Guild Wars 2

This class with most weapon sets used to be more about fast decision making before HoT came out. Overloads have ruined the class for me, it would not matter how hard you buffed the current state of overloads, pressing a button just to watch a massive aoe go to town on your enemies for years on end is just not my idea of a good time.

It’s BORING, and it needs to change! While some people may like the idea of the current state of overloads I have a feeling most of my elementalist bretheren think its horse kitten. I find it really hard to believe people wanted the elementalist playstyle go from DDR level button pressing to a game of Roll your forehead across the keyboard until you hit the overload button.

Please speak up and let anet know they’ve made the class waaaaay too boring.

TL;DR. This aint about balance, this is about removing a boring mechanic and replacing it with something fun and interesting.

You don’t have to use your overload skills… ? Tempest traitline is great, maybe your build isn’t right ?

The best we can hope for at this point is for non-elite specs to become viable. But even that is very optimistic.

Kaizoku.1298:

You don’t have to use your overload skills… ? Tempest traitline is great, maybe your build isn’t right ?

You’re basically telling me to play baseball with out bringing a bat. My build? This isnt about a build I used, this is about how boring pressing one god kitten button and waiting 5 seconds to make my next decision is.

:-/ if you wait 5 sec then you are indeed lost … I understand that you might not like the mechnic, but i always did see it as an aditional option. And it realy pays off as stunbreaker, or down cleaver and more. Its situational. Well if you never try to autoattack and want to rotate using arcane traitline fast, then overloads will be misplaced …

Grimreaper.5370:

Kaizoku.1298:

You don’t have to use your overload skills… ? Tempest traitline is great, maybe your build isn’t right ?

You’re basically telling me to play baseball with out bringing a bat. My build? This isnt about a build I used, this is about how boring pressing one god kitten button and waiting 5 seconds to make my next decision is.

No the bat would be your atument i guess the overload would be the nicotine doping that you do not need to use but a lot of players do.

Wolfric.9380:

:-/ if you wait 5 sec then you are indeed lost … I understand that you might not like the mechnic, but i always did see it as an aditional option. And it realy pays off as stunbreaker, or down cleaver and more. Its situational. Well if you never try to autoattack and want to rotate using arcane traitline fast, then overloads will be misplaced …

Do not tell me you enjoy how overloads work, you really think this is the best design there is to offer? how dare you even try and defend such a boring mechanic just for the sake of arguing.

Gokil.2543:

The best we can hope for at this point is for non-elite specs to become viable. But even that is very optimistic.

One could only hope…

Grimreaper.5370:

Wolfric.9380:

:-/ if you wait 5 sec then you are indeed lost … I understand that you might not like the mechnic, but i always did see it as an aditional option. And it realy pays off as stunbreaker, or down cleaver and more. Its situational. Well if you never try to autoattack and want to rotate using arcane traitline fast, then overloads will be misplaced …

Do not tell me you enjoy how overloads work, you really think this is the best design there is to offer? how dare you even try and defend such a boring mechanic just for the sake of arguing.

That easy stun brakes before overloaded ele has at best 3 with overloaded they get a posable 4 more most likely just 1 more as needed but still that more then before.

Why are you running tempest if you hate overloads? That is something you realy need to ask your self. Ele as a class has not changed its just all the other classes have.

Jski.6180:

Grimreaper.5370:

Wolfric.9380:

:-/ if you wait 5 sec then you are indeed lost … I understand that you might not like the mechnic, but i always did see it as an aditional option. And it realy pays off as stunbreaker, or down cleaver and more. Its situational. Well if you never try to autoattack and want to rotate using arcane traitline fast, then overloads will be misplaced …

Do not tell me you enjoy how overloads work, you really think this is the best design there is to offer? how dare you even try and defend such a boring mechanic just for the sake of arguing.

That easy stun brakes before overloaded ele has at best 3 with overloaded they get a posable 4 more most likely just 1 more as needed but still that more then before.

Why are you running tempest if you hate overloads? That is something you realy need to ask your self. Ele as a class has not changed its just all the other classes have.

I’ll answer your question with Gokil’s quote,

“The best we can hope for at this point is for non-elite specs to become viable. But even that is very optimistic.”

Exactly my point, once the most fun class just became the most boring class, click overload and run like a headless chicken for 5s.

Why play Tempest, while I tried to play arcane D/D even with max cleanses I can’’t keep up with Necros and I don’t have the heals also.

So my Ele enjoys PVE but I no way masochist enough to play Tempest because of the boredom or without Specialisation because I don’t enjoy being rekt.

The main problem with overloads is the bug that the increased attunement recharge time isn’t affected by attunement recharge reduction from the arcane trait line. (please do whatever you can to bring the bug to the attention of the devs) Tempest with arcane is still pretty fun otherwise.

Anyway the overloads themselves are fine: First of all, ele was too fast paced for some, and Tempest changes that. Slows down the class and makes it easier to play. Rewards people who wanted to focus on only a single attunement. That was something that was asked for fairly often. I am not one of those people, and I was indeed quite disappointed with the mechanic. But it isn’t so bad. I only use them when I would otherwise be autoattacking anyway. Overload fire in condi build is a great filler to use while my other condi skills are on cooldown.

And on the bright side, now that the slower style that some people wanted is out of the way, you can expect the next spec to be fast paced again. (that or something that cranks up the long range AoE… another thing that I used to see people want)

reikken.4961:

The main problem with overloads is the bug that the increased attunement recharge time isn’t affected by attunement recharge reduction from the arcane trait line. (please do whatever you can to bring the bug to the attention of the devs) Tempest with arcane is still pretty fun otherwise.

Anyway the overloads themselves are fine: First of all, ele was too fast paced for some, and Tempest changes that. Slows down the class and makes it easier to play. Rewards people who wanted to focus on only a single attunement. That was something that was asked for fairly often. I am not one of those people, and I was indeed quite disappointed with the mechanic. But it isn’t so bad. I only use them when I would otherwise be autoattacking anyway. Overload fire in condi build is a great filler to use while my other condi skills are on cooldown.

And on the bright side, now that the slower style that some people wanted is out of the way, you can expect the next spec to be fast paced again. (that or something that cranks up the long range AoE… another thing that I used to see people want)

Would be nice to affect anyone inside the ring instead of just 5 targets…probably be way to overpowered then….

Can already see it… 1 elementalist takes out 40 people in WvW in less than 6 seconds

Grimreaper.5370:

I’ll answer your question with Gokil’s quote,

“The best we can hope for at this point is for non-elite specs to become viable. But even that is very optimistic.”

Sadly, that’s not even being optimistic. It’s straight out delusional.

The new business model is pretty obvious: Free2Play base game access with Pay2Win expansions. HoT has put base professions into trash tier, and that’s where they’ll continue to be. The only thing one can hope for is for the next ele elite spec to live up to player expectations more than Tempest did, and that’s about it.

Kaizoku.1298:

You don’t have to use your overload skills… ? Tempest traitline is great, maybe your build isn’t right ?

If the best advice for playing tempest is to not use the core mechanic of the elite specialization, I might be mad, but I think it’s indicative of a real problem.

Grimreaper.5370:

Jski.6180:

Grimreaper.5370:

Wolfric.9380:

:-/ if you wait 5 sec then you are indeed lost … I understand that you might not like the mechnic, but i always did see it as an aditional option. And it realy pays off as stunbreaker, or down cleaver and more. Its situational. Well if you never try to autoattack and want to rotate using arcane traitline fast, then overloads will be misplaced …

Do not tell me you enjoy how overloads work, you really think this is the best design there is to offer? how dare you even try and defend such a boring mechanic just for the sake of arguing.

That easy stun brakes before overloaded ele has at best 3 with overloaded they get a posable 4 more most likely just 1 more as needed but still that more then before.

Why are you running tempest if you hate overloads? That is something you realy need to ask your self. Ele as a class has not changed its just all the other classes have.

I’ll answer your question with Gokil’s quote,

“The best we can hope for at this point is for non-elite specs to become viable. But even that is very optimistic.”

Ele is viable but not as a gen cover all class any more. That how most of the non-elite specs classes are they are very good (most of them) at dmg. Ele is the best dmg dealer of the 2 tempest vs ele.

Jski.6180:

Ele is viable but not as a gen cover all class any more. That how most of the non-elite specs classes are they are very good (most of them) at dmg. Ele is the best dmg dealer of the 2 tempest vs ele.

You can maybe make that statement, because our damage was balanced around switching between attunements constantly and cycling our CDs and playing tempest prevents that, but it’s still really not true.

Like a pure damage fire staff build which can only be played in PvE receives a direct upgrade from the fire overload and the fact that it was never meant to switch out of fire. High dmg output fresh air builds that worked off camping lightning for dagger autoattack now have air overload which resets on CD as well and is a substantial upgrade.

Even with all that, the reason people consider tempest to be neccessity, because it gives a lot more sustain as well group sustain. As the weakest armor and hp class with no consistent mechanics for avoiding damage like mesmers and thiefs have with stealth, our ability to be competitive has always been on the back of building for lots and lots of sustain.

Just a friendly reminder that this topic isn’t about balancing the class, its about making the tempest mechanics fun to use and right now I’m under the impression most people would say the mechanics behind tempest are quite boring.

What would you rather be doing as your most damaging spell that stays with your character goes off?

Also as others have stated you don’t need to use tempest in your builds/the overload spell while you’re playing. It’s not running off to play baseball with your bat at home unless you don’t know how the other builds work.

You don’t explain what’s boring about overloads or what kind of new interesting mechanic you think should replace it, nobody would be against pushing a new interesting mechanic. If anything I think your argument would be better suited for staff number 5 in fire attunement, meteor shower. With the damaging overloads you’re at least moving and keeping your aoe on something, plus applying conditions, and buffing yourself and allies. At the bare minimum it can be saved as an over powered stun break.

I suggest reading the spells you’re rolling your forehead across, and not saying something as cringey as “Do not tell me you enjoy how overloads work, you really think this is the best design there is to offer? how dare you even try and defend such a boring mechanic just for the sake of arguing.”

.-.

Grimreaper.5370:

Just a friendly reminder that this topic isn’t about balancing the class, its about making the tempest mechanics fun to use and right now I’m under the impression most people would say the mechanics behind tempest are quite boring.

I just find it abyssmal when people correct you here in the forums, but have no idea how skilled you are.

MoarChaos.8320:

What would you rather be doing as your most damaging spell that stays with your character goes off?

Also as others have stated you don’t need to use tempest in your builds/the overload spell while you’re playing. It’s not running off to play baseball with your bat at home unless you don’t know how the other builds work.

You don’t explain what’s boring about overloads or what kind of new interesting mechanic you think should replace it, nobody would be against pushing a new interesting mechanic. If anything I think your argument would be better suited for staff number 5 in fire attunement, meteor shower. With the damaging overloads you’re at least moving and keeping your aoe on something, plus applying conditions, and buffing yourself and allies. At the bare minimum it can be saved as an over powered stun break.

I suggest reading the spells you’re rolling your forehead across, and not saying something as cringey as “Do not tell me you enjoy how overloads work, you really think this is the best design there is to offer? how dare you even try and defend such a boring mechanic just for the sake of arguing.”

.-.

Im sure you know as well as I do playing tempest with out using overloads is just silly. And I did explain whats boring about overloads, being stuck in a long channel while casting an overload and then being locked out of attunements for even longer than usual after use isnt my ideal playstyle. I’d be up for anything else that didnt take away from the fast paced playstyle that elementalist used to be.

If no one is against a new and interesting mechanic replacing overloads what is there to argue about?

Well I personally just didn’t agree with you demanding change of something that isn’t broken, and not suggesting anything to replace it.

I can see overloading to be boring for a staff ely. But any other weapon set it is incredible. I use s/w & my 25 skill rotation with 3 overloads is extremely fun to play. The overloads are a great way for your cool downs to recharge & get you much needed stability if your in a pinch.

in pvp, I sometimes use overloads and then cancel them JUST for the stability

Overloading realy not the issue that you guys should be focusing on its an effect you do not have to use for a line you do not have to use. The realy issue that every one seems to be ignoring is that ele is or was the jack of all trade class yet it cant do every thing AND all other classes have been buffed in such a way that they can do every thing.

That should be the real rant on ele. Not some silly not liking effects like overload.

1.) I don’t like that overloads have pretty poor synergy with Elemental Attunement since you lock your self out of an attunement for 17.5-20 seconds

2.) Right now the whole idea around tempest really only works with a bunker like build in the meta scene.

3.) Tempest has very little synergy with scepter/x and D/D… The whole idea of tempest makes a Dagger/Focus bunker build the only real obvious choice if you want to go for a meta build.

4.) The fire and water overload have their uses but they are most definitely not optimal to use a majority of the time.

IMO it would be much nicer if most overloads were instant(or close to it) defensive abilities which were useable after ~1.5-2 seconds after adjusting an attunement, and no longer increase the cooldown of an attunement recharge to the extent they do now, adjusted accordingly for balance of course.

Examples:

Fire Overload = AOE direct damage blind

Air Overload = ground target teleport

Earth Overload = turn into immobile stone immune to all dmg for 3 seconds

Water Overload = AOE ice field with X duration.

If Elementalists are given more defensive skills in nature to avoid damage instead of relying on massive healing potential then I believe more builds and weapon types will open up to the meta, such as burst builds.

Grimreaper.5370:

1.) I don’t like that overloads have pretty poor synergy with Elemental Attunement since you lock your self out of an attunement for 17.5-20 seconds

20.
It’s bugged so that attunement cooldown reduction does not affect it.

Grimreaper.5370:

Fire Overload = AOE direct damage blind

Air Overload = ground target teleport

Earth Overload = turn into immobile stone immune to all dmg for 3 seconds

Water Overload = AOE ice field with X duration.

If Elementalists are given more defensive skills in nature to avoid damage instead of relying on massive healing potential then I believe more builds and weapon types will open up to the meta, such as burst builds.

I agree
Thief and Mesmer work with offensive pvp builds because they have such tools

Grimreaper.5370:

If Elementalists are given more defensive skills in nature to avoid damage instead of relying on massive healing potential then I believe more builds and weapon types will open up to the meta, such as burst builds.

Agree. I would say every weapon and attunement should have a bit of defense of all kind, rather than long defense packed it on attunement.

But I would not like to see overload as defense tools until tempest will be for all players, not only hot owners.

While I agree with many of the things you said here, know that Anet will not change it. They can barely even rework skills on a smaller scale, how do you expect them to make such a massive overhaul to a system? Think about all the assets and underlying code that would need to be thrown away and re-made.

We’re better off asking for them to take a look at core ele and make that playstyle be competitive again, but even that is a long shot going by their recent actions.

Shadowflare.2759:

We’re better off asking for them to take a look at core ele and make that playstyle be competitive again, but even that is a long shot going by their recent actions.

We’re better off suggesting options, demanding dev responses and trying to take influence on the next Ele elite spec as early as possible.

Core Ele, just like any other core profession, is never gonna be competitive again. From HoT release onwards, it’s go elite spec or go home.

makku.2508:

Shadowflare.2759:

We’re better off asking for them to take a look at core ele and make that playstyle be competitive again, but even that is a long shot going by their recent actions.

We’re better off suggesting options, demanding dev responses and trying to take influence on the next Ele elite spec as early as possible.

Core Ele, just like any other core profession, is never gonna be competitive again. From HoT release onwards, it’s go elite spec or go home.

We did all that during the beta for HoT and it had very little influence.

What core issues with elementalist did Tempest solve? Nothing. It was just somebody’s cool design idea.

The only real influence we had was after just hammering the forums with posts about how it wasn’t going to work, they added in the trait that added regen and vigor on aura application, turning the spec into the new water 2.0 build with auras instead of cantrips.

Everybody takes it for that, not the overloads. They tried to double down on overloads and give them substantial damage increases, but it doesn’t matter. Unless they come close to straight out murdering someone, they don’t outweigh the heavy penalties imposed on us (and only us, mind you. No other spec has this kind of mechanic; everything else is straight power creep with new abilities introduced with no penalties for using them outside of having to not take something else).

Maybe, it will be different next time, but I have yet to see anyone from Anet be honest and just call Tempest for what it is: a gimmick. For history not to repeat, you first have to admit you made a mistake.

I’m sure the next spec will be something like you are locked into one attunement while in combat, allowing you to morph into Fireatron or Wateratron or something else that sounds equally cool in marketing hype, but runs contrary to a class balanced around having access to 20 weapon skills, not 10.

God forbid they give us a new weapon that allows for condi stacking or a combination of weapon and utility skills that gives us a core defensive mechanic like thieves have with stealth and mesmers have with illusions/stealth.

One of the big issues with tempest and dragonhunter was in the way ArenaNet responded to people who just didn’t like the idea… and to a certain extent, the two being as powerful as they are is partially due to the people who tried to kill it entirely.

Personally, I like both. I like the core playstyles of elementalist and guardian too. The elite specialisations make for an interesting addition which, if balanced properly, would be something you could either use or not use as you like.

However, some people in the beta clearly just didn’t like the concepts in general. That’s fair enough – both do represent a significant deviation from the core playstyles of the professions, and someone who was hoping for more of an expansion to the core playstyle (like, say, mesmers got with Chronomancer) would have reason to be disappointed with these elites, just as people who are looking for something that is significantly different will enjoy them. Can’t please everyone all the time.

The proper response of ArenaNet should have been something like this: “We understand that for some people the elite specialisation is not what they were hoping for. However, this time around we were looking to branch into a new playstyle, and we recognise that not everyone who’s invested in the core profession will want to change to a different playstyle. We hope the next elite specialisation will be more to your liking, but in the meantime our balance team will ensure that elite specialisations do not overshadow core builds so you can continue playing your character according to the core playstyle if you prefer.”

The problem was, some of those people tried to present it not as a theme and playstyle issue but a viability one. “Overloads simply don’t compete with traditional dagger/dagger rotations.” “Traps suck, nobody ever uses them in any form of serious play.” And so ArenaNet’s response was to buff the living feline out of both until nobody could possibly claim that they’re underpowered compared to the base profession… and as anyone who’s paid attention to balance discussions for a while will know, the only point at which nobody claims it’s underpowered is when it’s clearly overpowered.

Going back to the original topic: I like the Tempest. Overloads may seem ‘boring’ in that they represent a period where you can’t do anything else apart from moving and activating instant-activation skills (which, keep in mind, elementalist has a few of), but I find it leads to a playstyle in which tactical thinking and positioning is more important than running through rotations, and that’s something I prefer. I don’t think it’s the right move to toss it in the can and start anew because the diehard fans of the core elementalist playstyle didn’t get something that they could simply add to the core playstyle without any changes beyond incorporating new skills into the rotations. On the other hand, I also don’t think that it’s right that the core playstyle, and the skills that people developed to play it, has been rendered redundant by elite specialisation power creep.

And that’s the real problem. ArenaNet said during HoT development that the elite specialisations were supposed to be sidegrades rather than upgrades. If the conspiracy theorists saying that the current state was deliberate are correct, it’s actually working to ArenaNet’s disfavour: first, because it’s a problem for paying customers, and second, because a business model that relies on free-to-play customers deciding to pay up for the upgrade relies on those free-to-play customers deciding that they enjoy it enough to invest the money, rather than going “augh I keep getting killed by overpowered cat I’ve had it with this pay-to-win bullkitten.”

MadRabbit.3179:

What core issues with elementalist did Tempest solve? Nothing. It was just somebody’s cool design idea.

I think part of the reason is that elementalist and guardian didn’t really have core issues to be solved by adding in new options through an elite profession, so they could feel free to add a cool idea instead.

Problem is, now we have the issue that most elite specs outperform core builds.

MadRabbit.3179:

makku.2508:

Shadowflare.2759:

We’re better off asking for them to take a look at core ele and make that playstyle be competitive again, but even that is a long shot going by their recent actions.

We’re better off suggesting options, demanding dev responses and trying to take influence on the next Ele elite spec as early as possible.

Core Ele, just like any other core profession, is never gonna be competitive again. From HoT release onwards, it’s go elite spec or go home.

We did all that during the beta for HoT and it had very little influence.

What core issues with elementalist did Tempest solve? Nothing. It was just somebody’s cool design idea.

The only real influence we had was after just hammering the forums with posts about how it wasn’t going to work, they added in the trait that added regen and vigor on aura application, turning the spec into the new water 2.0 build with auras instead of cantrips.

Everybody takes it for that, not the overloads. They tried to double down on overloads and give them substantial damage increases, but it doesn’t matter. Unless they come close to straight out murdering someone, they don’t outweigh the heavy penalties imposed on us (and only us, mind you. No other spec has this kind of mechanic; everything else is straight power creep with new abilities introduced with no penalties for using them outside of having to not take something else).

Maybe, it will be different next time, but I have yet to see anyone from Anet be honest and just call Tempest for what it is: a gimmick. For history not to repeat, you first have to admit you made a mistake.

I’m sure the next spec will be something like you are locked into one attunement while in combat, allowing you to morph into Fireatron or Wateratron or something else that sounds equally cool in marketing hype, but runs contrary to a class balanced around having access to 20 weapon skills, not 10.

God forbid they give us a new weapon that allows for condi stacking or a combination of weapon and utility skills that gives us a core defensive mechanic like thieves have with stealth and mesmers have with illusions/stealth.

+1

Honestly they have no freaking idea how to balance ele…so I don’t hope for better as the community will cry foul if anything as useful as d/d will ever be introduced , I expect next elite to be DPS oriented with 1-2 average benefits…but a plethora of weaknesses given as “compensation” like 3-4s cast time, long CD( 40s+) or something across those lines

I gave up already and switched to rev really…not looking back, I want to do dmg and still not instantly explode and * I don’t want to go through a myriad of positioning jumps just to land an attack that does as much dmg as an auto-attack from other professions*

3 years of d/d..and now healbot..screw this

sigh. I hated the regen + vigor on auras when it came out. This was such a quick and dirty shot to make the trait useful and basically set the stone for this water clone… Why not furry + vigor …

draxynnic.3719:

MadRabbit.3179:

What core issues with elementalist did Tempest solve? Nothing. It was just somebody’s cool design idea.

I think part of the reason is that elementalist and guardian didn’t really have core issues to be solved by adding in new options through an elite profession, so they could feel free to add a cool idea instead.

Problem is, now we have the issue that most elite specs outperform core builds.

I couldn’t disagree more. I highlighted a few of them in the rest of the post you cut out.

They could have added a condi focused weapon. Boom. Done. Entire new dimension of gameplay added to the elementalist class.

They could have implemented a class that introduced some new type of defense oriented mechanic similar to the new addition of alacrity for chronomancers. It could have been like an energy shield mechanic that had a max amount and recharged at a certain speed when not taking damage. The max amount could scale to your toughness and vitality with more of these attributes equaling less total the shield could absorb. The regen rate could scale to healing power with the regen rate being less for each additional point of healing power. If balanced correctly, it could prevent power creep with the healing bunkers while providing some way to focus on damage and survive.

They could have implemented the exact opposite of the Arcane spec with Tempest. Instead of boon oriented abilities granted via being in different attunements and swapping into attunements, it could give damage oriented abilities. The core mechanic could be a storm that charges the longer you are in an attunement, building power and then releasing when you swap. No increased cooldown; the risk vs reward is the storm just does less damage if you attunement dance. No locked channeling animation; no getting interrupted and losing out on the payload for penalties that exceeded the payload to begin with. Instant cast storm triggered on attunement swap.

A lot of elementalists wanted single attunement to be viable. A new elite spec could add a mechanic that after being in an attinement for 5 seconds, it unlocked a new set of attunement abilities. These abilities could total 10 in number with the weapon swap mechanic being used to switch between them. Once this happened, you would be unable to swap attunements until combat was over. This would allow for a single element themed elementalists that focused on one particular area of combat. Fire elementalists could be all about damage; water elementalists could be dedicated healers. You could give us 4 trait options per tier in that spec instead of 3; each trait would focus on buffing a single attunement.

To say that elementalist doesn’t have any core issues is one that I can’t even take serious. There is 4 potential examples off the top of my head in like 5 minutes. Would they have fixed it in practice? Won’t know until it was tried, but at least, they have that goal in mind.

And dragonhunter, that did fix a core issue in guardian: their inability to do serious damage from ranged.

We didn’t need overloads; we never asked for them.

Hi MadRabbit, I know for a fact that nothing anyone says will change your mind, cuz that’s just how debaters are,

But I agree with the other dude that ele pre-HoT didn’t have any clear, severe weaknesses or gameplay deficiencies. Yes, building around condition damage was something they could never really do viably, but I’d say it’s not something they were woefully deficient in. Cele D/d ele back last summer did most of its damage from burning, after all.

But weaknesses? Most of the other weaknesses on other classes that got fixed were really major and important things like nocleave on necro or no ability to survive on revenant or no acrobatics on thief. Yeah they started out with the first reveled specs as ways to fix issues, but quickly turned into extra overpowered fluff for the already strong classes as development continued. Though I do agree that the elite specs overall could have benefited from more development overall.

Other than that, you’d be hard pressed to find any true weakness when the elementalist was considered meta or best profession in all game modes, PvP D/D, PvE fire staff, WvW support staff.

But any way onto tempest. I was initially excited about it since I like warhorns. Then o became bored with it because it was a bunker that a toddler could play. Now I only log in once or twice a week since I’m jaded by this game, but I play paladins or menders fresh air scepter/warhorn (I know focus is better) for fun. And it’s actually kinda fun. Then again I don’t play every day anymore so I’m sure I’d get sick of it eventually if I did play more often. Rah the overlords are a long cast time, but I think people who play gw2 are spoiled by having short casttimes on every move. Try playing an old school MMO where 2 second cast times were considered fast, but even a one second cast time here is considered slow as hell. To me, the four seconds is slow but because we have freedom to move it doesn’t feel that slow to me.

It seems like you can make a decent open world pve condi tempest build with warhorn and camping fire, it’s just not somethings you’d want to bring to pvp. But do you really want that? Do you want a build that’s become so unsatisfyjng and spammy as what happened to condi reaper or prenerf condi Herald? You say it’s be something fun and cool that you’d really want, but when it becomes utter cheese that everyone hates you for playing, you’d be surprised by how quickly you get sick of it.

Your other ideas like single attunement viability and the energy shield are things that wouldn’t have worked because the single attunement thing goes against their design princiciples with the elementalist (tempest is about as much as they’d explore with that idea, so not that much) as a master of all elements, not just one the most common complaint of the tempest when it was released was that people didn’t want an elite spec that was based on staying in an attunement for too long in a class about attunement swapping. So you’re telling me that a spec even more tempesty that tempest would be better received? What?

The energy shield mechanic would have needed vastly more development time, and even then I think it would be impossible to balance. I mean look how they balance the game now, there is none. You really think that they could appropriately balance such a huge damage reduction method without it being either useless or overpowered?

Look at how chronomnacer and alacrity turned out. Anet didn’t attend for them to be undying super bunkers be chase of alacrity (and lots of other things). Now alacrity is nerfed so much that it’s not very useful, so believe me that an energy shield mechanic would be unable to be a balanced correctly because these game designers can’t balance anything complicated. It’s either overpowered or nerfed into the ground.

Those things you mentioned aren’t core issues. They’re really niche, obscure ideas that would make really crappy or imbalanced elite specs.

Look, two points.

You are basing the lack of weakness in elementalist on really the existence of a singular build that was based upon a core set of traits focused on water sustain. That has not changed; it’s actually build that survived the test of time and really the only build considered viable.

Now, if your standard for success is being able to have that one build, then I think you are setting the bar incredibly low, particularly with a class that was designed to do multiple things. Like we have a ton of weapon and utility skills that just serve very little practical purpose.

Your argument is what plagues the elementalist community. You take the approach, because we had one solid, potentially OP build that the class is fine. It’s not; it’s mechanically broken in so many ways and any serious discussion of that just gets shut down by people constantly falling back to the least common denominator.

So, no, in that regard, you haven’t changed my mind. I’m not oblivious to the historical strength of D/D celestial; it’s the strength of that one build that makes the class so broken.

Two, I work as a software developer by trade and if your agenda is to debunk a prototype when it’s still abstract, then you can. You can come up with a dozen hypothetical scenarios that will cause it to fail, but only maybe, one or two of those will actually happen.

You are either working off of perfect hindsight when judging ideas like chronomancer or perfect alacrity to debunk potential suggestions based off theoretical futures that haven’t happened yet and can’t be discredited, because anything is possible.

So the basis of me suggesting these ideas or discussing them isn’t behind the practical implementation of that, but rather their actual intentions. The point of their original goals and what they set out to do.

All four of the ideas I suggested have some type of design philosophy to either add new dimensions to the class or address limitations that prevent certain builds from working. You consider them to niche or obscure; fine, whatever. You are entitled to your opinion and my opinion is that you just doesn’t understand the potential for them to open up new builds.

I’ll ask the question again that no one has given an answer to. What was the design goal of Tempest? What did it set out to do? How did giving us overloads in their conception set out to improve the class? What new builds did it open up? Why did we need them? What elements did warhorn add that was lacking in our original weapons?

I can forgive an idea for failing in implementation; it’s hard to forgive an idea that doesn’t seem to add any greater purpose.

If your answer to this is once again, we didn’t need anything else besides a gimmick elite spec, because we had D/D celestial, then I welcome you to being part of the problem.

My arguments are the multiclass perspective that you get when you have played multiple classes for a significant amount of time. It wasn’t just D/D ele in pvp, it was also fire staff ice bow ele in PvE, and staff support ele in WvW. Necromancer was my main back then, and I remember the summer of 2014 was a really tough time for the class, it had no competitive build in PvE or PvP, only WvW. So I’m sorry that the historical, but wholly valid lack of build diversity of elementalists doesn’t bother me. There are other classes in this game, and they were pretty much all in more dire need of help than the elementalist ever was (except for 2013, cuz ya know, that was pretty meh for ele).

But anyway moving on, this is something we disagree on, so I’ll attempt to answer your questions to the best of my knowledge.

MadRabbit.3179:

I’ll ask the question again that no one has given an answer to. What was the design goal of Tempest? What did it set out to do? How did giving us overloads in their conception set out to improve the class? What new builds did it open up? Why did we need them? What elements did warhorn add that was lacking in our original weapons?

The design goal of the tempest, as described by its release articles, was to give the elementalist an option for “frontline support”, through PBAoE abilities that use positioning and higher-risk, higher-reward decision making. Secondarily, I also believe that tempest was intended to be an alternative to the Arcana line, as it provides ways to make up the deficits in boons and healing you’d lose from not taking Arcana.

It set out to do this by giving the elementalist many new tools that were either ephemeral or long-lasting PBAoE effects, such as the overloads and the shouts. It breathed new life into the kinda kittenty auras that no one really ever built around, by attaching them to shouts and overloads and allowing them to heal, thus letting auras be a new form of support for the other effects they’d apply.

Overloads improved the class by offering new ways to apply AoE pressure and support. Earth overload gave an overpowered amount of protection before it was bugfixed (although its still kinda strong). Air overload hits crazy hard, even on more defensive builds and gave us a reason to go fresh air. Fire overload has more condition pressure in open world PvE than anything base elementalist could hope for. Water overload is a huge amount of healing and can be amazing for sustain when used correctly.

You didn’t ask about them, but the shouts have proven to be a useful alternative to cantrips. With torrents and cleansing water we can shed conditions for ourselves and our allies quite well. Wash the Pain Away is one of the best healing skills in this game. Rebound isn’t very good, so I’ll give you that.

New Builds: It opened up pvp play that revolved around auras. It opened up viable builds that don’t use arcane (build diversity). You could even play earth-air tempest builds and have enough sustain to be effective (but since the DS nerf I don’t suggest that now). From my limited knowledge, its become a useful part of PvE builds for providing more damage through overloads, as well as strengthening raid healer or tank roles. Not sure about WvW though, so I can’t speak for that (its also kind of a dying game mode).

Why did you need them?—> Well for PvP, needing tempest became apparent after the fire traitline got nerfed, which made D/D ele lack the pressure it needed to be viable, while it couldn’t handle the burst and lockdown from newer threats. Tempest gave elementalist a chance to still be relevant in the bunker meta since its OP combination of healing and damage mitigation from the earth and tempest lines let it survive and bunker points while making condi-revs and chronomancers harder to take down by giving them extra cleanses and healing and protection. Now after the nerfs and removal of celestial, I find that tempest is needed for ele to keep up with the power creep. This is because it synergizes well with fresh air to have lots of damage pressure in an offensive build, or alternatively, tempest still offers a kitten ton of healing that water builds alone could never hope to achieve, which makes the ele still relevant with clerics or menders.

Warhorn: Basically the WH gives you some of the strengths of the CC and long lasting AoE effects you’d get from using a staff, while allowing you to use a dagger or scepter for their individual strengths. If you use it right, the warhorn can increase the versatility of your build, even though focus is generally preferred because staff-like characteristics aren’t valued in pvp. Its not new in of itself, but it gives rise to new combinations.

So basically, I can’t say that the tempest corrected the big glaring weaknesses of elementalist (because they didn’t have any compared to the much more critical weaknesses of other classes), but instead it gave it a chance to remain relevant amongst the power creep of the expansion. It also increased viable build diversity, since you could drop arcana for the first time in pvp, and it gave you a reason to use air or earth.

So yeah, I don’t expect this answer to satisfy you, because nothing ever will, you’re just that type of person. But I think if we think about this issue on a big picture scale, it shows just how bad the overall concepts that govern this game’s design choices are. Its a sinking ship for sure in terms of new ideas, and if you don’t like it, I’d play something else.

Grimreaper.5370:

This class with most weapon sets used to be more about fast decision making before HoT came out. Overloads have ruined the class for me, it would not matter how hard you buffed the current state of overloads, pressing a button just to watch a massive aoe go to town on your enemies for years on end is just not my idea of a good time.

It’s BORING, and it needs to change! While some people may like the idea of the current state of overloads I have a feeling most of my elementalist bretheren think its horse kitten. I find it really hard to believe people wanted the elementalist playstyle go from DDR level button pressing to a game of Roll your forehead across the keyboard until you hit the overload button.

Please speak up and let anet know they’ve made the class waaaaay too boring.

TL;DR. This aint about balance, this is about removing a boring mechanic and replacing it with something fun and interesting.

At first I want to disagree with you, then I got around to reading some of your suggestions.

So I still stick with that tempest is fine. BUT the suggestions you made are definitely cool DIFFERENT play styles that would make for nice, DIFFERENT elite spec.

I will keep this short

IMO tempest allows you to play rotations at the speed of core ele if you want, allowing you to keep up the counter play and other tools you always had accessible. BUT if you find yourself in a spot where your not rushed to hit that next skill, ie the mob is dying away, your not taking the heat of the incoming damage, you can make the decision to OL for that OL bonus, and understand that you probably won’t need to go back into that attunement b4 your allowed to.

You have to admit that pve d/w fresh air is way more fun dps then staff fire. Scrolling through your comments makes me seem this thread was originally aimed at pvp?

~thanks

draxynnic.3719:

One of the big issues with tempest and dragonhunter was in the way ArenaNet responded to people who just didn’t like the idea… and to a certain extent, the two being as powerful as they are is partially due to the people who tried to kill it entirely….

…However, some people in the beta clearly just didn’t like the concepts in general….

…The problem was, some of those people tried to present it not as a theme and playstyle issue but a viability one. “Overloads simply don’t compete with traditional dagger/dagger rotations.” “Traps suck, nobody ever uses them in any form of serious play.” And so ArenaNet’s response was to buff the living feline out of both until nobody could possibly claim that they’re underpowered compared to the base profession… and as anyone who’s paid attention to balance discussions for a while will know, the only point at which nobody claims it’s underpowered is when it’s clearly overpowered….

Wow, after a 9 month hiatus (couldn’t be helped) + a 2 month break in another game (had to do something those 9 months) I’d never thought I’d see the day people are crying about Tempest overshadowing Elementalist…

…actually, I figured something like this would happen because of exactly what you mentioned: people yelled and complained that Tempest offered nothing to core Ele, that it was weak and useless and people clamored to have it revamped. Back in the betas, even though I offered suggestions for alternatives and revamps, it was still in good sport knowing that changes to be made are LIMITED. I think people complained too loudly that Tempest was weak vs complaining Tempest is too plain (the playstyle, that is) and now core Ele has suffered…and yet you still have posters making the same mistake, suggesting revamps that won’t happen and screaming power creep!!.

Your best bet, OP and those that agree with him, is to aim for the future and inspire the next elite spec. To suggest ripping Tempest from the game now is just sacrificing other players’ fun for your own, which many will shoot down on principle alone. I personally like Tempest. It partially encapsulates that Wizard trope of a spell conjurer vs the spell slinger that core Ele evolved into.

MadRabbit.3179:

They could have added a condi focused weapon. Boom. Done. Entire new dimension of gameplay added to the elementalist class.

Fail. That’s not a new dimension. Ele already can do condi. Damage source is hardly a gameplay dimension on its own.

They could have implemented a class that introduced some new type of defense oriented mechanic similar to the new addition of alacrity for chronomancers. It could have been like an energy shield mechanic that had a max amount and recharged at a certain speed when not taking damage. The max amount could scale to your toughness and vitality with more of these attributes equaling less total the shield could absorb. The regen rate could scale to healing power with the regen rate being less for each additional point of healing power. If balanced correctly, it could prevent power creep with the healing bunkers while providing some way to focus on damage and survive.

Not a bad idea but likely a lot of ’if’s. Would likely cause a hit to bunker Ele too (more so than Tempest caused).

They could have implemented the exact opposite of the Arcane spec with Tempest. Instead of boon oriented abilities granted via being in different attunements and swapping into attunements, it could give damage oriented abilities….Instant cast storm triggered on attunement swap.

Just sounds like you want Arcane cake and eat it too. Not that I think your idea is bad, but I’d prefer new specs to use attunements differently vs just falling in line with what you already accomplish. They could probably just unnerf some of Acrane but limit its capabilities more, somewhat enforcing attunement swaps or giving more a pay off for doing them quickly to differentiate it from the specs that pay off staying in an attunement longer.

A lot of elementalists wanted single attunement to be viable. A new elite spec could add a mechanic that after being in an attinement for 5 seconds, it unlocked a new set of attunement abilities….Fire elementalists could be all about damage; water elementalists could be dedicated healers. You could give us 4 trait options per tier in that spec instead of 3; each trait would focus on buffing a single attunement.

Needs a lot of polish. As is, this is a bad idea. This game too strongly rewards disengage so locking yourself in 1 of 4 types of hats still allows access to those 4 hats, you just have to disengage. That’s not balanced. Not to mention that is an extra 10 skills ontop of the original 20.

To say that elementalist doesn’t have any core issues is one that I can’t even take serious.

Um, core Ele DIDN’T have any glaring issues when Tempest was introduced. It could manage everything to a limited degree (except damage, which it overshadowed most at) which was still a lead over the combined capabilities of most others. I guess that has changed NOW but I’d assume we’re talking in the general context of Elementalist over its evolution, whose problem was it could do too much. So now it can’t…or maybe it’s that Tempest just swallowed what was taken from the core spec.

I learned a lot of ele history. Tons of interesting opinions and new concepts! I may not agree with Mad and Grim, but I did like some of their points.

I also forgot how against tempest I was when I first unlocked it to be honest. After playing tempest a pretty long while now I completely agree with Leo that it breaks that wizard trope, which I was very into as a staff ele. And I don’t miss it, I can always go back to it in pve, but figuring out the best place for aoe that’s has the danger of being me and vulnerable was a really fun mechanic to learn. I’m trying to just save it as an op stun break in pvp since it can make an amazing turn around, but I keep end up usually eating it before a sweet spot in a fight.

I like tempest. But there are things i think they are bad now.
Regen + Vigor on auras. I would be happy if this is changed to damage not heal. (replace regen with furry).
Then breath new life into fire traitline:
Burning precision 3s CD, Blinding ashes 6s CD, and increase might and fire aura duration for one with fire to 5 stacks + 50% duration to make this trait have an impact …
This would open fire line again for some builds and would reduce the aura sustain.
Maybe it will hit the cleric bunker but i won´t weep a tear for that and i nearly only paly ele.
Of couse arcane utilities should also be buffed to make traiting them more vialbe.
33% CD reduction on traited arcane not 20% and double the duration of inflicted conditions. Then maybe this will be worth instead of the almighty dodge …

Ah and for less atunements. This is basically against ele, but i would like specialized ele as many other will. also good for new players.
A weapon swap in the first traited elemet instead of 4 atunements (of couse it triggers all on swap including elemental).
I also came up with something i would like. But its all theory.
A trait saying: You can´t swap untraited elements. You gain passive traits of untraited elements. So basically you loose 8 skills + the autos + 2 swaps, but gain 4 passive. I don´t think its OP but it would lower the skill floor. Not all will like this, but as an option no one must use it. It would open new builds and especially without water.

As has been stated, the design of elementalist is such that it doesn’t really have dedicated power or condition weapons. Which you are is defined more by the equipment you have an which attunements you prefer (generally, air is power-oriented, earth is condition-oriented, and fire works for both). Staff is probably more power-oriented while sceptre is more condition-oriented, but I don’t feel that the lack of a weapon that’s as condition-specific as, say, mesmer or necromancer scepter is a massive hole in the profession. (Not saying one couldn’t be added in the future either, just that you can make a condition-oriented elementalist as things currently stand.)

While any profession can benefit from just having more stuff, other professions had glaring gaps to be filled. Mesmers lacked any really viable means of dealing with multiple opponents (jump into a pack of pocket raptors with a vanilla mesmer and you’ll see what I mean) – wells fill that space. Necromancer arguably lacked melee cleave, and reaper obviously fixes that. Engineer had no base melee weapon, meaning that if your kits provided all the ranged options you felt you needed your base weaponset became redundant while having a melee weapon required spending another utility slot on a toolkit or bomb kit – hammer fills that space. Guardian arguably had kitten in lacking a weapon with a projectile velocity suitable for long-range fire, and dragonhunter longbow fills that space.

Thief, a cynic would say they made kitten in core by stripping out the core features of Acrobatics so they could fill it again with a specialisation. Druid kinda fills kitten in that it makes for a dedicated healer, but that wasn’t kitten that existed previously (and now means every other profession has that hole, although in some cases it’s kitten that can be filled by number tweaks to existing skills and mechanics, and if any other profession can match the druid for boosting party sustain, it’s an auramancer tempest).

Elementalist and warrior both feel like cases where there were no fundamental holes that required new skills to be filled (viability is another question, but if something is underpowered the usual fix is to buff it rather than creating a new set of skills to do the same thing better). Thus, their elite specialisations were designed purely as expansions rather than filling a capability that was lacking.

Your ideas are certainly interesting, and if I was in charge of development I’d certainly consider them (and ways to make single-attunement play more viable would already have been on my radar, although a) doubling the skills available for each weapon sounds like a lot of work and b) I’d probably avoid locking the player into an attunement until they break combat, but instead make it 30-60 seconds or so). I do worry that your energy shield proposal to be inversely proportional to defensive stats strikes me as likely to promote builds with glass cannon damage without glass cannon vulnerability. However, I’d say that to me they all feel like expansions rather than ‘here is something that the profession desperately needs’. For instance, the ‘energy shield’ idea: that essentially provides sustain, and elementalists are pretty good at sustain already. Either way, while they’re interesting ideas, they all feel as if they’re expansions like tempest rather than filling a fundamental hole: elementalists already have a decent amount of sustain, for instance. I certainly don’t regard any of them as being objectively better than tempest from a game design perspective.

(Regarding your idea about dropping a storm when you attunement-swap based on how long you were in the attunement: this has a number of potential problems that I can see. Being tied to attunement-swapping is a downside. The ramp-up mechanic would need to be exponential so that it actually does reward saving up for one big storm rather than getting lots of little ones through attunement-dancing. However, it would also need to have a limit, lest it end up rewarding avoiding combat (or at least playing defensively) for a long period before unleashing Armageddon. Now, I’m not saying that it couldn’t work, but I don’t think your ideas, including this one, are objectively better than Tempest – just different.)

EDIT: Thinking further on your ‘energy shield’ proposal:

Such a mechanic is common in wizards in other games in the genre, but other games in the genre often don’t separate elemental magic from more arcane magic in separate classes the way Guild Wars does (mesmers are the arcane-oriented profession, although of course elementalists dabble a bit). When such separation does occur, the energy shields typically go to the more arcane class, while the more elemental class gets more elemental-focused defences (generally, shields of earth, frost, lightning or hardened air). The Diablo 2 Sorceress is arguably an example of a pure elemental class with an energy shield, although the energy shield is flavoured as being electrical in nature.

A lot of these games limit the energy shield by having it powered by mana or the game’s equivalent: Guild Wars 1’s Distortion has this behaviour, for instance. Guild Wars 2, however, doesn’t have this option (apart from thieves and revenants, where it is being used for the latter), so the only way to keep defences in line is through limiting uptime through duration and recharge and/or having them be imperfect defences that reduce damage and/or punish attackers rather than rendering the character immune to other forms of damage as long as the energy shield is up. The flavour of the elementalist, additionally, is such that any such mechanic would likely need to be something that varies in its behaviour according to what attunement the character is in – it’s not simply an ‘energy’ field (that would be a mesmer thing), it’s a field of fire, heat, water, ice, lightning, wind, earth or stone.

Which, in context… basically means that the auras, which the Tempest has claimed as its own, are the energy shield mechanic, along with other active defences such as Armour of Earth, Swirling Winds and Obsidian Flesh.

From your description, it sounds like you’re looking for something more akin to the shields used by the Diablo 3 wizard, which go up under certain circumstances (including simply not being hit for a certain period of time if you take the right passive) and absorb a certain amount of damage before falling. That could work, although I’d be wary about the potential of combining it with the active defences the elementalist already has.

I would like to mix my water and earth chakras to perform wood style.

-ignore me

Mixing two attunements in multple combinations to get a specific overload actually sounds like a marvelous idea. For example, I enter fire then I enter water, I now get an overload based on fire and water combination.