Guild Wars 2

hey guys,

i just got into playing tempest as dps in raids…. and now i read about all those changes :/ what do you think will change for the tempest? will he still be in a good spot in the usual team-comp?

how will the optimal rotation change?

i am curious about what you think!

Nothing changed, but maybe thiefs finally have a chance of getting into raids (dps diff is smaller now, and dps spike of ele is now more situational (big hit box, longer cooldown on Meteor shower (33% cd reduction now 20%)), + lava font nerf. D/Wh stays in dps, but was very close already to thiefs. I’m curious if thiefs will get raid spots now.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Nothing changed, but maybe thiefs finally have a chance of getting into raids (dps diff is smaller now, and dps spike of ele is now more situational (big hit box, longer cooldown on Meteor shower (33% cd reduction now 20%)), + lava font nerf. D/Wh stays in dps, but was very close already to thiefs. I’m curious if thiefs will get raid spots now.

D/Wh has lost dps too. Pretty sure thief out dps fresh air.
But at least tempest give more support at your party.

lucadiro.4519:

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Nothing changed, but maybe thiefs finally have a chance of getting into raids (dps diff is smaller now, and dps spike of ele is now more situational (big hit box, longer cooldown on Meteor shower (33% cd reduction now 20%)), + lava font nerf. D/Wh stays in dps, but was very close already to thiefs. I’m curious if thiefs will get raid spots now.

D/Wh has lost dps too. Pretty sure thief out dps fresh air.
But at least tempest give more support at your party.

Thief has more party support now too. Venom share…

Lol I forgot about that

Tomiyou.3790:

lucadiro.4519:

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Nothing changed, but maybe thiefs finally have a chance of getting into raids (dps diff is smaller now, and dps spike of ele is now more situational (big hit box, longer cooldown on Meteor shower (33% cd reduction now 20%)), + lava font nerf. D/Wh stays in dps, but was very close already to thiefs. I’m curious if thiefs will get raid spots now.

D/Wh has lost dps too. Pretty sure thief out dps fresh air.
But at least tempest give more support at your party.

Thief has more party support now too. Venom share…

Well…the venom share is nice, but break bars rarely seemed to be an issue for groups.

And how much DPS did D/Wh fresh air lose? Because staff thief lost a pretty much flat 5%.

Condi thief did get buffed…but I don’t expect it will surpass power builds.

Dahkeus.8243:

Tomiyou.3790:

lucadiro.4519:

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Nothing changed, but maybe thiefs finally have a chance of getting into raids (dps diff is smaller now, and dps spike of ele is now more situational (big hit box, longer cooldown on Meteor shower (33% cd reduction now 20%)), + lava font nerf. D/Wh stays in dps, but was very close already to thiefs. I’m curious if thiefs will get raid spots now.

D/Wh has lost dps too. Pretty sure thief out dps fresh air.
But at least tempest give more support at your party.

Thief has more party support now too. Venom share…

Well…the venom share is nice, but break bars rarely seemed to be an issue for groups.

And how much DPS did D/Wh fresh air lose? Because staff thief lost a pretty much flat 5%.

I don’t know exactly but air overload 10% less damage + the thing about burning speed cd

Tempest is still going to be used heavily in raids. Thief is almost certainly better than D/W against VG, but staff ele is still top against large hitboxes because of meteor shower and lava font is still premium for clearing gorseval orbs and xera bloodstones. D/F is still useful against sloth for swirling winds (though guardian might be better now), and D/F and D/W are still good against matthias to help clear ice patches.

Ele is still a premium raid class, but it has to rely more on its utility and flexibility rather than always earning a spot just with insane DPS.

Dinosaurs.8674:

Tempest is still going to be used heavily in raids. Thief is almost certainly better than D/W against VG, but staff ele is still top against large hitboxes because of meteor shower and lava font is still premium for clearing gorseval orbs and xera bloodstones. D/F is still useful against sloth for swirling winds (though guardian might be better now), and D/F and D/W are still good against matthias to help clear ice patches.

Ele is still a premium raid class, but it has to rely more on its utility and flexibility rather than always earning a spot just with insane DPS.

What do you mean by this though? Do you mean cc/dps and healing in one build? Wouldnt that mean celestial is viable again?

But didn’t Celestial stats get nerfed too? I was wearing 1 Celestial accessory last night and log in today and have less health. Everything else is Zerk, and sure enough the Celestial accessory went from +57 all stats to +50 all stats.

The problem with Tempest isnt that it was nerfed. Its how it was nerfed.
They took away the fun of having a smooth and fluid dps rotation.
Instead of messing with the cooldowns they should have reduced staff fire dmg by 10% or decreased Lava Font’s duration.

So yeah, Tempest is still a good choice for a Raid Team but many Tempest players already stated that they dont want to play Tempest anymore since the fun of it was ruined.

Mido.4920:

The problem with Tempest isnt that it was nerfed. Its how it was nerfed.
They took away the fun of having a smooth and fluid dps rotation.
Instead of messing with the cooldowns they should have reduced staff fire dmg by 10% or decreased Lava Font’s duration.

So yeah, Tempest is still a good choice for a Raid Team but many Tempest players already stated that they dont want to play Tempest anymore since the fun of it was ruined.

I see.

Terminsel.5728:

But didn’t Celestial stats get nerfed too? I was wearing 1 Celestial accessory last night and log in today and have less health. Everything else is Zerk, and sure enough the Celestial accessory went from +57 all stats to +50 all stats.

I don’t know if the stats in my equipment (Soldier) went down, but I have less health too. Someone know if there’s something in the patch that can explain this? Or is it a hidden nerf?

Ryou.2398:

Dinosaurs.8674:

Tempest is still going to be used heavily in raids. Thief is almost certainly better than D/W against VG, but staff ele is still top against large hitboxes because of meteor shower and lava font is still premium for clearing gorseval orbs and xera bloodstones. D/F is still useful against sloth for swirling winds (though guardian might be better now), and D/F and D/W are still good against matthias to help clear ice patches.

Ele is still a premium raid class, but it has to rely more on its utility and flexibility rather than always earning a spot just with insane DPS.

What do you mean by this though? Do you mean cc/dps and healing in one build? Wouldnt that mean celestial is viable again?

Even the standard zerker/assassin builds have great utility compared to other classes. Ranged aoe damage, CC, reflect, group protection, healing (wash the pain away, overload water, other water skills), invuln……ele has a whole lot of stuff going it for it in addition to being top tier DPS, and thief has none of it besides CC. This has always been why ele is so good in raids, and it hasn’t changed. Thief may deal better DPS in some cases, but in most of those cases it is still better to bring the ele just because there are other useful things they can do (wash the pain away is hugely useful by itself).

Thief will probably replace fresh air ele on VG, and maybe on sabetha as well. Guardian might replace D/F ele on sloth. Other than that nothing will change in terms of eles in raid comps.

The reason people have been complaining is that the nerf to eles screwed up the rotations in a way that makes you autoattack a lot. Previously the rotation was mostly chaining different powerful skills but now you have to spend more time pressing 1 and waiting which is a lot less fun. The DPS nerf was more than fair but trying to execute the rotations perfectly was somewhat challenging and a lot of fun and now it feels a lot more sluggish. Fresh Air is still in OK shape just because of the nature of the trait but the staff rotations are pretty unexciting since you mostly still just camp fire.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Nothing changed, but maybe thiefs finally have a chance of getting into raids (dps diff is smaller now, and dps spike of ele is now more situational (big hit box, longer cooldown on Meteor shower (33% cd reduction now 20%)), + lava font nerf. D/Wh stays in dps, but was very close already to thiefs. I’m curious if thiefs will get raid spots now.

Guard does more dps than thief now…

edit nvm: thief beats guard slightly….

Thief lost a pretty obvious 5%, tempest fresh air lost like 2-3% and staff lost over 10%, at least when I tested it.

Deslicious.2547:

Thief lost a pretty obvious 5%, tempest fresh air lost like 2-3% and staff lost over 10%, at least when I tested it.

Ele beats Thief only on large targets now, so it’s better than Thief only against Gorseval, Sloth (questionable) and Keep Construct in raids.

Heya everyone!

I’ve already made new dps tests and overall the Ele has lost ~10% damage as both, Staff and DW Ele. Ele still remains the top of the top against large hitboxes but has been kicked from the throne against small hitboxes.

Those are the realistic (2 stacks gotl, no empowerment, no necro, no rev, 8% and 6+4% food) dps numbers for the highest dpsers right now:

Staff Ele, large hitbox: 28.0k / 33.6k with Alacrity (-9.5% dmg after patch)
DW Ele, small hitbox: 23.6k / 26.0k with Alacrity (-10.1% dmg after patch)
Condi Engi: 25.5k / 28.4k with Alacrity (+2.9% dmg after patch)
Power Engi: 25.8k / 27.2k with Alacrity (a bit more than +0% dmg after patch)
Power Thief: 26.2k / 26.4k with Alacrity (-3.1% dmg after patch)

• Don’t forget that Air Overload still grants 5 allies a damage skill, resulting into ~150-200 dps per target. So you can add ~600-800 dps to the DW Ele.

• If you play with a Rev (usually small hitboxes) you can add ~4.5% to all these professions except for Condi Engi, there it’s rather around ~1%.

• I didn’t yet test condi Thief, may be a thing due to the recent buffs.

• Condi Necro requires 270-400s of combat to summon enough Minions to reach the 26k dps mark and the same time again to make up for the until then not dealt dps. However this variies greatly depending on Alacrity and most of all Epidemic.

Greez!

Xyonon.3987:

Heya everyone!

I’ve already made new dps tests and overall the Ele has lost ~10% damage as both, Staff and DW Ele. Ele still remains the top of the top against large hitboxes but has been kicked from the throne against small hitboxes.

---

Those are the realistic (2 stacks gotl, no empowerment, no necro, no rev, 8% and 6+4% food) dps numbers for the highest dpsers right now:

Staff Ele, large hitbox: 28.0k / 33.6k with Alacrity (-9.5% dmg after patch)
DW Ele, small hitbox: 23.6k / 26.0k with Alacrity (-10.1% dmg after patch)
Condi Engi: 25.5k / 28.4k with Alacrity (+2.9% dmg after patch)
Power Engi: 25.8k / 27.2k with Alacrity (a bit more than +0% dmg after patch)
Power Thief: 26.2k / 26.4k with Alacrity (-3.1% dmg after patch)

---

• Don’t forget that Air Overload still grants 5 allies a damage skill, resulting into ~150-200 dps per target. So you can add ~600-800 dps to the DW Ele.

• If you play with a Rev (usually small hitboxes) you can add ~4.5% to all these professions except for Condi Engi, there it’s rather around ~1%.

• I didn’t yet test condi Thief, may be a thing due to the recent buffs.

• Condi Necro requires 270-400s of combat to summon enough Minions to reach the 26k dps mark and the same time again to make up for the until then not dealt dps. However this variies greatly depending on Alacrity and most of all Epidemic.

---

Greez!

Does that mean DH is meta now?

What does have to do with the DH?

Xyonon.3987:

Heya everyone!

I’ve already made new dps tests and overall the Ele has lost ~10% damage as both, Staff and DW Ele. Ele still remains the top of the top against large hitboxes but has been kicked from the throne against small hitboxes.

---

Those are the realistic (2 stacks gotl, no empowerment, no necro, no rev, 8% and 6+4% food) dps numbers for the highest dpsers right now:

Staff Ele, large hitbox: 28.0k / 33.6k with Alacrity (-9.5% dmg after patch)
DW Ele, small hitbox: 23.6k / 26.0k with Alacrity (-10.1% dmg after patch)
Condi Engi: 25.5k / 28.4k with Alacrity (+2.9% dmg after patch)
Power Engi: 25.8k / 27.2k with Alacrity (a bit more than +0% dmg after patch)
Power Thief: 26.2k / 26.4k with Alacrity (-3.1% dmg after patch)

---

• Don’t forget that Air Overload still grants 5 allies a damage skill, resulting into ~150-200 dps per target. So you can add ~600-800 dps to the DW Ele.

• If you play with a Rev (usually small hitboxes) you can add ~4.5% to all these professions except for Condi Engi, there it’s rather around ~1%.

• I didn’t yet test condi Thief, may be a thing due to the recent buffs.

• Condi Necro requires 270-400s of combat to summon enough Minions to reach the 26k dps mark and the same time again to make up for the until then not dealt dps. However this variies greatly depending on Alacrity and most of all Epidemic.

---

Greez!

So what your saying is bringing eles is now a liability as a large portion of pug raid eles couldn’t pull off top dps already, and now that they are in line with other classes there’s a risk to bringing them because of their ease of being downed by mechanics and lack of heals to make up for it.

They will still be wanted for large hit box fights and certain raid mechanics but mark my words raid skepticism will begin to form on eles as a class due to the risk vs reward of bringing them now.

I’m not sure I’ll be happy to see the non main eles get off the train or upset that as someone who runs a dps meter and knows I hit my mark that I might be blamed for not achieving optimal damage.

Either way glad I geared out my chrono/ps/rev/guard and nearly have theif/necro done.

Its so kittening easy to play PS in raids just ignoring mechanics because of the base hp pool, I see a trend moving to classes that can soak mistakes more easily now.

Xyonon.3987:

Heya everyone!

I’ve already made new dps tests and overall the Ele has lost ~10% damage as both, Staff and DW Ele. Ele still remains the top of the top against large hitboxes but has been kicked from the throne against small hitboxes.

---

Those are the realistic (2 stacks gotl, no empowerment, no necro, no rev, 8% and 6+4% food) dps numbers for the highest dpsers right now:

Staff Ele, large hitbox: 28.0k / 33.6k with Alacrity (-9.5% dmg after patch)
DW Ele, small hitbox: 23.6k / 26.0k with Alacrity (-10.1% dmg after patch)
Condi Engi: 25.5k / 28.4k with Alacrity (+2.9% dmg after patch)
Power Engi: 25.8k / 27.2k with Alacrity (a bit more than +0% dmg after patch)
Power Thief: 26.2k / 26.4k with Alacrity (-3.1% dmg after patch)

---

• Don’t forget that Air Overload still grants 5 allies a damage skill, resulting into ~150-200 dps per target. So you can add ~600-800 dps to the DW Ele.

• If you play with a Rev (usually small hitboxes) you can add ~4.5% to all these professions except for Condi Engi, there it’s rather around ~1%.

• I didn’t yet test condi Thief, may be a thing due to the recent buffs.

• Condi Necro requires 270-400s of combat to summon enough Minions to reach the 26k dps mark and the same time again to make up for the until then not dealt dps. However this variies greatly depending on Alacrity and most of all Epidemic.

---

Greez!

Thanks for the informations you shared with us about your test. Btw seems thieves will Pretty replace D/Wh eles. And this make me sad because was the only way I really loved to play it.
Also funny that D/Wh has been nerfed more than staff. GG Anet.

If you are planning on a full run for the sake of “not-chaning-chars” I’d stick to the Eles even against small hitboxes.

If you fight one boss with a small hitbox and you’re done, I’d rather go with Engis or Thieves.

Most important change for Thief was venomshare baseline: The healing venom is like the old “Wash the pain away!” and the elite venom now wrecks defiance bars:

Stone is not the same as stun, 1s stun deals 100 defiance bar damage, 1s stone deals 150 damage. So what the new venom elite does is a 1.5s stone wich is a 225 defiance bar damage, shared to 4 other players wich results into 1125 defiance bar damage. That’s amazing.

Thieves also don’t require alacrity to be strong, making 1 Chrono + Rev a much stronger option.

Xyonon.3987:

What does have to do with the DH?

Hammer and Scepter/Torch DPS isn’t stronger than Thief and Engi?

Right by now seems DH is also stronger than staff tempest.
So vs large hit box we are #2
Vs small we are #4

Waiting for more accurate test to link here.

OneKlicKill.4285:

Xyonon.3987:

Heya everyone!

I’ve already made new dps tests and overall the Ele has lost ~10% damage as both, Staff and DW Ele. Ele still remains the top of the top against large hitboxes but has been kicked from the throne against small hitboxes.

---

Those are the realistic (2 stacks gotl, no empowerment, no necro, no rev, 8% and 6+4% food) dps numbers for the highest dpsers right now:

Staff Ele, large hitbox: 28.0k / 33.6k with Alacrity (-9.5% dmg after patch)
DW Ele, small hitbox: 23.6k / 26.0k with Alacrity (-10.1% dmg after patch)
Condi Engi: 25.5k / 28.4k with Alacrity (+2.9% dmg after patch)
Power Engi: 25.8k / 27.2k with Alacrity (a bit more than +0% dmg after patch)
Power Thief: 26.2k / 26.4k with Alacrity (-3.1% dmg after patch)

---

• Don’t forget that Air Overload still grants 5 allies a damage skill, resulting into ~150-200 dps per target. So you can add ~600-800 dps to the DW Ele.

• If you play with a Rev (usually small hitboxes) you can add ~4.5% to all these professions except for Condi Engi, there it’s rather around ~1%.

• I didn’t yet test condi Thief, may be a thing due to the recent buffs.

• Condi Necro requires 270-400s of combat to summon enough Minions to reach the 26k dps mark and the same time again to make up for the until then not dealt dps. However this variies greatly depending on Alacrity and most of all Epidemic.

---

Greez!

So what your saying is bringing eles is now a liability as a large portion of pug raid eles couldn’t pull off top dps already, and now that they are in line with other classes there’s a risk to bringing them because of their ease of being downed by mechanics and lack of heals to make up for it.

They will still be wanted for large hit box fights and certain raid mechanics but mark my words raid skepticism will begin to form on eles as a class due to the risk vs reward of bringing them now.

I’m not sure I’ll be happy to see the non main eles get off the train or upset that as someone who runs a dps meter and knows I hit my mark that I might be blamed for not achieving optimal damage.

Either way glad I geared out my chrono/ps/rev/guard and nearly have theif/necro done.

Its so kittening easy to play PS in raids just ignoring mechanics because of the base hp pool, I see a trend moving to classes that can soak mistakes more easily now.

The staff rotation pre-patch was actually pretty hard to pull off perfectly because it’s difficult to time skills properly without cancelling autoattacks. The staff rotation is now easier to perform correctly because there is more time spent autoattacking where you can look at your cooldowns and figure out what you’re doing next. Previously there was almost none of that time. D/W rotation got a little bit harder though.

Still, I think describing eles as a liability is an overstatement. D/W damage is about on par with a thief against stationary small hitboxes (depends on alacrity) and staff against large hitboxes still blows everything else out of the water. Ele also still has most of the utility it did before, suffering only a hit to wash the pain away (but it’s still ridiculous considering it requires 0 investment). Thief gained a crappy wash the pain away in skelk venom, but besides that it can’t do anything but damage and CC. Ele can still clear faraway things without leaving the stack (bloodstones, orbs, karde turrets) and has a sizable toolbox in water and earth.

lucadiro.4519:

Right by now seems DH is also stronger than staff tempest.
So vs large hit box we are #2
Vs small we are #4

Waiting for more accurate test to link here.

I have seen nothing suggesting that guardian is better than tempest against large hitboxes. I have seen DPS tests suggesting that staff ele lost about 10% damage, but considering it was already ridiculously high (formerly just under 50k DPS with full buffs) I don’t think guardian is going to take the #1 spot from elementalist.

Im a guardian main and I can assure that that (at least on large targets) you guys still deal way more damage. I have tested different Guardian builds and even the highest dmg was about 6k dps lower than tempest staff on a large target.

The reason people think DH does more dmg than tempest now, is that the qt post patch dps video for Tempest was done with all buffs and with realistic buffs while the DH video was made only with unrealistic buffs.

But even in those videos you can see the tempest dps is still higher.

All buffs + Large hitbox.
Tempest Staff : 44,3k dps
DH Scepter/Torch: 35,4k dps

like i said realistic buffs arent shown on DH in the Video but I tested it myself and got these results.

Realistic Buffs + Large Hitbox.

DH Scepter/Torch with Radiance and Virutes (the dmg will be way lower in an actual encounter as you cant keep the 20% dmg modifier you get for aegis and the 11% damage modifier you get for the 11 different boons) : 26,6k dps

DH Scepter/Torch with Radiance and Zeal (more realistic dmg) : 24,1k dps

Tempest Staff : 32,1k dps

So even though DH has good damage and still brings good defensive buffs you guys dont need to worry about us taking your spot as the #1 damage dealer.

Your dmg ist still far superior.

Edit: On small hitboxes Hammer dps is better than scepter but with 23,1k dps is still lower than Tempest Fresh Air.

Thanks Mido, appreciate it.

Btw Condi Thief is only 10% lower than the regular thief now. Totally worth brining to high fractals now!

Mido.4920:

The problem with Tempest isnt that it was nerfed. Its how it was nerfed.
They took away the fun of having a smooth and fluid dps rotation.
Instead of messing with the cooldowns they should have reduced staff fire dmg by 10% or decreased Lava Font’s duration.

So yeah, Tempest is still a good choice for a Raid Team but many Tempest players already stated that they dont want to play Tempest anymore since the fun of it was ruined.

This so much!

Anet should has killed a lot of utility for ele too with the nerf to cooldown reductions

And the damage rotation is just bad too now… not being able to cast Warhorn Air 5 before another overload etc…
…just feels bad when having to use autoattack so much more often than before

I would have had no problem with more direct dmg nerfs (5-10%?) on some skills but messing with cooldowns was just a bad way of dealing with Ele damage… :/

I hope anet rethinks that nerf and adjusts it so the dmg nerf is the same but cooldowns and utility dont get messed up

I also think the Tempest Healskill should still have 100% of the old heal value for the Ele himself while having reduced heal for all allies!
a 4k heal at lvl 80 is just not enough sustain for Ele

Mido.4920:

Im a guardian main and I can assure that that (at least on large targets) you guys still deal way more damage. I have tested different Guardian builds and even the highest dmg was about 6k dps lower than tempest staff on a large target.

The reason people think DH does more dmg than tempest now, is that the qt post patch dps video for Tempest was done with all buffs and with realistic buffs while the DH video was made only with unrealistic buffs.

But even in those videos you can see the tempest dps is still higher.

All buffs + Large hitbox.
Tempest Staff : 44,3k dps
DH Scepter/Torch: 35,4k dps

like i said realistic buffs arent shown on DH in the Video but I tested it myself and got these results.

Realistic Buffs + Large Hitbox.

DH Scepter/Torch with Radiance and Virutes (the dmg will be way lower in an actual encounter as you cant keep the 20% dmg modifier you get for aegis and the 11% damage modifier you get for the 11 different boons) : 26,6k dps

DH Scepter/Torch with Radiance and Zeal (more realistic dmg) : 24,1k dps

Tempest Staff : 32,1k dps

So even though DH has good damage and still brings good defensive buffs you guys dont need to worry about us taking your spot as the #1 damage dealer.

Your dmg ist still far superior.

Edit: On small hitboxes Hammer dps is better than scepter but with 23,1k dps is still lower than Tempest Fresh Air.

Thanks really much for the info. Your numbers seems accurate and right.

Amineo.8951:

Deslicious.2547:

Thief lost a pretty obvious 5%, tempest fresh air lost like 2-3% and staff lost over 10%, at least when I tested it.

Ele beats Thief only on large targets now, so it’s better than Thief only against Gorseval, Sloth (questionable) and Keep Construct in raids.

On sloth power guard would be better now…

Here is the best rotation I’ve found on D/W tempest after the patch, both with all buffs and with realistic buffs without alacrity.

• All buffs: 35.3k
• Realistic buffs: 27k

Seems to come off a bit above guard, but below thief. At least in realistic fights.
That’s not to say that a main guard will definitely perform better on his guardian than he would by swapping to his off-class tempest.
Big hitboxes we’re still top DPS.

As a side note, when looking at engineer/scrapper DPS. Don’t forget your trait Modified Ammunition that gives an unrealistic damage modifier by having all conditions on the golem.

Snowball.3497:

As a side note, when looking at engineer/scrapper DPS. Don’t forget your trait Modified Ammunition that gives an unrealistic damage modifier by having all conditions on the golem.

I always use 4 boons and 8 common conditions in my realistic test for that very reason