Guild Wars 2

Class Features

Conjures
There are just so many issues with conjures. What should have been a balanced part of the class has instead simply been stapled on and repeatedly nerfed when a use has been devised for them.

The most common suggestion for conjures is to have them function as kits, similar to those of the engineer. There is significant issue with this, as elementalist already has kits. They’re called attunements, and we get them for free. Nonetheless, the idea can’t be entirely thrown out, as the basic idea of conjures is to fulfill a similar purpose.

My solution is to make conjures an F5 ability. The weapon you have is dependant on your attunement. Air gives you the lightning hammer, water gives you the ice bow, and so on. When you swap attunements, your weapon changes accordingly. There are no charges. With this class feature implemented, all the current individual conjure abilities can be made into elite skills and improved accordingly to be worthy of taking them in that slot.

Utility Skills

Arcane Shield: make the explosion a blast finisher.
Cleansing Fire: make it break stun.
Ride the Lightning: It’s time to bring this back.

Traits

Arcane Minor Traits: Lingering Elements and Arcane Precision are laughably inferior to other minor traits.
Blinding Flash [Evasive Arcana air effect]: the 5 seconds of blindness should make all attacks during that period miss, not just the first one.
Burning Fire: This is probably my favourite trait from the fire line, but there is a persistent bug in that it says “Use Cleansing Fire…”, but it does not count as a cantrip being used. This needs to be addressed.
Conjurer: Reduce recharge rate on F5 (conjure, see above). Move to arcana. Replace with a new trait that stacks an existing benefit of the trait line (thereby improving the fire line’s internal synergy).
Elemental Attunement: The boons provided by this trait need to be baseline. However, the baseline benefit should only apply to the elementalist themselves, not nearby allies. This trait should also remain at master tier, and be changed to simply improve the baseline effect to include nearby allies, but the radius should be reduced to 180 (from 240).
Geomancer’s Freedom: For a master tier trait, this needs to be re-tooled to reduce all condition durations on you. This would add synergy to the line with Diamond Skin, which is easily my favourite earth trait.
Zephyr’s Speed: change to: regain endurance 50% faster while attuned to air.

(continued in next post)

Weapons

Focus

1. Swirling Winds needs to be able to block siege shots again. Give it a 30% chance or something, but please bring this back.
2. Fire Shield is the most underwhelming #5 skill I have ever seen. It needs to:
   a) do AOE damage on cast
   b) count as a blast finisher, and
   c) the condition duration reduction STILL isn’t fixed (that is, it doesn’t do what the tool tip says it does). What are the devs even doing that this isn’t addressed yet?

Sceptre

1. Autoattack. Increase damage please. Flamestike needs to scale damage against burning targets; Arc Lightning should do 0.334/0.668/1.336 and it should be 1x/2x/4x (instead of 3x/3x/4x); Stone Shards is actually pretty good right now if you have any trait points in Earth; and Ice Shards needs to apply vulnerability stacks. Right now, using the golem targets in the PvP lobby as a sample… with earth maxed out, it takes 25 seconds flat to autoattack down the heavy armour target with stone shards. The same goes for flamestrike. But, with max power it takes upwards of a minute to autoattack down a heavy armour target with arc lightning. For comparison sake, it takes only twenty two seconds for a warrior with ZERO power to auto-attack down a heavy armour target. Even a guardian with zero power can sceptre autoattack down the heavy armour character in 35 seconds. While nobody ever stands around in a fight and just lets someone autoattack them to death, this reveals that sceptre air autoattack is ridiculously underpowered and needs to be scaled up, and the others can get some added benefit as well.
2. Dragon Tooth. It has been said 71623884176829437 times, but I’m going to say it again. MAKE THIS GROUND TARGETTED. Also, reduce the cast time to 2/3 seconds. Long enough that the ¼ second cast time Ring of Fire can then be cast under it for the area might, but short enough that someone under it has to pull their finger out of their kitten and move without having time to go and wash it off to keep their keyboard from getting poopy. Or, you know, spend a dodge to escape as opposed to lazily saunter out of the area.
3. Water Fields. We need one. Pick a skill, I don’t care which.

Staff
I was going to make a big giant post here about how staff users may as well insert their weapon up their rectum when an enemy enters melee range, but if conjures are addressed as I suggested above it will greatly improve the staff ele’s situation. Being able to hop onto, say, Lightning Hammer, will give the ele a fighting chance if his or her positioning is compromised. Otherwise, I feel that staff is fairly effective in its current role.

General

1. As an elementalist, it is a pain in the kitten to have to go into my inventory to change my weapon every time I have to switch. I would like there to be a weapon set function that gets locked out in combat to facilitate ease of use. Weapons in the sets shouldn’t be stored in the inventory, either. If I switch from sceptre/dagger to a staff I don’t want one of them ending up in my invisible bag and the other ending up four bags away.

I do agree with moving Conjurer to Arcane (surely Adept). But, for the other functionality of having it as a F5 beside atunements will provoke a lot of balance issues.
Of course, we do not know what is the intended cooldown you wish to give it. I fear that this solution might be too easy to play around, and be too powerful.

Just imagine a second Burning Retreat in the cooldown bar? (Flame Axe) An extra X finisher here and there. Should the conjures be limited to one? No, I do not agree with the proposed changes; I fear it might result a nerf.

Conjure weapon, baseline
-Reduce cooldown to 45 seconds for all conjures with the exception of 30 seconds for Flame Axe
60 seconds seems punishing if the weapon conjured on the floor is not used twice. Flame Axe deserves a little extra since the weapon itself has no major abilities.

Customize cast times;
-Conjure Flame Axe ::: Instant
-Conjure Lightning Hammer ::: 1/4 second
-Conjure Earth Shield ::: 1/4 second
-Conjure Frost bow ::: 1/4 second
Long Cast times on Conjured Weapons is annoying. Especially since their abilities also have their own cast time; making two cast times in a row. Instant Flame Axe because it is a momentum weapon. Cast times for the other weapon will give a chance for the opponent to see what’s being conjured to interrupt or respond to the weapon skill following (and not the conjure itself).

IMPORTANT: Fix the bug where dropping the conjured weapon during a dodge roll cancels the dodge roll. Same with the Burning Retreat of the Flame Axe

Baseline Changes to the weapon skills
Conjure Lightning Hammer
Anet already have some plans on it; and I personnally don’t use it in PvP. (Cast times are too long)

Conjure Frost Bow
Anet already have some plans on it.

Conjure Flame Axe
They were worked on to to give the auto-attack 1 stack of might. Number two to have a Blast Finisher. (Those changes were very good.)

Conjure Earth Shield
Give the Auto Attack final chain a Projectile Finisher. Or even two times (It throws the shield in a boomerang pattern.) Or perhaps, make it so that it bounces between targets instead of doing an old and boring line.
Give number 3 (The charge and Daze) a Leap or Blast Finisher.

What would I like to see for Conjurer (Arcane Adept)?

Each weapons have a specific element attached to them…
Shield= Earth
Axe= Fire
Bow= Water
Hammer= Air

Allow the initial action of conjuring the weapon cast the On-Atunement-Swap-Related -Traits as if the Elementalist swapped to the element matching the Conjured Weapon. For instance, casting Conjure Frostbow would grant Fury for 2 seconds, apply Soothing mist for 5 seconds (related to Lingering Atunements), cast Healing Ripple (probably a smaller version for that one). This would only apply to minor traits. (Not Elemental Atunement.)

Example in action; Casting Conjure Lightning Hammer would proc Electric Discharge. Should it be a Fresh Air Elementalist, the lightning strike could proc Fresh Air… Et cetera. See the flow?