Guild Wars 2

Hi guys, I made a poll to measure what people felt tempests are mostly lacking from last BWE+first balance pass (stickied dev post). This isn’t meant to be a rant (though I can’t control people’s posts).

The poll accept multiple answers and asks to skip some options depending on what you choose (so it makes sense). I made it entirely considering the Tempest itself, rather than other Elementalist builds or gameplays.

Feel free to discuss the major points which, in your opinion, need fine-tuning, or simply shouldn’t make it past beta.

Can the poll be tweaked further? To add a number for example before each statement.

Also regarding this: " Overloads mechanics aren’t making meaningful impact to elementalists or too risky (channeling mechanics) to become synergic, i.e., the whole concept is somewhat flawed. (skip 9 and 10) " – the way this is worded doesn’t make sense, because overloads could be made more impactful (via number tweaking) and less risky (via traits) without rendering the concept flawed. Maybe change it to something like “I don’t like the overload concept (for whatever reason)” or something similar?

EDIT: The poll also needs additional statements like “Tempest should’ve been a ranged spec instead of melee/pbaoe”, which we’ve seen some people complain about.

Alphard.6529:

Can the poll be tweaked further? To add numbers for example.

Also: " Overloads mechanics aren’t making meaningful impact to elementalists or too risky (channeling mechanics) to become synergic, i.e., the whole concept is somewhat flawed. (skip 9 and 10) "

The way this is worded doesn’t make sense, because overloads could be made more impactful (via number tweaking) and less risky (via traits) without rendering the concept flawed. Maybe change it to something like “I don’t like the overload concept (for whatever reason)” or something similar?

I’m afraid strawpoll doesn’t let you tweak polls, but on a general note (despite my terrible wording) you can consider that option just like you said. That is how I wanted it to be perceived but threw some pre-made POVs in there (sorry!).

@Edit
Now that I re-read, I worded “or”, so it shouldn’t feel too “locked”.

I think we need the number of parcipicants to make it useful.

Warhorn lacks a water field imo, even if it s a short one or harder to use(like a moving wf?)

@Wolfric, surprisingly folks are taking a little time to participate in the poll (over 320 total votes as I write this). It’s interesting to catch what forum and reddit users expect from the Tempest.

I may start another poll, but focusing on core definition of a SPECIALIZATION (like, specializing instead of keeping jack-of-all-trades feeling), and how that ties into the very inner workings of attunement swapping.

This kind of topic might not work, unless everyone try to put short and simple point like i’ll do:
.

- Defensive trait, to hav emore diversity than just 001101 or 000111 (the first one beeing way less viable than the second)
=> allows you to camp a kittening attunement since this spec want you to do so
.

- Cut in the cost, like wtf triple cost ?
which means, either reduce (can be reduced to 0) charge up time, channeling time, or additionnal affinity cd
=> balance the cost/reward. as said in another topic, current cost invole OSing spell reward

Note: i do not mention te “it’s the same than cele DD” but it still need to be addressed, i just dont have clear idea about it.

Support atm that mostly befits the pt and not the tempest it self. So the ideal is to have fields on overload much like the new war zerk class gets a fire field that moves with them. The thing is tempest cant self finnish these fields only there pt can due to the tempest chaining the overload. I think that would go a long way to making tempest very playable in most formats spvp and wvw maybe pve though it my not work out well there.

seems like the ele subforum knows better what the spec lacks than arenanet. the top5 picks were exactly what i picked. #elesknowbest

To be fair, I shouldn’t have left the “traits are flawed” option, neither “overloads are flawed”, as both are too much generic/hatred-driven. Ignoring these options helps detect more clearly what people are expecting.

This means 24% of voters are driven by hatred. uh…

Valento.9852:

This means 24% of voters are driven by hatred. uh…

No no, you’ve got it wrong, that’s not hatred, that’s passion for the game!

!!

Alphard.6529:

Valento.9852:

This means 24% of voters are driven by hatred. uh…

No no, you’ve got it wrong, that’s not hatred, that’s passion for the game!

!!

Sadly, no. When you love a game you find and let the devs know what exactly is flawed, so they have a bit of qualitative metrics.

Valento.9852:

Alphard.6529:

Valento.9852:

This means 24% of voters are driven by hatred. uh…

No no, you’ve got it wrong, that’s not hatred, that’s passion for the game!

!!

Sadly, no. When you love a game you find and let the devs know what exactly is flawed, so they have a bit of qualitative metrics.

That good and all but your poll is more confusing then good. Your over complicating choose.

Question: what is tempest most lacking?
Lacking support
Lacking dmg
Lacking cc
Lacking survive

Your not going to changes the tempest type of off hand and your not for the most part going to changes how overloads work and that overloads are there F1-F5 skill.

For me i find them lacking support i think they need to have less self support and more pt support. (field ideal in overload but its a complex ideal you cant take a poll on)

• long duration channels at point-blank range is horrible design
• too much support (support on Ele already done to death)
• competes too heavily with D/D, no differentiation
• doesn’t work well with scepter and not at all with staff
• aura spam makes Powerful Aura redundant
• interrupts way too punitive

no way to sugar coat it, the whole design is just horrible. couldn’t have been worse.

poll result speaks for itself.

They should have a trait to make warhorn more damage-oriented. For example:

• Song of Power: Increases power for the party while wielding a warhorn. Warhorn skills have a chance to break stun.
  • Attribute Increase: +150
  • Maximum Targets: 5
  • Chance to Break Stun: 25% (10s ICD)

Overloads GM minor trait should be 2 stacks of stability for 5s (it’s so basic, why would anyone become an interruptible dummy in the first place?).

Tempestuous Aria isn’t that bad, but could use some improvement. Earthen Proxy is ridiculously useless. Lucid Singularity is like WTHF? As much as Harmonious Conduit looks useful, as overloads currently stand it’s just not worth it, and it may never ever be (same for Unstable Conduit).

I would say Tempest is Mainly lacking on the support end and be given traits, and on other thing, that focus more on the support theme, Tempest was supposed, according to the Tempest, mid range support.

Mahuyo.3079:

I would say Tempest is Mainly lacking on the support end and be given traits, and on other thing, that focus more on the support theme, Tempest was supposed, according to the Tempest, mid range support.

Correction: Front-line support; a close-range specialization.
Directly from the article.

I’d say that the biggest problem is the traits, they don’t really allow the temepst to specialize in anything cohesively great.

Reaper is the master of chill, chronomancer is the master of alacrity (and slow and quickness to a lesser extent) while berserker is the master of burn?

What is tempest the master of? Breaking stun for allies? Auras? Protection? I honestly cannot tell, but protection seems like the obvious choice, its too bad that earthen proxy is a wasted opportunity.

In my opinion the traitline for Tempest needs to be redone overall.

Tier Line 1 should power up auras and shouts for a brawler sustain spec and should fold in aura traits from water/fire/earth/air.

Tier Line 2 should power up protection by increasing overall effectiveness and duration, and giving better and more interesting ways to apply it. Tempest should be able to take those traits to the master of protection.

Tier Line 3 should be more offensive and focus on improving overloads. My biggest issues with the current traits is that there are so many traits that make the overloads less kittenty to use by reducing the drawbacks (harmonious conduits, lucid singularity) but none that make the overloads truly more potent by providing more damage or control or even support from the overloads.

Right now the traits within the Tempest line lack synergy and don’t improve the spec at all, they’re merely bandaids for poorly thought mechanics, mechanics that could be good if the traits were drastically redone and reorganized and improved.

I liked the idea I saw in another thread about replacing “Rebound” with a “Signet of Arcana”, passive is quickness procs on crit with an ICD and the active recharging Attunements on cooldown.

The impression I got when looking at the overall abilities of tempest is that it’s trying to be a replacement for arcane and water simultaneously. Shouts with soldier runes brings the condi clear; warhorn water field, wash the pain away and aura heals provide the aoe healing; heat sync, sand squall and boon generating traits give all the boons.

What this seems to have resulted in, however, is a potential third spec instead of earth or fire for a standard water/arcane triple cantrip build, but it’s not worth using for the same reason why earth typically isn’t used: the standard setup already has all the defence and support you could ever want, so why add more or use a convoluted method of replacing it?

Overloads giving the exact same type of benefit as what you could always get using your attunements in the standard manner is also just completely wrong conceptually. No matter how they’re balanced they won’t add anything to the game because it will be easy to solve when they should be used.

I’d love a decent elite skill, something along the lines of this. A moveable storm that uses the same tech as Ventari’s Tablet.

nearlight.3064:

I’d say that the biggest problem is the traits, they don’t really allow the temepst to specialize in anything cohesively great.

Reaper is the master of chill, chronomancer is the master of alacrity (and slow and quickness to a lesser extent) while berserker is the master of burn?

What is tempest the master of? Breaking stun for allies? Auras? Protection? I honestly cannot tell, but protection seems like the obvious choice, its too bad that earthen proxy is a wasted opportunity.

In my opinion the traitline for Tempest needs to be redone overall.

Tier Line 1 should power up auras and shouts for a brawler sustain spec and should fold in aura traits from water/fire/earth/air.

Tier Line 2 should power up protection by increasing overall effectiveness and duration, and giving better and more interesting ways to apply it. Tempest should be able to take those traits to the master of protection.

Tier Line 3 should be more offensive and focus on improving overloads. My biggest issues with the current traits is that there are so many traits that make the overloads less kittenty to use by reducing the drawbacks (harmonious conduits, lucid singularity) but none that make the overloads truly more potent by providing more damage or control or even support from the overloads.

Right now the traits within the Tempest line lack synergy and don’t improve the spec at all, they’re merely bandaids for poorly thought mechanics, mechanics that could be good if the traits were drastically redone and reorganized and improved.

This man has a way with words.

I agree. Except I’d likely roll the concepts of “Master of Protection” trait line and “Brawler/Aura/Shout” line together. Unless you make the protection line truly interesting, of course…like maybe adding effects like a chance to weaken foes that hit you while having protection or retaliation on application of protection and such…I’d say just make the 1st line about Protection/Support/Auras, the 2nd about Shouts/Brawling (could have a stability on shouts to add to the front-line aspect and other damaging effects) and the 3rd spec should be all about Overloads! And just like you said, it should be less about taking the kitten out of them and more about bolstering them up! I mean, Arcana has ‘cast a spell on dodge’, why can’t Tempest have ‘cast a spell when initiating and completing an overload’? Or interrupting an overload casts a spell?

I’m enjoying the Tempest speculation because I just know they’re going to change it and I just hope it’s into something interesting.

A specialization mechanic that the vanilla class mechanic can actually work with, whatever changes that may mean.

And note, I would welcome it if those changes were more to the core class than the tempest.

How the attunement system currently works, enforced swapping for survivability and DPS amp, has always been a terrible system that enforces the zero build diversity we’ve suffered through since launch. Swapping should be a matter of strategy, build choice, and live current in-combat need; not rote-memorized button pressing to maintain the boons and condition cleanse that are the only method for survival and decent DPS against classes with massive defensive and mechanical stat advantages they are not required to do anything to maintain.

Conncept.7638:

A specialization mechanic that the vanilla class mechanic can actually work with, whatever changes that may mean.

And note, I would welcome it if those changes were more to the core class than the tempest.

How the attunement system currently works, enforced swapping for survivability and DPS amp, has always been a terrible system that enforces the zero build diversity we’ve suffered through since launch. Swapping should be a matter of strategy, build choice, and live current in-combat need; not rote-memorized button pressing to maintain the boons and condition cleanse that are the only method for survival and decent DPS against classes with massive defensive and mechanical stat advantages they are not required to do anything to maintain.

agree, but in 3 years, Anet have been unable to really change the Ele meta away from water/arcane/cantrips in WVW/PVP, let alone introduce traits/mechanics that make attunement camping ever worthwhile. so not holding out much hope there.

then of course we have Tempest, which is a straight-up clone of D/D with no differentation whatsoever.

scerevisiae.1972:

Conncept.7638:

A specialization mechanic that the vanilla class mechanic can actually work with, whatever changes that may mean.

And note, I would welcome it if those changes were more to the core class than the tempest.

How the attunement system currently works, enforced swapping for survivability and DPS amp, has always been a terrible system that enforces the zero build diversity we’ve suffered through since launch. Swapping should be a matter of strategy, build choice, and live current in-combat need; not rote-memorized button pressing to maintain the boons and condition cleanse that are the only method for survival and decent DPS against classes with massive defensive and mechanical stat advantages they are not required to do anything to maintain.

agree, but in 3 years, Anet have been unable to really change the Ele meta away from water/arcane/cantrips in WVW/PVP, let alone introduce traits/mechanics that make attunement camping ever worthwhile. so not holding out much hope there.

then of course we have Tempest, which is a straight-up clone of D/D with no differentation whatsoever.

Just had a random-ish idea…

What if they changed overloads so that you can cast them the moment you enter an attunement (no wait time in an attunement) but instead introduced a “charge bar” that would go up over time + as you cast spells in that attunement? Now, the “charge bar” has 2 functions and 1 drawback:

Function #1: It boosts your spells within that attunement in some way [insert whatever idea would be interesting] AND the power of your Overload (so you can cast right when you enter an attunement but it won’t be as strong?)

Function #2: The charge bar reverts to a “break bar” while you cast the Overload. If the foe breaks the breakbar, a different effect occurs [insert whatever idea would be interesting]. So long as CCs don’t occur during the cast, the breakbar will change back to the equivalent amount of charge in the chargebar.

Drawback: Swapping attunements resets the “charge bar” to 0.

In comes the Elite Shout, Rebound. Rebound would have multiple effects: 1.) The skills activated in the next 5sec for you and allies will have their recharge reduced by 33%, 2.) It will instantly recharge all attunements, 3.) If you swap to a different attunement, you retain all of your charge bar. Also might want to decrease the cooldown slightly on this elite as well as make it instant cast.

There. Now you got your camping style with some versatility to swap occasionally without drawback. You bolster your spells within an attunement in exchange for not swapping attunements as much.

Not a bad idea. Makes Rebound a bit more useful; even though 33% still isn’t amazing for an elite, at least it recharges all attunements.

actual changes

“We heard that you guys think Overloads are a bit too strong, so we’re tuning them down a bit. We don’t want the other elite specializations to get jealous

-All Overloads now take 10s to finish casting.
-Casting an Overload now puts your attunement on a 50s Cooldown.
-All Overloads now do 80% less damage/healing while casting and after finishing the cast."

Malchior.5732:

Not a bad idea. Makes Rebound a bit more useful; even though 33% still isn’t amazing for an elite, at least it recharges all attunements.

actual changes

“We heard that you guys think Overloads are a bit too strong, so we’re tuning them down a bit. We don’t want the other elite specializations to get jealous

-All Overloads now take 10s to finish casting.
-Casting an Overload now puts your attunement on a kitten Cooldown.
-All Overloads now do 80% less damage/healing while casting and after finishing the cast."
-You are now forced to cast overload upon being in the attunment for 5 seconds (well make you kittening like it)

nearlight.3064:

I’d say that the biggest problem is the traits, they don’t really allow the temepst to specialize in anything cohesively great.

Reaper is the master of chill, chronomancer is the master of alacrity (and slow and quickness to a lesser extent) while berserker is the master of burn?

What is tempest the master of? Breaking stun for allies? Auras? Protection? I honestly cannot tell, but protection seems like the obvious choice, its too bad that earthen proxy is a wasted opportunity.

In my opinion the traitline for Tempest needs to be redone overall.

Tier Line 1 should power up auras and shouts for a brawler sustain spec and should fold in aura traits from water/fire/earth/air.

Tier Line 2 should power up protection by increasing overall effectiveness and duration, and giving better and more interesting ways to apply it. Tempest should be able to take those traits to the master of protection.

Tier Line 3 should be more offensive and focus on improving overloads. My biggest issues with the current traits is that there are so many traits that make the overloads less kittenty to use by reducing the drawbacks (harmonious conduits, lucid singularity) but none that make the overloads truly more potent by providing more damage or control or even support from the overloads.

Right now the traits within the Tempest line lack synergy and don’t improve the spec at all, they’re merely bandaids for poorly thought mechanics, mechanics that could be good if the traits were drastically redone and reorganized and improved.

I’m not sure if you considered that earthen proxy works only on you. It can’t be considered as support.

Malchior.5732:

Not a bad idea. Makes Rebound a bit more useful; even though 33% still isn’t amazing for an elite, at least it recharges all attunements.

Thanks, I might try to flesh it out as a full idea…

And I think Rebound can be a little ‘unspectacular’ if the cooldown is short enough. Couple it with some runes or a trait for shouts to spice it up and Rebound mind rebound as one of the best elites Ele has currently.

Leo G.4501:

Thanks, I might try to flesh it out as a full idea…

And I think Rebound can be a little ‘unspectacular’ if the cooldown is short enough. Couple it with some runes or a trait for shouts to spice it up and Rebound mind rebound as one of the best elites Ele has currently.

Right now it’s not even a shout.

Thanks for those who took the poll. It has surpassed 1k votes. It displays they should review the mechanics itself before moving on with the elite spec IMO.

Valento.9852:

Thanks for those who took the poll. It has surpassed 1k votes. It displays they should review the mechanics itself before moving on with the elite spec IMO.

That’s a little misleading to say, given that each people can vote on up to 18 things per submission… Not saying that Tempest doesn’t need to be looked at, but the poll hasn’t gotten a thousand individual people voting on it. X) The totals do indicate the biggest trouble areas, though.

Though, admittedly, the people most prone to coming to the forums are the ones with the biggest bone to pick, so negativity is to be expected. End-of-the-world “the sky is falling” kind of stuff will generally reign supreme, so the top results are all the things that are strongly-worded and opposed to numerical tweaks versus an absolute overhaul.

A single offensive trait would be nice… I mean, all the traits are defensive and support.

If Anet really wanted Tempests to have a viable Auramancer build, instead of just nerfing the aura on signet trait, they should have actually removed more of the existing aura traits and put them in the tempest traitline.

For me tempest would be useable as aura/shout added if i can slot shouts instead of cantrips/air signet. Currently i depend on the three utilities so hard that i would get near unplayable if changed for shouts :-(. I would need speed, stunbreak and condi removal at minimum (and i have no viable other option) to swap. Overloads won´t bring a boon or compensate annything so tempest is useless for me. I won´t build a healer now just o utilize tempest.

The overload concept is completely contradictory to the elementalist playstyle and their channeled nature negate their value.

Shouts require having cantrips to be able to actually use them in the middle of a brawl without dying. Hence, this presents a rather large dilemna.

You have to give up a hell of a lot to make an auramancer build, because the aura traits are spread out across three different specializations.

You don´t need all trait lines for using auras. Tempest + air, earth or water make for decent aura usage.
But for most aura builds you need to slot aura shouts, and one is not enough and thus replace your cantrips and there you have one main problem … At least i have serious problems replacing my utilities because each one has such a great impact that unsloting can kill me.

Flawed poll will give flawed results.

nearlight.3064:

I’d say that the biggest problem is the traits, they don’t really allow the temepst to specialize in anything cohesively great.

Reaper is the master of chill, chronomancer is the master of alacrity (and slow and quickness to a lesser extent) while berserker is the master of burn?

What is tempest the master of? Breaking stun for allies? Auras? Protection? I honestly cannot tell, but protection seems like the obvious choice, its too bad that earthen proxy is a wasted opportunity.

In my opinion the traitline for Tempest needs to be redone overall.

Tier Line 1 should power up auras and shouts for a brawler sustain spec and should fold in aura traits from water/fire/earth/air.

Tier Line 2 should power up protection by increasing overall effectiveness and duration, and giving better and more interesting ways to apply it. Tempest should be able to take those traits to the master of protection.

Tier Line 3 should be more offensive and focus on improving overloads. My biggest issues with the current traits is that there are so many traits that make the overloads less kittenty to use by reducing the drawbacks (harmonious conduits, lucid singularity) but none that make the overloads truly more potent by providing more damage or control or even support from the overloads.

Right now the traits within the Tempest line lack synergy and don’t improve the spec at all, they’re merely bandaids for poorly thought mechanics, mechanics that could be good if the traits were drastically redone and reorganized and improved.

nearlight.3064, I have a possible idea to run by your idea. When you made this rundown of how the traits could line up like the other specs, I’ve been pondering more and more about how your idea might fit in. I started thinking of ways to slightly alter/consolidate parts of your idea into mine and started thinking of some unique stuff for the spec and kind of still have more thinking to do but the basis of my alterations would be:

Trait Line #1 = The brawler line, integrating shouts and protection into a sustain/support line. This support would mainly center around yourself, providing you protection on shouts, shorter cooldown on shouts, more effective protection (such as stability on protection, higher % damage reduction or maybe aegis if you take some damage while under protection?).

Trait Line #2 = The aura line, centered around gaining auras, the effectiveness of your auras and additional boons applied by auras. This is a self-less support that is more about improving auras from other lines for you and others. So having traits that provide auras when you swap into an attunement/cast an overload (put a 20sec ICD on it so those that want to use it without overloads can but won’t get more effect than those that do), perhaps gaining certain effects with auras (so fire auras you grant reduce burning damage and damage received from burning foes; frost aura increasing damage you do to chilled foes; etc) or other boons like retaliation upon gaining an aura?

Trait Line #3 = The channeler line, which is all about gaining effects while channeling and punishing foes that interrupt your channeled effects. The idea behind this being the Tempest has skills added to Ele that are channels to give you more general access to channeled effects which you can use to counter CC, mind you these would work for any channeled skill except autos (should be fairly obvious why). But there could also be traits that reward Overloads as well as completing their channel. Still debating how you can do this but I have several ideas.

One thing to take from this is I sort of removed the idea of warhorn traits. I don’t particularly like having that as an aspect to trait for and think those effects (breaking allies out of CC upon casting) should just be baseline. But if that is too drastic a change, incorporating it into the brawler line shouldn’t be too hard.

But the reason I started pondering this is that Chronomancer and now Daredevil have punishing interrupt utility now that really has no counter (besides stability which counters all CC) so why not some niche utility that sort of counters that but can make Overloads more interesting as well as usable in a unique way (among other channeled skills)?

overloads should have long range. and be a general thing no matter what you took.
the trait should just help the cd etc.

like this:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Attunement-and-Traits-Revamp-idea/first#post5440350