For the second HoT Beta Weekend Event, I decided to try out the Elementalist’s Tempest elite specialization. I have feedback about the HoT “Rebound” elite skill and about Elementalist elite skills in general.
“Rebound.” – Every time I tried to use this skill, it wound up getting wasted on my autoattacks. I know you can disable auto-attack by ctrl-clicking the skill, but that really causes a lot of damage loss to do that, plus it’s really not intuitive (“confusing for new players,” maybe, even…). Autoattacks don’t have cooldowns, so the Overload elite skill should not be wasted on them when they are used.
Further, I’m sure all the allies hit by Rebound near me also had it wasted on their autoattacks. Is the designed function of Rebound to tell all 5 of your party members to all turn off their autoattacks, then have them all wait for you to cast it, then all use a long cooldown spell, then all turn on their autoattacks again, all for a 25% cooldown reduction? It seems like you’d lose a lot more damage than you’d gain organizing all that – even in voice comms. Let alone trying to get it to work via text with people in-game.
That being said, Rebound seems kind of underwhelming in general, even if it worked and was not wasted on autoattacks/require insane coordination + stopping AA on 5 people to work. New HoT encounters may prove to be different, but 25% of a long cooldown probably won’t enable using the cooldown-reduced skill again in most encounters I can imagine.
During my playtime I thought I’d like to slot something else in my Elite skill slot. But then I remembered the ele alternatives are a Tornado that scatters enemies about, an Elemental that is AI-controlled and somewhat unpredictable, and a Fiery Greatsword which replaces your skillbar, which might have been a damage increase at one time but which many now regard as a glorified movement speed skill. In other words, none of the elementalist elite skill options really appealed to me. Some of these skills may appeal to some players or have situational/niche/limited uses, but none of them appealed to me at all while playing the BWE2.
Elite skills should be something that makes you drool. Something you want to put in your build so badly. Something that makes you feel restricted by “why can I only have ONE of these?” Instead, I found myself wishing I could slot a 4’th non-elite utility skill in that slot. Something is wrong with this.
In Guild Wars 1, an elite skill was optional. You could have 1, or you could have 0, in your build. Trying the Tempest elite specialization this weekend made me realize how much I wish for that option in general, but especially for the elementalist, in Guild Wars 2.
I hope you can figure out a way to make Rebound more appealing/work better. But I also hope, for all Elementalists, that you can find a way to make all ele Elite skill slot choices more appealing. Maybe that means opening up functionality (gamewide) where the Elite skill slot can also hold a 4’th Utility skill if the user doesn’t feel enticed by any of the Elite skill options, as was the case in GW1. But if you manage to make Rebound appealing, and it becomes the primary appealing ele Elite skill, then you may see a lot of players pigeonholed into always selecting the Tempest elite spec even if only for access to Rebound.
tl;dr Guild Wars 2 has a lot of freedom and openness and player choice. Today, I felt like all the choices presented to me for elementalist elite skills were unappealing. Elites are supposed to feel like the ace up your sleeve, but for elementalist they all (especially Rebound) just felt like an anchor weighing me down – a slot with VERY limited use. Maybe letting another basic utility fit into the elite skill slot is the answer, or maybe giving elementalists more appealing options is the answer, but I know an answer is out there.
I hope this feedback is helpful. I am very excited for Heart of Thorns but this BWE2 has left me frustrated and concerned about the state of elementalist elite skills in general. I hope the developers and the players can work together to find an answer to this problem. Thank you.