Guild Wars 2

I won’t pretend to know all about elementalists but I’ve always had theme and playstyle in mind whenever I play a game.

I’m not going to list all of the traits that should be changed or removed. Instead, I’m going to talk about how the whole points-into-traits should work and why it should be relevant in creating a specific build that reflects its theme and intended playstyle. Of course, that’d affect some traits but you get my meaning.

First off, Elementalists have always struck me as that profession that made, or should have, some very versatile playstyles possible. However, the way it’s set up, traits are put into their respective adept, master, and GM categories based on how strong they are, not what they do or how they affect a build.

Here’s my idea: make it so that traits for 1-15 be useful across the board, no matter what attunement you are in. Then, put attunement specific traits up there for 20-30.

My reasoning goes like this: elementalists seeking a balanced build may opt to put points evenly across the board, spawning 15/15/15/15/10 builds. While there are elementalists who want to specialize in one or two elements, spawning 20/20/10/10/10 or 30/10/10/10/10 builds and the like. That way, builds get massive variety based on which attunement you want to use the most.

Secondly, to reduce dependency on the arcana trait line, Evasive Arcana should be split into (5) or (15) minor traits, OR worked into alactrity (cooldown reduction) and then put into the master traits or (20) minor traits. Elemental Surge is an excellent example of reflecting its multiple attunement nature while being tied to utility skills. The second GM arcana trait should be like that.

That’s all. Discussion and feedback is welcome.

mjharrison.3209:

Thrashbarg.9820:

They don’t want elementalists to be best at anything. Mine is the best at collecting dust while I “just press 1” on my guardian. My engineer makes a much better jack-of-all-trades, so elementalists aren’t even best at being mediocre at everything…..

This concept also has to go. The concept of a versatile-but-mediocre class has never worked in any MMO and it doesn’t really work here. There needs to be more traits that allow specialisation in an element and/or role at some cost to versatility, eg: each of the 20% faster attunement recharge traits ought to be made to also decrease that attunement’s recharge timer by 20% at the cost of increasing the recharge timer of the respective opposite attunement’s recharge timer (eg: fire spells & attunement 20% faster but water attunement recharges 20% slower).

I strongly disagree. Jack of all trade classes work just fine. I’ve always played as one in many games so I think my opinion counts.

The problem is it’s not done properly for Elementalists. The concept already exists and is working properly for engineers, so that’s proof that it can survive and do well in this game.

In fact, because of how GW2’s combat system works, more options is very useful.

I think your idea about decreasing cooldowns for an element and increasing cooldowns for another is terrible, no offense. Why should people who want a balanced playstyle suffer because you don’t like playing that way?

I also think Evasive Arcana should be split into (10) or (15) minor traits so it’d be relatively simple to create balanced builds and reduce dependency on the arcana trait line. Or, add them to the alacrity traits and turn them into adept traits.

Attunement cooldown should be reduced to 10 seconds.

And lastly, to promote builds that specialize in one or two attunements, traits at master should be very impactful for its own attunement. Same goes for GM traits. It’s like this: 1-15/20 points into each attunement should always be useful no matter what attunement you are in, while 15/20-30 are attunement specific. Meaning, balanced points across the board promotes a balanced jack of all trade build and more points into select traits promote specialization into an attunement or two.

Bumping this thread again. More relevant than ever now that Anet is covering their kitten by saying Ele’s becoming harder is a reason to not buff them.

Avead.5760:

I disagree with freezing gust and comet not having sunergy together.
The plain obvious that comes to my mind is using comet to itnerrupt a key ability like heal and then freezing gust to slow down the cooldown of the enemy skills.
I use those skills in that order every time after i heavily burst someone when i play s/f burst

Really? I use gust to slow down the target to make comet easier to land and then comet to interrupt him to increase his cooldowns and set up a burst.

Serious.6940:

BilboBaggins.5620:

Azunai.5974:

BilboBaggins.5620:

HarriHellYeaAmericaToTheMAX.1093:

BilboBaggins.5620:

Yeah, ssd is definitely faster, I’ve noticed that myself. But i think you have another bottleneck somewhere as it takes me less than 10s to load regardless of area or server load. My rig is not top of the line, I have a 3.4ghz Intel 15 processor with 8gb of ram and a gtx600 video card. I have all my settings on max.

I assure you I dont have a bottle neck of any kind, my rig is also pretty much top of the line 3770k @ 4.5 GHz / Nvidia 680 / MSI z77a-gd65 / 16gb ram etc etc…..

It was amazing how much an SSD effected the loading times in gw2 ive never really appreciated it till when I saw the results haha.

10s for a HDD to load any part of the game regardless or server load ?? Are you sure ?? Thats one dam fine HDD you got there son

No it’s an ssd and my rig is behind yours so I’m not sure why you’re getting longer load times than me, I was even thinking about upgrading to the i7 from my i5. My only other thought is maybe I’m closer to the server than you, or am getting better routing? Do you know your ping times? I get 20-30ms for the most part.

i7 BARELY performs better than i5. Stick with it.

Good to know, thanks.

I 7 has 4 cores plus 4 part cores. Unfortunately GW2 seems to be single threaded. That means the only performance gain is the difference in clock speed. If it was fully multi-threaded then there would be a performance boost.

Azunai.5974:

Did they mention that defragging an SSD will kill it?

No it won’t. What it will do is cause extra wear for no advantage.

Old HDs use a disk that has to turn to read the next piece of information, if the data is scattered across the disk then the time taken to move between pieces builds up significantly.

Older SSDs do have an issue with writes ‘wearing’ locations, but not with reads. Each location on an SSD can only take so many writes before there is a chance it will be damaged, although this is many thousands of reads per sector. To stop this modern drives have an integral routine to mark sectors that have been written to when freed. It will then assign a new sector to the reference the OS thinks it is writing to. This massively reduces the issue but means that the computer isn’t writing to where it thinks it is. There is no way for the defrag program to make files continuous like it can on a disk. Nor is there any way to compact the programs to the fastest part of the disk, there isn’t one anyway. Because of this defragging is effectively useless and can be detrimental to the life of an SSD.

I would suggest anyone getting an SSD also switch off indexing in windows and move things like swap files to a second, normal HD. If you have enough real memory then this can be switched off completely too.

For that matter deleting data from an SSD is problematic, even with a specialist program. It will write over where it thinks the data is stored but is more than likely to miss it completely.

Good post but I wish you read all of mine. You’re saying stuff I already know/said. Thanks anyway.

The Game Slayer.7632:

Azunai.5974:

Reduce cooldown on air 5, earth 5, change the skills on fire, and modify the water skills to function better.

agree on everything but earth 5. earth 5 is incredibly strong, it is fine how it stands. however, still,
+1

Considering it’s on a 50 sec cd for only 4 seconds and that we can’t take the cd reduction trait, I’d feel better if it was at 40.

Of course, it seems a bit strong because of the number of cantrips we take to increase survivability. We also need to have utilities and traits revamped to make builds nore diverse and cantrips not an auto-include on anything that isn’t burst.

Reduce cooldown on air 5, earth 5, change the skills on fire, and modify the water skills to function better.

The Game Slayer.7632:

Fishbait.6723:

At least we learnt where we were going wrong.
Most if not all of us use all attunements, according to Sharp, all the ele he`s seen only use fire.

/faccepalmdeskfloor

They were talking about how they wanted rangers to have more control over pet skills, but jsharp said that would be too complex for new players to learn. then they brought up the argument of the ele or engi being complex as well, then jsharp said most new eles are in one attunement like fire. i believe thats where you may be getting confused, he didnt assume everyone who plays the class is a noob.

So JSharp is going to base balance on the assumption that new players will not progress from using one attunement to attunement swapping?

There is a reason why they are called new players. Because they’re playing a flawed playtyle that they naturally grow out of as they get better, or should. But apparently that’s not JSharp thinks. If he thinks at all.

Good ideas, numbers are INSANE.

I could hit 2.5k condi damage and get +843 vitality. That’s 8,430 more health. Drake’s breath does 15k damage over time by itself. That’s 1.5k health gained, even more on multiple people.

A build with power as a main stat (PVT, Zerk) would get 3k power after max bloodlust stacks and 15 stacks of might. That’s 990 more toughness, or 990 more armor. On a standard build with PVT armor and zerk weapons/trinkets, that’s 3280 armor.

The water GM trait’s stat conversion is mild (but a cleric elementalist with 1.2k healing power could hit 3.4k power) but the chill proc is even more insane. 1 second of chill. Two second icd. That’s 50% uptime. Chill slows down movement and cooldowns so I imagine people having a really hard time keeping up.

916 base precision, 1456 precision with the above build, translated into 30% crit rate. 990 more precision adds 47%, making it 77%. The rest of the trait seems a weird idea that’s solely dependent on getting hit that much AND getting invuln at the right time to make it worth anything.

Don’t mind my post, just did the numbers for fun. :p I also took in account the stats gained from putting 30 points into traits.

edit- on my standard build (with 30 in earth for your GM trait) I could potentially deal 19k burst damage and 5.4k bleed damage with churning earth after max bloodlust stacks and 10 might stacks. Prepare might stacking to +20 and utilize portal and stealth would make CE the ultimate zerg breaker.

Eurantien.4632:

I’ve seen cleric staff eles push far node and decap anything and then not die to anything 1 v 1.

Haha, made me laugh. +1 for the joke!

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Hey now, I like Minstrel…. although, will prob never have one haha

/shun

Vayne.8563:

I have the predator…I really like it. It’s not quite as overdone as some of the weapons. And the sound effect is cool too.

I love it. Not stupid like Quip or the Minstrel. Huge, kitten, awesome particle effects.

And it’s a gun. I looooove guns.

Avead.5760:

Just roll an other class till meta shifts or they buff staff.Maybe go full damage and fresh air with focus.Just try to think what you cna do to help the team the most you can with what you have..So no 1vs1s unless its something like engi which you can manage if you go burst and you know how to play etc.Play it safe,stay at range try maxing dps without dieing ,maybe bringing mist form so you can stomp at least and good luck

Engineers are harder.

And no, not the stupid grenade spam engies. Three-kit engies.

Eles are harder ..and no ,not the stupid serious builds.4 conjure eles :P
Seriously though, rolling between 20 skills with no pentaly and cooldown to prevent you from mindlessy switching kits was never any skillfull.Playing 3 kit engi and thinking it requires skill cause of the immediate access to many skills is the same as saying wow or any other many skills hotkey mmos requires massive skill
At least nades need to be aimed and at least the other classes need to think and chose wise when they swap a skillset

I don’t really understand your train of thought here.

How does having more options make it any less skillful? In reality, it makes it harder given that more options = more ways to respond to even more situations.

Ele’s are restricted in a way given their much higher cooldowns. So most of the time, we’re just spamming our shorter ones while an engineer can pretty much rely on having the right skill at the right time, if they think of it.

Are you implying 3kit engies are bad? Are you? Because that’s just plain wrong. If anything, they are/should be the norm.

Deamhan.9538:

My HDD must run at a higher RPM because I load into LA in half the time. SSDs are great and all but they are more expensive for less space. While I don’t know from personal experience, others who do speak from personal experience, have told me that you’re more likely to get a bad one from the factory. I’ve been to two different computer stores that do repairs on top of selling hardware. The guys at both places independently said that as far as hard drives problems go, they’ve seen more pc brought in for failed SSDs than HDDs.

When I get around to upgrading my HDD, I’ll just go with a high rpm HDD with SSD cache drive.

Did they mention that defragging an SSD will kill it?

This thread is more positive than I thought. Yay!

Kjeldoran.3849:

PierPiero.9142:

roll a warrior or a guardian ….

a wasted comment here.

Now, talking seriously about elementalists situation it really depends on your skill. Actually eles are the most skill based class (maybe togheter with thief, not 2# spam, and rangers, not spirit) since you need to know “what can you do” and “when do it”.

I suggest you to run a 0/30/10/20/10 build with scepter/dagger set and a balanced equip (about 1400 toughness, since you get 700 more from skill/trait, about 15-16k and 40% crit chance). Here you need only to learn how to swap and activate your “air burst” then you can kill everyone.
The difference is that while almost every class need skill on “how to face another class”, so you have to learn how to move and act against someone, eles have to learn how to deal their damage. Basically when other classes need skill to avoid anemy attacks eles need skill to deal damage and avoid enemies… it’s harder but not impossible (it took about 5 days to learn how to maximize burst, defense and support at the same time (remembert that 33% of your skills also creates combo fields).

i think that i still play this class only because it requires ton of mental quickness and variety in combo variety to be played (in an optimal way, of course).

Engineers are harder.

And no, not the stupid grenade spam engies. Three-kit engies.

Fire 5 has its cooldown decreased by 2 seconds.

The rest of the skills’ cooldowns are tripled to compensate.

Shadowfax.7562:

Main Elementalist damage spell has coefficient 1.4 in a second. No other warrior autoattack spells have such a big coefficient.

/gasp

So that means ele’s are viable, right??

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I sense a fellow Wheel of Time fan.

Sancz.9345:

lol you guys pushed this rifle idea.. never gonna happen

Well excuse me for exhibiting some optimism that is sorely lacking here.

Over several months of intense theory crafting and testing, I have designed a truly powerful build for elementalists. One that allows great burst and survivaility. One that adapts to any situation. One that puts elementalists on par, no, even greater than the other professions.

It is peerless.

It is flawless.

It is beautiful.

And I’m not going to share it because Anet loves nerfing any good build that comes along for Elementalists.

Have a nice day!

/sarcasm

HarriHellYeaAmericaToTheMAX.1093:

Azunai.5974:

BilboBaggins.5620:

HarriHellYeaAmericaToTheMAX.1093:

BilboBaggins.5620:

Yeah, ssd is definitely faster, I’ve noticed that myself. But i think you have another bottleneck somewhere as it takes me less than 10s to load regardless of area or server load. My rig is not top of the line, I have a 3.4ghz Intel 15 processor with 8gb of ram and a gtx600 video card. I have all my settings on max.

I assure you I dont have a bottle neck of any kind, my rig is also pretty much top of the line 3770k @ 4.5 GHz / Nvidia 680 / MSI z77a-gd65 / 16gb ram etc etc…..

It was amazing how much an SSD effected the loading times in gw2 ive never really appreciated it till when I saw the results haha.

10s for a HDD to load any part of the game regardless or server load ?? Are you sure ?? Thats one dam fine HDD you got there son

No it’s an ssd and my rig is behind yours so I’m not sure why you’re getting longer load times than me, I was even thinking about upgrading to the i7 from my i5. My only other thought is maybe I’m closer to the server than you, or am getting better routing? Do you know your ping times? I get 20-30ms for the most part.

i7 BARELY performs better than i5. Stick with it.

For games yes that’s kinda true but I also video render a lot and i7 will beat an i5 any day also I brought my i7 when it was on sale…it was same price as an i5 pretty much!!

Yeah, should’ve clarified. i5 is for games and i7 for video editing. I gotta get a laptop with an i7 because I’m going to college soon to study graphic design.

Steele.2784:

Copestetic.5174:

Congrats! That’s insane that you’ve already made one. Good job though. I’m interested to see what ( if any ) ANet’s response is.

I really hope so at the moment there’s no way to be recognized for this I didnt even get a achievement. Please Anet if you read this just a simple comment such as saying “Good Job” would bring a humongous amount of joy and sense of reward to me I meen ive been up for 3 straight days:)

I’m no red guy but good job. (:

Lafiel.9372:

Anet specifically didn’t add fishing in this game because then everyone would realize we were actually eating quaggan meat.

Kinda like meat in Pokemon.

BilboBaggins.5620:

HarriHellYeaAmericaToTheMAX.1093:

BilboBaggins.5620:

Yeah, ssd is definitely faster, I’ve noticed that myself. But i think you have another bottleneck somewhere as it takes me less than 10s to load regardless of area or server load. My rig is not top of the line, I have a 3.4ghz Intel 15 processor with 8gb of ram and a gtx600 video card. I have all my settings on max.

I assure you I dont have a bottle neck of any kind, my rig is also pretty much top of the line 3770k @ 4.5 GHz / Nvidia 680 / MSI z77a-gd65 / 16gb ram etc etc…..

It was amazing how much an SSD effected the loading times in gw2 ive never really appreciated it till when I saw the results haha.

10s for a HDD to load any part of the game regardless or server load ?? Are you sure ?? Thats one dam fine HDD you got there son

No it’s an ssd and my rig is behind yours so I’m not sure why you’re getting longer load times than me, I was even thinking about upgrading to the i7 from my i5. My only other thought is maybe I’m closer to the server than you, or am getting better routing? Do you know your ping times? I get 20-30ms for the most part.

i7 BARELY performs better than i5. Stick with it.

Honestly, I don’t see why other professions complain so much about themselves. Engies and rangers have some legit ones but the rest? They simply don’t understand us elementalists’ suffering.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

yanchoy.9176:

Azunai.5974:

yanchoy.9176:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

i think that is intended.

warriors are soldiers after all, in war, more soldiers is always good.

and since there are no thieves in war, the less thieves the better.

Reconaissance, assassination, information-gathering, subterfuge, etc. All done many times.

and thieves in gw2 do that? oO

thieves kill dollies very effectively, i’ve heard. “assassination”

i think they can be good scouts too. “Reconaissance”, “information-gathering”

not sure how they can manage “subterfuge” though.

Speaking outside of WvW, subterfuge is very important when gathering information in the midst of enemies. Pretending to be a soldier, courier, officer, diplomat, etc.

In WvW… Well, don’t have to be a thief for it but people can grief enemy servers by spamming sieges and relaying troop movement. :p

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

Morrigan.2809:

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

tolunart.2095:

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

tolunart.2095:

Engineers are for people who actually know how to play the game, warriors are for those who don’t. Rangers are for everyone in between the extremes.

Yet they’re still terribad in terms of a class.

Why?

Visually they suck – Legendary Freedoms are restricted due to internal weapon designs, and skins and legendaries conflict with weapon kits, making them in a major sense cosmetically redundant.
The skillset.. It feels lacklustre. I mean, it’s strong because I’ve been playing my engineer since Day 1 of release. But they don’t feel particularly strong compared to other classes.
They have little mobility. The only class in the game that can’t use constant or spammable Swiftness abilities (This includes all those Speed Signets).
They’re too random. I NEED STEALTH TO GET PAST THIS CHAMPION KARKA FOR ORILACHIUM NODE. NOPE. I GET STABILITY INSTEAD \o/ [/end sarcasm]. I mean, okay, I get the whole “Mix this and this and Boom! Invention axe” thematics, but a bit of consistency is nice.

Horrendous çooldowns. |: And their utility is kinda meh. Their stealth from Toss Elixir S only covers 6 or 7 allies, and everything else is purely self effective, save for damage abilities and a couple of combo fields.

They could have been made ALOT better IMHO.

I do not suck visually thank you very much.
While the legendary issue is a valid one I have no interest in either Quip or the Predator.

Not strong compared to what?
I feel pretty strong, in fact when I just want to blow off steam I load my Engi- the havoc she can cause is second to none.

Mobility- they have rocket boots! rocket boots!
Who wants to run like a little jackalope on speed when you have Rocket boots!?

If you need stealth get a couple of Whispers spy kits- I like having stability -it is so difficult to look bad kitten when you are thrown around like a sock

Utility is great for me, I would say second only to Mesmer.
Cooldowns are also not a problem since I swap kits so much

BTW what is it with you and stealth?

Whisper spy kits? .-.

Do elaborate, please.

Utility wise, please elaborate aswell, because I see very little utility on my Asura Engineer, barring elixir tosses (Inconsistency syndrome here) and Supply Crate. I don’t swap kits alot, admittedly. But even in that, your kit-abilities still have cooldowns. Rocket boots are not mobility. It’s not even targetable. You just jump forward a distance, loosing CC. It feels alot like it should include a single evade, or a movement speed boost after, to be honest.

And again. Consistency is like.. Non-existent on engineer. elixir X, Elixir B, Elixir C, Elixir U. All random skills. You can’t plan an attack with randomness. If I wanted randomness, I can play a Mesmer with all their random boons here and there and everywhere, thanks.

The turrets also feel like a lacklustre version of Necro-Minions. They also pull aggro on neutral enemies. They should also make it so they actually deal damage on destruction. Firing rate is often slowl

Again, I’m not saying they’re completely useless. But I can see MANY things beyond what I’ve just listed that ANet could have given them. And the funny thing is, these things – if they polished them a little, I’m extremely doubtful that they’d end up overpowered.

Could’ve just googled, but… Here ya go.

SSD’s are always faster for loading. They make bootup very fast. They also generate less heat and carry less risk of breaking, especially in laptops. Though people are concerned about SSD’s becoming faulty after lots of rewrites, that’d take A LOT before any noticeable signs show.

But they’re always so expensive. Sigh.

I wish more people shared my excitement for rifles. :p

yanchoy.9176:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

i think that is intended.

warriors are soldiers after all, in war, more soldiers is always good.

and since there are no thieves in war, the less thieves the better.

Reconaissance, assassination, information-gathering, subterfuge, etc. All done many times.

But staff elementalists are boringgggg. Add rifles, yo!

And I find it adorable that people want stuff with 25-40 cd be lowered. Elementalists need THEIRS with 60-90 cd stuff LOWERED.

We already can go fish. We strip of our clothes, dive in there, and beat up the sharks.

LIKE MEN

Chullster.3608:

gz OP.

Now you’ll have to craft another sword with decent stats to transmute that skin onto, seems a waste really.

You must be fun at parties.

Add rifles too, please.

Steele.2784:

Azunai.5974:

Congratulations! Beserker, right?

Occam’s greatsword condition damage

Close enough. ;D

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

tolunart.2095:

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

tolunart.2095:

Engineers are for people who actually know how to play the game, warriors are for those who don’t. Rangers are for everyone in between the extremes.

Yet they’re still terribad in terms of a class.

Why?

Visually they suck – Legendary Freedoms are restricted due to internal weapon designs, and skins and legendaries conflict with weapon kits, making them in a major sense cosmetically redundant.
The skillset.. It feels lacklustre. I mean, it’s strong because I’ve been playing my engineer since Day 1 of release. But they don’t feel particularly strong compared to other classes.
They have little mobility. The only class in the game that can’t use constant or spammable Swiftness abilities (This includes all those Speed Signets).
They’re too random. I NEED STEALTH TO GET PAST THIS CHAMPION KARKA FOR ORILACHIUM NODE. NOPE. I GET STABILITY INSTEAD \o/ [/end sarcasm]. I mean, okay, I get the whole “Mix this and this and Boom! Invention axe” thematics, but a bit of consistency is nice.

Horrendous çooldowns. |: And their utility is kinda meh. Their stealth from Toss Elixir S only covers 6 or 7 allies, and everything else is purely self effective, save for damage abilities and a couple of combo fields.

They could have been made ALOT better IMHO.

I find that you saying Engineers having “horrendous cooldowns” an insult to me. I am an elemetalist and I laugh at your slight annoyance.

Congratulations! Beserker, right?

I love the look of it. Obviously, it doesn’t resemble any known rifle but I’m wondering, what rifle(s) served as inspiration? I could be wrong but it slightly resembles an M24.

The giant suppressor makes me laugh, though. Should’ve used a muzzle brake (see: PGM Hecate II) Anti-materiel rifles for life!

Erani.1394:

Earth 5 should be renamed and Air 5 should get the name “Railgun” cause they work with electromagnetism and all. Besides what I’d give to be like Misaka Mikoto and fire fluffin’ railguns at people!

Renamed. Thanks!

ValeV.4875:

tl;dr: blablabla nerf ranger tommorow, we’re working, blablabla THE END.

Do you ever wonder what you’re doing with your life?

/justasking

So Jon, when you say Anet reads most of the forums, does that include the profession subforums? Every profession has something to cry about (except guardians. huh.) this I understand, but sometimes it feels like they’re completely ignored considering how long they’ve gone without a red post. I completely understand that you guys are restricted by time, but a post now and then would be nice.

That said, I thought it was cool that you guys discuss some of the stuff on the forums around the place. Heck, I’d be totally stoked if some of you guys mentioned this thread https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Rifle-Skills-for-Elementalists/first#post2758754 around the water cooler!

He’s the hero Tyria deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we’ll hunt him. Because he can take it. Because he’s not our hero. He’s a silent guardian, a watchful protector. A dark knight.

My thought processes
The problem I encountered is that as things stand, attunement swapping is a must. Unless cooldowns are adjusted to encourage longer periods of time spent in each attunement, I made the skills with both that and attunement swapping in mind. It may not be the best weapon kit, but every skill were carefully considered with both theme and practicality in mind.

I also thought about adding different combo fields, like smoke. Not too many, of course, leave that to staves. Building on this idea, Earth 4 could be replaced with a smoke field or some kind of stealth, if only for a very short time. To accomodate this, Earth 2 would be modified to feature some kind of CC instead of being an out of place short range attack in earth attunement. Or, to lean towards a close range style, leave Earth 2 and 4 alone and have 5 replaced with a smoke field.

I briefly thought about adding more boons such as might and fury but I am cautious. Your thoughts on this would be appreciated, should they be included or not?

And lastly, I wanted to explain the reasoning behind each attunement. I created skills for the fire attunement with close combat in mind in order to create a dynamic combat style, by using a dash to close the distance and unload skills until using a blowout skill to reset a fight when things get hairy. The water attunement is meant to provide a real way to stack vulnerability and control targets using CC’s, to set up a large burst in any other attunement. The water 4 skill was added as a single way to help out allies as a back line player. The air attunement was meant to provide concentrated damage as well as better means of damaging more than one enemy, all from afar. Finally, the earth attunement was for bleeding targets and controlling more than one enemy. I also thought it was a good opportunity to expand on the powers of magnetism to enchance gameplay variety.

In a nutshell, it’s like this; Two attunements for close/mid range with one for damage/mobility (fire) and the other for control/utility (earth). Two attunements for long range with one for damage/mobility (air) and the other for control/utility (water).

That’s all. Thoughts? Feedback? Additional ideas?

Fire
•Fireshot – fires a quick ball of flame that burns upon hit.
Sandard rifle autoattack but slightly faster than the others.
•Immolate – creates a stream of fire that damages and burns foes it makes contact with anything it touches. At the end of the channel, the rifle creates a bigger single burst of fire.
A flame-thrower attack, can be used while moving.
•Searing chains – conjures a long firey chain to immobilize and burn the target (combo finisher: projectile)
The character uses an arm to “throw” a length of flaming red chains. Can be used while moving.
•Flaming Advance – charge forward, leaving a trail of fire and blasts the target area with fire (combo finisher: blast)
Very slight pre-cast before dashing over a short distance.
•Backdraft – fires a powerful short range burst of fire, sending you a fair distance back (combo finisher: leap)
After triggering it, the character is recoiling, as if sliding backwards over a very short distance.

Water
•Frostbite – fires a bullet of ice, causing vulnerability
Standard rifle autoattack, but slightly slower than the others.
•Chillrend – fires a volley of ice bullets, chilling and causing vulnerability (combo finisher: projectile)
The character keeps the rifle raised during the channel time, firing single bullets at a time to a maximum 5 shots.
•Snowball – blasts the target area with ice, chilling targets inside
The character “summons” an icy projectile from the free hand to blast the area a short distance away. Can’t be used while moving.
•Cascade – Creates a circle of water that heals and bestows regeneration on allies inside (combo field: water, grants regeneration)
Slams the rifle butt on the ground.
•Hoarfrost – Fires a long range bullet that freezes the target, unable to move or act for (?) seconds and creates (?) stacks of vulnerability. (combo finisher: projectile)
A small pre-cast time as the character stops for a slight amount of time to aim the rifle.

Air
•Static – fires a quick burst of electricity that damages the target and everything around him
Standard rifle autoattack that has above average fire rate and damage.
•Shock – shocks the target and everything around him, dealing small damage and causing cripple
Instantly causes the effect at the target’s location. Can be used while moving.
•Lightning retreat – instantly teleports backwards, causing a burst of electricity at the original position (combo finisher: blast, grants swiftness)
The character swings an arm around before teleporting back.
•Thunderwave – blasts the target area, creating an area that dazes people crossing it (combo field: lightning)
Drives the rifle butt onto the ground and uses an arm to cast the field a short distance away.
•Railgun – channels before firing a long, concentrated bolt of electricity, causing massive damage (combo finisher: projectile)
The character takes a knee during the channeling phase before firing.

Earth
•Splinter – fires a normal bullet and causes bleeding
Standard rifle autoattack animation with slighty above average fire rate.
•Masterkey – fires a scattershot, dealing damage the closer the target is and causes bleeding
A quick blast of rock shards or pebbles is fired. Can’t be used while moving.
•Magnetic shot – fires a bullet that, upon impact, causes nearby enemies to be pulled towards the target (combo finisher: projectile)
Slaps the rifle body to imbue it with magnetism (shown by slight glow) before firing. Fired while moving.
•Titanfall – jumps to the target location, dealing high damage and causing cripple (combo finisher: blast)
Crouches slightly before jumping.
•Shardstorm – fires a projectile that, upon impact, shatters into smaller pieces, damaging the target and everything around him. Causes bleeding. (combo finisher: projectile.)
Standard rifle attack. Can be fired while moving.

Traits
Tuned Rifle – 20% cooldown reduction and damage is increased by 10%.

or

Charged Rifle – All projectiles pierce and range is increased to 1500. 10% extra damage with rifles.

I noticed that weapon traits had the weapon itself in the names along with a word to describe its purpose. i.e. Vigorous Scepter, Blasting Staff, Windborne Dagger. Just a small observation. Also, I did make it a choice between the two because there is only one weapon trait per weapon for elemetalists.

Dare.6913:

Sylv.5324:

Yes, if you delete everything, you can transfer for free.

Make sure to move everything to your bank that you don’t want to lose, and that the world is not Full. <3

Aw man, decisions decicions. I just hit 23 on Mal which isn’t that far but I’ve already grown so attached.

/wanders off to ponder for a while

But TC is one of the best servers! And the only NA RP server. In the long run, level 23 isn’t a big sacrifice compared to shelling out a lot of gold for a single transfer.

I fully support this thread. It’d finally motivate me to make a thief.

(I just can’t break the personal stigma against thieves – sorry)

I’m all for any rifle set that has actual sniping gameplay and mobility rather than warrior’s killshot spam. (the rest of its rifle kit doesn’t really mesh together)

A few things: Does snipe—>fire increase damage based on how much initiative spent in sniping stance, or is it total initiative spent? I think the damage should be increased a lot to warrant waiting that long for a full damage shot. Killshot on warrior is very easy to spam. Also, snipe should be renamed to aim.

I like the shadow return idea more than roll to stealth. Just something that would teleport at least once. (I’m used to slower professions and I’d love to take advantage of thief mobility)

If you really want to pick up LH, get FGS too. If you only need FGS, you could drop LH for a third utility.

Because the elite pool is very small and only a couple are actually any good (well, the others are SITUATIONAL) while the utility pool is big and has several to pick from.

Generally, just grab both. FGS has quite a cooldown so you’d need LH to have something on your hands most of the time.

Also consider frost bow for sPvP or WvW. The 5 second unbreakable stun is very nice to set up a massive burst.

Sounded a looot like Krieg in Borderlands 2.

Good concept, bad way to pull it off. We definitely need more varied traits like that!

FrownyClown.8402:

Use lots of freezes on stun warriors. I pop my grenth elite and I can make stun warriors melt. It messes with their overall movement and the amout of stuns they can spam on you. As for sword/dagger thieves, their attack is pretty predictable. Pop a cc on them to avoid getting the full hit. Most likely they will try and use shadow return at that point. and that is all they do. Just pressure them hard and you will be fine.

Lol, I see you’re enjoying the grenth elite. My fault?