(edited by Ryld.1340)
Weapon Skill Suggestions for the Future
DAGGER
Goals: Add condition damage, giving Ele a solid choice for condition routes.
Fire
*Dragon’s Claw: Pierces Enemies
*Drake’s Breath: Grants Vigor to caster and allies hit by it.
*Burning Speed: Ground Targeted
*Ring of Fire: Double Tap to change into Poison Field, dealing poison instead of burning.
*Fire Grab: AoE around user instead of cone.
Water
*Vapor Blade: Passes/returns through the environment. Deals a little extra damage to chilled targets.
*Cone of Cold: Causes chill for a short duration.
*Frozen Burst: AoE increased
*Frost Aura: CD reduced slightly
*Cleansing Wave: PvP ratios reverted
Air
*Lighting Whip: A solid ability. No changes
*Lighting Touch: Causes 2 stacks of Torment for 5 seconds.
*Shocking Aura: Another good ability, no changes.
*RtL: Obvious. Remove CD penalty if miss.
*Updraft: Two ideas. Make Knockback a cone or Give Evade window but remove roll animation.
Earth
*Impale: 2 Stacks of Bleed for 5 seconds instead of 1 for 8. Cleaned up animation for a few races.
*Ring of Earth: 2 Bleeding Stacks instead of 1. AoE increased to 320.
*Magnetic Grasp: Not too sure here. Perhaps faster projectile.
*Earthquake: Make ground targeted where you’ll land at.
*Churning Earth: Two ideas. Distance AoE like Meteor Shower, or ability to cancel early for less damage/bleeding.
I see some very nice changes you have come up with, but i can also see some issues with some of them.
Now i come from a WvW perspective, so i cannot say if your suggestions are good for SPvP.
STAFF
Fire
Fireball: Totally agree
Lava Font: Maybe not instantaneously, but really a lot quicker than it is right now so you cannot run out of it without using dodge. (unless you are on the edge)
Flame Burst: This spell is already pretty strong, not sure this needs a buff, but that might just be me
Burning Retreat: The staff is really not close combat, so i don’t see why this should be made into a very up and close aggressive spell. Though this spell could use a little damage boost as there really is no consequence for actually running into the fire
Meteor Shower: While i would enjoy that i was able to run while casting it, i am not sure it would be for balancing. It is a pretty powerful spell, but i can see how it isn’t in SPvP where the opponent is smart enough to just stay away while it is active.
This should be a change that only affect SPvP and not WvW in my opinion.
Water
Water Blast: This spell is pretty good for support in WvW already, with some pretty good healing. So for WvW it is fine as it is as a support spell, but as for being useful as anything else than a support spell, it would be nice if it also healed the caster, but i am not sure it would be useful. For it to be useful, it would either have to give very high healing compared to the cooldown, or you would need to be able to get away from the opponent for a while and cast it. The problem with the spell is the little cooldown, so ANet cannot make it a very big heal and then the question becomes, should you use your time on healing a little, or just put out damage and put pressure on your opponent, while cooldowns reset.
Ice Spike: Now also causes immobilize for 1 second if target is chilled.
Can’t see a problem with this, if the target didn’t see the big floating ice spike hanging over their head, they are doing something wrong… that is really the main problem with staff spells, they are too easy to counter.
It would be nice though if this instead was made into a Combo Finisher to work together with Geyser and Healing Rain.
Geyser: personally i am fine with Geyser being a healing spell only, also i think that both Geyser and Healing Rain are fine, what we need are more blast finishers that doesn’t have a cooldown that takes ages or cast times that takes so long that you have to cast it before you place your combo field.
Frozen Ground: No changes.
Healing Rain: Direct healing can come from blast finishers.
Air
Chain Lighnting: Lightning is suppose to be high single damage so i very much agree with the damage % changes you suggest, also i agree with the travel time, eles really need at least 1 auto attack on staff that have a low travel time.
Lightning Surge: more or less instant would be a nice improvement, as there really is no use for it atm with the high cast time. As for it being a ground target AoE spell, i am not sure, again, lightning is suppose to be more or less single target with higher damage.
Gust: Made A cone would be a great solution for the problems this spell currently faces with it missing like 80% of the times you cast it. But lighting is still single target (mostly), so perhaps they should just fix it to start with and lets take it from there.
Windborne Speed: i’m fine with it as it is, maybe an adept trait could change it to give superspeed for a few seconds.
Static Field: No changes. No changes
Earth
Stoning: While the damage on this spell is not high, it does add conditions that will affect the battle, also it is a projectile finisher, so you could throw down a firefield before you switch to earth and do extra fire damage with it. you could also throw a water field and get extra regeneration with it.
Eruption: What it needs is a lower cast time, so it is possible to cast a Geyser, switch into earth and put down Eruption and have it blast before the Geyser ends.
Magnetic Aura: While i agree that it would be useful in a lot of situations with stability as an ele due to a lot of our spells being blockable, i think it would be a very powerful spell to just give stability, it should be a trait if this was implemented. Also it is already possible to gain protection with auras if you trait for it (Earth trait V)
Unsteady Ground: Personally i’m fine with it as it is, though i wouldn’t mind if it also knock down people who stand on it. What i would like if it just gave a little damage since you basically tun into a solid wall (this is for tagging purpose in WvW :P)
Shock Wave: I feel this spell is perfect as it is when it comes to cast time, form, etc, what it needs is a little more damage (20 sec bleed for like 1000 damage, really?)
Far Shiverpeaks
I feel as if “Air is single target” isn’t a good train of thought. Especially for Staff. If you mouse over Air Attunement, it says “Gain Heavy Damage and Control”. Single target damage also isn’t really Staff’s thing.
Some thoughts about your notes:
Burning Retreat: It’s not meant to give it offense, just extra control over the ability. Rolling to the side for example.
Water Blast: For Staff being a ranged weapon, giving it a heal that you have to be in very close melee for it work is annoying.
Windborne Speed: By itself, this skill is pretty meh. The cleansing of Chill, Cripple, and Immob is great, but you already have Swiftness with GoEH and EA. In battle, this doesn’t seem to do much on its own.
Eruption: This change was almost specifically for PvP. It’s annoying to get this to hit anyone.
Magnetic Aura: Staff users don’t grab Earth V as Magnetic Shield is their only aura outside of Frost Aura from blasting Frozen Ground which is better for Water Fields.
Unsteady Ground: This change was to help the user when the target is in melee range. If they are, this skill isn’t so great.
Shock Wave: At distances, I run into the same problem Gust has here.
My list is much shorter – I just want this:
Ice spike: Now a blast finisher. Water contains 3 combo fields. This would allow me to finish them myself without leaving water attunement (I know that there is also arcane wave or brilliance but these are very limited).
Abaddon’s Mouth (DE)
If I agree with most of your propositions, i’m quite disturbed with some spells in dagger.
In fire, I don’t understand why “Ring of Fire” would deal Poison ? Also, Grab of Fire would be too easy to land if it was an AoE around us; but make the cone larger than it is, and remove those bugs when we’re moving while casting would be enough (Btw, we’ve got the same problem with Lightning Surge). I also enjoy Burning Speed as it is actually. I’m not sure if it would be a great idea, like Arcane Wave which was better without ground targeting.
In air, I think Updraft is actually good, but reduce its cd would be great (something like 30" , at least ..?)
I approve your idea with Earthquake, but I wouldn’t see what you said with Churning Earth. Targeting AoE would be too strong and wouldn’t be in line with daggers. I remember Anet first wrote in this skill description to press the button to cast Churning Earth, and release it to deal damage; but in fact it has never exist, and it’s quite disappointing.
Anyway, nice ideas you’ve got here ^^
#ELEtism
If I agree with most of your propositions, i’m quite disturbed with some spells in dagger.
In fire, I don’t understand why “Ring of Fire” would deal Poison ? Also, Grab of Fire would be too easy to land if it was an AoE around us; but make the cone larger than it is, and remove those bugs when we’re moving while casting would be enough (Btw, we’ve got the same problem with Lightning Surge). I also enjoy Burning Speed as it is actually. I’m not sure if it would be a great idea, like Arcane Wave which was better without ground targeting.
In air, I think Updraft is actually good, but reduce its cd would be great (something like 30" , at least ..?)
I approve your idea with Earthquake, but I wouldn’t see what you said with Churning Earth. Targeting AoE would be too strong and wouldn’t be in line with daggers. I remember Anet first wrote in this skill description to press the button to cast Churning Earth, and release it to deal damage; but in fact it has never exist, and it’s quite disappointing.
Anyway, nice ideas you’ve got here ^^
Ring of Fire would become a two part skill that turns into “Toxic Fumes” or something like that. It would turn your Ring of Fire into a Poison AoE. It’s to give D/D access to the poison condition and a poison field.
I feel as if Burning Speed becoming targeted wouldn’t really be the same as Arcane Wave. You knew where Wave would hit because it was directly around you and you wanted it instant because it was in the middle of a combo. I don’t feel as if Burning Speed is the same there.
Also, Firegrab isn’t that great of a skill when you look at it. It’s currently sometimes hard to hit with as well as having an insane cooldown for what it does. I feel as if the AoE portion would be a large quality of life factor.
Yes, I said Fire Grab has bugs; if you move while using this spell, the damage will be at your last position, not where you’re looking at. And the cone is actually too small, of course. But I’m not sure making it an AoE around the player would be a good idea; too easy to land, and with those damages it would be quite op. I’m trying to figure out something balanced, but it’s true the actual spell is pretty useless in PvP.
edit : Yeah, I thought about the “poisonous smoke” with Ring of Fire, but I wasn’t sure you was thinking about this. I don’t think Elem has to deal this alteration, as torment. In this case, I can’t see anything to change on this spell, which is already quite strong. Instead of poison, why not a smoke field, which could blind when active ? It would be very powerful, and perhaps allowing this class to use stealth mode, but still with a difficult combo (Only one "Leap combo in D/D : Magnetic Leap in Earth, which isn’t easy to land).
#ELEtism
(edited by Shinenryu.6351)