Guild Wars 2

So I should preface to say that as a primary WvW character, this is from that perspective. I play on BlackGate so my WvW experience also reflects that experience as some may know WvW can really vary from Tier to Tier.

What is Frontline?
Right now Frontline is defined by two primary classes, the Guardian and the Warrior. What makes these classes good at Front Line? When you break down these classes currently the biggest thing that makes them great front line characters is their in combat mobility with Leaps. Leaps are very meta right now for front line characters because strong ranged nuke bombing (IE: Necros, Elementalist) are very common. Being able to get out of “the bomb” is crucial and both classes have easy weapon access to low cool down mobility skills (Leap of Faith -15s, Savage Leap – 8s, Earthshaker – 8s, etc). Majority of this also works due to stability stacking from multiple Guardians all sharing Stability with one another.

This is all built around the concept that all the Front Line have to stick together otherwise if they don’t you will get separated out from the herd and eat the full brunt of many people’s stacked AOE damage (where as with a group it’s spread out amongst everyone with the 5 target cap).

What about Support?
Often cases a fight will go with Front line going in, bombs are dropped, then either a refresh is called or you finish the fight. With a refresh called, water fields are dropped and front line and otherwise us blast finishers (such as Guardian’s Mighty Blow skill) to blast water and recover before charging back in again. Most of the in combat support is handled via the in combat Stability and pre combat Might stacking that occurs currently as well as the copious amount of condition removal (too many to list).

Tempest Front Line
So you can see from that description, there’s very few tools the new Tempest tool kit really can bring to hang with the front line. It received no mobility additions as part of it’s tool kit. This means it’s going to get separated out from the rest of the Front Line and eat that full damage because it can’t leap. Any mobility skills it can have (such as from Cantrips) are on incredibly long cool downs meaning if they have to leap back in again they are boned there too. Also the support it adds is limited. It could precast Overcharge Fire for Might Stacks (similar to a Guardian’s Empower) but this wouldn’t happen mid combat. However we can fix this.

Proposed Warhorn Changes
Heat Sync -> Dessciated Surge
CD reduced to 24s. Leap Finisher. 600 range. Charge forward giving yourself 3 stacks of Might and sharing any current Might Stacks to nearby allies. This removes sharing all boons and only shares Might. This gives a more starting leap to start out with to buff allies.

Cyclone
Player now surges forward leaving the trail of Cyclones that pulls players in behind them. Exact same idea as before, only now they surge forward as well. This gives them a good offensive move to leap in with.

Dust Storm -> Sand Squall
Player becomes a Sand storm and randomly surges forward (zig zag pattern) leaving those in the wake blinded and vulnerable. Invuln during surge forward. Player would randomly flash here and there (similar to Displacement) ending up 600m from where they started. This gives a a good leap to get out with since you’re protected during the duration of the surge forward.

All of these give the Tempest much needed mobility on the front line. Front line is entirely defined by leaps currently due to extremely strong ranged DPS bomb (Necros, Elementalists!) and not having the mobility to keep up with the other front line is going to leave you singled out and dead.

(cont)

Proposed Trait Changes
Trait wise there’s only a few changes needed.

Speedy Conduit: Super Speed for duration of Overcharge time (IE: If Overcharge is only 2s then it’s only 2s of Super Speed). Honestly Super Speed is the only kind of noticeable boost in combat there is. Swiftness is everywhere and very common in any group so going a smidge faster doesn’t actually help

Hardy Conduit: All Overcharges now get access to a Break Bar. We’re all thinking it, I’m just gonna say it. Protection isn’t sufficient to get the job done to protect while channeling. I know this is a new mechanic and you are hesitant about giving it to players, but the CC out there is rediculous in WvW. There’s literally endless CC after the stability change and you’re just never going to use this mechanic without this kind of thing in place.

Tempestous Aria: Reduce Shout CD please.

Elemental Bastion: Remove the healing, add 2 stacks of Stability that lasts 3 seconds when you apply an Aura. Leave Frost Aura Proc. Alternatively remove Frost Aura proc, add stability and keep healing. This is a controversial move but it needs to be done to get the Elementalist out there as a viable front line. Honestly a few stacks of 3s Stability even when shared aren’t going to really break the game but would go a long way at making Elementalist go on the front line. It also helps break the Guardian stranglehold/bottle neck on front line stability.

These address the Stability issues for Elementalist in a front line party. It makes Overcharge not such an impossible suggestion as well as creates loads of synergy with Auras into a natural Water/Tempest build with options for more offense in Air (Zephyr’s Boon, Bolt to the Heart) as well as a few Leap Combos for Fire Aura with Fire 5/4 and Dagger Earth 3 as well as makes room for Shouts as each Shout now also adds Stability with the Auras. Powerful Auras lets you share that giving you front line support.

Prototype Build in Action

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAotgcMwwBhGAjOCFhYgUACAfQA-TFSQwAeUi9VtiVKBFrqSIlBpUaAY/he6BIDAzYA-w

There ya go. Instant front liner. Just add Stability and Leaps. You could use two of the new Shouts such as Flash Freeze and Feel the Burn for additional Auras. There’s lots of competitive choices for Minor (more auras? stun break on stun?). Tempestuous Aria (with change) is competitive with the others with 3 shouts meaning more Aura up time but Earthen Proxy is super smexy too. Imbued Melodies with the new leaps can be great (leap forward -> break stuns) but the Stability trait is still pretty much the big choice if you need additional group Stability.

Air has a lot to offer. Zephyr’s is obvious as an Aura Build. Aeromancer training brings Cyclone down to 16s, good enough time for leap and Fresh Air brings you back. Fresh Air of course can synergize with bringing down the powerful Air Overload down so you can keep cleaving/leaping as needed. Water works due to Powerful Auras, additional defenses and otherwise.

You have possible defensive combination of gear with frontline level armor and HP. Your Offense isn’t crazy, and if anything a bit low, but not low enough to feel like you’re a Nomad Guardian. For a first pass at the gear, it’s not a terrible mix of stats.

Summary
Simply put, the existing Tempest build shown just isn’t ever going to be on any serious front line in the current game. It’s perfectly possible that there’s some kind of game shattering change coming in HoT where the Tempest fits in perfectly. However in the current game there’s virtually nothing the Tempest can do that isn’t better fulfilled by Staff, Dagger/Dagger, Dagger/Focus and the existing trait lines. That could be a tribute to what an amazing job was done with the Elementalist but I think we can do better than that. It is possible to deliver the character design but only if they’re willing to take it there. Front Line is unforgiving. It’s why we fell off the front line as D/D in WvW as is. If you won’t give us the tools to stay there, it’s just not going to work.

Not a bad breakdown. I don’t think that many leaps are necessary, but it’s good.

I’d add to work Overload numbers as well though. Air damage up, Fire damage up, water healing up and earth needs a large blast at the end for heavy damage. Otherwise even with your changes, they’re still not worth casting.

Raif.9507:

Not a bad breakdown. I don’t think that many leaps are necessary, but it’s good.

I’d add to work Overload numbers as well though. Air damage up, Fire damage up, water healing up and earth needs a large blast at the end for heavy damage. Otherwise even with your changes, they’re still not worth casting.

Well here’s the idea behind that. I mean we’re going to guaranteed be taking Tempest and most likely we’ll also be taking Water or Arcane as well. That leaves only one line life. With two 24s cool down charges, that lets one go down to a 16s timer and the other remains on a 24s timer. The third, defensive leap would always be on that large 30s timer. The only reason we swap the two is so we instinctively know Leaps are always on the “4” key (I shoulda been more clear on that). The biggest thing to account for is the attunement swap timers as well if you are overloading which could prevent you from coming back in time even if you did have both of them to below 24s.

Generally speaking I never wanted the Elementalist to be without a Leap style move, but at the same time only make one of the three really a Leap Finisher (the Fire Leap) at the cost of no longer sharing all Boons, only Might.

The only additional change I’d make to Overloads beyond the already planned increase radius is the no longer have 5s to activate. It would be the same global timer when swapping attunements then you can activate them. Fire’s damage is never going to be impressive because of the straight up damage plus burn. Furthermore it’s damage is listed less than Lightning Rod but I typically hit for 1-3k with Lightning Rod. Biggest thing about Air is that it pulses at every 0.25 seconds making it pretty interesting with all that Vulnerability as well (19 pulses in 4.75 seconds). Water’s healing isn’t going to be that impressive so long as it’s dishing out Healing, Regen AND condi cleanse but could use a Blast Finisher at the end.

Initially I’d estimate a fight would go something like this:

Start in Fire. Group starts Mighting Up you blow Overload Fire for AOE Might to everyone stacked up. You then Dessicated Surge forward sharing Might Stacks with anyone you have stacked up (should be at around 20 if you got a Guardian Empowering) as they go. When first Stability is called you use a Shout to generate an Aura (probably Flash Freeze). The first combat leap in you Fire 3 forward and then swap to Air. On engagement you are spamming 1 for Cleave and then activate Shocking Aura right into Overload Air using the Super Speed to keep up with your commander. You follow this up with Cyclone to keep leaping in/around back on tag or through the enemy. Second stab is called you use your other Aura shout. If your commander preps for a Refresh you can swap to Water to do Water 4 to heal and push back anyone towards your refresh. You then can pop 5+3 for a self blast finisher (saving Water Overload for 2nd refresh if needed). If you get in trouble at all you can swap to Earth and use a combination of Earth Overload (crippling anyone near by and protecting allies) while also still having Dust Storm as another final leap. Start over in Fire.

Basically we create a mobile front liner who can actually keep up with the front line in a variety of ways and widens the Guardian bottleneck for stability (Stand your Ground) on the front line.

Leaps are good. I agree. I wouldn’t want to run shouts if i was jumping into the fray though. By anet logic this will never happen.

Very very well thought out post. My experience is the same. The devs need to read this and implement something similar. It HAS to have movement and/or invuln and/or blocks to be front line (some combo depending on skills/cds). That is just a fact. So I am very confused with what they have presented us so far.

If D/D with a move skill at 20sec (if it hits) and D/F with an invuln are NOT good enough to be front line builds … and then you give us something with even less potential … I mean come on…

Well the main reason to run the Shouts over full Cantrips is primarily their Aura generation. If we tie Stability to Auras, that means Aura Share becomes our source of Stability amongst other buffs. Since all the Shouts automaticlly Share Auras with our 5 closest allies (front line party) that works with or without having Water line equipped (you don’t want one line tied to another line to make it work).

On the topic of Shouts, I would also redesign two other aspects. I would rename Arcane Shield to Arcane Aura. I would also make Rebound add a Arcane Aura and increase the cool down to 120 seconds. This would also thematically fit as well as add a new layer of protection (Blocking) to the front line Tempest Ele. To start maybe make it 3 charges and if it’s too OP then reduce it down to 2. No Stun Break like Arcane Aura does. Possibly remove the reduced recharge at all and redesign the current Arcane Shield skill to a different Arcane style move instead. Dunno exactly, just a loose thought.

Oh i missed the stability part in your post. I’d have to say these are changes that need to happen to make frontline ele a possibility. +1 if the devs decide this is worth looking into.

Dagger tends to cover the ele leaping combat. Warhorn more of a support wepon then aggressive wepon much like a shield / forces is a def wepon.

You have the better leap on offhand dagger…

Jski.6180:

Dagger tends to cover the ele leaping combat. Warhorn more of a support wepon then aggressive wepon much like a shield / forces is a def wepon.

Actually the Dagger only has one flat combat leap, and that’s Burning Speed on a 15s cool down. Now that isn’t bad, but it’s also a major source of damage and is also only on Fire Attunement. Magnetic Grasp/Leap combo is good as well, but requires a target which is entirely different (especially as a projectile that can be reflected/blocked/etc). The only way you’re going to keep up with Warriors/Guardians is to add additional small leap abilities. None of the base cool downs of the suggested leap additions is that bad and often cases takes a “meh” ability and adds a little something to it.

Warhorn as a support weapon is redundant and adds nothing. Elementalists already have access to some of the best support in the game on a variety of weapons. It has amazing Might stacking with Dagger/Scepter and Dagger/Focus offhand. It has some of the best boon sharing in the game as seen in PvP with existing options. In WvW it’s been a staple character for any meta or game play because of it’s near unique ability to generate water fields for other classes to blast and AOE refresh.

Warhorn as a weapon that still provides a level of support, with Aurashare providing a level of Stability support and adding small mobility to the mix (again no leap is over 600) that can be used regardless of target is something that adds something new to the character and actually opens it up to the front line.

rotten.9753:

You have the better leap on offhand dagger…

Actually there’s no leap on the offhand Dagger except Ride the Lightning, which on a 40s base cool down (27s with Aeromancer Training) and 1200 range puts you too slow to keep up with additional leaps (Warriors/Guardians will leap twice as much as you can) and it will also send you way past your group since you can’t cancel the effect at 600m like every other leap in the game.

Again the idea is to stick with the other melee, because if you get off the other melee you no longer are spreading damage amongst the melee stack and you’ll take the full brunt of 10-15 people’s AOEs and you’ll just die. This is why D/D bruiser ele fell out of WvW front line in the first place (they simply didn’t have the mobility to keep up).

FrownyClown.8402:

Oh i missed the stability part in your post. I’d have to say these are changes that need to happen to make frontline ele a possibility. +1 if the devs decide this is worth looking into.

Thanks man hopefully they do!

Earth Dagger 3 is unblockable, so there’s that.

Raif.9507:

Earth Dagger 3 is unblockable, so there’s that.

Alright, so that’s true, but it still requires a target in order to work. The opportunity remains to shore up the idea of untargeted mobility which is staple in a front line class. Putting additional mobility moves on multiple attunements means the ability to keep mobile regardless of what attunement you are in which further supports the idea of Overloading.

While I understand there may be concerns here, understand there’s no large damage adds coming in with it. For example even with 2-4 mobility move possibilities it’s not like Elementalists are suddenly going to be like Heart Seeker spamming Thieves.

I’m glad to see you making constructive feedback and ideas for changes, looks great!

Was good to see you as well accept that the Tempest in it’s current form wasn’t all that great too.

As others say, hopefully the Devs read and understand the problems even if they don’t take our solutions. Karl isn’t renown for his feedback on the forums (Can’t blame him) unfortunately so we’ll just have to wait and see.

rotten.9753:

You have the better leap on offhand dagger…

This is to any critic – Have you been in an organized wvw melee/front line or “hammer train” as they call it? Well if you have try running an ele build and let me know how well it keeps up with that/those “leap(s)” and how effective it is compared to warrior and guardian.

burning speed – its not a leap/leap finisher, doesn’t have a leap CD, and saved for damage and evading

ride the lightning – even more wrong with this – can’t use warhorn, its not a leap/leap finisher, doesn’t have a leap CD, is often saved for escape because of its enormous CD and eles low defense

Magnetic Grasp – probably the closest thing we actually have to a leap except its not – its a projectile and requires a target. Very very often leap finishers are used to combo from fields as well as to push the train forward at tactical times (with no targets)

Further creating the problem is the overload mechanic. Even if you somehow find something like the above (what we already have) acceptable we will now be locked out for 15-20sec if we ever use overload….so we won’t have access to one of the lines or only have access to one of the lines…

Clearly we need more options if they want it to be a front liner.

Yea that really is the crux of it it Mightybird. If they want the Overload mechanic usable, then we’re going to need multiple options to get around. Otherwise there will never be enough reward on it to outweigh the risk of falling behind and getting singled out and dead on the front line.

It’s probably cause magnetic is unblocable that dev dont care if its bugged, “unblocable makes up for bug”
(try to use it when in the back of a Doly in wvw … load of fun ^^)

MightyBird, i used to run 00446 DD pre-stabagedon. It was insanely good, but now rock solid is trash and so is frontline ele.
By the way, the 20sec cd overload isnt a issue since you’ll probably only use earth one right after the empower (to impact) … which is on a 20sec cd too
Thats the only field where it isnt an issue …..
Thats what make good ele-theory-crafter willing to put tempest/warhorn in the melee train, but the class gives no stability exept doubling the one given by guard (with 4fire). I don’t think its enough because you cant use F5 or W5 during the impact, where they would be the most usefull since you have to impact with earth overload.

If they retreive this kitten idea of “wait 5sec to use your spell” then tempest warhorn can become usefull:
kickboon
waterfield (less than staff)
cc
heal
cleanse
tons of boons (including some sort of stability since you can x2 the one given by guard)
lower damage than meta builded guard or war tho :/

1 thing and 1 thing only makes a frontliner. Stability.

Linnael.1069:

1 thing and 1 thing only makes a frontliner. Stability.

I think this is true to an extent, right now majority of stability comes from one source and that source is pretty much stacked Guardians with “Stand Your Ground.” Warriors in front line parties already take up a lot and while they can bring an okay amount of Stability majority of the work is really being done by Guardians. This is why by making Stability on Auras would remove that Guardian bottleneck from the front line.

That said leaps are still very important. It’s one of the main reasons the Warriors can keep up still on the front line and why D/D Elementalists fell off the front line (there was a time they were there).

If the overloads turn out to be massively strong, then I am fine with the “high risk, high reward” playstyle, even if we lack the stab/evades/leaps, but only if they are very, very, powerful.

Warhone is a support wepon and tempest is more on the support side then on the dmg side. Ele is the dmg build atm where tempest is the support def. Think on thoughts lines when it comes to tempest in the front line so more like a gurd then a war.

Jski.6180:

Warhone is a support wepon and tempest is more on the support side then on the dmg side. Ele is the dmg build atm where tempest is the support def. Think on thoughts lines when it comes to tempest in the front line so more like a gurd then a war.

warhorn still lacks stab and leap both of which a guardian has more of than a warhorn tempest will. Which will make no one ever want to fill that place with a tempest.

Anet won’t change anything until after the open beta so make sure you guys provide feedback!

Jski.6180:

Warhone is a support wepon and tempest is more on the support side then on the dmg side. Ele is the dmg build atm where tempest is the support def. Think on thoughts lines when it comes to tempest in the front line so more like a gurd then a war.

The problem is the Tempest currently doesn’t bring the kind of Support a front line support needs to bring to a group. As we’ve all been saying, repeatedly, the biggest thing front line support needs to bring is Stability. The mobility component, which exists on Guardians as well, is incredibly crucial for Elementalists to actually keep up on that front line.

Warriors, in fact, are not brought for damage but instead control factor (Hammer) and Banner to revive downs after the bomb engagement. In many ways that adds a level of unique support that even the Tempest doesn’t currently bring. Also because Warriors only get very limited stability, mainly from Balanced Stance, they generally rely on Guardian groups anyways to even remotely function on the front line.

Everything else the Tempest currently brings is already brought (and better) by Staff Elementalist back line.

Bottom line is this: Unless Tempest brings more AOE stability for it’s front line party it’s just another mouth to feed for Guardians. Guardians will continue to be the primary front line class the rest of the group is built around and Tempest simply has no place in the party currently.

FrownyClown.8402:

Anet won’t change anything until after the open beta so make sure you guys provide feedback!

Yea I’ll see if I can even get a group on the front line with the character but I wouldn’t get my hopes up :/

As predicted without stability really isn’t working very well. Armor of Earth works for first engagement and Burning Speed works okay for “leaping” in. Soon as Armor is over though you pretty much have to Lightning Flash out of the front line because you don’t have the survivability tools to hang on the front without a front line party full of Guardians giving you stability.

The leap scenario wasn’t as bad as originally thought and honestly just the switch to Air 4 on Warhorn would be sufficient.

Overloads without a break bar are entirely useless. They have basically no range and really don’t offer much. Lightning overload was incredibly disappointing. The 5 second cool down makes them pretty unusable in a pinch like needing a quick source of Breakbar/Protection with Earth.

Shouts fell into two categories: Lackluster and too long CD. Feel the burn was great in PvE because each pulse can hit 5 which is nice for lots of tags. Flash Freeze was my go to aura because of the low CD and access to Frost Aura on demand. Shock and Aftershock was great for 5 seconds then terrible for a long 45 second cool down. Rebound was interesting because I’d use it before Armor of Earth…but then it wouldn’t be up for the next Armor of Earth.

Build I went with (with beta gear – didn’t properly prepare Ascended gear so only had a few pieces left over from Revenant) was this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAo9gcMozhFOI8AY0QIG0CkAwBYDC-TFDEABaqqyTKRiSJ0YqV8jyg0MD0lSQP0DolSDAeAAPcCAiZ/ByAwMGA-w

Stats pretty tough to do honestly as not only do we have to try to make up for extremely low armor but also extremely low HP at the same time basically gutting our offense. This just compounded the problem because now, not only are we not bringing proper support for our group but there goes our offense as well making me wonder why I’d ever choose this spec over Staff support Ele which brings not only support but also lots of damage and survivability.

Norn Earth Channel below.