Guild Wars 2

I hope this does get added at some point soon. Just as the engineer does not have weapon swapping either I say that all classes should have it available. While the attunement changing is nice for a variety of skills, weapon swapping for an ele would be much better in situations that call for the need to go from long range aoe staff attacks, to being pounced on by mobs or invaders with needing to switch to more close range attack options with s/d d/d and so on. Not sure if this has been posted but I would like to see others agree and again like to see it integrated into the game soon if enough ppl would stand by this and post suggestions to devs.

I would prefer weapon swapping with the Conjures instead, also give us one Conjure with 1200 range.

I wouldn’t mind built-in out of combat weapon swap but in combat weapon swap would be OP

Regizer.1763:

I wouldn’t mind built-in out of combat weapon swap but in combat weapon swap would be OP

worse, we would be balanced around that, and instead of having to track 4 bars, we’d be tracking 8.

Yep it has been posted for, several times.
Arenanet said pre release that if enough asked for it, it would be looked into.
tumbleweed
We`re still waiting.
Weapon swapping on a CD, lengthy as kitten if need be.

First time used staff for aaaages in WvW other night, died, got to keep & went to equip daggers.
Saw an empty slot in invis` bag & panicked. Stood there for ages going through bags trying to find what was lost.
Left WvW, 30 min` later realised was just some kitten Ori pick axe.
Screw staff from now on until they give us what every other prof` has.
Vive le daggers!!

plasmacutter.2709:

Regizer.1763:

I wouldn’t mind built-in out of combat weapon swap but in combat weapon swap would be OP

worse, we would be balanced around that, and instead of having to track 4 bars, we’d be tracking 8.

I will second/third this. My workaround for fights where I know I’ll have to range at some point is to slot Frost Bow. Has fared pretty well against Lupi and others.

Falunel.7645:

plasmacutter.2709:

Regizer.1763:

I wouldn’t mind built-in out of combat weapon swap but in combat weapon swap would be OP

worse, we would be balanced around that, and instead of having to track 4 bars, we’d be tracking 8.

I will second/third this. My workaround for fights where I know I’ll have to range at some point is to slot Frost Bow. Has fared pretty well against Lupi and others.

Funny you mention this.

My thought on fixing the arcana tree issue would be to bake the cooldown reduction from 20pts in arcana into the profession and instead have arcana’s points invested increase the charges on conjured weapons.

It’d better integrate these into ele builds.

And here I thought ele is meant to be a class that reduces your screen area by 10% (because of having the inventory permanently opened to switch weapons).
I’ll get nervous if I don’t have to move items around in my inventory every 30 seconds anymore! HALP

There is zero need for weapon swapping. It would make the class op’ed.

Think about it, for real.

If we get weapon swapping it should come at at a 100% increase to attunement swapping.

Ele Attunement IS OUR Weapon Swapping, as we are swapping to another element…..

roostapro.9827:

Ele Attunement IS OUR Weapon Swapping, as we are swapping to another element…..

Sense none you make~

roostapro.9827:

Ele Attunement IS OUR Weapon Swapping, as we are swapping to another element…..

Indeed.

The issue here is you have a bunch of D/D eles in this thread who want to have their cake and eat it too.

This is part of the tradeoff of D/D. if you want to specialize in anti-ranged there are other weapons more viable for that.. in exchange for the perks you lose by losing a dagger or two.

plasmacutter.2709:

roostapro.9827:

Ele Attunement IS OUR Weapon Swapping, as we are swapping to another element…..

Indeed.

The issue here is you have a bunch of D/D eles in this thread who want to have their cake and eat it too.

This is part of the tradeoff of D/D. if you want to specialize in anti-ranged there are other weapons more viable for that.. in exchange for the perks you lose by losing a dagger or two.

While you make perfect sense with your point is also true that the elementalist is the only profession locked in range and that go against the all “versality” scene, at this point only option for Anet is to change the mechanic for the conjures so to actually make them viable and resolve the range problem

Weapon swapping in combat for elementalists would be a terrible idea. 40 skills available In combat? Yeah… NO.

What they should do however is change it so that 1 attunement for each weapon has some form of long-ish (900) range. For dagger, increase lightning to longer range (as it is, whip requires perfect positioning…)

Maybe change lightning whip (it looks cool, but that’s it) to a magic dagger or something with 900 range.

Earth should be a dedicated short range for each attunement, with maybe one longer range, and lightning or fire as longer range.

Even elementalists who play the class are saying that weapon-swapping is a bad idea.

Does that not tell you how bad of a suggestion you are putting out?

Really don’t need weapon swapping. Granted I’m not into PVP and only level 42 with my Ele. I’m running D/D and have Frost Bow trait as well. Frost Bow’s Icestorm is pretty neat softening up a bunch of mobs. Has good range as well. I feel like my Longbow Ranger a lot when using Frostbow and having my Elemental out to tank for me.

I do like the suggested idea of changing the Arcana tree to improve Conjured weapon charges instead. You do get a 2nd bow when you use the trait. However if I have to run around a lot it might be out of grabbing range. And if I use the skill in groups. Chances are about 100% that a fellow player will pick up the spare

Conjured weapons are pretty pathetic and could use a rework

I like how the ele uses the elements as weapon swaps if i wanted to play ranged i would equip a staff or scepter.

I do think the range on frost bow should be 1200 not 900 so u can at least use something to attack defenses in wvw. I play dd anyway so i just lay down fields and protect ranged from ground forces

A weapon swap with a long cooldown — something like 20 or 30 seconds — has been suggested before.
Some very vocal d/d eles always shout it down OP!OP!OP! because they have no idea how weak they would be stuck with a staff for 20 seconds.

If you take into account that devs balanced elementalis ability of having 20 skills per weapon, by making almost every single skills overly simplistic and one dimencional and/or by increasing it’s cooldown… then I think we already paid the price for attunement swapping and no, weapon swapping wouldn’t be OP at all.

Now if they only gave us a worth while long range DPS weapon worth of swapping into.

How many of those who want weapon swaps actually play D/D?

If you pick D/D then you get the whole package, including the range. You got gap closers. Use them. If not, tough cookie. For the other weapons, the range actually doesn’t matter: they’re just as effective at long and at short range. Range is actually the least defining aspect of our weapon sets.

The ONLY acceptable weapon swap would be an out-of-combat swap, for practical reasons only. And that should either have a cooldown, or an ‘X seconds after combat ended’ effect. But preferably both.

Now as far as the conjures go, they could use a slight increase in range. The frost bow is a longbow for all intents and purposes, so it might as well get a 1200 range.

But in combat weapon swap? No, sorry. If you ask for that, you’re looking for a crutch to hold you up as opposed to learning how to play the class properly.

Gap closers wont help you when the enemy is on a high place, specially since they made it so blink abilities (not jump shot though) can’t teleport you to places where the path finding couldnt find a quick route. Wouldnt help you either when you want to attack an over extended target in a zerg without suiciding on a glass cannon spec.

Also, there is nothing worth it, in any single ele weapon that makes up for the range/style change loss that weapon swapping gives.

this subject is matter of debate since months, everyone here already expressed their opinion in late summer.
I was ok, in the beginning, with weapon swapping without restrictions: now things are different because Elementalist did overall receive tweakings that we can consider as “boosts” (although we received an huge nerf bat in the face with EA), so my opinion has been slightly modified as well.
Now I would be ok with weapon swap, but with 60 seconds CD.

NdranC.5107:

Gap closers wont help you when the enemy is on a high place, specially since they made it so blink abilities (not jump shot though) can’t teleport you to places where the path finding couldnt find a quick route. Wouldnt help you either when you want to attack an over extended target in a zerg without suiciding on a glass cannon spec.

So D/D has a ‘gasp’ downside? Surely we can’t allow that! It should be able to attack anything everywhere all the time!

Also, there is nothing worth it, in any single ele weapon that makes up for the range/style change loss that weapon swapping gives.

That’s your opinion. To me, the staff is versatile enough that I don’t miss not being able to swap to melee.

The thing you gotta keep in mind is that this is the Elementalist. It’s not a warrior/ranger with different fluff. Your weapons define your role, not your range. If you’re that desperate for a ranged attack, bring the Frost Bow. Summon an Air Elemental for a change. Bring some different utility skills.

The elementalist has the tools to work at different ranges. The difference is that they don’t involve weapon swapping.

Just got a crazy idea. How about, instead of swapping weapons, the devs changed Magnetic Grasp to pull your foe to you instead of you to them?

That would solve all D/D’s problems and would cause a lot less balance issues.

You can swap weapons out of combat.

If we would be able to swap in combat we would the most OP class ingame.

For example:
Healing rain + eruption + arcane blast + earthquake + churning earth = alot of AoE healing and damage

Eruption + lava font + ring of fire + dragon’s tooth (if fixed) + phoenix + earthquake + churning earth = alot of might and damage

I hope you see my point.

Everyone knows and agrees that in combat weapon swap is frowned upon and highly unlikely to be implemented.

What I don’t understand is why people are so against out of combat weapon swap for simplicity and consistency.

You already have to break off, stop doing anything and wait to open your bags. Do those of you against the idea really get so much pleasure out of opening a panel and dragging your weapons around?

I’m not opposed to an out-of-combat swap. However, it should really be just that. Not a ‘I managed to get out of combat for whatever reason during a fight, quickly switch and abuse the option I really shouldn’t have’ mechanic.

For practical reasons, I’m all for it. Implement it next patch. But also change the Arcana weapon traits to a single trait. You know, just for practical reasons.

ThiBash.5634:

Just got a crazy idea. How about, instead of swapping weapons, the devs changed Magnetic Grasp to pull your foe to you instead of you to them?

That would solve all D/D’s problems and would cause a lot less balance issues.

First they need to fix Magnetic Grasp then after that maybe…

So D/D has a ‘gasp’ downside? Surely we can’t allow that! It should be able to attack anything everywhere all the time!

No weapon is perfect, problem is while a warrior uses a gs to attack, then all of the sudden a target that is high up or to close to his team shows up (which would be this particular weapon weakness) what do they do? They switch to ANOTHER weapon that is particularly strong for this scenario. While as d/d we just switch the theme of our attacks but nothing really changes with the way we do attack.

The thing you gotta keep in mind is that this is the Elementalist. It’s not a warrior/ranger with different fluff. Your weapons define your role, not your range. If you’re that desperate for a ranged attack, bring the Frost Bow. Summon an Air Elemental for a change. Bring some different utility skills.

The elementalist has the tools to work at different ranges. The difference is that they don’t involve weapon swapping.

I would love for this to be viable, but what am i supposed to do auto attack 15 times with frostbow? With its oh so slow amazing damage? At best conjures are disposable bundles of 2 or 3 skills. Get one use 2 skills and get rid of it. They are either less damage than normal attacks, only have 1 good skill, very situation dependant or more melee.

Out of the 3 ranged ones, lava axe is just horrible, ice bow number 4 is really good for structures and 2/3 are not bad (5 has a huge tell) and gs which is still pretty short range and suicide in pvp. If they really want conjures to be good, then they need to be buffed and act like kits.

Im glad you like the staff, i personaly feels it requires a small team n the front holding the enemies away from you for it to be really efective. Look at mesmers, their staff is very slow and supporty like ours, their sword/pistol is like s/d or d/d with torch yet they still have that one good long range single target dps weapon. I personaly want greatsword elementalist.

NdranC.5107:

So D/D has a ‘gasp’ downside? Surely we can’t allow that! It should be able to attack anything everywhere all the time!

No weapon is perfect, problem is while a warrior uses a gs to attack, then all of the sudden a target that is high up or to close to his team shows up (which would be this particular weapon weakness) what do they do? They switch to ANOTHER weapon that is particularly strong for this scenario. While as d/d we just switch the theme of our attacks but nothing really changes with the way we do attack.

And that’s exactly what I mean. Not being able to attack at range at all is a tradeoff for being melee with 4 toolbars.

That’s not saying I don’t want you to be able to have long ranged attacks though. However, those conjure weapons you mention…I believe that the key in solving this whole dilemma lies with them. Changing conjured weapons at least would cause far fewer balance issues than weapon swapping would.

ThiBash.5634:

NdranC.5107:

So D/D has a ‘gasp’ downside? Surely we can’t allow that! It should be able to attack anything everywhere all the time!

No weapon is perfect, problem is while a warrior uses a gs to attack, then all of the sudden a target that is high up or to close to his team shows up (which would be this particular weapon weakness) what do they do? They switch to ANOTHER weapon that is particularly strong for this scenario. While as d/d we just switch the theme of our attacks but nothing really changes with the way we do attack.

And that’s exactly what I mean. Not being able to attack at range at all is a tradeoff for being melee with 4 toolbars.

That’s not saying I don’t want you to be able to have long ranged attacks though. However, those conjure weapons you mention…I believe that the key in solving this whole dilemma lies with them. Changing conjured weapons at least would cause far fewer balance issues than weapon swapping would.

I agree. It seems they intended our conjures to make up for our lack of range flexibility, but in their current incarnation, unless they change some of the core mechanics of conjures they’ll remain a novelty thing only good in very specific scenarios as disposable set of two skills. As a personal preference i wish they changed conjures to work as kits and make the fire axe the support healing ice axe and make the bow a fiery long bow with 1200 range and dps skills.