Guild Wars 2

Tempest is arguably the name given to our specialization, cool name I’d say but that’s not the point of this thread; what I’d like to know is how much important is for you this upcoming specialization.

I hold big hopes for this specialization, especially after the Chronomancer reveal http://www.mmorpg.com/newsroom.cfm/read/34744/Guild-Wars-2-Mesmers-Elite-Specialization-Revealed-The-Chronomancer.html.

For Tempest, from a PvP point of view, these are my expectations:

-viable set of PvP utilities other than cantrip

-an Elite worth the slot

-an optimal burst build

I would be happy already with the optimal burst build really, but truth be told I’d be hugely disappointed if I don’t get any of three factors mentioned.

What are your thoughts?

tbh i’m not a big fan of the name, the name is ok but it doesn’t make me wanna stand up and scream.

what i’d like to have is a dps high mobility duelist specialisation with leaps and blocks, sword/dagger for example.

following the trend that we’ve seen so far ele will most likely get an f5 attunement too.
as for utility skills, i want enchantments – similar to what the dervish had – skills that have an effect during and at the end of their use.

im not excited for it. unless it gives me utilities that are worth investing into. I play staff mostly these days and 06066 is still going to be meta.

Honestly? I really love D/D Cele in PvP. I know the meta is going to change across the board, but being a tanky clothy that still does respectable damage has appealed to me the most. I’m hard pressed to believe any changes anet makes to the class will be vast improvements.

With our current trait lines the only line that’s really great anymore (regardless of build/play style) is Water. The rest of the lines lack focus and remain mostly the same generic lines we have currently with clearly superior choices.

So yea kinda hoping Tempest will be the big #2 line even if I don’t use a Sword with it (far as I can tell Specializations don’t restrict your weapon, just unlocks the use of it). This is going to really depend on what utilities we get with it plus the elite and of course what the Traits actually offer to existing game play. Even then with nerfs like Elemental Attunement making Elementalist survivability even lower I think it’s going to be just that much harder to get away from Cantrips.

Personally I’m hoping for something mobility focused.

Not that important mainly because I don’t know anything other than its name and the weapon. So I have no expectations until I see it nor am I excited about it either.

If you ask me, there doesn’t feel like a lot of room for changing Attunements, so it seems like Elementalists MIGHT get either an on-swap benefit baseline with it, or a Tempest Attunement (Storm Attunement?). Either way, I’m not sure people will feel like they have much choice, as has been the general feeling with Chronomancer and the Split/Shift.

ronpierce.2760:

If you ask me, there doesn’t feel like a lot of room for changing Attunements, so it seems like Elementalists MIGHT get either an on-swap benefit baseline with it, or a Tempest Attunement (Storm Attunement?). Either way, I’m not sure people will feel like they have much choice, as has been the general feeling with Chronomancer and the Split/Shift.

People usually say crap like that when things are first revealed. They get excited about it and then a lot of them make a declaration on how X will make Y become stupid.

Just remember when the revenant was first revealed. When things are brand new the possibilities are infinite.

PlatinumMember.5274:

ronpierce.2760:

If you ask me, there doesn’t feel like a lot of room for changing Attunements, so it seems like Elementalists MIGHT get either an on-swap benefit baseline with it, or a Tempest Attunement (Storm Attunement?). Either way, I’m not sure people will feel like they have much choice, as has been the general feeling with Chronomancer and the Split/Shift.

People usually say crap like that when things are first revealed. They get excited about it and then a lot of them make a declaration on how X will make Y become stupid.

Just remember when the revenant was first revealed.

The difference is, you’re gaining free things, which can mean a lot, and you still have traits to go with it, so of the traits work out (which I’m sure they will for elite specs) that hype could very well be real. Especially since I think their long-term goal is to add more elites and the standard will very likely be 2 base 1 elite specializations. While there is only 1 atm and seems like just another specialization to chose, I don’t think that’s what their longer plans are. I think they are meant to be high-impact.

Especially IF (big if) a 5th attubenent spawns, it’d be really hard to pass up 4-5 additional abilities… And if it’s a base attunement bonus, same thing. These added bonuses PLUS traits and added alternatives may very well make it impossible to want to chose something else.

It’s not unheard of to have trait lines so powerful that they’re basically mandatory in all builds with rare exceptions. :P
(Ele, Warrior, Necro, thief, Mesmer all have one at least)

ronpierce.2760:

PlatinumMember.5274:

ronpierce.2760:

If you ask me, there doesn’t feel like a lot of room for changing Attunements, so it seems like Elementalists MIGHT get either an on-swap benefit baseline with it, or a Tempest Attunement (Storm Attunement?). Either way, I’m not sure people will feel like they have much choice, as has been the general feeling with Chronomancer and the Split/Shift.

People usually say crap like that when things are first revealed. They get excited about it and then a lot of them make a declaration on how X will make Y become stupid.

Just remember when the revenant was first revealed.

The difference is, you’re gaining free things, which can mean a lot, and you still have traits to go with it, so of the traits work out (which I’m sure they will for elite specs) that hype could very well be real. Especially since I think their long-term goal is to add more elites and the standard will very likely be 2 base 1 elite specializations. While there is only 1 atm and seems like just another specialization to chose, I don’t think that’s what their longer plans are. I think they are meant to be high-impact.

Especially IF (big if) a 5th attubenent spawns, it’d be really hard to pass up 4-5 additional abilities… And if it’s a base attunement bonus, same thing. These added bonuses PLUS traits and added alternatives may very well make it impossible to want to chose something else.

It’s not unheard of to have trait lines so powerful that they’re basically mandatory in all builds with rare exceptions. :P
(Ele, Warrior, Necro, thief, Mesmer all have one at least)

I agree with what you said. Eventually they will be an elite spec that renders the core classes worthless. But we don’t know what we are losing for the elite spec YET, all I have seen are speculation. So far anyways, it seems for the tempest we will lose arcane (which doesn’t really matter since Arcane sucks).

My point is that players get too excited about things and make speculation based on incomplete information. Just like pre release.

It’s pretty important to me. As someone who plays mostly WvW and is looking for something ‘fresh’, Chronomancer is much more appealing to me than any “new set of traits” elementalist build I can come up with.

Of course, we’ll have to see how the numbers change before release and I’m not committing… but a well-made Tempest would at least keep Ele in the running.

What would I like to see? Probably not what the rest of eles want…
- Sturdy, front-line option to make eles able to stand next to warriors/guards in the front line assaults
- Or more damage-oriented mid/long ranged options as an alternative to Staff.

Kelthien.8593:

It’s pretty important to me. As someone who plays mostly WvW and is looking for something ‘fresh’, Chronomancer is much more appealing to me than any “new set of traits” elementalist build I can come up with.

Of course, we’ll have to see how the numbers change before release and I’m not committing… but a well-made Tempest would at least keep Ele in the running.

What would I like to see? Probably not what the rest of eles want…
- Sturdy, front-line option to make eles able to stand next to warriors/guards in the front line assaults
- Or more damage-oriented mid/long ranged options as an alternative to Staff.

As Ele are getting Sword (melee ranged), it might not be unheard of for S/F Tempest being a melee brute if you also invest in Arcana, just something to think about/look forward to.

I am looking forward to the tempest for the “wrong reasons”

Why wrong?

Because I am disappointed with the current state of the trait rework for the core skills of the Elementalist. With the exception of stronger Aura share possibilities the “Ready Up” state of traits from last week has shown me nothing (and I assume the majority of Ele players agree here) that will get the profession out of the Cantrip-meta. Glyphs are still bad, Condi builds lack, Signets & Arcanas can’t compete in competitive situations.

The Tempest offers the hope to get something different after over two years going down the same road. I just hope the Devs will deliver something fresh.

PS: The problem I have with the Tempest (from the info I have now) is that I am not sure it will give me a game mechanic that will awe me. Slow & Quickness seems to be the thing for Chronomancers, Resistance has not yet surfaced anywhere on the Ele’s skills (other core professions gain it) and going into transforms (logical Tempest skills on F5) add more micro managing to the profession on top of existing stuff.

Gorani.7205:

PS: The problem I have with the Tempest (from the info I have now) is that I am not sure it will give me a game mechanic that will awe me. Slow & Quickness seems to be the thing for Chronomancers, Resistance has not yet surfaced anywhere on the Ele’s skills (other core professions gain it) and going into transforms (logical Tempest skills on F5) add more micro managing to the profession on top of existing stuff.

What info do you have? All we have officially is the name, and unofficially that it gets a sword (data miners).

Palindrome.8904:

What info do you have? All we have officially is the name, and unofficially that it gets a sword (data miners).

I know it is not much, but as I said: There is not many new game mechanics out there (already teased) that are left for the flavour of the Ele or Tempest class that got people super excited.

Condi cap reworked => Ele still is bad at condis
Taunt => seems to fit other classes better, we know a few core classes get it (+ Revenant)
Alacrity / Haste / Quickness => whatever you want to call it in the end, this is the field of the Mesmer / Chronomancer

Resistance is missing from the trait revamp from the core Elementalist (other professions like the Thief or the Warrior get it in some form) and could be an option for the Tempest – but is that really exciting?
The current Cantrip meta (instant cast, might as the most important offensive boon coupled with the defensive orientation of most Cantrips etc.) already has a tendency to “bunker” without losing too much offensive abilities. Do we need another variant of that with Tempest?

Tempest sounds like high speed and/or transformations, perhaps summons of small storm fields. But if you look at how adamantly the Devs kept the double cool down on Ride the Lightning and the un-noticeable 10% speed increase in Air for the minor trait, it is fair to allow me some doubts for the “high speed” Ele variant.
The also took away mobile Ranger spirits. I don’t think they would put things they don’t like on the Tempest (mobile storm fields).

Perhaps I am awed by the reveal. I don’t know yet.
I would love to be, because the Tempest might be the only thing that gets the Ele out of the corner it currently is.

Gorani.7205:

I know it is not much, but as I said: There is not many new game mechanics out there (already teased) that are left for the flavour of the Ele or Tempest class that got people super excited.

Condi cap reworked => Ele still is bad at condis
Taunt => seems to fit other classes better, we know a few core classes get it (+ Revenant)
Alacrity / Haste / Quickness => whatever you want to call it in the end, this is the field of the Mesmer / Chronomancer

Resistance is missing from the trait revamp from the core Elementalist (other professions like the Thief or the Warrior get it in some form) and could be an option for the Tempest – but is that really exciting?
The current Cantrip meta (instant cast, might as the most important offensive boon coupled with the defensive orientation of most Cantrips etc.) already has a tendency to “bunker” without losing too much offensive abilities. Do we need another variant of that with Tempest?

Tempest sounds like high speed and/or transformations, perhaps summons of small storm fields. But if you look at how adamantly the Devs kept the double cool down on Ride the Lightning and the un-noticeable 10% speed increase in Air for the minor trait, it is fair to allow me some doubts for the “high speed” Ele variant.
The also took away mobile Ranger spirits. I don’t think they would put things they don’t like on the Tempest (mobile storm fields).

Perhaps I am awed by the reveal. I don’t know yet.
I would love to be, because the Tempest might be the only thing that gets the Ele out of the corner it currently is.

Few things:
The changes to condition caps aren’t guaranteed. The changes to burn and poison aren’t guaranteed. Anet is playing around with the idea.

I agree with the idea for taunt, though.

Alacrity, Haste, and Quickness are different things. Alacrity is a Mesmer only buff (not boon) that reduces cooldowns by 66%. Quickness is a boon that decreases activation time of abilities by 50%. Haste is a Thief skill that grants Quickness and prevents Endurance from regeneration. (Nitpicky on the last part)

Quickness is something I can see Tempests getting a lot.

As for Resistance, given how many condition cleanses we have, I doubt we’ll ever have more than a couple sources of it. To me, it seems like a boon for professions that want to keep conditions on them, like Mallyx Revenants and Necromancers.

I do agree that Tempest will most likely be high mobility damage. I doubt it’d be transformation based as then we’d run into the same issues we have with conjures. My guess is that the sword will have a few finishers since all main hand weapons do, but unlike dagger, it’ll actually be a full melee weapon, not close range magic weapon. So we’ll actually (hopefully) have some cleave and chain effects (so we have an AA worth using).

I get the feeling that Elite specializations might be revealed in the reverse order of profession reveals so Tempest could be the last. To me, this would explain why they showed the specialization stuff in terms of Elementalist initially. (That, and/or because the different specializations make more sense on an Ele as an initial example)

Really, I’m just excited for something new to run around in for PvE.

From what I’ve gathered so far reading the various posts, it seems that a mobile brawler is the most expected version of our specialization.
This is what always comes up in my mind when thinking about Tempest:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Master_of_Lightning

One thing is certain I won’t accept any tank, support or healer specialization, no way in hell I would, for three years we had this support/tank/healer role stuffed down our throat in a way or another

Only as important as fill a roll that ele dose not fill now. So i am guess melee class with shots that buff and debuff base off your atument.

Jski.6180:

Only as important as fill a roll that ele dose not fill now. So i am guess melee class with shots that buff and debuff base off your atument.

I don’t want to play buff bot /point holder / tank any longer! This battlemage concept got old, but other options are simply not viable in my book

Am I the only one that would love to see some kind of elite that allows us to move really quickly like the “One with Air” trait, with added stuff of course. Like the trait could be like
Tempest Overload CD: 120 Seconds
Focus all your energy into the art of Storm Magic. Become the wind, and obtain super speed, quickness, fury, and all Air attunement spells have a lesser CD.
Super Speed: 150% movement speed
Fury: 15 seconds
Air attunement CD’s reduced by 75%

This would be really cool, allowing the Elementalist in pvp to get from one point to another quite quickly, but it would also give the player the bursty side that it seems everyone wants. This could be balanced by making attacks blockable, and the player susceptible to condi’s, aka Chill, Knockdown, Fear, etc. The CD lowering could be only used if we stay in air attunement meaning if I start the elite, it puts me into air attunement, if I go into fire the effects ware off even if I go back into air.

This just sounds like something that we need, and allows us to get something thats better than a dang flame sword or minion…discuss!

I think Tempest should be about speed and control. Zapping around the field with speed, touching the enemies here and there sounds fun!

Trait: instead of swiftness, you gain super speed. Only works if the source of swiftness is from the ele.

Trait: while you’re affected by super speed, attacking the enemies gives them 0.1s daze. If you gets hit, you’re dazed 0.1s.

Something like that would be really fun to play. Zapping across the field, and touch people here and there, and trying to avoid being touched. It’s like super speed heroes xD.

While I think there are some fun things they could do, I wouldn’t get your hopes up too high for pvp. Here is why:

We know tempest gets a mainhand-sword, and is pure melee-range. What this means for eles, who are STUCK with that range is that you need high mobility and high survivability. The only class that is allowed to be squishy in melee range is thief, and even then they have shortbow for large teamfights (and mobility). Tempest isn’t going to be compete with thief for mobility, and even if it did it would still need to be tanky.

So if you are playing tempest with sword, you once again need to tank-up. So that means you go tempest/earth/water (earth for -damage, water for heals/cleanse). Unless tempest is super over-loaded (and becomes mandatory) it will be hard to compete with arcana (which still gives lots of prot, fury, etc.)

It seems to just compete with d/d and d/f too much.

I’d be suprised if we were given a decent elite wich doesn’t lock us from our core mechanics. Or maybe it’s something to do with glyphs, like creating a storm according to current attunement whenever we use a glyph… i won’t set my hopes too high though.

Well as we have seen with this game before… just because in a normal MMO a sword is a melee wep, doesnt necessarily mean that in gw2 is it going to be a melee one. Food for thought really.

I want a 5th attunement

5th attunement that counts as all 4 at once or a mix of two with weapon skills that are elemental combos (magma for fire and earth, storms for lightning and water, steam for fire and water etc.).

I still love my D/D for roaming so I’m interested in what the sword will bring if it does give a melee range alternative, even possibly a straight tank build when paired with focus.

Mostly I just want to do away with traits that should be baked in, the blasting staff change is right on target with that so I’m interested to see what else gets changed along those lines.

Supreme.3164:

Jski.6180:

Only as important as fill a roll that ele dose not fill now. So i am guess melee class with shots that buff and debuff base off your atument.

I don’t want to play buff bot /point holder / tank any longer! This battlemage concept got old, but other options are simply not viable in my book

Well what roll dose ele not cover its mostly dmg i guess the ele class is missing super condtion dmg but the fire update should fix that. If ele is getting a sword and the sword is going to be melee ele or tempest MUST be able to take hits.

I still haven’t gotten over the disappointment that arcane and water have been made more required than ever, Elemental Attunement is easily the most class-defining and baseline-worthy trait in the whole game.

How Ele Attunement didn’t make baseline while making PU and IP baseline, which are currently the 2 strongest mesmer GM traits, is beyond me. Doesn’t give me a lot of confidence that the elite spec will be much good.

Im not super excited for it.. but its mostly because Eles are already strong in everything. I’m mostly excited for specials of professions that are hurting.

I’m not holding my breath. At all. I’m prepared for disappointment, Star Wars 1/2/3 style considering the trait changes like Elemental Attunement and Ride the Lightning in its day. ’m EXPECTING to be let down. I;d like to say differently, but the devs in charge of elementalist never understand what makes the class fun (for me) and continually show this with the trait “buffs” they think they give out.

This way, if it’s somewhat decent, I’ll be decently surprised. In the meantime, leveling a Ranger as it’s the only class I don’t have at 80.