Guild Wars 2

I am excited personally. It may not replace the meta but I doubt it was made for that. If anything it may expand on it and I’m certain some aspects will be useful in the current PvE and PvP. And regarding the elite, because so many complain about it. I think it’s ok, it may need some adjusting, we’ll see. But it’s an elite that will be more useful for general use than FGS, GoE and Obviously Tornado.
In the end we will all have to give it a try eitherway, or leave it up to the people who make the meta. Whatever floats your boat.
What people also need to keep in mind though, I think, is that the hardcore content they’re working on supposedly needs the two other parts of the holy trinity. And so far with the Elite specializations, it seems like they lean towards supporty play in one way or another. So I’m looking forward to how it all comes into play with that.

I went in to see what my stats would look like with soldier runes and it was ok without changing to much I could get 2900 armor and 18.3k HP, still over 2100 power, 30% crit chance, and 200 critical damage (WvW calculator). Healing went down significantly to about 124 healing power in order to keep my power over 2100 but then fury access?

So you will need Air for sure for fury or fire or both to have respectable dps. The -40% damage reduction from protection is pretty significant though. Maybe abusing protection is the way I mean we already do, for some of the popular builds, but it would be even more important here.

Tempest needs some way to grant fury or an arcane equivalent.

I do see that you can get every boon that you would get from the elemental attunement trait on the warhorn, but those skills are kind of long cd’s just to get those boons themselves. If they want people feel better about trying tempest without Arcana then they have to give the tempest line fury, or some precision modifier somewhere.

It looks like it could be really fun to play, but it’s not at all practical for what they want it to do.

First off, ALL attunements need a break bar, not just earth. With all the cc flying around, you will never, ever get any of the overloads off except for the earth one with those ridiculous channel times. There’s a reason why churning earth is never used in any kind of serious fight. Long cast times + so many spammable interrupts available = fail skill. Break bar is absolutely mandatory for all attunements because of this.

The cooldowns on shouts are too ridiculously long, except for the fire one. 25-30 seconds should be the max for any of them, then maybe theyll see some use with trooper runes. And one of them needs to give stability. Aside from that, they seem ok.

The warhorn has a few problems as well. Aside from the ridiculously long cooldowns that definitely need to be lowered. There are no blast finishers on warhorn. If you decide to take s/w, youll have no way to blast anything aside from evasive arcane unless you kitten yourself by taking arcane wave and the arcane heal thats only good for pve stuff anyway. No blast finishers on warhorn means its just not good enough for anything besides pve. The fire skill that gives might should be a blast finisher and/or one of the earth skills. I dont care much for the air skill that shoots projectiles. warhorn offhand has no way to disengage like dagger and no invuln or anything like focus. It will never be used in any serious pvp because of that. change the lightning orb thing into a backwards evade similar to burning retreat on staff, and have the lightnign bolts shoot forward. That way you have a disengage and the enemy will have to think twice about chasing after you because of the lightning shooting at them and may give you a chance to get off an overload. Oh, and water also needs one of its skills to cure condis. Warhorn has no condi removal on it. Focus and offhand dagger both do.

Make these changes and Tempest will actually be decent for something besides open world pve. As it is now, thats the only place where it could ever be used. As it is now, it has no hope of ever being a frontline dpser. it will just die to cc before getting any of the skills off.

From a purely PVP perspective:

I don’t think tempest like this will see any play. MAAAAYYBE an Auramancer shout build with soldier runes but even that will use dagger or focus over warhorn.

Warhorn: While I would have prefered a main hand sword, I’m okay with warhorn as long as it’s good enough to use. Which it doesn’t seem to be in pvp. Moving water field and good fire field are nice, but that’s about it compared to dagger (where ever move is basically awesome) and focus (with it’s amazing survivability and okay cc [still the only weapon to offer a daze to eles]).

Warhorn lacks 1 or 2 blast finisher at least if it’s about to be paired with dagger mainhand. Scepter offers 2 blast finishers while dagger only has 1, and even the devs didn’t say a single thing about scepter in the blog or videos because it’s so sad and they want tempest to use mainhand dagger anyway.

Overload: I like the idea of it, I’m okay-ish with the 5 seconds needed to use them, BUT no amount of regen or protection or reducing chill/cripple/immob conditions will allow you to cast any of them – besides maybe earth – in pvp. We need stability to do that at least 1 if not 2. Or being able to use skills/dodge while channeling them.

Also, overall the overloads looks flashy, but they don’t offer anything new to ele. Fire is might and burn, something we already have a lot of. Air is healing and cleanse, something we also do not lack, air is just damage and earth is protection like always.

Why should we even use those highly interruptable and punishable overloads in the first place if we can already do everything they offer without them?
Might as well be that it’s a straight up dps/healing/overall loss in pvp to use them even if they finish the channel – with pre- and post-delay times, you’re locking yourself out of an attunement for 25-30 seconds – that would be 2-3 burning speeds for fire for example.

Shouts: Seem a bit bland (fire burns, water chills, air gives movement and earth immobilizes) at least they have a nice trait and offer auras from utility skills, and soldier/trooper runes. MAYBE in an auramancer build these could see usage over cantrips, though I’m not really confident about that (because you basically can’t use arcane if you want to go auramancer).

Elite Shout: OH GOD IT’S SO BAD. Seriously. Eles were always lacking in the elite department and THIS is what they give us? An Elite to make other elites better, nothing more? That’s some high level irony. It should AT LEAST function like Mesmer’s Mimic on yourself.

Traits: Some nice, some not. 20% reduced recharge on overloads seems really weak without another thing attached like all the other CDR traits. Stunbreak GM trait is dumb and doesn’t even work on yourself, please remove. Overall the traits don’t seem to offer anything new or exiting besides “maybe being workable.”

Why couldn’t we actually get access to something new for our elite spec? Maybe some dazes, or a new condition or boon? Something? Anything?

Matt H.6142:

“The tempest cannot be stopped”

Except whenever interupts blow in their direction. Be that as it may, I enjoyed the post too

Forgotten Legend.9281:

My first impression is to agree on the following:

~Tempestuous Aria should ALSO reduce shout cooldowns by 20%
~Elemental Bastion should ALSO apply the heal to yourself
~Latent Stamina seems like it should be applied on any attunement swap with a 10 second cooldown. otherwise the endurance granted to allies needs to go up to at least 25
~“Wash Away the Pain!” should ALSO apply either 1) an initial heal to yourself, of say 2k or 2) 3s of group resistance (the group resistance fits the boon-share support aspect of the Tempest)
~“Eye of the Storm!” should ALSO apply shocking aura to yourself. (yes, i DO realize the super-synergy with Tempest Defense and Gale Song, and Lightning Rod. it would be fun!)
~“Rebound!” should ALSO apply 5 seconds of Alacrity to those affected by the shout. again, fitting the theme of boon-share party support

i also offer up the following suggestions:

~please [combine] Unstable Conduit and Harmonious Conduit into a single trait in the adept tier. keep the name Harmonious Conduit. (i feel this is justified due to the high risk of needing to complete the overload channel before the auras proc)

~please make a [new trait] in the master tier called Reinforced Singularity: When overloading an attunement, grant 1 stacks of stability for 3 seconds to yourself and allies (at the beginning of the overload channel) This also fits the boon-share party support of the Tempest, and offers another much needed access to stability. this also offers an interesting choice: grant might to allies with the shout trait, or grant stability to allies with the overload trait.

~Earthen Proxy could ALSO grant 3s retaliation when applying protection

~with all the access to swiftness that ele already has in the core spec, Speedy and Hardy Conduits feel like they should be combined.
~the new GM minor could be Arcane Singularity: completing an overload channel grants a blast finisher.

~it feels like there should be a damage modifier in there somewhere. like maybe Dissonant Aria: shouts do double damage to foes. (maybe the 20% shout cooldown could be added here?)

~come to think of it: Gale Song and Harmonious Aria could even be combined into one trait.

~“Rebound!” the name doesn’t feel elemental in nature at all, nor does it sound threatening on the battlefield. “Reload!” sounds better, and gives a better understanding of the skill’s functionality, in my opinion. (plus it would fit with the alacrity boon if that was implemented as well)

PS: as for elite skills go, I’m still waiting for a Storm of the Century type skill for the elite slot. where i call in a storm that makes meteor shower feel weak.

Forgotten Legend.9281:

PS: as for elite skills go, I’m still waiting for a Storm of the Century type skill for the elite slot. where i call in a storm that makes meteor shower feel weak.

[/quote]

This is what Tornado should be. A Storm that you cast in a location and then maybe get another activated skill for it (depending on attunement?). Instead of this incredibly slow and non-defensive transformation on the lowest health and armor class.

I’m simply baffled by how they completely redid the guardian elites, and some mesmer utilities and elite yet didn’t even touch our useless Tornado.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

I’m simply baffled by how they completely redid the guardian elites, and some mesmer utilities and elite yet didn’t even touch our useless Tornado.

Not to mention how they completely redid some engi kits but did nothing for our scepter.

morrolan.9608:

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

I’m simply baffled by how they completely redid the guardian elites, and some mesmer utilities and elite yet didn’t even touch our useless Tornado.

Not to mention how they completely redid some engi kits but did nothing for our scepter.

But they gave us support. They even said on stream they want us to fill the support bruiser roll we’ve never been before for 3 years and better at than everyone else at. They clearly know things about scepter/utilities/trait-lines that you don’t that actually makes them viable, we just haven’t figure it out yet. Didn’t you see the skill and understanding of the class when he almost got overloads off multiple times on cheiften? Then that time he almost died showing how great WH and tempest is in BUT HE DIDNT DIE DID HE. We should trust the Ele design team they know what they are doing.

OneKlicKill.4285:

morrolan.9608:

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

I’m simply baffled by how they completely redid the guardian elites, and some mesmer utilities and elite yet didn’t even touch our useless Tornado.

Not to mention how they completely redid some engi kits but did nothing for our scepter.

But they gave us support. They even said on stream they want us to fill the support bruiser roll we’ve never been before for 3 years and better at than everyone else at. They clearly know things about scepter/utilities/trait-lines that you don’t that actually makes them viable, we just haven’t figure it out yet. Didn’t you see the skill and understanding of the class when he almost got overloads off multiple times on cheiften? Then that time he almost died showing how great WH and tempest is in BUT HE DIDNT DIE DID HE. We should trust the Ele design team they know what they are doing.

LOL, subtle, you almost got me.

OneKlicKill.4285:

morrolan.9608:

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

I’m simply baffled by how they completely redid the guardian elites, and some mesmer utilities and elite yet didn’t even touch our useless Tornado.

Not to mention how they completely redid some engi kits but did nothing for our scepter.

But they gave us support. They even said on stream they want us to fill the support bruiser roll we’ve never been before for 3 years and better at than everyone else at. They clearly know things about scepter/utilities/trait-lines that you don’t that actually makes them viable, we just haven’t figure it out yet. Didn’t you see the skill and understanding of the class when he almost got overloads off multiple times on cheiften? Then that time he almost died showing how great WH and tempest is in BUT HE DIDNT DIE DID HE. We should trust the Ele design team they know what they are doing.

Right? The frontline role will be completely new. And this will help with how squishy they kept saying ele was, especially since there’s no other ele offhand that does that.

Khenzy.9348:

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)

No, I get you. I just don’t find “staying in an attunement” is a penalty if you have any inkling of skill as an elementalist. I mean, what did you swap into the attunement for? If it’s only to get the attunement swap boon, pop 1 skill then swap to something else, then sure, it’s a penalty to that particular stratagem but that’s not a penalty that’s going to get balanced around.

Now if you mean that, if you need a specific effect from the overload but you’re not in that attunement, then that’s not a double penalty. That’s a single penalty.

Khenzy.9348:

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.

And? I surely hope the dev’s goals isn’t to promote boon/attunement spam. Seems obvious to me their goal is to promote you get some advantage from not doing that.

To attempt to dictate what ele is designed to do will only result in an even worse state for this elite spec, accomplishing the very same that the base ele is already doing. It’s shortsighted boring copied designing.

Khenzy.9348:

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

I don’t think so. Do the overloads need a slight adjustment up to make them better and worthwhile? I think so. Do they have to be ridiculous? Absolutely not.

As preface to all of you, I’m not suffering from the “white knight” syndrome , therefore these are my “real” thoughts , not influenced anyhow by blinded fanboism.

In the beginning I was like you guys, I wanted sword mainhand also…and then it struck me! Eles at this time cannot have another main hand weapon..no, I’m not crazy and this is why:

1)Sword could have been mele; in this case the tempest trailine would have offered another set of powerful tools to survive at mele range and the sword itself should have been even more powerful than dagger MH at mele range and here the problems arise…given the current( well since launch…) feelings of the community towards d/d, another strong mele weapon for ele is likely to never happen, just forget it….if all you want to do is to duel at mele range with a caster, then d/d set is the closest thing you’ll ever had.

2)Sword could have been mid range (600-900)…well in that case Anet would have ,even if indirectly, admitted than scepter fails as concept..that won’t happen anytime soon, they would rather buff scepter before doing that I believe.

With all this said and done, let’s take a look at warhorn:

-You gain an incredible amount of crowd control, different from staff as you gain pull and knockback( working better than gust), what more you retain strong 1vs1 capabilities respect to staff

-Ele finally gain boon strip, it may not be the most powerful effect..but it’s something, you can place wildfire on a point and help your team in decapping it..amazing

-Ele gains shout and low CD elite, this open up different build options for condimancer( krait runes) and cleansing (trooper runes), the elite itself is pretty cool in my eyes, definitely more useful than GoE and FGS

-The overcharge skills are situational and useful in their own right, for those worrying about CD, you can lower the CD to 13s ( pre patch ele status without arcane line) if you do take arcana.It’s a different playstyle that requires you to jump in the battle at the right time, you can make use of LoS for example to finish off an overload.
Overcharging water will allow you to cleanse up to 7 condis from team ( 3 from overload , 1 from regen at the end of the overload, 2 if you play T-W-A ,1 from OH dagger or warhorn water) and that’s more 4 more condis than d/d!
The overload fire will allow for some crazy burn spikes and you can apply fire aura on top, 2 if you use the fire shout, add the warhorn fire warhorn..boom.

All in all it may that I play profession heavily dependant on positioning ( necro, ranger ) or just that I enjoy the support role ( always preferred support to damage , support wins the game in conquest..in general I’d say) but I really like warhorn and what it has to offer.

I’m sorry if you were looking for a different version of d/d with another weapon MH but as somebody else already stated :specializations are not upgrades to professions, they’re simply playstyle additions and warhorn ele will be undeniably one of the best mid range support in the game, superior to d/d in that regard and i see no reason for team to forsake one over the other, rather than take both…my 2 cents

OneKlicKill.4285:

morrolan.9608:

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

I’m simply baffled by how they completely redid the guardian elites, and some mesmer utilities and elite yet didn’t even touch our useless Tornado.

Not to mention how they completely redid some engi kits but did nothing for our scepter.

But they gave us support. They even said on stream they want us to fill the support bruiser roll we’ve never been before for 3 years and better at than everyone else at. They clearly know things about scepter/utilities/trait-lines that you don’t that actually makes them viable, we just haven’t figure it out yet. Didn’t you see the skill and understanding of the class when he almost got overloads off multiple times on cheiften? Then that time he almost died showing how great WH and tempest is in BUT HE DIDNT DIE DID HE. We should trust the Ele design team they know what they are doing.

I see what you did there and I like it.

P.S I think that increasing the base damage of fire and air overload by 25% would be great, then replace the cripple with weakness for the earth overload

Supreme.3164:

As preface to all of you, I’m not suffering from the “white knight” syndrome , therefore these are my “real” thoughts , not influenced anyhow by blinded fanboism.

In the beginning I was like you guys, I wanted sword mainhand also…and then it struck me! Eles at this time cannot have another main hand weapon..no, I’m not crazy and this is why:

1)Sword could have been mele; in this case the tempest trailine would have offered another set of powerful tools to survive at mele range and the sword itself should have been even more powerful than dagger MH at mele range and here the problems arise…given the current( well since launch…) feelings of the community towards d/d, another strong mele weapon for ele is likely to never happen, just forget it….if all you want to do is to duel at mele range with a caster, then d/d set is the closest thing you’ll ever had.

2)Sword could have been mid range (600-900)…well in that case Anet would have ,even if indirectly, admitted than scepter fails as concept..that won’t happen anytime soon, they would rather buff scepter before doing that I believe.

With all this said and done, let’s take a look at warhorn:

-You gain an incredible amount of crowd control, different from staff as you gain pull and knockback( working better than gust), what more you retain strong 1vs1 capabilities respect to staff

-Ele finally gain boon strip, it may not be the most powerful effect..but it’s something, you can place wildfire on a point and help your team in decapping it..amazing

-Ele gains shout and low CD elite, this open up different build options for condimancer( krait runes) and cleansing (trooper runes), the elite itself is pretty cool in my eyes, definitely more useful than GoE and FGS

-The overcharge skills are situational and useful in their own right, for those worrying about CD, you can lower the CD to 13s ( pre patch ele status without arcane line) if you do take arcana.It’s a different playstyle that requires you to jump in the battle at the right time, you can make use of LoS for example to finish off an overload.
Overcharging water will allow you to cleanse up to 7 condis from team ( 3 from overload , 1 from regen at the end of the overload, 2 if you play T-W-A ,1 from OH dagger or warhorn water) and that’s more 4 more condis than d/d!
The overload fire will allow for some crazy burn spikes and you can apply fire aura on top, 2 if you use the fire shout, add the warhorn fire warhorn..boom.

All in all it may that I play profession heavily dependant on positioning ( necro, ranger ) or just that I enjoy the support role ( always preferred support to damage , support wins the game in conquest..in general I’d say) but I really like warhorn and what it has to offer.

I’m sorry if you were looking for a different version of d/d with another weapon MH but as somebody else already stated :specializations are not upgrades to professions, they’re simply playstyle additions and warhorn ele will be undeniably one of the best mid range support in the game, superior to d/d in that regard and i see no reason for team to forsake one over the other, rather than take both…my 2 cents

This is a good analysis. I totally think that the warhorn is the best part of the spec for sure. Unless they give us a way to cover casts with tempest traits, then yeah the overloads will be more situational. It looks like they can be used out of combat, so I could see the fire/air ones being precasted as you engage to get some damage off. Still I find it contradictory that positioning is required to channel them succesfully, BUT if spend a lot of time LoSing or chanelling off point for a bit to get it off, then the effect seems almost wasted, since you won’t be able to use it to deal damage or support your allies since the proper positioning will probably cause you to be farther away from them. If those abilities were channeled on a set location from range, it would make more sense, but making a melee frontline class makes it impossible. You can’t have good safe positioning and use the overloads effectively.

Still, I look forward to playing a build with water/arcane/tempest D/WH with trooper runes and all shouts to see how well that works out. I think having loads of ways to break allys stuns means that things like necros and engis are good teammates. I’m also thinking of an earth/water/tempest build with stone heart and some aura heal spam as well, but I don’t think I’ll use powerful auras since the shouts already seem to fulfill that role, and I want to use warhorn.

Supreme.3164:

-The overcharge skills are situational and useful in their own right, for those worrying about CD, you can lower the CD to 13s ( pre patch ele status without arcane line) if you do take arcana.It’s a different playstyle that requires you to jump in the battle at the right time, you can make use of LoS for example to finish off an overload.
Overcharging water will allow you to cleanse up to 7 condis from team ( 3 from overload , 1 from regen at the end of the overload, 2 if you play T-W-A ,1 from OH dagger or warhorn water) and that’s more 4 more condis than d/d!
The overload fire will allow for some crazy burn spikes and you can apply fire aura on top, 2 if you use the fire shout, add the warhorn fire warhorn..boom.

I get what you are trying to say, but overloads don’t really provide anything unique. Fire gives burns/might/damage, air gives damage, water gives heals/cleanse, earth gives cripple/prot/immob. Thus, you can compare these things mathematically with what can be done by simply swapping.

As an example:
- Water overload gives you an additional 2-3 cleanse and 3k heal aoe. It also means you have a minimum of ~8s before leaving water (although you are better off just waiting for it to be 10 so you can get a 2nd evasive arcana heal), and 20s before you get back again (you aren’t going to take the -20% trait b/c it is just bad)
- Simply swapping into water mid-dodge gives you 2 cleanses and ~3K heal. If you stick in water for a couple skills, you swap out 2s later. If you don’t overloead, you will be able to get 2 cleanses and a ~3k+ heal 10s later, and then again in another ~11s (accounting for global icd)

Over ~30s you get:
Overload: 3k heal, 2 cleanse swapping in; 1k healing from cone of cold; 3 cleanse, 3k heal overloading; (finish overload 8s after swapping in) 1k healing from cone of cold again before swapping out, 1.5k evasive arcana heal (you linger another 2s to get this). Water will be available again 30s from start.

Quick swap: 3k heal, 2 cleanse from swap, 1k healing form cone of cold;…3k heal 2 cleanse from swap (11s from start), 1k healing from cone of cold;…3k heal, 2 cleanse from swap (22s from start), 1k heal from cone of cold;… have water just about available (33s from start).

Normalized to that 30s window:
Overload: 10.5k healing, 6 cleanse
Quick-swap: 12k healing, 6 cleanse

Mathematically, you should basically never overload, as you lose out on much healing potential. This doesn’t even account for the lower uptime of soothing mist, and less regen uptime, which results in a net gain of another 1-2k healing for quick-swapping. This also doesn’t account for the fact that you suffer all the penalty but gain none of the benefits when your overload gets interrupted (which it often will). This also doesn’t account for the fact that you can’t dodge during the overload either, making you a sitting duck, or once-again, forcing you to forego all benefits. Trying to overload in melee range will have similar results to casting ether renewal while a dps class just goes HAM – you die. Overloading also leaves you incredibly vulnerable, as you are playing a bruiser spec whose defense relies primarily on soaking damage and healing it up, yet have no healing for a HUGE 20s window. This ALSO doesn’t account for the fact that you now have fewer attunements to swap to for 2 rotations, so you will not be able to swap in/out of earth as frequently, so now have less prot uptime and less fury.

As you can see, overloading is a very risky mechanic, AND is straight up inferior to not overloading. If it was more powerful/efficient, then it would behave as your propose and represent a situational skill, where you sometimes accept the risk for higher payoff. In its current iteration, you are already falling behind by just trying to overload EVER. It is a bad play to increase your risk while also reducing your reward potential. If you ever want to accept GREATLY increasing your risk by trying to finish a long channel, the payoff has to GREATLY outweigh the alternative.

They either need to drastically increase the benefits of overloading, or reduce the penalty significantly. The risk/reward makes them useless, especially because they do the same thing as swapping, just in a far less efficient way.

As a WvW player I see a lot of potential in Wildfire. Seems like a pretty big boon strip to me, like a super-sized Well of Corruption. Plus all the might blasting… actually a lot of the warhorn skills could be good if the ele can get in close without vaporizing.

For open-world PvE, and I’m thinking HoT / Verdant Brink type areas, the overloads could be really nice for dealing with hordes of trash mobs. There were a whole lot of those in the betas.

Anet is attempting to increase the difficulty threshold, the overload are situational and will require correct positioning and help from allies sometimes, for example with a guardian using hollowed ground or stand your ground.
The major problem for the devs is the community mentality, everything is considered from 1vs1 perspective ( mostly at low levels ), anything that requires the support of allies to work at 100% is deemeds UP, useless.
But the truth is that team synergy and rotational awareness is what brings in the victory in the end of the day.

For example one of the combos I’ll try is T-E-W ( tempest, earth,water ) with stone heart, trooper runes and 1 shout utility and elite, I’ll use warhorn and I’ll have more team( same on personal level) condi cleanse than typical d/d ( can be extreme condi cleanse with overload water), more CC than d/d, will bring boon removal and relatively more control condis.

Imagine a stone heart ele with GM tempest trait that grants immunity to chill/cripple/immobilize- go overload earth inside the enemy ranks before they reach a point, you can’t be critted, you can’t be slowed/chilled or immobilized – when all done retreat safely behind friendly ranks and switch to the offensive as most likely the enemy will have wasted all interrupts/snare on you while you were yoloing them with the break bar – overload fire now? CC them to death for your allies?…your choice

Just watched the POI. Holy kitten. Tempest looks epic. So in poi they said this will make Ele more frontline brawler spec but in PvP Ele is almost near impossible to kill (in 1v1). Hope they balance this well cuz man this Tempest looks OP as kitten! X.X Im sure I feel this way cuz its new but man the POI made me sweat xP lol.

BlackBeard.2873:

-snip-

I won’t deny that the numbers could be a little higher on the overload, I agree with the concept still, but I guess we will have to wait for the final numbers.

-Regarding the risk I’d say that the main benefit of the overloads is that they allow you to safely leave arcana trait line without losing that supportive edge or you could replace EA with ES at GM , one can only guess.

-One of the main reasons I go arcana is for the cleansing and tempest will solve that problem as it allows you to use shouts as form of additional cleanse, use water overcharge or warhorn water 4

-note- the overloads effects are applied each pulse so effectively the water overload would be 4.5k healing with a celestial amulet

Lets try to be extremely clear. Lets try to be extremely honest. I’m tired of all the white knighting.

Tempest is counter productive to the entire concept of attunement swapping which is the fundamental mechanic of the elementalist class. There is no argument against this. The entire skill set on every single elementalist weapon sets are balanced against every single other class(es) weapon sets on the idea that the elementalist has four attunements (four times as many skills) and therefore has to have massive cool downs and lower damage. So, at this point, this is where Tempest has already failed (LISTENING KARL?).

I don’t even need to continue at this point. I’ve just destroyed every argument made to support an elite spec that shouldn’t even exist if the person creating it had even THE SLIGHTEST WORKING KNOWLEDGE OF THE CLASS.

You know what? I’m not done bashing the tempest “elite” spec around yet. It deserves a severe beating (that unfortunately can’t be done verbally, or through the fuzzy kitten filter). To repeat what I’ve already stated in a thread that almost instantly got buried. Lets have an example where gaining singularity, channeling it, and moving to another attument…all together take only 15 seconds. A nice flat 15 seconds. After looking at ANY of the damage totals from ANY of the overloaded attunements…I don’t even have to give you ball park numbers. Every who has even looked at the elementalist class already knows they can do far more damage in 15 seconds using current builds than they can by wasting time using an overload.

Using an overload is wasted potential from rotation. Be it either healing, dps, or boons. Makes no difference. Tempest doesn’t stand up to what we already have.

Then on top of it, we get the war horn. Love it or hate it, the cool downs are terrible. Shouts? Again, cool downs are (generally – save one, I think?) terrible.

And once more to repeat what I said in my other thread. The saddest part of the tempest spec is the trait set up. They took away fire’s embrace, and pretty much brought it back in another incarnation. An auramancer build is the best overall use of the tempest “elite” spec, if you don’t intend to be even remotely optimal.

Shouts probably wont replace Cantrips

Being locked out of an attunement for 16+ seconds means very little use of overcharge, being locked out of attunements for longer than you already are is poor game design when it comes to the functionality of the elementalist also you can be stunned on this crap

Snow White.1842:

Tempest is counter productive to the entire concept of attunement swapping which is the fundamental mechanic of the elementalist class. There is no argument against this.

I do not agree. While there are builds that focus on Elementalist attunement dancing to spam boons and skills, that isn’t the only spec Ele is capable of nor should it be the only concept an Ele spec should be aimed to. If it did, there’d practically be no point to the new elite spec idea.

I’ve just destroyed every argument made to support an elite spec that shouldn’t even exist if the person creating it had even THE SLIGHTEST WORKING KNOWLEDGE OF THE CLASS.

I doubt you’re capable of destroying every possible argument. You don’t have the open mind enough to even grasp most other arguments, much less combat them.

Leo G.4501:

snip.

I think the current implementation of the elementalist promotes ‘stance dancing’ while the tempest clearly interfers with that. Let me clarify that I always tend to speak from a purely sPvP perspective, I just don’t see staying there channeling a 3 second cast being of any benefit when I’m risking my attunement CD on an interrupt, when I could just be doing my usual stuff and gain almost the same benefits with less risks.

I know Tempet is trying to promote a different approach, or strategy, but if is not as good as other alternatives it won’t get used, ever. Remember, this spec is trying to offer more of the same just performed in a different way, so both play-styles have to be compared. That’s why I think Overload numbers would have to be extremely high to even be taken in consideration, honestly. Let’s say you enter water and proc healing ripple+evasive arcana heal+healing orb/healing wave+SoR ticking away, all of that while never stoping doing my rotation, providing a pletora of boons and doing some dps at the same time. These are often all the clutch heals you’ll ever need as well. If you channel water overload, it just needs to heal for far more than all of that combo to be worth it, remember you’re are taking huge risks in order to do so. That’s not currently the case.

Leo G, we can definetly conclude it’s all a matter of numbers. Don’t get me wrong, I see huge potential with this spec, I think it’s just not quite there yet. As others have said, if all they want is a WvW fronliner, without any stability, blocks, invulnerability or mobility, it’s going to get squashed, fast.

Leo G.4501:

Snow White.1842:

Tempest is counter productive to the entire concept of attunement swapping which is the fundamental mechanic of the elementalist class. There is no argument against this.

I do not agree. While there are builds that focus on Elementalist attunement dancing to spam boons and skills, that isn’t the only spec Ele is capable of nor should it be the only concept an Ele spec should be aimed to. If it did, there’d practically be no point to the new elite spec idea.

I’ve just destroyed every argument made to support an elite spec that shouldn’t even exist if the person creating it had even THE SLIGHTEST WORKING KNOWLEDGE OF THE CLASS.

I doubt you’re capable of destroying every possible argument. You don’t have the open mind enough to even grasp most other arguments, much less combat them.

Nice cherry picking of the quote. Apparently you missed the part about the elementalist’s skills having both damage and cool downs being balanced against having four attunements.

If your argument is based on cherry picked quotes with little to no understanding of the comment or class mechanics, please feel free to not reply, thanks.

Khenzy.9348:

Leo G.4501:

snip.

I think the current implementation of the elementalist promotes ‘stance dancing’ while the tempest clearly interfers with that. Let me clarify that I always tend to speak from a purely sPvP perspective, I just don’t see staying there channeling a 3 second cast being of any benefit when I’m risking my attunement CD on an interrupt, when I could just be doing my usual stuff and gain almost the same benefits with less risks.

I know Tempet is trying to promote a different approach, or strategy, but if is not as good as other alternatives it won’t get used, ever. Remember, this spec is trying to offer more of the same just performed in a different way, so both play-styles have to be compared. That’s why I think Overload numbers would have to be extremely high to even be taken in consideration, honestly. Let’s say you enter water and proc healing ripple+evasive arcana heal+healing orb/healing wave+SoR ticking away, all of that while never stoping doing my rotation, providing a pletora of boons and doing some dps at the same time. These are often all the clutch heals you’ll ever need as well. If you channel water overload, it just needs to heal for far more than all of that combo to be worth it, remember you’re are taking huge risks in order to do so. That’s not currently the case.

Leo G, we can definetly conclude it’s all a matter of numbers. Don’t get me wrong, I see huge potential with this spec, I think it’s just not quite there yet. As others have said, if all they want is a WvW fronliner, without any stability, blocks, invulnerability or mobility, it’s going to get squashed, fast.

I just want to say that I completely agree with this. Not only are the overloads not worth it with the current numbers, but the tempest does not have the defensive capabilities that a front-line spec requires, especially for the squishiest class in the game. The tempest does seem to focus a lot on support, but we already have a good amount of support in current trait lines that also give survivability or damage alongside it. I think that the major traits don’t offer enough survivability in general.

I also noticed that tempest is the only elite spec that sacrifices all of it’s minor traits in order to make it’s unique mechanic usable. Singularity gives you overloads, while speedy conduit and hardy conduit make overload channeling slightly less painful. No other elite spec has to sacrifice all of their minor traits to use their mechanic, this is a huge problem. What if two of these minor traits helped you survive in the front line instead, even when not overloading?

As for PvE, the spec will not be taken if overloads don’t make up for the damage modifiers of the spec that you give up. Nobody should try to argue that HoT will have more difficult PvE with different mechanics or mob AI, because better mob AI may actually end up working against the AoE nature of these overloads. That is depending on the changes of the AI of course.

Supreme.3164:

P.S I think that increasing the base damage of fire and air overload by 25% would be great, then replace the cripple with weakness for the earth overload

Earth Overload should also AOE-Bleed. Seriously there’s not a single new bleed skill/trait, what the kitten? Earth is supposed to be about condition damage too yet we only have 1 terrible trait that makes bleed last 20% longer, that’s it. If ele’s are supposed to only burn like Guardians then they should simply remove the bleeding from the few skills we have with it and rebalance them.

But of course we all know they’ll never rework anything ele has.

Ganathar.4956:

As for PvE, the spec will not be taken if overloads don’t make up for the damage modifiers of the spec that you give up. Nobody should try to argue that HoT will have more difficult PvE with different mechanics or mob AI, because better mob AI may actually end up working against the AoE nature of these overloads. That is depending on the changes of the AI of course.

Ironically, if HoT is to be more challenging, then running around in closer range than d/f without its defence benefits is quite amusing concept.

I don’t know what I’m missing, but so far, I haven’t seen a single disadvantage to choosing Tempest as an elementalist specialization as compared to going just vanilla elementalist.

Yeah, your attunements recharge longer IF you use an overload (if I’m understood that correctly) which means that if you don’t use overloads, your attunements will function normally but you will still have access to many other options.

For example, if you pick Reaper as a necro, you will lose your death shroud range options like life blast but gain good melee options instead. How does the tempest fit into that logic?

Burjis.3087:

I don’t know what I’m missing, but so far, I haven’t seen a single disadvantage to choosing Tempest as an elementalist specialization as compared to going just vanilla elementalist.

Yeah, your attunements recharge longer IF you use an overload (if I’m understood that correctly) which means that if you don’t use overloads, your attunements will function normally but you will still have access to many other options.

For example, if you pick Reaper as a necro, you will lose your death shroud range options like life blast but gain good melee options instead. How does the tempest fit into that logic?

If you don’t use overloads, the tempest spec is completely worthless. Haven’t you noticed how a very large amount of the traits exist purely to make overloads functional? If you don’t use overloads, you are effectively losing valuable traits. If you do use overloads you lose the benefits of attunement swapping. This is the precise flaw of the design so far.

Burjis.3087:

I don’t know what I’m missing, but so far, I haven’t seen a single disadvantage to choosing Tempest as an elementalist specialization as compared to going just vanilla elementalist.

Yeah, your attunements recharge longer IF you use an overload (if I’m understood that correctly) which means that if you don’t use overloads, your attunements will function normally but you will still have access to many other options.

For example, if you pick Reaper as a necro, you will lose your death shroud range options like life blast but gain good melee options instead. How does the tempest fit into that logic?

The disadvantage is that you are missing one of your other specializations. Trait-wise the Tempest is weak, while Water/Arcana/Fire/Air/Earth have very strong synergy.

I won’t call that a design flaw. It would be a design flaw if the specialization doesn’t come with some sort of disadvantage to compensate what you’re getting.

Burjis.3087:

I won’t call that a design flaw. It would be a design flaw if the specialization doesn’t come with some sort of disadvantage to compensate what you’re getting.

True… but what you are getting has drawbacks already, with the aforementioned 20 second attunement cooldown. It simply has too many disadvantages atm, or perhaps too little reward.

Khenzy.9348:

Remember, this spec is trying to offer more of the same just performed in a different way, so both play-styles have to be compared. That’s why I think Overload numbers would have to be extremely high to even be taken in consideration, honestly. Let’s say you enter water and proc healing ripple+evasive arcana heal+healing orb/healing wave+SoR ticking away, all of that while never stoping doing my rotation, providing a pletora of boons and doing some dps at the same time. These are often all the clutch heals you’ll ever need as well. If you channel water overload, it just needs to heal for far more than all of that combo to be worth it, remember you’re are taking huge risks in order to do so. That’s not currently the case.

This hits the nail on the head. Tempest isn’t a DIFFERENT play-style, it is the same play-style carried out slightly differently. Thus, any comparison comes down to which is more efficient mathematically, balancing the numbers vs. the risks.

Compare other elite specs, which actually do things DIFFERENT than their class can currently. Alacrity is something that doesn’t exist outside of chronomancer, as well as the time step-back shatter. Dragonhunter gives a viable ranged weapon. Reaper gives very strong melee cleave. All of these open new doors that weren’t previously there. Tempest just does the SAME EXACT THING, (might/burns/damage in fire, damage/vuln in air, cleanses/heals in water, cripple/prot/immob in earth) that you can get from just swapping, with MORE RISK and lower mathematical payoff if you actually pull it off. It simply represents an inferior choice in every way.

And for those who are going to cry out “well tempest can strip boons!” Stripping 3 boons every 30 seconds isn’t a play-style change. Play-style is determined by which range you fight in, how you do damage (burst, sustained dps, condi), what ways you support, and how you defend yourself. Tempest provides support in the same way as base ele (boons, heals/cleanses), plays in the same range as base ele, does damage in the same way on each attunement, and defends in the same way (soak up damage with prot, utilize lots of heals).

g e o.2589:

So what do you guys think?? …

It’s bullkitten. A ranged magic class gets a frontline brawler spec. as its ONLY elite spec..

Snow White.1842:

Nice cherry picking of the quote. Apparently you missed the part about the elementalist’s skills having both damage and cool downs being balanced against having four attunements.

If your argument is based on cherry picked quotes with little to no understanding of the comment or class mechanics, please feel free to not reply, thanks.

It feels pointless trying to speak about your argument because you don’t seem willing to actually discuss. You’ve made up your mind and it’s to dislike anything that deviates from the status quo, which is what I’m arguing against.

Khenzy.9348:

I know Tempet is trying to promote a different approach, or strategy, but if is not as good as other alternatives it won’t get used, ever. Remember, this spec is trying to offer more of the same just performed in a different way, so both play-styles have to be compared. That’s why I think Overload numbers would have to be extremely high to even be taken in consideration, honestly. Let’s say you enter water and proc healing ripple+evasive arcana heal+healing orb/healing wave+SoR ticking away, all of that while never stoping doing my rotation, providing a pletora of boons and doing some dps at the same time. These are often all the clutch heals you’ll ever need as well. If you channel water overload, it just needs to heal for far more than all of that combo to be worth it, remember you’re are taking huge risks in order to do so. That’s not currently the case.

Leo G, we can definetly conclude it’s all a matter of numbers. Don’t get me wrong, I see huge potential with this spec, I think it’s just not quite there yet. As others have said, if all they want is a WvW fronliner, without any stability, blocks, invulnerability or mobility, it’s going to get squashed, fast.

I don’t disagree with you, in fact, I’ve sort of been arguing the same points. I love the concept of a risky gambit like charging a skill to blast out a large effect, and if the concept aligns with something other than the status quo of spamming attunement swaps, I’m not against it. Balancing it to be more worthwhile is what I’d like to change, not the concept and I already feel that they got Air overload in a nice spot, it just might need a slight area increase. Water and Earth are a different story though.

I think I heard someone mention that the minor traits are there to make the overloads actually usable and that is certainly a perspective, but I don’t agree that the traits shouldn’t be there to make the overloads usable. In fact, I think they didn’t do quite enough with the traits because I feel that picking different traits should make the overloads perform differently or have alternative use with specific set-ups. Like what if there was a trait that made the casting very short but nullified the extra effects while you charge it (basically, no damage+burn with fire overload, etc), another trait that gives you quickness after the air shout (so you can use that to cast overloads faster on command) and another trait that simply gave you a usable flip skill during the activation of an overload (like fire has a leap+dodge it can cast during the channel, water has a self-block-o-ice invuln for 1.5sec, air gets a target daze and earth gets a block) so you get a shot at protecting yourself from interrupt.

Just ideas off the top of my head but talking about traits that alter the overload mechanic a bit to make their use varied.

should be scrapped and remade while they still have time, its looking like a lackluster d/d without any escape/survivability with all the channeling, little condi/boons shouts that can be easily ignored and gigantic cooldowns between attunements if you overlord. I feel like if they took a more staff like route it would be better off :/