Guild Wars 2

After seeing how beautifully designed the Berserker was, I got a bit sad about the Tempest in comparison. The reveal of it hooked me more than any other elite specialization, and I had a blast playing it, but in every type of content it is second fiddle to another elementalist build. When I first read about the spec, I envisioned it as a hard hitting melee brawler that protected it’s friends, more tanky and in-your face compared to d/d’s ducking out of combat to pump back up with water. It has some of those aspects, but needs more. Here are my suggestions:

Shouts: The gold star of the spec, most of these are fantastic and fit the theme well, for brevity’s purpose I won’t really touch on these, except for Rebound, which needs to be tuned so that it’s not wasted on auto-attacking. Other than that, “A+”

Warhorn: It might be better to assign these my letter grades, to get a quick idea of how they feel.

Air: “A” The best feeling attunement, I like the synergy between the skills, and the cooldown feels good.

Water: “A-” Good, but not as good as air. A really fun improvement would be to make Water Globe turn you into a water field like Flames of War, rather than going on its own

Fire: “C+” Decent. Wildfire needs to be less finicky being a combo field (if it even counted as one in BWE1?). Heat Sync has a problem I’ll address later.

Earth: “D-” The worst of the bunch. Dust Storm seems just like a longer cooldown Dust Devil with a bit of vuln, and it’s difficult to see. Sand Squall will be addressed with Heat Sync.

Fire/Earth 4— “the Boonies”: To be blunt, these are incredibly uninteresting and unfun. Sand Squall has a ridiculous cooldown for a 2s increase (which I realize is for stronger boons like Quickness), and Heat Sync seems like it was synthesized in a lab to see how good an ability could be while being no fun. I feel like this is a time to introduce some of the new conditions coming with HoT, which ele lacks. Sand Squall could give a buff when used that Slows enemy attackers (because of the SQUALL surrounding you), and Heat Sync would be a perfect candidate for Taunt, which fills the control/support angle well.

Overloads: Amazing in concept, severely lacking in execution. Increasing their damage is all well and good, but they are still 3-5 second “I CAN’T DODGE WITHOUT BREAKING THIS SPELL” signs for enemies. I saw 2 ideas that I think could make them fantastic. Idea 1 is to either lower their cast time, or replace the swiftness on Speedy Conduit with Quickness. Idea 2 is to make them charge in stages, which lets them be cancelled earlier (stage 1 or 2), but means if you do stick it out, your spell gets stronger and stronger.

Traits: A valient effort was made, but there is a lot that needs to be improved if it wants to be competitive with lines like Arcane or Water.

Minors: These are mostly fine, I feel Earthen Proxy should be folded into Hardy Conduit because it is such a boring trait, and Speedy Conduit was discussed above.

Adepts: Gale Song and Unstable Conduit are fine, but Latent Stamina shouldn’t be tied to a single element, it seems out of place in the specialization.

Masters: As said, Earthen Proxy should be folded into Hardy Conduit and replaced with something more exciting or impactful.Tempestuous Aria could benefit from a cooldown reduction on shouts.

Grandmasters: Element Bastion is good, and works really well with aura builds. Imbued melodies needs a cooldown reduction on warhorn skills, or something extra so it sees use outside of PvP. Lucid Singularity is mechanically fine, but it seems a bit tame for a grandmaster, and just feels lacking.

Those are my criticisms, I really hope this elite spec can get some love, it seems like it will be so much fun to use.