Guild Wars 2

Suppose elementals had the minion-like mechanic that their best special skill was under your control?

E.g., the Water Elemental’s icon would become a skill that teleports him to you and does the AoE heal. The lesser Fire Elemental would do his AoE blast finisher on command. Etc.

What complaints would there still be about the elementals?

I can think of one — the elite Fire Elemental was over-nerfed, period. But would there be any others?

Why would the fire elemental would overnerfed? because it uses its skill according to its script? the power is the same, using it at the right time makes it no way more OP than its randomness right now as long as you dont change the CD, and fire elemental is easy to kill.

i do not really think anything was really nerfed that much.
There are 2 things i support though:
- Better elementalist elites, not yust summon elemental
- Elemental clickable skill

Yes, i have to agree with your suggestion to change the icon of the elemental after summoning him to a single spell the elemental will use when clicked.
Fire area by fire, healing area by ice etc. etc.

That way it would make elementals more usefull and you could perfectly time the elemental spells to work in your advantage.

Atm its sad elementals are kinda our only good choice for elite because the others suck even worse.

Maybe being able to time the skill of an elemental would be overpowered … but in my opinion its worth a try :P

Together with increasing the health while an tornado by another 200%, making its spells be able to cast them faster after eachother OR stronger and making Fiery Greatsword so that it actually is usefull, perhaps give an immobilise to one of the spells and let the dmg of fiery greatsword increase by 15% if the enemy is burning i would like to see such a thing happen :P

I wonder if a simpler (from Anet’s viewpoint) solution would be to have the skill button turn into a user ability, depending on type of Elemental? That is, you can’t control the Elemental, but the Elemental provides a synergy to you that gives you another skill you can use while the Elemental exists?

You couldn’t really sacrifice the Elemental, which would either end up being too Mesmer-like or too Necro-like. Simply providing a buff to the owner wouldn’t really add much. Having direct control over the Elemental may be doable, but may be very difficult, depending on how the Elemental is actually implemented in ANet’s code, so I’m trying to think of something else that would be Elementalist-like and an additional skill that depends on the type of Elemental could be fairly easy to implement and also have the right flavor.

That’s all fine and dandy…but to be honest, the elementals are all fine and dandy. Unlike other professions, you get 4 elite skills to pick from every cooldown. Even rangers only get 2 pets…

Seriously, I have NO issues whatsoever with the skill and changing the mechanics is something that would take far more effort than simpler, more direct fixes like increasing damage. Given how much needs fixing on the elementalist, I’d prefer it if Anet’d not waste their time on implementing new things.

As Jamie would say, simpler is often better.