Guild Wars 2

Hi, all. During the recent dev video where the latest patch changes were revealed, I noticed—indeed one of devs pointed out—that they had disabled cooldown between attunements to speed up showing us the skills.

Why can’t we do this? I see a lot of harping on the forums about lowering the CD cooldown to de-emphasize arcana. Help me troubleshoot this: What OP scenarios, what game-breaking, meta-changing problems would occur if we could change to any element whenever we wanted, how often we wanted, and with no penalty? Try to consider all weapon sets/combos.

Please keep reading before flipping out.

We already have super-high cooldowns, so switching around isn’t really going to grant us access to any more skills (power) than we have now. If I want to, I can F1, blow it all, F2, blow it all, repeat….It does however open a lot new strategies for us.

On the one hand this change will lower the skill cap (pro and con) by no longer having to factor in attunement CD into getting access to a skill. On the other hand, you won’t find yourself blowing a skill just because you’re about to move on and you won’t see it again for too long a time. You could actually become a much more reactive force. Imagine making decisions exactly when you want to. Burst 4 on your focus, switch to water, realize you’re still getting ganked, back to earth and put up obsidian.

What I see now for negatives:

A) This would make fresh air obsolete.
B) With Arcana no longer reducing CD, it would either have to just increase boon duration, or another buff might be needed.
*C) Some skills would probably have to have their CDs increased (ick, I know), such as water staff 2, air lightning strike (scepter 2), dragon tooth (fire scepter 2), etc. Right now there’s not real reason to camp water for example, so the CD of the attunement itself acts like the real CD, preventing spamming of these kinds of skills. If we had unlim/unhindered switching, I could drop into water every 4 seconds, drop this, and move on.

Obvious modification: We’d have to have internal cooldowns added to all skills, traits, sigils, runes, etc, for weapon swap , elemental swap. A standard 9 seconds would be fine, so that this change doesn’t modify that part of Elementalist play.

TL;DR:

Increase the CD of some skills so that they’re not lower than the lowest we can have with max Arcana.

Keep auto attacks the way they are.

Eliminate all attunement cooldown.

Add internal cooldown for any on-swap weapon or attunement buff (equalized to what it is now)

Encourage the swapping play style that was intended, but give more purpose and strategy to that switching.

I’m throwing this out there for some fine-tuning. I will admit that I come at this much more from a PvE perspective; I hope some of your PvP / WvW people can provide some insight.

Please weigh in on this idea and/or demonstrate some OP combos w/ zero attunement cooldown.

Example:

With Staff, I could now

1. Eruption.
2. Fire → lava field.
3. Back to Earth – > EA → blast finisher
4. Arcane blast.

One more set of might.

Reserved for future use.

Reserved for future use.

Because perma boons.

Because ICD.

I think it’s much more realistic to ask for the post swap gcd to be removed.

I think one of the biggest problems with no attunement cd would be the minor 15 traits that we could basically endlessly spam while just auto attacking and using other skills we see fit.

I’m all for lower attunement CDs. The we could totally have a reworked arcana line. Set the bar at a standard 7 seconds between each attunement and let us free up points from arcana. No further attunement swap cd or increase. Just a set 7 seconds. Making FA still viable if ppl want to use it and also taking EA from a grandmaster trait in arcana and putting it in another line at either a master or in fire for a gm to make up for going that high Into power.

Given how attunement swaps are considered weapon swaps, which grant effects based upon sigils, and the fact that we have traits which give us boons upon swap, you aren’t likely to see the CD removed. With that in mind, the simpler fix is to normalize the CD at a good value and then change the arcane trait line to impact something other than the attunement CD.

I understand where you are coming from, but I disagree with you for the most part.

Our primary disadvantage is supposed to be “cost” of leaving an attunement and swapping roles locking us out of that role for a period of time. I still think this design can work if they didn’t break so many other things around it (giving us even more costs to burden us further making out play inferior).

If you really want to use “the right skill at the right time” with 0 ICD, play an engineer. I have switched more permanently. Its much more fun, less handicapped, and I even get to pick which “attunements” I want, and then actually being good in each one. Further, I can swap “attunements” (kits) instantly and use the exact right skill at the right time. Still learning, but combined with the better abilities that are generally available, makes engineer way more rewarding and even fun to play. Most of what you have learned with ele (swapping often, managing boons/condis, properly using combo fields, aiming aoes) are directly transferable to engineer.

If they removed the boons generated by each attun maybe It would be balanced.

Treborlavok.3504:

I think one of the biggest problems with no attunement cd would be the minor 15 traits that we could basically endlessly spam while just auto attacking and using other skills we see fit.

1. I mention the need for Internal cooldown for all skills if 0 attune.

2. Wouldn’t you rather see FA die for all to have 0 attune than FA live?

BlackBeard.2873:

I understand where you are coming from, but I disagree with you for the most part.

Our primary disadvantage is supposed to be “cost” of leaving an attunement and swapping roles locking us out of that role for a period of time. I still think this design can work if they didn’t break so many other things around it (giving us even more costs to burden us further making out play inferior).

If you really want to use “the right skill at the right time” with 0 ICD, play an engineer. I have switched more permanently. Its much more fun, less handicapped, and I even get to pick which “attunements” I want, and then actually being good in each one. Further, I can swap “attunements” (kits) instantly and use the exact right skill at the right time. Still learning, but combined with the better abilities that are generally available, makes engineer way more rewarding and even fun to play. Most of what you have learned with ele (swapping often, managing boons/condis, properly using combo fields, aiming aoes) are directly transferable to engineer.

And I hear what you’re saying, but…ick. If I want to have good mechanics switch to engy? This is the partially kitten class? I’ve been thinking about giving engy a whirl, but I have way too much invested in ele.

ATMAvatar.5749:

Given how attunement swaps are considered weapon swaps, which grant effects based upon sigils, and the fact that we have traits which give us boons upon swap, you aren’t likely to see the CD removed. With that in mind, the simpler fix is to normalize the CD at a good value and then change the arcane trait line to impact something other than the attunement CD.

Internal cooldowns to prevent OP.

PlatypusRex.3428:

Treborlavok.3504:

I think one of the biggest problems with no attunement cd would be the minor 15 traits that we could basically endlessly spam while just auto attacking and using other skills we see fit.

1. I mention the need for Internal cooldown for all skills if 0 attune.

2. Wouldn’t you rather see FA die for all to have 0 attune than FA live?

Ah ok, yea an internal cd of atleast 5 secs.. But then honestly is rather just have our attunements set at either 5-7 cd and leave it at that.

I actually like what they did with the FA trait. Getting rid of the arcana attunement cd would also mean they would have to get rid of or severely nerf EA from being able to get in and out or water too easily. Also if you got rid of FA they would then have to rework the air line. Basically, having a 0 attunement cd wouldn’t happen because they would have to basically rework our trait trees entirely.

I’d be ok with a FA-like trait in each line, so you could specialize in one if wanted to. I know others have suggested it too.

PlatypusRex.3428:

I’d be ok with a FA-like trait in each line, so you could specialize in one if wanted to. I know others have suggested it too.

Fresh Air + Fresh Water would be pretty sexy spamming dat discharge + healing ripple.

There is no valid argument against a zero CD on attunement swapping. Every mechanic that needs to exist to prevent overpowering already exists in the game, such as ICD on skills, traits, sigils and runes.

ANet have already demonstrated that they’re not too worried about it due to Fresh Air and the builds that sprang up allowing Eles to work in a Air Attune in between each swap for the Air 15 trait.

Yes, some traits might need to be re-worked or altered to avoid overpowering the profession, but would end up with a much more interesting and dynamic profession that could use Attunements tactically, rather than as a limiting facet of playstyle and build variety.

Which video? Can you post link?

The answer isn’t about balance or overpowered skills.

The answer is that it would effectively give us a 25-skills action bar and that’s not what the game is about. The reason there’s an internal cooldown is to give you limitations to make the game interesting. Would chess be fun if every piece could move to any square on the board?

Remove proccs and boons on switch or add appropriate inner CD and I think it wouldn’t be that overpowered as one might think. Maybe even staff would be viable with that.
Anyways I’d be happy with a reduction of the CD to at least ~10s standard.

/vote 4 testrealm to test ideas like that

This debate again?
I think if you really want 0 cd on attunements you should post there.

ThiBash.5634:

The answer isn’t about balance or overpowered skills.

The answer is that it would effectively give us a 25-skills action bar and that’s not what the game is about. The reason there’s an internal cooldown is to give you limitations to make the game interesting. Would chess be fun if every piece could move to any square on the board?

Individual skill cooldowns two to three times as long on average compared to all other professions say hello.

Kaleban.9834:

There is no valid argument against a zero CD on attunement swapping. Every mechanic that needs to exist to prevent overpowering already exists in the game, such as ICD on skills, traits, sigils and runes.

ANet have already demonstrated that they’re not too worried about it due to Fresh Air and the builds that sprang up allowing Eles to work in a Air Attune in between each swap for the Air 15 trait.

Yes, some traits might need to be re-worked or altered to avoid overpowering the profession, but would end up with a much more interesting and dynamic profession that could use Attunements tactically, rather than as a limiting facet of playstyle and build variety.

Having a 0 attunement cd would cause too much conflict and probably bugs, with the way that some traits have been bugged since beta…. im talking about you LE.

I think having a set 7 sec attunement cd would be perfect. Keeping FA and adding in FA style traits to fire and water would be a nice touch. Reworking the arcana line and moving EA to a master trait, or even a minor 15 trait in arcana to replace LE since its been bugged for so long anyway.

Instead of attunement CD/boon duration in arcana… keep boon duration and add in a celestial style trait for a +to all skills for the “passives”.

I think they could remove the GCD on attunement swap and don’t see it overpowered if they did remove the GCD.

Just using the classes I play for reference. All of them have a way to reduce their main class mechanic and it’s all through a trait line.

Warriors- Discipline

Thief – Trickery

Mesmer – Illusions(trait for instant recharge of shatter skills at 50%)

Elementalist – Arcana

Necromancer – SR (Near to death trait for a cd reduction)

I can see them altering the Arcana or having some trait to reduce the CD. It was done with thieves with the GM sleight of hand trait for an additional 20% reduction. Steals base CD was reduced to 35 secs from 40.

Burst mastery for Warriors was added along with the burst mechanic being tied to discipline for cd redcution.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they did some kind of altering to Arcana for ele’s. With a trait to reduce the CD of attunement swapping or reducing the CD on attunement recharge I doubt they do both for ele though. They have done it before for other classes so I can see them doing it again.

It is something that is missing from elementalist that other classes have had or received in a balance patch.

ThiBash.5634:

The answer isn’t about balance or overpowered skills.

The answer is that it would effectively give us a 25-skills action bar and that’s not what the game is about. The reason there’s an internal cooldown is to give you limitations to make the game interesting. Would chess be fun if every piece could move to any square on the board?

These limitations that you speak of do not exist for engineers. They don’t even lose utility slots for their kits.

Ryld.1340:

ThiBash.5634:

The answer isn’t about balance or overpowered skills.

The answer is that it would effectively give us a 25-skills action bar and that’s not what the game is about. The reason there’s an internal cooldown is to give you limitations to make the game interesting. Would chess be fun if every piece could move to any square on the board?

These limitations that you speak of do not exist for engineers. They don’t even lose utility slots for their kits.

Yes they do. To include a kit in a build, Engies have to slot the kit in a utility slot. Additionally, engies are subject to the same lack of weapon swap eles are.

Perhaps I misunderstand your complaint.

lunyboy.8672:

Ryld.1340:

ThiBash.5634:

The answer isn’t about balance or overpowered skills.

The answer is that it would effectively give us a 25-skills action bar and that’s not what the game is about. The reason there’s an internal cooldown is to give you limitations to make the game interesting. Would chess be fun if every piece could move to any square on the board?

These limitations that you speak of do not exist for engineers. They don’t even lose utility slots for their kits.

Yes they do. To include a kit in a build, Engies have to slot the kit in a utility slot. Additionally, engies are subject to the same lack of weapon swap eles are.

Perhaps I misunderstand your complaint.

Toolbelt skills is what I’m referring to. And, depending on the kit, some of them are pretty freaking good.

the toolbelt skills if actually using a kit in a way replace the utility you would have had in that slot, that being said I don’t know if engineers have any kit that can truly compete with LH or many of the other elementalist’s weapon summons.

back to the topic at hand I personally don’t see anything wrong with making elemental attunement swap have no cool down for a possible slight decrease in damage.

0 cd on atunement would be crazy. ele would be op. stop this madness.

Ryld.1340:

lunyboy.8672:

Ryld.1340:

ThiBash.5634:

The answer isn’t about balance or overpowered skills.

The answer is that it would effectively give us a 25-skills action bar and that’s not what the game is about. The reason there’s an internal cooldown is to give you limitations to make the game interesting. Would chess be fun if every piece could move to any square on the board?

These limitations that you speak of do not exist for engineers. They don’t even lose utility slots for their kits.

Yes they do. To include a kit in a build, Engies have to slot the kit in a utility slot. Additionally, engies are subject to the same lack of weapon swap eles are.

Perhaps I misunderstand your complaint.

Toolbelt skills is what I’m referring to. And, depending on the kit, some of them are pretty freaking good.

If you mean the tool belt skill replaces the utility slot, that’s a fine answer, but then, you have 4 sets of attunements for each weapon set in various configurations. If you want to swap out to something like kits, try conjures, then you can share your “kit” with other players.

I run a LH ele in dungeons over my Engineer in which I invested 2,000 hours, because I find it more fun, she generates more DPS and provides superior offensive support (as well as some defensive).

Don’t try to compare the two, the only reason people think engineer is “in a good place” right now is because it can condition spam like a necro while having reasonable movement and build like a bunker.

But for dungeon DPS, engineer is dead last.

pho.9412:

0 cd on atunement would be crazy. ele would be op. stop this madness.

But why? Explain some scenarios where this would matter (except proccs on swap). We still got huge CDs that prohobit any OPness. We already can swap through all attunements without CD but only once at the beginning of the fight – is it OP? Not really. After initial burst everything is on CD and there wouldn’t be anything OP about it. It would buff staff because using your combo-fields with earth blast finisher would be easier. And it would promote build-variety because arcana wouldn’t be necessary anymore.

Anyways I know that it’s never going to happen but still I like the idea.

Ryld.1340:

ThiBash.5634:

The answer is that it would effectively give us a 25-skills action bar and that’s not what the game is about. The reason there’s an internal cooldown is to give you limitations to make the game interesting. Would chess be fun if every piece could move to any square on the board?

These limitations that you speak of do not exist for engineers. They don’t even lose utility slots for their kits.

The limitations exist for engineers as well, but in a different form. You are correct that engineers can bring 4 kits and get 25+. However, the kits are severely underpowered unless traited for, and the engineer cannot trait for all of them at the same time. Also, while he doesn’t give up skill slots, he does give up most of his condition removal and all of his stunbreakers. So for an engineer too, playing with that many skills isn’t really an option.

So to summarize: you are correct that engineers can bring even more skills, but if they do their skills and performance are seriously watered down. For the ele, I wouldn’t recommend going down that road.

ThiBash.5634:

Ryld.1340:

ThiBash.5634:

The answer is that it would effectively give us a 25-skills action bar and that’s not what the game is about. The reason there’s an internal cooldown is to give you limitations to make the game interesting. Would chess be fun if every piece could move to any square on the board?

These limitations that you speak of do not exist for engineers. They don’t even lose utility slots for their kits.

The limitations exist for engineers as well, but in a different form. You are correct that engineers can bring 4 kits and get 25+. However, the kits are severely underpowered unless traited for, and the engineer cannot trait for all of them at the same time. Also, while he doesn’t give up skill slots, he does give up most of his condition removal and all of his stunbreakers. So for an engineer too, playing with that many skills isn’t really an option.

So to summarize: you are correct that engineers can bring even more skills, but if they do their skills and performance are seriously watered down. For the ele, I wouldn’t recommend going down that road.

Elementalist are in the same exact boat that you just said. Also, you can still get cond removal with elixir gun.

However, the kits are severely underpowered unless traited for, and the engineer cannot trait for all of them at the same time.

This is one of the biggest problems for Ele as well. If you trait for Fire, it does zero benefit for your other attunements. And, unlike Engineers, if you swap kits/attunements for a specific skill’s utility, you can’t just swap back to your traited kit.

Zelyhn.8069:

This debate again?
I think if you really want 0 cd on attunements you should post there.

You’re just mad that this goes against your FA D/F build.

ThiBash.5634:

The answer isn’t about balance or overpowered skills.

The answer is that it would effectively give us a 25-skills action bar and that’s not what the game is about. The reason there’s an internal cooldown is to give you limitations to make the game interesting. Would chess be fun if every piece could move to any square on the board?

I think the more accurate analogy would be chess, but you can only use the knight every 3rd move, not any piece any location.

Seen lots of people weigh in, but no one able to post an OP combo so far or a specific OP concern. I’ll look again tonight when I play.

I’d be more concerned with this being a hidden nerf rather than too OP. Everyone who has pointed out the skill cooldowns is right, at least for d/d and staff. Thinking of my build (d/d ele, wvw bunker, staff as needed), evasive arcana would be FAR less effective with an internal cooldown (I’m just going with the standard 9 sec for the purposes of this post). As it stands right now, I can pop a fire field, swap to earth to blast it, then swap immediately to water and essentially get a heal with bonus evade. My biggest limitation is actually my endurance regen (although I do run into all attunements on cooldown pretty often on daggers). I also rely on attunement swapping + auras for perma fury in combat. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg… what about the regen in water? Would that have an internal cooldown, as well? With the attunement bonus lingers trait, you’d have it up all the time.

They’d have to rework so much to do this, and, after seeing what’s already been done to d/d, I’m not sure I want my favorite class tinkered with that much. It seems like a fun idea at first (push moar buttons!), but I think the side effects might wind up killing the class for those who love it now. Honestly, the best way to open up build options might be to simply raise the natural health pool/armor and include more condi removal in something other than water (although once again, I’d hate to see them break what is probably the most synergistic traits in the game!).

ATMAvatar.5749:

Given how attunement swaps are considered weapon swaps, which grant effects based upon sigils, and the fact that we have traits which give us boons upon swap, you aren’t likely to see the CD removed. With that in mind, the simpler fix is to normalize the CD at a good value and then change the arcane trait line to impact something other than the attunement CD.

It won’t change the sigils since they do have internal cooldonws. The boons on attunment swap, however, would indeed be an issue.

BlackBeard.2873:

I understand where you are coming from, but I disagree with you for the most part.

Our primary disadvantage is supposed to be “cost” of leaving an attunement and swapping roles locking us out of that role for a period of time. I still think this design can work if they didn’t break so many other things around it (giving us even more costs to burden us further making out play inferior).

What if the cost would be in form of a “punishment” for the switching itself? If the cooldown on attunment swapping was removed, the switch could require a casttime (1-2s) and Arcana would reduce the cast time of the swaps by 1-2% per point.

The 15 minors would need an internal cooldown though (5-10s).

Of course, this will make some combos a bit more difficult to apply because of the cast time between attunments. But it encourages constant swapping in general. It also would be a rather unique swapping mechanic (no weapon swap, no kit swap). Additionally, Arcane Power would be less mandatory since the reduced cast time is nice but certainly not needed.

I feel like they could add 0 attunement swap cooldown would be great. All they would have to do to balance it would be to give all the bonuses eles get from attunement swapping a cooldown equal to the current swap cds. They could just function with internal cds like the weapon swap sigils and evasive arcana. So for the 15 trait skills, just give them a cd. Fresh Air could simply make the halve the cds of swapping to air. no stupid attunement cds, more tactical play, still functions nearly the same but more convenient, Its a win win.

What if we had no individual cooldown on attunements, but a stacking global cooldown on attunement swapping?

Like, say, we have an energy bar above our attunements. It fills up over time, and swapping attunements uses a chunk (33%, 25% with a trait?) of it; say that at base, 5 seconds provides one attunement swap, with 30 in arcana that goes down to 5/1.6 = 3.125 seconds, which is similar to how often we swap attunements currently. Given how flexible this would make us compared to currently, numbers might need tweaking, but you get the idea.

This leads to us having effectively 0 CD on attunement swaps initially, but abuse it too much and you can get locked into an attunement for longer than you’d like.

It might open up interesting possibilities with traits that only function when the energy is above/below a certain threshold (One With Fire becomes “If attuned to Fire and your energy is full…”), utilities that function differently based on it (if added to existing skills, I’d give it to Arcane skills because it’s likely to be called Arcane Energy). The “do X on attuning to Y” traits could only function when energy is above a certain point, or cause the attunement swap to cost more in exchange for their effect, or scale the effect according to how much energy you have when you swap (attune to water at 100% = current heal, at 50% = 50% heal, etc)

0 Attunement CD

go high boon duration

Be the attuning Ele and rotate through the attunements as quickly as possible.

0/15/20/15/15 (edit: due to poor math) (remaining 5 point depends on what weapons choice chosen)

Fire (0)

Air(15):
One with air: superspeed when attuning to air
Eletric Discharge: strike target bolt of lightning when attune to air

Earth (20):
Stone Flesh: Gain tougness when attuned to earth
Earthen Balst – damage and cripple (3secs) when attuning to earth
Rock solid – grant stability to nearby allies when attuning to earth

Water (15)
Soothing Mist – regenerate health
Healing Ripple – heal nearby allies when attuning to water
Cleansing wave – remove condition to yourselve and allie when attuning to water

Arcane (15)
Arcane Fury – gain fury when you switch attunements
Lingering Elements – attunement bonues linger after leaving that attunement
Elemental Attunement – when attuning to an elmeent (might, regen, swiftness, protection)

Constant – stability, might, regen, swiftness, protection, superspeed, fury, toughness to self
Continuous – stability, might, regent, swiftness, protection, condition removal, and heals to allies
Continuous – earth damage – with constant cripple) to enemies. bolt of lightning on target)

Yes please.

Jarek.2430:

0 Attunement CD

go high boon duration

15/15/20/15/15

No need for a weapon; be the attuning Ele and rotate through the attunements as quickly as possible.

Fire (15)
Sunspot – inflict damage at your location when you attuen to fire

Air(15):
One with air: superspeed when attuning to air
Eletric Discharge: strike target bolt of lightning when attune to air

Earth (20):
Stone Flesh: Gain tougness when attuned to earth
Earthen Balst – damage and cripple (3secs) when attuning to earth
Rock solid – grant stability to nearby allies when attuning to earth

Water (15)
Soothing Mist – regenerate health
Healing Ripple – heal nearby allies when attuning to water
Cleansing wave – remove condition to yourselve and allie when attuning to water

Arcane (15)
Arcane Fury – gain fury when you switch attunements
Lingering Elements – attunement bonues linger after leaving that attunement
Elemental Attunement – when attuning to an elmeent (might, regen, swiftness, protection)

Constant – stability, might, regen, swiftness, protection, superspeed, fury, toughness to self
Continuous – stability, might, regent, swiftness, protection, condition removal, and heals to allies
Continuous PBAOE ( Fire and earth damage – with constant cripple) to enemies.

Yes please.

See you at level 90!

Zelyhn.8069:

Jarek.2430:

0 Attunement CD

go high boon duration

15/15/20/15/15

No need for a weapon; be the attuning Ele and rotate through the attunements as quickly as possible.

Fire (15)
Sunspot – inflict damage at your location when you attuen to fire

Air(15):
One with air: superspeed when attuning to air
Eletric Discharge: strike target bolt of lightning when attune to air

Earth (20):
Stone Flesh: Gain tougness when attuned to earth
Earthen Balst – damage and cripple (3secs) when attuning to earth
Rock solid – grant stability to nearby allies when attuning to earth

Water (15)
Soothing Mist – regenerate health
Healing Ripple – heal nearby allies when attuning to water
Cleansing wave – remove condition to yourselve and allie when attuning to water

Arcane (15)
Arcane Fury – gain fury when you switch attunements
Lingering Elements – attunement bonues linger after leaving that attunement
Elemental Attunement – when attuning to an elmeent (might, regen, swiftness, protection)

Constant – stability, might, regen, swiftness, protection, superspeed, fury, toughness to self
Continuous – stability, might, regent, swiftness, protection, condition removal, and heals to allies
Continuous PBAOE ( Fire and earth damage – with constant cripple) to enemies.

Yes please.

See you at level 90!

Thanks for heads up.. Adjusted.

I’d like to see them normalize attunement swapping to that of the standard weapon swap.

Then change Arcana’s bonus from lower attunement CD to effect Conjures in some way instead. Either lower CD on cast time, or more charges, etc.

Especially since most classes have some kind of trait buffing any of the “specific” types of utilities they have. Conjures to my knowledge only have one trait related purely to conjures and that is the extra charges. Where is the trait for 20% cooldown.

IMO just seems they could do more with using the arcana line for conjures then CD’s on swapping attunements.

Jarek.2430:

0 Attunement CD

go high boon duration

Be the attuning Ele and rotate through the attunements as quickly as possible.

0/15/20/15/15 (edit: due to poor math) (remaining 5 point depends on what weapons choice chosen)

Fire (0)

Air(15):
One with air: superspeed when attuning to air
Eletric Discharge: strike target bolt of lightning when attune to air

Earth (20):
Stone Flesh: Gain tougness when attuned to earth
Earthen Balst – damage and cripple (3secs) when attuning to earth
Rock solid – grant stability to nearby allies when attuning to earth

Water (15)
Soothing Mist – regenerate health
Healing Ripple – heal nearby allies when attuning to water
Cleansing wave – remove condition to yourselve and allie when attuning to water

Arcane (15)
Arcane Fury – gain fury when you switch attunements
Lingering Elements – attunement bonues linger after leaving that attunement
Elemental Attunement – when attuning to an elmeent (might, regen, swiftness, protection)

Constant – stability, might, regen, swiftness, protection, superspeed, fury, toughness to self
Continuous – stability, might, regent, swiftness, protection, condition removal, and heals to allies
Continuous – earth damage – with constant cripple) to enemies. bolt of lightning on target)

Yes please.

If only I had addressed this in the original post with stating that internal cooldowns would be necessary to prevent any on-swap attunement / weapon mechanics.

PlatypusRex.3428:

Obvious modification: We’d have to have internal cooldowns added to all skills, traits, sigils, runes, etc, for weapon swap , elemental swap. A standard 9 seconds would be fine, so that this change doesn’t modify that part of Elementalist play.

TL;DR:

Add internal cooldown for any on-swap weapon or attunement buff (equalized to what it is now)

Oh wait…

PlatypusRex.3428:

ThiBash.5634:

The answer isn’t about balance or overpowered skills.

The answer is that it would effectively give us a 25-skills action bar and that’s not what the game is about. The reason there’s an internal cooldown is to give you limitations to make the game interesting. Would chess be fun if every piece could move to any square on the board?

I think the more accurate analogy would be chess, but you can only use the knight every 3rd move, not any piece any location.

Hm, trying to think of a way to keep the chess analogy even slightly accurate - how about ’you can choose which piece is the Queen each turn’? Not got anything better than that.

Anyway, the ’our skills have long recharges’ argument is daft. Yes, stronger skills have long cooldowns, how surprising.

Consider just the #2 skills on Staff:
Fire: Lava Font.
Water: Ice Spike.
Air: Lightning Surge.
Earth: Eruption.

Think of the chain here: you can set up your lava fonts with >60% uptime, with might-giving blasts going off every 7 seconds or so, and maintain 10 vulnerability on targets in that AoE.
Untraited.
And you have a bunch of CC and other utility in your remaining weapon skills, as well as the right half of your skill bar.

ICD on traits wouldn’t help with this. The only options to make zero-second attunement cooldown even remotely balanced are:
- making our short-cooldown skills very ineffectual
- increasing the recharges on every skill we have
Neither of these would be even slightly okay.

While I sometimes would like attunement recharge set at a constant, with arcana investment giving some other class-related bonus, there is no way to get zero-second attunement cooldown to function fairly.

Wraistlin.6072:

I’d like to see them normalize attunement swapping to that of the standard weapon swap.

Don’t say that word please, or we will have our attunement swap CD “n-worded” to 25 seconds….

cheese.4739:

Consider just the #2 skills on Staff:
Fire: Lava Font.
Water: Ice Spike.
Air: Lightning Surge.
Earth: Eruption.

Think of the chain here: you can set up your lava fonts with >60% uptime, with might-giving blasts going off every 7 seconds or so, and maintain 10 vulnerability on targets in that AoE.
Untraited.
And you have a bunch of CC and other utility in your remaining weapon skills, as well as the right half of your skill bar.

Ironically you think that the worst pvp-weapon will be the most overpowered? Lava-Font, Ice-Spike and Eruption won’t hit – even without the enemy dodging. You have to CC people to make them hit – and CCs have high CD on staff. But with 0 Attunement CD you could at least effectively combine your CC with damage. Lightning Surge is just a Scepter #2 but worse due to long and obvious cast-animation … nothing overpowered with it. Staff is all about using combo-fields. Why prohibit the use of combos with ridiulous high CD on Attunement-switch? Warriors can buff fury and might with less effort. Might can be stacked better with S/D even with Attunement-CD and perma-fury is a master-trait after all.
Staff would finally be usefull in PvP and also more fun to play in PvE. I agree that some spells might need shaving and I already mentioned that some traits need ICDs but I still think that it wouldn’t be that overpowered as anyone says.