Guild Wars 2

Xillllix.3485:

I see tons of issues with Tempest, but I think they are all the result of one questionably bad decision: trying to make the elementalist a melee class.

Why not make a new buff that gives you 1500 range for a short period of time? A trait that extend your staff range by 300 for 5 seconds after an overload. Or something remotely refreshing.

Feels like all of this has been designed only for PvE.

Some others are saying it’s like it was only designed for PvP. Everyone sees this elite spec completely differently it seems.

For PvP: Poor sinergy with scepter, which means it’s paired with dagger. Main hand dagger means it needs fire (or mayyyybe air attunement) for additional damage, as water+arcana are still mandatory. Warhorn does not offer more damage/CC/healing/defense than dagger offhand or focus to compensate not taking water+arcana or fire/air. Which leaves tempest specialization out of the question.

Shouts will not be replacing cantrips and their incredible water specialization sinergy.

Fire, Air and Water overload are interrupt bait. No godly awareness and positioning is going to save you from 1200 range instant cast mantra of distraction, from stealth.

Tempest needs a trait that gives 1 stack of stability for Fire, Air and Water overloads to even be considered casted in structured PvP.

Warhorn desperately needs a mobility skill and a blast finisher to even be compared to offhand dagger (or even focus). Wildfire 40 sec CD for a fire field? Hehe, no.

With that said, this spec just seems it was just not made for sPvP. This is all speculation on my part, take it for what it is.

EDIT: AoE stun breaks on 10s ICD could be a thing, but that’s it.

sorry but tempest seems to be solely made for pvp.. it still lacks fine tuning but has the necessary potential.

what people also dont seem to get is that tempest is a cc/support specialisation and not a dps one.

i’m very curious to see how aura sharing will interact with AoE aura application skills. will it stack duration on allies? does that mean that the dagger auras are now just as boring as the fire aura on focus, for becoming way more commonplace while having a weapon skill that doesn’t add anything?

Manimarco Devil.1790:

Fade.1743:

Except that no other reveal elite specs add more of the same. Dragonhunter adds range and offensive support to the Guardian profession who were a bit lacking on it and can compete with Virtues in PvE. Reaper adds both the Greatsword and Reaper shroud which will add the ability to cleave and limited mobility and control of fights. I’d comment on Chronos but I’m a crappy Mesmer…so I won’t insult them by trying.

So, this is unique to Elementalist so far as the community can’t see what new things the elite spec adds and that the majority of us see this as a complete detriment to use. There are currently no benefits to bringing Tempest to a group. At least from the discussion.

Are you serious? Mesmer still have to choose between shield and staff/gs/sword+torch which are all very good weapon sets. They will get another shatter but they also sacrifice a trait line and all associated benefits just like EVERY elite spec will force people to do. Guardian gets longbow and give up what? If you take out scepter focus well great you got long range and the sacrifice the active blocks and condi removal from focus as well as the GUARANTEED immob on scepter. Reaper is still up in the air as it does not even look all that amazing. The point is everything has trade offs these elite specs are not supposed to be power creep or even pure buffs, they simply offer a new play style. Tempest gives very strong AoE boon share, AoE damage while still being able to run dagger or scepter which are more solo oriented weapons.

Thos are the problems with the weapons. You don’t HAVE to equip the weapon for the elite spec to use it. You can still run GS+Mace/Torch on Guardian.

The problem with Tempest is that it DOESN"T offer anything new. We can already do all that stuff (in PvE) on an Ele with those weapons. We actually LOSE more to run Tempest than to stick to Arcane in terms of support. And we can’t give up Air and Fire because Air is NEEDED to use Lightning Whip on dagger because for SOME reason Anet didn’t use this perfect opportunity to fix the auto-attacks of the dagger so in between abilities, we need to weave LW. And fire is needed because it’s just that good.

Just moving my longer in-depth post if this is going to be “the thread” post video.

PvP/WvW(solo/small group roam)

I need to look at the skills again I missed Air the livestream seemed to start all over the place.

Some general impressions
The damage on overloads was decent even if it is still a channel it’s still doing something like damage while it’s channeling. I see a lot of good dodge baiter skills in air and fire. I really didn’t see any skill I would want to eat and ignore like say flame wall.
Fire 4 is meh I’d use it as filler I see the group utility it provides though, but it should be a blast finisher too.

Fire 5 removes a boon the description says 1 so my guess is 1 per pulse? Which is pretty good. With a 2 second base burn is also pretty good.

Shouts vs Cantrips will come down to if the GM trait Imbued Melodies trait also applies to self(they didn’t specify in the stream) and you can break stun with warhorn skills on a 10 second ICD if it does then I can possibly see the following…

Arcane Shield, Mist, Form, or Armor of Earth because blocks, stability, or invulns are hard to pass up on the utility bar so it’s good to have at least 1 oh crap button.
Lightning flash will still be needed from what I see for me personally for positioning, so that leaves one shout.

You could do double Call of the storm if you take the adept trait Gale Song which gives you the shout Call of the Storm when stunned so running the trait and the utility would be extra insurance.

Shock and Aftershock shout gives you Magnetic Aura for 4sec, a 6 sec base cripple, and 2 second based immoblize, blast finisher, and travels 360 degress from 0-600 range rather quickly and is a blast finisher. Going by the tooltip pic from Dulfy the damage was (2x)888, but I’m not sure what Amulet Karl or buffs had on when he casted it so I’ll have to look at the video again.

I would take shock and aftershock and run the Gale Song trait to start testing with lighting flash and Armor of earth. I would still run Signet Heal though and FGS.
I’d swap tho probably 1 more shout if I am small group coordinated roaming in WvW and just have lightning flash on my bar.

Theorycrafting trait setup – I have no idea…
no water? means no condi removal, you could try to warrior/guardian it with soldier runes, but I don’t see that with offensive shouts. They will give you a nice accumulation of vitality and toughness allowing you to run more zerk/cav/knights/celestial or whatever you mix for damage, but you have to have a stab so armor of earth. I can’t see going full 3 slot shouts in any scenario right now.

Maybe you could get by without Arcana and Tempest all the warhorn skills give you the same boons you get from elemental attunement, but more is usually better when it comes to boons, but maybe Arcana isn’t needed, but blast fields are only coming from overloads or 2 shouts and I think people will want to blast Warhorn Water 5 repeatedly.

I’ll have to play with the traits and see if I feel I’m missing something that D/D has survivability/damage wise that I can compensate with through gear. To me I can’t really compare it to x/D it’s more in competition with x/F and it looks much better than x/F and offers something different than running x/D. x/D as it stands now is still good in it’s own way they don’t really compare.

Strangely and somewhat ironically, I think the only place in PvE that tempest might have potential in is with glass staff. It all really depends on how powerful fire overload is in terms of damage. It will have to beat out the loss of 10% damage at >90% hp from water or bountiful power from arcane. If it beats out fireball (which it most likely will) an ele can put down lava font and use fire overload every 15 seconds. It will also combo fire whirl adding a nominal amount of burning damage and triggering the minor trait burning rage. Additionally staff has traditionally had the problem of having poor damage when locked out of fire attunement when the ele is forced into another attunement to heal or use a utility skill. If the air overload damage is good, an ele can use air overload to dps while fire attunement comes off cooldown.

Additionally, while the PS warrior has really pushed other might giving methods out of the meta by being the most superior method by far with no setup required, the fire overload tornado does give ~8-10 stacks of permamight if you trait overload cooldown reduction. This provides some additional offensive support as a staff ele to parties without a PS warrior.

I think a standard rotation for staff ele for large bosses might be: earth 2 -> air attune -> glyph of storms ->fire attune – >lava font – >icebow 5 – > icebow 4 -> lava font – > fire overload – > lava font – > meteor shower – > standard rotation until overload and meteor shower come off cooldown, rinse & repeat. If forced out of fire use air overload after you are finished using the skills you planned to use when you switched out of fire.

Fade.1743:

Thos are the problems with the weapons. You don’t HAVE to equip the weapon for the elite spec to use it. You can still run GS+Mace/Torch on Guardian.

The problem with Tempest is that it DOESN"T offer anything new. We can already do all that stuff (in PvE) on an Ele with those weapons. We actually LOSE more to run Tempest than to stick to Arcane in terms of support. And we can’t give up Air and Fire because Air is NEEDED to use Lightning Whip on dagger because for SOME reason Anet didn’t use this perfect opportunity to fix the auto-attacks of the dagger so in between abilities, we need to weave LW. And fire is needed because it’s just that good.

Just so I understand, you think that none of the tempest traits offer anything new despite the fact you do get overcharge, might on shouts, multiple aoe stun breaks, increased defense from protection etc. but other classes get much more? Dragonhunter mainly deals with longbow knock back and virtues, in fact 1 of the traits in each tier are only really usable if you take all three ( longbow knocks back, knock back applies cripple, increased damage to crippled foes). And you don’t NEED any trait line, trait lines are detemined by what is optimal and guess what every other profession also “NEEDS” certain traits to be optimal that’s just how things are. Guards “NEED” virtues because of the stability and condi removal, they “NEED” valor for the defensive and heal traits, they “NEED” radiance for the one handed damage crit chance, they “NEED” zeal for the greatsword cdr trait, they “NEED” honor for the shout cdr trait.

“need” is also something that applies to the current ele (in pvp) and it’s really hard to drop one out of arcane water earth and pick tempest over it. tempest has good ideas, if they get polished a bit so that you can really make a fair trade between the current traits and the new ones then it will be fine. same has to be said for warhorn, needs polishing.

in the coming beta weekends i will play tempest and write a review about it, a very detailed one.

now is not the time because it’s neither completed nor was i able to get the feel of actually playing it.

Manimarco Devil.1790:

Just so I understand, you think that none of the tempest traits offer anything new despite the fact you do get overcharge, might on shouts, multiple aoe stun breaks, increased defense from protection etc. but other classes get much more? Dragonhunter mainly deals with longbow knock back and virtues, in fact 1 of the traits in each tier are only really usable if you take all three ( longbow knocks back, knock back applies cripple, increased damage to crippled foes). And you don’t NEED any trait line, trait lines are detemined by what is optimal and guess what every other profession also “NEEDS” certain traits to be optimal that’s just how things are. Guards “NEED” virtues because of the stability and condi removal, they “NEED” valor for the defensive and heal traits, they “NEED” radiance for the one handed damage crit chance, they “NEED” zeal for the greatsword cdr trait, they “NEED” honor for the shout cdr trait.

Overcharge does nothing new. Yes, it’s cool and COULD offer an alternative on its own. HOWEVER, it has the same problem Elementalists currently have with their damage being stationary (as to get the full effect of an overload you’d need to make sure the boss stands in the AoE).

The except for the Elite, the shouts are not going to see use in PvE for the most part. Arcane Brilliance is a blast finisher and a pretty strong heal. Arcane Blast is still going to be mandatory. Personally, I prefer to run Arcane Shield and Signet of fire, but the only possible useful utility shout is the AE stunbreak. And you wouldn’t use it enough to capitalize with might on shout. Hell, that trait shares a slot with reduced Overload. So…yeah, not going to every happen (as does the extra reduction on protection).

I’m not talking about OPTIMAL builds, I’m talking about viable builds. Tempest could be viable IFF they look into adding some PvE element to the Adept and GM traits. For instance: making Latent Stamina work on any overload would be much more useful than attuning ONLY to water. OR making Elemental Bastion increase damage by 10% when under the effects of an Aura. Something to add to gameplay.

Not every fight needs stability or condi clear. And Guardians can get that from other utilities (and do). Virtues is taken more for Unscathed Contender than the other traits. And Dragonhunter adds a bit more along with the traps which will probably be very good for damage based builds. It’s another choice whereas tempest in its current form adds no new choices. Just more of the same.

Way way way waaaaay to AoE oriented for my taste. The shouts were hilarious “Shock and aftershock!!!!” and there were some awesome looking effects however I was really hoping for something else. The overloads were a dissapointment, I’d much rather they’d have added a fifth attunement Arcane. That would’ve been so much cooler. And I was really rooting for a hammer up until the announcement. The hammer would have been totally freaking kitten, with some thor-kitten going on in lightning attunement. kitten I wish they did hammer.

I think all of this also reveal a very basic thing. Limiting classes to only 3 trait lines will hurt the game and build variety in the long run as new trait lines are added.

At the moment we have 9 choices, which are like 6 points over 3 lines in the older system…. I wished we could do something like:

Fire: 3
Water: 6
Arcane: 5
Tempest: 4

It would be basically the same amount of points, but we would have so much more variety.

g e o.2589:

So what do you guys think?? Personally I like it very much, it opens up lots of opportunities for WvW frontline support (while eles are backline atm). I think Dust Storm is too similar to Sandstorm though, but w/e.

Why do you want to be frontline? If I want to play frontline I play guard or warrior. Eles are a mage class. Never mind the fact that as others have said in practical terms this still won’t be able to be played frontline. The spec does absolutely nothing to fill the holes in the class.

Fade.1743:

Overcharge does nothing new. Yes, it’s cool and COULD offer an alternative on its own. HOWEVER, it has the same problem Elementalists currently have with their damage being stationary (as to get the full effect of an overload you’d need to make sure the boss stands in the AoE).

The except for the Elite, the shouts are not going to see use in PvE for the most part. Arcane Brilliance is a blast finisher and a pretty strong heal. Arcane Blast is still going to be mandatory. Personally, I prefer to run Arcane Shield and Signet of fire, but the only possible useful utility shout is the AE stunbreak. And you wouldn’t use it enough to capitalize with might on shout. Hell, that trait shares a slot with reduced Overload. So…yeah, not going to every happen (as does the extra reduction on protection).

I’m not talking about OPTIMAL builds, I’m talking about viable builds. Tempest could be viable IFF they look into adding some PvE element to the Adept and GM traits. For instance: making Latent Stamina work on any overload would be much more useful than attuning ONLY to water. OR making Elemental Bastion increase damage by 10% when under the effects of an Aura. Something to add to gameplay.

I think you are changing the entire topic now. The initial claim I made was that every elite spec has issues and trade offs that they need to deal with and now you are just making this solely about tempest. Tempest may need buffs but the point is its not as though the other elite specs are just straight up buffs. Saying DH adds more damage via traps does not make any sense because that decision is not made in a vacuum. You LOSE something else by using traps. Ele already has access to every “type” of skill outside of stealth. You guys can stun, invun, do AoE damage, condi damage, cleave, apply every boon in the game and more so I do not understand what you expected when you say its just more of the same.

Fade.1743:

Not every fight needs stability or condi clear. And Guardians can get that from other utilities (and do). Virtues is taken more for Unscathed Contender than the other traits. And Dragonhunter adds a bit more along with the traps which will probably be very good for damage based builds. It’s another choice whereas tempest in its current form adds no new choices. Just more of the same.

By this logic, not every fight needs AoE damage either so I guess we should ignore necros who are asking for cleave. Wells should be good enough right? Eles can do most of the things in the game already so unless you expected stealth or an entirely new mechanic like alacrity then you were only going to get “more of the same.” Even then I already said Tempest’s AoE boon share and damage gives more solo oriented weapons like dagger and scepter teamfight presence. so technically you did get a new choice.

Traps have not shown themselves to be good on rangers but I am trying to keep an open mind about them we shall see what happens. No guardian in their right mind takes virtues for unscathed contender. Either you were misinformed or meant to say absolute resolution/indomitable courage.

Gorani.7205:

>>That shout burning ALL the golems at once looked impressive, but I have the impression the limitation to five foes was not in place.
>> I am thinking the looping of the videos gave us the false impression of the power of warhorn skills and shouts, because you could not see the long cool downs. Actually play testing with long cool downs might change the “wow factor”.
>> the attunement cooldown working with the Arcana line to limit it to 14 seconds is neat
>> the Tempest looks like it can give some great support to a very coordinated group (party), but might suffer in PUGs or open world PvE., because allies might not actually appreciate the group support at all (old Gw1 Mesmer flaws over years) or “demand Rebounds” (on Icebow #4 e.g.)
>> for solo play in PvE and single roaming in WvW, the “core profession” with D/D or S/x still looks better without a final tweaking on numbers.
>> I just hope the “shouting” player character might not get too annoying with the sound files.

The limit was in place. It looked like this because each concecutive “ring” of the shout hits seperatly, and the targets are like always randomly chosen. If 8 enemies stand in a Necro well it also looks like all of them are getting hit. Should also apply to fire storm and the like.

Big wall of text ahead, but these are all my thoughts post reveal.
So like I was assuming there is really no place in game where the tempest is better than what the ele already runs. I will admit it’s currently a bunch of really neat looking stuff, but nothing that will ever get used unlike reaper or chronomancer. The one place it might be better is tanky dagger spvp builds. D/wh running w/ar/temp is definitely something I could see, with some tweaks. If some trait combinations and additions that I’m going to spitball happen I could even see a place for it in pve, and the return of a plausible ele pvp damage spec.
First and foremost break bars need to be added to every attunement, not just earth. Without that protection you are a sitting duck for basically any player with a brain, hell Karl fighting an npc showed how weak the overloads are right now to interruption. With that change, and some number tweaks on the heals and damage, I think the spec would have a good shot at being useful in spvp, maybe wvw.
For pve damage mods are a must. No damage mods and there is zero chance anyone will ever seriously use this spec. Someone earlier mentioned a 10% mod while under the effects of an aura, I’d love to see that added to Unstable conduit. I’d also like to see a 20% while wielding warhorn trait. Stick that in the master line, while combining Tempestuous Aria and Gale Song as one adept level trait. Tempestuous Song could lose the might stacks to keep it balanced. But with these two traits F/A builds would see a potential return in pve and pvp, without the risk of just adding more power to staff builds.
I will always dislike the look of warhorn, but I will admit it has some pretty solid skills. Earth, water, and air skills are all solid imo, just need some tuning. Water 5 could use a CD reduction and Lightning Orb could use some more damage for example. But the fire skills are the worst fire kit ele has, worse than focus. I can’t ever see a reason for fire 4, it’s just a blast finisher i can’t use for anything but might and 90% of ele boons are AoEs already. I’d really just like to see that skill redesigned entirely. The fire field is iffy – if its boons removed on every plus it’s alright, could use still use a 10 second CD reduction imo. If it is not boon removal on pulse, it definitely needs at least a 10 sec reduction, with increased damage and 2-3 burn stacks per pulse.
Tl;dr: Tempest is useless right now, but has good potential. Add break bars to all the attunements, add damage mods to the trait line, rework fire war horn skills, and general number tweaking and it could be what devs and players both want to see from it.

thetwothousand.5049:

But the fire skills are the worst fire kit ele has, worse than focus. I can’t ever see a reason for fire 4, it’s just a blast finisher i can’t use for anything but might and 90% of ele boons are AoEs already.

Add break bars to all the attunements,

Fire 4 is better than Signet of Inspiration and doesn’t take a utility slot. If Elementalist give AoE boons already, with Heat Sync you can double the duration of those boons.

What break bar means? Stun break?

has anyone been able to find the related Point of Interest episode?

Lightsbane.9012:

has anyone been able to find the related Point of Interest episode?

dulfy has it up on her youtube page

The class, or at least the presentation, definitely could’ve been neater. It would be nice to see why certain decisions were made, and the different focuses were for the class. We were told it was a supportive class and that it was a melee brawler type class. I’m going to go over my thoughts on the new tools we have and how they all fit.

- Fire

Weapon skills are very cool. Offering a unique boonshare mechanic is a great idea, and fits the class perfectly. Huge fire field is also nice, and adds boon removal, which is something ele had little access to. These abilities together offer the following support options – tons of might, boon control, and area control. Great abilities here, probably the most solid weapon skills on warhorn.

Fire overload is nothing especially new or flashy, but it does what the class is meant to do. You have support in yet more might stacking and a whirl combo. The melee brawler aspect is there if you factor in traits, as it’s melee, applies protection and swiftness. In most cases this skill will be the hardest to pull off to its full potential. No defensive utility beyond protection will be a huge kick me sign. The tornado at the end is a cool idea, but will have little use in many aspects of the game (The aspects where anything moves). Aside from all that, numbers are low for support and brawler, in that you could do more damage and gain more might stacks by playing normally than by risking a long channel and being locked out of your attunement. Those are numbers issues though, so we’ll see how those pan out. All in all, probably my least favorite overload.

Feel the burn is good; lowish CD, support through fire aura, and something for condition and power builds. Auras in general can support a brawler fairly well through traits, but I don’t feel that those trait lines add enough to beat out water/arcane. So not much going for the brawler playstyle defensively with this ability.

- Water

Water weapon skills have a lot of potential. Healing is a huge part of both playstyles, keeping others alive is a great way to support them, and keeping yourself alive is a great way to be a brawler. Having a knockback also helps with both aspects. I like that they put regen on tidal surge specifically so that it could be traited to cleanse a condition. My only gripe is that these skills need lower CD. They seem like they are the most important skills for warhorn, and right now 35 and 50 seconds is way too long to wait between casts. After all, water is the heaviest support line, and this specialization is heavy on support.

Water overload is one of the better overloads. It doesn’t really have to compete with other abilities for healing, as you can pop your two (High CD) abilities and use this in an emergency. The channel time is only 2 and a half seconds, and a 20 second CD, untraited. In the video one of the builds they were using was actually healing a fair bit as well, and it removes conditions. In PvP, I can see this being used to heal up quickly after disengaging, to save an ally, etc. And in PvE, well it’ll heal people. Which I know isn’t super important right now, but we’ll see with the new content I suppose. So yeah, like all overloads this paints a target on your head, but it does support well, and if used properly I can see you using it as a brawler to some extent.

Flash freeze is a fairly boring skill, but fits both playstyles well, as chill is a very strong condition and always useful. Aura is strong defensively even without traits.

- Air

Air is a bit of a mixed bag for me. Cyclone is a pretty cool skill, offering displacement and swiftness. I can see it helping to land hard to hit skills, maybe even scepter. and group swiftness is always good. Lightning orb I’m not sold on, as it doesn’t seem to fit the class. It does seem to offer good damage, which is of course important. But it offers no support and has little to do with melee brawler (Being ranged and offering no defensive utility). It does fit with airs single target motif. Both skills have fairly short CD’s however, and I can see them being used often.

Overload air is another lackluster overload, being very similar to fire. Damage around you, then when finished damage in an area. I won’t go into this one too much as it is so similar. But perhaps for a small change, it could fire out stronger bolts at random nearby targets, as the lightning orb does, so it would be different; it would be stronger against single targets.

Eye of the storm seems very strong. A surefire favorite for most eles. Not much to say here, obviously very strong, but not overpowered.

- Earth

Earth weapon skills are a mixed bag. It could be because we’re spoiled by the other offhands, but they seem to offer very little. Mechanically, sand squall is very interesting, and the only skill of its kind. However a 2 second extension for a skill with a half second cast time seems sort of ridiculous. Even with expert timing and communication, I can’t see this skill making a huge difference. 4 seconds of protection is nice I guess, but not enough if you ask me. This skill is going to be a tricky one to balance. Dust storm, however, is growing on me. Blind is a good condition for both support and brawler. I can’t see this being used in a lot of PvP situations – possibly in chokepoints or large scale WvW fights – but it’s something you throw out and hope it hits. I feel the skill should be more reliable, either targeted or surrounds the caster. As it is now it’s stationary, slow and possibly random from what we’ve seen, and none of those is a good thing. So to recap, earth has some good ideas but I feel they’re a bit lackluster.

Earth overload is one of the better overloads, as it offers some unique functions. It could be used in a lot of situations. I don’t know that the blast finisher is necessary though, maybe move it to another skill? You won’t be able to combo your own stuff at least, with a ~ 5 second channel time. Other than that not much to say here, I don’t think it needs any change.

Aftershock seems like a good skill. I understand why it has the highest CD, AoE magnetic aura is huge. Maybe too huge. I think it should be changed to just apply to self, and CD reduced. That way it would benefit from Aura sharing. But control and defense are both here.

- Other

Wash the pain away seems good for support, but yet another channeling skill seems like a bit much. Definitely not for a melee brawler type. Rebound is in a similar boat, group support is where it’s really gonna shine. And there’s not much else to put in your elite skill anyway.

- Traits

I feel like this is where the tempest has the most room to shine. There should be three distinct themes here, like in the other specializations. Right now it’s basically two out of three traits are support focused, and the rest are all over the place. Auras, shouts, and overloading should be focuses, not oddballs like Latent Stamina, Earthen Proxy, and Imbued Melodies. We need some damage, and more defense. Ideally, some stability.

From a pvp perspective:

Overloads: These will RARELY be used. They are all melee only, meaning you have to be VERY tanky to survive through a 4 to 5 s channel. Has a DOUBLE PENALTY of having to sit in an attunement to unlock (5s), then having to go through an ungodly long channel (5s). These REALLY need to be balanced in power vs. getting the on-swap benefits TWO additional times (after you sit in an attunement for 5s to unlock, 5s to channel, then have 15s more to swap back) I don’t think any of these actually measure up with that comparison.

Warhorn:
- Seems decent, but was clearly balanced for use against stationary golems. There are a lot of skills that have creeping, slow projectiles that will never hit when you want or often even at all. These would be better as either faster projectiles (at least faster than players run) or simple aoes. Boon sharing and stripping is interesting. Fire seems strong, water carries the weapon (b/c it gives water-field), air has good CC, but damage orb looks useless (seems to be balanced around someone running to desperately eat every damage tick), and earth seems “meh” (more boons are good, but the projectile problem plauges the 5).

Shouts
– Most won’t be used, as they aren’t powerful defensive skills or VERY STRONG offensively. Ele utils are very important as they have high CD’s, so it takes a high level of power. The only one that might be used is “eye of the storm” as a short-ish CD stunbreak. Even traited, there isn’t much coherent synergy with shouts, and I doubt eles will bother to make a “shout” build unless there are more defensive options. The elite is hard to use, and unrewarding when landed.

Traits:
Minors: See above for thoughts on overloads.
Adept: Free stunbreak is decent but boring, extra endurance will see use in bunker specs, auras won’t be used b/c overloads suck as per above.
Master: Shout trait is just meh, no CD reduction, shouts themselves don’t fit a coherent viable build. Better prot is GREAT for tanky specs. Overloads are still not worth using with 16s ICD penalty.
GM: Warhorn trait has potential if warhorn is useful. Lucid singularity might allow overloads to take on an FGS-type role (only to gtfo). Extra healing from aura is the clear winner here, but has little synergy with the rest of the line.

A note on “aura” builds
It seems they are trying to make an aura build, but it just wont ever work. They have too many aura traits apread amongst a million lines, and not any way to make a viable combinations between just 3 lines. They REALLY need to consolidate this if they want an “aura” playstyle to happen.

With all these extra fields could we get finally get a fix for Arcane Brilliance.

The risk/reward on the Overloads are way off.

For example: Channeling the Water Overload is a huge risk. You have to stay in water for a minimum of 10 seconds to go through the overload (5s to gain access to overload, another 5s channel). And during the second half of it, you’re stuck in a channeling animation (no dodging!). What do you get if you manage to pull it off? A tiny bit more healing than the healing ripple you get just from swapping into water.

You’re better off swapping out of water immediately, using all your other skills and dodging attacks etc., and then swapping back into water 10s later for soothing mist + healing ripple + water EA, which together heals for more than a Water Overload. Doing a Water Overload gives you less burst healing, less overall healing, less damage (b/c you’re channeling rather than attacking), and makes you more vulnerable to incoming damage (b/c you can’t dodge while channeling). There is no sane reason why you would ever want to overload water.

The fire and air overloads have similar problems, in that you’d do more damage and build up more might just cycling through your normal rotations.

I think they need to tweak the Overload numbers, reduce the channeling time by a second or two, and remove the requirement where you have to stay in an attunement for 5s before gaining access to the overload. Otherwise, I only see this being useful in PvE content or as a gimmicky WvW frontline blobbing build. Any skill above a 2-second cast time is already super easy to interrupt / escape from. A 5 second channel is just crazy.

Start practicing your songs gyz! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSZx2lM5tHY

Aktium.9506:

So to recap.

Huge fire field to procc Blinding Ashes on everyone in a mile wide radius that you can combine with Dust Storm for never-ending blinds
Auras heal you
Overloads give auras
+7% extra damage reduction from Protection
Weakness spam from shouts
Break Bar
Lots of kiting potential with the cc skills on air and water
A skill that lengthens all boons on you by 2 seconds
A skill that copies all boons on you to allies
Aoe Super Speed + Stunbreak that you can get automatically on being CC’d

This feels a bit excessive.

That is such a lawl build

ResJudicator, well put about overload balance. The only time I ever see someone using them is in a fire-camping pve-staff build that stacks extra might and burns in between CDs.

Aktium.9506:

So to recap.

Huge fire field to procc Blinding Ashes on everyone in a mile wide radius that you can combine with Dust Storm for never-ending blinds

Apparently nobody sent him the memo that blinding ashes isn’t per-target like every ele that has a clue wanted. The only reason it gets taken right now on d/d is b/c that build is so tanky that a random extra blind or two just helps add to the critical mass.

Also, did you notice that Dust storm is like this creeping projectile that pulses 1 blind every 2s. I’m not even sure if it is weaker than dust devil (scepter 3) or just barely stronger.

Galthromir.8924:

For PvE play, I feel a trait like:

“Deal 10% more damage while under the effect of an aura”

…would go a loooong way towards making me want to use Tempest.

Honestly, I would love Anet forever if they added something like that.

I was think about a previous Earth trait, “Stone Splinters” would give u 10% when within 600 of you target. But give it a more Tempest sounding name, ooo like “Outer Rim”.

Just saw the recorded stream on youtube with my morning coffee

My opinions:
Overloads-
The overload animations are a tad meh. The fire one is cool looking, the air one is amazing looking, the water looks a bit weaker than I was hoping (but if it was too big I bet people would complain) and earth just looks silly. I was hopping the animation looked like you were bending the earth to look like a more smooth but fractured wave of water…but made of ground….it looks like you’re standing on brown lego blocks :p

The overload effects I’m not too sure of. Need to see more numbers but I hear they are in flux atm. The heal on water looks a bit weak. I was hoping that, with this overload, it’d give you some kind of lengthy mitigation, i.e. increase your heals by a % for 15 sec so that or grant you a kind of sig of water effect for 15sec to remove condis every couple secons, so even if you drop out of water to another attunement, you can still keep yourself alive. I don’t see a decent time to use water overload…you’ll be locked out of water too long for such a small effect. I like fire effects, it looks effective. Air might be better if the storm casted multiple types of air spells, like blinding flash/chain lightning/gale along with its normal attacks but if it’s mainly just a hard AoE DPS skill, then probably give it some chain lightning as well! Earth, I was hoping for some survivability with it, like maybe a second or so of blocking but I suppose the immobilize is nice enough.

Warhorn-
All in all, I see this as a good combo for dagger, at least for providing support. The focus requires specific trait setups to give support (other than might stacks) while dagger feels more like personal utility. Warhorn is an interesting support offhand that seems to compete with staff. I’m curious to try this offhand with scepter just to see what things are possible. Could be that it ends up using more of the overload effects instead of the regular attacks (scepter needs help ).

Certain things I don’t like are the moving effects. The moving water field seems annoying if you’re someone who has aimed blasts like Thief or staff ele. Kind wish it was a bit smaller in radius but instead of just a floating circle field, it was more of a road-like effect. The pull isn’t what I was hoping for. If I were changing it, I’d make the cyclone skill a kind of Phoenix-like effect that flies out at foes and returns, tagging those that it gets near and at any time you can ‘cancel’ the cyclone and it will then pull whoever got tagged toward it. So you can cancel it before it tries coming back to you or wait and let it auto pull things to you once it returns. As is, it’s very meh, basically just lines foes up for lightning orb (which isn’t as effective against multiple foes anyway). Sand Squall should be a blast finisher. Probably should also do a bit more, like grant resistance or remove a condition or convert or perhaps strip foe boons? Something…4sec of protection + a few sec of extra boon duration feels a bit meh.

Shouts-
Overall, I don’t mind them. Some are really nice, others meh. The only real beef I have is that I don’t like hearing those voices shouting those lines. Seems quite meh and not really ele-like but I bet hearing my cute little Asura shout them will change my mind.

One thing I wanted to add to prior post:

As it currently stands, from a pvp perspective, IF tempest evens gets taken ever, it will be as part of a tanky d/x build with water/arcana/tempest, and only the following aspects will be used:
- Maybe warhorn, although dagger off-hand is so well balanced between defense/damage/mobility
- Maybe “eye of the storm” can compete for a spot as a shorter-cd stunbreak
- If traited, the only traits worth taking are “Latent stamina” (adept), “earthen proxy” (master), and “Elemental Bastion” or Imbued Melodies (GM).
- Overloads will get cast once a blue moon (about as often as churning earth gets cast).

Very little about it really made me think ‘Tempest’.
I know they had to be a bit restrained, but I wanted to see storm-summoning as a big thing. :-/
Then again, all of the E-specs so far except maybe Reaper have kind of felt a fair bit off from what their name is.
Still sucks that Song of Storms isn’t a thing. Why else would you pair “Tempest” with “Warhorn”?

BlackBeard.2873:

One thing I wanted to add to prior post:

As it currently stands, from a pvp perspective, IF tempest evens gets taken ever, it will be as part of a tanky d/x build with water/arcana/tempest, and only the following aspects will be used:
- Maybe warhorn, although dagger off-hand is so well balanced between defense/damage/mobility
- Maybe “eye of the storm” can compete for a spot as a shorter-cd stunbreak
- If traited, the only traits worth taking are “Latent stamina” (adept), “earthen proxy” (master), and “Elemental Bastion” or Imbued Melodies (GM).
- Overloads will get cast once a blue moon (about as often as churning earth gets cast).

It kinda depends because i’m looking @ 4 traits, “Gale Song”, “Harmonious Conduit”, “Lucid Singularity”. Don’t really know how often using overload, but I think combining nimbus with dagger 3,4,5 might do serious dmg

Tempest was never meant to be another 1vs1 duellist build..the elite spec is simply amazing, fact is if you’re used to burning speed in the middle of the fray then swap to water, fire off all cantrips, heal and come back…chances are you won’t like tempest.

Ele finally get boon strip and a concrete chance to leave arcane, on top of that we have finally a great elite that synergize with all runes like Krait/lyssa and more, shout to be used in conjunction with trooper runes…the definitive support build.

Finally a spec on ele that rewards perfect positioning, smart decision and high risk/high reward effects and I love it!

Supreme.3164:

Ele finally get boon strip and a concrete chance to leave arcane, on top of that we have finally a great elite that synergize with all runes like Krait/lyssa and more, shout to be used in conjunction with trooper runes…the definitive support build.

Finally a spec on ele that rewards perfect positioning, smart decision and high risk/high reward effects and I love it!

Just a couple questions for you, maybe you can make me see what you see:
-How are you going to survive as a front-line/support without arcana to give you boons and heals?
- If you are front-line support/damage, aren’t the boons and water-dodge heal going to be greater than all of the support you can provide with tempest?
- How are you going to have enough stability to ever complete these incredibly long channels, esp in wvw, which is dominated by statics/lines of warding everywhere?
- Do you think you are providing more to your team/group by spreading out some prot and doing a channel, as opposed to what you supply by just swapping in and out attunements faster?

So much for the sword we were expecting.

Wow that was worse then I imagined, I think anet wanted to make up for the fact that we have vaiable right now and even almost required in the the meta for all three game modes by giving us an elite that will be used in none.

BlackBeard.2873:

Supreme.3164:

Ele finally get boon strip and a concrete chance to leave arcane, on top of that we have finally a great elite that synergize with all runes like Krait/lyssa and more, shout to be used in conjunction with trooper runes…the definitive support build.

Finally a spec on ele that rewards perfect positioning, smart decision and high risk/high reward effects and I love it!

Just a couple questions for you, maybe you can make me see what you see:
-How are you going to survive as a front-line/support without arcana to give you boons and heals?
- If you are front-line support/damage, aren’t the boons and water-dodge heal going to be greater than all of the support you can provide with tempest?
- How are you going to have enough stability to ever complete these incredibly long channels, esp in wvw, which is dominated by statics/lines of warding everywhere?
- Do you think you are providing more to your team/group by spreading out some prot and doing a channel, as opposed to what you supply by just swapping in and out attunements faster?

-Tempest is CC oriented support, a different playstyle I’d say, it wasn’t meant to replace normal boon spambot but rather playing alongside it, the CC offered by warhorn is unheard of…and the boon removal is glorious, it’s not necro type of boon removal but it’s definitely something worth considering ( imagine an immobilize into wildfire on called target…say a d/d)

-The channels are situational and very position dependant, a very risky playstyle that offers something different from the usual..and I love it, the damage in fire and air seems to be there even with a celestial amulet in pvp, guess the dmg in wvw…
Save your stability for when you need it or ask a guardian to share some stability, this is a team game

-All in all, I’m happy with the warhorn, it offers something unique, fun and useful to play; people who want to duel all day can still play d/d

After watching the video i feel like Tempest forces you to stay too much in one attunement while the base of our elementalist, skills 1-2-3 are still the same old ones you need to rotate quickly through.

I don’t know how this will play out, but it feels like you are going to be just running around with cooldowns blown waiting for your overcharge and doing nothing really useful.

Also the cooldowns on warhorn are pretty nasty, a good 25-30 seconds on each spell, which translates into a lot of waiting and downtime aswell.

Doesn’t feel like this Tempest spec is very well sychronized, i think they had to give us a new 1-2-3 with low cooldown to compensate for being forced to stay in the same attunement for too long, to be able to do something atleast.

Lawful.5314:

After watching the video i feel like Tempest forces you to stay too much in one attunement while the base of our elementalist, skills 1-2-3 are still the same old ones you need to rotate quickly through.

I don’t know how this will play out, but it feels like you are going to be just running around with cooldowns blown waiting for your overcharge and doing nothing really useful.

Also the cooldowns on warhorn are pretty nasty, a good 25-30 seconds on each spell, which translates into a lot of waiting and downtime aswell.

Doesn’t feel like this Tempest spec is very well sychronized, i think they had to give us a new 1-2-3 with low cooldown to compensate for being forced to stay in the same attunement for too long, to be able to do something atleast.

It really depends the charge time are bettweenjoying 2.75s and 5s, at least right now, so using them might be viable

Lawful.5314:

After watching the video i feel like Tempest forces you to stay too much in one attunement while the base of our elementalist, skills 1-2-3 are still the same old ones you need to rotate quickly through.

I don’t know how this will play out, but it feels like you are going to be just running around with cooldowns blown waiting for your overcharge and doing nothing really useful.

I guess it really just depends. For instance, you can just run a fresh air tempest and use the overload of air only and swap right out after you overload. But the I think the main point of overload is to be used seldomly. It’s not suppose to be spammed and you can still do your rotations as an ele does, but if you’re attempting to plan ahead, there are extra options along the taste of holding yourself in an attunement for its recharge and utilizing the overload.

Do when know if you have access to these overloads out of combat? I mean, I don’t think I they bothered to address that, so if all else fails, the least you could attain with the overloads is to charge an effect (for extra CC or damage) as you’re entering combat and sort of ignore it in other instances.

To me, I see this elite has potential and the difference in style of play isn’t really “what unique capabilities does it have” (because the capabilities of ele in general is extremely broad) but instead “how you can look and approach a combat situation”. While a regular D/d ele might aim for a rotation for a certain situation, a tempest might look to set-up upon entering battle. In which case, I feel if the effects of the overload were extended a bit in duration, perhaps they’d be seen more as a set-up option to use for a more significant amount of the beginning of the battle. Set-up would be more its game (but not it’s only game).

The aura healing is nice, but it wasn’t clear if it healed the Ele as well…

Overall too long cooldowns are too long, some of the shouts seemed lackluster and air warhorn seemed just bad (one skill best used for multiple targets and one for single target, it’s like they didn’t know what they wanted to do). The elite needs to be instant (couldn’t tell) and shorter cooldown (40s at least or so).

I think warhorn is the most impactful offhand available now.
Offhand dagger and focus were kind of dull for their passive nature in half the attunements, and neither synergized well with scepter’s range besides blasting fire fields. That 600 range on warhorn is a nice middle ground between dagger and scepter.
I saw that the ele can continue to cheat the max 5 target cap (I’m sure Feel the Burn will be capped on launch.) See Dust Storm, Lightning Ball, Cyclone (and maybe tidal surge.) And the biggest fire field we’ve seen to date.

I’m happy for the aoe magnetic aura, and to a lesser extent, the aoe frost aura.

Armor of Earth and then Heat Sync means the biggest share of stability possible. Imagine then Mesmer signet of Inspiration handing it back for 20 stacks of stab? Lock it up with sand squall. Pumping out improved protection to almost 100% uptime if spec’d right.

Armor of Earth and a breakbar would see the earth overload almost always complete.
Would be nice if you could get that Rebound off before armor of earth or mist form.
Perhaps the aoe stunbreak should move to Rebound (literally more appropriate) and then Eye of the Storm could maybe drop a mini-elite Tornado? Promote eye of the storm to Elite.

The traits are niche but not as game changing as say the Chrono Phantasm 1-UP or clone dodge. The stun cleanse is nice (Earth’s embrace only working when health drops below 50%) as well as the debilitating cleanse.

And Karl, you rock my socks every time! Loved all the noise puns in the blog, and your final statement certainly had me rallying behind you!
“The tempest cannot be stopped; your enemies cannot endure. Press forward!”

So I have had some time to mull this over today. The main issues I think that should be looked at again based on the stream are as follows..

Cantrips vs Shouts- Shouts need a trait or additional functionality before people will even consider taking more than one shout and even then they probably took it just because and not because it fit’s best. The Air and Earth shout are imo the best ones. One of the shouts needs stability on it or maybe some invuln.

I fear what will happen is shouts will suffer from the same fate as arcana utilities in that they are seen as 1 trick ponies outside of the shield that doesn’t beat mist form. We like good defensive utilities, but since they are mean to be offensive put some kind of immunity or stability on 1 or 2 of the shouts. Heck all of them for all I care because..

Overcharges will get interrupted see churning earth that’s kind of the feeling I think many of us have. It does do something during the channel phase so I see the consideration there, but it is always going to feel to risky to attempt them.

warhorn skills I think they are ok the earth one looks silly though riding on a rock just looks weird to me. If it was something like the reverse of the revenant where a road comes up or bricks around you as you move that would be better.

At least we know see why they removed the trait Fire’s Embrace, with Elemental Bastion it might’ve been too strong. Or maybe not

ResJudicator.7916:

The risk/reward on the Overloads are way off.

For example: Channeling the Water Overload is a huge risk. You have to stay in water for a minimum of 10 seconds to go through the overload (5s to gain access to overload, another 5s channel). And during the second half of it, you’re stuck in a channeling animation (no dodging!). What do you get if you manage to pull it off? A tiny bit more healing than the healing ripple you get just from swapping into water.

You’re better off swapping out of water immediately, using all your other skills and dodging attacks etc., and then swapping back into water 10s later for soothing mist + healing ripple + water EA, which together heals for more than a Water Overload. Doing a Water Overload gives you less burst healing, less overall healing, less damage (b/c you’re channeling rather than attacking), and makes you more vulnerable to incoming damage (b/c you can’t dodge while channeling). There is no sane reason why you would ever want to overload water.

The fire and air overloads have similar problems, in that you’d do more damage and build up more might just cycling through your normal rotations.

I think they need to tweak the Overload numbers, reduce the channeling time by a second or two, and remove the requirement where you have to stay in an attunement for 5s before gaining access to the overload. Otherwise, I only see this being useful in PvE content or as a gimmicky WvW frontline blobbing build. Any skill above a 2-second cast time is already super easy to interrupt / escape from. A 5 second channel is just crazy.

This post right here sums up my thoughts on Overload pretty well.

Hopefully Karl reads this.

+1 my friend.

What about if it gave you the option to press your attunement again during the overload cast time to cancel the channel and activate the final effect instead? If you see an interrupt coming at least you could cancel the channel and gain the final part at that specific moment.

Also, overloads have a double penalty, one that forces you to stay in an attunement (completely destroying your rotation in the process) and the additional attunement CD after an overload. It’s not even practical. As you very well said, you’d be doing more healing, more damage, and more support by just rotating normally… with less than half the risks.

The more I think about it, the more I think this mechanic seems inherently flawed already. Much has to change, I’m afraid.

Come see The Tempest on this Friday’s POI show! We’ll be showcasing new and completely original skills such as:

Dagger Storm
Signet of Inspiration
and Well of Darkness

But seriously. Devs running out of ideas for new skills, so they rehash existing ones.

Khenzy.9348:

Also, overloads have a double penalty, one that forces you to stay in an attunement (completely destroying your rotation in the process) and the additional attunement CD after an overload. It’s not even practical. As you very well said, you’d be doing more healing, more damage, and more support by just rotating normally… with less than half the risks.

The more I think about it, the more I think this mechanic seems inherently flawed already. Much has to change, I’m afraid.

That’s not a double penalty. Once you use an overload, you can swap out of the attunement if you’d like, you’ll just be locked out of it for its 20sec cooldown. If you choose to stay in the attunement after you fire it off, you get the bonus of not needing to wait for it’s 20sec overload cooldown + the 5 or so sec attunement cooldown, you just wait for the 20sec cooldown. If you’re talking about swapping out after the overload then getting the overload+attunement cooldown to use it again, that’s not a double penalty. Lol the overload isn’t meant to be spammed.

It’s a choice, but I wouldn’t advise sticking in the attunement unless you just want to spam one particular overload. Air is likely the best spammable overload.

Leo G.4501:

Khenzy.9348:

Also, overloads have a double penalty, one that forces you to stay in an attunement (completely destroying your rotation in the process) and the additional attunement CD after an overload. It’s not even practical. As you very well said, you’d be doing more healing, more damage, and more support by just rotating normally… with less than half the risks.

The more I think about it, the more I think this mechanic seems inherently flawed already. Much has to change, I’m afraid.

That’s not a double penalty. Once you use an overload, you can swap out of the attunement if you’d like, you’ll just be locked out of it for its 20sec cooldown. If you choose to stay in the attunement after you fire it off, you get the bonus of not needing to wait for it’s 20sec overload cooldown + the 5 or so sec attunement cooldown, you just wait for the 20sec cooldown. If you’re talking about swapping out after the overload then getting the overload+attunement cooldown to use it again, that’s not a double penalty. Lol the overload isn’t meant to be spammed.

It’s a choice, but I wouldn’t advise sticking in the attunement unless you just want to spam one particular overload. Air is likely the best spammable overload.

It is a double penalty, you seem to not get it. In order to make any use of an overload you are required to stay in an attunement for a while (it’s even longer if you take into account the additional channel time), that’s very unoptimal considering you’re losing potential migh stacks, or boon stacking from elemental attunement. Also, elementalists were designed to swap attunements contantly, that’s whay you fart boons everywhere only when swaping constantly and this is one of the reasons your AAs are mostly trash, this is why most of the useful traits and the main hand weapons were designed the way they are. The playstyle this elite specialization promotes is contradictory to the way the core profession was designed.

If an overload was to be considered in a rotation or even situationally useful, the numbers would have to be ridiculous.

Also, spamming a 2 or even 5 second channel that locks your attunement for 20 seconds afterwards (or when it gets interrupted) is stupid, noone’s saying that play-style should be promoted.

Why does no one use Tornado? Yeah.

disappointing none of the traits grant self-stability, but depending on where the numbers end up, i can see trying out tempest in pve with D/x Fresh Air. May not prove optimal, but might be a fun change of pace on a solo pve build.

interesting how scepter mainhand is completely ignored by this elite spec

also, that GM trait that nullifies chill (among other CCs) really is a kick in the balls to reapers.

There should be some access to stability if overloads are ever to be used in PvP and if eles are meant to be frontliners in WvW. How about a GM trait that gives 2 stacks of stability whenever you grant yourself protection on a 15s ICD?