Guild Wars 2

Note: This is not a Cleric Amulet/Bunker Tempest QQ. This concerns Anet’s initial design for the specialization and the current direction of the game

To any mod that thinks that this should be moved to Elementalist Subforum, please read this first because it’s generally aimed for PvP. It requires the opinions of non-ele players as well and posts moved to class subforums just die in general.

Tempest Specialization was created to support. This statement is supported by the Tempest specialization weapon which is a Warhorn, Tempest Traits and utilities, and Anet’s statements regarding Tempests pre-HoT (which can be found in their various streams in twitch).

The direction of the game is changing to something more fast paced, more action packed, and more exciting gameplay. I fully support that and I think it’s for the better of the game. However, Tempests were not created for this kind of playstyle because they were designed to prolong fights. With these changes in the direction of the game, I believe Tempests require an overall redesign.

First of all, let’s list all the facts that we know about Tempests:

• Tempests have a lot of damage mitigation skills and traits – True
• Tempests have a lot of healing abilities -True
• Tempests has a lot of skills which are PBAOE – True
• Tempests have good access to boons – True
• Tempests have good access to condition cleanse – True
• Tempests have a lot of weapon skills – True

Really looks good on paper, right? Now let me explain why these won’t work for non support Tempests in the current direction of the game.

Damage mitigation tools
Tempests has a plethora of access to damage mitigation using their traits, utilities, and weapon skills which is a must to compensate having the lowest base HP and Armor in the game.

• Outdated bruiser traits – Most of these traits require the Tempest to be hit. With the current amulets available and the direction of the game, people want to avoid soaking up damage at all. This effect is doubled on Tempests because of their bad base stats. These traits should be changed to something that promotes active play in defense instead of waiting to get hit.
• Outrageous Cooldowns – The active defenses of Tempests have very huge cool downs. Cantrips, Conjures (Earth Shield), and Arcane Shield are really good in paper but are outdated as well. Arcane Shield blocks 3 attacks but will easily get removed because a lot of skills now are unblockable, not to mention that there are lots of multi-hit skills.
• Outdated traits and weapon skills – Blind used to be a very good active damage mitigation effect. Scepter has good access to Blind along with Burning Ashes. However, most skills now are pulsing AoEs which completely counters blind.

Access to Healing skills
Tempests have abundant access to healing from traits, weapon skills, and utilities. Healing Power scales a lot better with Toughness than Vitality and all amulets with the Healing Power/Toughness combination was removed because most, if not all, bunker builds of all classes will definitely use it.

• Lots of heals, bad scaling – With the recent changes to Tempest Healing and its scaling, Anet is promoting Tempests to stat for healing power. However, there are no Toughness/Healing power combination amulets left in PvP. Having this kind of amulet promotes bunker builds but this is one of the core stats that Tempests need regardless of build following the recent changes.

Tempest AoEs and PBAoEs
Tempest is hands down one of the best classes with regards to having access to AoEs. My only gripe with this are Overloads and Scepter

• Overloads are PBAoE – Plain and simple. Overloading for DPS is suicide in the coming High Risk High Reward meta. It requires Tempests to be in harm’s way and you can’t dodge while overloading. Not to mention that it requires both waiting and channeling to get the full effects. It is exclusively designed for bruisers, not for casters.

• Scepter – I don’t even know where to start… Scepter needs huge buffs aside from Auto Attacks and Shatterstone.

Tempest, lord of the boons
Tempests, like the old Elementalists, have the best access to multiple boons. You can get Fury, Swiftness, Protection, Vigor, and Regen by just proccing an Aura if traited correctly. With the new Diviner Amulet, Fresh Air Eles can get permanent access to these boons.

• Boons won’t cover bad base stats – 40% damage reduction from protection means nothing if you have very low HP and Armor. You can still get condi-bombed or bursted even if you pair it with Scrapper runes. Heck, you may even get below 30% HP just by trying to stomp the Necro NPC in HoTM with protection in Diviner’s Amulet.

• Boon Rip, Boon Steal, and Boon Corrupt – Mesmers and Necros will probably still be rampant in the coming meta. Thieves are arguable. Permanent access to these boons means nothing to those classes.

Tempests and Condition Cleanse
Tempest, again, is top notch in this area. With the correct traits and runes, they were able to hold against the rampant condi spam meta for the past few seasons.

• Cleanses are exclusively locked to Defensive Traits; Water and Earth – There were no changes to conditions in general. Conditions will still be spammed to no end and locking access to cleanse in defensive traits promotes bunker playstyle which is the complete opposite of the upcoming meta. Some may argue that there are sigils and runes available for these but then again, the rate of condition application is too much for sigils and runes alone. Having the lowest vitality which is the main passive counter to conditions doesn’t help either.

4 Attunements, 20 weapon skills, and 4 overloads
Tempests along with Engineers have most access to different weapon skills. This is one of their core mechanics and one of the reason why Elementalists were touted as a high skill floor class prior to the discovery of bunker builds.

• Times have changed but cooldowns keep getting nerfed – Elementalists, like engineers, don’t get interrupted when changing attunements (kits for engineers). These weapon skills were designed to be chained to actually deal decent damage. But as we all know, 20 weapon skills are not enough to carry a class especially if the vital ones have high cooldowns.

Core Mechanics and Base stats
All classes have different core mechanics paired with their base stats. Comparing other light classes, Necros have 2nd HP bars while Mesmers have access to stealth, Invulnerability, and blocks.

Elementalists were given minimal mobility and evade frames, no access to stealth, and High CD invulnerability and block skills/utilities to pair with its lowest HP and Armor, but has abundant access to healing. Their design was downright reliant on Healing which then causes a domino effect to taking more Toughness. As stated earlier, these 2 stats are core stats for any Tempest build following the recent nerfs to Tempest Healing scaling but these stats also promotes bunker playstyle on any other class.

TL;DR
I am not asking for Cleric/Celestial Amulet to be returned. I just want a decent non-bunker competitive-tier viable DPS build for Tempests to go along with the upcoming High-risk high-reward meta. We will certainly see people use Magi Amulets but there are many players who are sick of being healbots. Tempests should not be locked to a single viable boring healbot build.

Very very TL;DR
Tempests were designed to prolong fights and this isn’t the direction Anet is going for PvP.

For those who really love or loved the game, we need your opinions on how you think Tempests should be designed for the current direction of the game.

Make their overcharge cast times faster or overall them. The long cast duration was meant for slow attrition not quick burst.

“I am not asking for Cleric/Celestial Amulet to be returned. I just want a decent non-bunker competitive-tier viable DPS build for Tempests to go along with the upcoming High-risk high-reward meta. We will certainly see people use Magi Amulets but there are many players who are sick of being healbots. Tempests should not be locked to a single viable boring healbot build.”

If it’s the case, Mobility, Health Point and Armor should be normalized for all classes.

I have a great nerdy son. I would never ask him to become a cheerleader girls. When you give birth to something, players that like that something come back to it. Doing 360 turn around after 4 years, is doom to failed.

I don’t know many girl friend of a nerdy guy who would love unconditionally a transgenre sporty girl.

Thanks really much for the time you took to write this.
I hope everyone will read this post, players and devs.

“I am not asking for Cleric/Celestial Amulet to be returned. I just want a decent non-bunker competitive-tier viable DPS build for Tempests to go along with the upcoming High-risk high-reward meta. We will certainly see people use Magi Amulets but there are many players who are sick of being healbots. Tempests should not be locked to a single viable boring healbot build.”

This is what the most of Ele players feel and think. We are tired to play healbot support build, we want a dps viable build, and are many years we ask for that.
This is what the most of the community doesn’t understand when see and elementalist’s main complain about balance.

Great post!

“I am not asking for Cleric/Celestial Amulet to be returned. I just want a decent non-bunker competitive-tier viable DPS build for Tempests to go along with the upcoming High-risk high-reward meta. We will certainly see people use Magi Amulets but there are many players who are sick of being healbots. Tempests should not be locked to a single viable boring healbot build.”

I personally want to add it’s not of issue of ele being in meta or not. Right now class literally dead in every aspect of gw 2 pvp.

Great post! I agree with all of it. If Anet won’t give us toughness and healing, then Tempest needs to change so we can work better with other amulets.

What really bugs me the most about Overloads is that there’s no passive stability aside from Earth. This makes it amazingly easy to interrupt if you aren’t super careful or if the enemy isn’t focusing you, or is just bad! Simply making the Overload stability trait passive (with or without the damage bonus) would be a massive QoL change and a buff that wouldn’t break the game. Just interrupt twice (easily done with two players), and you’ve just countered it! One player can even interrupt that. A Reaper can corrupt as well.

But since they’re moving away from the bunker playstyle, Overloads will need a change. It’ll be too easy to interrupt or even just burn down the Tempest through it.

What if Overloads were given as charges. Let’s say 3 charges. With Fire Attunement, each charge creates its current effect, but only for 2 seconds, and then the post-overload fire field remains for another 2 seconds. With Water, you get 2 pulses over 2 seconds, 2 conditions cleansed and a slightly larger heal when it’s complete. Just like how it is now. You get the idea with the remaining Attunements. This just a simple solution to the long casting time for Overloads.

Edit: Something else came to mind. Overloads are close range focused. So unless you’re in the thick of the fight, you won’t get the most out of it. That again promotes bunker builds. With my charges idea, maybe Overloads can be a ground targeting skill, or be changed to cover a wider area. Whatever is done, it should allow Tempests to Overload at range so that we aren’t forced into defensive traits and stats just to survive at close range. Fire Overload literally requires melee range to do any damage outside of fire bolts, which really don’t count much as a range attack. It certainly doesn’t justify requiring such a close range when we can no longer get the stats that allow us to get that close to the action.

I agree with the OP on every point. We saw it coming a mile away however, when they first presented Tempest. It didn’t seem ready back then and it still doesn’t feel finished today.

Very well thought out!

I believe that the Ele will be back where it was some time ago, power builds and other crazy one off builds and very few playing them. I recall a post some years ago that showed Ele is the least played class, I could have dreamed it up but maybe not. I wish instead of taking things away Anet stated to look at adding some other slots to pvp to help expand on the build possibilities. Love my Ele but I played the last 2 days now trying builds and none of them are very good. I am great at dodging and view myself an above average player and the Ele is missing on a few cylinders.

Xillllix.3485:

I agree with the OP on every point. We saw it coming a mile away however, when they first presented Tempest. It didn’t seem ready back then and it still doesn’t feel finished today.

Couldn’t you say that about all the elite specializations???

We gave the feedback that overloads and tempest were a horrible direction for the class pre hot, thousands only suggestions on better methods, tweaks etc. They ignored all of them.

They chose to stick with overloads, we pointed out time and time again long cast melee range abilities would only further force us to tank amulets because our horrible base stats. We pointed out that without stability on overloads they would be useless. Karl the lead ele design got wrecked trying to show off overloads, he was interupted multiple times by the Npc.

They won’t be reworking overloads it would be such a massive undertaking, especially how their game engine is apparently a nightmare to work in, ele is unfortunately stuck with a bad pvp spekittenil we roll the dice on them kittening up our next spec on the next expansion.

But that doesn’t mean they can’t do an aura rework or rework our arcane or conjures or glyph. They could provide us active defenses, give us access to resilience (w/ the condition immunity is) give us access to more evades, higher mobility, better burst, less Telegraphed bullkitten (I’m looking at you dragons tooth) improved blocks (arcane shield) traits that provide toughness, vitality, or healing power base instead of just in an attunement.

There are so many small tweaks they could make to make us viable, they choose not to.

OneKlicKill.4285:

We gave the feedback that overloads and tempest were a horrible direction for the class pre hot, thousands only suggestions on better methods, tweaks etc. They ignored all of them.

They chose to stick with overloads, we pointed out time and time again long cast melee range abilities would only further force us to tank amulets because our horrible base stats. We pointed out that without stability on overloads they would be useless. Karl the lead ele design got wrecked trying to show off overloads, he was interupted multiple times by the Npc.

They won’t be reworking overloads it would be such a massive undertaking, especially how their game engine is apparently a nightmare to work in, ele is unfortunately stuck with a bad pvp spekittenil we roll the dice on them kittening up our next spec on the next expansion.

But that doesn’t mean they can’t do an aura rework or rework our arcane or conjures or glyph. They could provide us active defenses, give us access to resilience (w/ the condition immunity is) give us access to more evades, higher mobility, better burst, less Telegraphed bullkitten (I’m looking at you dragons tooth) improved blocks (arcane shield) traits that provide toughness, vitality, or healing power base instead of just in an attunement.

There are so many small tweaks they could make to make us viable, they choose not to.

You know what I would like to see? I want to see the Anet balance team play pvp with an ele, doing a 4 hours Live-Stream taking turns showing us how overpowered it is.

It would be the funniest thing ever, it would certainly make their Twitch audience increase as well.

^^^^^Avid twitch watcher^^^^^^

Xillllix.3485:

You know what I would like to see? I want to see the Anet balance team play pvp with an ele, doing a 4 hours Live-Stream taking turns showing us how overpowered it is.

It would be the funniest thing ever, it would certainly make their Twitch audience increase as well.

I’d like to see them play ANY class in ranked

Edit: mid to high level elo/mmr/whatever they call it ranked

Xillllix.3485:

You know what I would like to see? I want to see the Anet balance team play pvp with an ele, doing a 4 hours Live-Stream taking turns showing us how overpowered it is.

It would be the funniest thing ever, it would certainly make their Twitch audience increase as well.

Now THAT would be a stream I would watch, so they would have at least one more twitch viewer. Captain Picard approves as well:

-Hardy Conduit. Raise the protection uptime to 4 (or 5) seconds, up from 3. (To match the actual overload duration)

-Reduce the recharge rate of overload to 15 seconds, down from 20.

-Imbued Melodies. Allows the boon duration to apply even without warhorn.

-Remove the magnetic aura portion of Shock and Aftershock. Make it grant 1 seconds of protection per enemy struck (skill has two potential hits) with up to 6 total seconds. Projectiles are destroyed during the skill animation. Tempest needs to support another style than auras.

Alekt.5803:

Tempest needs to support another style than auras._

Auras never made sense on the lowest hp armor class it’s just another bad class design mechanic from the get go.

So where are the people who said Tempests as a whole, not just the meta build, deserved this kind of nerf now that they’re given hard solid facts about non-meta builds?

Kyon.9735:

So where are the people who said Tempests as a whole, not just the meta build, deserved this kind of nerf now that they’re given hard solid facts about non-meta builds?

These nerfs are all directly realated to Temp being too strong in pve, all nerfs were targeted at that tempest because they did 15%+ more damage on average than other classes and wash the pain away was a really strong heal in raids for everyone. They were getting stacked 2-4 a group because of this.

Unfortunatly Karl gives no kittens how this effects PvP and we get kittened by that.

In addition to this, The PvP team, wanted to remove clerics, because it brought on a sour role to the game and gameplay they didnt like (and I’m okay with that, i hated cleric meta) The pvp team can only change amulets, sigils, and runes. They have zero control over class changes, they can only ask Karl nicely for changes.

When you add both those together along with the gradual removal over time of all the amulets that eles could in some way use, you get exactly what happened. The last and final class crutch amulet (clerics) was removed at the same time tempest base sustain got hit on the pve side so they would bring less support by defualt to raids and damage and cds were hit to further lower the dps rotations to be inline with other classes.

TL;DR Karl and his team kittened us because they have no disregard for pvp, and the pvp team kittened us by not leaving us with an amulet that would make us viable with karls changes, and the GW2 engine developers kittened us by apprently making it a nightmare to skill/trait split ballance between modes so here we are.

Good points. Tempest was never an exciting concept and instead of trying to give Elementalist something different, it just pushed it deeper into bruiser/bunker + support type of builds Ele had for years.

I feel anet has no idea where they want to go with ele, they want different builds yet purposely push ele into more and more support. I hate playing support.
Before the celestial update, eles either hit like a wet noodle bc they were so bunky or they were taken out within seconds bc they were so glass. That’s it, you didn’t see ele in ranked matches often because engi and guardian could do what ele could but better. That is where ele is going yet again.

Increible post !!!

The problem desing is a core/base problem of the ele that will follow us to end. The questions are : “Why I would play a dps build with a class with no amor, no hp?”…. “Why did I need to run at least some of the 3 defesive stats (healing power/vitality/touhness) while others can just take one of thoses or run full zerker?”… “Why all my survavility mecanics are based on 2 evades and healing my self up?” … “Why do i have CDs of 60 sec more in any of my avoidable abilities/skills (invuls, blocs) while other have less?” … “Why do I have a limited quantity of invuls whiles others can get 3 or 4 maybe more ?”

see you

OneKlicKill.4285:

Alekt.5803:

Tempest needs to support another style than auras._

Auras never made sense on the lowest hp armor class it’s just another bad class design mechanic from the get go.

It’s not the aura per se. Tempest gets a lot of benefits from receiving any aura. That’s what I mean about “supporting the aura style”. Getting an aura on Tempest usually mean the core of what you do (Heal, Vigor, Regen —> Condition clear, Protection —> Hardy Conduit). Tempest does not support any other trait synergies with the current Grand Master traits.

Trait wise, Latent Stamina or Unstable Conduit (Adept) naturally guides toward Invigorating Torrents (Master), and all of them back to Elemental Bastion (Grandmaster).

Gale Song (Adept) seems to guide to Tempestuous Aria (Master), but really seems to be two traits that should be combined as one. And then, those two does not synergize with any Grandmaster trait properly.

Then there is Harmonious Conduit that is seen as a good trait. Problem will be the condition clear, and the lack of vigor that will surely follow. Technically, it does not synergize with either of the three Adept Tier. (Not a Vigor applyer; Not a Shout Synergy; Not adding an extra effect to auras). Elemental Bastion is usually picked with that one due to the lack of reasonable options.

So, what I am seeing about Tempest? Someone indeed needs to get back into the design table. Too many traits need the player to use shouts in their utility bar. This is even more of an issue now since those utilities were massively nerfed because the auramancer used them too well; Wash the Pain Away is not to be used by the DPS Tempest due to the 33% nerf on the base value. Moreover, shouts seemed to be the direction guided for such a DPS Tempest. And finally, there is no proper grandmaster for a DPS Tempest trying to find survivability without auras.

Fantastic post OP couldn’t agree more.

Kyon.9735:

• Outrageous Cooldowns – The active defenses of Tempests have very huge cool downs. Cantrips, Conjures (Earth Shield), and Arcane Shield […]…

Props to you for including the Earth Shield as a natural utility for Tempest. The amount of comboes Earth Shield bring with Tempest is way too good to be ignored! The cooldown on that tool is outrageous indeed.

Kyon.9735:

Note: This is not a Cleric Amulet/Bunker Tempest QQ. This concerns Anet’s initial design for the specialization and the current direction of the game

To any mod that thinks that this should be moved to Elementalist Subforum, please read this first because it’s generally aimed for PvP. It requires the opinions of non-ele players as well and posts moved to class subforums just die in general.

Tempest Specialization was created to support. This statement is supported by the Tempest specialization weapon which is a Warhorn, Tempest Traits and utilities, and Anet’s statements regarding Tempests pre-HoT (which can be found in their various streams in twitch).

The direction of the game is changing to something more fast paced, more action packed, and more exciting gameplay. I fully support that and I think it’s for the better of the game. However, Tempests were not created for this kind of playstyle because they were designed to prolong fights. With these changes in the direction of the game, I believe Tempests require an overall redesign.

First of all, let’s list all the facts that we know about Tempests:

• Tempests have a lot of damage mitigation skills and traits – True
• Tempests have a lot of healing abilities -True
• Tempests has a lot of skills which are PBAOE – True
• Tempests have good access to boons – True
• Tempests have good access to condition cleanse – True
• Tempests have a lot of weapon skills – True

Really looks good on paper, right? Now let me explain why these won’t work for non support Tempests in the current direction of the game.

Damage mitigation tools
Tempests has a plethora of access to damage mitigation using their traits, utilities, and weapon skills which is a must to compensate having the lowest base HP and Armor in the game.

• Outdated bruiser traits – Most of these traits require the Tempest to be hit. With the current amulets available and the direction of the game, people want to avoid soaking up damage at all. This effect is doubled on Tempests because of their bad base stats. These traits should be changed to something that promotes active play in defense instead of waiting to get hit.
• Outrageous Cooldowns – The active defenses of Tempests have very huge cool downs. Cantrips, Conjures (Earth Shield), and Arcane Shield are really good in paper but are outdated as well. Arcane Shield blocks 3 attacks but will easily get removed because a lot of skills now are unblockable, not to mention that there are lots of multi-hit skills.
• Outdated traits and weapon skills – Blind used to be a very good active damage mitigation effect. Scepter has good access to Blind along with Burning Ashes. However, most skills now are pulsing AoEs which completely counters blind.

Access to Healing skills
Tempests have abundant access to healing from traits, weapon skills, and utilities. Healing Power scales a lot better with Toughness than Vitality and all amulets with the Healing Power/Toughness combination was removed because most, if not all, bunker builds of all classes will definitely use it.

• Lots of heals, bad scaling – With the recent changes to Tempest Healing and its scaling, Anet is promoting Tempests to stat for healing power. However, there are no Toughness/Healing power combination amulets left in PvP. Having this kind of amulet promotes bunker builds but this is one of the core stats that Tempests need regardless of build following the recent changes.

Tempest AoEs and PBAoEs
Tempest is hands down one of the best classes with regards to having access to AoEs. My only gripe with this are Overloads and Scepter

• Overloads are PBAoE – Plain and simple. Overloading for DPS is suicide in the coming High Risk High Reward meta. It requires Tempests to be in harm’s way and you can’t dodge while overloading. Not to mention that it requires both waiting and channeling to get the full effects. It is exclusively designed for bruisers, not for casters.

• Scepter – I don’t even know where to start… Scepter needs huge buffs aside from Auto Attacks and Shatterstone.

Tempest, lord of the boons
Tempests, like the old Elementalists, have the best access to multiple boons. You can get Fury, Swiftness, Protection, Vigor, and Regen by just proccing an Aura if traited correctly. With the new Diviner Amulet, Fresh Air Eles can get permanent access to these boons.

• Boons won’t cover bad base stats – 40% damage reduction from protection means nothing if you have very low HP and Armor. You can still get condi-bombed or bursted even if you pair it with Scrapper runes. Heck, you may even get below 30% HP just by trying to stomp the Necro NPC in HoTM with protection in Diviner’s Amulet.

• Boon Rip, Boon Steal, and Boon Corrupt – Mesmers and Necros will probably still be rampant in the coming meta. Thieves are arguable. Permanent access to these boons means nothing to those classes.

Tempests and Condition Cleanse
Tempest, again, is top notch in this area. With the correct traits and runes, they were able to hold against the rampant condi spam meta for the past few seasons.

• Cleanses are exclusively locked to Defensive Traits; Water and Earth – There were no changes to conditions in general. Conditions will still be spammed to no end and locking access to cleanse in defensive traits promotes bunker playstyle which is the complete opposite of the upcoming meta. Some may argue that there are sigils and runes available for these but then again, the rate of condition application is too much for sigils and runes alone. Having the lowest vitality which is the main passive counter to conditions doesn’t help either.

4 Attunements, 20 weapon skills, and 4 overloads
Tempests along with Engineers have most access to different weapon skills. This is one of their core mechanics and one of the reason why Elementalists were touted as a high skill floor class prior to the discovery of bunker builds.

• Times have changed but cooldowns keep getting nerfed – Elementalists, like engineers, don’t get interrupted when changing attunements (kits for engineers). These weapon skills were designed to be chained to actually deal decent damage. But as we all know, 20 weapon skills are not enough to carry a class especially if the vital ones have high cooldowns.

Core Mechanics and Base stats
All classes have different core mechanics paired with their base stats. Comparing other light classes, Necros have 2nd HP bars while Mesmers have access to stealth, Invulnerability, and blocks.

Elementalists were given minimal mobility and evade frames, no access to stealth, and High CD invulnerability and block skills/utilities to pair with its lowest HP and Armor, but has abundant access to healing. Their design was downright reliant on Healing which then causes a domino effect to taking more Toughness. As stated earlier, these 2 stats are core stats for any Tempest build following the recent nerfs to Tempest Healing scaling but these stats also promotes bunker playstyle on any other class.

TL;DR
I am not asking for Cleric/Celestial Amulet to be returned. I just want a decent non-bunker competitive-tier viable DPS build for Tempests to go along with the upcoming High-risk high-reward meta. We will certainly see people use Magi Amulets but there are many players who are sick of being healbots. Tempests should not be locked to a single viable boring healbot build.

Very very TL;DR
Tempests were designed to prolong fights and this isn’t the direction Anet is going for PvP.

For those who really love or loved the game, we need your opinions on how you think Tempests should be designed for the current direction of the game.

I am agreeing with all of your points but there is one more thing I like to mention it.

All of Ele weapons,except Scepter has power and condi mixed in their damages, because of that all of power coefficients of weapon attacks are laughable for Ele, specially using Marauder or a defensive Amulet makes a barely a difference specially for D/X variants.

That is the reason Cele was working so good for Ele, because of this, if they don’t want to give Toughness to Amulets ok fine, but D/X to function they have to introduce an Amulet with Power/Precision/Ferocity/Condi/Healing/Vitality they can leave the toughness out…and I don’t want extra stat budget, just turn back the nerfs about might stacking for Ele, Ele will be Ok.

Or buff the power co-efficient of Dagger so it will not be joke with Marauder, there is nothing hitting harder then 2.5K (don’t tell me Firegrab, if you can run in this meta with paper armor with dagger off-hand then you are not a bare mortal).

Now look an old post of me

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/D-D-ele/5389201

This is when Ele was OP during the Cele Meta I was calling for the nerfs for might on cantrip or Blinding Ashes 5s CD, those are nerfed just because of Cele Amulet. Those traits were introduced during the dark ages of Ele, Summer 2013 to Summer 2014, remember the time people ask you change classes when you enter to a match as Ele.

In those hopeless days developers saw the miserable state of Ele and introduced those traits, now Cele is gone, but those nerfs are still there. Wouldn’t be logical to expect from developers to make 2 + 2 = 4 and de-nerfs those traits when they remove Cele-

Do we have to wait one year until they wake up?

^
Yes, how could have I completely forgotten about that given that I even created a thread weeks ago for it.

Kyon.9735:

I believe it’s about time to revert a couple of simple nerfs that was the direct result of the PvP Celestial and might stacking meta. This won’t be game changing but should be “baseline” for the Elementalist.

• Blinding Ashes – Revert ICD to 5s. I honestly think this won’t be enough even if reverted as there’s a lot of pulsing AoEs now.
• Drake’s Breath – Revert burning Duration to 3s.
• Ring of Fire – Revert burn stacks when crossing the threshold to 3 stacks.
• Burning Fire – Using Cantrips grants 2 or 3 stacks of Might again

For other traits that got nerfed without relation to the celestial and might stacking meta:
• One with Fire – Activating a signet grants Fire Aura again
• Ride the Lightning – Revert CD to 20s.

Regarding GM Traits
I agree that there are no actual good offensive GM Traits in the Tempest trait line.

Base Ele might be better than Tempest for DPS builds in PvP?
I’ve thought about this a few times. The Tempest traitline offers so little for a DPS Tempest in PvP. Sure, the overloads are part of the powercreep but given that there are no amulets suitable for DPS Tempests to be forced to somewhat facetank a little while overloading, it might actually be better to not take it at all. Problem is, Scepter is still a joke with all the power hate currently in the game.

This is something I have proven correct (at least for me) in WvW solo roaming. I completely dropped Tempest trait line because I had little ways to take advantage of it. I usually didn’t have enough self-sustain after taking in a few hits after overloading in my non-bunker Tempest build. Funny to say, I had more success on DPS base Ele DD/Scepter than any DPS Tempest build I’ve used.

Regarding the Tempest is PvP, the orientation for a DPS Tempest.

Hardy Conduit: Protection duration gained when Overloading is increased to 4, up from 3.

Tempestuous Aria: Old trait is now combined with Gale Song. Tempestuous Aria increases Weakness duration by 25%. Striking a foe affected by Weakness grants 1 stack of might for 10 seconds, 1 second internal cooldown. When above 10 stacks of might, gain 3 seconds of quickness on critical hit, 30 seconds ICD.

Grand Master

Imbued Melodies: The boon duration now applies to other weapons too.

Lucid Singularity: In addition to the current effect, Lucid Singularity charges you with an Echo after completing an overload, you are charged with an Echo dependant on the overload completed. The echo detonates three seconds after completing the overload.

Earth: Blast the ground around you with sharp splinters applying two stacks of Torment, Cripple and dealing 202 (0.5) damage. This is a blast finisher.

Water: A current of water forms at your feet. After a short delay, it explodes in a wave that knocks down foes in a small radius and applies vigor to allies struck in the wave. Allies struck are also healed for a small amount.

Air: You are charged with current and the closest three target are struck with thunder bolt within a 600 radius applying Blindness, Weakness and dealing 266 (0.66) damage. Gain Fury for each enemy struck.

Fire: You are engulfed with a cleansing fire. For the next three seconds, you clear 1 damaging condition every seconds. If no condition is cleared that way, you apply two seconds of buring around you in a 240 radius.

Overload

Overload: Reduce Overload Recharge time to 15 seconds, down from 20.

Overload Fire: Upon completion radius becomes 300 and energize allies in the area with fiery power, granting a buff improving their power and condition damage by 100 for 10 seconds. This buff is pulsing every seconds upon completion.

Kyon.9735:

^
Yes, how could have I completely forgotten about that given that I even created a thread weeks ago for it.

Kyon.9735:

I believe it’s about time to revert a couple of simple nerfs that was the direct result of the PvP Celestial and might stacking meta. This won’t be game changing but should be “baseline” for the Elementalist.

• Blinding Ashes – Revert ICD to 5s. I honestly think this won’t be enough even if reverted as there’s a lot of pulsing AoEs now.
• Drake’s Breath – Revert burning Duration to 3s.
• Ring of Fire – Revert burn stacks when crossing the threshold to 3 stacks.
• Burning Fire – Using Cantrips grants 2 or 3 stacks of Might again

For other traits that got nerfed without relation to the celestial and might stacking meta:
• One with Fire – Activating a signet grants Fire Aura again
• Ride the Lightning – Revert CD to 20s.

Regarding GM Traits
I agree that there are no actual good offensive GM Traits in the Tempest trait line.

Base Ele might be better than Tempest for DPS builds in PvP?
I’ve thought about this a few times. The Tempest traitline offers so little for a DPS Tempest in PvP. Sure, the overloads are part of the powercreep but given that there are no amulets suitable for DPS Tempests to be forced to somewhat facetank a little while overloading, it might actually be better to not take it at all. Problem is, Scepter is still a joke with all the power hate currently in the game.

This is something I have proven correct (at least for me) in WvW solo roaming. I completely dropped Tempest trait line because I had little ways to take advantage of it. I usually didn’t have enough self-sustain after taking in a few hits after overloading in my non-bunker Tempest build. Funny to say, I had more success on DPS base Ele DD/Scepter than any DPS Tempest build I’ve used.

I still use Tempest is S/X because has no answer for that pesky stealthers, Thiefs, Mesmer, at least Air Overload is a deterrent for them, otherwise you just have to guess with Phoenix but I don’t like to guess with a kill on 15s CD and one of my few big hitters.

Alekt.5803:

Regarding the Tempest is PvP, the orientation for a DPS Tempest.

Hardy Conduit: Protection duration gained when Overloading is increased to 4, up from 3.

Tempestuous Aria: Old trait is now combined with Gale Song. Tempestuous Aria increases Weakness duration by 25%. Striking a foe affected by Weakness grants 1 stack of might for 10 seconds, 1 second internal cooldown. When above 10 stacks of might, gain 3 seconds of quickness on critical hit, 30 seconds ICD.

Grand Master

Imbued Melodies: The boon duration now applies to other weapons too.

Lucid Singularity: In addition to the current effect, Lucid Singularity charges you with an Echo after completing an overload, you are charged with an Echo dependant on the overload completed. The echo detonates three seconds after completing the overload.

Earth: Blast the ground around you with sharp splinters applying two stacks of Torment, Cripple and dealing 202 (0.5) damage. This is a blast finisher.

Water: A current of water forms at your feet. After a short delay, it explodes in a wave that knocks down foes in a small radius and applies vigor to allies struck in the wave. Allies struck are also healed for a small amount.

Air: You are charged with current and the closest three target are struck with thunder bolt within a 600 radius applying Blindness, Weakness and dealing 266 (0.66) damage. Gain Fury for each enemy struck.

Fire: You are engulfed with a cleansing fire. For the next three seconds, you clear 1 damaging condition every seconds. If no condition is cleared that way, you apply two seconds of buring around you in a 240 radius.

Overload

Overload: Reduce Overload Recharge time to 15 seconds, down from 20.

Overload Fire: Upon completion radius becomes 300 and energize allies in the area with fiery power, granting a buff improving their power and condition damage by 100 for 10 seconds. This buff is pulsing every seconds upon completion.

I think for the GMs for every line they must give an option like Fresh Air, if you take that trait, it will reset the CD of the Overload for that line, this way Tempest might have attunement dancing of Ele instead being locked out of that attunement for 20s. Earth resets lets if you get a hit more then %50 HP lets say, Fire if you can stack more 15 stack of might, Water If you used you healing skill in the last 3s and lost %50 your HP again (I am open for better ideas for this one…..)

This is the reason currently I only Overload out of Air only to stun break, against competent people you have 0 chance to complete an Overload anyway.

The thing that I notice the most is that sure, you have 20 skills… but there’s maybe 3 or 4 that actually matter, the rest are just filler to make you feel like you’re doing something/to catch you up to the utility of chain skills from other classes.

posthumecaver.6473:

I think for the GMs for every line they must give an option like Fresh Air, if you take that trait, it will reset the CD of the Overload for that line, this way Tempest might have attunement dancing of Ele instead being locked out of that attunement for 20s. Earth resets lets if you get a hit more then %50 HP lets say, Fire if you can stack more 15 stack of might, Water If you used you healing skill in the last 3s and lost %50 your HP again (I am open for better ideas for this one…..)

This is the reason currently I only Overload out of Air only to stun break, against competent people you have 0 chance to complete an Overload anyway.

I don’t know. You’d combine Fresh Air with some Fire “Fresh Air” to constantly reset the attunements, for a nearly infinite damage. Would we really want that? Electric Discharge → Sunspot Crit) → Electric Discharge Crit → Sunspot…

Fresh Air is a play style not everyone wishes to play.

Tempest’s design was put into question since the first trailerless reveal.

Those comments produce literally 0 effect, despite being the main complaint and comment on the forums during the entirety of the Beta.

The damage then has already been done, this is the elite spec we have and nothing will change from this.

You have a better shot a hoping the next elite spec has a decent level of effort and development and actually aims at filling a role that was not already filled by ele.

Oh please no, No more elite specs. Just give us more skills. (New skills can’t unbalance the game more at this point)

I am still waiting and hoping for an official statement from Anet regarding their plans for Tempests with the current direction of the game.

As stated above, Anet wants a fast paced pvp but tempest was exclusively designed to prolong fights which directly contradicts it.

For support tempest, I believe that Magi Amulet is still completely viable if they remove the nerf to the base healing of skills. I agree that their self survivability should be toned down but the removal of toughness/healing amulet is more than enough. Healing/vit doesn’t even scale well so the recent nerfs to both amulet and base healing double jeopardized the build.

For non support builds, I can hardly think of any viable build that does not result into a very quick death resulting into uselessness to a certain degree. They can be easily compared to a zerk thief or revenant but the amount of self survivability and mobility is incomparable. But yes, fresh air tempest is very fun and can drop massive amounts of damage if left alone.

We are now back to the old problems of ele. They can do everything fairly well but can be easily replaced by another class. The only real thing tempests can do that others can’t to a certain level is only supporting but is it even worth giving up a slot for something that can only support and can die as fast as other zerk builds? Is the amount of healing they can output enough or is it simply better to take in another DPS class?

Are we just supposed to give up on getting a fun and viable non support high tier tempest build and wait for the next specialization or is Anet already planning something aside from buffing shatterstone? I hope we can somehow get Anet’s input.

realy good post …. not much to add. I see it´s not even hard to get ele playable. It´s more a thing of is Anet willing to do it….

I agree that the idea of Tempest being a support class (weighted toward bunkering because Invigorating Torrents and Elemental Bastion are pretty much the best options to take) runs counter to the devs’ goal of speeding up the game/reducing TTK.

I wish they would buff the offensive capabilities of the spec then, to incentivize using the offensive Overloads more. Undo the 10% Overload Air nerf (at least in PvP), and:

—Increase Overload Fire’s radius a bit.

—SPEED UP WARHORN SKILLS! Particularly Wildfire, Tidal Surge, Cyclone and Dust Storm. This promotes synergy with Lightning Rod and Tempestuous Aria: damage and team support through CC and Weakness.

—Make Harmonious Conduit give 2 stacks of Stability instead of 1 stack. CC spam is crazy currently, making it downright impossible to Overload safely at times.

—Add the following functionality to Lucid Singularity: Gain 10% damage for a short time after you break a stun (has an internal cool down.) OR Add the following functionality to Lucid Singularity: Reduces Overload recharge time by 5 seconds. This synergizes with Overloads.

—Normalize Hardy Conduit’s Protection to 4 seconds, which is how long each Overload takes to cast.

Thoughts?

Glenstorm.4059:

I agree that the idea of Tempest being a support class (weighted toward bunkering because Invigorating Torrents and Elemental Bastion are pretty much the best options to take) runs counter to the devs’ goal of speeding up the game/reducing TTK.

I wish they would buff the offensive capabilities of the spec then, to incentivize using the offensive Overloads more. Undo the 10% Overload Air nerf (at least in PvP), and:

—Increase Overload Fire’s radius a bit.

—SPEED UP WARHORN SKILLS! Particularly Wildfire, Tidal Surge, Cyclone and Dust Storm. This promotes synergy with Lightning Rod and Tempestuous Aria: damage and team support through CC and Weakness.

—Make Harmonious Conduit give 2 stacks of Stability instead of 1 stack. CC spam is crazy currently, making it downright impossible to Overload safely at times.

—Add the following functionality to Lucid Singularity: Gain 10% damage for a short time after you break a stun (has an internal cool down.) OR Add the following functionality to Lucid Singularity: Reduces Overload recharge time by 5 seconds. This synergizes with Overloads.

—Normalize Hardy Conduit’s Protection to 4 seconds, which is how long each Overload takes to cast.

Thoughts?

I like the damage increase after breaking from a stun.

I’d like the 15 seconds recharge on overload baseline.

Poor Warhorn; I had totally forgotten about it.

About fire overload, I had a suggestion about having the radius increased to 300 upon completion. It also gave a 100 power/ 100 condition damage buff for the party. What did you think about it?

Alekt.5803:

About fire overload, I had a suggestion about having the radius increased to 300 upon completion. It also gave a 100 power/ 100 condition damage buff for the party. What did you think about it?

I like it. It gives you more of an incentive to complete the Overload, and helps you trap more people in it (maybe catching them off-guard.) Would the buff apply to allies sort of how Auras from Shouts do? I think it would be nice.

Edit: The buff reminds me of the Lightning Jolt from OLA; a nice little offensive boost for the team.

Tempest honestly can’t be salvaged for pvp, just wait until next XPac and see if ANet can come up with an original idea for the class rather than just giving “more of the same…but now with auras!!”

The very underlying concept of tempest requires it to be a brawler or bunker. Sitting in an attunement for 5s to charge an overload requires sustain while you whack away with some of the worst auto-attacks in the game. Surviving kitten channel where you can’t dodge or you lose all benefits of having sat in your attunement for 5s doing not much requires (and get ADDED punishments of longer CD’s) requires sustain. Sticking in melee range as dagger is the only way to deal sustained damage (esp. compared to scepter and staff) requires lots of sustain. Since they were too lazy to design a proper mainhand that meshed with the overload mechanic…the pigeon-holed the class even more into playing the healing/cleanse role that they already had since forever that d/d ele was viable.

And yea, don’t even get started on warhorn. It is a garbage weapon that only sees use in PvE because it can do slightly more damage on a lower CD than OH dagger against stupid AI. The skills aren’t good or interesting…they are clunky and about as good as ele warhorn skills sound.

They tried to bandaid it by making the damage pretty decent on overloads and jacking the healing way up so that tempest is arcana 2.0, but that causes problems in PvE where the risks are way lower and the enemies much dumber/more predictable. This is especially true b/c, for PvE, tempest ADDS overloads but takes nothing truly away. Adding damage to the top dps spec, even if just a little, just makes PvE even harder to balance.

In the end, the problem comes down to the fact that tempest just isn’t new. Its just “more of that stuff eles already did, just slightly better.” Now that they nerfed it down finally and removed amulets, its just “more of that stuff eles already did, just differently!”

lucadiro.4519:

Thanks really much for the time you took to write this.
I hope everyone will read this post, players and devs.

“I am not asking for Cleric/Celestial Amulet to be returned. I just want a decent non-bunker competitive-tier viable DPS build for Tempests to go along with the upcoming High-risk high-reward meta. We will certainly see people use Magi Amulets but there are many players who are sick of being healbots. Tempests should not be locked to a single viable boring healbot build.”

This is what the most of Ele players feel and think. We are tired to play healbot support build, we want a dps viable build, and are many years we ask for that.
This is what the most of the community doesn’t understand when see and elementalist’s main complain about balance.

Can we have a viable build for all classes for all SPVP archetype?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/New-to-PvP-Start-here/first#post3383589

What now? Builds and beyond!

Now that you’re in Heart of the Mists, you need to setup a build for your profession. The Guild Wars 2 trait system allows for incredible customization, letting you to play your character exactly the way you want to. You can access the build editor by clicking the “PvP Build” button at the top of your UI while in either Heart of the Mists or a PvP map. From here you can quickly edit your build on the fly. New stat combinations, runes, and sigils can also be purchased from this panel.

Now that you know how to edit your build, here’s a quick explanation of the basic roles in conquest PvP:

Bunker – As a bunker, your main role is to support your teammates and to keep control over capture points. Players accomplish this by building very defensively, either through large health-pools, high-healing power, or builds that focus on evasion.

Roamer – The roamer is a mobile damage-orientated player, focused on moving between capture points and helping his allies where needed. He moves quickly and strikes quickly.

Far-Point Assaulter – This player’s role is to constantly assault the enemy team’s capture point and to keep them distracted. This player is usually very defensive and can hold off multiple opponents at once. This player can also be very mobile, like a thief.

Home Defender – The Home Defender’s job is to make sure that nobody takes their home capture point. I mean nobody! This is usually a very mobile profession or very tanky.

BlackBeard.2873:

Tempest honestly can’t be salvaged for pvp, just wait until next XPac and see if ANet can come up with an original idea for the class rather than just giving “more of the same…but now with auras!!”

The very underlying concept of tempest requires it to be a brawler or bunker. Sitting in an attunement for 5s to charge an overload requires sustain while you whack away with some of the worst auto-attacks in the game. Surviving kitten channel where you can’t dodge or you lose all benefits of having sat in your attunement for 5s doing not much requires (and get ADDED punishments of longer CD’s) requires sustain. Sticking in melee range as dagger is the only way to deal sustained damage (esp. compared to scepter and staff) requires lots of sustain. Since they were too lazy to design a proper mainhand that meshed with the overload mechanic…the pigeon-holed the class even more into playing the healing/cleanse role that they already had since forever that d/d ele was viable.

And yea, don’t even get started on warhorn. It is a garbage weapon that only sees use in PvE because it can do slightly more damage on a lower CD than OH dagger against stupid AI. The skills aren’t good or interesting…they are clunky and about as good as ele warhorn skills sound.

They tried to bandaid it by making the damage pretty decent on overloads and jacking the healing way up so that tempest is arcana 2.0, but that causes problems in PvE where the risks are way lower and the enemies much dumber/more predictable. This is especially true b/c, for PvE, tempest ADDS overloads but takes nothing truly away. Adding damage to the top dps spec, even if just a little, just makes PvE even harder to balance.

In the end, the problem comes down to the fact that tempest just isn’t new. Its just “more of that stuff eles already did, just slightly better.” Now that they nerfed it down finally and removed amulets, its just “more of that stuff eles already did, just differently!”

I don’t agree. Tempest is perfectly workable. Only issue is the lack of Grandmasters (2 missing). And some traits that should be combined, and from the ones combined, add some.

As for “sitting” in an attunement, it’s known that using a conjured weapon is a good way to make it feel like less of a “sitting”.

Alekt.5803:

posthumecaver.6473:

I think for the GMs for every line they must give an option like Fresh Air, if you take that trait, it will reset the CD of the Overload for that line, this way Tempest might have attunement dancing of Ele instead being locked out of that attunement for 20s. Earth resets lets if you get a hit more then %50 HP lets say, Fire if you can stack more 15 stack of might, Water If you used you healing skill in the last 3s and lost %50 your HP again (I am open for better ideas for this one…..)

This is the reason currently I only Overload out of Air only to stun break, against competent people you have 0 chance to complete an Overload anyway.

I don’t know. You’d combine Fresh Air with some Fire “Fresh Air” to constantly reset the attunements, for a nearly infinite damage. Would we really want that? Electric Discharge -> Sunspot Crit) -> Electric Discharge Crit -> Sunspot…

Fresh Air is a play style not everyone wishes to play.

I choose for Fire Reset getting 15 stacks of might, which something you can’t do that easily with current Tempest like critting, you have to build the Ele special way to get that much might stacks, that mean you will have to sacrifice something else.

Sure FA resets of Attunments are not every bodies business but having 20s attunements CDs are also not.

Before the META Cleric build, I was playing a crusader DPS support with great fun.

Thougness + Healing power work good for Ele sustain. (old Valkyrie build of 2013 was priceless)

What is not great is they remove amulet without thinking much about classes consequences.

Most classes with support in mind did need sustain through toughness and healing power to be effective at their role.

For mender amulet, only ranger can go that way now. They have 3 big condi cleanses making them viable versus condies and enough health point and protection/blinds to be good versus power dps.

Another thing to consider, is other classes had been made with the theory they will get supported by “support” build.

So classes with not enough condi cleanses struggle more (Power Rev for example, to some extends ele without cleansing water, guard without medi or shout pack and so on…).

So some META build will need changes as well to be able to sustain versus the big conditions META incoming.

tl;dr All classes need to get rework in removing “bunker/support” from the spvp group.