Guild Wars 2

The problem with overloads right now is that a competent D/X ele will put out more AOE damage, AOE burning, AOE healing, AOE protection, AOE might, and AOE swiftness going through the default rotations than using ANY of the overloads. In other words, it is almost never worthwhile to use the overloads in their current iteration.

For reference (in case any of the devs don’t play ele much), the “default” D/D celestial rotation is something like this: Fire3, Fire2, Fire5, Fire4, Earth-EA, Earth4, Earth3, Earth2 w/ animation cancel from Earth3-chain, Water3, [insert other water skills if additional healing or frost aura is needed], Air1 until fire is ready again. [For other hardcore ele players: Yes, there are other rotations, and yes you generally want to counter what your opponent is doing rather than repeating the same rotation constantly, but let’s keep it simple for now.]

Using this rotation, you can keep up ~15 might stacks for your team. You’ll get about 3k healing and an AOE condi cleanse every ~12-13s just from healing ripple + water-EA. You’ll also get another ~1.5k from soothing mist + regen. And you’ll keep up about 40% uptime on AOE protection and swiftness for your team. Keep this in mind, because this is what you’re potentially giving up to sit in one attunement for an extra ~5s to perform an “Overload” and then to lock yourself out of that attunement for ~12-20s (depending on traits). Also, keep in mind that when you’re going through your default ele rotations, you are able to dodge to avoid key attacks and can adjust on the fly to use other skills as needed. When you overload, you’re a sitting duck. The reward from doing an overload should also factor in this level of risk.

Now let’s compare the above to what each of the overloads gives you:

- The fire overload, as shown in the dev livestream, is barely enough to take out a heavy golem in a celestial build. In fact, the golem only died at the end because it stands in the residual inferno for the entire duration. That damage is frankly pathetic. However, the fact that this one is a whirl finisher gives it some redeeming potential. You could in theory stack up a ton of burn stacks if you stand right on top of someone in a fire field while channeling this. You could also leech a fair amount of life if you stood in a dark field on top of someone, etc.

- The air overload is a lower-damage version of the fire overload without the whirl effect. For a demonstration of it’s “devastating” damage potential, look at how well it performed in the livestream against Svanir. (Note that a cele build just using the default rotations would have killed Svanir before Karl got through his second overload attempt).

- The water overload heals for less than one water rotation. It potentially cleanses more condis, but you’ll be clearing fewer condis in the long run. It also leaves you vulnerable the whole time you’re channeling it, which means you will probably take even more damage than it heals.

- The earth overload has the longest (5s) channel of them all, but at least it comes with a break bar. The skill seems great on paper, but so far I think it’s only real use will be for kiting/fleeing.

It grants 1s pulsing protection during the channel, but your overall AOE protection uptime will actually be lower, b/c the overload locks you out of your earth attunement. The protection gain from using the skill is also offset by the fact that you won’t be able to dodge, so you’re kind of just a punching bag.

The earth overload also dramatically lowers your damage output since you’re just surfing around on a rock for 5s (which btw looks awesome).

None of these overloads are worth the risk/reward, and oftentimes they’re a net loss over the default rotation you’d be going through.

[Suggestions in next post]

So here are my suggestions for how you could rework the overloads to make them worthwhile:

1) General: The amount of time you have to spend in one attunement to unlock the overload needs to be removed altogether. The whole “charge-up” theme of the temepst is already presented through the long channel times on each of the overloads, you don’t have to slap on a punitive attunement-camping requirement as well. Nothing is more punishing to an ele than requiring them to sit around in one attunement — this is why chill wrecks eles so hard.

Removing the 5s-attunement-camping requirement also opens up the possibility for combos, such as magnetic grasp into fire overload. This creates more room for interesting plays and teamwork.

2) Fire Overload: Reduce the “charge-up” time by 2 seconds, and up the damage so it provides the same cumulative effect over the 2.5s-period as it did over the kitten -period. (I.E.: same might, same burning, same damage). 2.5 seconds is more than enough time for even the slowest player to react.

For reference, churning earth has a 3.25 second cast time. Inferno currently takes longer to cast than churning earth. Sure, you do damage while casting it, but that damage is spread out over those 4.5 seconds and is low relative to what you’d be doing with your usual rotations. (See, for example, the livestream demo vs. heavy golem).

In terms of counterplay potential, any skill above a ~2s cast time already offers the maximum amount of counterplay in the sense that even beginner-level PvPers will be able to interrupt or dodge it. (For example, cone of cold has a 2.25s cast time, and it is impossible to not interrupt that skill).

3) Air Overload: Keep the 4.75s charge-up time, but make it a 900-unit, ranged target AOE with 240 radius. While charging up, lightning bolts gradually increase in intensity in the target area over the first 2s (to alert players that a bigger storm is about to hit). After the first 2s of channel time, the storm is at full power (i.e. full damage). Once it is fully charged, the storm lingers for a few more seconds (like it currently does). Making this skill a ranged attack helps to differentiate it from inferno, and it also opens up the tempest spec to non-frontline builds.

Additionally, in order to make the skill competitive against the default D/X rotations, it needs to either do substantially more damage or provide added utility (such as short dazes, occasional blinds, etc.) Remember, if the ele wasn’t sitting out for 5s to channel this storm, he’d be on the point providing aoe damage, burning, protection, healing, and condi cleansing to his team.

3) Water Overload: Increase the healing on this skill and have it clear more condis (or, to make it more worthwhile, convert condis to boons). That way, the water overload is more of a panic button that offers a burst heal + condi cleanse at the cost of sustained healing (b/c you’ll be subsequently locked out of water).

This skill is in clear need of upgrading because it’s so obviously outperformed by simply hopping in and out of water attunement every ~10-13s or so.

4) Earth Overload: During channeling, it should apply 1s immob (rather than 3s cripple) in a reduced area of effect. That way, you can use this skill to help set up bursts for your teammates (in return of putting yourself in the line of fire). Upon finishing, the skill does a knockdown instead of an immobilize.

The pulsing immobilize is really strong, but remember that you’ll be locking yourself out of earth afterwards (which means locking yourself out of AOE protection, the EA blast finisher, and, if you’re running focus, two extremely powerful skills). Also, keep in mind that during this whole 5-second period, you are doing 0 damage and are offering yourself up to be a non-dodging punching bag. Protection helps some, but an ele can still be bursted with protection up.

Basically, the earth overload needs to provide far more effect during the 5s channel time. Remember: during those whole 5 seconds, you could have been putting out damage, burning, healing, might, and protection on point. Instead, you’re currently just surfing around just pulsing some protection and cripple while you soak up AOE cleave damage.

In sum, the current overloads simply don’t justify their opportunity costs. They’re bad for the same reason tornado is a terrible elite: you’re giving up all the offensive pressure and the support that your regular D/X rotation provides in return for something that isn’t nearly as flexible or productive.

Good insight and suggestions. Allowing overload as soon as you switch into an attunement would go a long way to making overloads (and therefore tempest) actually worth using.

That would open up quite some new combos, and actually make fresh air and tempest have synergy.

I didn’t know where to put this, but here sounds like a fine idea!

I’m watching phantaram’s stream and he said that he thought that tempest would be viable, mainly for the warhorn skills and things like earthen proxy. He said that the warhorn will be really really strong, for various reasons (sand squall especially) He said that the earth overload would be used alot when the tempest gets focused, water overload won’t EVER be used (for obvious reasons) and that the fire/air overloads looks like great downedcleave tools, but will be used sparringly. He did say that the shouts suck compared to cantrips, which we all kinda knew, but still hahaha.

Just posting this here so people know what top players ele players think about the spec and overload. He says he’ll post a highlight of his analysis on twitch so that might be a good thing to watch.

I have a lot of respect for Phantaram, but he also used to maintain that fresh air was incredibly OP. Then I watch him play fresh air in his streams and struggle against the same players he normally destroys when he’s running cele. I think he’s a very optimistic person when it comes to new builds =)

For example, one issue with using air/fire as a cleave is that a lot of teams run guardian for res, who will automatically put up their knockback bubble when they start the res, which will interrupt your overload. Not to mention that you’ll only be able to overload if you were already sitting in fire/air, otherwise by the time you can channel it the guy will already be up. (Or, if he’s not, then that means your team was already providing enough cleave that your contribution wouldn’t have been a gamechanger either way).

And the problem with using earth when being focused is (1) you’ll have to have been in earth for 5s already; and (2) channeling earth overload means you can’t dodge, which means you’ll be eating everything that comes your way.

The warhorn skills and the shouts are entirely different topics. I’m cautiously optimistic about warhorn, and agree that the shouts suck compared to cantrips (CDs are way too long for what they offer).

ResJudicator.7916:

I have a lot of respect for Phantaram, but he also used to maintain that fresh air was incredibly OP. Then I watch him play fresh air in his streams and struggle against the same players he normally destroys when he’s running cele. I think he’s a very optimistic person when it comes to new builds =)

For example, one issue with using air/fire as a cleave is that a lot of teams run guardian for res, who will automatically put up their knockback bubble when they start the res, which will interrupt your overload. Not to mention that you’ll only be able to overload if you were already sitting in fire/air, otherwise by the time you can channel it the guy will already be up. (Or, if he’s not, then that means your team was already providing enough cleave that your contribution wouldn’t have been a gamechanger either way).

And the problem with using earth when being focused is (1) you’ll have to have been in earth for 5s already; and (2) channeling earth overload means you can’t dodge, which means you’ll be eating everything that comes your way.

The warhorn skills and the shouts are entirely different topics. I’m cautiously optimistic about warhorn, and agree that the shouts suck compared to cantrips (CDs are way too long for what they offer).

Fair enough then. I don’t think hes blindly optimistic about fresh air, its just that at the time that fresh air was created, it seemed good since during the dhuumfire era, ele was considered bad as a whole.

Anyway your counterargument seems goodenough, but regardless I’ll still run tempest, since I like the warhorn skills, and thats all that matters for me.

It would be cool if they gave some form of stability through tempest traits, in order to make the overloads overall more viable, since the increased cooldown is enough of a cost. We’ve been talking so much about it, that it’d be shocking for them to ignore that as they tweak things.

nearlight.3064:

It would be cool if they gave some form of stability through tempest traits, in order to make the overloads overall more viable, since the increased cooldown is enough of a cost. We’ve been talking so much about it, that it’d be shocking for them to ignore that as they tweak things.

But it would also be shocking of them to ignore our years long plight of actually getting a good elite skill, and yet they gave us rebound which only makes other elites better, nothing more.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

nearlight.3064:

It would be cool if they gave some form of stability through tempest traits, in order to make the overloads overall more viable, since the increased cooldown is enough of a cost. We’ve been talking so much about it, that it’d be shocking for them to ignore that as they tweak things.

But it would also be shocking of them to ignore our years long plight of actually getting a good elite skill, and yet they gave us rebound which only makes other elites better, nothing more.

Rebound was basically an acknowledgment that our elites are so bad we might as well sacrifice our elite slot to reduce the cooldowns of our teammates’ elites..

I would say actually I was surprised Phanta said he thought warhorn was going to be good and said he thinks it could be possible that it’s OP. The second part is usually inline with what I usually see him say which is something on Ele should be nerfed. So he is endorsing Tempest and Warhorn, but shouts aren’t going to be taken over Cantrips which I agree with at most the Air One will be used. It really is hard to give up Cantrips because they are so good.

I will say I like the overloads, with that out of the way I think there are things that need to be improve.

1 of the first things would be to may a jump out of overload, we’re the effects can be static effect making it better to combo with staff fields. A buff might be nice to the overloads, I think water should give a good burst of healing. I do think these will happen compared it is not finished yet.

I mainly think what needs to be changed is with traits

nearlight.3064:

Just posting this here so people know what top players ele players think about the spec and overload. He says he’ll post a highlight of his analysis on twitch so that might be a good thing to watch.

I happened to be watching at that point as well. His idea seemed to be go into air overload, switch to earth and go into earth overload, when you crit swap back into air and overload because fresh air reset the cd. Depends if the air overload will be worth it

oZii.2864:

I would say actually I was surprised Phanta said he thought warhorn was going to be good and said he thinks it could be possible that it’s OP. The second part is usually inline with what I usually see him say which is something on Ele should be nerfed. So he is endorsing Tempest and Warhorn, but shouts aren’t going to be taken over Cantrips which I agree with at most the Air One will be used. It really is hard to give up Cantrips because they are so good.

The air shout is basically a straight up worse version of Signet of Air.

I see the warhorn is good. Its support.
also the shouts are fine but bound to tempest. I would have tried one or two shouts on my build but specing tempest will cost me about 20% damage and a bit control.
I might try it annyway but when the shouts and overcharge can´t compensate that tempest has nothing :-/. It would work for me when the shouts are on a lower CD. (Adding the -20% to Tempestuous Aria would propably do the job)

i find it interesting how the general consensus seems to be:

a) Tempest doesn’t offer anything new
b) don’t force me to change my old habit of rotating through elements and skills as fast as possible.

those two sentiments seem to be diametrically opposed.

my opinion is that overloads are designed for those us who physically CAN’T rotate through all our elements and skills as fast as a top tier competitive D/D player. i don’t have the coordination to rapidly press so many buttons so quickly without making mistakes. i’m not a robot. overloads give ME something, not just the top tier PVP minority.

overloads lower the skill floor a little bit. elementalist were always harder to play well than warrior, ranger, etc, because the other classes weren’t as complicated. other classes’ rotations are basicaly, “use weapon a for range, use weapon b in melee” while elementalist rotations consist of “wall of text” that get real confusing real fast.

overloads allow ME to to keep up in PvE. since YOU are evade tanking the boss with your “Wall of text” rotation, i can camp a single attunement and overload for more damage than i would be able to with my slow reflexes, and therefore i can contribute more to a fight.

and honestly, i think lowering the skill floor for elementalist is more important than raising the skill ceiling right now… mainly because the top skilled pleyers tend to raise the ceiling on their own all the time anyway…

Wolfric.9380:

I see the warhorn is good. Its support.
also the shouts are fine but bound to tempest. I would have tried one or two shouts on my build but specing tempest will cost me about 20% damage and a bit control.
I might try it annyway but when the shouts and overcharge can´t compensate that tempest has nothing :-/. It would work for me when the shouts are on a lower CD. (Adding the -20% to Tempestuous Aria would propably do the job)

As far as I know only the weapon is tied to the specialization, not the utilities.

I like the statement of forgotten Legend :-). I also thought that and looked at overload that way. But even then overload seems not to do enough. It depends what i can do while overloading. For me when i can´t use my autoatack use utilities and instants from my focus it would just reduce my potential and thats without rotation. Also not being able to dodge is an issue. So if it only hinders rotation fine, if it blocks skill usage it ends garbage because 5s without rotation alone is easily 10k damage + control. If you add rotation double that + add boonspam…..
So when i can ride on the earth rock firing my autoattack covering myself with magnetic wave/obsidian flesh or utilities like arcane shield then its intresting.
When i swap out or earth i usually don´t need to return fast.
What i see at the moment is that when using tempest i will trade damage and control for support and defence. I see enjoyable tempest builds but my build can´t afford loosing damage.

Thinking about the risk vs reward, and I got an idea of a mechanic.

As it seems overload does little damage, it doesn’t look like an overload, and it takes too much time to cast. What if you could “overload” your overload, by spending your endurace? like after you spend 2 sec of casting you spend 1 endurance to increase to overload’s damage drastically. you can stop the channeling here, or spend an additional sec, or two to spend another endurance (only if you have any ofc).
If you spend your endurance to boost your damage to really threatening numbers by spending your endurance as well you really giving up much to gain much. You lose your dodge rolls for a little while which is huge (especially because Arcane GM trait).

This is just a concept just come to my mind.

Forgotten Legend.9281:

i find it interesting how the general consensus seems to be:

a) Tempest doesn’t offer anything new
b) don’t force me to change my old habit of rotating through elements and skills as fast as possible.

those two sentiments seem to be diametrically opposed.

my opinion is that overloads are designed for those us who physically CAN’T rotate through all our elements and skills as fast as a top tier competitive D/D player. i don’t have the coordination to rapidly press so many buttons so quickly without making mistakes. i’m not a robot. overloads give ME something, not just the top tier PVP minority.

overloads lower the skill floor a little bit. elementalist were always harder to play well than warrior, ranger, etc, because the other classes weren’t as complicated. other classes’ rotations are basicaly, “use weapon a for range, use weapon b in melee” while elementalist rotations consist of “wall of text” that get real confusing real fast.

overloads allow ME to to keep up in PvE. since YOU are evade tanking the boss with your “Wall of text” rotation, i can camp a single attunement and overload for more damage than i would be able to with my slow reflexes, and therefore i can contribute more to a fight.

and honestly, i think lowering the skill floor for elementalist is more important than raising the skill ceiling right now… mainly because the top skilled pleyers tend to raise the ceiling on their own all the time anyway…

I hear what you’re saying Forgotten, and it makes sense.

But I think you might be overlooking one important thing: none of my proposed suggestions would make Tempest any less viable for you. We can raise the skill ceiling on Overload without also raising the skill floor. By balancing Overload so that it is worth using for someone who plays ele to its full potential, the skill would become even more powerful for your personal playstyle. In other words, my changes would help you contribute more to the fight. And, more importantly for the game, it would mean that eles who use Overload in PvP aren’t automatically contributing less to the fight than the current meta ele build.

I’d also like to point out that you already have a very high-damage rotation available in PvE that requires only a few keypresses: camp staff and pretty much just alternate between Fire1 and Fire2 (with Fire5 for larger targets), while using arcane blast/wave off cooldown (optional). Here’s a guide on it that was put together by one of the top PvE guilds (or so I hear, I don’t really follow PvE): https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-DPS-Elementalist-for-PvE/first#post3436719. The skill floor can’t get much lower than this.

And again, my suggested changes to Overload would easily streamline into the above rotation: just replace some of the Fire1 auto attacks with the overload, and try to use Overload on a lava font for the burning whirl finisher.

APOLOGIES
after rereading my above post, i feel i sounded as though i was being rather harsh against the OP, and that wasn’t my intention. i was merely frustrated at the irony of what i perceive as the general consensus, and i was afraid that his thread would fall into that same trap. i am pleasantly surprised at the better conversation here than in the plethora of other threads which were eventually combined into the mega feedback thread.

if you’d like to get a better feel of where i’m coming from as well, i offer this link to my revised first impression of the Tempest: (please click the link to read the quoted post. it was too long to be contained within this post as well)

Forgotten Legend.9281:

stuff

i feel like i should define how i use a few words as well, just to avoid confusion:
“charge up” = the waiting period after entering an attunement before the overload is available to use.
“channel”= the time immediately after activating the overload. during the channel, an effect pulses, dealing damage or healing. once the channel is complete, the final effects of the skill are cast.

COMMENTS ON SOME OP SUGGESTIONS

if i understand your post correctly… you’re basically saying that the numbers need to tweaked, and by tweaked we mean buffed for more damage and more healing, possible even larger radius (radii), and i agree with that basic notion.

i’m totally fine with the functionality of the skills as presented in the video. but i also agree that the numbers need to be tweaked / buffed.

i’m actually fine with the 5 second requirement before being able to use the overload. it presents a choice to make: follow your wall of text speedy rotation, or overload. i agree that with the extra cooldown caused by the overload, that the damage numbers need to be buffed in order to compensate.

if you camp fire attunement (in a staff PvE build), you get to use fire overload every 20 seconds, with basically a 5 second channel. that sounds very much like meteor shower when traited for fire cooldowns. as a result, each and every single overload needs to be at least as powerful as meteor shower to be considered “worth it”.

if you leave fire attunement after casting the overload, you’ve essentially put the overload on a 25+ second cooldown. (20 seconds attunement cooldown plus 5 second charge-up time AFTER swapping back into fire attunement, and then the almost 5 second channel,) That’s the main reason why each and every overload spell needs to be better than meteor shower with their effectiveness.

however, if the charge-up time is lowered, and / or the attunement cooldown (when overloaded) is lowered, then the overloads can’t be as powerful as we want them to be, because then they’d merely be “just another skill to use in a rotation” instead of “a situational skill with a big payoff for good positioning and awareness”

<continued in next post>

MORE COMMENTS ON SKILL FLOOR / CEILING

i agree that fire staff is the lowest skill floor, and basically d/d cele ele is the highest skill ceiling. unfortunately, it seems to me that elementalist players fall into one or the other category, and there’s practically no middle ground.

i actually see the overloads providing a means to move players from the skill floor into the middle ground, because it will encourage fire staff elementalists to switch attunements by allowing more damage tools in other attunements. it also makes D/D builds more forgiving, as it gives additional tools to fall back on when making mistakes while you try to learn the perfect “wall of text” rotations.

as long as ANET is serious about overloads rewarding awareness and good positioning (as a player, i interpret that as “giving a big payoff for choosing to use the overload instead of continuing a standard skill rotation”), then the overloads should end up more powerful than the iteration we saw in the livestream.

without overloads, the staff ele doesn’t want to use anything besides fire because there’s no damage in the other attunements. WITH overloads, i can swap to air for a little bit of control and mobility, and then overload for damage. water overload provides me with more support now, and earth overload provides me with a second immobilize (to be fair, with the breakbar, protection, and immobilize on earth overload, i think the damage numbers can be lower than the other attunements)

I also like how the overloads offer point blank AOE skills to use when someone (ie NPC mobs) get close. and better yet, it’s not based on facing the target. this is needed because staff ele’s always complain about how weak they are in melee (especially when melee fighters run through them, ending up behind, thereby canceling the skill cast due to the “must face enemy” skill casting requirement). and low skilled players won’t even try D/D ele for that same reason.(also because ele’s are so weak against cleaves) the overload finally allows an ele to have a chance at combating that style of enemy.

and, since 3 of the four overloads also offer combo fields or finishers, they offer more tools for higher skilled players to take advantage of as well, just like your example of fire overload inside the lava font fire field. any time i see combo fields or finishers being added in skills, i think of that tagline for that old game: “easy to learn, hard to master.” “combo” skills always offer a means of raising your own skill level, through good awareness and positioning, and i really think / hope these will help raise the skill level of the average elementalist

SUMMARY
i think the charge-up and cooldowns are fine, but in order to compensate, the damage / healing / boons NEED to be very powerful. essentially better than meteor shower to be considered “worth it” I also think that the overloads will offer a much needed way to raise the skill level of the average elementalist without punishing players so severely for a single mistake.

The problem is an ele can kill his target (mostly non bunker) just by camping and using his autoatack for 5s. If its fireball its AE too … For fireball this are 6 hits and i will have either 100% crit or 70% with furry … The funy thing i can even kill with my earth auto from scepter if he doesn´t cleanse condies i put on him in 5s when using my condition build. (of couse hes not dead after 5s it will need more time but the potential is deadly).
Of course the target does not evade or push an invul button.
This means the overcharges practically need to oneshot and this will cause major upset and i guess not happen.

Forgotten Legend.9281:

~snip~

SUMMARY
i think the charge-up and cooldowns are fine, but in order to compensate, the damage / healing / boons NEED to be very powerful. essentially better than meteor shower to be considered “worth it” I also think that the overloads will offer a much needed way to raise the skill level of the average elementalist without punishing players so severely for a single mistake.

Just wanted to comment that I pretty much agree with this notion. I like the idea of having overloads being a sacrifice for a large payoff and I don’t really want to cheapen this dynamic too much (I can agree stuff needs to be tweeked in some way).

My hope is that, beyond just tweeking the numbers, the traits can be altered in a way to allow a Tempest to use Overloads as other utility in other scenarios or if you’ve aimed to build for such. For instance, I think the Grandmaster traits should be huge hinges on how you use your overloads on your Tempest. This thought came to me as I read others’ suggestions about how the minor traits make seem to make the overloads usable to some players. The GMs need to be that in some way.

1st grandmaster trait could be something that helps pull off the overload more easily, like providing stability to lessen the threat of interrupt.

2nd could be utility usable while overloading.

3rd could just be some unique fashion to pulling off overloads or to help you out when interrupted while overloading.

These are just examples but for the whole idea, it hinges on making the overloads more worthwhile to cast for the risk you take to cast them. Kinda a rough idea of what I’m talking about in this post: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Making-Overload-worth-casting/5325563

On the topic of traits, I wanted to bring up a great point someone else made about how the tempest’s Master and Grandmaster Minors just affect the overload mechanic — they don’t do anything for the rest of the class: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Thoughts-on-the-Tempest-minor-traits

This is pretty lazy design, because they basically just separated out parts of the Overload mechanic and put them into minor traits that you’re forced to take if you want to use the mechanic. Specifically, the Tempest’s Master Minor gives Swiftness when overloading, and the GM Minor gives Protection when overloading. In other words, no matter what, you will always be getting swiftness and protection on an overload. So you might as well make it part of the skill’s core functionality, and then add in minor traits that actually affect the class as a whole. For example, some traits to increase in-combat mobility (which would flow well w/ the tempest theme) — like “Gain superspeed for 1s when you successfully evade an attack.”

For example, the Reaper’s Master Minor applies chill on fear, which affects all of the necro’s sources of fears and thus can be utilized by the class as a whole. The Reaper’s GM Minor makes chilled foes deal less damage and increases the length of chills, which again affects the class as a whole. To be sure, these traits definitely synergize with the Reaper, but they do more than merely alter the Reaper’s core functionality.

To put things in perspective, imagine if the Necro Reaper’s Master Minor just made your Shroud1 skill cleave, and the Necro Reaper’s GM Minor slightly increased the radius of your new Shroud2 skill. That’s basically how the Tempest’s current minors work.

ResJudicator.7916:

On the topic of traits, I wanted to bring up a great point someone else made about how the tempest’s Master and Grandmaster Minors just affect the overload mechanic — they don’t do anything for the rest of the class: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Thoughts-on-the-Tempest-minor-traits

This is pretty lazy design, because they basically just separated out parts of the Overload mechanic and put them into minor traits that you’re forced to take if you want to use the mechanic. Specifically, the Tempest’s Master Minor gives Swiftness when overloading, and the GM Minor gives Protection when overloading. In other words, no matter what, you will always be getting swiftness and protection on an overload. So you might as well make it part of the skill’s core functionality, and then add in minor traits that actually affect the class as a whole. For example, some traits to increase in-combat mobility (which would flow well w/ the tempest theme) — like “Gain superspeed for 1s when you successfully evade an attack.”

For example, the Reaper’s Master Minor applies chill on fear, which affects all of the necro’s sources of fears and thus can be utilized by the class as a whole. The Reaper’s GM Minor makes chilled foes deal less damage and increases the length of chills, which again affects the class as a whole. To be sure, these traits definitely synergize with the Reaper, but they do more than merely alter the Reaper’s core functionality.

To put things in perspective, imagine if the Necro Reaper’s Master Minor just made your Shroud1 skill cleave, and the Necro Reaper’s GM Minor slightly increased the radius of your new Shroud2 skill. That’s basically how the Tempest’s current minors work.

So if you add to much to overload you may make tempest way to powerful. As things stand the only reason not to run as a tempest over the ele is losing a dmg line in a build. For the most part tempest line can replaces a def line for ele say earth or water. Unlike necro reaper’s the necro loses effects and ability by running that line where in ele’s tempest you only get an added effect of being able to overload.

So as things stand overloads are at worst a def tools to get you out of movement effects and an added protection / swiftness generator for the ele class. Also if done in earth its a soft stab that you did not have before.

Jski.6180:

So if you add to much to overload you may make tempest way to powerful. As things stand the only reason not to run as a tempest over the ele is losing a dmg line in a build. For the most part tempest line can replaces a def line for ele say earth or water. Unlike necro reaper’s the necro loses effects and ability by running that line where in ele’s tempest you only get an added effect of being able to overload.

So as things stand overloads are at worst a def tools to get you out of movement effects and an added protection / swiftness generator for the ele class. Also if done in earth its a soft stab that you did not have before.

If you were addressing my point about the minor traits, the point would be to have them add to other aspects of ele, rather than overload.

The opportunity cost of running tempest is losing one of the other ele lines. And the opportunity cost for using Overload is locking yourself out of the attunement for 15-20 seconds. It’s not just a free added effect.

If you were running fire/water/arcana, you might be able to justify tempest over fire, but it doesn’t look like a favorable trade right now for the reasons I’ve discussed in my first post. Which is why Tempest needs to offer more.

I definitely don’t see tempest replacing water, because it doesn’t offer effective healing or condi cleanse. Shout recharges are too slow for trooper rune synergy (you’d cleanse just about as many condis per 30s with one untraited cleansing fire). The 5s charging period for Overloads also hampers their defensive utility.

And yes, the earth overload offers another source of stab, but you won’t be able to do anything while the stab is up besides surf around. And it’s not a stunbreak and requires that you sit in earth for 5s ahead of time (in which case you haven’t been doing any damage).

Again, you can’t look at Overloads in a vacuum, you have to look at them in terms of opportunity cost: what are you giving up to spec into the Tempest tree? What are you giving up to spend time charging up an Overload, channeling the Overload, and then being locked out of the attunement?

I would prefer the wait time before you can use an overload remain and the increased attunement cooldown after use be removed. It’s much more reasonable to balance overloads against the cost of increasing your cycle time by ~3.5s than completely breaking your cycle for 10s.

ResJudicator.7916:

On the topic of traits, I wanted to bring up a great point someone else made about how the tempest’s Master and Grandmaster Minors just affect the overload mechanic — they don’t do anything for the rest of the class: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Thoughts-on-the-Tempest-minor-traits

This is pretty lazy design, because they basically just separated out parts of the Overload mechanic and put them into minor traits that you’re forced to take if you want to use the mechanic. Specifically, the Tempest’s Master Minor gives Swiftness when overloading, and the GM Minor gives Protection when overloading. In other words, no matter what, you will always be getting swiftness and protection on an overload. So you might as well make it part of the skill’s core functionality, and then add in minor traits that actually affect the class as a whole. For example, some traits to increase in-combat mobility (which would flow well w/ the tempest theme) — like “Gain superspeed for 1s when you successfully evade an attack.”

Personally, I see the problem with traits like that but then I also see the potential. It sucks when the functionality of the skills are minced and then added to traits, particularly if those minced pieces are minor or limited use, sort of like the whole protection/superspeed minor traits. They’re nice and they help placement and surviving but in the grande scheme of things, they likely won’t help you most of the times pull off the overload and even if they do, the overload is still the same.

The potential that I see is, if you have traits that give new or alternate functionality to use your skills with, you can hinge your build around them. I’d find that fun if it were a part of Tempest traits.

ResJudicator.7916:

For example, the Reaper’s Master Minor applies chill on fear, which affects all of the necro’s sources of fears and thus can be utilized by the class as a whole. The Reaper’s GM Minor makes chilled foes deal less damage and increases the length of chills, which again affects the class as a whole. To be sure, these traits definitely synergize with the Reaper, but they do more than merely alter the Reaper’s core functionality.

To put things in perspective, imagine if the Necro Reaper’s Master Minor just made your Shroud1 skill cleave, and the Necro Reaper’s GM Minor slightly increased the radius of your new Shroud2 skill. That’s basically how the Tempest’s current minors work.

Well, to counter the point of getting the overload effects for free, you kind of do. Related to your example, Necros don’t get Reaper cloak ontop of their Lich form, Reaper replaces Lich. Overloads don’t replace attunements though. You’re basically getting the option of Overloading for free. Ele doesn’t give anything up for Overload so I don’t think the analogy works.

I’d still prefer bigger traits that make using Overloads different or more utility to Overloads. Like what if you had 3 GM options that let you either 1) Altered Auras to give stability so you can use them as options to protect yourself during Overloads [or just general protection]; 2) Use Warhorn skills while Overloading; or 3) Gave your Overloads control options to support with CC overloads instead of damage overloads?

Or what other type of traits could alter Overloads that wouldn’t just make them cheap spammable skills you add into a rotation?

i’d like to repeat a suggestion for minor traits.

Forgotten Legend.9281:

honestly, there’s enough aura traits as it is, having one in every single trait specialization. i’d rather see some damage multipliers and stability. or maybe something like

master minor trait: gain swiftness while channeling overloads. swiftness has a 20% chance to evade any incoming damage
GM minor trait: gain protection while channeling overloads. gain retaliation when you gain protection

or

master minor: gain swiftness, protection, and stability whenever you channel a skill
GM minor: whenever you complete a channel, blast the area for an additional 2-4k damage. OR pulse additional 500 AoE damage every second while you channel a skill.

these ideas were based on the notion that they should be useful to more than JUST the overload skills.

the first set of traits grants extra buffs to general boons, in addition to granting those boons while overloading. both swiftness and protection are available to all pre-tempest eles, so the traits would a buff overall.

the second idea set gives the bonuses to ALL channels, not just the overload channels.. meteor shower, scepter air 1, churning earth, would all benefit from the traits, possibly allowing some channels to finally be worth using in PvP. i know meteor shower is often cancelled early in a PvP environment. adding the extra pulses during the channel would allow churning earth to be able to be useful as well.

for example start the churning earth channel, get in 1 or 2 pulses before the enemy dodges, cancel, cast something else, and that channel wasn’t totally wasted because a) you received swiftness, protection, and stability, and b) your enemy took a little damage.

Leo G.4501:

Well, to counter the point of getting the overload effects for free, you kind of do. Related to your example, Necros don’t get Reaper cloak ontop of their Lich form, Reaper replaces Lich. Overloads don’t replace attunements though. You’re basically getting the option of Overloading for free. Ele doesn’t give anything up for Overload so I don’t think the analogy works.

I’d still prefer bigger traits that make using Overloads different or more utility to Overloads. Like what if you had 3 GM options that let you either 1) Altered Auras to give stability so you can use them as options to protect yourself during Overloads [or just general protection]; 2) Use Warhorn skills while Overloading; or 3) Gave your Overloads control options to support with CC overloads instead of damage overloads?

Or what other type of traits could alter Overloads that wouldn’t just make them cheap spammable skills you add into a rotation?

But you agree that going Tempest has opportunity costs. To take Tempest and have access to Overload, you have to give up other things. Obviously the ele and necro class mechanics are completely different, so the opportunity costs are going to be different and therefore no analogy will be perfect.

The point is that the core functionality of Overload is just being split up into minor traits that you’re forced to take anyway. We’d be in the exact same position we’re currently in if A.net had just said, “Let’s make Overload apply swiftness and protection whenever it’s used, and let’s not give Tempest any minor traits.”

ResJudicator.7916:

Leo G.4501:

Well, to counter the point of getting the overload effects for free, you kind of do. Related to your example, Necros don’t get Reaper cloak ontop of their Lich form, Reaper replaces Lich. Overloads don’t replace attunements though. You’re basically getting the option of Overloading for free. Ele doesn’t give anything up for Overload so I don’t think the analogy works.

I’d still prefer bigger traits that make using Overloads different or more utility to Overloads. Like what if you had 3 GM options that let you either 1) Altered Auras to give stability so you can use them as options to protect yourself during Overloads [or just general protection]; 2) Use Warhorn skills while Overloading; or 3) Gave your Overloads control options to support with CC overloads instead of damage overloads?

Or what other type of traits could alter Overloads that wouldn’t just make them cheap spammable skills you add into a rotation?

But you agree that going Tempest has opportunity costs. To take Tempest and have access to Overload, you have to give up other things. Obviously the ele and necro class mechanics are completely different, so the opportunity costs are going to be different and therefore no analogy will be perfect.

The point is that the core functionality of Overload is just being split up into minor traits that you’re forced to take anyway. We’d be in the exact same position we’re currently in if A.net had just said, “Let’s make Overload apply swiftness and protection whenever it’s used, and let’s not give Tempest any minor traits.”

Beyond a line for more dmg you lose nothing running tempest (unless you lose a skill set that we do not know of yet). The abitly to use overload is better then not being able to use it (unless your talking about the player being there worst opponent where its the player who going to mess them self up). Think on these lines you cant use skills if your dead so the risk rewarded can be brought down on that level if you use a skill that save you or to have a skill to save you is worth using and running even if it cuts out an effect you have for a time.

ResJudicator.7916:

Leo G.4501:

Well, to counter the point of getting the overload effects for free, you kind of do. Related to your example, Necros don’t get Reaper cloak ontop of their Lich form, Reaper replaces Lich. Overloads don’t replace attunements though. You’re basically getting the option of Overloading for free. Ele doesn’t give anything up for Overload so I don’t think the analogy works.

I’d still prefer bigger traits that make using Overloads different or more utility to Overloads. Like what if you had 3 GM options that let you either 1) Altered Auras to give stability so you can use them as options to protect yourself during Overloads [or just general protection]; 2) Use Warhorn skills while Overloading; or 3) Gave your Overloads control options to support with CC overloads instead of damage overloads?

Or what other type of traits could alter Overloads that wouldn’t just make them cheap spammable skills you add into a rotation?

But you agree that going Tempest has opportunity costs. To take Tempest and have access to Overload, you have to give up other things.

It depends on exactly what context you’re talking about with opportunity costs. Opportunity cost where you’re satisfied with your current elementalist? Yeah, Ele would end up suffering an opportunity cost to utilize. Opportunity cost where you’re bored with current elementalist? No, not really; Tempest does introduce various new elements, the new weapon seems decent for support and added CC, the utilities could prove to be decent offensive skills to stack with conjures, more auras for support and then you have the option to overload.

I can see that yeah, current Tempest needs some work but what the opportunity costs are for it will differ from player to player and further from mode to mode.

ResJudicator.7916:

The point is that the core functionality of Overload is just being split up into minor traits that you’re forced to take anyway. We’d be in the exact same position we’re currently in if A.net had just said, “Let’s make Overload apply swiftness and protection whenever it’s used, and let’s not give Tempest any minor traits.”

That’s true. Kind of think they could just combine the traits and make some cool impactful traits for overload. Of course, I’m likely wrong but I feel the whole superspeed and protection while overloading is just too bland and some of the GM traits lack flavor.

Also, now that most of the mantra mesmer bandwagoners have either left the class or respecced to PU, I feel like tempest overlaods will be a bit safer, since the fear of interruption will be at least a little bit more manageable.

nearlight.3064:

Also, now that most of the mantra mesmer bandwagoners have either left the class or respecced to PU, I feel like tempest overlaods will be a bit safer, since the fear of interruption will be at least a little bit more manageable.

You’ll still have D/P thieves w/ headshot on a low CD and steal (which goes through stab). You have the meta warrior GS/Hammer build with plenty of CC. Cele sig necros with two fears, WH daze, and the RNG corruption fear if you pop stability. Engies have point blank shot and TK5 (they also have moa, but they’d probably save that to counter rampage or help a big cleave fight). These are pretty much all the classes I see in PvP besides mesmer, and even the PU mesmers run MoD.

Just give us old mist form back, and then tempest will be viable!!!!

And also every ele build will be horrifically overpowered.

For those who can’t remember, you used to be able to continue casting skills while in mist form if you started them first (like ether renewal + mist form was basically uncounterable). So old mist form would have given a free tempest channel.

I like the idea of overloads, but the execution is not there. Even if these abilities did 100k damage at the end of their channel, getting the channel off will be nearly impossible unless one is playing against blind opponents. I have two ideas to change overloads.

My first idea is to keep the system the same, but give a trait that gives you stability over a few seconds. You can even balance it out against the break bar in earth by giving different stacks for each attunement. This would probably work best as a minor trait (maybe replace the swiftness trait or merge with the protection trait).

My second idea involves a bit of rework, which would require time of course. Remove the channel of overloads. Make them abilities that you click and they are activated on your person and give you their current effects; however, have overloading put every other attunement on it’s cooldown for how many ever seconds.

With this in place, you can manipulate numbers and effects to achieve balance.
————

Overload your fire abilities, placing your other attunements on cooldown for A seconds, to unleash a vortex for (A-B) seconds around you that deals C damage, D burning stacks and E might stacks to allies. After (A-B) seconds, leave the vortex at your area for F seconds. While the vortex persists, fire attacks deal additional burning damage.

Overload your air abilities, placing your other attunements on cooldown for A seconds, to summon a storm for (A-B) seconds around you that deals C damage and D vulnerability stacks. After (A-B) seconds, leave the storm at your location for E seconds. When you hit a target that has been recently struck by the storm, gain super speed for F second(s).

Overload your water abilities, placing your other attunements on cooldown for A seconds, to heal and cleanse allies every B second(s) for (A-C) seconds. After (A-C) seconds, heal allies for D. While the effect persists, water abilities heal allies with regen on them for E.

Overload your earth abilities, placing your other attunements on cooldowns for A seconds, to damage nearby enemies for B and applying cripple for C and protection to allies for D for (A-E) seconds. After (A-E) seconds, immobilize all nearby enemies. Damaging crippled targets while overloaded applies F bleed stacks for G seconds.

Of course this is all rough, but my initial thoughts of overloads went along this line. Regardless of what Anet chooses to do, they really do need to look into the trait lines. The trait that gives vigor on switching to water attunement feels out of place.