Guild Wars 2

has anyone had any success using the tornado transformation elite for anything other than a good laugh? it seems to have a ton of issues with it. to wit:

1) unresponsive skills. there’s no indication that you are “casting” anything when you use any of the 3 skills available in tornado form. instead, you simply hope that something will happen eventually while mashing the key. this makes it pretty well useless in sPvP, since there’s no way to know if you’re going to knock that guy back or just ruffle his hair for a while while he kills you

2) bugs out if you cast it during mist form. if you use the skill while in mist form, the tornado transform will end when mist form ends, wasting the skill and putting it on cooldown.

3) ninja tornado! at LEAST half the time when I use this skill, I simply cannot see myself any longer. the particle effects for the tornado just don’t show up at all, making issue 1 even worse and more annoying as I can’t even tell where I’m truly at anymore.
edit: I should note that I am running on max settings comfortably for this point. there is no graphics option available to me that I can set any higher.

anyone else experienced these issues? I don’t recall it being this terrible in the betas, but it sure isn’t worth anyone’s time now, let alone 30 skill points.

Wow im a nub didnt even notice that there was three tornado skills while in that form. I have just been popping the rain of fire then going tornado to knock them about and delay them a bit. I have had success knocking them off the catapult mound in spvp. I turned off melee assist and not totally sure but it prevents you from being blocked by a player who for some reason is immune to the tornado. Guess clearing all targets would do the same thing.

that’s the thing. I’ve managed to use it well a few times, which is great and how I expect it to work all the time. the problem is that the rest of the time it simply does close to nothing, including knocking people about, actually casting the skills, etc. I’ve run all over people’s faces in certain instances only to have them never be affected by the knock backs and continue attacking me/ capping points/ stomping allies with impunity. that is why I say it’s unreliable. it’s a crapshoot whether or not it’s going to work any given time you cast it.

the enemies did not have stability at the time, either.

only used it once and was not impressed

i like killing tornado users, theres no dmg reduction in that form and they have to be close to you so roll on in and kill them in a few hits since its a caster in close range.

not sure if ppl forgot that, it looks more impressive the it actually is. maybe having a passive in that form that has % chance to reflect % dmg would be a nice addition. atm your a easy target.

All Elementalist Elite Skills are pretty terrible.

The Tornado does not only force you to move into close range as a squishy ranged profession, you can also be immobilized while in Tornado. That’s not only a sPvP problem, a lot of mobs in Orr will immobilize you.

So you stand there stuck in Tornado form, immobilized, can’t heal, can’t use utility skills… Yeah, it’s not a good Elite.

The one saving grace of Tornado is Whirpool, it’s underwater version. For some reason I can’t understand, Whirpool’s damage hits are actually consistently once per second, while Tornado’s seems to randomly only hit once in 1~4 seconds.

So the only good Elementalist Elite is the underwater one… Which is currently bugged and does not work outside of sPvP.

I’ve found it to be consistently laggy and unresponsive. Half the time the tornado animation never loads, so I’m just twirling about invisibly for a while. The damage seems hit and miss.

To top it off the casting animation is messy as all heck.

Instead of the borderline useless ‘skills’ given to you in tornado form, I’d rather have an element specific effect depending on what attunement you’re in when casting it. EG: Dust devil/blind for earth, waterspout/chill for water, firestorm/burn for fire etc.

didn’t even bother unlocking it in PvE…
it seems it has been nerfed so hard since the first betas (didn’t try it in BWE so i can’t say wether the QQ was justified) that it’s just a useless elite skill atm.

also, you don’t get any speed boost or protection boon for its duration. no really, useless skill.

Give it a much shorter duration, make it so that you are immune to damage, and give yourself a slight speed buff. It would be good if it did all that and lasted maybe, 3-5 seconds. An elite, offensive version of mist form, if you will. Then I might consider using it.

i like killing tornado users, theres no dmg reduction in that form and they have to be close to you so roll on in and kill them in a few hits since its a caster in close range.

That’s why you need to get protection and regeneration up before you pop tornado. If you are running a heavy +heal build, you are pretty tanky with a long regen running. Just popping a naked tornado is dumb, you need to set up for it. Melee are pretty boned if you drop a frost field down before you start tornado on top of a node.