Guild Wars 2

Laraley.7695:

Xillllix.3485:

Laraley.7695:

Shouts feel quite lackluster with way too high cooldowns. Rebound is just horrible. 25% reduced cd for allies on 60 sec cd. Ele still doesn’t have any useful elite. I also don’t understand why ele needs to have aoe stunbreak, it makes no sense to me.

I think they didn’t have any idea what to do. The Elite seems like something cheap they came up with in 5 minutes after doing the super cool Mesmer version using Alacrity. AoE stunbreak because they are under the illusion that eles will tank as a melee in WvW… Which is the whole problem with Tempest, it’s made for melee, but the Elementalist is a range class and will always be too squishy for melee. 7% of protection wont change that.

I’m actually trying to figure out where they tried to put this spec. If you look at Reaper, you get the idea what they had in mind, but Tempest has everything, but nothing. It’s about support a lot, but mixing up with damage and cc. It feels like they’re trying to push ele into the celestial amulet even more.

I honestly don’t know, but I don’t feel like ele is mainly a support class, so not sure why they’re putting it everywhere. Imo, they wanted to make a spec that would be like a support guardian for pvp, but they felt some damage is needed so they added some here and there. Then something like this compes up and no one knows what to do with it.

I mean, it all looks cool and flashy, but I can’t see much practical use for the spec.

Honestly, I feel like crafting a legendary great-sword and going Reaper way more than crafting a legendary warhorn and going Tempest right now, even if I main ele.

morrolan.9608:

Azel.4786:

Just saw the Points of Interest, couldn’t see it because of work.

But I will say that the specialization is really really lackluster. It offers no new “play style”, in fact, at the start he says “we want you to be more of a brawler / group support style”, this is pretty much what we have today with D/D Celestial ele.

Why do they want that? I play ele to play a a mage type.

I’m gonna be honest and say I think it’s because the devs have no clue about ele and actually weren’t sure what to do with it. Imo, they feel like the skills are cool and everything, but they lack deeper knowledge about the class that comes up from playing it a lot, so they don’t realize many of the cool stuff in theory is not really practical.

Laraley.7695:

morrolan.9608:

Azel.4786:

Just saw the Points of Interest, couldn’t see it because of work.

But I will say that the specialization is really really lackluster. It offers no new “play style”, in fact, at the start he says “we want you to be more of a brawler / group support style”, this is pretty much what we have today with D/D Celestial ele.

Why do they want that? I play ele to play a a mage type.

I’m gonna be honest and say I think it’s because the devs have no clue about ele and actually weren’t sure what to do with it. Imo, they feel like the skills are cool and everything, but they lack deeper knowledge about the class that comes up from playing it a lot, so they don’t realize many of the cool stuff in theory is not really practical.

Yeah I’m happy to have D/D and D/F as a brawler style but we really need more range options. The only thing that interests me with this spec is playing as an auramancer type.

God just imagine a spellslinger pistol spec on an ele……………..

My first impression is to agree on the following:

~Overloads feel like they should do alot more damage
~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 rename “Rebound!” to “Raging Storm!” : apply 5 seconds of fury, quickness, and alacrity to all affected by the shout and apply light aura to all affected by shout

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 blasts the area for an additional 2k-4k damage

~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) (see above)

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.

Nobody else is sad that there is only 1 Warhorn animation for all the skills? The elemental effect change, but the weapon is always the same blow (no movement of the character or leaps, like a dodge back/forward).

No invulnerability. No blocks. No evades. No movement skills. No teleports…. but they think adding 7% more to protection is going to make dagger/warhorn a frontliner….

k.

Also seriously, did no one else think (esp earth skill 4 i think) warhorn animations looked like farting…..

Mightybird.6034:

No invulnerability. No blocks. No evades. No movement skills. No teleports…. but they think adding 7% more to protection is going to make dagger/warhorn a frontliner….

k.

Also seriously, did no one else think (esp earth skill 4 i think) warhorn animations looked like farting…..

I did not like a lot of the animations.

They did very good jobs on a lot of the animations for the Chronomancer, Dragonhunter (flashiest of them all), Reaper and Revenant.

Elementalist had a ton of poor animations, for Wildifre that they were saying was “the best” it felt really really poor.

Mightybird.6034:

No invulnerability. No blocks. No evades. No movement skills. No teleports…. but they think adding 7% more to protection is going to make dagger/warhorn a frontliner….

k.

Also seriously, did no one else think (esp earth skill 4 i think) warhorn animations looked like farting…..

i dont see focus or dagger getting replaced by that, most skills are at best “meh”

Sekai.2987:

Mightybird.6034:

No invulnerability. No blocks. No evades. No movement skills. No teleports…. but they think adding 7% more to protection is going to make dagger/warhorn a frontliner….

k.

Also seriously, did no one else think (esp earth skill 4 i think) warhorn animations looked like farting…..

i dont see focus or dagger getting replaced by that, most skills are at best “meh”

I think for PvP the new elite is better than what we currently have, but the cooldown is too long and 25% is really low. Before you engage in battle you can use it and everyone will understand what is happening, in long fights it could make a difference.

Edit: If you notice in the fights at the end of the stream Karl never uses the elite… So maybe it is not that useful after all.

rotten.9753:

nearlight.3064:

A couple of things:

PvE in this game is so kitten easy, it honestly doesn’t matter what you bring in my eyes (outside of say level 30+ fractals, which I don’t do anymore, or speed runs if you’re into that) as long as you try to max out your damage output as much as you can with your playstyle. And honestly, as an ele, as long as you use icebows like every fight, no ones going to care if you don’t use staff.

Sure, if it’s easy they can design a spec that’s kitten because why not. And you really underestimate people’s kicking potential, ice bow gives you a spike damage while staff has more than 30% damage potential than dagger mainhand.

So you’ve been kicked for running non-staff ele….? I bring necromancer in fractals and no one gives a kitten.

Just finished watching Tempest ready up. Have to say I like the overload skulls, looks like airload can give some serious vulnerability, which is good for myself where water gives my best vulnerability. But my problem is the traits don’t work for my build right, I really wanted a plus 10%+ damage. Still warhorn is meh, and shouts, elite looks alright with “eye of the storm”. Do see staff eles running the elite. Warhorn don’t really see any skills that beat “Fire Grab” or “Turning Earth”. But I do see some areas that warhorn will be good in, but the damage I don’t think is anywhere near dagger off-hand.

randomjordan.4261:

I completely agree with the blast finisher on sand squall. I mean out of all the off hand weapons you would think warhorn would get a blast finisher and yet there are none? It just seems appropriate to put it on sand squall. A whirl finisher would also be cool like on the air skill cyclone. That way over all you are looking at a water field, a fire field, a blast finisher and a whirl finisher all in a different attunement each.

Especially since every other offhand has at least one blast finisher (focus has two). Honestly I’d like to see the fire #4 skill (which currently gives might and shares boons) onto a utility. It seems too niche for a primary skill, even for a weapon dedicated mostly to support. It’d be nice to have a blast finisher in its place, in addition to the earth #4.

Just as an example of that sort of skill:

Nova
Unleash a brilliant burst of flames in a 240 unit radius around yourself (same radius as Frozen Burst), damaging foes and granting allies fury/might/retaliation/something. Acts as a blast finisher

Or just flat out swap Heat Sync and Feel the Burn!, making the latter a blast finisher and changing their names to something more fitting.

Edit:

Improve character model fluidity while channeling an overcharge. They all seem very cartoonish or cheesy right now.

Also, this. Make some sort of continuous animation, similar to how Meteor Storm works. One stiff animation looks incredibly awkward. Also on the topic of meteor storm, make the animation used by norn/human/sylvari males closer to the animations used by asura and norn/human/sylvari females with the arm twirling thing. The current animation looks like we’re summon meteors through interpretive dance inspired by pulling taffy.

nearlight.3064:

So you’ve been kicked for running non-staff ele….? I bring necromancer in fractals and no one gives a kitten.

I don’t pug so no but if you were to join a party advertised as “meta zerk” or something similar then good luck. Not everyone wants to spend twice as much time to reap the same rewards. If you join typical phiw parties, sure, you can pay whatever you want. Maybe even tempest will find its home there, just like staff necro did.

Mahuyo.3079:

Just finished watching Tempest ready up. Have to say I like the overload skulls, looks like airload can give some serious vulnerability, which is good for myself where water gives my best vulnerability. But my problem is the traits don’t work for my build right, I really wanted a plus 10%+ damage. Still warhorn is meh, and shouts, elite looks alright with “eye of the storm”. Do see staff eles running the elite. Warhorn don’t really see any skills that beat “Fire Grab” or “Turning Earth”. But I do see some areas that warhorn will be good in, but the damage I don’t think is anywhere near dagger off-hand.

For dmg i think scpter/warhorn is going to be the trick i have a feeling d/any thing in tempest line is going to be support melee. Something like air fire (tempest line) maybe with scpter/warhorn should be a god in 1v1 and have nice use in 5 vs 5 spvp. Ele still going to be “king” for pve all in dmg and for tankly dmg d/d build but tempest should give ele its 1v1 build and its true melee hammer tran d/d build.

Both offhands have 2 blast finishers. Warhorn has 0 though you could argue fire#4 can work like a blast finisher in fire fields.

rotten.9753:

Both offhands have 2 blast finishers. Warhorn has 0 though you could argue fire#4 can work like a blast finisher in fire fields.

Well yes, but lets not forget that comet on focus (aiming issues), and churning earth (long cast time) are both impractical as blast finishers in pvp. I think that sand squall and possibly heat sync (although its already a great skill in its own right) should be blast finishers to even the playing field a bit.

I think the best way to make Tempest feel different than core ele, instead of just “moar,” would be to move warhorn to main hand.

Tweak the existing skills to compensate for moving up in the bar, and add a true close-range autoattack. Since Tempest is already getting so many skills, though, a set of 4 might be overkill. This might be a good place to toy with an arcane weapon skill.

Being arcane, the autoattack wouldn’t change with attunement. This even fits a little bit with the less-swappy nature of the Tempest. Also, make it a channel instead of a combo, and we’ll have a perfect fit. Just press 1 to start a long toot on your horn that deals continuous damage to nearby enemies for a couple seconds.

No conditions or other special effects. Just a steady steam of pure arcane energy for clean damage in a blast radius.

Initially I didn’t think I’d like the warhorn, but after watching the POI? Sadly my views on the warhorn remain unchanged. I think staff will still be my preferred weapon of choice, simply because I like every single skill on it. With the warhorn, I only like a few of them (dust storm and heat sync specifically – though with pyromancer’s puissance I get might every time I cast a spell while attuned to fire anyway, so I don’t need warhorn just for the might stacks, so this only really leaves me liking the dust storm AOE blind that pulsates – which isn’t really enough for me to want to swap to warhorn over staff).

However, I LOVE the Feel the Burn shout. I think I might be using that. As well as the fire Overload. I think those two are probably my favourite things from the Tempest. I don’t really like most of the Tempest traits, but there are 1 or 2 that interest me, so I’m not sure whether it’s worth swapping out an entire trait line for Tempest, because for me, it’s either Arcane that goes (which gives me a good amount of ferocity when I use my arcane skills), or Air, which allows me to deal 20% more damage to foes below 50%, with bolt to the heart. So I don’t know. I guess I’ll see when we have access to play the Tempest spec. All I know is that I won’t be using warhorn.

Love the shouts and the overloads though. I think those were done well.

Nerf it along with ele. The game must be hard.

Also guys I updated my original post (second post of it), with some more ideas about traits. Be sure to check it out and let me know what you think of my ideas about lucid singularity and “Tempest Offense”.

A few skills are blatantly ‘structured PvP only’ -

Earth Warhorn #4 – 2 extra seconds means nothing in PvE.

Elite skill – there are enough other posts explaining what is wrong with this skill.

Jski.6180:

Mahuyo.3079:

Just finished watching Tempest ready up. Have to say I like the overload skulls, looks like airload can give some serious vulnerability, which is good for myself where water gives my best vulnerability. But my problem is the traits don’t work for my build right, I really wanted a plus 10%+ damage. Still warhorn is meh, and shouts, elite looks alright with “eye of the storm”. Do see staff eles running the elite. Warhorn don’t really see any skills that beat “Fire Grab” or “Turning Earth”. But I do see some areas that warhorn will be good in, but the damage I don’t think is anywhere near dagger off-hand.

For dmg i think scpter/warhorn is going to be the trick i have a feeling d/any thing in tempest line is going to be support melee. Something like air fire (tempest line) maybe with scpter/warhorn should be a god in 1v1 and have nice use in 5 vs 5 spvp. Ele still going to be “king” for pve all in dmg and for tankly dmg d/d build but tempest should give ele its 1v1 build and its true melee hammer tran d/d build.

Yea I kinda agree scepter will do better with warhorn. Though I seems have less cleanse than I figured I would though i’m kinda surprised there is no increase damage trait I could have used something other than water 2 give out a nice increase o damage.

After seeing what the tempest will and will not do, i see it isnt a zerker build as i hoped but yet another brawling styled weapon set, which isnt solely based on support but offers alot of utility for both itself and others.

Elite

Right the elite everyones saying its bad, but no imho no it really isnt, to offer Low CD for anything is pretty good, extending that to the entire team within teamfights or even solo play this will have many uses to bring up important skills such as ur healing or a cantrip/shout back quicker.

Weapon Skills

as we saw some of the skills we are getting are utility or support, but even then we are getitng some really nice damaging capabilities in majority the attunements which will offer some nice stuff.

overall i like the skills, it isnt a zerker build as i suspected but it is offering Damage it is Offering Utility and everything Elementalists do actually need, i dont feel like this transition will be impossible and i feel assured we will get a chance where all of these will become useful

Overloads

I among others (although i have said from the start i think this will be good) were worried how situational these really would become, ALot of players stated Mesmers have 1200 Interupts Thief has Spammable Interupts, how badly will this affect us, well by the looks of things they have looked after this correctly it doesnt seem to be such a vunerable state as we once thought.

Im not seeing anything to prevent these interupts entirely so far, maybe they need it in beta to see how badly this will affect us before they launch any early changes to our traits or something to prevent this being such as Easy thing for certain proffessions to counter.

however defintly potiental in these getting Super strong and becoming very useful with a high risk high reward factor, its always nice to have those things in ur belt for situations.

What we’re losing

We arnt getting anything to replace the mobility we’re losing and nothing to really fend ourselves off utilikty sided, no invuns no mobility no reflects no blocks or anything,

we seem to be losing survivability in areas, which for a front line specializations seems very odd they shouldnt be taking these things completely away from us, i mean the mobility loss is replaced by heck loads of swiftness everywhere but i was expecting to see some Invuns or Reflects among the new capabilities specially looking at the earth side or Shouts (fully offensive shouts might make them too situational)

What we’re gaining

However, We are getting some really neat things too, Instant might stacks will be amazing to Might stacking builds and it even does go to ur team (At the end of the day we want our abilities to work in more then one game mode) Our earth overload is a invun so we do have that.

with the CD Reduction on overloads through traits, i feel this will assure many that we do have a way to bring the high Costs down on our overloads putting it on the same tier as our Might stacking capability might be harsh alittle (then again even as strong as some things in shouts look i dont know if we can afford to lose cantrips if the case then CDR will defintly triumph this talent might push us further towards cantrips though in itself.

My opinon

im sure there are LOADS that hate this, however im sure there are LOADS that love this, the thing is with any sort of Introduction to classes or proffessions in Any MMO this will cause some to reroll their mains some to stick others to come to the proffession/class this will have a affect on the Most and Least popular proffessions in the game it is perfectly natural that some will turn away from the proffession or come to the proffession seeing these changes, Anet are never going to make something EVERYONE Loves, if they did there would be 0 need to create anymore then 2 proffessions and Labelling them “ranged” and “melee”

My opinon, I love the look of the specialization it does seem strong in multiple fields and seems to have good things for all game modes, it’ll be very different to what i currently know, but that isnt always bad change is good, so yes im looking forward to seeing this coming into the game during betas and to see how this evolves and what its final release will be in comparison to now.

Bryzy.2719:

Just had a look at the Tempest and christ does that look like a boring kitten effort by Anet lmao… I’ve been poised ready to insta-80 an ele based on its elite spec, but not going to bother now.

On the other hand, I’ve always mained a Ranger so if it turns out Druid is just as sucky then I guess I won’t be the one with the last laugh :’)

Tempest does indeed look HORRIBLE.

So here is an idea, let’s divide and conquer each lacking point from the tempest that we feel could improve.

From the voting pool: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Let-s-Vote-ONLY-Tempest/first#post5316807 I feel like the position of the community is not all out rejection to the Tempest, but more feel like it is a potentially good specialization, but needs tweaks.

I must say that at first I was really against it, but I had my chance to cool it off and I think we may work with what we have and get something out of it.

So let’s talk traits in this topic.

I think some key missing / changes to traits to really flesh out the Tempest would be:

1. Merge Speedy Conduit and Hardy Conduit. Make new Minor 3: “While Overloading you pulse 1 stack of stability (2s duration) to all allies in a 360 radius. Interval: 2s”.
Reason: Overloading is a big “Interrupt me sign”, pulsing stability 2s in a 2s interval gives some defense but does not nullify the threat of interrupts.

2. Latent Stamina: Grant vigor when attuning to water, Stability when attuning to earth, retaliation when attuning to fire and fury when attuning to air. [Would require changes to Elemental Contingency and Rock Solid]
Reason: There is no point in being attunement specific in a “all attunements” specialization. Giving different boons than Elemental Attunement does not override with it, but rather provides good combo with Bountiful Power, making that more of a contender with Evasive Arcana.

3. Tempestuous Aria: No longer grants mights on shout. Shouts become a Combo: Blast.
Reason: Warhorn is intended to be group buff and provide a lot of fields, shouts thus become very powerful with warhorn abilities and still stay interesting when pairing with other weapons. Helps to replace the Evasive Arcana style of play and open new possibilities with Bountiful Power and fighting more with Cantrips.

These are my main suggestions. Thoughts? What would you propose as well?

Arobain.8274:

another elitist thats judging the elite spec before seeing the live stream, how unoriginal of you, GG

Its pretty obvious that the tempest spec could have been better.

The design in general is pretty flawed, Ele is forced to stay for a good 20-25 seconds in one attunement while having horrible cooldowns on every single spell he has.

Not to mention that ele’s didn’t get new 1-2-3’s but they still use the old weapons, which don’t really fit with the tempest playstyle.

Reason for that is that the old weapons are based on the traditional playstyle of blowing cooldowns and switching attunement, but instead they combine that with the tempest who has to stay in one atunnement for a long time, kind of contradicting playstyles in one.

I feel like they had to make an additional weapon with the warhorn that would have provided low cooldown 1-2-3 spells, to compensate for being stuck in one attuenemnt for 30 seconds and synergize with the playstyle, but well, guess not.

Lawful.5314:

Arobain.8274:

another elitist thats judging the elite spec before seeing the live stream, how unoriginal of you, GG

Its pretty obvious that the tempest spec could have been better.

The design in general is pretty flawed, Ele is forced to stay for a good 20-25 seconds in one attunement while having horrible cooldowns on every single spell he has.

Not to mention that ele’s didn’t get new 1-2-3’s but they still use the old weapons, which don’t really fit with the tempest playstyle.

Reason for that is that the old weapons are based on the traditional playstyle of blowing cooldowns and switching attunement, but instead they combine that with the tempest who has to stay in one atunnement for a long time, kind of contradicting playstyles in one.

I feel like they had to make an additional weapon with the warhorn that would have provided low cooldown 1-2-3 spells, to compensate for being stuck in one attuenemnt for 30 seconds and synergize with the playstyle, but well, guess not.

It only takes 5 seconds before you’re able to overload attunements, and even then you’re free to switch if you don’t want to overload it. When you’re done overloading you can stay in that attunement or switch out, its just overloading puts it on a slightly higher cooldown. So if anything you’re taking max of ten seconds the attunement (say earth) as the most you have to be in it to get an overload off.

Meaning that your 30 seconds idea nonsense, quite literally is nonsense.

Dagger builds don’t stay even 5 seconds in one attunement except d/f fresh air in pve.

This kind of sums up my feelings
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAKG-kbKeIo

I use two Eles, one is a celestaff the other one is FA/Might stacking. Unlike the other Elite specializations, I don’t have a use for it. Which is ok, I play every profession. Believe me, Ele was already in a good spot. But now with more utility!

The overload mechanic needs a dramatic decrease in cast time and stronger damage for it to be worth it.

For an elite for a TEMPEST, why in the hell is it using time as a mechanic? Why couldn’t it be summoning an AoE as big as meteor shower, but shifting between the 4 elements?

THAT would have been a sweet elite!

Leave the time mechanic to chronomancers!

Forgotten Legend.9281:

My first impression is to agree on the following:

I like a lot of these ideas. I don’t think all of them have to be implemented to tune the spec up but quite a few would do wonders to really make the tempest shine. The change for Latent Stamina too, particularly.

Forgotten Legend.9281:

~“Rebound!” should ALSO apply 5 seconds of Alacrity to those affected by the shout. again, fitting the theme of boon-share party support

Perhaps. But I honestly just wish they’d boost the elite some more, like make it just cast an Overload (the charge up and all) but not lock you into the cast time (letting you do other stuff) on top of its base effect.

Forgotten Legend.9281:

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

Or perhaps just protection you apply reflects some damage (kind of like the War trait that grants healing power with might).

Forgotten Legend.9281:

~the new GM minor could be Arcane Singularity: completing an overload channel grants a blast finisher.

Lastly, I think it should just apply finishers dependent on the skill so the fire tornado becomes a whirl, water bubble becomes a leap, earth becomes a blast and air I guess a blast as well. Honestly, I just think blast finishers as a whole need to be balanced again and other combos beefed up to make them desirable (although leaps are already good).

Seems like a dev confused TEMPEST for TEMPUS…

Like I said in another topic… Why not an aoe daze storm that grants allies stab? :/
Bring Maelstrom back!

It’s not even a true elite. It’s just a thing that helps other players elites recharge a bit faster. For us it provides nothing.

Why is it considered time manipulation when a skill allows you shorter cooldowns really?

Or maybe you think that anyone that applies Chill is actually distorting time?

The OP just doesn’t want to play warhorn, I get it. Even if (a big if) Tempest sucks, Ele is in a great place now.

That’s hardly an excuse.

DresdenAllblack.1249:

The OP just doesn’t want to play warhorn, I get it. Even if (a big if) Tempest sucks, Ele is in a great place now.

As long as bosses don’t move or nullify projectiles.

But I mean…if they did that…they could be challenging! Who would want to have a challenge to overcome? MORE WALLSTACKING!

Seriously. Fire Staff in PvE is ONLY strong because it exploits the weaknesses of the AI. If a boss moves too much (like Archdiviner or Mai Trin) then…oh look…DPS decreases because Lava Font can’t land. Or if a boss reflects projectiles (Grawl Shaman before he takes a skinny dip in lava) then…oh look…Fireballs don’t land.

Ele is in a great place for old content! Yes! Because going into an expansion we want a profession to risk being worse in the new content is a good idea!

This is pretty much the most ineffective argument against giving Elementalists a mobile DPS spec with low CDs. The moment bosses are designed to be good the Ele has to work harder and there’s a chance that YES, theoretically Ele does the highest DPS. In practice, probably not so much. Theorycrafting relies on the OPTIMAL conditions, not actual conditions of a fight.

stof.9341:

Why is it considered time manipulation when a skill allows you shorter cooldowns really?

Or maybe you think that anyone that applies Chill is actually distorting time?

Which is why Chronomancer feels like a really cheap conceptual stretch to me (Hell, some of the effects don’t really feel time-related at all).

But its sort of the same thing here. This specialization really just feels more like ‘Arch-Magus’ or ‘Advanced Elementalist’ than ‘Tempest’ to me. Where are the storms, man. :-(

Kind of feels like the gameplay and concepts for each spec are being handled separately and then crammed together.

Fade.1743:

This is pretty much the most ineffective argument against giving Elementalists a mobile DPS spec with low CDs.

Tempest looks more like a Support spec than DPS spec.

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?

In giving it more thought, it is clear that the designer is completely lost about how to make something that works as a cohesive whole. Even the water/arcana/X design came about as basically an accident as players found a few months after release you could make a viable spec by just packing every bit of defense possible into one spec.

About tempest:

Overloads: Just don’t work with the class design. Not enough tankiness/stability to complete a FIVE SECOND channel. Terrible risk/reward payoff given the double penalty (wait to unlock, long CD after) and long channel times. Not balanced vs. efficiency of just swappping around.

Shouts: Very little synergy here. Not many defensive options (critical for most ele utils). Not very offensively impactful when used, given the long CD. Auras as defense are passive (require soaking damage and then healing), which works opposite to design of tempest and overloads (fewer swaps). Ele utility slots set a very high bar to get taken, due to all of the capabilities they have from weapon skills. In general, only 2 types of skills get taken: Those that have very high damage/CD ratios (like glyph of storms, frost bow, arcane skills for burst eles) or instant defense (cantrips, arcane shield) – shouts fit in neither, mostly.

Warhorn Decent, but seems like a strange middle-point between dagger and focus, rather than something completely different. Slightly more aoe CC than dagger, less damage, and no mobility. Slightly more damage and control than focus, but no defense. All these incredibly slow-moving fields and projectiles are just bad: they are very hard to hit with, seem to be outpaced by a running group, and don’t even provide a stationary field (like the water or blind) to be useful when confined to a point.

Traits: There isn’t much coherence here. The “overload” traits are all dead, as the mechanic has inherent problems to ever be viable. Even if they weren’t bad, getting an aura AFTER kitten channel provides no real defense (defense is good on-demand, not “5 seconds from now if I am not dead or interrupted”). Shout traits suffer from the fact that shouts don’t fit together into any kind of coherent “shout build” (not enough defense, rather weak offense, even if you take trooper runes). The defense traits are decent, but have nothing to do with the tempest theme, at all.

Final Verdict
What a lot of this comes down to, is that it is even clear that the spec is confused as many of the mechanics clearly just belong or overlap with others. Ele is NOT lacking in support options, so force a support spec is “more of the same.” Many of the skills/traits seem like just belong to other lines. Others, like Gale song is just a variant of tempest defense. The air shout SHOULD provide shocking aura, but this was clearly removed because then gale song WOULD be just a bad version of tempest defense. The vigor trait, prot trait, and aura traits clearly belong in different lines (water, earth, water, respecively). Warhorn fire field should have just been what the fixed focus fire field is like. The aura functionality of tempest just seems tacked on, and makes “aura builds” even harder to obtain (all kinds of traits spread amongst every line, but no line strong enough to carry a complete build). Rebound, the elite, doesn’t make any sense with the class as a whole, and has nothing to do with “arcana.”

Yeah, athough it’s good syppirt, the elite shout does feel off compared to the rest. I guess devs just couldn’t think of a good way to make an arcane themed storm/shout.

Plus, mesmers might not appreciate us nudging into their territory either.

I dont understand all the hate towards the tempest and the warhorn. I think warhorn seems to fit the theme(altho I have to admit I was surprised it was a close range weapon for elementalist). Personaly I was hoping to get double pistol for elementalist even though it probably doesnt make a whole lot of sense lore wise but man would that have been cool!

Im looking forward to using the warhorn! The animations are really awesome and it seems to be a very good option for aura/boon share ele. Im a little disappointed warhorn didnt end up being a long range weapon but I will give it a try and i think it will be good or at the very least it adds alot of flavor to the class in my opinion.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

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.

Agree. On top of being so bad its also boring. It should at least recharge a skill instantly on 1 ally or recharge a non-elite instantly for nearby allies.

All ele needed was a good elite. Now they get just another elite below the quality of utility skills.

I agree the elite is lacking, to make the elite better it should be changed to something like next non-elite skill or overload used instantly recharges. Because the elite effects both the ele and allies it would work very well. I wonder if the skill works with icebow 4 >:)

Lyger.5429:

I agree the elite is lacking, to make the elite better it should be changed to something like next non-elite skill or overload used instantly recharges. Because the elite effects both the ele and allies it would work very well. I wonder if the skill works with icebow 4 >:)

Shaves a whole 5 seconds off that recharge! So ELITE!

I don’t know they chose yet another close range option when D/? and S/? are already close-medium range options.

Anything with a 2.75-5 second channel is never going to work in PVP without added stability and/or stealth, especially when it locks out attunements for 20 sec. Getting locked out of water for 9sec is bad enough, imagine 20sec.

I don’t see a good reason to use any of the shouts over cantrips, yay another useless utility set.

warhorn skills look fine but for the fact it’s yet another close range weapon, like we didn’t already have cloe range options already. I want to play a mage kitten it, not a warrior!!

So so disappointed.

scerevisiae.1972:

I don’t know they chose yet another close range option when D/? and S/? are already close-medium range options.

Anything with a 2.75-5 second channel is never going to work in PVP without added stability and/or stealth, especially when it locks out attunements for 20 sec. Getting locked out of water for 9sec is bad enough, imagine 20sec.

I don’t see a good reason to use any of the shouts over cantrips, yay another useless utility set.

warhorn skills look fine but for the fact it’s yet another close range weapon, like we didn’t already have cloe range options already. I want to play a mage kitten it, not a warrior!!

So so disappointed.

Its just the one atument and that only if you swap out of it after using overlord. Its realty not as bad as it seems overlord is something you do not use as an opener unless your doing it as a wind up for the big hit alone.

To have the abitly to overlord is better then not having it but you do not need to use it to get the full effect out of the class.