Guild Wars 2

Overloads:“http://i.imgur.com/vQpO8Qr.jpg”
Warhorn:“http://i.imgur.com/QSiy4Qn.jpg”
Shouts:“http://i.imgur.com/DINheC5.jpg”
Traits:“http://i.imgur.com/3fx3wzX.jpg”

For my first impressions, I’ll have to quote someone else:

FrownyClown.8402:

based on the ready up, tempest is bad.

My thoughts follow.

• The first big problem is that Warhorn literally offers nothing over Focus or Dagger. Arguably, both of the current offhands have greater team support through more blast finishers and utility, whereas Warhorn just has line spells that will be ineffective after they fly past enemies. The only good skill it has, truly, is Heat Sync, and even that is unnecessary when boons are so easy to get otherwise with decent team compositions. For a support weapon, it even lacks such basic support functionality as projectile absorb or condition removal.
• Overloads are DPS losses, apply small effects, and really don’t have the oomph to make up for the cast time they have. They will see zero use in PvE.
• Shouts apply auras, which are useless, and have other functionalities which are trivial at best, easily replicated by weapon skills, and have long cooldowns.
• There isn’t a single damage modifier in the traits list.

I really think they dropped the ball on this trait line, but I’d like to hear what everyone else thinks before I send a report to ANet on the subject. Any opinions are welcome, in favor of or against the elite specialization.

Staff ele will reign supreme. Absolutely nothing useful from warhorn/shouts or traits for PvE.

There might be some niche uses for warhorn in PvE, like pulling the risen at the Bloodstone Shard in Arah p4 together with Cyclone if you don’t have a guard, and don’t want to waste an utility on earth shield.
Or the “Shock and Aftershock” shout when lowmanning lupi on elementalist for an extra magnetic aura.
But generally speaking, most things shown in the ready up stream have no use in PvE, and will make warhorn/shouts/tempest nowhere near useful

Tempest blows.

Elite looks like some Mesmer’s utility skill. Trait line is meh. Warhorn skills are meh. Attunement overload looks like some gimmick. Shouts are meh. No new play styles detected.

Magnetic aura shout could possibly be useful. Group reflect without having to go earth attune on staff. :P

bladex.9502:

There might be some niche uses for warhorn in PvE, like pulling the risen at the Bloodstone Shard in Arah p4 together with Cyclone if you don’t have a guard, and don’t want to waste an utility on earth shield.

that pull is only 240 range and it MOVES which means it wont pull all into 1 spot, but into a line

also it’s ridiculous they give ele boon strips o.O

You guys are making it seem like it will be useless, but don’t forget basically all the use for dagger, scepter and focus comes from using their abilities outside of combat, which is a huge aspect of GW2 PvE. I for one welcome more boon spread and swiftness, though it is sad that other than that it is practically useless.

The question is if it will be so useful that it’s worth switching to tempest spec out of combat. And I really doubt that to be honest.

Wait, you have to be specialized to tempest to use a warhorn?

Some things still might find some use:
- the pull is unblockable, means you could pull enemies out of blocking abilities (ooze in thaumanove ie)
- iirc Tempest is the first class with groupwide stunbreakers. So far only groupwide stability was possible (prevents stun, but does not remove it). Someone is going to find a use for it.

bladex.9502:

There might be some niche uses for warhorn in PvE, like pulling the risen at the Bloodstone Shard in Arah p4 together with Cyclone if you don’t have a guard, and don’t want to waste an utility on earth shield.

You’d sacrifice an entire traitline and your weapon NOT to sacrifice a single utility?
…?
I’d honestly take the shield and go staff, if there’s such a dire need for a pull…

Don’t know what else there is to add, tempest is just terrible. When the hell are you gonna channel kitten skill with a tiny range and little to no damage/effect in pve? when the hell will you even manage to complete the cast in pvp?

The traits are on par with Salvation, and I’ve said enough.
Is it even worth it to take the traitline just to unlock “Rebound”? It doesn’t look like it.
It’s good though, because we… well, at least I am starting to see the flaws within the specialisation system: a system that locks you into your choice, that forces you to sacrifice one of the 3 (three! so few choices already!) traitline just to be able to equip one weapon and a subpar set of utilities…
What if you want to take x, and only x? Tough, you have to take the entire alphabet first, no matter if you don’t need it.

Lockouts beyond lockouts, reduction after reduction; at this point, may aswell…

P.S. The guard’s GM trait IS a strunbreaker and a stability. I don’t see why you’d want to take that stupid tempest shout, unless we see in—- in the… ahem—-challenging group content… LOL, I can’t go on while keeping a straight face [fingers]

As far as I know, you have to equip the elite spec to use the weapons and utility skills. I really hope I misunderstood that bit though.

el oh el, that sounds like absolute kittene. Why in all days would they think that’s a good idea

dboylolz.3916:

Wait, you have to be specialized to tempest to use a warhorn?

Yes. But i hope they re-evaluate this decision before future elite specs are released. Gonna be pretty stupid to be locked out of weapon choices because of elite spec choices.

I can see why they would do it initially though. Encourage those HoT sales.

Yeah like I said in the other thread… I knew it’d disappoint the moment I found out about it being warhorn. :<

It honestly would have a lot more uses though if it were like Abe said, where you could just make use of pre-casting it before an encounter… but having to switch to an entirely new traitline to use weaponskills? Pssh.

deSade.9437:

bladex.9502:

There might be some niche uses for warhorn in PvE, like pulling the risen at the Bloodstone Shard in Arah p4 together with Cyclone if you don’t have a guard, and don’t want to waste an utility on earth shield.

You’d sacrifice an entire traitline and your weapon NOT to sacrifice a single utility?
…?

I didn’t know you have to take the tempest trait line to actually use warhorn

deSade.9437:

P.S. The guard’s GM trait IS a strunbreaker and a stability. I don’t see why you’d want to take that stupid tempest shout, unless we see in—- in the… ahem—-challenging group content… LOL, I can’t go on while keeping a straight face [fingers]

Hmm always understood it as self stunbreak and only group stability. Gotta test it next time i’m at archdiviner.

They obviously design with PvP in mind, is all I’m going to say.

This game’s PvE devs is a ghost town. They don’t care.

The problem as well with their whole boon centric approach to Tempest is that boons are already being farted out like candy by warriors, guardians, and ele already.

This was the fatal mistake of GW2 by discarding GW1’s model and going for this version of conditions and boons which means the effects overlap instead of being unique effects exclusive to skills and classes.

What’s the point of 3 stacks of might when a PS warrior can keep up 25 for the group. What’s the point of fury when ele blasting fire fields with warrior’s FGJ keeps perma fury. They need to nerf fire field blasting and fury/might stacking so might/fury is an actual commodity you have to work to build up and maintain instead of passively and easily keeping maxed.

These skills are so niche for the sake of PvP, and the traits are REALLY bad, as in purely pvp centric traits with no benefit for PvE.

Not that ele needed to gain much considering they dwarf every other class in PvE, but it makes the specialization a lot less exciting.

My suggestion for overloads is to allow them to channel by themselves while you can use skills of your own. That way, an opponent can still CC you and interrupt the overload, but the channeling happens in the background and doesn’t prevent such a dps loss since you are able to use your skills as normal.

But, yeah, when they mentioned cyclone being good with lightning rod, I just thought “they don’t seem to realize how bad lightning rod is and how almost nobody uses it”.

I’ll also say the cooldowns on those warhorn skills are outrageous for the strength of their effects. 40 second cooldowns merit a lot more bang for your buck.

P.S. Nobody will ever overload fire/lightning attunement in PvE, because 3 years after and they still haven’t balanced autoattack damage across attunements. Water and earth autoattacks are simply too great a dps loss compared to fire/air, and no ele would risk being locked out of fire or air and stuck with wimpy earth/water autoattacks.

Tempest is flashy and that’s all the phiw crowd cares about. The spec mechanics, overloads, are simply dps losses with almost no benefits. Warhorn lacks finishers, the only animation is blowing it (who could have guessed), there’s no defense except a blinding field. Shouts are miserable and they even lack a trait to improve their potential. What else is there? Right, traits… Don’t get me started on that one.

Im rather disappointed that the warhorn blows instead of sucks.

spoj.9672:

Im rather disappointed that the warhorn blows instead of sucks.

I have unfriended and blocked you

P.S. I’m starting to doubt about the stunbreak. I could’ve sworn it’s group-wide because I saw it in action, but I’m wondering if it was before the trait rework, when there was still the old trait… my memory betrays me… whatever. I’ll just kill spojski if it’s not.

deSade.9437:

spoj.9672:

Im rather disappointed that the warhorn blows instead of sucks.

I have unfriended and blocked you

P.S. I’m starting to doubt about the stunbreak. I could’ve sworn it’s group-wide because I saw it in action, but I’m wondering if it was before the trait rework, when there was still the old trait… my memory betrays me… whatever. I’ll just kill spojski if it’s not.

Wahh. Was it because i made the same joke twice? :>

No, it’s because your jokes give me gonorrhea… which means you gave me gonorrhea TWICE.

<3

I hate the fact you need to equp a specialisation line to have access to a weapon. Just give warhorns to every ele who bought HoT and keep utils/traits in the specialisation line.

Sublimatio.6981:

I hate the fact you need to equp a specialisation line to have access to a weapon. Just give warhorns to every ele who bought HoT and keep utils/traits in the specialisation line.

If I am not mistaken its the same with all the elite specializations.

I hope thats what it changes to eventually. Or better yet. Right from release.

Overload:
I don’t like the overload mechanic. The cooldowns are way too long.

Warhorn:
Looks lice as a full group support weapon, but I still thik that the staff does it better.

For wvw zerging staff will probably still be better. It has superior range and is aoe. If you use a warhorn you are either going single target scepter or melee dagger….

Shouts:
They look terrible compared with cantrips. Burn, cripple, immob and chill? Zergs are almost immune to condis in wvw. Even roamers have an easy time against condis if you are not a very heavy condi build. There are people running around with -97% chill, cripple and immob duration.
The elite shout has potential in a very organized group. But in most cases it will be useless. You pop elite shout, and player uses a low cd skill…. It is very rare to land on a good combo and small reward skill. How about thieves and revs? How is it going to work?
The healing looks weak. 1.5s cast time, easy to interrupt. If you are not using the signet, your personal survivability drops a lot for pvp. The healing also looks weak. Ok, it is aoe, but isn’t it just better to slot arcane briliance and blast a water field?

An offhand T.T

Ele already has 2 great offhands. Would be better to get some kind of aoe mid range main hand.

Maybe anet let us use staff as a main hand (1,2,3) and use that combined with an offhand if we wanted. Image a staff (1,2,3)+dagger -

What also sucks is that tying a weapon to a specialization also onvolves wasting a perfectly good minor trait slot just to allow you to wear the weapon. That’s just lame.

Warhorn is so useless is that I won’t even bother to carry 1 in my bag for might stacking and etc because no blasts and no nothing useful. I might stack with S/D /F and change back to staff before fights and I don’t see any use in that Warhorn. I thought “Dragon Hunter” was useless but zis? Tempest is a joke of a bad taste.

It’s not like elite specializations have to be useful for dungeon running.

EDIT: Especially for elementalists, who are already top-tier as they are.

Axelwarrior.9084:

It’s not like elite specializations have to be useful for dungeon running.

EDIT: Especially for elementalists, who are already top-tier as they are.

I think noone wants a weapon that does even more dmg than staff. But assumed that we get some mysterious challenging group content, where bosses are moving a lot and are running out of aoes and suddenly daggerbuilds are becoming more interesting. Even then focus will still be a much better choice as your offhand weapon.
Warhorn could have some uses if pulls are needed or more blinds than a glyph or storms can cover, but not if you have to sacrifice an entire traitline for it.

The only thing I see is a minor buff to aura sharing, but.. who uses aura sharing anyway? Why would anyone want a 2s buff with a 1s internal cooldown? Hmmmm.
Yes, of all the specs, this is definitely the worst one untildruidcomescoughcough

They still think fire aura is a good thing, which is hilarious.

As if an 11k hp berserker ele would want to get hit by 6-7k autoattacks just to gain 1 might stack, when the Phalanx Strength warrior nearby keeps the party at perma-25 might.

Phalanx Strength is so absurdly OP, it devalues all sources of might in combat, as does persisting flames with fury.

When you reach a point where you can easily cap might and fury, skills and traits that say things such as “grants 3 stacks of might for 10 seconds” becomes hopelessly obsolete.

But ezportz mang

Although disappointed, I understand the reason they had to make Tempest so weak. It’s similar to racial skills where they don’t want people to feel like they -have- to be a Charr warrior because charrzooka is too strong… For the very same reason they likely made the specializations fun to mess around with, but not something viable in a dungeon setting. This is so that core gw2 players are not barred from dungeon groups. I don’t know if I’m buying HoT or not, but I’m not concerned about being viable if I do not either, which is a good feeling.

Erm, that doesn’t make any sense… why is chrono good, then? ‘cause mesmers are weaker than eles? Why would they do something and make it weak on purpose, since it’s not lore or race-related and all eles have the potential to access it? It’s ok to exclude mesmers because they’ll have to go chrono since it’s a good spec (I’m just assuming this, everything may change), but it’s not ok to exclude eles?
Also, they don’t design with dungeons in mind. Never.

It’s botched for pve because they always think about pvp… and now that I think about it – about tempest, not pvp, it’s botched period: no even remotely decent player would let you complete a 3-5s cast.

I’m honestly sick of them being.. afraid. Yeah, that’s how these specs make me feel. It feels like the guys designing certain classes’ skills – reaper and tempest on top – are a bunch of 75yo ladies crossing a street in winter “Ooooh, be careful there, Mildred! You may slip and fall on the ice!”
“Ohhh, careful there, area chill may be op! Let’s give it a 120s cd to make sure it’s not too strong…”
/facedesk

Dont forget the 2 second cast shout!

Lendruil.9061:

Axelwarrior.9084:

It’s not like elite specializations have to be useful for dungeon running.

EDIT: Especially for elementalists, who are already top-tier as they are.

I think noone wants a weapon that does even more dmg than staff. But assumed that we get some mysterious challenging group content, where bosses are moving a lot and are running out of aoes and suddenly daggerbuilds are becoming more interesting. Even then focus will still be a much better choice as your offhand weapon.
Warhorn could have some uses if pulls are needed or more blinds than a glyph or storms can cover, but not if you have to sacrifice an entire traitline for it.

If we’re talking about new content, we can’t make assumptions about it.
For all you know, condition damage or tanking might become meta there. Everything could change.

These changes aren’t for speed runs, just offering more for normal players. That’s just their objective now, adding cool stuff for “new” players and making more build options.

From the specializations already revealed, mesmer is the only good one.

Dragonhunter = a weird nerfed version of trap ranger
Tempest = seems to have less dmg and less group support than staff. worst at 1v1 than dd
Reaper= try using chill on players running -97% chill duration and tons of condi clear.

xDudisx.5914:

From the specializations already revealed, mesmer is the only good one.

Dragonhunter = a weird nerfed version of trap ranger
Tempest = seems to have less dmg and less group support than staff. worst at 1v1 than dd
Reaper= try using chill on players running -97% chill duration and tons of condi clear.

…….

Dragonhunter is basically a better ranger.

A 25 vulnerability stack trap for 10 seconds is far better than any trap out there.

spoj.9672:

Dont forget the 2 second cast shout!

Zenith.7301:

xDudisx.5914:

From the specializations already revealed, mesmer is the only good one.

Dragonhunter = a weird nerfed version of trap ranger
Tempest = seems to have less dmg and less group support than staff. worst at 1v1 than dd
Reaper= try using chill on players running -97% chill duration and tons of condi clear.

…….

Dragonhunter is basically a better ranger.

A 25 vulnerability stack trap for 10 seconds is far better than any trap out there.

I don’t see any duel, pvp or wvw potential for a dragonhunter. Vul is still only 1 condi and easy to remove.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Tempest blows.

Ba dum tss.

xDudisx.5914:

Zenith.7301:

xDudisx.5914:

From the specializations already revealed, mesmer is the only good one.

Dragonhunter = a weird nerfed version of trap ranger
Tempest = seems to have less dmg and less group support than staff. worst at 1v1 than dd
Reaper= try using chill on players running -97% chill duration and tons of condi clear.

…….

Dragonhunter is basically a better ranger.

A 25 vulnerability stack trap for 10 seconds is far better than any trap out there.

I don’t see any duel, pvp or wvw potential for a dragonhunter. Vul is still only 1 condi and easy to remove.

Neither is there for ranger. WvW top GvG teams use staff ele/necro any day over ranger. In spvp rangers are even more unpopular than necromancers. That leaves you dueling, and mesmer/ele/engineer are by far better dueling classes than ranger.

And to begin with, trap ranger is a dead spec, one of the worst ranger has available, with no survivability or group support.

Point being, dragonhuner guardian brings a trap that stacks 25 vulnerability, a trap that reveals thieves and mesmers for 10 seconds, and their version of a damaging trap is even better than the ranger ones. Oh, and their longbow is better plus their spec is not reliant on a garbage pet that does not scale with ascended gear/sigil/runes, who dies immediately to aoe, who can’t pathe properly so it can’t shoot people on castle walls or below them.

You get the idea. It’s kind of silly to say a guardian is EVER in a worse position than a ranger.

Not sure if anyone wrote about it already, but true tryhard soloers/duoers/(trioers without war) could prestack might, then Earth Warhorn 4 to double the duration and switch to Scholar runes.

theoutsider.7849:

Not sure if anyone wrote about it already, but true tryhard soloers/duoers/(trioers without war) could prestack might, then Earth Warhorn 4 to double the duration and switch to Scholar runes.

Double the duration? It adds 2 seconds.

Rip, I must’ve misread

This traitline/weapon isn’t even remotely DPS oriented, we’re looking at a boon control build with butt loads of support. Hopefully the weapon isn’t tied with the traitline because there is some practical ooc uses to them.