Guild Wars 2

ELITE SPECIALIZATION: ARCHMAGE

[DESCRIPTION]

the Archmage is a long range damage dealer. Wielding a longbow, the Archmage charges up the “artillery” spells by using all attunements.The Archmage also offers some offensive boons and a few control effects if enemies get to close. The Archmage also provides more conditions than other Elementalist specializations.

(edit)The longbow is more of a single target weapon, with few piercing or AoE attacks. The longbow also introduces a counter to blocks, in that some skills have an “if blocked” effect. i took inspiration from GW1 elementalist and ranger skills such as lava arrows, glass arrow, ice javelin, burning arrow

Disclaimer: values given are hypothetical example, and would need to fine tuned for balance. I’m not necessarily providing cast times and recharges for weapon skills, but as a general rule cooldowns can be assumed to be roughly in the neighborhood of other elementalist cooldowns, based on skill position, 1) autoattack, 2) 4-8seconds, 3) 8-12 seconds, 4)12-30 seconds. 5) 20-45 seconds

[NEW GAME MECHANICS]
these would be game wide mechanics available to other classes as well, not limited to only Elementalist. (like how HoT introduced Alacrity and Slow)

[New Condition: Steam]
each second the condition is active, it adds one more stack of itself if the target doesn’t move, and loses one stack while the target moves. Potency is determined by number of stacks. (more stacks does more damage)

(edit) the basic idea is that steam does more damage when the target is standing still, and less damage when the target is moving. the more complex idea is that standing still causes more stacks, and moving reduces the number of stacks, and by moving, you can remove the condition before it’s normal duration would expire.

i also imagine the base damage when moving, to be more than bleed damage, and less than torment damage per pulse.

the lore reason for steam is that the ArchMage (and other classes) have learned how to combine fire and water magic to produce steam, instead of using fire magic separately to heat water as a non-magical object-target (it’s an attempt to honour the Spellweaver ideas without plagiarizing, but as a much simpler execution.)

New aura: Mist Aura
apply 1 stack of steam condition ( 2 second duration ) to enemies who strike you, cd 2 seconds per attacker

New Combo Field: Steam field
projectile: apply 1 stack of steam to foe. (2 seconds)
Leap: grants Mist aura
blast: grants 1 stack prevention
whirl: projectiles grant 1 stack of steam to target struck (2 seconds)

New Boon: Prevention
each stack prevention would convert a percentage of the next incoming damage pulse into healing. ( edit ) scales based on healing power

(edit) inspiration for this boon is taken from warrior stance heal, which converts incoming damage into healing for a short time.

Condition-Boon Conversion
Prevention and Steam are opposites, so one will convert to the other under the appropriate spell use.

[CLASS MECHANIC: ELEMENTAL CHARGE]
~ swapping attunements in combat now grants one charge per attunement swap.
~ similar to the warrior adrenaline bar, the celestial charge can tier up 3 times
~ does not decay out of combat
~ 4 charges grants tier1, 8 charges grants t2, 12 charges grants t3

~ F5 = Celestial Storm
~~ base skill (10 second cooldown) lasts 5 seconds, and drops 5 impacts per attunement type, 1500 range, 250 radius
~~ t1 lasts 10 seconds and drops 10 impacts per attunement type, 300 radius
~~ t2 lasts 15 seconds and drops 15 impacts per attunement type, 350 radius
~~ t3 lasts 20 seconds and drops 20 impacts per attunement type. 400 radius

~~ using f5 consumes all charges
~~ using a utility skill consumes 1 tier of charges (more on this in the utility skill section.)

~ celestial storm is balanced around the idea that it’s available often, but requires many attunement swaps to fully charge up. The base skill is available every 10 seconds, but requires time gated attunement swapping to become more powerful.

~ Since the utility skills also consume a tier of charges, f5 can remain as powerful as it is, due to having to make a choice of using a utility skill or the f5

[UTILITY SKILL CATEGORY: MAGE]

~~ these skills have 10 second cooldown, and are balanced around the charging mechanic
~~ these skills consume 4 charges when used, to prevent someone from spamming all t3 skills all the time, once fully charged.
~~ each tier stacks with all previous tiers

Ether Prodigy::
~~ base skill: heal the elementalist for 4k (15 second cooldown)
~~ t1 also grant 4s vigor + 1 stack prevention
~~ t2 also grant 4s protection + 1 stacks prevention
~~ t3 also grant 4s water field + 1 stacks prevention

Crystal Wave: send out a wave toward your foes, 900 range, directional targeting
~~ base skill: do AoE (5 targets) damage based on power
~~ t1 daze enemies ¼ seconds
~~ t2 knockback enemies 100 units of measure
~~ t3 knockdown enemies
(synergizes very well with Lightning Rod trait)

Searing Heat
~~ base skill: 300 radius damage (1000 power based damage) to foes in the area, 1500 range, 3 second cast time
~~ t1 second pulse of damage
~~ t2 3rd pulse of damage + applies 3 stacks of burning for 2 second
~~ t3 4th pulse of damage + applies 5 stacks of steam:

Frost Armour (to yourself and nearby allies)
~~ base skill: grant a frost aura
~~ t1 grant 4s protection
~~ t2 grant 3 stacks stability (4 seconds)
~~ t3 grant 3 stacks prevention (5 seconds)

Kinetic Armour (to yourself and nearby allies)
~~ base skill: stun break
~~ t1: gain stability 2 stacks (3 seconds)
~~ t2: gain swiftness (10 seconds)
~~ t3: gain quickness (5 seconds)

Elite: Elemental Lord: channel for five seconds, focusing your power, cooldown 60? seconds
~~ base skill: gain 5 charges per second
~~ t1: grant 3 might per second to yourself and nearby allies
~~ t2: grant 2s fury per second to yourself and nearby allies
~~ t3: grant 1stack prevention (5 seconds) per second to yourself and nearby allies

[NEW WEAPON: LONGBOW]

range: generally 1500

Fire attunement:
1) Lava Arrows: (20% projectile) fire three arrows at your foe
2) Incendiary Arrows: (20% projectile) fire an arrow for damage and 2 seconds burning, if blocked, it explodes and causes up to 5 foes to burn (3 stacks, 3 seconds)
3) Burning Arrow: (20% projectile) fire one arrow that does massive damage and burns (5stacks) your foe
4) Starburst: fire an arrow that explodes for AoE damage when it hits its target, and breaks into 3 smaller shards that also explode for AoE damage. Each burst is also a blast finisher
5) Smoking Arrow: fire an arrow that leaves a trail of smoke behind it, creating a smoke field

Air Attunement:
1) Shock Arrow: (20% projectile) damage plus vulnerability
2) Lightning Arrow: (20% projectile) fire an arrow at your target for damage. 1 second later, the target is struck with lightning
3) Lightning Javelin: (50% projectile) pierces foes, for 10 vulnerability, and massive damage
4) Shell Shock: (spell) stun and damage your target (could use the electrocute death animation)
5) Enervating Charge: (spell) strike your foe with lightning, causing AoE damage, AoE weakness to enemies, and apply AoE vigor to allies

Earth Attunement:
1) Glass Arrows: (20% projectile) fire an arrow for damage, that bleeds (2stacks, 5 seconds) your foe if blocked
2) Ash Blast: (spell, ground target AoE)) poison your target with ash they can’t breathe (3 stacks, 8 seconds)
3) Rock Javelin: (50% projectile) throw a rock javelin at your foe, piercing, if blocked it blinds and bleeds (5stacks 10 seconds) foes in AoE
4) Obsidian Flame: (spell) damage your target (no projectile) for unblockable, armour ignoring, critical damage (2000 base damage)
5) Ebon Hawk: (100% projectile, spell) summon a hawk to fly at your foes, fearing (3seconds), and tormenting (3 stacks, 8 seconds) them as it cries and flies through them

Water Attunement:
1) Ice Spear: (50% projectile) throw a spear at your foes, granting regen to allies it passes through
2) Steam: (AOE, ground targeted) blinds target, and applies 3 stacks of steam to target
3) Chilling Winds: fire an arrow that becomes a chilling wind, chilling (4 seconds) and tormenting (2 stacks, 8 seconds) up to 5 foes the wind passes through.
4) Mirror of Ice: (spell) fire an arrow that reflects projectiles it nears, granting prevention (1 stack, 4 seconds) to allies
5) Steam Arrow: fire a rapid arrow that leaves a trail of steam behind it, creating a steam field that pulses for 3 seconds. Each pulse causes damage and 2 stacks of steam to foes.

[TRAITS]

Adept:
~ minor: earn class mechanic
1- (edit) critical hits have a 33% chance to cause bleeding
2- prevention also grants retaliation (4 seconds)
3- (edit) breaking stun grants 4 elemental charges (30 second cooldown)

Master:
~ minor: deal 10% more damage over 600 range
4- apply 1 stack steam condition to targets who block your arrows (cd 10s)
5- 10% power is converted to healing power
6- consuming charges grants might (10 seconds 1 stack might per charge consumed)

Grandmaster:
~ (edit) minor: deal 1% more damage per condition on a foe
7- burning causes 2 stacks steam (cd 10s)
8- (edit) prevention grants 100 healing power per stack
9- camping an attunement grants 5 charges every 10 seconds

I don’t agree with a new condition and boon just for 1 elite specialization

The idea of the bow is cool, but it feels a little weird since conjure ice bow already exists. Furthermore, elementalist already has a long range high DPS weapon in staff, so as much as I think a lot of the skills you’ve made are pretty cool it might be better to go with something else. You could even just make it a shortbow and make some minor changes to make it more of a midrange skirmisher playstyle but with a lot of the same skills.

Also I unfortunately have to agree that making a whole new condition, boon, aura, and combo field for an elite spec would be unwise. The aura and combo field actually aren’t that big a deal besides the fact that it won’t fit in with any other class, but the condition and boon would cause major problems.

Since you can give prevention to allies, mesmers can share it back to eveyone in the party. This means with a couple eles and mesmers, you could stack an unhealthy amount of something that is essentially better than invulnerability. There’s a reason that revenant’s infused light, which is similar, is not considered to be a boon lol.

If I’m understanding steam correctly, it does nothing to stationary targets. Actually now that I look at it again, I’m not sure what it does at all. Does it deal damage based on the number of stacks it has? Is it supposed to be like the opposite of torment or something?

Regardless, making something that encourages the target to move is a bad idea because there is no downside to moving – in fact, there is a significant upside to moving even when not afflicted with the steam condition. I don’t like the idea of just another ticking damage debuff, I think it would be better with some kind of utility effect (maybe it incrementally affects turn rate or endurance regen or damage dealt or something, who knows).

But no matter what it does, steam should be made into a debuff instead of a condition, because – besides being unique to this specialization – it otherwise it has to be balanced around all the other skills and traits in the game that interact with conditions, and I don’t think anyone wants to deal with that.

Class mechanic seems cool, I like the idea of the new skills interacting with the number of charges you have stored. Only thing is I don’t think “Elemental” is a good name for a skill category…the class is called elementalist, all of their skills are “elemental” lol.

Traits seem ok except for a few:

• “Conditions last 25% longer” is better than similar grandmaster traits on other classes. Honestly this should be limited to steam but with higher duration bonus or shouldn’t exist at all.
• “Deal 2% more damage per condition on a foe” is way too good for a grandmaster minor trait, especially on the already-DPS-king elementalist. Should be major if it exists at all.
• “Auras grant 1 stack prevention” is completely insane with the way you have prevention currently. With the Powerful Aura trait a couple eles could constantly apply prevention to a group with combo finishers along with the current aura weapon skills.

This was a fun read, hope my comments help!

first… thanks for your input. especially for bringing up the probable OPness of those traits. i’ll try to reason out my brainstorming and thoughts behind some of what i offered.

i’ll start with steam:
i suppose i didn’t explain the concept of steam very well… i think of it kind of as a reverse of torment. but that’s only the start.

it does more damage if you stand still, less damage if you move. but it works differently.
~it starts with so many stacks. the catch is how the duration works.

if you stand still, you gain a stack (so damage goes up by stacking intensity) every second.

if you move, you lose a stack (so damage goes down, by losing intensity ) every second.

so lets say you get a stack of steam. and you don’t move for 2 seconds, and then you run around for 4 seconds.

second 1: you take the damage tick, from 1 stack, you gain a stack because you didn’t move.
second 2: you take damage from 2 stacks, you gain a stack because you didn’t move.
second 3: you take damage from 3 stacks, then you lose a stack because you moved (down to 2 stacks)
second 4: you take damage from 2 stacks, and lose 1 stack because you moved (down to 1 stack)
second 5: you take damage from 1 stack, and lose a stack (down to 0 stacks) because you moved

as such, the actual damage per stack would have to be low, probably about 2x bleed damage.

steam would synergize well with immobilize, and torment. (run around to reduce steam stacks, and take extra torment damage)

new condi / boon / field / aura

my intention of adding these to the game would be to also allow other classes access to them as well. NOT to limit them to elementalist only. i imagine that other classes who who burn could gain access to steam, and healer classes could learn prevention.

naming

i totally admit to dropping the ball on the naming… my mind drew a blank…

longbow vs shortbow vs staff

i went with longbow for longer range than staff…
conjure icebow really is a shortbow (all it’s skills are 900 range)
staff, while traited fire, fire does great AoE damage… the other elemetns are all filled up with utility skills. and i was going for a weapon more DPS oriented all around, in all elements. i’ll freely admit, it is a guilty pleasure fantasy for a 1500 longbow for elementalist… but i thought i’d toss it out there in case it sparked more creativity among the community after all, there are a lto fo creative minds in our community.

believe or not, most those skills were based partly on GW1 elementalist and ranger skills… either in name, or basic description, or both.

OverPpwered

yeah you make some real good points about how powerful prevention would be because of mesmers, and i do tend to forget how often auras can be shared by non-tempests.

maybe if prevention only had a 1 or 2 second duration…

i honestly was going more for relaying the concept than the balance.

prevention revisions

prevention would convert a percentage of the next incoming damage pulse into healing.