PvP and why support tempest is weak

PvP and why support tempest is weak

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Posted by: Jekkt.6045

Jekkt.6045

with the release of HoT i had 2 classes i was looking forward to testing of which one was support tempest, as the “close range support” it was advertised.

i was excited when i was able to play tempest with minstrel amulet because it was indeed supporty and kind of a backbone in a teamfight, although it was still killable in a 1v2 in a reasonable amount of time. but then arenanet decided to remove minstrel and the true value, or rather the true misery of the build came to light.

out of the 2 remaining full support amulets ele isn’t able to pick any; the amulets being cleric and magi. one leaves you with 13k hp and the other one leaves you with 1980 armor.

the only remaining choice is celestial because it gives you a mix of hp toughness and healingpower; the usual choice for more than a year…

the healing output of a tempest is.. acceptable in a vacuum. in practice it’s bad. with the ridiculous amount of damage around and the flawed design of overloads the amount of healing is simply not enough.

what’s the problems with overloads?
simply put, cast an overload and you will be the center of attention, not able to dodge for 4 seconds with a big animation. there is no reason not to attack you.

you do get protection yes, but that’s not enough. i saw an interesting suggestion, making overloads pulse blind per second. it might be a bit strong so once every 2 seconds could do the job aswell. oh and it would even fit into one of our lackluster minor traits or together with the stability on overload trait which is also a bit weak for a master trait (so is rock solid). fact is, we need something that gives us more protection

another problem is water overload. you outdamage water overload just by autoattacking an ele. it’s not suited to heal you up once you’re low and is more of a suicide button if anything else. what i suggest is to divide the heal equally in those 4 seconds and give water overload a water field at the end, much like how fire overload works.

something else i’d like to see for overloads is that completing each overload gives you some kind of buff for you and your team. earth giving 10% reduced damage, air already gives you an air strike, fire increased power and water increased outgoing healing. overloads need to be powerful after all.

let’s talk about shouts:

flash freeze. the reason why i use this one is because of its cooldown, not because it chills enemies if it actually hits from time to time.

aftershock. yeah i haven’t slotted this one a single time because the cooldown is just lol.

feel the burn. same as flash freeze.

eye of the storm. no aura, long cooldown. yes the effect is nice.. but you take shouts for heals and this shout doesn’t heal. if you really need it, there is a trait that activates it.

rebound. i cry everytime i use this shout. usually i take it as just a random filler aura… when it actually procs you either don’t notice it or the damage you recieve is so high that you die no matter if it heals you for meager 3k or not. what i suggest is: the healing needs to be increased to 5k and when rebound saves you, you get 3s of invul and all your conditions are removed. out of fairness the cooldown could be increased to 90s.

overall shouts are terribly weak. if not for the aura they give combined with the aura heal trait they would be completely useless. shouts need to apply a boon on use and some of them need to have a reduced cooldown.

feel the burn should give 3 stacks of might
flash freeze should give regeneration and just aoe chill, without the delay.
aftershock needs 30s cd and not 45. it should also give you protection.
eye of the storm should give you fury and a shocking aura. the cooldown reduced 30s.

wash the pain away is a nice heal and my favourite tempest skill.

furthermore the aura heal trait needs to heal for more. currently with celestial it is 1058 (tooltip). it should be increased to 1500 which is a fair number imo.

i cannot really talk about warhorn because i simply saw no reason to pick this weapon over focus. i can’t give any feedback here, sorry.

karl, or any dev that reads this: tempest needs help, a lot of help. it’s the 2nd weakest elite spec after berserker and is currently struggling to fulfill its close range support role.

Ex player of PeanutButterJellyTime, Heavenly Annoying and Visceral Gaming.

(edited by Jekkt.6045)

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Posted by: Tomiyou.3790

Tomiyou.3790

karl, or any dev that reads this: tempest needs help, a lot of help. it’s the 2nd weakest elite spec after berserker and is currently struggling to fulfill its close range support role.

Berserker just got buffed in today’s patch, so should we be expecting something similar for Tempest? I don’t think so…

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Posted by: Jekkt.6045

Jekkt.6045

tbh i was pretty disappointed not seeing any tempest buffs today.

Ex player of PeanutButterJellyTime, Heavenly Annoying and Visceral Gaming.

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Posted by: nearlight.3064

nearlight.3064

I think part of the issue is that a well played Druid kinda outclasses aura tempest for support, even though tempest can potentially do more damage if it’s allowed to forecast and the enemy doesn’t have a lot of aoe CC, which is way too common right now. Ventari rev feels like it’s in a similar place of bad frontline support, but at least tempest does it better then Ventari since tempest can actually heal itself and invuln through focus fire while cycling through shouts and overloads whole Ventari is a clunky sitting duck that can’t heal enough.

Necromancer Main
Taking a break from GW2 to play various
Nintendo games..

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Posted by: Supreme.3164

Supreme.3164

-The current base heal GM on aura is fine, any increase would make it broken

-Careful with buffing too much the overload mechanic, before you know it any Jack & Tom will jump on ele, make a tempest and spam overloads on the point, aka :The return of the fire ele – easy build to faceroll with for even the worst players who lack any of the ele class
The sept nerf to fire d/d allowed us to get rid of bad fotm players and I’d like to keep that way

-Shouts can be treated in a loads of way, so many ways that they end up being more useful than cantrip for sustain and pressure…

The OP enjoyed playing minstrel ele, that’s a big red flag for me, I believe your notion of “fun” is too skewed, you are not able to give reasonable suggestions that would “improve” tempest without transforming it into something , a hamster running inside a wheel could play( old d/d with ring of fire spamm )

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Posted by: SchmendrickTheMagician.8247

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247

Yeah it’s a shame that the only amulet that you can really pick, no matter what build you’re trying, is celestial.

Want a dps build? Marauder doesn’t have toughness.
Want a condi build? There’s no Dire stats in pvp or perplexity runes needed for condi ele.
Want a bunker build? Celestial works so much better than Soldier or Sentinel.
Want a support build? As you said, no healing power + thoughness/vitality amulet.

Last of the Red Hot Swamis

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Posted by: Stand The Wall.6987

Stand The Wall.6987

You guys gotta chill out. Berserker was in a bad state, and guess what? It got buffed today. Guess what else? I think its likely that tempest will see some improvements as well.

Team Deathmatch for PvP – Raise the AoE cap for WvW – More unique events for PvE

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Posted by: rotten.9753

rotten.9753

You guys gotta chill out. Berserker was in a bad state, and guess what? It got buffed today. Guess what else? I think its likely that tempest will see some improvements as well.

I admire your optimism.

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Posted by: Wolfric.9380

Wolfric.9380

I expect slight improvements to happen. But it might end up like the last scepter “Buff”.

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Posted by: posthumecaver.6473

posthumecaver.6473

I think only thing that can save Tempest to make Overload effect to drop some area and don’t follow you and you will be free from animation lock, do something else then being a Pinjata to other players.

I am know experimenting a version of D/D Tempest ,which actually play as D/D when I have more then one people on me, just pop the Overload/get Aura/get Heal stop Overload.

I need the RTL because the greatest weakness of Tempest is mobility, with D/D you RTL hell out there, heal to full and return to fight, so such a thing is possible with D/F…

I prefer an Overload that, lets say i drop to node then I am free to do what I want to do.

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Posted by: lucadiro.4519

lucadiro.4519

Yeah it’s a shame that the only amulet that you can really pick, no matter what build you’re trying, is celestial.

Want a dps build? Marauder doesn’t have toughness.
Want a condi build? There’s no Dire stats in pvp or perplexity runes needed for condi ele.
Want a bunker build? Celestial works so much better than Soldier or Sentinel.
Want a support build? As you said, no healing power + thoughness/vitality amulet.

And also Dagger cele do more damage (burning+damage) than a marauder scepter

Parabrezza

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Posted by: Humblekain.5418

Humblekain.5418

I like some of your ideas but honestly I feel that Aftershock is okay as it is, blast finisher and magnetic aura and respectable damage modifiers – makes it worthy of the cooldown.

In conjunction with warhorn, it’s an easy access to ~10s of missle reflects which is wonderful.

… yeah, I know, Warhorn. But the above works and I’m still trying to make Warhorn work on my ele, so the above scenario isn’t uncommon for me in ‘oh bugger’ situations with ranged foes.

Honestly I’d rather they paid attention to the more glaring Tempest problems than Aftershock – that’s my point here.

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Posted by: Wolfric.9380

Wolfric.9380

focus hat 6sec AOE missile defence and 3sec reflect … Its better then WH for missile defence… You get 4s invul too … I currently donĀ“t run aftershock focus wins me ranged fights very often.

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Posted by: Humblekain.5418

Humblekain.5418

Focus is better overall for missile defence if you only consider the weapons themselves, absolutely, however neither Swirling Winds nor Magnetic Wave are auras, and auras have a lot of synergy with Tempest builds which is why I prefer running Warhorn for it at the moment.

Also the Warhorn method of reflecting missiles gives you further protection duration, on top of increasing all current boons’ duration, which is nice. And I much prefer what Warhorn offers in Water compared to what focus gives me in Water – and since I run healing power in my set up, this works well for me. This is straying off the the thread a bit now though.

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Posted by: Wolfric.9380

Wolfric.9380

Yes it diffrent setup. I run S/F with only 100 Healing power from the cele earrings.
Also i run F/E/T. I get protection from auras and earth overload and use feel the burn + flash freeze due to the lower cooldowns traited with tempestous aria. Its not build as healer but the shout support is very noticable.
Weakness + protection + might + aura + heal. I go for damage mitigation and cover condition + more damage not regeneration. I pair with a trapper druid and we rock ;-).

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Posted by: Humblekain.5418

Humblekain.5418

Ah, I’m running D/W with F/A/T traits (heh) myself – though honestly, I may drop fire as it’s a fresh air build and Earth might see more mileage for me. Still testing really.

The fact that I have less than 300 condi damage with the current setup further diminishes the potency of fire really.

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Posted by: Wolfric.9380

Wolfric.9380

Well i see earth as best adition for fresh air tempest. The aura shout realy rock there. you need to survive long enough to kill your target not sustain forever :-). If you want defence/group help with it soldier rune is good. I like doing strange buids this might be a funny fresh air thing.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWn0XC9XiVYCOYC8RglGAzdymZHtDrgOwMUoAEA+gA-TJBHABF8AAA4CA0z+DZXGAA

(edited by Wolfric.9380)

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Posted by: Babylon.8972

Babylon.8972

Celestial tempest is very viable. I guess problem is l2p, in this case.

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Posted by: Jekkt.6045

Jekkt.6045

Celestial tempest is very viable. I guess problem is l2p, in this case.

sorry to disappoint you but it’s not.

Ex player of PeanutButterJellyTime, Heavenly Annoying and Visceral Gaming.

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Posted by: nearlight.3064

nearlight.3064

A lot of people on top teams in NA are running it, but it isn’t a very good 1v1 build and it’s a bit weak to focus fire and chill condi reaper once it’s diamond skin gets taken off.

I wouldn’t say it’s nonviable, but I do firmly believe that something like a Druid/herald combo would probably be more useful support for your team. One supplies better healing than a tempest, while the other pumps out boons better than a tempest with generally more damage.

Necromancer Main
Taking a break from GW2 to play various
Nintendo games..

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Posted by: Sunshine.5014

Sunshine.5014

Celestial tempest is very viable. I guess problem is l2p, in this case.

People experimented it long enough at a high level MMR will understand it’s not viable.

A focus fire/immob can spell the end for Tempest. D/D was a good bruiser because it can deal damage even under pressure. A Tempest under pressure will do no damage. It can only focus on healing/surviving. Basically, focus on a Tempest and it will lose all its momentum.

Gray out the HP for future condition damage
Already quit PvP. Just log in here and there to troll.

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Posted by: Imsyu.5069

Imsyu.5069

What do you guys suggest as a good armor set besides celestial then for general WvW and a mix of some PvE maybe for farming?

I was thinking of Soldiers but now I don’t know as I wanted to try out Celestial but its a 50/50 between the community

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Posted by: Supreme.3164

Supreme.3164

Celestial tempest is very viable. I guess problem is l2p, in this case.

People experimented it long enough at a high level MMR will understand it’s not viable.

A focus fire/immob can spell the end for Tempest. D/D was a good bruiser because it can deal damage even under pressure. A Tempest under pressure will do no damage. It can only focus on healing/surviving. Basically, focus on a Tempest and it will lose all its momentum.

That’s simply not true…nothing of what you say it’s even remotely true

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Posted by: Iohanna.4863

Iohanna.4863

Nothing protects a point better than a Staff Bunker Celestial Auramancer.

Playing one is not very difficult – at the bare minimum, where you are completely unfamiliar with the build, and you are just spamming everything while staying in Earth attunement – you shoud be able to hold the point indefinitely against any single player.

At a higher level you are more than just a Bunker – you provide insane defensive support for your team mates, and point denial with your vast array of AOEs. If the enemy has a troublesome Bunker as well, swap out a utility for Lightning Hammer to kick them off.

It’s just too easy to be a learn2play issue. Naysayers need to learn2build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWn0XC9XiVYCOYCcYilNAzdv+XPsErgUwIY4BEAugA-TJRJwAAeAA02fg7FA4XZAA

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Posted by: Laraley.7695

Laraley.7695

Nothing protects a point better than a Staff Bunker Celestial Auramancer.

Playing one is not very difficult – at the bare minimum, where you are completely unfamiliar with the build, and you are just spamming everything while staying in Earth attunement – you shoud be able to hold the point indefinitely against any single player.

Glad the class is heading this direction.

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Posted by: Iohanna.4863

Iohanna.4863

Nothing protects a point better than a Staff Bunker Celestial Auramancer.

Playing one is not very difficult – at the bare minimum, where you are completely unfamiliar with the build, and you are just spamming everything while staying in Earth attunement – you shoud be able to hold the point indefinitely against any single player.

Glad the class is heading this direction.

The sarcasm is palpable, but it’s about to get even better once the build editor updates.

Runes of the Scrapper give an additional 7% damage reduction to anyone within 600 range. Without Runes of the Soldier, there is no need for a full bar of Shouts, so I can use Ether Renewal, Armor of Earth, and Cleansing Fire.

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Posted by: Laraley.7695

Laraley.7695

Nothing protects a point better than a Staff Bunker Celestial Auramancer.

Playing one is not very difficult – at the bare minimum, where you are completely unfamiliar with the build, and you are just spamming everything while staying in Earth attunement – you shoud be able to hold the point indefinitely against any single player.

Glad the class is heading this direction.

The sarcasm is palpable, but it’s about to get even better once the build editor updates.

Runes of the Scrapper give an additional 7% damage reduction to anyone within 600 range. Without Runes of the Soldier, there is no need for a full bar of Shouts, so I can use Ether Renewal, Armor of Earth, and Cleansing Fire.

Well, good for you. Rest of us can just hope there will ever be an ele meta pvp build that actually requires some skill.

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Posted by: PowerBottom.5796

PowerBottom.5796

I currently run this build (in stronghold mostly with staff though)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAoYn0XCFYi9XCWYCcYiFRAzttOXzrDBgBQCs4F0ATBA-TJxHwACeAA62fAwJAoYZAA

I like the build quite a lot, although it’s not top-tier IMHO, because of a few reasons:

- boon-duration is quite low, so mightstacking and taking full advantage of the AoE protection isn’t THAT powerful.
- The best thing about the shouts is IMHO soldier-rune, other than that, they are a bit weak… just a tiny buff would be enough IMHO, like the suggested might on “Feel the burn”.
- The Elite shout is also pretty lackluster; the heal is way too low and I mostly just use it for AoE shocking aura; I’d buff the heal and lower the CD.
- I really like “Eye of the Storm”, but it’s also a tiny bit too weak and if I wasn’t running soldier-runes, I wouldn’t run it. It should IMHO also remove movement-impairing conditions or sth. of that sort.
- Harmonious Conduit: i don’t like the fact that this skill is pretty much a must have if you want to use your overloads in teamfights; make the 1 stability baseline and give us sth. else.
- I also really don’t like the rez trait “Arcane Ressurrection”: I feel it could work well with the build, if it simply applied the Aura when you start the rez (just add a 20s ICD or sth.) I feel that good rez-traits can make or break a bunker/support.

I like that the DMG is IMHO very good for the amu and runes I’m using, the overloads really help out with that.

Again, I feel the build is decent and just gets overshadowed by various builds that are simply too strong atm.

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Posted by: Jekkt.6045

Jekkt.6045

I like the build quite a lot, although it’s not top-tier IMHO, because of a few reasons:

nothing that ele has is top tier atm, by far not. d/d ele is still “playable” but seriously, why take a d/d ele if you can take a scrapper which is more tanky, has as much cleanse and heal + gets stealth for res and engage/disengage.

as far as dps builds go eles never even had a viable build to begin with; no fresh air was never viable.

Ex player of PeanutButterJellyTime, Heavenly Annoying and Visceral Gaming.

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Posted by: Supreme.3164

Supreme.3164

I like the build quite a lot, although it’s not top-tier IMHO, because of a few reasons:

nothing that ele has is top tier atm, by far not. d/d ele is still “playable” but seriously, why take a d/d ele if you can take a scrapper which is more tanky, has as much cleanse and heal + gets stealth for res and engage/disengage.

as far as dps builds go eles never even had a viable build to begin with; no fresh air was never viable.

Top Tier = means close to broken state in most cases, I’m happy with Tempest like now, it’s perfectly viable. Sure a small buff there and there would be great *(orb lightning more dmg/faster, rebound little more healing) but for the rest is absolutely fine

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Posted by: MadRabbit.3179

MadRabbit.3179

Nothing protects a point better than a Staff Bunker Celestial Auramancer.

Playing one is not very difficult – at the bare minimum, where you are completely unfamiliar with the build, and you are just spamming everything while staying in Earth attunement – you shoud be able to hold the point indefinitely against any single player.

At a higher level you are more than just a Bunker – you provide insane defensive support for your team mates, and point denial with your vast array of AOEs. If the enemy has a troublesome Bunker as well, swap out a utility for Lightning Hammer to kick them off.

It’s just too easy to be a learn2play issue. Naysayers need to learn2build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWn0XC9XiVYCOYCcYilNAzdv+XPsErgUwIY4BEAugA-TJRJwAAeAA02fg7FA4XZAA

Yeah, except I play that build and you are overselling it.

There is some pretty crucial weaknesses to it, particularly to the variant you posted and told everyone to learn2build.

One, you have no stability at all except for overloading on Earth element which means you can only really hold points indefinitely against incompetant players or builds that have no way to decap you. Anyone who can decap you will just constantly knock you off point and slowly take the point from you via attrition. You don’t have the damage to stop them from doing that one on one and you only have one decap in staff which will be negated by anyone with decent stability uptime. If you see a flamethrower engineer contending or holding a point, you might as well just run the kitten away, because you aren’t going to do kitten.

Hell, you don’t even take Rock Solid or Gale Song. You have no stun breakers. You will get thrown around like a rag doll.

Two, you have no reliable condi cleanse to deal with a heavy condi stack. Your condi cleanse is tied directly into your shouts which is also your source of AoE boons. This puts you in an awkward position of having to pop all your shouts at once, blowing all your auras and boons to remove a condi stack. Your only other options are your big water field with a very long cooldown or water overload which isn’t strong enough to keep up with all the damage being thrown around. The sigils procs are unreliable. This setup is great for removing a small amount of conditions that are applied constantly over time, but anyone who can dump an entire condi stack on you is going to force you to make some really hard decisions to get it off.

Any condi heavy composition will bypass stoneheart and totally wreck you with the posted build.

Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.

(edited by MadRabbit.3179)

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Posted by: MadRabbit.3179

MadRabbit.3179

The sarcasm is palpable, but it’s about to get even better once the build editor updates.

Runes of the Scrapper give an additional 7% damage reduction to anyone within 600 range. Without Runes of the Soldier, there is no need for a full bar of Shouts, so I can use Ether Renewal, Armor of Earth, and Cleansing Fire.

0.o

If there is no need to run a full bar of Shouts, then you are no longer an Auramancer, because you have thrown out your main source of auras and with that, your group support.

If you are going to run mostly cantrips, then there really is no reason to run Tempest. You are better off going off Arcane. The overloads themselves aren’t strong enough to take Tempest in and of itself; the only reason it’s viable is the synergy with auras. And if you only run one shout, then you don’t have enough sources of aura to make all the traits you need to invest into buffing auras worth it. Besides your shouts, you only have one aura in Earth attunement and situational procs from traits.

Even the Arcane/Air/Tempest or Arcane/Water/Tempest variants only take tempest for the aura traits to buff their shouts for support, effectively turning elementalist into a support bot who can’t actually contend or counter any other build in the game.

Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.

(edited by MadRabbit.3179)

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Posted by: MadRabbit.3179

MadRabbit.3179

This is the only variant of Iohana’s build that I was able to get to work without just being straight up hard countered by something.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWnMMA9XiVYCeOAcYiFRAzNtGXzrEdgFQFYIAMASgA-TJRJwAAeAA02fg7FA4XZAA

Gale Song, Rock Solid and Lightning Flash as stun breakers or ways to get back on point when decapped. Even then, this isn’t really enough to deal with engineers. Armor of Earth is potentially better than Lightning Flash in a lot of situations. Mistform is also potentially better than both, because of guarenteed stomps and rezs, but also potentially worse, because of point control loss.

Ether Renewal to be able to wipe a heavy condi stack. Rock Solid serves as a way to protect the cast time for Ether Renewal.

You still have two shouts on short cooldowns to provide AoE support from auras. Taking Aftershock over Feel the Burn is debatable, since reflection and CC are more valuable in PvP, but the 45 second cd means you can only generate less than half the protecton, vigor, regen and condi removal that Feel the Burn can.

Rebound over Gylph of Elementals is really debatable.

Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.

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Posted by: Koviko.3248

Koviko.3248

If you are going to run mostly cantrips, then there really is no reason to run Tempest. You are better off going off Arcane. The overloads themselves aren’t strong enough to take Tempest in and of itself; the only reason it’s viable is the synergy with auras.

Your assessment is a bit off.

Overload Air is a very powerful attack if you can get the full cast off and has a large enough radius to cover most points in PvP. Couple those lightning strikes with your own (or a teammate’s) burst and you have essentially killed your target.

This assumes that you are capable of getting the full cast. Stability, controlling the fight, waiting for the opponent to use their CCs, etc. are all ways of almost ensuring you will complete your cast.

Also, the passive stun break from Gale Song makes Tempest very desirable for fighting CC-heavy classes like Dragonhunters.

As for auras, just because you lose some from shouts doesn’t mean you have none. Personally, I’ve found that full shout builds are complete trash outside of teamfights. I opt for at least one cantrip, most of the time. Without cantrips, you will almost certainly die to traps.

I’m not saying that Arcane or Tempest is better, just that shouts aren’t the only reason to go for Tempest.

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Posted by: Jekkt.6045

Jekkt.6045

If you are going to run mostly cantrips, then there really is no reason to run Tempest. You are better off going off Arcane. The overloads themselves aren’t strong enough to take Tempest in and of itself; the only reason it’s viable is the synergy with auras.

Your assessment is a bit off.

Overload Air is a very powerful attack if you can get the full cast off and has a large enough radius to cover most points in PvP. Couple those lightning strikes with your own (or a teammate’s) burst and you have essentially killed your target.

This assumes that you are capable of getting the full cast. Stability, controlling the fight, waiting for the opponent to use their CCs, etc. are all ways of almost ensuring you will complete your cast.

Also, the passive stun break from Gale Song makes Tempest very desirable for fighting CC-heavy classes like Dragonhunters.

As for auras, just because you lose some from shouts doesn’t mean you have none. Personally, I’ve found that full shout builds are complete trash outside of teamfights. I opt for at least one cantrip, most of the time. Without cantrips, you will almost certainly die to traps.

I’m not saying that Arcane or Tempest is better, just that shouts aren’t the only reason to go for Tempest.

cantrips are usually your selfish utility skills, very powerful but only help you while shouts are kind of the sloppy aoe support skills that could use some buffs, like feel the burn or flash freeze – the other could use a cooldown cut.

going full shouts is usually a bit suicidal i’d say.. so when i play shouts i usually pick the heal, feel the burn + flash freeze for short cd heals/cleanse and lightning flash. as elite i pick rebound as a filler shout.. not because it’s good. fgs is still a viable alternative while tornado is not.

air overload is more of an “added pressure” than something that actually spikes people down. often in a teamfight both sides have enough sustain to fight for quite a bit and air overload can be the trigger to make their defense collapse.

if you’re trying to play tempest as a support build then you kinda have to pick earth for your own survival and tempest + water for the aoe heals. if you’re playing more of a selfish build then arcane might be better for some players, not for me though.

Ex player of PeanutButterJellyTime, Heavenly Annoying and Visceral Gaming.

PvP and why support tempest is weak

in Elementalist

Posted by: Iohanna.4863

Iohanna.4863

Nothing protects a point better than a Staff Bunker Celestial Auramancer.

Playing one is not very difficult – at the bare minimum, where you are completely unfamiliar with the build, and you are just spamming everything while staying in Earth attunement – you shoud be able to hold the point indefinitely against any single player.

At a higher level you are more than just a Bunker – you provide insane defensive support for your team mates, and point denial with your vast array of AOEs. If the enemy has a troublesome Bunker as well, swap out a utility for Lightning Hammer to kick them off.

It’s just too easy to be a learn2play issue. Naysayers need to learn2build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWn0XC9XiVYCOYCcYilNAzdv+XPsErgUwIY4BEAugA-TJRJwAAeAA02fg7FA4XZAA

Yeah, except I play that build and you are overselling it.

There is some pretty crucial weaknesses to it, particularly to the variant you posted and told everyone to learn2build.

One, you have no stability at all except for overloading on Earth element which means you can only really hold points indefinitely against incompetant players or builds that have no way to decap you. Anyone who can decap you will just constantly knock you off point and slowly take the point from you via attrition. You don’t have the damage to stop them from doing that one on one and you only have one decap in staff which will be negated by anyone with decent stability uptime. If you see a flamethrower engineer contending or holding a point, you might as well just run the kitten away, because you aren’t going to do kitten.

Hell, you don’t even take Rock Solid or Gale Song. You have no stun breakers. You will get thrown around like a rag doll.

Two, you have no reliable condi cleanse to deal with a heavy condi stack. Your condi cleanse is tied directly into your shouts which is also your source of AoE boons. This puts you in an awkward position of having to pop all your shouts at once, blowing all your auras and boons to remove a condi stack. Your only other options are your big water field with a very long cooldown or water overload which isn’t strong enough to keep up with all the damage being thrown around. The sigils procs are unreliable. This setup is great for removing a small amount of conditions that are applied constantly over time, but anyone who can dump an entire condi stack on you is going to force you to make some really hard decisions to get it off.

Any condi heavy composition will bypass stoneheart and totally wreck you with the posted build.

Many knockbacks in PVP can be reflected by Magnetic Aura. I actually find Engineers to be particularly easy for this reason. Otherwise yes, knockbacks are one of the sole weaknesses of the build – you’d have to save your evades for them. The perma-Vigor gives you plenty of evades, and thankfully knockbacks aren’t all that common, and usually you’re still on the point after a knockback.

Overloads are stun-breakers. Also nothing wrong with blowing all your shouts at once – the cool-downs are pretty fast, and the boons stack. Healing Rain’s cool-down is dramatically reduced by the Water trait. And Overload Water is fine if you have protection boon and you’re kiting your opponent – it’s pretty much like an Ether Renewal with less healing (because it’s AOE). If conditions are still a problem, just take Ether Renewal instead of Wash the Pain Away. The sigil procs are also a nice bonus.

You do enough damage to force pure damage builds (condi and burst) to retreat, or go down – Celestial stats are pretty strong.

Cantrips aren’t worth taking over Shouts because Shouts have incredible burst healing.

PvP and why support tempest is weak

in Elementalist

Posted by: Chasind.3128

Chasind.3128

-The current base heal GM on aura is fine, any increase would make it broken

-Careful with buffing too much the overload mechanic, before you know it any Jack & Tom will jump on ele, make a tempest and spam overloads on the point, aka :The return of the fire ele – easy build to faceroll with for even the worst players who lack any of the ele class
The sept nerf to fire d/d allowed us to get rid of bad fotm players and I’d like to keep that way

-Shouts can be treated in a loads of way, so many ways that they end up being more useful than cantrip for sustain and pressure…

The OP enjoyed playing minstrel ele, that’s a big red flag for me, I believe your notion of “fun” is too skewed, you are not able to give reasonable suggestions that would “improve” tempest without transforming it into something , a hamster running inside a wheel could play( old d/d with ring of fire spamm )

I read this^ entirely in Ron Swanson’s voice from parks & rec

On point though, the D/D nerf was needed- any schmo could hop on an ele & make a d/d build before & most likely win(except against an ele who knew what they were doing & could beat them with any weapon in their sleep). Now, you actually have to try some which is great because it weeds out the bad players. I do like the shouts alot, they are better more than not than cantrips. In my opinion, tempest has transformed the auramancer but has it given ele something new entirely? No. It’s a few great buffs to an old support build.
But I’m sure it can work outside of auramancer.

(edited by Chasind.3128)