Guild Wars 2

It seems obvious that elementalists are meant to be played by cycling through elements. But if that’s the case, why make 20+ points in arcane pretty much mandatory just to get the cycle timers down to a reasonable level?

I think the class would really be improved by reducing the timer on cycling to the same 7 second cooldown as weapon swapping. Swapping attunements shouldn’t be something players feel like they can’t afford to do because getting back to fire takes too long and lowers their DPS by too much in the meantime. I can understand the logic of having some lockout timer, but the current one feels punitively long if the class design is based on swapping, as it certainly seems to be.

It’s based on swapping, but you need a certain amount of time in each attunement in order to get its full benefit. Air is a pretty quick transition unless you’re using it to move fast, but other than that, the others need more time. For d/d, for example, you need a while in earth to really get anything done with bleeds. Fire needs a while in order for the burns to be more than a passing damage blip, and, unless you’re specced up the water tree, the huge benefit from water comes from the stacks of vulnerability that you can build up with vapor blade.

There are a few different ways to play. You can go arcane and be swapping like mad, but the way I play, the only time I ever need to switch BACK to an attunement during a fight that I’ve already used that fight is when I’m battling bosses that take a long time to kill. That’s why you have enough points to make at least 2 attunements really useful. That way, if you’re locked out of one, you can focus on the advantages of your other major attunement. For me, it’s earth and fire, but it can really be any combination you want.

It sounds like you’re talking about D/D. Your comments don’t really apply to staff, where it is most apparent because staff has more different sets of skills on each attunement than D/D or S/D.

Anyhow I just dont’ see a good justification for making the lockout time as long as it is. It doesn’t seem like it really enhances the strategy. It just punishes you needlessly for switching to another element for one particular skill.

If they want the long timers they ought to balance elements better. Right now for most ele builds fire and earth get 90% of the uptime and air and water are basically only used for specific abilities. If they want the long lockout timers they need to make air and water more viable to sit in for more than 1-2 seconds at a time.

It’s because, contrary to popular belief, elementalists are not meant to be played by swapping through attunements constantly.

That’s supposed to be one choice that Elementalists have, if they choose to build that way and even then swapping attunements needs to be a choice. The only penalty there is in place is the opportunity cost— the cooldown for switching attunements. Take that away or lower it too much and suddenly Elementalists aren’t jack-of-all-trades but just overpowered.

Wasselin.1235:

It’s because, contrary to popular belief, elementalists are not meant to be played by swapping through attunements constantly.

They may not be meant to be played that way, but that’s definitely the way they are the most efficient.

I wish it wasn’t, though. It’s not much fun flipping through attunements left and right. The really high cooldown on most skills is part of the problem.

I find it fine as it is, for any weapon.

Wasselin, we ARE supposed to be switching attunements regularly. Sure, there are builds where you’ll want to stay in a particular attunement a lot longer than you do in other ones, but if you’re not switching at all, you’re playing it wrong. That’s the reason that we have longer cooldowns. It’s because we have twice the number of skills. So you can go to another attunement, use it for a little bit, maybe use 2 others for a little bit, and then come back to the first. That way, you never run out of skills even though the cooldowns are longer.
Personally, I find the attunement dancing to be one of the most fun and interesting parts of the profession. If you hate it, Laki, then maybe Elementalist isn’t for you.

@Yukishiro The same is true of the staff. Any of the 4 attunements are viable to stay in for an extended time if you’re traited for that attunement. And you can trait for at least 2 attunements. And the cooldowns really aren’t that bad. It’s only 1 second on the other attunements and only 15 on the one you were just using. I mean, seriously, there’s only one 3-5 ability for staff that has a cooldown shorter than that.
You’re not supposed to be able to go fire-earth-fire in any reasonable amount of time unless you trait Arcane. You’ve gotta cycle.

why is there a cooldown for any kind of swapping?

to punish someone for being good? O.o

if you could swap… means the other guy can too.

Pinkerton.5643:

@Yukishiro The same is true of the staff. Any of the 4 attunements are viable to stay in for an extended time if you’re traited for that attunement.

No, no they arn’t. Water and air are vastly, vastly inferior to fire and earth no matter how you spec. If you sit in either for more than 3-5 seconds you’re doing something wrong 95% of the time.

When you run staff you have two primary elements and two utility elements. The 15 second timer is meaninglessly punitive.

If they want to make all the elements viable that’d be different but right now the 15 second timer is too long when in reality you only have 2 elements that are fully fleshed out and 2 that are just for utility.

There´s nothing wrong with utility though.
Not dealing maximum amount of damage at all times and instead focusing on helping team or just buying time for yourself are good things to do too.

Agree with OP. Because of the way the class plays, a lot of points in Arcane seem mandatory. I feel like that’s a bad design decision.

Teaturtle.2094:

why is there a cooldown for any kind of swapping?

to punish someone for being good? O.o

if you could swap… means the other guy can too.

imagine what would happen with the Elemental Attunement trait if you could swap at will without cooldown. Not to mention the weapon sigils that activate on weapon switch.

Weapon swapping is 10s not 7s and you have 4 attunements while other classes only have 2 weapon sets.

Teaturtle.2094:

why is there a cooldown for any kind of swapping?

to punish someone for being good? O.o

if you could swap… means the other guy can too.

To challenge someone who is good. If there is no CD on the swapping there is nothing to plan and take into account. I believe that having a CD makes it more challenging than easier. You have to think if you want to swap for the penalty it might provide rather than swapping around blindly.

Wasselin.1235:

It’s because, contrary to popular belief, elementalists are not meant to be played by swapping through attunements constantly.

That’s supposed to be one choice that Elementalists have, if they choose to build that way and even then swapping attunements needs to be a choice. The only penalty there is in place is the opportunity cost— the cooldown for switching attunements. Take that away or lower it too much and suddenly Elementalists aren’t jack-of-all-trades but just overpowered.

I always find it peculiar when people make these claims. How are you able to speak from a position of authority on how the playstyle was meant to be? I mean, are you the lead developer for the elemental profession?

In pvp, you’re constantly having to switch attunements for one or two abilities, depending on the situation.

Yukishiro.8792:

No, no they arn’t. Water and air are vastly, vastly inferior to fire and earth no matter how you spec. If you sit in either for more than 3-5 seconds you’re doing something wrong 95% of the time.

that’s only if you consider the healing/chilling of water and swiftness/CC of air as “inferior.” It’s well known that fire/earth are the best dmg attunments (although air can pump out good dmg too), whereas water/air are control attunements.

There is nothing wrong with that, and that doesn’t mean you should never switch to water/air when playing simply because their damage isn’t uber (this is especially true in a group setting).

Strang.8170:

There´s nothing wrong with utility though.
Not dealing maximum amount of damage at all times and instead focusing on helping team or just buying time for yourself are good things to do too.

Yay, smart Ele! Sometimes against a tough mob (a veteran that you’re solo’ing, for example) it’s far preferable to keep slow, constant dmg up and kite better (w/ the swiftness and knockbacks of air, and healing/chilling of water) than it is to play ultimate glass cannon and die when you run out of endurance because you can’t kite properly in fire.

For example, one can switch to earth, gets a couple bleed stacks up, switch to fire, get a burn in, then move to air and /laugh as you run in circles around the mob as it’s health depletes. Then again, if you’re DPS is high enough that you can just burn the Vet mob down in fire before it reaches you, more power to you, although I have yet to see an Ele be able to sustain that kind of dmg threshold…

I guess I’m just kinda slow as far as ele skills go. I solo with fire, group exclusively with water ( i love healing) and use air to get from point a to point b as quickly as I can. I use earth occasionally just to keep from getting bored.

I agree with the OP. I feel crippled if I take away my 30 arcane.

I mainly use staff, and the staff skill sets just can not stand on their own (maybe fire can). They mostly seem a smattering of utilities, with fire’s autoattack being the only one that matters. So you hit the element you want a skill from, then need to get back to fire asap.

Another solution would be to just make the autoattacks on non fire staff suck less.

Bsquared.3421:

There is nothing wrong with that, and that doesn’t mean you should never switch to water/air when playing simply because their damage isn’t uber (this is especially true in a group setting).

Uh but that’s the whole point. You SHOULD switch to water and air, but there’s hardly ever any reason to STAY in water and air for more than 3-5 seconds tops. At the moment water and air seem to be designed to go into them briefly for specific control abilities before rapidly shifting out of them again. With that kind of design in practice you have only two “full” elements comparable to the weapons other classes get. A 15 second switch timer feels meaninglessly punitive in that context.

Right now if you use staff 20-30 arcane feels 100% mandatory. That just seems like bad design.

Yukishiro.8792:

Pinkerton.5643:

@Yukishiro The same is true of the staff. Any of the 4 attunements are viable to stay in for an extended time if you’re traited for that attunement.

No, no they arn’t. Water and air are vastly, vastly inferior to fire and earth no matter how you spec. If you sit in either for more than 3-5 seconds you’re doing something wrong 95% of the time.

When you run staff you have two primary elements and two utility elements. The 15 second timer is meaninglessly punitive.

If they want to make all the elements viable that’d be different but right now the 15 second timer is too long when in reality you only have 2 elements that are fully fleshed out and 2 that are just for utility.

I didn’t say that all 4 elements have the same damage potential. I said they’re viable. You don’t HAVE to be doing damage all the time. You can be a huge help to your group in whatever you’re doing if you’re doing almost no damage as long as you’re doing something else. If you’re doing some damage at the same time, that’s a bonus.

Quintal

Another solution would be to just make the autoattacks on non fire staff suck less.

If you think perma-weakness is sucky, I don’t really know what to say.

Well as a staff user 20 traits in arcane are mandatory regardless of attunements switching.

But i agree it would be annoying when building for another weapon.

The reason Eles dont get a second weapon in combat is because we switch attunements. People dont realize that if we go DD then we are only close range, where as a warrior has a sword for melee, and a rifle for ranged. The skill set for Elementalist is the problem.

The main problem is Anet have some focus on making each attunement to similar. What i mean is, we are supposed to have the same dynamic choices as other weapon swapping classes because our attunements fill that role, but if we go DD we are limited to close range combat and damage dealing, and no matter what attunement we swap to, we dont get any more support or tank attributes.

Yes traits play in to this, but overall the Ele skill set is horrible and needs a rework, there are some great spells, and just horrible ones.