Guild Wars 2

Attunements in their current form are by and large the root of most of the complaints regarding the class. They’re a good idea, but kind of roughly implemented. They function mechanically as a weapon swap but because they function that way each attunement maintains its own separate set of weapon skill cool downs. Which is the direct cause of the disparity in effort the class exhibits. In order to be effective the measure is essentially how fast can you keep hitting buttons as you rotate through all of the attunements without the artificial stop gap of cool downs ( Attunement recharge doesn’t cut it ) to break it up that other classes have with their weapon skills. By and large, this is more effort and impulse than it is skill. You’re playing Dance Dance Revolution instead of Chess.

So how can improve it without dumbing the class down to pew pew dps?

Well, lets look at Arcane and Glyph skills. These have context sensitive effects based on the attunement you’re in. 1 button = 4 effects. This, honestly, should be how the entire class operates. You should have 5 weapon skills with context sensitive effects rather than 4 different “weapon sets” with separate cool downs that by and large are mechanically the same. This would also open the Ele up so it can have weapon swap and more weapon selection. For more variety and versatility. As Ele is currently the only Scholar class without a unique weapon choice ( Mesmer’s have swords, Necros have Axes, Ele shares all its weapons with one and/or the other. ).

This would negate the button spam chaining of the current design and allow for more thoughtful play. Your weapon skills could be more meaningful and effective as their overall DPS could be increased. The ability to weapon swap would open up more versatility and replace any lost versatility. There would no longer be an onus on dividing up the Elementalist’s DPS potential into 4 keys for every 1 key other classes have because the ability and requirement to perform unending key spam would be removed.

Your attunement would mean something rather than just being a weapon swap button that grants a boon. While the central theme and function of the class would not change. You would just now have to select the best attunement weapon skill for the situation rather than just spamming them all in sequence. It would balance out the ratio of skill and effort on the class. Which is currently skewed more towards effort. It would lean the class back more towards making tactical designs instead of twitch gaming.

Furthermore, Elementalist Traits ( which need an overhaul anyhow ) could be reworked around granting weapon specific bonuses like every other class has. Instead of attunement specific bonuses that offer nothing save a recharge reduction and a handful of misc weapon bonuses that are all stuffed into one neigh mandatory trait line. Each Element Trait line could properly lend itself to certain weapon(s) theme and new weapons could be added to bring Ele up to par selection wise with Necro and Mesmer. Rather than having one class whose trait design is contrary to the rest of the game because of its class mechanic.

All of the framework to do this is already in game as its already present in existing Elementalist skills. The theme, adaptability and central mechanic of the Elementalist would remain intact if not be improved. All that would change is the class would become more thoughtful and less twitchy. I mean, it is a “Scholar” after all.

Anyhow, flame away. I know you want too. >.>

@Xhaiden.3891

Your opinion on attunements and weapon swaps is your own.

Currently with the system in place 1 button does already have 4 different effects. That would not change with your suggestion. The only differences are that you wish for the function of weapon skills to be the same regardless of attunement, but yield different effects. You also want skills to be on recharge throughout all attunements.

At this point you are asking for a complete class overhaul in the first month of the game, which is fine to ask for. It’s not going to happen, but what does it hurt to ask? I would request that the devs ignore your request, because I thoroughly enjoy the way the elementalist plays. That is my opinion.

I disagree that thoughtful play inadequate as an elementalist. I think it requires more thought than any other class given a lot of the playerbase complains how difficult it is to be as effective as other classes. I like the class requiring me to have quick reflexes and think very quickly and thoroughly, it’s a challenge I enjoy. Your suggestion would effectively divide the number of weapon skills available in combat by 4, so it is true that combination casting would be greatly reduced. However, I like combination casts and I don’t see it as spam, because I am able to think through each skill I am using as I cast rapidly.

I also believe attunements being similar to weapon swapping is very meaningful. I compare it other professions swapping weapons, which I feel is also very meaningful. I don’t now what additional meaning could come from applying the suggestions provided above, I feel like there is less meaning, because the only difference is effects available as opposed to different functions and mechanics.

Elementalist Traits can be overhauled for weapons with the current function of attunements. It actually already does somewhat, in arcana specifically there are at least 3 weapon specific traits I can think of.

I don’t believe attunements would be improved with the suggestions, I think they would just be different. I think your suggestions are a VERY good option for the Dervish if they ever implement that (Earth Prayers, Wind Prayers, and Mysticism and such) , but not the elementalist. I think too many people like the way it plays to change it that drastically. But I’d be behind you 100% if you were to push ANet towards bringing back the Dervish with a system similar to what you are suggesting.

Man, I forgot about the Dervish. I miss Dervish. -.-

1 button doesn’t currently have 4 different effects. 7 buttons have 4 different effects and 4 seperate cooldowns. 1, F2, 1, F3, 1, F4, 1. What I’m suggesting, in a nutshell, is that you have 5 weapon skills that behave like Glyphs in that what they do is context sensitive to your attunement. Rather than having 4 attunements that mechanically speaking behave like weapon swaps.

What this does is 1) introduces cooldowns so that the class doesn’t rely on spamming. 2) Because cooldowns are present, Anet does not need to adjust Elementalist DPS downwards because of the any potential higher DPS ceiling reachable by spamming attunement rotation. 3) With that done Elementalist can gain more meaningful versatility by having weapon swap and additional weapon sets. Without the previous concern of it becoming to complicated that was used to justify Ele’s limited selection.

@Xhaiden.3891

What you see as spamming I see as rapidly casting skills based on my ever changing situation. I make a decision with the majority of my casts, I am not every time going through a premeditated rotation. Cool downs already exist, what you request is slowing the class down allowing more time to think between casts, but I don’t prefer that or I’d pick most of the other classes.

I think you should get the idea of “spamming” out of your mind, because that’s not how to play the class effectively, and I think it’s why you feel the way you do about attunements. From my perspective I am making very quick frequent decisions based on what I am seeing in combat. Adjusting dps downward on rapidly casting professions is necessary, remember the GW1 Mesmer with MoI before the nerfs to MoI and fast casting? Mesmers had fast casting, which meant they could rapidly cast damage skills to bring targets down, this I would agree was spamming, because there were only 8 skills available on the bar and you were literally chaining a premeditated spike all the time. There’s a lot more to being effective with the elementalist than utilizing a premeditated combination of skills, which isn’t exactly problematic in this game given those types of things are much easier to avoid.

I understand you believe that your suggested changes are more meaningful, but I don’t think so. I think it’s just different, because well it’s different. I find the attunements and weapon skills very meaningful in their current state. You have 4 tool kits available at a time and are locked out temporarily after changing your kit. Within each kit you have skills with recharges. Because the skills are designed in a way that it doesn’t make sense to use your recharge skills then swap attunements and rinse and repeat, players have to be mindful of what they use. I find that to be very meaningful.

It is spamming though. Because the key to our DPS is to dump out our DPS skills as fast as possible. The fact they have different coloured visual effects doesn’t change much. Hell many of them can’t even be bothered to do anything except damage. They are redundant. So they need to be spammed out as fast as possible to achieve overall dps. Attunements do not lock out long enough to break the chain. You go in, you hit the keys as fast as possible. You follow the same pattern over and over. Breaking it mainly only when the situation calls for it such as when you need to heal. But because Elementalist is automatically in trouble if anything notices it, even this takes on a rotational pattern. I don’t choose when to use Updraft, I NEED to use it or I’m in trouble. I don’t choose when to use Earthquake, I NEED to use it or I’m in trouble.

See what I’m getting at?

Its a rhythm. You’re twitch gaming. I can play the class just fine, but lets be honest, its twitchier than Thief. Its balls to the wall muscle memory. It’d be different if every skill under a given attunement had an attunement specific secondary effect.

But they don’t. So they are effectively redundant buttons. Hence the problem. Why have 20 weapon skills if 10 of them are the same with a different colour particle effect. Why have 20 weapon skills when 8 are mechanically identical.

This is what my problem is with the current system. It’s effectively an inefficient game design. Attunements are…bloated. It probably looked awesome on paper but when it came around to it they had to try and think up 60 unique weapon skills. That ain’t happening. They ran out of ideas around the 20 mark.

It needs to either be streamlined down, or properly fleshed. I suggest streamlining down. But if they can somehow figure out a way to properly flesh it out, that would be fine too.

coming from RTS games and MMOs I like the play style as it is. It only feels spammy cause im still learning but as I get used to all my skills I can see so much more potential in this class then others. Would hate it if the OPs suggestion was added to the game, he can slow down on his own if he chooses to, why ask for all of us to slow down?

Personally I don’t think there is anything wrong with the core attunement mechanic, including the cooldowns. In fact this mechanic is one of the main reasons I really enjoy the elementalists’s playstyle.

I think Anet should focus on (when they get around to balancing) reworking our traits first. We could use some more synergy to give us more build options. After that, if more help is needed, I would look at minor tweaks to things like ability cooldowns, damage output levels, stats and survival abilities.

Xhaiden.3891:

It is spamming though. Because the key to our DPS is to dump out our DPS skills as fast as possible. The fact they have different coloured visual effects doesn’t change much. Hell many of them can’t even be bothered to do anything except damage. They are redundant. So they need to be spammed out as fast as possible to achieve overall dps. Attunements do not lock out long enough to break the chain. You go in, you hit the keys as fast as possible. You follow the same pattern over and over. Breaking it mainly only when the situation calls for it such as when you need to heal. But because Elementalist is automatically in trouble if anything notices it, even this takes on a rotational pattern. I don’t choose when to use Updraft, I NEED to use it or I’m in trouble. I don’t choose when to use Earthquake, I NEED to use it or I’m in trouble.

See what I’m getting at?

Its a rhythm. You’re twitch gaming. I can play the class just fine, but lets be honest, its twitchier than Thief. Its balls to the wall muscle memory. It’d be different if every skill under a given attunement had an attunement specific secondary effect.

But they don’t. So they are effectively redundant buttons. Hence the problem. Why have 20 weapon skills if 10 of them are the same with a different colour particle effect. Why have 20 weapon skills when 8 are mechanically identical.

This is what my problem is with the current system. It’s effectively an inefficient game design. Attunements are…bloated. It probably looked awesome on paper but when it came around to it they had to try and think up 60 unique weapon skills. That ain’t happening. They ran out of ideas around the 20 mark.

It needs to either be streamlined down, or properly fleshed. I suggest streamlining down. But if they can somehow figure out a way to properly flesh it out, that would be fine too.

The same about any other class’ damage skills, “use on recharge”. That’s the most efficient way to utilize a damage skill, use on recharge and land the hit. The ele has 20 weapon skills instead of 5, it makes sense they they have more to use on recharge. Seems like your complaint is that it takes more work using the ele to be as good as other classes, which is true imo, but the challenge is what so many people like. The play style of the ele combo based, it’s a combo class, people like that. You don’t prefer it, which is fine.

You don’t need to use updraft updraft if you’re in trouble and you’re not in trouble if you don’t use earthquake. What you need to do is avoid damage. Updraft and Earthquake are two options, dodging is another option, kiting is another option, burning speed is another option, RtL is another option, blinding flash is an option, the various staff controls are options, auras are options, various utility skills are numerous options, and utilizing spec’ed trait bonuses are options too. Which option you choose should be dependent upon what will help you bring down the enemy more quickly. If you’re d/d and fire is coming off cool down then it makes sense to use updraft and chain into burning speed, otherwise it might make more sense to use dodge and trip and evasive arcana effect (which is the type of thing you are asking for, as you mentioned to some extent what you want already exists). Maybe you’re running scepter and out of energy so it makes more sense to save earthquake for a damage spike, so you trigger some swiftness and kite for a couple of seconds, while while waiting for your fire spike.

I don’t know what your definition of “twitchy” is or why there would be a problem with “twitchy” gameplay. You have to have “muscle memory” to play any fast paced game video game or irl, so not sure what that’s supposed to mean. To me “twitchy” sounds like fast and reactive, which I like. But you mentioned exactly what I said, going with you’re suggestion (which again already exists through various mechanics) would be different. Different’s not bad, it’s just different. Push your desire for a focus on mechanics of that sort to a new profession, but not the elementalist, which I and many other people enjoy.

You’re exaggerating the extent and amount of similarities between skills. Drake’s Breath and Cone of Cold are the same in terms of particle effects, but they are still different and that’s really the only example I can give you. Even if you have issue with similar skills it doesn’t mean ANet can’t keep attunements the way they are and change the mechanics of a skill. They haven’t run out of ideas for skills, and if they have I’m sure they’d be happy to ask and we’d remind them of the hundreds of skills they can use as inspiration from GW1.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Skills#Skill_quantity

I think what Xhaiden meant, and I agree with him here, is that the elementalist has plenty of “filler” skills. We are a combo class, and that’s fun, but when our combos translate to skill a: deal 100 damage -> skill b: deal 100 damage -> skill c: deal 100 damage, and then we see another profession click a single skill and deal 400 damage, then I question, what’s the point?

So far, our “combo style” is a novelty. It’s a really interesting playstyle, but the elementalists are full of boring or same-y skills. Elementalists are (are they?) supposed to chain skills in unpredictable ways, but in reality, you have one or two optimal means to burst, and several defensive skills you use whe you need to use them. That’s it.

A mesmer is more of chaining unpredictable skills at this moment, because you never know how they’ll shatter their clones. An elementalist with low HP will go to water, and you know they’re going to heal themselves while chilling you out for a while. And you know they’ll go to water, when their HP starts to get down enough. An elementalist will disable you out for a couple of seconds, and you know they’re going to take advantage of the moment to chain a very predictable burst.

Elementalist is an interesting profession in theory, but in practise it’s all about playing keyboard piano to time out defensive skills to survive, while trying to milk out a little bit of damage inbetween.

When we look at other professions, all their weapon skills feel so tight. They all feel important, and there’s a degree of strategy behind each of them. Although it’s easy to understand why elementalists’ skills are simpler, they also have several uninspired, more-of-the-same or even poor skills at their disposal. It’s kinda messy.

Yes, that’s what I was trying to say, thank you.

The higher the number of skills, the harder it is to focus on designing each of them the best you can. That’s why a game like GW1 has thousands of skills, but more than half of them are useless or boring, and GW2 has fewer (weapon) skills, but each of them plays a very important role.

I think elementalists are suffering from this, much in the same way that utility skills (across all/ most professions) are suffering from this. There’s several skills that definitely got plenty of attention by the devs, and several others that feel like they exist for the sake of filling in the remaining slots, and should only get truly fleshed out in the future.

For now, the elementalist is an example of quantity over quality. Instead of the more minimalistic, clean skillset of other professions, we wished for a more ornamented skillset, but got a bloated one instead.

It’s not “harder” to balance more skills, it simply requires more time to do so. What makes the ele hard to balance is it’s access to 10 more weapon skills at a time than most other professions, and that isn’t necessarily even harder as one can simply tweak the numbers to make the skills “weaker” as was observed between BWE2 and launch. There aren’t significant issues with attunements, it gets overblown. Everything can be made to feel more relevant by simply tweaking skill damage, recharge, activation, duration, boon, or condition effects.

The numerous ele skills in my opinion are just as interesting as skills of other professions minus the effectiveness, however more effectiveness can be gained from them by how they are used in combination.

If the numbers of the elementalists skills were on par with some other professions this conversation wouldn’t be happening, instead there’d be talk about how OP ele’s are.

“Why have 20 weapon skills if 10 of them are the same with a different colour particle effect. "

Give me evidence.

Fire: triple projectile, channeled flamethrower, fire kick with explosion, fire field with initial explosion, cone burst damage
water: Boomerange vulnerability, channeled icethrower, aoe chill around character, frost armor, aoe heal
air: most powerful/least range auto attack, weakness, shocking aura, crazy mobility and decent damage explosion, amazing cc
earth: the only condition damage auto attack on d/d, aoe bleed around character, immobilize and leap, cc blast finisher, long wait spike damage/dot

There is no way in hell you can say half of these skills are copies. Yes, they are similar in some aspects such as animation/mechanics, but literally each skill has its own time and place to use.

DiogoSilva.7089:

I think what Xhaiden meant, and I agree with him here, is that the elementalist has plenty of “filler” skills. We are a combo class, and that’s fun, but when our combos translate to skill a: deal 100 damage -> skill b: deal 100 damage -> skill c: deal 100 damage, and then we see another profession click a single skill and deal 400 damage, then I question, what’s the point?

So far, our “combo style” is a novelty. It’s a really interesting playstyle, but the elementalists are full of boring or same-y skills. Elementalists are (are they?) supposed to chain skills in unpredictable ways, but in reality, you have one or two optimal means to burst, and several defensive skills you use whe you need to use them. That’s it.

A mesmer is more of chaining unpredictable skills at this moment, because you never know how they’ll shatter their clones. An elementalist with low HP will go to water, and you know they’re going to heal themselves while chilling you out for a while. And you know they’ll go to water, when their HP starts to get down enough. An elementalist will disable you out for a couple of seconds, and you know they’re going to take advantage of the moment to chain a very predictable burst.

Elementalist is an interesting profession in theory, but in practise it’s all about playing keyboard piano to time out defensive skills to survive, while trying to milk out a little bit of damage inbetween.

When we look at other professions, all their weapon skills feel so tight. They all feel important, and there’s a degree of strategy behind each of them. Although it’s easy to understand why elementalists’ skills are simpler, they also have several uninspired, more-of-the-same or even poor skills at their disposal. It’s kinda messy.

I don’t find too much compelling about these points. You can say you know what an ele will do based on it’s attunement, but it’s also true you know what any other profession is going to do based on its weapon sets. A dagger thief is going to get up close to use heart seeker, a great sword warrior is going to get up close to land hundred blades, a staff mesmer is going to keep distance and stand in chaos storm and armor when approched. You also know what an ele is going to do based on it’s weapon and attunement. When you’ve played enough, there’s really nothing that is “unpredictable”.

There’s no surprise that when someone is low on health they are going to use the tools at their disposal to help them survive. I fully expect CC’s and survival skills to be used by anyone with low health, otherwise they go down. You know a guardian is going to burn it’s virtues and use it’s heal when it’s low on health, just like you know a thief is going to stealth and heal when it’s low on health.

I feel like the piano generalization can be applied to all professions, just slower songs.

What I keep seeing behind the text, is a want for people to feel more effective as an ele. Like people are seeking buffs. I’d like some buffs too, but I don’t want the class to be OP. I just want them all to have fairly equal viability. The ele may not be as viable as other professions even when played at a high level and it’d be nice to be able to get more out of some of its skills, but I have no issue with the class’ design.

No thanks, i want my 20 skills, if you wanted 5 you should have picked another class.

That ship has sailed long ago. While it’s interesting to discuss, I doubt they would do such a huge overhaul of the class.

Personally, I think elementalist are fine. I cant say for sPvP though, as I only play PvE and WvW.

I do have two gripes though, which may or may not be working as intended.
The first is that, since there is no weapon swap, you are range locked. As a corollary to this, you are also more or less locked to whether you are an aoe damage dealer or single target. I’m fine with being stuck at one range, but being stuck as either a single target or AoE type damage dealer is annoying.

The second thing is just a numbers issue. Lowest base health, lowest armor class make for a very squishy build, without being able to say ele out damages other classes. This is somewhat balanced by having fairly good array of defensive skills (not downed state or the fact that mist form invulnerability doesn’t affect conditions). Though thats where the learning curve comes in. A surprisingly large number of people just spam skills without trying to time them.

spvp is by and large where the biggest problems are to be frank. Because its the arena in which the classes get directly compared against each other in combat. Most of the complaints likely stem from spvp. In WvWvW you can hide in the crowd and the more people there are, the less important individual player actions become.

I disagree about the crowd and individual actions in WvW. It is the only place that our individual actions as a Mentalist can have an effect. Often times I clear an entire section of a wall alone or take down sneakily placed siege equipment with a guardian to screen. I’m so effective that the enemy resorts to jumping 5 or more players off the walls to drive me back. I don’t kill everyone but I deny them access to a firing position.

Same can be said when meeting even numbered. I often am able to break up a charge or the ranged backstanders with Earthquake > Lava Font > Glyph of Storms (fire or earth) > Meteor Shower (with Arcane Power for the lols).

I’m sorry if I sound arrogant but WvW is where I feel most effective as an Ele and know that practically everything in each attunement has a tangible result (Staff in WvW here).

Shockwave.1230:

What I keep seeing behind the text, is a want for people to feel more effective as an ele. Like people are seeking buffs. I’d like some buffs too, but I don’t want the class to be OP. I just want them all to have fairly equal viability. The ele may not be as viable as other professions even when played at a high level and it’d be nice to be able to get more out of some of its skills, but I have no issue with the class’ design.

It is true that people want more effective skills, but let’s be honest, the elementalists skillsets are not the most polished skillset in this game.

Some of them do not feel unified/ coherent. Let’s look at scepter’s water: you have a single-target auto-attack skill, an aoe skill that applies vulnerability, and an aoe skill that heals. Tell me, what the hell is the strategy behind this skillset? You have two aoe bursts with fire and two burning skills there, you have all three air skills focused on single-target damage and control, you have two earth skills with some sort of defense. But what is the strategy behind water scepter? It feels like it has a bunch of random skills thrown together. You’re not going to use it for single-target damage because every single other attunement does that much better, you’re not going for aoe damage, because it’s redudant and weak compared to fire, and you’re not going to apply vulnerability two or three times, because it’s so easy to dodge, and makes you waste so much valuable time. At best, you change to water for OH effects and the healing of water trident, and quickly move out of this mess.

Some of them do not feel like they hit the “right key” to serve the purposes of the weapon the best. Let’s look at D/D defenses. It’s the weapon that most needs defensive skills, because it’s going to be right in front of your foe. You have two “leap” skills that only go forward, so they’re not defensive except for very specific situations. You have KD/ knockback skills to keep foes rupted/ controlled for 2 seconds, that’s fine. And you have a direct 2s chill effect to avoid attacks more efficiently. But then you have a generic heal skill that could very well be put into staff/ scepter/ focus without losing any effectiveness and by gaining some (at least at range, the chances to get hit are less, making the heal more reliable), you have a close-range heal skill that doesn’t allows you to dodge, two auras that are not going to mitigate the upcomming devastating hits, and a defensive MH air line that offers no defense with its auto-attack and is completely redudant with fire’s damage).

Some of them are downright bad, compared to even other elementalists options. Focus fire. Who’s going to prevent themselves to cross that fire wall for the sake of 1s burning? How are you going to combo it with your scepter’s drake’s tooth, unless you put the flamewall in your place? Who’s going to stop attacking you for the sake of fire shield’s 1s burning for 3s during for 40s recharge? Even if the fire aura was stronger, why is it there? Aren’t the daggers the weapons that most need melee-range effects? If you can keep your distance with Scepter/ Focus, Fire Shield would be a dead skill even if it were any stronger.

There are more examples I could give. Especially when it comes to misplaced or redudant auto-attacks.

Xhaiden.3891:

You’re playing Dance Dance Revolution instead of Chess.

I actually feel like it’s more a game of checkers instead of chess. There is still a similar graduation of intelligent play behind it; only if you do it right you cascade a ton of moves.

That aside; I see where you are coming from; and I partially agree. But removing the “somewhat overly redundant moves” from the play would kill a major aspect of the elementalist, which is its “flashyness”.
The moment all 5 skills have shared cooldowns, than elementalists fighting slows to a bigger crawl with more auto attack spamming.

As many new situations as it would open with having stronger abilities and another weapon set; it would shut down just as many, because swapping a lot would become less effective and thus kills a lot of popular builds like aura mastery and attunement dancing builds.

I think, that even though you understand a lot of the elementalists’ issues; your solution is way to huge to really be anything worth doing. Especially seeing as the game has been out for just a month now.