Guild Wars 2

As a main ele, I really had to try out the tempest specialization this week-end. And I must say, it’s actually a really fun traitline to play, but it gives the ele nothing new and has only minor improvements to the elementalist.

The gameplay with the overloads is actually quite nice and requires a lot of good positioning and timing in order to get the full reward out of it. But here comes the first problem. Shouldn’t the overload be superior to the acctual skills of an atunement? Or at least comparable? Most of the overloads actually had problem, competing with even the autoattack…
Fire: Probably better than the staff autoattack, but compared to a meteorshower, it loses in every aspect. It will even have problems to compete with lavatomb or the dagger autoattack. For a pure damage overload this is simply too weak.

Water: The only overload that i actually could start liking (as full zerk). If you’re running without the water traitline, this could be a serious alternative, but most water skills have a rather short casting time, which leaves you in the water attunement locked until you can activate your overload. Another issue is, that running water would actually be a comparable heal just swapping into it ( att swap + healing mist *2[+dodge on arcane] in the 20 sec cd of Overloading).

Air: This overload seemed like its sole purpose was stacking vulnerability. If you combine it with a weapon like dagger, which has an awesom auto attack, this skill is just horrible and the field at the end of the cast feels at least like it does decent damage, but it’s way too short for a 5 second cast time.

Earth: I really like the break bar, even though it doesn’t really help that much, because who would interupt a 5 second skill that does nothing. The damage is just ignorable and having a bit of criple and a tiny immobilize feels so underwhelming. What about immobilizing and then after 5 seconds a stronger version of churning earth with a knock down? Even churning earth is bad because of its huge cast time, making the effect worse and increasing the casttime doesn’t make a skill viable.

Although I almost played warhorn the whole time, I couldn’t get to like it. It lacks the synergy as other ele weapons have.

Fire: The Heat sync skill seem really nice, but it’s a teamplay skill only, but Tempest doesn’t have that much buffs (unless you skill for auramancing, which would need at least 5 traitlines [just kidding], and has already aoe buffs). It also coppies a mesmer skill and doesn’t really fit to an elementalist in my oppinion.
Wildfire feels just like a big firefield with a horrible cool down (even though I like that they added a boon remove option to the elementalist)

Water: I really like the moving water field and it has actually a synergy with Frozen Burst(d3). I cant say much against the water atunement as it is, because it’s actually on a par or better with other elementalist water skills.

Air: Cyclone is just a normal CC, gives swiftness. Compared to other air 4/5s it’s ok.
Lightning orb seems like another vulnerability stacking option, but has not that much else ( the damage is not that great). The moving effect here is more annoying than on other skills, because it makes it near impossible to hit a target efficientely ( the few hits it gets by passing is just not really worth it).

Earth: The Sand Squall effect is actually really nice, although it has the same problems as Heat Sync. The 2 seconds actually are a problem as well. As it is quite op for protection,stability and Quickness, it is totally worthless for every other boon. This could be splitted to give 2 seconds for those buffs and maybe 10 for might/Fury/Regeneration/Aegis/Retaliation/Swiftness and a 5 seconds for Vigor and resistance.
Dust storm is just a horrible version of sandstorm. No duration, ticks every 2 seconds, small aoe, on position cast. But hey here you have more Vulnerability!

Generally the Warhorn offers no blasts, only melee CC, no damage, (almost) no conditions, no auras! Only a water/fire field (which is awesom) and boon manipulation.
There is absolutely no symbiosis between staff and Tempest, and both dagger and focus offer more group support, sustain and damage then warhorn.

Also don’t forget the horrible elite skill.

Avador.8934:

Also don’t forget the horrible elite skill.

Still not done^^ Shouts and traits still coming

As much as I liked to play with a warhorn I really hated the Shouts. Most of them feeled like having an aura on a utility slot, which is really underwhelming because other weapons have Auras on weaponskills!
The elementalist has access to so many powerful healing skills. Each one has is advantages and its problems, but they all are nice. To almost half the healing of skill in order to make it aoe is a harsh debuff. It also scales awfully with healing power. If anyone wants to run a healing build, i’d strongly suggest Arcane briliance for blasting. Its casting time is too high, with no base healing and almost no chance to increase it. Wouldn’t it be a possibility to have such low base healing with a high scaling of healing power?
“Feel the Burn” Yep here comes the fire aura
“Eye of the Storm!” Having a Stunbreak on a 45 second cooldown is just horrible for it just beeing a stunbreak. The superspeed can be traited on airswap if you want to. Aoe stunbreaks are just so specific and if not coordinated are almost always waisted.
“Shock and Aftershock!” Well having an actual immobilize on a utility will be rather nice for a fresh air ele (which will probably not play tempest). The addition of a Magnetic aura is not too bad, although I think that the cooldown of 50 sec is a bit too high
“Flash-Freeze!” ok here comes another aura utility. Giving a skill an aura that aplies the same condition as the skill itself is kinda boring. Either someone is running away from you and you can chill him for a the same time as Freezing Gust (Focus4) or he’s attacking you and you freez him anyways…
“Rebound” In my opinion just not worth of an elite skill (and again more fitting to a mesmer). It is wasted far too easy by the 4 other targets and having the Elite skill on cooldown for 60 seconds just to have another skill recharge 25% faster ( longest cd: Glyph of renewal 165s-> 40 sec) is just a bad joke compared to mimic. What about reducing the cd of all skills during Rebound by 25%? It is an elite skill and ele could need another eliteskill that can actually be used.

Something that’s really strange in my opinion is that most of the Tempest auras are also on allies by default. Does this mean that the water grandmaster will be made baseline? Because everything else would harm the water trait, but I somehow can’t imagin a tempest playing without water.

And now to the traits… oh my.
Minors that actually just give you protection and speed while overloading are really boring and totally worth the name minor. This shouldn’t be spread over 3 traits. What about 1. Unlock, 2. protection+speed and 3rd: Gain + 20% damage/condiduration for 10 seconds after you overloaded an attunement.

Gale song: Always hated autostunbreaks but it’s comparable to others so it’s ok
Latent Stamina: What does this trait have to do with the tempest? Definite water trait!
Unstable Conduit: A nice trait actually, but isn’t auramancing already spread through enough traits?, I don’t think this will find too much play.

Earthen proxy: In my opinion more fitting to earth or arcane line. I can’t find any reason for it beeing in tempest. It even has Earth in its name!
Harmonious Conduit: Totally legit.
Tempesteous Aria: What about adding Shout Cd, most of the shouts have a rather high cd.

Element Bastion: Another Auramancer trait. Totally fine, worth beeing grandmaster, but wait a minute, heal? frostaura? isn’t this a 100% water trait?
Imbued Melodies: Horrible trait.Stunbreaks almost have to be insta cast. To have the reaction time of 2 people + the cast time is too long if it isn’t for a 5 second stun. Does this skill need an internal cooldown? I can’t see it beeing overpowered, as it’s only a stunbreak for others with casttime. You can’t stunbreak others if you’re stuned and shouts only have 600 range.
Lucid Singularity: This trait has to exist, if it’s baseline or not. But is it really worth of a grandmaster?

There are no damage oriented traits. A lot of this traits are really specific and wont find any use in PvE (maybe for 1 boss or so), but damage traits are always an option. What about +7% for each aura on you? +dmg after overloading? +dmg after you hit someone with a shout?
I can’t think of any part in PvE where I would play this Specialization. If I want damage, the current elementalist is already quite spoiled and will play water/air/fire or arcane instead of water. Both arcane (dodge) and water(heal) actually grant more sustain then Tempest.
The only way to play tempest as I see it now, is a no damage aurashare ele with water and earth/air.

Spider.3109:

Fire: Probably better than the staff autoattack, but compared to a meteorshower, it loses in every aspect. It will even have problems to compete with lavatomb or the dagger autoattack. For a pure damage overload this is simply too weak.

Air: This overload seemed like its sole purpose was stacking vulnerability. If you combine it with a weapon like dagger, which has an awesom auto attack, this skill is just horrible and the field at the end of the cast feels at least like it does decent damage, but it’s way too short for a 5 second cast time.

By my calculation (at 2000 power, 0 condi dmg), including overload fire into your fireball+lava font+flameburst spam increases the DPS by 24%. That should be enough to be worth the lack of damage modifiers in the trait line.

The overload air tooltips says it should pulse every 0.25s. Though it only pulsed every 0.5s. Maybe that’s why the damage is on the low side.

The mention of the fire overload is likely why i actually enjoyed playing scepter in pve this weekend. Felt very hit or miss before since septer autos are very underwhelming and skills clunky. With tempest overloads, it gave me something to do while in fire that could only improve dps and more heal options for water, synergized with the defense in earth and gave me a couple of casts during air overload. Still, scepter needs improvements but it was fun to mix overloads and scepter.

I see a lot of builds combo’ing nicely with Arcane/Water, but then there is no damage and you could simply skip this spec. Bad thing is that eles are already awesome for healing, so I expected a more damage-oriented spec…

“Shock and Aftershock!” would be a great option if its cooldown wasn’t so high (50s? really?). Element Bastion’s healing is very low, like, really, it’s embarrassing low. Sand Squall should be a blast finisher, and tempests should gain resistance from some source.

Overall, overloads are very lackluster (Earth is fine IMO), and despite people being afraid of powercreep, tempests just don’t do more damage than a Lava Font ele anyways…