Guild Wars 2

Those of you whom actively play Spvp and understand the meta around Spvp, Where do you see this fitting in?

Why Take Tempest

• More Support – We are already the kings here, it’s kinda sad that this is considered “new” Maybe I’ve been playing the wrong game all this time idk…
• New Playstyle – Well yeah not rotating atune like a madman might seem new but not rotating loses MASSIVE synergy with the traits of our class. It would be great if staying in an atune was actually viable, ya know like if we had auto attack damage and not 25+sec CDs on basically every 3-5 skill. Cause staying in an attune with a crap auto and 1 other ability isn’t really an option. These skills will be situational fight enders or fight escapes.
• Auras – Why does it seem like A-net wants Auramancer to be a thing… Second to that we now have Aura traits in EVERY SINGLE TRAIT LINE… Does anyone not like auras because they require the enemy to actually hit you… hence we have to build defensive to maximize their use, hence my next point Aside from this the aura trait look promising assuming no ICD
• Things listed below

Traits

• Major A Gale Song This will be the primary selection, latent stam could be good but requires a team to get the effects… Unstable Conduit Aura mancer is not going to be a thing
• Major M Earthen Proxy Yeah prot is our only defense mechanic, lets make it better Harmonius Conduit I really dont see how 20% is going to help (unless you stack it with the new elite and arcane trait line (yep totally going to get to leave arcane…) Also I dont think this competes with earthen. Tempestous Aria Now this i could possibly see if taking Gale Song and Eye of the Storm as a stunbreak and another shout somewhere. I just don’t see that being better than earthen for having to sacrifice so much to make use of it (cantrips)
• Major G Element Bastion This goes well with our current playstyle, I appove, Will it promote auramancer? nah Imbued Melodies if you take a WH it would be viable (assuming it doesn’t activate every 10 seconds and only goes on ICD when it breaks a stun) but this brings us to taking WH. Lucid Singularity Needs stability, bottom line.

WH

• Fire WH Support boonshare(this could be borderline OP), BoonRip Damage dealing fire field. Okay love the spell. but the CD means as a fire field its use is minimal. Getting a boon rip was my dream, too bad it didnt come as the utility shout… it would be perfect there Dager/Focu Losing low CD fire fields with higher burn up-time/damage If WH4 is full boon share (duration and stacks) I could see it competing.
• Air WH AOE pull on a lower CD than our updraft and gale yeah… OP. Lightning Orb If that can it the same target over and over I could see this being incredibly strong. How this interacts with terrain is going to decide if its in a good place. Assuming this works well and climbs stairs and such I think it could be worth sacrificing RTL.
• Water WH We get a water feild.. and another AOE knockback. dager/foci Lose frost aura and clensing wave, title surge will replace this for the most part since we’ll be running water and it grants regen. Water-field is going to be strong paired with a coordinated team. Personally never though freezing gust or comment competed with dagger, I don’t see them competing with WH.
• Earth WH Another support boon boost. this time 4 s of protection. Loss of blast finisher. Dust storm is looking OP dager/foci Dag 5 is nearly never usable, but the interupt was great, we lost the blast but gained interupt in water. Focus still is far better for self survivability (although that dust strom might just be OP enough to suffice) Loss of Condi clear (further forcing water on WH users)
  *_Downside to WH_ is loss of mobility from dagger and condi clear from focus. Loss of Auras as well. Loss of a blast finisher.

I said it at the start the only way we would take WH over dag/foci is if its borderline OP and well… yeah the abilites are looking that way…

Shouts

• Heal – Solid Team support spell, Will be taken with Cleric Support builds if they become a thing, Will not replace sigil for bruisers. _Welcome to support. If you havent noticed already our role in this game is support. No you don’t get to play they way you want, cant you tell your a healer/support. _
• Util – EotS – Strong, Personally the only one I see truly being used. Fire/Earth/Water With the spec going towards water/arcane/tempest we gain no protection/fury/swiftness from auras. I could see these being used in a perma protection aura build running earth/water/tempest (this would likely be the cleric support build)
• Elite – its not even instant, you can’t cast it during a spell channel (of your own) to get the effects on that CD. Solution make it grant 2s of haste on the next spell cast. That would make this elite worth taking.

Overload Channel Time
Seriously they tried to demo against chief and he got interrupted over and over… You guys play pvp. Interrupts are handed out like candy and with our only access to stability being armor of earth and possibly 2 seconds when swapping to earth (idk how you’d even take that if your taking arc/water/tempest)

Arcane Reliance
Even in the demo it was apparent this is not a spec that will get us out of arcane, quite the opposite. The synergy between arcane CD reduction and the need of that extra blast finisher, not to mention the boon duration, show we are not leaving arcane for standard pvp play.

Condition Removal AKA Water Reliance
WH – None
Tempest – Movement immune during overload with a trait that competes with 2 traits that seem 100% better Could be great for running away…
A Wait delayed water overload meaning you have to soak ~5s of condi before you can start your cleanse and then put water on CD for 20 seconds…
So how does this help us leave water? Run shouts with Runes for condi clense… I’m not seeing it sorry… Were still stuck in water, more than arcane.

Celestial, Arcane, and Water

I think a cleric earth/water/tempest D/WH or maybeeee S/WH might come out of this. Especially with the support healing/boonshare/boost/striping/knockdowns/etc WH brings.

I think Celest arc/water/temp D/D will be competing with celest arc/water/fire I think it replaces the idea of arc/water/earth (also replaced by cleric style above). I could see Tempest being taken over fire for the extra damage reuc. heal on auras, free stun break and superspeed. The extra abilities for certain situations are going to become like EA where it feels unnatural to play the class without them. I hate to say it but unlike other classes where the elite changes the play-style I fear tempest for ele is going to be like EA in this play-style where it just doesn’t feel correct without having it and the loss of utility will outweigh the benefits of other trait-lines. Think tempest will further lock our title as 1v1 king bringing us huge damage dealers out to finish fights rather than just out-sustaining everyone with constant damage.

Will we leave cantrips/water Nope

Did we get a new playstyle? -Not only do the mechanics not bring a new playstyle, but they further force us into the support role.

So Anyone see where use might come out of this spec other than forcing us into the same role and/or more supporty role than we already were… If there is any non cleric/celest build that you think would ACTUALLY be competitive and viable please list it I’d love to see the ideas.

People a don’t seem to realize that tidal surge will cure a condition with cleansing water. Still a bit more on the water field would be nice.

Other than that I just want sand squall to be a blast finisher and wildfire to have a 30 second cooldown. Then I think warhorn will be pretty much fine.

nearlight.3064:

People a don’t seem to realize that tidal surge will cure a condition with cleansing water. Still a bit more on the water field would be nice.

I’m not sure that’s referring to me but that just further locks ele into water as our most mandatory tree. It’s not part of the weapon mechanic, both focus and dagger have condi cleanse without needing the water trait line. Hence I did not include it(I actually removed it as I was moving things around)

nearlight.3064:

People a don’t seem to realize that tidal surge will cure a condition with cleansing water. Still a bit more on the water field would be nice.

Other than that I just want sand squall to be a blast finisher and wildfire to have a 30 second cooldown. Then I think warhorn will be pretty much fine.

Conditions generally don’t kill eles in PVP. Huge burst and CC usually does. Or dumping ~10 condis onto them within 2 seconds overwhelming their condi cleanses.