in Weapon skills instead. So you’d chain attacks and in-between skills you will swap to provide extra benefits.

In a sense, a full melee high skill, high reward, combo burst kind of build.

Although both melee weapons, Dagger skills do NOT chain well and wouldn’t work with this fluid comboing mechanic I imagined. It’s good to talk about weapons individually, but keeping in mind how the actual specialization mechanic would work is also important.

well … warrior ? I can twoshot other builds with power warrior (had 18k last week on a thief with two hits) should ele offer this or have i swap trough all elements and pull of a 10 skill combo to do that damage?

Wolfric.9380:

well … warrior ? I can twoshot other builds with power warrior (had 18k last week on a thief with two hits) should ele offer this or have i swap trough all elements and pull of a 10 skill combo to do that damage?

That’s burst damage which is something Eles don’t really have. I’d rather they require multiple skills to do it than 1 skill, but if the skills are as I described them, you could use the same skills (in different attunements) to perform other things than raw DPS.

Amaya.1483:

What do you think it will be and what do you want?
I can imagine it will be the Torch, considering it is not a already summonable Weapon. That beeing said, I would kittening hate that. Warhorn already was just such a slap in the face…

I would like a GS…

I think it would be much healthier to concentrate on fixing core elementalist before moving to another useless lame elite specialization.

Ohoni.6057:

But also balance, that it wouldn’t be fair to give one class four times as many abilities as anyone else gets. Remember, Ele only launched with a total of three weapon sets, while most launched with six or more. If they keep adding one weapon per expansion evenly, then an added offhand is already more than a two-hander for another class. Again, I don’t see them ever adding a new two-hander unless a) they skip them on weapons entirely for the previous or subsequent expansion, or b) they restrict elements so that the new Elite spec can only use one or two of the elements. That’s just my assertion, sure, but I believe it’s based in a reasonable logic.

I’ve already explained how elementalists make a lot of tradeoffs for extra skills…

The flipside, however, is that it won’t be fair to elementalists if they get a constant stream of offhands while other professions get more significant new choices. Generally speaking, mainhand weapons are a much bigger influence on the playstyle of a build than offhands: if other professions are getting mainhands and two-handers while elementalists get offhand after offhand, then those other professions are actually getting more meaningful new choices even if the elementalist is still getting more skills on paper. How different does sceptre/focus really feel from sceptre/warhorn or even sceptre/dagger? Not much. Longbow dragonhunter, on the other hand, has a quite different feel even compared to sceptre/X dragonhunter.

Possibly the considerations you cite mean that elementalists will tend to get offhands more often than other professions. However, if we go three or four expansions in and elementalists keep just getting new offhands to use with the same dusty old dagger and sceptre, sooner or later elementalist players are going to revolt. If ArenaNet hasn’t realised that, they soon will.

No, Engi pistol fires gimmicks. It’s not magical. But again it’s a combined argument. Wandsword is pointless because it is covered BOTH by Scaper/Focus already doing wand-sword things, AND by other classes already having wandswords. It’s novel in no way, and thus makes little sense for expansion.

Sure, engineer pistols are technological rather than magical thematically, but they still shoot little fireballs, bolts of chain lightning, and gouts of fire. The same arguments apply both for and against either choice.

I’m not saying that you do have to double up on melee/range, I usually don’t, but my point is that if you spec your traits into melee, you likely won’t be very good at range, and vice versa, so you can either be a ranged build with the option to do a little melee, or a melee build that is not completely useless at range, but you can’t be great at both in a single build. There are trade-offs to be made.

And if the tradeoffs are based on traits, then you could have a sword which is melee in some attunements and “wandsword” in others, and which it’s better at could be based on traits.

Again, I’m looking for Offhand, so it would be in the same general range as Focus, but Focus is mostly based on defense/avoidance, pistol would be focused more on damage and gap-closing. It would be the offensive ranged offhand, which gives it a new role to fill. Do you see a melee sword as offering a non-DPS role? Something the Dagger doesn’t already do?

Well, just for a start, if the build trades having to go into melee for the defences to survive in melee, then it offers greater sustainability.

And there are other things that have been raised, such as, say, having a greater variety in effective ranges.

Me

A melee option could do more damage than dagger as a tradeoff for actually having to melee rather than still being able to dance just out of range of the cleavefest.

They couldn’t offer a melee Ele enough damage to make that a worthwhile trade. It would either be not enough damage to be worth using, or too much damage to be balanced with other classes.

I also offered two other tradeoffs. It could also be one of those, a combination of two or more, or possibly some other tradeoff I haven’t considered.

The visual novelty would be in what happens after the shot is fired. A few I’d like to see, for example, would be like a shot that summons phonenixes to harass the enemy, like the Ranger Warhorn skill’s eagles. Or another where you fire directly at the target, which causes a cloud to grow over his head (with a dodge telegraph growing at his feet), and then after a second or so a strong bolt comes down, forcing him to dodge or take significant damage. Another where you fire a shot into the dirt and it does the burrowing animation to your target before sending a giant stone spike up at them, that sort of thing. There can be a lot of fun effects to be had.

Your examples don’t require a pistol to be used. Any of those effects could be used with basically any item, and none of them really scream ‘this is something that comes out of an enchanted pistol’ to me. Compare to, say, tempest warhorn, where pretty much all the skills have the theme of blowing something out of the warhorn.

I should note here that I personally have no objection to the idea of a pistol elementalist in principle – mainhand or offhand. I’m not trying to argue that your preferred option is bad, just demonstrating the flaws in the arguments that you’re trying to make that another popular option simply can’t happen.

Ohoni.6057:

But also balance, that it wouldn’t be fair to give one class four times as many abilities as anyone else gets. Remember, Ele only launched with a total of three weapon sets, while most launched with six or more. If they keep adding one weapon per expansion evenly, then an added offhand is already more than a two-hander for another class. Again, I don’t see them ever adding a new two-hander unless a) they skip them on weapons entirely for the previous or subsequent expansion, or b) they restrict elements so that the new Elite spec can only use one or two of the elements. That’s just my assertion, sure, but I believe it’s based in a reasonable logic.

This does not seem to be the way Anet does elite specs though. If you look at the first wave of elite specs, you will see that there is an enormous variation in the amount of new skills that professions get.

All professions get the standard elite + healing + 4 utility skills, but when it comes to weapon skills and profession mechanics Anet is not afraid of giving some professions a much larger amount of skills.

Mesmers only got 2 weapon skills and 1 shatter with Chronomancer.
Necromancers got 5 weapon skills and 5 new shroud skills.
Elementalists got 8 new weapon skills and 4 overloads.

As you can see, chronomancer only got 3 skills that are not elite, healing or utility. Even though tempest had to get at least 8 skills for a weapon, they still gave it an additional 4 for the profession mechanic. Sure, you could argue that it is because the profession mechanic was overloads, but they could have chosen a different mechanic that didn’t need that many skills. That tells me that they really wouldn’t mind choosing a weapon with more skills if it fits the theme.

Besides, I would like to think that in the next expansion they will be capable of making elite specs that have a higher amount of abilities on average. HoT was an expansion that they didn’t have much time to prepare for, because they weren’t initially planning to make expansions. In addition, the profession team had to make Revenant from scratch as well, which potentially took development resourses from elite specs.

Coldtart.4785:

Ohoni.6057:

I take my queues from how ANet designs. They seem to follow certain patterns.

That pattern gave us tempest. I’m going to take cues from patterns that aren’t terrible.

As most ele run tempest line at all points of the game i am not sure why you think tempest is that bad.

Any way i see it like a slide bar the more skills from the weapon the less skills from the class the more skills from the class then less skill from the weapon. Tempest is our only example and it got a good number of weapon skill even though it was not as many as a main hand / 2h weapon but that just the way ele is. So on tempest we got 4 new f1-f4 skills. So about 12 new skills. A sword mh ele would get that 12 skills with its weapon alone and that could be all they get with there line simply complementing there new weapons and utility that are still active. I see a 2h weapon giving 20 new skills but borderline pure passive utility skills.

draxynnic.3719:

While this does make it a little more suspect, it also doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

People were proposing a melee ritualist who drew power through channeling the spirits of the dead into their own body as early as 2013, when ArenaNet’s policy was still “we don’t need expansions, we have Living Story”. Speaking personally, I got mesmer sword pretty much bang on months before mesmer was officially announced, when a lot of people were claiming that a cerebral spellcaster-type like mesmer couldn’t possibly have a melee option because they’re a spellcaster and spellcasters don’t use melee weapons (sound familiar?).

Revenant was going to be a core profession, but development didn’t finalize for release and it was replaced by engineer instead. This was stated by Anet when Revenant was being revealed. IW Mesmers were a thing in GW1, and caster classes were known to wield various melee weapons in different builds.

I don’t see why Eles getting more skills than other professions should preclude us getting a new two-hander.

The devs made the conscious decision to give Eles the Attunement mechanic. It would be a poor excuse for them to avoid giving Eles another two-hander just because they would have to balance 20 new skills. And, like others have mentioned, Ele weapon skills on an individual basis are weaker/more situational than those of other classes. Not to mention, Attunement swap is affected by Chill, which does affect how often Eles can spam their weapon skills (of course, it is affected by Alacrity too.)

Personally, I’m sick of having only one two-handed option since launch (Trident notwithstanding.) I’d love Greatsword, even though we have FGS already.

Hmmm would love to have sword , great sword, pistol or rifle for new weapons, chance are most ele will fry in melee range. sometime dunno if it is bad joke. To be frank it kind of pointless to have whole lot of weapon but your only be using a fix set really prefer weapon swap then a new weapon.

What I find the funniest in this discussion is how fixed some people are on one weapon or another. Remember there won’t be only one more expansion for the game, try not to be so absolute.

Ohoni.6057:

You do understand that this is a forum, right? A place for discussion? I mean, you don’t have to participate, but nobody cares if you choose not to.

Right. I’m choosing to share my thoughts and opinions on a public forum. Same as you. You don’t have to engage with nor agree with me. I couldn’t care less.

I’d totally be cool with a pistol off-hand if they did it justice. I’m not at all opposed to the idea. Not my first choice though, as I’d go with sword. Mainhand preferably.

Simple as that.

You keep coming at it like I’m trying to discredit your idea. I’m not. I just have a different one from you.

But I repeat myself. I can only hope this concept isn’t very hard for you to understand. You seem like a smart enough guy.

steve.2945:

Calm down guys, don’t want to get this thread locked.

Agreed.

There’s a certain element of antagonism to ideas being presented that isn’t present in some of the other profession forums, but there’s some really good thoughts here mixed in.

1.) Staff is a dedicated power weapon and has 1200 range (it’s also 2-handed). A 2-handed condition based 1200 range weapon might be needed to keep things “fair”. Disregarding the conjured weapons, we are left with Rifle and a Bow (is Frostbow a Short or a Long bow?)

There’s no need to “keep things fair,” the current situation is not unfair, and 2-handed weapons are highly unlikely due to the attunement swapping multiplier.

3.) This is where a Sword fits. Something more similar to a Thief sword with evades, together with mobility. Dagger main hand doesn’t have evades (burning speed is meh for evades)

Thief sword has evades because thieves are very evadey. Eles should not be as Evadey.

In a sense all 3 attunements can have the same 3 sword skills, but each attack would provide an extra benefit based on your attunment, in a way similar to how Glyphs work but in Weapon skills instead. So you’d chain attacks and in-between skills you will swap to provide extra benefits.

I think if they tried this they would be slammed hard for being “lazy,” even though they’d be putting out as many unique skills as any other class would be getting.

I’ve already explained how elementalists make a lot of tradeoffs for extra skills…

Yes, but you’ve also said you want to remove all those trade-offs, so. . .

The flipside, however, is that it won’t be fair to elementalists if they get a constant stream of offhands while other professions get more significant new choices.

There’s nothing wrong with new offhands, so long as they add meaningful options to the profression. Keep in mind, you can only use one elite spec at a time, so it’s not like adding Sword would allow you to go Sword/Warhorn, or that if Mesmers get mainhand Mace they could go Mace/Shield or whatever. Getting a new weapon just means adding that one weapon to what they’ve got, so Eles gaining another offhand would be five more options than Mes or Warrior got last time around, and three more than anyone else got.

Sure, engineer pistols are technological rather than magical thematically, but they still shoot little fireballs, bolts of chain lightning, and gouts of fire. The same arguments apply both for and against either choice.

No, but thanks for trying.

And if the tradeoffs are based on traits, then you could have a sword which is melee in some attunements and “wandsword” in others, and which it’s better at could be based on traits.

Again, no. Eles can’t get that same flexibility of ranges that other classes can because they get more total moves. The only way you could justify a “melee in some attunements, range in others” ele is if they were limited to only two elements. You can’t have everything other classes can do AND what eles can do that others cannot.

Well, just for a start, if the build trades having to go into melee for the defences to survive in melee, then it offers greater sustainability.

Ele already has plenty of sustainability, just not in melee range. Making an Ele that could facetank mobs would be tricky to balance on top of their other strengths.

Your examples don’t require a pistol to be used. Any of those effects could be used with basically any item, and none of them really scream ‘this is something that comes out of an enchanted pistol’ to me.

You missed the part about the bullet being fired? That wouldn’t make sense with a mace.

Maces don’t fire bullets.

All professions get the standard elite + healing + 4 utility skills, but when it comes to weapon skills and profession mechanics Anet is not afraid of giving some professions a much larger amount of skills.

Yeah, and some variation is inevitable, they can’t make an Ele weapon with less than 8 skills, for example, but 200 vs. 5 is a HUGE variation. I suspect that in the next expansion, the classes that got MH last time are more likely to get OH, those that got OH are more likely to get MH (aside from Ele who could go either way), and classes that got 2H are likely to not get 2H this time (aside from Thief). That way, between the two sets they would fall closer to balance.

Jski.6180:

As most ele run tempest line at all points of the game i am not sure why you think tempest is that bad.

There’s a distinction between “well-designed” and “numbers so overtuned that it’s objectively better to run it than not even if you hate the design”. It’s well recognised among the playerbase that running an elite specialisation > not running an elite specialisation in most cases, despite ArenaNet’s promise that the elite specialisations wouldn’t be more powerful than the core professions.

I actually like tempest and have defended it in the past, but I recognise the viewpoint of those that don’t like it, and part of my defence of tempest while in beta hinged on the concept that if you didn’t like the playstyle, you could play core elementalist without handicapping yourself. Which is not the case presently.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Revenant was going to be a core profession, but development didn’t finalize for release and it was replaced by engineer instead. This was stated by Anet when Revenant was being revealed. IW Mesmers were a thing in GW1, and caster classes were known to wield various melee weapons in different builds.

I don’t recall any mention of revenant being originally intended as a core profession, and I’m pretty sure that engineer wasn’t something they threw in at the last minute because they couldn’t get revenant finished. It’s pretty clear that they wanted a tech-focused profession from the start of GW2’s development, and there are indications that engineer was in development well before it was officially unveiled (it has been mentioned that it was originally going to be a heavy armour profession).

It’s definitely plausible that revenant was conceived in the original development. They came up with more profession ideas than were actually used, after all (and some got merged – they were originally going to split the ranger into two professions, and then they merged them back into one). Revenant-like concepts were possibly the most common on the forum, and it may be because there was a revenant-shaped hole created when other professions were drafted with revenant in mind, leaving a gap when revenant was pulled from the original release. If there was any replacement, it might be because revenant was originally planned to be a medium armour profession, and engineer dropped into that slot after revenant was pulled.

Regarding mesmers… those were pretty much the arguments I made back then. There were still people insisting that mesmer couldn’t use swords because duh, it’s a spellcaster.

Ohoni.6057:

There’s nothing wrong with new offhands, so long as they add meaningful options to the profression.

Except that they don’t add as much to the profession as a mainhand or a two-handed weapon.

Necromancers getting greatsword, guardians getting longbow, engineers getting hammer, and rangers getting staff have all had much bigger impacts on how those professions play (if you choose to use them) than any of the new offhands, (including chronomancer shield which is the standout among the new offhands) even if tempest technically got more new skills. This is because you use the 1-3 skills much more often than the 4-5 skills, and thus they have more impact on your build and playstyle. Choice of a 2H or MH weapon fundamentally changes how you play. Choice of an offhand, while not completely insignificant, just doesn’t have the same impact.

So, is it really fair for other professions to keep getting new playstyles from new weapons while elementalists keep being limited to the same staff, scepter and dagger for the rest of the game’s lifespan?

Again, no. Eles can’t get that same flexibility of ranges that other classes can because they get more total moves. The only way you could justify a “melee in some attunements, range in others” ele is if they were limited to only two elements. You can’t have everything other classes can do AND what eles can do that others cannot.

No, here you’re trying to make them have the worst of both worlds – two attunements would mean they have the same number of skills as everyone else, but are still forced to choose all their weapon skills in one weapon set.

The tradeoff for having more skills is primarily that they have to choose all their skills in one go, secondarily that the individual skills are generally less impactful than those of other professions. Most elementalist builds are saddled with half a dozen or so skills that the player just isn’t going to be able to make good use of, but they’re stuck with them because they come bundled with the skills they do want. Other professions are much better at being able to eliminate waste skills from their build.

Range limitation is a tradeoff that comes after that, one that could easily be substituted for the alternate tradeoff of “you can have a weapon that doesn’t have this tradeoff, but only if you choose the associated elite specialisation, which (of course) means that you can’t have the benefits of any other elite specialisation.”

(Reducing the number of attunements available would also make some core traitlines less compatible with the weapon, and I seem to recall that you were arguing on the basis that incompatibility with core traitlines was a bad thing earlier.)

Ele already has plenty of sustainability, just not in melee range. Making an Ele that could facetank mobs would be tricky to balance on top of their other strengths.

Not really. Most of that sustainability comes from the defensive and healing skills on the weapon set, so on a new weapon they can tune the sustainability to whatever they feel is appropriate.

You missed the part about the bullet being fired? That wouldn’t make sense with a mace.

Maces don’t fire bullets.

They don’t need to. You’re relying on effects at the target in order to get unique animations.

A phoenix swarm? I can see that fitting much better by summoning the phoenixes with a commanding gesture using the mace as a marshal’s baton then from shooting a bullet at someone.

The lightning bolt with a delay? The spellcaster points the mace at the sky as the strike builds.

The burrow animation with an earth spike coming out at the end? The spellcaster slams the mace into the ground to generate the seismic effect you describe.

None of those examples of animations at the target that you cite actually require a bullet to be fired. Whether they’re implemented with pistol, sword, mace, or any other weapon is purely a matter of personal preference.

Now, what I’d expect from a gunmage specialisation is attacks that, while magical, mimic technology in some way or where the effect amplifies the blast of firing the gun in some way. So it could fire a magical flare which explodes on the target, blinding those nearby. The concussive force of the pistol’s powder detonating is amplified into a shockwave. Fire magic is used to enhance the generation of smoke and ash from the powder, possibly giving the elementalist access to something they don’t normally have like a smoke field or poison (noting that the price for this access is that they have to commit to this particular elite specialisation).

Which could make for a quite interesting theme, but again, I’m not the one here who’s trying to argue that a particular weapon can’t ever happen.

Ohoni.6057:

Your arguments keep circling back around to “I want to run Dagger mainhand, but I want to see a sword displayed on the model when I do so.”

Dagger is not really a melee weapon. I say this because only lightning-1 has the ability to cleave. Everything else is just a weird, close-range spell. Water-1 has a 600 range which isn’t even “close”.

So a main-hand sword as a true melee weapon with cleave abilities would switch things up a bit.

Except that they don’t add as much to the profession as a mainhand or a two-handed weapon.

This is true, but they do add more to the profession than a two-hander adds to any other class, so that’s fair. I know, I know, “more, more MOOOOORE!!!” is the mantra, but sometimes “more” is not what is owed.

Necromancers getting greatsword, guardians getting longbow, engineers getting hammer, and rangers getting staff have all had much bigger impacts on how those professions play (if you choose to use them) than any of the new offhands,

That’s just because Warhorn was pretty lame. If Warhorn had been a pistol, everyone would be talking about how awesome it was.

This is because you use the 1-3 skills much more often than the 4-5 skills, and thus they have more impact on your build and playstyle.

Again, totally depends. The #5 skills on thieves tend to define their gameplay more than anything. I also consider by Guard’s Focus skills to be more important than his Scepter skills. You may not use them as often, but they tend to be a pretty big deal when you do.

So, is it really fair for other professions to keep getting new playstyles from new weapons while elementalists keep being limited to the same staff, scepter and dagger for the rest of the game’s lifespan?

Yes. I don’t think Eles will never get MH or 2H options, I just think that they will be fewer than the other classes, and there will be offsets involved.

The tradeoff for having more skills is primarily that they have to choose all their skills in one go, secondarily that the individual skills are generally less impactful than those of other professions. Most elementalist builds are saddled with half a dozen or so skills that the player just isn’t going to be able to make good use of, but they’re stuck with them because they come bundled with the skills they do want. Other professions are much better at being able to eliminate waste skills from their build.

Not really. Pretty much any weapon in the game has 1-2 abilities that rarely get used or make much difference if they are, but people still pick the weapon because of the usefulness of the remaining abilities. That’s not an “Ele problem.”

(Reducing the number of attunements available would also make some core traitlines less compatible with the weapon, and I seem to recall that you were arguing on the basis that incompatibility with core traitlines was a bad thing earlier.)

I discussed this in the other thread that was more generally about the next Ele elite spec, but basically I think that if they do add a new 2H (like the GS), then it will almost certainly come with an element limit. I’m thinking they might first release “Volcanics” that offer Fire/Earth, then in the next expansion offer “Something that isn’t Tempest, even though Tempest would be perfect, which admittedly is a very long name for a profession, but I’m not the one that put us here,” which would be Water/Air only. Yes, being a Volcanic would make Air and Water traitlines kind of weak for you, but that could be solved by either making being a Volcanic cool enough that people don’t mind the more restrictive choice, OR by having a part of the Volcanic traitline be that Fire counts as Air and Earth as Water when dealing with those traitlines, making them mostly as useful as they already are.

I just do not believe that they would dump 20 Ele skills into the game in one go, not unless they gave every other class at least a 2H and a MH, or like three MH and an OH or something.

They don’t need to. You’re relying on effects at the target in order to get unique animations.

You’re making a silly argument. Any impact in the game could come from any weapon, no weapon is absolutely necessary for any effect. They could make the pistol be the pure melee beat-down weapon you want, where every attack is just pistol whipping people. The point is that the thematic element of the pistol shots turning into cool things on impact would be fun and engaging, whereas any form of “spellsword” or “wandsword” ele would be just doing what other classes are already doing with their own swords.

Dagger is not really a melee weapon. I say this because only lightning-1 has the ability to cleave. Everything else is just a weird, close-range spell. Water-1 has a 600 range which isn’t even “close”.

So a main-hand sword as a true melee weapon with cleave abilities would switch things up a bit.

But Air does cleave, so they already have that option, which is as much as any other class gets out of a melee MH. It’s also worth keeping in mind that Water 1 is a piercing attack that can also hit multiple targets, it’s it’s basically a cleave with a longer reach, and Fire 1 shoots three blasts that can often hit multiple nearby enemies.

Ohoni.6057:

It’s also worth keeping in mind that Water 1 is a piercing attack that can also hit multiple targets, it’s it’s basically a cleave with a longer reach, and Fire 1 shoots three blasts that can often hit multiple nearby enemies.

You heard it here first, folks: dragon’s claw and vapor blade are good now. The meta is changing at an alarming rate.

They always have been, used appropriately. Do you even Ele?

Grouping related responses for clarity:

Ohoni.6057:

This is true, but they do add more to the profession than a two-hander adds to any other class, so that’s fair. I know, I know, “more, more MOOOOORE!!!” is the mantra, but sometimes “more” is not what is owed.

How much something something adds is more than just counting up the number of skills. You have to consider how often those skills are used, how much impact they have when they’re used, whether they have broad applicability or are only useful in niche situations, whether they allow for new tactical options or if they’re just filler, whether they contribute to the possibility of new builds, and a number of other considerations.

Taken all together, a 2H weapon for another profession is probably worth at least 10 skills for an elementalist… and not just ten offhand skills, but skills across the spread from slot 1 to 5. To continue…

Again, totally depends. The #5 skills on thieves tend to define their gameplay more than anything. I also consider by Guard’s Focus skills to be more important than his Scepter skills. You may not use them as often, but they tend to be a pretty big deal when you do.

Thieves are a special case, because they do have the option to just spend all their initiative spamming a given skill if they so choose, regardless of whether that skill is #2 or #5. Because of that, they’re actually the profession that is as prone to having overspecialised skills as elementalist: in the thief’s case, because if one particular skill isn’t useful, you can spam the one that is.

For other professions, it’s the 1-3 skills that make the most difference to the style. I’m not saying the 4-5 skills are insignificant, but to take your guardian example: taking shield over focus feels about as different as choosing one utility skill over another. Mace, sceptre, and sword all have very different styles, though.

Your argument against new elementalist MH or 2H weapons seem to basically boil down to:

1) ArenaNet is too lazy to make that many skills in one go. I choose to have a little more faith in them than that.
2) It would somehow be ‘unfair’ to other professions for elementalists to get more skills at once. I refute this in two ways:
a. Each individual skill for other professions has more impact. Five skills for a conventional profession from a 2H weapon would have at least as much impact as the twelve from a new elementalist MH weapon, possibly even as much as the full 20 for an elementalist 2H weapon when that new weapon brings a capability that the profession didn’t have before. Such as melee cleave for necromancers, melee anything that doesn’t take up a kit slot for engineers, reliable long-range fire for guardians, or support for rangers.
b. Having lots of skills has been part of the theme and balancing of elementalists from the start. They’ve already paid the price for it. It would be pretty unfair for them to pay an additional price of being stuck with essentially the same primary weapon options they started with while other professions get an increasingly expanded range.

Broadly speaking, the number of new skills doesn’t matter. The collective impact that they have is what matters.

Not really. Pretty much any weapon in the game has 1-2 abilities that rarely get used or make much difference if they are, but people still pick the weapon because of the usefulness of the remaining abilities. That’s not an “Ele problem.”

Not to the same degree (except thieves as noted above, and for them it’s not a big deal since they’re limited by initiative rather than individual cooldowns). Elementalists have a number of skills which all they do is to inflict a Blind (the either do no damage or at best equivalent damage to autoattacking) – most blinding skills on other professions are at least dual-use (exceptions: Smoldering Arrow and Flash Grenade… which is less, across all other professions, then elementalist has) and some grant three or more benefits (Symbol of Blades is a teleport, a blind, and a symbol, to give just one example). Dual-use skills on elementalist are rare: a lot of things that are rolled into one skill on other professions would be two or even three on the elementalist. Lightning Strike, in particular, would be rolled into the autoattack for anyone but elementalist.

This is part of the tradeoff for elementalists getting more skills. It’s not entirely a disadvantage – having separate skills for Effect A and Effect B means that you don’t waste Effect A when you use the skill to get Effect B. By and large, though, individual elementalist weapon skills are less versatile and have less impact then their equivalents on other professions.

That’s just because Warhorn was pretty lame. If Warhorn had been a pistol, everyone would be talking about how awesome it was.

You’re making a silly argument. Any impact in the game could come from any weapon, no weapon is absolutely necessary for any effect. They could make the pistol be the pure melee beat-down weapon you want, where every attack is just pistol whipping people. The point is that the thematic element of the pistol shots turning into cool things on impact would be fun and engaging, whereas any form of “spellsword” or “wandsword” ele would be just doing what other classes are already doing with their own swords.

Putting these together, it sounds like you don’t actually care what the skills are, as long as you get to see yourself carrying a pistol.

Which is pretty much what you’ve accused people who want sword of doing.

Would everybody be saying how awesome it was if elementalist had been given a pistol in HoT, but the pistol uses the same skills as warhorn does now? I rather doubt it.

(From my perspective, we already have a precedent of combining elemental magic and technology with the Molten Alliance. It’d be a shame if a gun-toting elementalist did show up just using generic elemental skills that could work with any weapon rather than playing on that theme.)

I discussed this in the other thread that was more generally about the next Ele elite spec, but basically I think that if they do add a new 2H (like the GS), then it will almost certainly come with an element limit. I’m thinking they might first release “Volcanics” that offer Fire/Earth, then in the next expansion offer “Something that isn’t Tempest, even though Tempest would be perfect, which admittedly is a very long name for a profession, but I’m not the one that put us here,” which would be Water/Air only. Yes, being a Volcanic would make Air and Water traitlines kind of weak for you, but that could be solved by either making being a Volcanic cool enough that people don’t mind the more restrictive choice, OR by having a part of the Volcanic traitline be that Fire counts as Air and Earth as Water when dealing with those traitlines, making them mostly as useful as they already are.

And as noted above, you’re still having the worst of both worlds – having just one weaponset, but only having the same number of skills as everyone else.

Unless you also allow weaponswapping as part of the same elite specialisation mechanic that takes away two attunements, in which case it pushes into having the best of both worlds – you get twenty skills at once, and you can have the build versatility allowed by weaponswapping. From your previous statements and arguments, though, it seems safe to say you’d be against that.

Maybe it would work for three attunements… but then you’ve still got the question of what you do with the leftover attunement. Do you apply its traits to one of the other attunements? Then you could potentially have the traits for two attunements running at once. At that point, it’d be easier to throw in a few more filler skills, increase the recharges, and make it four.

How much something something adds is more than just counting up the number of skills. You have to consider how often those skills are used, how much impact they have when they’re used, whether they have broad applicability or are only useful in niche situations, whether they allow for new tactical options or if they’re just filler, whether they contribute to the possibility of new builds, and a number of other considerations.

and the same applies to ALL weapons on ALL classes. Again, skills that have niche usefulness are not an Ele problem, everyone deals with them. Eles just have 20 weapon skills at a time to choose from, so even if anything less than half of them are complete duds, they’re still ahead of the other classes. If Eles get a new Main Hand weapon, then even if half the skills are complete duds that never get used for any reason, they still come away with more useful skills than ANY other class, and well more than those who aren’t getting two-handers.

Again, I’m not saying that Eles will never or should never get a new 2H or MH weapon, but respect the work it will take and the fairness to the other eight classes involved. It’s not all about you.

For other professions, it’s the 1-3 skills that make the most difference to the style. I’m not saying the 4-5 skills are insignificant, but to take your guardian example: taking shield over focus feels about as different as choosing one utility skill over another. Mace, sceptre, and sword all have very different styles, though.

Scepter makes a difference because it’s ranged, but mace/sword are far more interchangeable than Shield/Focus/Torch. If Guard had a second ranged MH then that would also be interchangeable with Scepter, presumably. Other examples would be Necro OH Dagger, which is definitive for condi-passing builds, and Mesmer Focus which was vital back before Chronomancer for getting around. Mesmer offhands typically carry their Phantasms, which are vital to some builds, whichever you choose. The only case in which MH matters more is in cases where a class only has one viable ranged MH or one viable melee mainhand, in which case that pretty much defines their options, but whenever a class is given at least two of each, you could use whichever you like.

a. Each individual skill for other professions has more impact.

No.

Having lots of skills has been part of the theme and balancing of elementalists from the start. They’ve already paid the price for it.

As I pointed out, when Eles launched, it was with LESS weapons than other classes. One underwater when other get two, two mainhands where many others had three, two offhands where many others had 3-4, one two-hand where others typically had two. That was the trade-off, that was the balance, Eles got more bang out of each weapon, therefore they got more weapons.

If your theory held, that each Ele attack somehow counts for less than a non-Ele attack, then there’s no reason why Eles would not have launched with 8-9 weapons like everyone else.

But it doesn’t hold, so the balance was that eles get less weapons. The problem then is that they added a new weapon for every class with HoT, and gave players the expectation that they would continue to add a new weapon with each new expansion, which means that now Eles would be getting a new weapon every time everyone else gets one, and that balance is broken. To maintain the balance, they would either have to skip Eles for entire expansions (maybe giving them new traitlines with new play mechanics and utilities, but using existing weapons), OR they need to introduce weapons in a way that add the fewest new moves possible to the repertoire.

Broadly speaking, the number of new skills doesn’t matter. The collective impact that they have is what matters.

Assuming that they TRY to make a fun and balanced weapon, the two should be one and the same. I mean I suppose they could give Eles MH Sword but deliberately make 9/12 abilities complete junk that nobody ever presses, so that they would be balanced against the 3 new abilities other classes getting MHs would have, but I can’t imagine the rest of the community embracing that as eagerly as you would.

Not to the same degree (except thieves as noted above, and for them it’s not a big deal since they’re limited by initiative rather than individual cooldowns). Elementalists have a number of skills which all they do is to inflict a Blind (the either do no damage or at best equivalent damage to autoattacking) – most blinding skills on other professions are at least dual-use

Blind is great, I love blind, especially now with breakbars. Blind is a very strong breakbar DoT.

Putting these together, it sounds like you don’t actually care what the skills are, as long as you get to see yourself carrying a pistol.

Halfway. I definitely want to see a pistol, I’ve been fairly clear about that, but mechanically I am 100% behind getting a strong DPS/aggressive ranged offhand. If it happens to be a Torch or a Shield or something, I would think that’s lamer than a gun, but it’s still something I would want to slot, if the abilities are as good as I’d hope.

Which is pretty much what you’ve accused people who want sword of doing.

And I’ve been clear why I just think that’s a bad idea, as the obvious mechanical role for a sword is not something that’s a good fit for Eles, while the counter-intuitive role for it would be something that Eles don’t really need either, and both are things that other classes already do, so it lacks even novelty.

Would everybody be saying how awesome it was if elementalist had been given a pistol in HoT, but the pistol uses the same skills as warhorn does now? I rather doubt it.

Of course not. I’m assuming in my example that it’s a pistol as I described it, a solid DPS/aggressive ranged weapon, not a support/CC weapon.

And as noted above, you’re still having the worst of both worlds – having just one weaponset, but only having the same number of skills as everyone else.

You would have less choice in what you got, since the weapons you slot would define all 10 of your options rather than just 5, but done well, they would present a balanced set of options, a “meta-build worthy” set of ten abilities, so most players should have no reason to complain. If they like what that set offers, they can take it and be competitive. If they don’t like that, they can stick with Tempest.

Unless you also allow weaponswapping as part of the same elite specialisation mechanic that takes away two attunements, in which case it pushes into having the best of both worlds –

If weapons swapping worked too, it would have to limit you to only one element. You keep pushing for “I want everything the other classes have, AND all the benefits that Eles have over those classes.” It’s either/or.

At the end of the day we can sit here as long as we want coming up with contrived reasons why the next ele elite weapon should be X but the only question that really matters is:

What weapon does Karl want to ruin next?

Btw: if it was up to me, I’d choose pistol because it’s obvious by now that scepter will never be good, so the only way we’re ever getting a good single target ranged weapon is if one gets added in an elite and benefits from dat power creep.

There is the leak (although leaks should be taken with a grain of salt), and the .dat mining pre-HoT that found elementalist sword skills, which suggests that they’ve at least considered it.

We don’t know why they chose to go otherwise, of course.

Pistol certainly has the potential to be interesting… but if they introduce technology into the profession that way, I would like to see them go all the way. Make it an elite specialisation based around reverse-engineered Molten Alliance tech and asuran electro-thaumic ray gun thingies (rest in peace, Barron).

pre-HoT that found elementalist sword skills, which suggests that they’ve at least considered it.

Yeah, although they were mostly filler skills, so who knows it even was a Sword spec and not just something they were knocking together for some other purpose. And they clearly abandoned it for some reason. The optimistic answer is that they didn’t have time to finish that one for HoT so they switched to Tempest and have been working on it since, but it could also be that they did some play testing with it and just didn’t like the core aspects of it.

Pistol certainly has the potential to be interesting… but if they introduce technology into the profession that way, I would like to see them go all the way. Make it an elite specialisation based around reverse-engineered Molten Alliance tech and asuran electro-thaumic ray gun thingies (rest in peace, Barron).

I don’t think advanced tech would be appropriate. Full steampunk and sci-fi is the Engineer’s territory and I see no advantage for Eles to encroach on it. These would be very simple black powder guns, mechanically the simplest of the simple. All the “juice” of the weapon, all that makes them different than a real world ball pistol, would come from the Ele materializing their elemental rounds to fire. They wouldn’t be fancy guns, they would be guns wielded by fancy people.

draxynnic.3719:

There is the leak (although leaks should be taken with a grain of salt), and the .dat mining pre-HoT that found elementalist sword skills, which suggests that they’ve at least considered it.

We don’t know why they chose to go otherwise, of course.

Pistol certainly has the potential to be interesting… but if they introduce technology into the profession that way, I would like to see them go all the way. Make it an elite specialisation based around reverse-engineered Molten Alliance tech and asuran electro-thaumic ray gun thingies (rest in peace, Barron).

Thats what i’ve been saying. sword has a 60% chance of becoming the next weapon. greatsword 20% and pistol 20%. if it were me id say this," Why start on a blank slate,when i have a weapon with skills already being developed?".

So much text for somehthing that´s a matter of taste :-)

Greetings

Wolf

PS: For those that want do go more deep listen to Ohoni.

Ohoni.6057:

I don’t think advanced tech would be appropriate. Full steampunk and sci-fi is the Engineer’s territory and I see no advantage for Eles to encroach on it. These would be very simple black powder guns, mechanically the simplest of the simple. All the “juice” of the weapon, all that makes them different than a real world ball pistol, would come from the Ele materializing their elemental rounds to fire. They wouldn’t be fancy guns, they would be guns wielded by fancy people.

Engineers are based on charr steampunk tech. Asura and Molten Alliance stuff is magitech.

We don’t know just what the division of labour between dredge engineers and Flame Legion shamans was in making the Molten Alliance tech, but when it comes to the asuran magitech, it’s as likely to have been designed and made by an elementalist or mesmer as it is to have been made by an engineer… possibly more so, since even asura engineers tend to focus on more conventional technology. As one example, the main armament of the Glory of Tyria that shot Zhaitan’s tail off was designed by Zojja, who’s an elementalist.

The magitech-oriented elementalist would be using a gun that may or may not be fancy to look at (that depends on the skin the player chooses, after all), but either way, it has the properties it has because the magitech elementalist has customised it, enchanted it, and attuned it to themselves so that it does. Meanwhile, their utility skills would be oriented towards other magitech devices they’ve cooked up.

Regarding the general concept of encroaching on the territory of other professions… we’ve already had elite specialisations which are transparently designed to do just that. Dragonhunter, for instance, is an obvious guardian/ranger multiclass. While not all elite specialisations will follow this model, part of the idea behind elite specialisations does seem to be to be a vehicle by which something like the secondary professions of GW1 could return.

And to me, that’s much more interesting than using skills that any elementalist could use, but you just happen to be carrying a firearm instead of some other weapon focus.

Dual staff wielding:
New skills for each attunements, possibility to mix/replace them with old skills in the interface when out of combat.

New trait line that improve speed, range and effectiveness with staff.
Old skills, like meteorshower, could have a knockdown effect with that trait line.

3 new fields: Smoke field, Earth field, Storm field (new boons)

An elite skills that blast a field 3 times instantly and burst damage out.

staff/sword ;-)

Wolfric.9380:

staff/sword ;-)

If the Wizard Lightning Finisher dude gets to do it, why shouldn’t we? :p

draxynnic.3719:

There’s a distinction between “well-designed” and “numbers so overtuned that it’s objectively better to run it than not even if you hate the design”. It’s well recognised among the playerbase that running an elite specialisation > not running an elite specialisation in most cases, despite ArenaNet’s promise that the elite specialisations wouldn’t be more powerful than the core professions.

I actually like tempest and have defended it in the past, but I recognise the viewpoint of those that don’t like it, and part of my defence of tempest while in beta hinged on the concept that if you didn’t like the playstyle, you could play core elementalist without handicapping yourself. Which is not the case presently.

As ppl seem to only look at tempest base off of it has a wh and it has overloade then yes it looks bad but tempest added soo much more to ele things that ele had no way of doing before adding in tempest that fits the ele class well. Aura healing support is a very specialized type of playing for ele that at best before was just a few boons. Now its a type that is able to truly keep ppl alive and give them good boons. The specialization should not be able to do it all and tempest is the support line. The next may be dmg or tank or something else but to call tempest bad at this point seeing what ppl have done with it is a bit silly.

Here is a video of Ele with focus in main and offhand – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UdGFX1zZq0 :p