Guild Wars 2

First i’d like to clarify that i didn’t play with an Ele before so please be forgiving with my ideas about how to make the Tempest a good profession for the Elementalist.
Also please forgive this long piece but i felt that i need to explain the why of my conclusions.

As we can read in the forums the players are disappointed with the Tempest, because the overload mechanics are so lacklustre that are most of the time a burden on the player, punishing them for becoming the new profession.
So i gave it a though.
How can the class actually be played differently and also be rewarding for all those players that have an Ele as main?
The Reaper does a great job (needs to tune the Greatsword skills) giving the players something the necro didn’t have: direct damage. So Necromancer become more a warrior and that’s not only is completely different for the actual necro players but also is attractive for the main warrior that are looking for something new.

So, How to improve the Ele? or to say it in another way, What is Ele Lacking right now?

Elementalist is a class that have almost everything: Support, long range devastating attacks and also sustain. But they are squishy. So much so you could almost finish one with one Rapid Fire from a LB, and after the nerf in physical damage that is not very good news.

So to the point: Give them the skill to become Elementals.
The mechanic is the same as for the necro:

• One additional bar that is the energy channelled to overload the caster.
• This bar charges every time an skill of the actual attunement is used within combat. Longer the Cool Down in that skill bigger the recharge.
• The Ele can change into Elemental state in anymoment as long as the bar is charged to a minimun (like 10% for example same as Necro)
• Any damage done to the Ele in elemental state will be applied to the energy bar instead.
• Skills used by the elemental drain also energy, even the AA pulses.
• Change the attunement would reset the bar.

The idea of this is to give to the ele a second health bar and making him more tanky so veterans i think they’d see it as improvement. And also would give the necromancer players another class that they could feel familiar with.

The elemental state would change depending of the attunement. The idea of the elemental is to give that attunement new mechanics so the Ele can stay for longer in that attunement. I rely on the nature and how it behaves when a massive amount of that element is condensate.
The Elemental state have the skill#1 (AA) locked because it becomes a pulse that AA every second.
Attunements

• Fire : Same as the Sun gives us the dawn the Tempest became an elemental of Light. The player could became a ball of light to represent this state.
  This Elemental applies blind, stealth and cleanse conditions. Every 5 seconds could apply 5 sec of blindness to up 5 foes in 300 radius. The idea is to give group support as Fire is a damage focused attunement.
  Skills could be (only could think of two):
  Solar flare: Blind foes up to 1200, animation the same.
  Cleansing Dawn: Cleanse conditions up to 5 allies 600 radius.
  Dusk: AoE apply stealth 300 radius to allies. It’s follows the Tempest, could be heavy upkeep skill. Could pulse every 8 seconds for 8 seconds stealth. If any ally stealthed attack he will loose the boon until next pulse.
• Water: Same as the deeps of the ocean are as cold as winter the Tempest becomes an elemental of Ice. This elemental could look like the mist form.
  This Elemental is for chill, fear, knock down and damage because the water attunement is for healing mostly.The pulses could be every second chill 300 radius for 1 sec.
  Skills:
  Cold nova: Apply Chill and Fear within 900 radius up to 5 foes.
  Frost bite : Apply damage to foes with chill condition. Longer the chill remaining more the damage.
  Frost ground: in 600 radius foes are knock down and applied weakness.
• Earth. Same as the deeps of the earth are fire the Tempest become an elemental of Lava. I can’t think any ingame entity we could use for this one.
  This elemental is for damage mostly as the earth attunement gives mostly protection. Could apply cripple, burning, immobilize and direct damage.
  The pulses are burning for 1 second every second within 300 radius.
  Skills:
  Lava Pool: AoE apply burning and cripple. The ground become lava the mechanic could be similar to Bonfire. Same as skill Dusk could be upkeep skill that follows the Tempest.
  Lava Wall: Create a wall of lava that apply serious burning whose cross it. Stop projectiles.
  Volcano Bomb. Massive projectile for direct damage, small burning AoE.
• Air. Those Eles that channelled all the energy from the Air are overcome and become the Storm. This could be represented as slightly modified mist form with some lighting.
  As Air attunement mostly do damage i thought of this as more as group control with pulls, retaliation and confusion.
  The pulses could apply retaliation 1 sec to up 5 allies every sec.
  Skills:
  Tornado: ranged skill create a tornado that pulls up to 5 foes in 600 radius to it’s center.
  Lighting Storm: AoE radius 600 that follows the Tempest for some seconds. The storm cast lighting in the Area that hits foes for damage. Same as Lava pool could be a heavy upkeep skill.
  Thunder: AoE radius 600 apply confusion up to 5 foes.
  Hurricane’s Eye: Wall 300 radius that reflects any projectile back to it’s source. A cool effect would be if the projectiles from allies inside the Eye could become Unblockable. It’s follows the Tempest, could be heavy upkeep skill.

So this is it. As i said i don’t play Ele so i don’t know if this is a good idea or it is just awful . I think i would like to play with a specialisation that gives me this choices. Please feel free to give your feedback or thoughts as much as we keep this tread alive maybe someone from Anet could let us know about adjusting the Tempest .

Yes and also lock them into just one element just like necro deathshroud so you go in as fire elemental your that and only that + give them weapon swap to another set and attunment giving them a reason to have 2 core lines.
So you can only be a duo of fire earth air water and somehow arcane aswell