Guild Wars 2

Just some random thoughts on how to streamline the Elementalist. To me, it always seemed that our traits and utilites were completely random and unwieldy. I am sure there are far more issues then what I address, but below lists the issues that I always thought were common sense fixes. Then again, this is just my opinion … I could be wrong.

1. Remove Glyph of Lesser Elementals and replace it in our utility lineup with Glyph of Elementals . Comparitively, GoE is not “elite” in power to other classes.

2. Remove all conjured weapon utilities and create a new elite Glyph of Conjuring. The weapon it summons is based on what attunement you are in at the time.
Fire – Fiery Greatsword
Water – Frost Bow
Air – Lightning Hammer
Earth – Earth Shield
Glyph of Conjuring has a 5 second casting time. The weapon conjured will reside in the elementalists secondary weapon slot and be accessible by the weapon swap button on a 9 second cooldown. The conjured weapon has 25 charges and exists until all charges are used. After the last charge, Glyph of Conjuring goes on a 60s cooldown. The conjure can also be aborted by using the elite again before the charges are used which will result in dropping the weapon and putting the elite on an immediate 60s cooldown.

In short, Glyph of Conjuring would act like a Mantra that has a long casting time, but then is available on demand until all charges are used at which time it goes on cooldown. This would give elementalists instant access to a conjured weapon when they need it, assuming that it was precast, which fixes one of the biggest complaints about conjured weapons.

The “spare” weapon could be sacrificed, IMO, but if it was to remain it should just follow the existing mechanic as that makes sense for classes that already have weapon swap capabilities.

3. New Utilities to replace the conjures :
a. Burning Retreat – Combo Field: Fire
b. Flame Leap – Leap Finisher
c. Fire Twirl – Whirl Finisher, Based on Chilling Whirl, but deals burning instead of Chill.
d. Lava Axe – Blast Finisher

4. Remove Conjurer from the fire line and replace it with an Adept Major that reduces the cooldown of the abilities listed in #3 above by 20% in addition to providing a fire aura on use.

I love the idea behind that “glyph of Conjuring,” to bad it seems very unlikely to happen, but would make and awesome elite skill. Wish they would do something to the conjure weapons they all feel so Meh with all the nerfs they have done.

I cannot like this idea enough, it is 100% the right approach to take to begin untangling the complexity which is causing issues balancing elementalists.

Maybe putting the new utilities in a fire trait isn’t far enough though. Maybe do the following: move glyph trait from air to earth, signets to fire and the new trait into air? This would allow the conjures to play well with the “melee brawler” line and might make it a little more appealing?

I dunno, just a thought!

New utilities not needed, but i would love the conjure as elite like suggested.
I would keep the 15 uses and conjure trait. Fire aura will trigger on each swap to the conjure.

Wolfric.9380:

New utilities not needed, but i would love the conjure as elite like suggested.
I would keep the 15 uses and conjure trait. Fire aura will trigger on each swap to the conjure.

Personally I would take Burning Retreat over cantrips if given the option. The evade mobility on demand would help a LOT.

On demand leap finisher would also be a bonus for aura builds through fire and ice fields.

The Whirl Finisher is meh, but it could be nice in a burn build or against a stealther.

You can’t have enough on demand blasts when you have access to water fields

I also wish that the AIR conjure was a 2H rifle and the EARTH conjure was the 2H Hammer.

A 2H shield is just silly.

I love this idea!

The sad thing is that flame axe is probably the second best designed conjure behind LH. If its numbers were buffed a bit, it would make an excellent addition to d/x builds for some ranged versatility.
And they need to rework icebow 4 to heal allies instead of damaging enemies. Its supposed to be a support weapon, why it ever had such a crazy damage skill on it is beyond me, but keeping that skill with kitten-tier numbers is just pointless.

I don’t like the idea of the 5 second cast on this conjure glyph. Conjures were originally meant to (Yea, I know, conjures having a purpose? What?) shore up weaknesses in builds. Take flame axe on dagger builds so you have a ranged option. Take LH on staff builds if the enemy gets in your face. Icebow so you can support your group. Earth shield to help you tank for a bit. But they don’t do that because 180 stat points is nothing compared to the 2000 points coming from your gear. They should rework conjures to convert stats. Frostbow converts ferocity into healing power, Earth shield turns Power into Toughness/Vit, etc. That would bring back the original intent and let the conjures be useful again without having to worry about frostbow turning into the best DPS since release FGS.

SongOfDestruction.2984:

The sad thing is that flame axe is probably the second best designed conjure behind LH. If its numbers were buffed a bit, it would make an excellent addition to d/x builds for some ranged versatility.
And they need to rework icebow 4 to heal allies instead of damaging enemies. Its supposed to be a support weapon, why it ever had such a crazy damage skill on it is beyond me, but keeping that skill with kitten-tier numbers is just pointless.

I don’t like the idea of the 5 second cast on this conjure glyph. Conjures were originally meant to (Yea, I know, conjures having a purpose? What?) shore up weaknesses in builds. Take flame axe on dagger builds so you have a ranged option. Take LH on staff builds if the enemy gets in your face. Icebow so you can support your group. Earth shield to help you tank for a bit. But they don’t do that because 180 stat points is nothing compared to the 2000 points coming from your gear. They should rework conjures to convert stats. Frostbow converts ferocity into healing power, Earth shield turns Power into Toughness/Vit, etc. That would bring back the original intent and let the conjures be useful again without having to worry about frostbow turning into the best DPS since release FGS.

I converted Flame Axe into the Utilities for the most part. With all the conjures becoming Elites there would need to be a buff pass to bring Ice Bow, LH, and Earth Shield up to “Elite” status. The 5 second cast time is well worth being able to instantly access the conjure when we need it, especially since it reduces the overall cooldown between elite conjures from 3 minutes to 1 minute.

In this version i find it to powerful.
I would keep the conjure as long as you don´t swap element. So you conjure a fire weapon and it disolves on changing element but stays as weapon swap without charges as long as you keep the element. This version is less powerful, but having the whole conjure set on demand within ele rotation is to much.
I would merge the FSG and the flame axe. Autoatack from axe, fire ring on FSG5, Leap on FSG4.

Wolfric.9380:

In this version i find it to powerful.
I would keep the conjure as long as you don´t swap element. So you conjure a fire weapon and it disolves on changing element but stays as weapon swap without charges as long as you keep the element. This version is less powerful, but having the whole conjure set on demand within ele rotation is to much.
I would merge the FSG and the flame axe. Autoatack from axe, fire ring on FSG5, Leap on FSG4.

As someone that has been playing engineer a LOT recently, even this version is still weaker than engineer kits. They have no cooldown, no charges, and is available to both weapon sets. You have to remember that while Elementalist has access to more abilities through weapons, around half of them are useful at any one time. When you are at near full health water abilities, as an example, are completely worthless. Most people will only use on average 2 abilities in an attunement before swapping to another attunement.

Something else I have noticed in my time as an engineer, Mist Form is weaker than Elixer S since you can actually initiate revive/down while IN elixer S form. Out of curiosity, why is the elementalist the only one that doesn’t have an auto-activate trait for our invulnerability form?

No doupt i woul love having FSG on a swap button. And also the flexibility to choose which i want to load.
The key is to put the conjure in the weapon swap and not drop it. But even when kits are better, having the conjure in the rotation on an aditional swap will make ele significant stronger.
I would put my FSG in the weapon swap and pull off the mobility when needed and this would be huge.

Suggestion:
When you summon a conjure it goes to you weapon swap as long as you don´t switch element. If you do it goes on CD. No charges or weapon droped. Conjurer trait reduced CD of conjuerd weapon skills and conjures by 20%.

Wolfric.9380:

No doupt i woul love having FSG on a swap button. And also the flexibility to choose which i want to load.
The key is to put the conjure in the weapon swap and not drop it. But even when kits are better, having the conjure in the rotation on an aditional swap will make ele significant stronger.
I would put my FSG in the weapon swap and pull off the mobility when needed and this would be huge.

You mean like Engineers do with Elixer Gun? :p

Elementalists need to be significantly more powerful in everything other than D/D Cele. Since D/D Cele is based on a fixed rotation they would actually benefit the least from this change as they only use FGS for the mobility when they actually need it already. The effect on other builds, however, would be far greater and would actually make them far more viable.

I do not like the idea. Conjures are interesting the way they are, it’s just that some of them suffer from outdated abilities and need some quality of life changes.

Your idea is a complete mess to balance overall.

5 seconds to cast is pretty crap, and it completely ignores the possibility to run multiples conjured weapon at the same time.

Problems.
1. You did not resolve the cooldown issues on Conjured weapon. You even made it worse by denying a second pickup which could cope with it.
2. You break a current playstyle.
3. You are overly buffing conjures with important cooldowns.
4 You do not promote the active use of the conjure. Instead, you promote a play pattern relying on using important cooldown and swapping. I.e. FGS spin and swap back to D/D.

Alekt.5803:

I do not like the idea. Conjures are interesting the way they are, it’s just that some of them suffer from outdated abilities and need some quality of life changes.

Your idea is a complete mess to balance overall.

5 seconds to cast is pretty crap, and it completely ignores the possibility to run multiples conjured weapon at the same time.

Problems.
1. You did not resolve the cooldown issues on Conjured weapon. You even made it worse by denying a second pickup which could cope with it.
2. You break a current playstyle.
3. You are overly buffing conjures with important cooldowns.
4 You do not promote the active use of the conjure. Instead, you promote a play pattern relying on using important cooldown and swapping. I.e. FGS spin and swap back to D/D.

This guy knows what’s up. Conjures are never going to be useful as weapons so long as they overwrite our attunements. You could stick them all on one non-elite utility slot, and without any changes to their ‘environmental weapon’ mechanic would still invariably fall in to one of two categories:

A) Useful for one or two overpowered skills, then immediately dropped.
B) Not powerful enough to ever be worth overwriting fifteen skills.

Simple fact is losing fifteen skills for five is never worth it unless the conjure is in some way God-mode overpowered beyond any ability to ever be balanced, case in point, old Fiery Rush and Ice Storm.

Even if they managed to make five skills with equal output to where you don’t just pop and drop every conjure for one or two skill uses. You simply cannot simultaneously balance a class to have the same output with 10 and 25 skills unless there is some greater degree of control over how they can combine those skills. There is a reason that any deckbuilding game’s competitive format limits the cardpool you can build from and how many cards you can build with.

The engineer is proving this even better than us. Kits are constantly dumped on by the developers, forcing engineers in to multikit builds because if the kits were powerful enough to stand on their own, they would be overpowered when used in concert. So the developers choices were to make multi-kit mandatory from a balance standpoint, make mono-kit required by mechanics, or create additional mechanics to accommodate both – probably the best option that third, but something we all know they aren’t willing to put in the work for this far in to development.

And the same thing applies to our conjures, except in reverse, Engineers have a standard of ten skills and can’ build up’, we have a standard of twenty and can ‘build down’; and that just can’t work without major changes to the system controlling how we build up and down.

Alekt.5803:

I do not like the idea. Conjures are interesting the way they are, it’s just that some of them suffer from outdated abilities and need some quality of life changes.

Your idea is a complete mess to balance overall.

5 seconds to cast is pretty crap, and it completely ignores the possibility to run multiples conjured weapon at the same time.

Problems.
1. You did not resolve the cooldown issues on Conjured weapon. You even made it worse by denying a second pickup which could cope with it.
2. You break a current playstyle.
3. You are overly buffing conjures with important cooldowns.
4 You do not promote the active use of the conjure. Instead, you promote a play pattern relying on using important cooldown and swapping. I.e. FGS spin and swap back to D/D.

This provides the exact same gameplay that already exists in both Engineers with weapon kits and Mesmers with Mantras. Balance methods already exist for both which would transfer over. It would all come down to recast time and cooldown.

You call out that 5s cast time as crap, yet I do it on my mesmer often … but for only THREE charges max of a mantra vs 25 charges for a conjure. You call out the cooldown by saying I make it worse when I actually reduced it by 66%.

1. A second pickup grants you a total of 30 charges, if you are allowed or in a posiiton to pick up the item. My idea grants you 25 all the time.
2. The current playstyle is already grossly broken. Conjures aren’t used outside of certain PvE and even that is extremely rare post IceBow nerf.
3. You basically said I am nerfing conjures by combining them and then say I am overly buffing them. Doesn’t this just mean they are different then they are now?
4. That would be the exact same gameplay of how Weapon Kits are used now. Also, its the exact same gameplay as what conjures are used now in sPvP and WvW. Elementalist summon, use a couple of abilities, and then drop it.

You may feel that D/D gets the least out of this change … and you would be right. As D/D you may only use FGS whirl and they go back. Other builds that are currently not very viable, however, will get a LOT more out of it. Fresh Air would have the defense of Earth Shield, Cele Staff would have access to another blast/leap finisher for its fields, ect. This is how it should be, D/D doesn’t need help, it should benefit the least.

As much as I loooove this idea, it would give ele swappable +5 skills in addition to its already great amount of skills.

The idea to replace conjured weapons for specific skills that has a combo finisher in common is so distinctive and unique it give me happiness chills. Nothing against it. At all.

Taldren.7523:

Alekt.5803:

I do not like the idea. Conjures are interesting the way they are, it’s just that some of them suffer from outdated abilities and need some quality of life changes.

Your idea is a complete mess to balance overall.

5 seconds to cast is pretty crap, and it completely ignores the possibility to run multiples conjured weapon at the same time.

Problems.
1. You did not resolve the cooldown issues on Conjured weapon. You even made it worse by denying a second pickup which could cope with it.
2. You break a current playstyle.
3. You are overly buffing conjures with important cooldowns.
4 You do not promote the active use of the conjure. Instead, you promote a play pattern relying on using important cooldown and swapping. I.e. FGS spin and swap back to D/D.

This provides the exact same gameplay that already exists in both Engineers with weapon kits and Mesmers with Mantras. Balance methods already exist for both which would transfer over. It would all come down to recast time and cooldown.

You call out that 5s cast time as crap, yet I do it on my mesmer often … but for only THREE charges max of a mantra vs 25 charges for a conjure. You call out the cooldown by saying I make it worse when I actually reduced it by 66%.

1. A second pickup grants you a total of 30 charges, if you are allowed or in a posiiton to pick up the item. My idea grants you 25 all the time.
2. The current playstyle is already grossly broken. Conjures aren’t used outside of certain PvE and even that is extremely rare post IceBow nerf.
3. You basically said I am nerfing conjures by combining them and then say I am overly buffing them. Doesn’t this just mean they are different then they are now?
4. That would be the exact same gameplay of how Weapon Kits are used now. Also, its the exact same gameplay as what conjures are used now in sPvP and WvW. Elementalist summon, use a couple of abilities, and then drop it.

You may feel that D/D gets the least out of this change … and you would be right. As D/D you may only use FGS whirl and they go back. Other builds that are currently not very viable, however, will get a LOT more out of it. Fresh Air would have the defense of Earth Shield, Cele Staff would have access to another blast/leap finisher for its fields, ect. This is how it should be, D/D doesn’t need help, it should benefit the least.

I play sPvP tournaments with conjured weapons. My point is a complicated one. With your idea, you will not see an healthy use of conjures. What you might see is a “Cast instant stuff and drop”. That would take the form of.. For every weapons.

Icebow
-Constant access to Frost Volley (5x proj finisher 100%)
-Constant access to Frost Fan (5 seconds of chill; used to be 7 but 5 chill stack limit now)
-An improve meteor shower for every weapon set.

Conjure Flame axe
(Deleted)

Fiery Greatsword
-Every 9 seconds, deal about 3k damage along with an evade that you can cancel not to go too far away for the target for an easy re-engage.
-Constant possibility to leave the fight.

Earth Shield (Auto-attack based conjure)
-Extra 2 seconds daze every 12 seconds.
-Possibility of Fortify every 25 seconds.

Lightning Hammer (Auto-attack based conjure)
-I do not know much about that one. It’s just a very slow weapon overall.

People will eventually realize that it’s just better to save conjures stacks and only use the best cooldown in it, then swap back. Inscribing a FGS is infinitely better than lightning flash. Once people realize, it’ll be broken, they’ll nerf conjures to the ground and we’re back to square 1.

Personnally, I like the picking up mechanic (I would like it less clunky though). It does not guarantee the possibility to use the conjure twice, but if you’ve been using conjures for long enough, you get to learn and remember where you’ve dropped it. When fighting on point, conjures on the floor represent safe spots where very few realize. Right now, conjures are good without picking them up for a second time, but when you do, the value of the utility increases by a lot.

-You’ll have to explain your point about reducing conjure cooldown by 66%.
-The point of conjures is not to drain all stacks
-Conjures are not used because they need some QoL changes.
-Combining Conjures will be a huge buff at first, but it will force a nerf, since every elementalist will have access to everything. Conjure would no longer be allowed to be a power spike.
-I don’t want conjures to be like engineer kits. Engineers increase weapon skills via kits; elementalists specialize via conjures.
-I am not a d/d elementalist player. I am a staff purist.

Alekt.5803:

I play sPvP tournaments with conjured weapons. My point is a complicated one. With your idea, you will not see an healthy use of conjures. What you might see is a “Cast instant stuff and drop”. That would take the form of.. For every weapons.

Icebow
-Constant access to Frost Volley (5x proj finisher 100%)
-Constant access to Frost Fan (5 seconds of chill; used to be 7 but 5 chill stack limit now)
-An improve meteor shower for every weapon set.

Conjure Flame axe
(Deleted)

Fiery Greatsword
-Every 9 seconds, deal about 3k damage along with an evade that you can cancel not to go too far away for the target for an easy re-engage.
-Constant possibility to leave the fight.

Earth Shield (Auto-attack based conjure)
-Extra 2 seconds daze every 12 seconds.
-Possibility of Fortify every 25 seconds.

Lightning Hammer (Auto-attack based conjure)
-I do not know much about that one. It’s just a very slow weapon overall.

People will eventually realize that it’s just better to save conjures stacks and only use the best cooldown in it, then swap back. Inscribing a FGS is infinitely better than lightning flash. Once people realize, it’ll be broken, they’ll nerf conjures to the ground and we’re back to square 1.

Personnally, I like the picking up mechanic (I would like it less clunky though). It does not guarantee the possibility to use the conjure twice, but if you’ve been using conjures for long enough, you get to learn and remember where you’ve dropped it. When fighting on point, conjures on the floor represent safe spots where very few realize. Right now, conjures are good without picking them up for a second time, but when you do, the value of the utility increases by a lot.

-You’ll have to explain your point about reducing conjure cooldown by 66%.
-The point of conjures is not to drain all stacks
-Conjures are not used because they need some QoL changes.
-Combining Conjures will be a huge buff at first, but it will force a nerf, since every elementalist will have access to everything. Conjure would no longer be allowed to be a power spike.
-I don’t want conjures to be like engineer kits. Engineers increase weapon skills via kits; elementalists specialize via conjures.
-I am not a d/d elementalist player. I am a staff purist.

1. Being a tournament conjuring elementalist makes you basically a unicorn. You’re one in a million, but then again that sort of proves the need for a rework. The current system is rejected by virtual all elementalists. Sure, there are a few, like yourself, that “specialize” to avoid the “mainstream”, but that doesn’t work for the rest of us.

2. As for using a few skills and switching … Your describing how every attunement is used right now. No one uses all their attunement abilities. In fact, based on spec, many abilities are avoided from ever being used. Heck, entire attunements are sometimes actively avoided.

3. The new sPvP map and WvW don’t have tiny capture points where you drop and pickup mechanic makes any sense.

4. I think you misinterpret the ability … you are locked into a single weapon that you choose at the time of your casting based on what attunement you are in. Swapping from FGS and returning 9s later leaves your shower ability with another 6s of cooldown to wait on. You can’t swap to Ice Bow until all your FGS charges are gone and you recast (5s cast) the elite after the 60s cooldown. 60s Cooldown vs the 180s cooldown we have now.

Taldren.7523:

4. I think you misinterpret the ability … you are locked into a single weapon that you choose at the time of your casting based on what attunement you are in. Swapping from FGS and returning 9s later leaves your shower ability with another 6s of cooldown to wait on. You can’t swap to Ice Bow until all your FGS charges are gone and you recast (5s cast) the elite after the 60s cooldown. 60s Cooldown vs the 180s cooldown we have now.

The way I understand it, the you can swap into a “selected conjured weapon” for the last 25 charges. Only thing is that you can bring it back only every 9 seconds.
Do I understand it?
1. You cast the glyph and get 25 stack of the weapon. 2. If discarded, it goes in a 9 seconds cooldown and keeps the stack count remaining. 3 After 9 seconds you can swap again, and again until no stacks remains.

OR
Is it… When you swap, you are locked in the conjure for 9 seconds?

Taldren.7523:

1. Being a tournament conjuring elementalist makes you basically a unicorn. You’re one in a million, but then again that sort of proves the need for a rework. The current system is rejected by virtual all elementalists. Sure, there are a few, like yourself, that “specialize” to avoid the “mainstream”, but that doesn’t work for the rest of us.

2. As for using a few skills and switching … Your describing how every attunement is used right now. No one uses all their attunement abilities. In fact, based on spec, many abilities are avoided from ever being used. Heck, entire attunements are sometimes actively avoided.

3. The new sPvP map and WvW don’t have tiny capture points where you drop and pickup mechanic makes any sense.

1. You’d see the build in action, you’d want to play it. Of course, I enjoy having my own style of play and care about how it plays. I wanted a real offensive staff build. I did not pick conjure weapons because they are conjured weapons. In fact, I’ve always considered Earth Shield like thrash until I carefully checked my options with it.

2. It would go to a whole different level. Some of the conjured weapon abilities are very strong because they are conjures. That’s what make them interesting. Imagine including FGS spin in your regular combat rotation.

3. I do not like the 60 seconds cooldown. I want that reduced. I just like the idea of picking it up for extra value, or even a team utility against a Rampage or what not.

Bonus. You’ve still not answered about my claim that your iteration would disqualify auto-attack oriented conjured weapons like earth shield and lightning hammer. Also, when I talked about the fact that you were nerfing the conjures in a way and buffing them, I meant that you were specifically hitting those.

Alekt.5803:

Taldren.7523:

4. I think you misinterpret the ability … you are locked into a single weapon that you choose at the time of your casting based on what attunement you are in. Swapping from FGS and returning 9s later leaves your shower ability with another 6s of cooldown to wait on. You can’t swap to Ice Bow until all your FGS charges are gone and you recast (5s cast) the elite after the 60s cooldown. 60s Cooldown vs the 180s cooldown we have now.

The way I understand it, the you can swap into a “selected conjured weapon” for the last 25 charges. Only thing is that you can bring it back only every 9 seconds.
Do I understand it?
1. You cast the glyph and get 25 stack of the weapon. 2. If discarded, it goes in a 9 seconds cooldown and keeps the stack count remaining. 3 After 9 seconds you can swap again, and again until no stacks remains.

OR
Is it… When you swap, you are locked in the conjure for 9 seconds?

You are locked into the Conjure for 9s just like with other secondary weapon swaps. Of course you are still considered to be in whatever attunement you are in at the time and can still swap attunements while using the conjured weapons.

Alekt.5803:

Bonus. You’ve still not answered about my claim that your iteration would disqualify auto-attack oriented conjured weapons like earth shield and lightning hammer. Also, when I talked about the fact that you were nerfing the conjures in a way and buffing them, I meant that you were specifically hitting those.

1, 2, and 3 I will leave open while you absorb my last post.

I still don’t know what you mean by disqualifying. The autoattacks arn’t going anywhere , you have 25 attacks you can make before it goes on its 60s cooldown (48s with -20% Glyph Cooldown from AIR).

Taldren.7523:

Alekt.5803:

Bonus. You’ve still not answered about my claim that your iteration would disqualify auto-attack oriented conjured weapons like earth shield and lightning hammer. Also, when I talked about the fact that you were nerfing the conjures in a way and buffing them, I meant that you were specifically hitting those.

1, 2, and 3 I will leave open while you absorb my last post.

I still don’t know what you mean by disqualifying. The autoattacks arn’t going anywhere , you have 25 attacks you can make before it goes on its 60s cooldown (48s with -20% Glyph Cooldown from AIR).

I hope that you’re aware that Inscription only grants 1 stack of might.

Taldren.7523:

Alekt.5803:

Taldren.7523:

4. I think you misinterpret the ability … you are locked into a single weapon that you choose at the time of your casting based on what attunement you are in. Swapping from FGS and returning 9s later leaves your shower ability with another 6s of cooldown to wait on. You can’t swap to Ice Bow until all your FGS charges are gone and you recast (5s cast) the elite after the 60s cooldown. 60s Cooldown vs the 180s cooldown we have now.

The way I understand it, the you can swap into a “selected conjured weapon” for the last 25 charges. Only thing is that you can bring it back only every 9 seconds.
Do I understand it?
1. You cast the glyph and get 25 stack of the weapon. 2. If discarded, it goes in a 9 seconds cooldown and keeps the stack count remaining. 3 After 9 seconds you can swap again, and again until no stacks remains.

OR
Is it… When you swap, you are locked in the conjure for 9 seconds?

You are locked into the Conjure for 9s just like with other secondary weapon swaps. Of course you are still considered to be in whatever attunement you are in at the time and can still swap attunements while using the conjured weapons.

Then it’s absolute junk. Anet’s bad iteration is over twenty times better.

I don’t like going into conclusions like that, but you don’t seem to play conjures yourself and do not understand why and how they can fit in the utility bar.

Alekt.5803:

Taldren.7523:

Alekt.5803:

Taldren.7523:

4. I think you misinterpret the ability … you are locked into a single weapon that you choose at the time of your casting based on what attunement you are in. Swapping from FGS and returning 9s later leaves your shower ability with another 6s of cooldown to wait on. You can’t swap to Ice Bow until all your FGS charges are gone and you recast (5s cast) the elite after the 60s cooldown. 60s Cooldown vs the 180s cooldown we have now.

The way I understand it, the you can swap into a “selected conjured weapon” for the last 25 charges. Only thing is that you can bring it back only every 9 seconds.
Do I understand it?
1. You cast the glyph and get 25 stack of the weapon. 2. If discarded, it goes in a 9 seconds cooldown and keeps the stack count remaining. 3 After 9 seconds you can swap again, and again until no stacks remains.

OR
Is it… When you swap, you are locked in the conjure for 9 seconds?

You are locked into the Conjure for 9s just like with other secondary weapon swaps. Of course you are still considered to be in whatever attunement you are in at the time and can still swap attunements while using the conjured weapons.

Then it’s absolute junk. Anet’s bad iteration is over twenty times better.

I don’t like going into conclusions like that, but you don’t seem to play conjures yourself and do not understand why and how they can fit in the utility bar.

Actually I do and in order to keep the short cooldowns on the conjure abilities themselves (5 to 15s) the standard weapon swap cooldown seemed a good compromise. If it was instant access in and out the weapon cooldowns would have to go up to match real weapon cooldowns.

I guess you could abort the conjure and “drop” the weapon by pressing your elite again, in which case it would go on instant 60s cooldown.

What we have now is garbage. The drop mechanic is completely horrible. Other players can pick up your weapons and ruin your rotation. You have the cast delay in trying to use them and the pick up delay if you can find your weapon to pick it up among all the wells and AE abilities going off.

Then you end up using 2 abilities and then drop the weapon … whoever thought that was a good idea has no business touching game mechanics.

I think this is an interesting and clever idea. I would love to be able to use the more useful conjure abilities without having to immediately discard it afterward because weapon skills are stronger. My only (minor) quibble with your original idea is that the new utilities are all Fire-themed skills (because they are based on the Flame Axe ones). Clearly they should match our four elements!

What I like most perhaps is that its an Elite skill that’s actually useful. I’d have taken a regular Utility in place of our Elites long ago if it were possible. I’m not opposed to FGS (I actually like it a lot) but 180s is a looooong cd for it, especially when its often used just for mobility.

I can understand being ‘locked’ into the Conjure may pose a problem for some weapons. Your solution of using the Glyph again to drop the weapon seems to solve that, though. Was that recently added? I didn’t recall reading it the first time. It allows a choice between the usual conjure-cast-drop method as now and your new suggestion weapon swap.

One thought I had (and I’m not sure I even like it…) is for the Conjures to replace their respective elemental attunements. So, for example, you use the conjure glyph in Air attunement and Lightning Hammer now replaces your Air attune skills until the charges have been used, the time runs out (if there’s a timer), or you discard the weapon. You are free to swap between elements using your original weapon skills except for the one you conjured, which would have the conjured skills instead. Is this perhaps too powerful for Conjures?

Glacial.9516:

I think this is an interesting and clever idea. I would love to be able to use the more useful conjure abilities without having to immediately discard it afterward because weapon skills are stronger. My only (minor) quibble with your original idea is that the new utilities are all Fire-themed skills (because they are based on the Flame Axe ones). Clearly they should match our four elements!

Conjures were all considered Fire’s Utilities.

Glyphs are Air’s
Signets are Earth’s
Cantrips are Water’s
Arcane are … well .. Arcanes

So with all the conjures becoming Glyphs, and thus AIRs … all the utilities needed to be based on Fire. Plus I didn’t want to take anything away from what elementalists already had.

What if conjure would work the following way:

When you call a conjure, you loose the ele swaping and gain the conjure on F5 (replace if one is already up). You now swap between the conjure and the current element till the conjure is droped (no charges). When droped the recharge starts. Of course you stay in your current element there is no on swap while using a conjure.
I would like that.