Guild Wars 2

I have found tempest to be pretty good in condi in pve though, but that doesn’t mean the specialisation doesn’t need a lot of work.

I feel almost all traits needs to be reworked to be more substantial. I want traits that affects my overloads the same way thief traits affects their dodges.

Sceptre buff would be nice, so that we can use it as a Tempest.

Axialbloom.8109:

Sceptre buff would be nice, so that we can use it as a Tempest.

Scepter isn’t as bad with warhorn as I thought it would be, but it still needs proper buffs to compete with dagger. Both the warhorn and the scepter are a bit too slow for what they do, if they were a bit faster they could be pretty good options.

To add to my previous post, the Static Charge from Air Overload can’t crit.
Making it Crit would be nice :P

After playing with it a bit more I will agree with what others have said about shouts having a long cooldown, the auras are nice (minus the lack of aura on Eye of the storm) and definitely are interesting when concerning shouts, however…you have to give up quite a lot in at least a few areas to feel effective. And condi cleanse is few and far between for a “frontline support”

Sure, you could overload water…but that is if you are camping water expecting you’ll get hit with condi. And if that happens sooner rather than later you’re now stuck with condi for 5 seconds. Otherwise cantrips are simply better because they allow you to have similar condi cleanse to other frontline classes.

Suggestion: Bake in Harmonious Conduit’s Stability into Hardy Conduit Minor trait. This needs to happen because stability will always overshadow any other “choice” you get.

Eye of the storm – Add lightning aura, not sure why this wasn’t there already

Change Latent Stamina to apply vigor on auras instead of being vigor on water attunement (this fits more as tempest is supposed to support with auras). You can also make it apply on shouts.

Tempestuous Aria – add 20% Recharge on shouts to this trait. OR don’t change this and add a new trait that cures a condition when applying auras and reduces recharge on shouts. I prefer the latter due to the severe lack of condi clear. It also lets you choose between longer cooldown and good team fight shouts or lower cooldown shouts and more defense. And it is in the same tier as other “Reduce recharge” traits for specializations.

All that said, I do think Overloading should not be heavily punishing with a 5 second wait time and 4 second channel. Choose 2 between wait time, long channel time, or longer cooldown.

Concerning if people think it might be too strong…Currently Cantrips give vigor and regen as well as cure conditions. If you spec water for this you also cure a condition when you get critically hit every 20 seconds. Taking both the aura specific stuff in Tempest and water+arcane will only add 2 more condi cleanse onto the class in the form of lightning and frost aura which is only a minor point because you can condi cleanse a whole bunch already anyway without it. And that is assuming dagger dagger. Vigor on auras would not change the permavigor either as it’ll still be up most of the time if you went water cantrips. This is fine because elementalist does have a low hp bar and vigor is needed when you are up close.

Applying boons on auras is very beneficial to the class in general as it allows synergy between warhorn abilities and the class in general. You can now apply boons using auras → Warhorn fire 4. Taking water you can apply those boons by using auras and cure condi for the group a little better, then double up using warhorn for some boons.

I might hit a wound here, but Powerful Auras is a bit odd for water even if it has a supportive nature. They could fit PA into Tempestuous Aria, but I don’t know what impacts this would have.

It was so much fun healing friends, specially “Wash the Pain Away!” (very strong). I went full cleric with monk runes, and Soothing Ice and Unstable Conduitcombo’d very nicely. The amount of protection from Overload Earth made it very strong for support roles as far as Imbued Melodies goes (though since it compete with Element Bastion, I’d choose the latter and grab Arcane or a rune for +boon duration).

Overall I went with this build, being the purpose to spread healing+might+protection: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJBIhdSfJ0fJWhJY4AwhJWMAM3S7pN2SUFCC/ggAwC4AA-TpgXAAZZAY/BA

@Edit
It’s very insane the amount of auras you spread! lol

@Edit2
I agree on 20% cd reduction on shouts for Tempestuous Aria, and you could swap +20% boon duration on warhorn to +20% condi duration (since we got quite a few applications already). This way it’s a matter of choosing your traits wisely to become a heavy burning-oriented tempest.

I’m still playing around with Tempest, but here are some initial thoughts I’m having with it. Please note, this is from a PvP perspective.

Rebound- Does roughly 2k healing when triggered. The problem is that, in PvP, the next hit after “rebounding” downs you anyways. If it healed for a bit more, there might be more time to pop your healing skill, making it a bit more effective.

Also, I’ve been having a hard time figuring out the intent behind the specialization. If someone has it figured out, please let me know. I attempted a marauder build, focusing on damage. However, it doesn’t quite have enough punch to down many of the classes today. So, I opted for a tankier build, playing with Cele and a few others, but the specialization doesn’t provide true support which bunker builds normally bring to the table. If someone makes a thread on the proper role of a Tempest, please link it to me.

As a final note, I’ve been playing Tempest with the staff. Staff somewhat promotes sitting in one attunement, which is what Tempest focuses on. This allows me to support/damage from afar before triggering an Overload and Lightning Flashing into the fight with it to assist my team.

Something i would like to see is letting WH ability hit 10 ppl much like the war’s WH cap. I would also like to see powerful aura “know” not to just reapply auras when using aoe auras. So it will look for ppl who do not have the aura over though who do. It may cause problems i just think tempest as an support should be able to get past the 5 man cap at least for supporting and now that doable healing is gone its a waist to have an aura apply 2 times to some one other then for the boons.

I’ve been having a lot of fun with Tempest. I really like the addition of the ring to fire overload (I believe earth already had it). It made it a lot easier to position while still knowing I was in range of the enemy. It’d be nice to see the same thing added to air overload.

Water overload has the swirling water jet that shows the outer edge of the overload, but it sometimes disappears into the terrain if it’s uneven. A ground ring for water would be helpful as well.

Tempest is shaping up. I’ve been playing with a conditions build (Earth/Fire/Tempest) and my burning ticks are regularly at 5k damage (pve) due to the fast might/burning stack-ability with the overload. 3000+ armor and lots of protection buff with overloads and auras is nice. I even took it for a spin in pvp and baited cleanses with fast bleed stacks then switch over to fire, pop earth and fire signets after a well placed dragon tooth and watch everything melt.

I’ve been playing Tempest with scepter/warhorn: it is fun, especially with the tornado’s addition (more tornado for more Tempest now!!!), but it is also slow and I feel the lack of no conditions removal…
I would like also to see more new “tools”, especially with the elite rebound, so here my suggestions (minor changes for great effect):

1- speed up warhorn skill (also several scepter’s skills need a speed up)
2- add some way to remove conditions, maybe from warhorn (water globe?) and shout (Wash the pain?) or with a trait (ex. : make all shouts remove 1 condition, like rune of the trooper)
3- improve rebound deathblow’s effect (it is not easy to trigger and it is an elite skill); maybe with an additional effect like retalation or quickness or stealing enemy’s buff (if a necro can transfer condition to enemy, an ele could transfer buff from an enemy :P)
4- improve overloads by improving tornado/field effects and by reducing channel time to 3s and cooldown time to 12s (together are already 15s of penalty!!!)

Quality of life request

Please can we have a key that is just for overloading the current attunement, F5 is ideal, it would interfere with nothing and would make every player who has played tempest that I have talked to and I much much happier.

PVE:

I played around with a Water/Earth Tempest D/D Aurashare with Signets + Rebound and it was OK (although it needs to be tested with a party of friend to get a true feeling of Auras + the healing the build procs are noticible).
I went with Signets, because choosing the micromanagement of a) regular D/D rotation, b) maximizing Overload efficiency, or c) trying to proc as many Auras as possible was enough for me.

I still have problems finding a WH build (D/WH or S/WH) that makes me feel I am doing something smooth and useful I can’t get with D/D or S/x anyway.

Sadly I can’t make comparison to BWE2, because the initial instance + the maps seems to be toned down significantly, as e.g. those Mordrem Snipers are completely gone from the instance and less common in the open world.

I played the tempest in all the beta weekends and i’m still thinking it misses something: it lacks in the idea of the overload.

An overload should be something unique, amazingly powerful that leaves you exhausted after finishing it. I think overloads should be time dependant, i mean: after 2 seconds in an attunement you can overload it to create a minimal change (low damage, low healing or low condition). More you stay in an attunement, more effective and powerfull will be the overload. For example: if i overload the water attunement after 2s, i can heal myself or allies just for 1000hp; if i overload the water attunement after 20s of staying in that precise attunement, i can heal to 20.000 hp.
Of course bigger the effect, bigger the “punishment” for every attunement, we can have a condition on ourselves as payback: fire→ torment; air → daze ; water → weakness; earth→vulnerability. Of course the payback should be equal to the effect: if i overload after 2 s, i get 1 stack of confusion, if i overload after 20s i get 25 stack of confusion.

In this way the overload could be more effective in gameplay and it could really be that powerful move of the elementalist we all want. Of course i know, this would mean camping in an attunement, but for some elementalist (staff one for example) this could be a great change.

Sorry for the poor english, not native speaker here. Hope you understood (numbers were completly casual just to help explaining my idea)

My thoughts presently:

Warhorn – I’m actually really enjoying Warhorn now and generally prefer it over Focus. That being said, however, Tempest overall is very lacking in Condi Cleanses and could really use more either on the Warhorn or as part of one of the shouts.

Shouts – Shouts feel like they’re in a better position, for certain. I still think they’re significantly more useful for players focusing on Auras, however.

Eye of the Storm seems really rather weak to me still.

The new form of Rebound is so much better but the duration of the effect seems too low at 5 seconds. I think increasing it to at least 8s would make this elite more worthwhile.

Wash Away the Pain – if no additional Condi Cleanses are added to the Warhorn, this shout should definitely receive them. I would suggest something like pulse 2 healing 1 condition and pulse 3 healing 2 conditions. If that’s too strong than perhaps just 1 or 2 cleanses on the third pulse or something. Regardless, we need more condi cleanses!

Overloads – Okay . . . so Overloads feel like they’re in a much better place than when I tested them previously (BWE1), but the CD afterward seems like it’s just too much. I would advocate something more like a 15 second recharge. Also . . . for the love of all Tempests . . . please make the Stability on Overload baseline (a minor trait). Right now Harmonius Conduit is basically mandatory.

Traits – This is still truly the weakest area of the Tempest. Some of these traits don’t even make any sense . . .

Minor Traits – Please, please, please remove the Stability from Harmonious Conduit and add it to Hardy Conduit. This change needs to happen so very badly, otherwise Overloads will remain too great of a risk vs their reward at a 20s (or even at a 15s) lockout.

Gale Song – Seems pretty standard for a trait. A little boring.

Latent Stamina – Okay, what? This trait is just terrible . . . Why is this designated specifically to Water? Doesn’t that seem out of place in a specialization not specifically tied to a single element? This trait just makes no sense to me . . . it’s like a bad version of Elemental Attunement . . . At least open this up to provide additional effects for each attunement? Vigor with Water, Retaliation with Fire, maybe brief Quickness for Air and Resistance for Earth? With something like that we’d see some nice synergy with Heat Sync and Sand Squall!

Tempestuous Aria – I like this, it feels like it’s in a good place.

Earthen Proxy – Given the fact that it seems quite possible to build a Tempest with very frequent Protection up-time, I think trait definitely offers something useful and unique, if not a little niche.

Harmonious Conduit – As I said before, please migrate the Stability granted by this trait to Hardy Conduit. I think the additional damage after overloading is a great idea, but perhaps to make this effect standalone it could be a greater damage increase or a longer duration? Perhaps both?

Imbued Melodies – I like this. The concept of reactionary boon-sharing is clever and with my suggested change to Latent Stamina would be even better. For a very heavy boon focused build I can see this having a place, otherwise I’d generally skip it.

Lucid Singularity – I haven’t really tested Tempest in PvP much, but this skill seems like it would be particularly useful in those situations. Unfortunately without baseline stability on overload it doesn’t seem like it would matter much. It seems rather as a grandmaster trait, however.

I would suggest perhaps tuning this down a little bit and swapping it with Harmonious Conduit. I would then increase the damage increase of Harmonious conduit to about 20% and slightly increase the duration of the effect. That would make Overloads so much better!

Elemental Bastion – Great for Auramancers, of course. Healing on Aura application is a great addition and has more synergy than I initially expected.

Overall I like the Tempest, but I don’t love it. I think Shouts and the Warhorn are pretty fun, and I would actually really enjoy Overloads if we could have a few QoL changes made to them (I think 5s until we can use them is fine, as long as we have a reduction of CD to 15s or 12s). Traits are still the biggest problem, but with a few adjustments I think they could be quite a bit better.

*Rebound:
I am playing pvp and when I’m trying to use rebound when I’m about to die, and I don’t negate the deathblow, I am not getting healed and I am not getting the aura.

I was thinking that it would work like the engi’s healing gadget but apparently it is not doing anything to mitigate dmg or anything that’s in its description.

• Dust storm:
  Is VERY weak and is not that visible (btw would it be possible to make it a smoke field if the dmg is not buffed?)

• Traits:
  Unstable Conduit and Harmonious conduit should be merged.

• Overloads:
  Water OL still feel like meh’ It should chill foes or something.

I do have to say, that I have had a LOT of fun with it, and I’m looking forward on using my Main Ele in HoT since I’m optimistic in the Tempest future.

I roamed a couple of hours today and was quite surprised when tempest didn’t turn out to be that bad. It’s in a much better spot than it was in BWE #2 and I am quite happy with that (props to the devs for listening to players, don’t stop that now). I ran s/d and d/d with Fresh Air, fully making use of Air overload. I played in a group of 2. Tried multiple variations, Air overload was very good. I won a ton of fights, most of my defeats were against condition based classes. Build: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAoYncMANYi1NAeOAcYilGAz9y2ZHtEHhZwPQoAEA+gA-T1CEABspKyaKNUSZAMqdskSs0M/x0+DdoHQUlgA8AAe4EAQKgI2CA-w.
My thoughts:

Warhorn: As I have already said before, it should have the ability to cast behind you, but my feelings have shifted towards a different problem warhorn has. The projectiles are very slow, nearly useless in WvW (even in larger or zerk fights). Mobility is also lacking, so I ended up mostly using dagger offhand.

Overloads:
- Fire: Good damage, I like how it does mixed damage (power and burning). The might stacks were also very nice, though the radius of the skills is annoying. Increase the range of the Aoe from 180 to 240 (and maybe decrease damage or might stacks in order to compensate).
- Air: Perfect spot, great mix between risk and reward. DON’T change it. It’s damage is higher to dagger mainhand air autoattack making it very comfortable to use, but hurts when you get interrupted. PERFECT.
- Water: Would be nice if it also chilled enemies, the last thing I need is a warrior cleaving my beautiful bubble form. It is quite good tho (in terms of group play, solo play is useless since swapping watter multiple times is much more rewarding). It felt lacking a bit of condition cleanse, only 4 condis feels lackluster. 5 conditions cleansed would make it perfect.
- Earth: Like it, damage is decent for a defensive skill but still don’t see a good use of it. Either make aura proc in the beginning or add something to it. +1 for swag levels ^^.

Traits: Biggest improvement on Tempest, much, much better than before. Harmonious Conduit is the real gem here, stability probably should be baseline, as other master level traits simply can’t compare to this trait (only time I ditched this trait is when I was playing with scepter on Air attunement since I could blind my enemy, but this case shouldn’t be the reason not to make it baseline). Lucid singularity, Earthen proxy and Latent stamina need some improvement otherwise I don’t see a point ever using them over other traits.
Edit: Imbued melodies is quite nice though random use of sand squall can be one of the best things to ever happen or one of the worst, when it goes off and ranger uses his Rapid fire 2 secs after aura runs out. Really like the trait though, very good competitor to the Elemental Bastion.

Shouts: Good utility, mostly ended up using only Shock and aftershock for its reflects. It’s on a bit too high cooldown though IMO. The other shouts weren’t that usefull for the 2 of us, except for the rebound. It actually SAVED our lives 3x TIMES!!! Wohooo, another good change, though it needs more heal (2,6 k health with 350 healing power is not very good).

Look forward to playing it more, its officially my new favourite way of playing elementalist

Afternote: Overloads break stun!!? I am crying tears of joy (can definetly see some uses of overloads in WvW now).

xinkspillx.3914:

Latent Stamina – Okay, what? This trait is just terrible . . . Why is this designated specifically to Water? Doesn’t that seem out of place in a specialization not specifically tied to a single element? This trait just makes no sense to me . . . it’s like a bad version of Elemental Attunement . . . At least open this up to provide additional effects for each attunement? Vigor with Water, Retaliation with Fire, maybe brief Quickness for Air and Resistance for Earth? With something like that we’d see some nice synergy with Heat Sync and Sand Squall!

I will take this 1 further. I would make a minor trait that gives you boons (pretty long duration) after sitting in an attunement for 5s. They could even make it shorter duration but pulse. That fits with the tempest theme WAY more than on-swap.

I played Tempest with Warhorn and full shouts on PVE and PVP, I tried many different builds and this is my feedback.

Tempest seams cool for PVE although the lack of mobility and defense is what makes it bit hard to play but over all it has some nice fun combos.

Tempest on PVP has many problems that you never notice while PVEing.
1. Overloads
Overload skills share cool-down with attument. Even if the overload skill gets interrupted at the first second (which is the case most of the times) by changing attument, the previous will have 20 sec cool-down instead of 9. This makes many of the overloads useless because if you want for example to have the option to return to water as soon as possible (it is essential anyways) you won’t use overload water.
Another problem with Overloads is that if you change element the overload gets interrupted. I understand the thinking behind it but the this is dangerous! At least make it so it won’t get interrupted by dodge.

Suggestion: separate cool-downs, make possible to dodge while overloading without interrupting the overload.

“Overload earth”: the radius of that skill is too short to hit moving targets.

Suggestion: Increase radius to 350 instead of 240.

“Overload Fire”: the radius it’s is also really short 240 instead of 180 would be more viable.

2. Shouts
Shouts are in general good, except:

“Shock and aftershock”: – the cooldown is to long and blast radius is too short.

“Rebound”: sometimes seams like it doesn’t work… also some times there is a delay on the application of the buff. Cast time says 1/4 but it might takes like 2/4 to have the buff on you. (maybe a bug?)

“Eye of the storm”: too long cool-down for the only skill that can save the Tempest in pvp.

Suggestion: decrease it to 30-35 sec.

3. Warhorn Skills
In general the warhorn skills are nice but:

“Lighting orb”: moves to slow and has really short velocity so it rarely hits moving targets (PVP), also the damage is too low… so even if it hits doesn’t worth the trouble of trying to lock enemy and position your self so it hits. Plus 1 vulnerability is a joke. This skill doesn’t seam like a 5 skill.

Suggestion: increase the speed of the orb and add 3-5 stacks of vulnerability on impact.

“Dust storm”: the cast time is too long 1/2 would be sufficient.

“Water globe”: the healing of this skill is too insignificant. Healing needs a boost!

Suggestion: add a 3sec regeneration boon for each pulse you are in the circle.

“Wild Fire”: the base damage is too low, and people easily see the fire unfolds and they move out.

Suggestion: increase base damage or decrease cool-down. Cast time could also be reduced to 1/2.

4.Traits:
“Harmonious Conduit”: 1 stack of stability makes no difference on pvp at least. Increase it to 3 or 2 stacks.

Few fixes and Tempest can be a fun specialization to play on PVP.

My only complaint is with rebound, if you guys insist on keeping it in its current form, make the self heal 5K+. In its current form its almost useless, considering most damage builds do 1-2k in an auto attack.

Rebound needs a change: If rebound manage to prevent a death blow you should be invulnerable for 2 seconds. In WvW you can have like 5 death blows coming at once and rebound becomes completely useless.

Warhorn needs the most changes: most of the skills feel clunky and the animation aren’t really good. The recharges are too long for the ridiculously low damage the skill do. The range is too small.

Some traits have to be merged (minors) and other have to be improved.

Overloads still are hard to use, should be 3 seconds before being to cast them. Fire overload damage is too low, it’s even lower than air. You should removed the penalty if an overload is interrupted. Changing an attunement should not interrupt the overload. Fresh Air should diminish the overload cooldown as well. I don’t see myself ever using the earth or water overloads.

Only the fire shout is good, all the other ones are too limited and have too high cooldowns.

Overall its better, but not as good as any of the other elite spec.

I’m really excited now with how the Tempest is looking, it is so close to the place it needs to be. I only have a few more changes to suggest for it.

First Harmonious Conduit, this trait brought some game changing buffs to the spec but really needs to be dissected and rearranged . I love that Tempest finally has a damage modifier, and i like the style but i am wary on how well it plays with staff builds. I have thoughts on that below. The buff should also last longer, probably in the 10 second range.
The stability portion needs to be moved though, to either a minor trait or made base line. Otherwise no other trait in the line will ever be taken. It could probably stand to have a second stack of stability as well. I would bring back the CD reduction part of the trait because of how well it plays with the modifier, but move it to GM level in place of Lucid Singularity where its power is more competitive and appropriate.

I want to bring up my feed back for Earthen Proxy again, just for visibilities sake. I think the best course would be to change it to a EA/Spotter/Strength in Numbers type trait, the produces an aura in combat that increases protections effect by 20%. This is obviously dependent on the technology being there, but that would provide a good, unique team buff that isn’t too strong.

Overloads are finally great feeling when completed. It still takes too long for them to become available though, it really needs to be 2 seconds. My other big thought is Fire overloads. Right now it is both redundant as a power based damage skill, were Air handles that role much better, and plays way too well with the meta staff build with Harmonious Conduits buff, and Piercing Shards indirect nerf from the IB fallout. I would suggest dropping the physical damage either entirely or very severally, and up the burning stacks and/or duration. This will give Fresh Air Tempests the chance to breath (ba-dum tish) alongside staff builds in pve, and give condi builds a new avenue for effectiveness.

For skills, small stuff. The casting times on Earth and Water shouts should be removed, they are too punishing. Water globe should really travel on the ele, or at least much slower. I think giving it a small amount of regen per pulse would be good too, to open Tempest synergy with Cleansing Water and give it more condi removal options. Lightning Orb still needs a huge damage buff, it is still bad at its only job. Lastly, Heat Sync needs to be left alone. It is the most fun and unique skill warhorn has, and limiting it to might spreading will reduce it to being a terrible blast finisher. If a nerf really needs to happen, then it should be moved to the 5th spot and given a much larger cool down.

All told the Tempest has come a long way since its reveal. These last few nudges and I will be ready to change my Elementalist into a Tempest on release day.

kajii.9381:

I played the tempest in all the beta weekends and i’m still thinking it misses something: it lacks in the idea of the overload.

An overload should be something unique, amazingly powerful that leaves you exhausted after finishing it. I think overloads should be time dependant, i mean: after 2 seconds in an attunement you can overload it to create a minimal change (low damage, low healing or low condition). More you stay in an attunement, more effective and powerfull will be the overload. For example: if i overload the water attunement after 2s, i can heal myself or allies just for 1000hp; if i overload the water attunement after 20s of staying in that precise attunement, i can heal to 20.000 hp.
Of course bigger the effect, bigger the “punishment” for every attunement, we can have a condition on ourselves as payback: fire-> torment; air -> daze ; water -> weakness; earth->vulnerability. Of course the payback should be equal to the effect: if i overload after 2 s, i get 1 stack of confusion, if i overload after 20s i get 25 stack of confusion.

In this way the overload could be more effective in gameplay and it could really be that powerful move of the elementalist we all want. Of course i know, this would mean camping in an attunement, but for some elementalist (staff one for example) this could be a great change.

Sorry for the poor english, not native speaker here. Hope you understood (numbers were completly casual just to help explaining my idea)

I really like the idea of the longer you attune to the element the stronger the overload gets.. It makes much more senses.. I was concerned as well for staff/range ele in wvw/pve who would have very little significance to need to use other overloads except for water globe to heal the allies since the overloads are very melee oriented.. (Sorry for my English as well)

Water overload should res a down ally or chill people/do damage/knockdown. It just feel really weak atm from a healing perspective. When you heal it has to be quick and the water overload is just unreliable.

If only overloads could be used not on the character itself but as a ground targeted aoe you could place on 1200 or 900 range, perhaps at the cost of losing break stun from it. That would make tempest/overloads viable with staff and usable in WvW.

Any other changes to tempest right now will never make it any good for WvW and won’t see much use there at all.

Retsuko.2035:

If only overloads could be used not on the character itself but as a ground targeted aoe you could place on 1200 or 900 range, perhaps at the cost of losing break stun from it. That would make tempest/overloads viable with staff and usable in WvW.

This! Please make overloads ground targeted. Thanks!

as much as i wouldd like ground targeting for fire and air overloads, i won’t trade the stunbreak for them. the stun break finally opened up choices for utility skills. i’m kind of tired of signet of air always being on my bar (it’s the only 20 second stun break for ele. the other stun breaks have way too long a cooldown for my tastes, which would essentially mean taking two stun breaks.) and i still hate cantrips with a passion, so overloads having stun break offers me the alternative from the meta, allowing me to basically take whatever utility skills that synergize with each other, instead of simply “filling kitten in defense” for the build.

Warhorn needs to be ground targeted and ranged. The new WvW and HoT maps are vertical maps, yet all the warhorn skills work on flat surfaces only. This is completely illogical design.

Forgotten Legend.9281:

as much as i wouldd like ground targeting for fire and air overloads, i won’t trade the stunbreak for them. the stun break finally opened up choices for utility skills. i’m kind of tired of signet of air always being on my bar (it’s the only 20 second stun break for ele. the other stun breaks have way too long a cooldown for my tastes, which would essentially mean taking two stun breaks.) and i still hate cantrips with a passion, so overloads having stun break offers me the alternative from the meta, allowing me to basically take whatever utility skills that synergize with each other, instead of simply “filling kitten in defense” for the build.

In addition to this, the current overload design allows weapons with static attacks like staff and scepter to deal more damage while the target is on the move, so the current design does have some merit. This is not a very important thing for WvW, but it might work well in other game modes. If only fire overload’s tiny radius is increased, it will become much better.

Rebound:
The healing amount is so negligible that it feels like it doesn’t activate. I realize this is supposed to be a clutch skill, but with the casting time, short duration, and such a small heal that you’ll still die instantly after using it, it’s not really worth bringing. Perhaps if it was a 2-3 second evade/distortion/invuln instead, or if it healed for quite a bit more.

Selene.9415:

Rebound:
The healing amount is so negligible that it feels like it doesn’t activate. I realize this is supposed to be a clutch skill, but with the casting time, short duration, and such a small heal that you’ll still die instantly after using it, it’s not really worth bringing. Perhaps if it was a 2-3 second evade/distortion/invuln instead, or if it healed for quite a bit more.

After the killing blow is blocked it absolutely needs to make you invul for 2-3 seconds otherwise this is just another useless elite.

I will say that the tempest feels a lot smoother this time around. The war horn skills are much improved. Lightning Orb is great for using in conjunction with fresh air and the added vulnerability make it feel more complete.

I didn’t use Heat Sync much, but I hope to god it doesn’t just boon share might, limited boon sharing might be ok. I know the concern was with perma stab, but Revenant already does that. Keep in mind corrupted boons really hurt when you have a lot of them so there is that counter play.

I REALLY REALLY REALLY tried to make tempest work, and some aspects are fun, but it just misses the mark on many others.

Overload skills (ignoring cooldowns)
- Fire feels decent, the damage is there, the range is low, but it is a dps increase over fire autos.
- Air feels great when you can complete it. The damage you do is also a form of defense.
- Water is pretty useless. I guess you could use it in a pinch, but b/c it doesn’t really provide any defense or even damage to ward off enemies, you just end up taking more damage than you heal. Basically, a bad ether renewal that puts water on long CD.
- Earth: I have seen it do pretty well in a condi build, the immob is good in pvp. Not sure it is worth a 4s channel to just wipe away with a single cleanse.

Overload Cooldowns/precharge:
- The only build I was able to find that made overloads worth casting was a fresh air tempest (with either water for aoe shocking aura or earth for prot). In this build, the only overload that was worth casting was air, because the damage was good and shocking aura is great. This demonstrates that the only time it feels decent to use an overload is when you can circumvent the unreasonable costs currently put on them. A second aspect is all of the insane number of effects on overloads (the list takes up half the screen). All of these things had to be added in an attempt to justify the cost, and it still doesn’t. Further, even with fresh air, it is an eternity to wait for 5s to use the overload. It would feel way better with a 3s precharge and NO swap delay.

Shouts:
- Fire is decent with aura healing b/c it is instant. It is basically a 20s small heal + aura effects. The burn is worthless.
- Water is meh b/c the cooldown is short. The chill isn’t worthy anything, and without maximizing auras + shout cleanse it is bad.
- Air shout is bad b/c signet of air gives a shorter CD stunbreak, it doesn’t give an aura, and kitten is unreasonably long trying to get shout cleanses.
- Earth shout isn’t instant, and the CD is way too long. It has a comparable CD to fear me, but isn’t an instant CC like fear me.

Warhorn:
- Just doesn’t work on so many levels. Fire skills have too long of a CD and sharing might only is disappointing. Water is decent, but chasing a water field is WAY worse and less fun than playing as engie who gets a water field centered on the character. Air is nearly unusable between a clunky/ slow CC and a skill that does absolutely nothing (the orb). Earth is just worse than focus with a poor-mans version of focus 4 on the 4 skill, and a clunky blind on the 5.

Traits:
- Aura traits are way too spread out amongst elemental lines to make a coherent build. Tempest needs prot, and if you give up arcana the only way you could get enough prot is with elemental shielding, even though the rest of the line doesn’t really fit an auramancer build. The third line is then stuck being air for fresh air if you want to overload to get auras (a selfish aura build on our “support spec”), or water to share auras (a supporty spec that has low access to the only 2 auras that matter – shocking and magnetic).

CONCLUSION/ TLDR
- Overload costs are still too high, even when on air overload with fresh air.
- Overload channels are also too long, especially water/earth as their effects during the channel are hilariously weak (completely backloaded).
- Aura traits are just too spread out to make a coherent build. Consolidate some of the traits into tempest (combine powerful aura with ele bastion for weapon-skill auras, move ele shielding to tempest in place of earthen proxy)

The spec has gotten much better recently, im not a big fan of the ele playstyle, but tempest makes things a lot smoother and enjoyable for me, the overloads and warhorn skills feel impactful on their own for the most part, which is a much better experience for me compared to the base class. The spec feels less button mashing then base ele does, while each individuall skill makes up for it, especially the overloads.

I agree with BlackBeard, the only pvp build that I found that truly worked with Tempest better than taking only base elementalist traits was indeed Fresh Air, either D/F or S/F (but I prefer S/F). It was honestly a joy to play this build, and it was the only Tempest build I tried that felt like it lived up to the concept of positioning based PBAoE combat. I would stay to the sides with scepter and go in and out of the fight to lay down the overload air (or fire sometimes) and then use super-speed, lightning flash, obisidian flesh, etc, to get out to safety.

In general though I feel as though the overloads need a 3 second pre-charge to be more viable and fluid to use. The concept works well with fresh air, but still feels a bit clunky, and it would let traits like One With Air synergize with the precharge time for more interesting positioning based gameplay.

And even then, for fresh air tempest, the best build with tempest, it is still a bit of a difficult trade off to make since as fresh air, you’re not taking Warhorn and you’re barely benefitting from the traits at all. Going Arcane over tempest lets you manage your other attunement cooldowns better and get more boons, healing, and condition removal, and overall more survivability. Tempest over Arcane gives you much much much more AoE damage via Overload Air spam, so I feel as though the trade is reasonable, its just an example about how the things tempest brings to the table are so niche and limited that its hard to justify speccing into it at all. You also get more superspeed by going tempest, which is really nice as well.

Other things I’ve noticed: Ludic Singularity is a bit weak, partially because its role overlaps with Geomancer’s Training, and fresh air builds (which spec earth for earth focus CDs and the signet trait) are forced to take both for very little extra benefit. I’d rather see Lucid singularity be reworked into a trait thats much more offensive in nature. While I know you won’t do this, letting it make overloads be channeled from a distance would be really lucid indeed, and would turn Tempest into a ranged AoE nuker spec, that it honestly should have been all along. Yeah it would change the positioning based gameplay concept a bit, but I think it’d be very cool to play with and it’d make Tempest much better. An other idea I had was to have lucid singularity give you stealth/superspeed/apply revealed AoE somehow, maybe when finishing an overload, which would be really cool, but it’d have to be coded differently to not reveal you from the lingering fields from air/fire overloads.. but I do think stealth would make Tempest a lot more unique and more flavorful.

Actually I feel like having overloads apply revealed would be the best for lucid singularity. I also think speedy conduit should be superspeed not swiftness, harmonious conduit’s 10% damage modifier should last for the duration of your remaining time in that attunement but end when the overload becomes available again, so the bonus is applied to you if you’re in an overloaded attunment. The stability should last one second longer, since there seems to be a slight break right at the end of the overload that the stability can’t cover.

I feel like the need of taking arcana (fire or air /arcana/tempest) is mandatory (
vigor +% on boons + attunement recharge).
The tempest is only for the overload and the stun breaking.

Warhorn:
Lighting orb is a joke, no dps and activation to long
In general warhorn tech must be instant

Shout cd too long and must be instant

Rebound is too weak, only the next lethal blow, must be for the next 5sec

Here’s some feedback of mine about this weekend’s Tempest.

Overloads are good now. Really nice with the Harmonious Conduit stability and the effects overall.

Warhorn

• Heat Sync needs more love or less cooldown. 30 seconds is too much for what it does at the moment.

• Tidal Surge knockback should come faster, now it takes some time before it knockbacks. Not very good when trying to interrupt someone.

• Water Globe, instead of a moving field, could the field stay on you (like Berserker torch #5 fire field)?

• Cyclone, can the pull radius be slightly increased? Doesn’t seem to pull mobs at all.

• Lightning orb moves too fast so it barely does any damage at all.

Shouts

• Shock and Aftershock! cd too high?

• New Rebound! shout: “Ignore the next lethal blow and receive healing” doesn’t seem to work very well, I still end up downed when receiving the lethal blow. Is the heal too low? Should there be 1 second invulnerability after surviving the lethal blow?

Traits

• Gale song bug? When I have 1 stack of stability (Harmonious Conduit) and I get cc’d once somehow Gale song activates. Is this intentional? Shouldn’t the stability deal with the cc and this trait ignore that?

• Latent stamina, why only when attuning to water? Shouldn’t this be in water line?

• Imbued Melodies, It says 10 second cd to use Sand squall? But then Sand squall is 30 cd?!

Hey,

tried out the new ele in pvp. I have a slight problem with shouts. Why is there a cast time? Especially why the elite has it? From the function of this spell it seems very obvious it shouldn’t have any cast time, I mean if it is supposed to save lives, it should be instant.

Also, the healing Rebound provides is very low. Now it’s more like “Here, you can die a second later”.. It should heal the person at least for 20% – 25% HP.. It’s an elite after all.

Tried out other shouts as well, I had to come back to triple cantrip for my D/D ele, it’s simply better. 1 stack burning for feel the burn? I am not sure the person would actually FEEL this burn.

Anyways, tempest is fun to play, especially overcharging the attunements is awesome.

Please consider what I said and keep up the good work!

Cya)

P.S. I have no idea what the recharge times on Imbued melodies mean..

There are two things than need to be adressed:
1. Shouts shouldn’t trigger the autoattack (and while you’re at it – repair Magnetic Aura on staff. I’ve reported this a year ago and it still does it – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Magnetic-Aura-triggers-the-autoattack/first#post4177412)
2. Shouts should be usable during casting other skills and in mid-air like all others.

Here’s my feedback for tempest. I mostly tested it in WvW and PvE.

Here’s how I would rework the master tier traits:

/————
- Harmonious Conduit – Gain stability when beginning an overload. Oveloads break stun (move the stun break into this trait)

- Earthen proxy – remove this trait and replace with: Overload recharge is reduced by 20%. When you complete an overload, gain increased damage by 10% for 10-15 sec.
————-/
This gives clear separation of function of each trait, one is definitely more offensive, the other is strongly defensive. Depending on the game mode or build/role, you get effects that actually matter and feel strong, instead of getting random effects you probably don’t care about whatever you choose.

PvP PoV: Locking you into a skill for 5 seconds is terrible, no matter how huge the payoff is.

Why not wildfire remove boons? that was not the idea?

PS: Is the worst AoE fire in the game.

PS2: Sorry for my English.

Karl, I hope you can answer: almost all elite specs come in a 3-option gameplay design for traits. Eles seem to have: 1) shout-improving traits, 2) overload-improving traits, 3) ????. What is our third option for gameplay? I fail to see what it is, but judging from most elite specs it should be tied specifically to warhorn, or attunement-related buffs (since traits tied to weapons is mostly not synergic enough). We have Latent Stamina (water attunement trait), Earthen Proxy (protection boon), Imbued Melodies (warhorn trait). It feels unfocused. Now, IM is a great trait (specially PvP), but LS and EP are just a big “no!”. Maybe the synergy we’re looking for (burning damage/duration, or more raw damage at a cost, or something else) will come from replacements for LS and EP.

well i cant say much more than other but still waiting 5 sec to overload is way too long !
make it 3 or 4 sec at least .. 5 sec we cant stay that long with scepter in main hand :/

[BUG]

Fire GM: Persisting flames does not affect Wildfire field duration

Some suggestions for tempest pls read Karl!
OVERLOADS
Water: Needs to pulse more healing while casting, as is now i take more damage then I heal when using it. Final heal is fine.
Fire: Either increase the radius or use the berserker technology and have the fire field follow you.
Air: Love it. Only improvement would be 5 targets.
Earth: Give a 20% damage reduction while using it.

SHOUTS
Make the shouts blast finishers. The animation already looks like they would be.
Lower cooldown on earth shout. Give lightning aura to air shout. Apply light aura to wash away the pain. Hopefully that will make them see some play over cantrips.

TRAITS
Adept Traits
eye of the storm= fine if the shout is changed to apply lightning aura
latent stamina= make that the major minor trait change so it is applied when you gain an aura and grant 25 endurance instead of 10. Fill the adept slot with reduced recharge on warhorn skills and a bonus while wielding a warhorn.
unstable conduit= make the aura apply at the start of the overload.

Minor Major Trait
replace with new latent stamina

Major Traits
Tempestuous Aria= add 20% cooldown reduction
Earthen Proxy= change to Rejuvenating Aura, heal for x amount while you have an aura
Harmonious conduit= currently you have to take it because of stability. move the stability to the grandmaster minor trait. Change to overloads are x% more effective. Ex: All boons and conditions given by overloads have x% increased duration. Healing from overload has a x% increase. Damage from overloads increased by x%. Rename to Elemental Overload.

Grandmaster Minor Trait:
Hardy conduit= Rename Harmonious Conduit. Give 4 secs of stab, prot, and swift on overload.

Grandmaster Traits
Imbued Melodies= keep as is.
Lucid Singularity= Recharge from overloading reduced by 20%. Time required in attunement before overloading reduced by 20%.
Elemental Bastion= Remove frost aura. It steps on the water adept traits toes and they dont stack. Keep the heal. Add 1 condition removed on aura.

Context: I decided to approach Tempest as a support spec oriented around Auras, rather than a DPS-oriented spec.

I’ve mostly been playing hotjoin SPvP with this build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAoYncMAdOgNOA2NAcYiFRAzttGXzrEdgFwBYIAMAufA-TJBHABfs/AAPAgsLDMwJAAA

I know it’s not optimal in any way, but I’ve been having a lot of fun with it. The general gist is group support in team fights on point. Trait setup and Water/Earth Overloads give you defensive group support, while Sigil of Intelligence and Fire/Air Overloads give you offensive group support. You can do a little bit of everything, and I definitely felt like I was making a difference.

-The Earth GM Major trait is a situational pick; I went with Diamond Skin because I’m not very good with active condi cleansing, but you can just as easily go with Stone Heart or even Written in Stone, since this build does use 2 signets.

-FGS can definitely be used instead of Rebound.

OVERLOADS

-They feel much, much, MUCH better to use!

-Please don’t get rid of the Stun breaks! They make the Tempest play style flow better, and are balanced by the Overloads’ charge-up and cool-down times. At no point did I feel OP, or like I had way too many stun breaks available.

-My biggest issue with them: Attunement swap should not cancel the Overload! It’s very frustrating to have to wait for the Overload to charge up, only to have it cancel on you because you swapped to Earth to proc Stone Heart while Overloading, or Air to add some extra damage with Lightning Strike.

-Harmonious Conduit should be baseline! There is no way a good player will let you fully channel an Overload in PvP. I hate being forced to pick between this and Earthen Proxy, which is amazing with Elemental Shielding and Overload Earth.

Overload Fire

-I love that you are now a mobile fire field when channeling! Great change.

-Does good damage, and the Might stacks are very nice. You can channel this while waiting for the gate to open at the start of the match, or as you’re running with your allies to a team fight. You can even use this as a serious rez/stomp deterrent, but you’d better have Stability up.

-My ONLY suggestion would be to SLIGHTLY up the radius.

Overload Water

-In a very decent spot; great group support. Has saved my behind a couple times.

-My suggestion would be to make it a mobile Water field while channeling, like Overload Fire…but I can see how that’d be a bit OP.

-I’d also like for it to have a pulsing end effect like the other Overloads. Maybe it can leave behind a Geyser-like fountain that continues to pulse the Overload’s heal and condi cleanse.

Overload Air

-HANDS DOWN MY FAVORITE OVERLOAD. So much utility.

-Hits hard even in non-DPS gear. I love popping this as I’m running into a team fight.

-Great offensive group support with the AoE Vulnerability and Static Charge buff that it gives allies.

-When enemies are dead, blast the Lightning Field for AoE Swiftness.

Overload Earth

-The “dust tornado” effect was a great change.

-Has tremendous synergy with Elemental Shielding and Earthen Proxy.

-Haven’t tried out condi builds with it yet, but it seems to have potential with the pulsing bleeds and cripples.

SHOUTS

-I didn’t really use them much in PvP. For one thing, with how important positioning is when Overloading, Lightning Flash was simply indispensable. Signet of Restoration is great when you’re wielding main hand dagger, as I was. And I personally love Signet of Air for its mobility and low-cool down stun break/AoE blind. The only utility I guess I’m willing to forgo is Cleansing Fire, and I’ll play around with “Flash-Freeze!” or one of the other shouts. But in the meantime, my issues with shouts are as follows:

-They ABSOLUTELY need a cool down reduction trait! Why are the devs so resistant to this idea? Every other utility in the game has a corresponding cool down reduction trait. IMO, it would be best to roll this into Tempestuous Aria.

-I think they’d be a heck of a lot better if ALL of them (except, of course, “Wash the Pain Away!” and “Rebound.”) had instant cast times. I’d love to use them while Overloading, and I don’t think any of them would be OP with instant cast times.

-Shouts and Powerful Aura don’t work together! Their lack of interaction with each other needs to be fixed! Under no circumstances should equipping Shouts render a Grandmaster Major trait ineffective!

“Wash the Pain Away!”: Quite nice, but I wish the radii were just a LITTLE bit larger. I think it still needs condition removal per pulse though, since Tempests with Shouts most likely won’t be running Water (more synergy with Earth and Air with Auras, and Powerful Auras is redundant with shouts.) Also, it’d be awesome if it gave Light Aura, but I don’t know if that would be thematic.

“Feel the Burn!”: It’s good, but I feel like it lacks punch for its name and theme. It could use a slight damage buff and/or a couple more burn stacks (Cleansing Fire burns more AND removes condition, so I feel this shout is outclassed.)

“Flash-Freeze!”: As others have pointed out, the low-duration Chill feels very underwhelming. I’d suggest upping the Chill duration to 5-6 sec.

“Eye of the Storm!”: Could use Shocking Aura; I don’t think it’d be OP with it.

“Aftershock!”: ITS COOL DOWN IS WAY TOO LONG. Either reduce the baseline cool down to 40 seconds or add a Blast finisher to it (or two, to match the two shocks :P.)

“Rebound.”: Every time this actually saved me, I didn’t realize it, because the heal is very small and there is no visual cue that it just saved you. It’s much more useable than its original iteration, but it still needs a slight buff. At the moment, this just delays the killing blow. Perhaps a 2-second invulnerability after it heals you, or just a straight-up buff to its healing, is in order.

WARHORN

-Ironically, I now believe the Warhorn is the weakest aspect of the Tempest.

-NEEDS A CONDI CLEANSE SKILL. ALL of our other weapon sets have at least one condi cleanse; D/W is the one exception.

-I think the weapon has good synergy with Lightning Rod, but the Water and Air control skills need to have some QoL changes as follows:

Heat Sync: Thank you for not changing it to only share Might! I think it should share all boons EXCEPT Stability, Resistance and Quickness.

Wildfire: The fire field really needs to spread out more quickly. Also, the tooltip is missing a duration fact. I’m also not sure if it’s working properly with Persisting Flames. This skill doesn’t feel impactful enough for a “5” skill, but I don’t know what else to add to it. It’s just too easy to walk out of. Maybe re-add the boon strip? Or just lower the cool down a bit?

Tidal Surge: The knockback on this skill is too slow. Needs to happen immediately. Alternatively, if the speed is to remain unchanged, the knockback needs to be for a longer distance.

Water Globe: Either the Water field’s speed needs to be decreased, or the field should appear around you and move with you.

Cyclone: PLEASE speed up the projectile and widen the radius of the pull!

Lightning Orb: Needs to have its speed decreased and its damage buffed. This is my least favorite Warhorn skill; feels useless for being a “5” skill, like Fire Shield on the focus. Also, we need to be able to cast it in any direction; at the moment, you can only cast it directly ahead of you, and it is very awkward. Other changes I’ve read on the forums that I like are being able to swap places with it or having it stun enemies it touches; however, with Karl’s emphasis on small changes, I don’t know how practical these would be.

I think Sand Squall and Dust Storm are good as they are.

TRAITS

Latent Stamina: Though I tried out every other Tempest trait at least once, I never ONCE used this trait, nor did I feel like I needed or even wanted to. Its effect is not bad I guess, especially now seeing as how Renewing Stamina was “normalized,” but it feels out of place and lacking Tempest flavor. I know that you all are working on it though, so I’m looking forward to see what you come up with.

Harmonious Conduit: PLEASE make this baseline and merge it into Hardy Conduit! I hated having to pick between this and Earthen Proxy.

My suggestion for a new functionality to Harmonious Conduit: Overload charge-up time is reduced to 3 seconds.

Earthen Proxy: This is an amazing trait, and REALLY SHOULD AFFECT ALLIES. To circumvent the difficulty of knowing whose Protection is being affected, I suggest the following change: Earthen Proxy applies an AoE buff on you and on allies around you, like Soothing Mist or Spotter. The buff gives you the current effect of the trait, with “Source: you,” like Spotter.

Lucid Singularity: Feels a little underwhelming for a Grandmaster Trait, but I don’t know what else to add to it.

Element Bastion is amazing.

ANIMATIONS

-All the Overload animations for most of the races look a LOT better!

-The Air Overload animation doesn’t always show the cloud, at least for Human males. Pretty sure this is a bug.

-If you haven’t seen the Water Overload animation on Asura yet, do it. Kudos to the animators.

-Charr animations are lacking, particularly the Water and Earth Overloads. Hopefully they’re still being worked on.

MISCELLANEOUS

-I LOVE how much synergy Aura Tempest has with the Tempest Defense trait…heh.

-It would be fantastic if Arcane Shield counted as an Aura.

Thank you for your hard work, Karl and dev team! I had a blast playing this spec, despite how negative I’d been about it before BWE3. The Tempest IMO is shaping up to be very fun to play, and should be more than viable with a few more numbers tweaks.

Overloads: Air and earth are very very strong. Some people seem to have not noticed, but earth applies about 30 seconds of aoe protection. Combine that with heat sync and your team just wins in spvp. Air just does a stupid amount of aoe pressure. They are almost too strong, but that’s punishment for enemies letting you complete a 4 second channel.

Water should probably leave a field behind or some kind of after effect like all the others to “normalize” it. Probably make it a chilling field for more aura potential. A healing/regen field could get out of hand with healing and condi cleanse. Fire and air are pretty redundant. Fire should be changed as everybody seems to like air overload. Instead of a fire field, a meteor with knockdown falls once fire overload is finished.

Traits: Elemental bastion should be combined with powerful aura, and give water magic a chill buffing trait. Tempest is going for an aoe/support thing, but you need water to do it properly. Tempestuous aria should get a shout cooldown reduction. Latent stamina makes no sense because tempest encourages less frequent swapping. Make it give a boon or endurance when an overload is prepped or something.

Skills: Wash the Pain Away should probably remove a condition on each pulse with soldier runes. There are counters because the heal can be interrupted, it promotes use of a seldom used rune and gives a bit more condi cleanse options outside of water/arcana. Lightning orb is really bad. The only situation where it is good is when your enemy moves in a straight line while matching pace with the orb. It would be better stationary with a second skill that lets you move it.