Guild Wars 2

Hello there,
I think the best way to show Anet that we want to change something is by showing them our own examples how we want to change these things. That should help them realize what we really want. Posts like “Tempest sucks” “Overloads are useless” etc. will show them what we think, but not how we want to change it.
So, what to do here? Post all changes you want to be added to Tempest. Explain why you want to change this and that. Not wishes like: “Scrap it and start over”. Unfortunately it’s too late to rework Tempest competely, but we still can hope for as many changes as possible within the Tempest.
I’ll start:

I would like overloads to be more impactful at the end of casting instead doing almost the same all the time. Also they should increase radius a lot to make them useful for non-melee eles. Something like this:

• Fire: 900 radius. Pulse might to nearby allies. At the end, grants retalation to nearby allies and summon massive meteors that burns and knock-downs (or launches) foes.
• Water: 900 radius. Pulse vigor and regeneration to nearby allies. At the end, cure 3 conditions and heal them for a big amount, also chills nearby foes.
• Air: 900 radius. Pulse swiftness to nearby allies. At the end, summon a thunderstorm that highly damages foes and dazes them for 1/4 sec, also apply blindness and 10 stacks of vulnerability on them.
• Earth: 900 radius. Pulse protection to nearby allies. At the end, immobilizes (2-3 sec), cripples (5-10 sec) and bleeds foes, and grants aegis to allies.

For Rebound, something like this: 120 sec cd. 1 sec casting time. Reduces your attunement cds by 50%. Based on your current attunement, cast an overload’s final effect in targeted area (1200 range, 200 radius).

Not sure what to do with Warhorn. It’s not weapon for me (I hate warhorns), so I will be rarely using it, if taking Tempest (if they improve him a lot). But it really needs some better casting animations.

Shouts need a 20% cd reduction trait.
Eye of the Storm should grant shocking aura.
Flash Freeze also needs some extra thing, like partly reviving nearby downed allies.
Shock and Aftershock should be split into two skills. First Shock, gives that magnetic aura and cripple. After that, 2nd skill, Aftershock is available, that bleeds and immobilizes foes and it’s also insta cast.
Feel the Burn should apply 2 stacks of burning instead of 1.

Traits need a huge rework, most of them are really bad right now. All minor traits affecting overloads should be in 1 (max 2) minor trait only. Also if they really want to keep supporting attunement camping (which I dislike a lot, because it’s working against ele design, including many other traits), they should at least make some trait like: Gain bonus to your stats every 3 sec based on your attunement (fire: power, water: healing, air: precision, earth: condi dmg/toughness), max X stacks, bonus is reset when you swap attunement.
Also maybe some compensation trait when overloads are interrupted? : When overload is interrupted by an enemy, your overload cd is reduced by 3 sec and apply boon to yourself and condition to that enemy (fire: retalation/burning; water: vigor/vulnerability; air: fury/weakness; earth: stability/torment), also you are healed for a small amount.

i’m not going into detail because it’s already late but what needs to be done is:

- overcharges are boring and don’t feel as crazy as they should be. number tweaking wont get us anywhere. oh and fire overcharge is a whirl finisher, but only whirls once, how lame.

- shouts are kind of defensive.. and.. kind of not.. or are they offensive?.. make some fully offensinve and some fully defensive because “a bit of this and a bit of that” won’t work.

- warhorn is underperforming compared to dagger and focus (water fire on focus loses vs warhorn but earth and air gets the deal so warhorn loses, don’t even need to talk about dagger)

- skills need to be meaningful, right now they’re boring and undertuned

1. Overcharges need to be about the buildup, not the cost. It should require more time in an attunement to use them, and have a short but heavy cost afterwards which scales with completion of the ability.

2. Add in a visual effect for it charging up.

3. They ALL need to have some amount of offense, defense, and utility. They should obviously favor one of the three depending on the theme and existing gameplay of the element, but should still touch at least a little on all of them.

Example
Overload Earth – When you have been in earth attunement for 15 seconds, overload to ride on a pillar of stone, crippling and bleeding foes, providing protection to allies, and ending in an explosion which immobilizes and bleeds. At its completion, your earth attunement skills are locked for five seconds, reduced by 0.5s for each second you did not spend on the overload if it fails to fully complete.
Damage: 178 (0.1775)
Crippled (3s): -50% Movement Speed Unable to move; stacks duration.
Bleed (2) (8s): 352 damage
Protection (1.5s): -33% Incoming Damage
Immobilize (6s): Unable to move. Incoming damage decreased; stacks duration.
Bleed 8 (8s): 1408 damage
Number of Targets: 5
Interval: 1s
Radius: 240
Combo Finisher: Blast
Duration: 5s
No cooldown, but must be charged again no matter how little you completed.

nobody will stay in earth for 15s… nor will you achieve something with it.

if churning earth with 3,whatever seconds casting time doesn’t pay off how do you expect a 15s charge skill to pay off, you would have to oneshot everything with it..

Jekkt.6045:

nobody will stay in earth for 15s… nor will you achieve something with it.

if churning earth with 3,whatever seconds casting time doesn’t pay off how do you expect a 15s charge skill to pay off, you would have to oneshot everything with it..

Obviously by making the changes to the base class that have been suggested a million times over on these forums, but this thread isn’t about that, its about overloads, and as such I didn’t include those, so stop trying to drag the thread off topic.

I made a personal analysis of the threats in another thread. If you want the long version, go there. But the short version is this:

Overall: the trait line consists of a bunch of subpar overload support traits for the mediocre overloads, spots of obscure and strange buffs for mediocre shouts. So, for my suggestions:

#1: Merge Lucid Singularity and Speedy Conduit as the adept master trait. This leaves an open spot in the master tier.
#2: Add a 20% cooldown trait to Tempestuous Aria.
#3: Increase the protection duration of Hardy Conduit by 2 seconds to 5 seconds base.
#4: Unstable Conduit needs to use 2 auras. First when the channel is started. Second when the channel ends. That way, the ele has 10 seconds of continuous Aura.
#5: Double the base healing and scaling healing of Elemental Bastion.

That’s all for now. Still not sure what to do with Earthen Proxy or Latent Stamina.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I made a personal analysis of the threats in another thread. If you want the long version, go there. But the short version is this:

Overall: the trait line consists of a bunch of subpar overload support traits for the mediocre overloads, spots of obscure and strange buffs for mediocre shouts. So, for my suggestions:

#1: Merge Lucid Singularity and Speedy Conduit as the adept master trait. This leaves an open spot in the master tier.
#2: Add a 20% cooldown trait to Tempestuous Aria.
#3: Increase the protection duration of Hardy Conduit by 2 seconds to 5 seconds base.
#4: Unstable Conduit needs to use 2 auras. First when the channel is started. Second when the channel ends. That way, the ele has 10 seconds of continuous Aura.
#5: Double the base healing and scaling healing of Elemental Bastion.

That’s all for now. Still not sure what to do with Earthen Proxy or Latent Stamina.

I didn’t read your long version, but those changes look okay if they’re not gonna touch Overloads. Maybe Earthen Proxy could be 1 stack of Stab when Overloading for 3s or maybe pulsing Aegis or something(Storms tend to be unstoppable…at least make these somewhat challenging to stop).

Latent Stamina shouldn’t be Water attunement-specific and it’s weird that it encourages dodging, but Overloads don’t, so I’m unsure what this could be changed into while keeping the “Vigor/Endurance” idea. Maybe make it so finishing an Overload refills everyone’s Endurance in an AoE by say, 50.

#1: Rebound needs an entire rework to be valid as an elite skill, as it is now it is a mediocre utility at best.
#2: Warhorn skills need some better damage options added as well as need to have positioning fix, majority of the time of trying to use them I didn’t even get the effect of my own skill becuase I was moving. Thus making me drop warhorn and move back to DD since it just was not worth standing still to use skills constantly.
#3: Overload casting time and wait time. Both need a heavy look at, they are effectively worse then Churning Earth on casting time and that is pushing the button and most the time a suicidal skill to use. As a melee style skills they really need to make cost vs effect equal rewarding and not guaranteed death.
#4: Shouts need some work, and they need to work on the overlap of Auramancer trait becoming uneffective and still mostly forcing us to go water. Namely Eye of the Storm needs some love with instead of movement speed a light aura or shocking aura or a recharge reduction to say 30s. Earth shout needs to drop down to 40 or the aura needs an increase.
#5: Traits need a bit of reworking; Adding 20% reduction to shouts on Tepestuous Aria would be a good start. Re-looking at the conduit traits and merging them to make them less of a sacrifice and more of a choice would be another good idea, yes I know at that point they would have to make new traits. Not to mention Conduits need to be balanced to work together with Overloading rather then as a bonus of starting to cast Overload and running off just to get the boons. As well I think Speed and Hardy should be combined as one Minor and a second Minor added that plays in to the tempest feel.

That is really the basics from my time playing Tempest this last BWE that I saw needed work.

We have mostly the same direction :-).

My suggestions:

Overloads:
I personaly won´t touch them much for now. I see them as an add on that is only used ocasionaly. Especially because it goes against the ele mechanic. If totaly underpowerd after traits rework numbers can be tweaked a bit.

Shouts:
I am fine with most. They are a bit offensive and traited also defensive. While this is usually not the best goning both, its a good self and group tool.

Heling shout: cast time is hard. 1s would be a relive.
-20% cooldown would make shouts competative with cantrips. At least in some builds. Its still hard to compete with them but full traited shouts that affect you and your allies make a diffrence.
Rebound: Fix it being a shout, make it instant and add light aura. (or rework ….)

Traits:
Latend stamina: +5% healing power and condition damage from vitality.

Tempestious aria: add -20% shout cooldown. or adapt base CD´s a bit)
Earthen proxy: add 20% protection duration.
Harmoniour conduit: Add 3s stability on overcharges.

Imbued melodies: Add 3s vigor on allies.
Element Bastion: Scale healing better.

Then i would add new runes that support tempest:

Superior rune of the apothecary:

1.) +25 healing power
2.) +35 condition damage
3.) +50 healing power
4.) + 65 condition damage
5.) +100 healing power
6.) Auras you apply remove a condition.

Superior rune of the witch:

1.) +25 condition damage
2.) +10%condition duration
3.) +50 condition damage
4.) + 20% Aura duration
5.) +100 condition damage
6.) Auras aplied to you remove a condition.

So one more selfish and one group. This runes will only support elementalist and they are not OP because the stats are not the best for eles but will support condi build where eles lack. (still expecting burn nerf!).
The condi remove is the powerful part an might allow specing out of water/cantrips for aura shouts.

I’ve seen plenty of awesome suggestions here already and we haven’t even gone to the second page yet. I will not repeat what has already been stated here by everyone else.

All that I have to add is that the Tempest has counter-synergy with a large number of elementalist traits atm, because it encourages overloading, which limits attunement swapping. This means that the effects of attunement swapping traits are minimized a lot. This wouldn’t be so bad if many of the traits affected weren’t minor, which you are forced to take.

For this reason I suggest that attunement swapping effects are activated when you begin overloading. For example, if you activate overload fire while having the sunspot minor from the fire line, you will get a fire aura and deal some AoE damage.

A brake bar on all overcharges.

Standardized duration/ cast time for all overcharges maybe 4 sec or 3 sec.

A way to make shouts lower cd but have it base off of ppl hit with auras or when under effect of auras.

Make the strong protection an “class only” buff that you can give to your pt. So with this effect every one in your pt protection is 20% stronger even if the protection did not come from the ele.

Add in “wind interments” that changes the sound of your wh blows making tempest into more of a bard class at least that seems to be the ideal.

Over all add a bit more to tempest over all boon out put and duration.

I would also like to see fire air and water overcharges become fields that stay with the ele. As there is no earth field (one day i hope there will be) i guess add some type of added effect for earth maybe a blind or bleed. The ideal behind this would be an ele can make a field but it cant combo finnish it them self making it a pure team field only or a pure support effect for overcharging.

More of a random though for interments weapons a bit outside of tempest but it could be an ideal. WH will be the wind interments shield will be percussion and foces would be string interments. I think there could be a specialization for other classes that fall into different type of interment base off these 3 weapons.

All the overloads honestly need to be instantly available on attunement swap.
I feel like the auras are great but the traits that are FOR auras are so spread out that I feel kitten trying to build around them which is honestly something I’d love.
You have auras grant fury/swiftness in air, protection in earth, sharing them in water and now the healing in tempest. That trait should be reworked into Powerful auras. I’ve always loved the aura playstyle and Tempest is adding a lot of that but the traits are so messy that you really can’t get that perfect build now without gimping yourself.

Warhorn /feels/ ok but I can’t see myself using it over dagger/focus depending on the content. Number buffs won’t really change anything, some position fixes for skills (warhorn 4 in air for the swiftness is one) or having Fire 5’s fire field actually be able to be blasted by Phoenix would aid warhorn as a whole.

I’ve come up with a couple ideas for Tempest grandmaster traits:

Righteous Resistance:

Become invulnerable while using an Overload. (my reason behind this is that overloads are very short in duration, and there should be a HUGE incentive to using an overload. This would be a great incentive, would make enemies truly fear you and try to avoid you, and would be a pretty good trait, hence grandmaster).

War Caller:

Based on your current attunement, shouts inflict a condition on foes. Gain more ferocity (+150) when using a shout. Shouts recharge (20%) faster. (inspired by the arcane grandmaster trait, elemental surge)

Fire: Burning
Water: Vulnerability
Air: Weakness
Earth: Bleeding

I’d also like to see a healing skill that’s a shout. That way it synchronises with any traits that involve shouts.

Zaoda.1653:

I’d also like to see a healing skill that’s a shout. That way it synchronises with any traits that involve shouts.

Wash the Pain Away is a Shout…

Change the name to Archmage or something.
Or completely revamp everything to make it feel like an actual storm mage.

What if they change completely how Overloads work, by changing the payment form: instead of “locking” you IN a specific attunement, they lock you OUT of it.

Example:
——————
- You are in fire attunement and initiate fire Overload.
- Every skill on fire becomes automatically locked during 10 seconds.(1)
- You can still access the other three attunements freely.
- Over those 10 seconds, the Overload slowly goes “in crescendo”, from a minor and invisible passive effect to a wild and screen dominating armaggeddon.
- Every Overload can be interrupted in a different way: one stops if you receive some amount of damage, other stops if you are CCed, other if you evade, other if you clean a condition, etc.
(1)You can let them “suspended” so if they were on cooldown, they must still rechage after that 10 second. This way you avoid people just spamming every skill form 1 attunement and then activating Overload.
——————-
This way you enable a more interesting playstyle, more int tune with how Ele works, while keeping the idea of the Overload limiting what you can do, and forcing you to play really carefully. It also makes a more interesting counter game for your enemies.

Of course this is just a quick example, but I think this spec idea is easier to adjust and improve than the actual excesively rigid design.

I’ve posted a lot of varying ideas of how one could change Tempest to try and give the spec some unique flavor of usability. From traits that let you cast warhorn skills while channeling overloads to stability on certain skill uses (such as shouts or when you get an aura). I think someone suggested an upgrade to protection that made protection also give you a stack of stability upon applying (I’d assume that would have an ICD per target tho).

My purpose for making suggestions though are give the devs some other ideas they may not have thought of to put in future updates. Currently I don’t have a huge problem with the overloads currently but I do see the downfalls and they often times outweight their use especially considering some of the other elite specs revealed.

Here’s an idea from another threadhttps: //forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/professions/elementalist/The-Changes-in-Tempest-That-should-be-Made/first#post5387171

The major aspect I favor most from it is that casting the overload WILL get you the effect of the overload regardless of if someone interrupts you or not but the effects would differ in some way if you complete it or not. The other aspect I favor is that finishing the cast grants a bonus to your current attunement’s skills. That would give you a reason to complete the channel but also give you some other means of playing your elementalist, namely one that focuses on using 1 attunement for extended time. You can say we currently have that but the purpose is to give the Tempest more tools when doing that rather than just having loads and loads of damage.

Another eloquent idea I posted were Overload Breaks. Basically, flip skills that you can use to self-interrupt your overload for strong CC or movement. A strong CC option might work well with a support frontline melee ele and having more CC tools would make it unique from current ele. I also like the idea of it because it draws on the secondary elements of each attunement. Smokebreak would interrupt Fire Overload and create an ash plume that would blind and KB nearby foes; Icebreak would interrupt Water Overload and freeze the water bubble you’re in then quickly shattering, freezing nearby foes caught in the shatter. Windbreak would create an implosion of air currents, dismissing the lightning storm but pulling foes in a wide area into the center and stunning them. Magnetbreak would be the engage/disengage that would knock a single target down while leaping a long distance in the opposite direction of that target. They also have that pun worked in their name (Smoke break, Ice break, Wind break….Magnet break doesn’t really mean anything though).

Malchior.5732:

Zaoda.1653:

I’d also like to see a healing skill that’s a shout. That way it synchronises with any traits that involve shouts.

Wash the Pain Away is a Shout…

Oh nice. I thought it was a utility skill but you’re right. A shame about the 1 and a half second activation time though :-/ it shouldn’t take that long for a shout skill in my opinion. Should be 3/4 of a second, just like the arcane healing skill.