Guild Wars 2

Leo G.4501:

Hmm, I’m not sure what to think about the philosophy behind the weapon. Namely the having close and long range together. Generally, only Focus does that and at the cost of offense. I guess it’d depend how defensive this weapon gets with water and earth, but if it stays primarily offensive I could see how that’d work…

Also, why did you pick sword?

I picked sword because all of other ele weapons are basically focus type weapons; as in, the weapon is irrelevant and just used to channel spells. My goal was bassically to make a spellsword, but it needed to A. be different than using mainhand dagger, and B. still contain all the general abilities of an elementalist so it could work well with preexisting traits. The mix of short an long range fixes the problem of being the only class stuck to one range because of the lack of weapon swap (every other class can choose one melee and one ranged weapon). You may be right in that this may have to much defense and therefore be a little OP, but they are just rough ideas, and through manipulation of damage numbers, cooldowns etc almost anything can be balanced.

Air

Air is the long range damage option. It is also the only good source of AoE for Sword. It plays somewhat similar to Staff Fire.

1 Auto Attack, Bolt of Light

Ele slashes their sword in the air, causing a lighting bolt to come from the sky and strike their target. If an enemy is within melee range of struck enemy, lighting tendrils will jump from the struck player to them, doing half damage.

1 attack per second
1200 range

2 Open Airwaves

Ele teleports to the target, doing AoE lighting damage and a blast finisher upon arrival, and slashes them repeatedly for 2 seconds, then automatically teleports back to the original cast location (no secondary skill). If the Ele is interrupted in any way (including fear) they do not return.

15s CD
900 range
2s channel for skill
Blast finisher

3 Natures Wrath

Ele levitates slightly off the ground while enveloped in a shocking aura (allows them to be interrupted but not just repeatedly attacked while casting). A cloud forms over ground targeted area. After the 3 second channel is successfully completed, lighting will strike the ground under the cloud 1 time per second 6 seconds. If hit directly, enemies are stunned for 1s, if hit by AoE, dazed for 1/2s. This attack is similar to meteor storm. Each lighting strike does high damage.

40s CD
1200 range
3s cast time
6s duration

Earth

Earth is similar to fire, but more defensive and condition based (duh). Good when you need to bunker down for a bit, or for those that like to outlast opponents instead of bursting them down. Goes great with the reflect and invulnerability skills on focus.

1 Auto Attack Chain

3/4s Sword Stab (Causes 1s bleeding)
3/4s Sword Stab (Causes 1s bleeding)
1s Overhand arcing sword slash (Causes 1s weakness)

2 Stone Shards

Summon small shards of stone on skin. If attacked in melee, enemy gets a 2 second bleed every time they hit. After 3 seconds, shards explode outwards, damaging foes and crippling them for 2 seconds.

10s CD
1s channel
3s duration
240 explosion radius
Projectile finisher

3 Search Target -> Targeted Strike

When pressed, skill starts charging (with an obvious charge animation). At any point, the skill can be activated again to strike the enemy with an uppercut slice for moderate damage. For each second the skill is charged, uppercut will remove one boon on hit, up to 3 boons removed. If skill is not used within 5 seconds, it goes on cooldown.

20s CD
5s channel

Anyways, thanks for reading my Elementalist sword skillset post. I would love to hear what you think, as well as any questions, concerns, or complaints. As always, try to keep things constructive and fun.

I love to think of weapon skillsets for different classes, and since sword has been suggested so many times I though I would make up one worthy of the Elemetalist. Love to hear your feedback on it.

So the main goal of this skillset is to give a truly unique playstyle to the Elementalist, without making it overpowered or encroach on the playstyles of other classes. So I tried to look at attuenments differently. Instead of requiring attunements to be switched constantly in rotation to maintain maximum dps, each attunement has a specific purpose, or playstyle, similar to how other classes take different weapons for different purposes. For instance, air attunment for ranged, water for support, and earth/fire for melee. To make this work, sword auto attack skills would also have to be viable damage dealers similar to other classes, so you could rely on it when skills are on cooldown. A consequence of this is that traiting into Arcane Magic is not as importance as you shouldn’t need to switch as often, which should allow for some more build diversity.

A secondary goal is to find a weapon that synergizes with focus more, by offering alternate options to important dagger skills, as well as making certain attunement pairings less optimal for dagger compared to focus. So without further ado, the skillset:

Fire

Fire skills are your main damage skills, and if you are just looking for pure dps you should stick to it. It is melee focus and would play similar to guardian sword.

1 Auto Attack Chain

1/2s Sword swing
1/2s Sword backswing
1s 360 Sword spin, fire extending from the sword to double the melee range. Can hit up to 5 tagerts

2 Heated Metal

A slight lunge (250ish range) with a forward stab. Gives enemy 5 stacks of vulnerability for 3s. If hitting an enemy from behind, it also cripples them for 2 seconds. Fairly high damage.
8s CD

3 Flame Drill

Player dashes forward with sword floating just in front of him, spinning radially (like a drill). Ticks a hit 4 times a second (maximum 4 hits) and each successful hit adds 1 second of burning to the target. Does moderate damage.
12s CD
Leap Finisher
600 range

Water

Water, as usual, is the support side of the Elementalist. While that hasn’t changed, I took a different look at it to keep things interesting.

1 Auto Attack, Water Stream

A continuous stream of water from the tip of the sword, similar to Air Scepter auto attack. Every 3 seconds of continuous attack it pulses at the target and gives everyone around it 1s of regeneration.

900 range

2 Washout

A wave generates from the player and moves out 360 degrees around them. The wave cleanses 1 condition per player that it passes through. Enemy players/mobs will be pushed back by it until it reaches max range, but it will not interrupt them (they can still move in any direction away from the waves, attacks will still continue to cast). Pushback is negated by stability.

15s CD
350 radius

3 Ice Wall

Summons a wall of transparent ice at ground targeted area (think guardian line of warding). Wall cannot be passed through with stability, but does not cause knockback. Instead, players can destroy it by damaging it (similar to binding roots/entangle), but attacking it in melee range gives enemies 1s chill per hit.

35s CD
900 range
5s duration