Guild Wars 2

As much as I dislike this sort of attitude myself, I’m getting tired of people pointing to downed Guardians and Warriors and saying how much they suck, when in fact it’s usually these classes that are up at front meleeing things that are the real heroes in dungeons.

I notice your character is using staff, which is understandable against Mossman since he’s such a frustrating boss to melee (so I’d give a pass there), but if you were staying at range the whole time for every fractal while your Guardian was up there in melee, well…

Basically, one’s ability to stand at range and cast spells while others run up in the front and melee, holding aggro and dealing more damage, isn’t really indicative of the ranged player’s skill. It shows their ability to be carried by others willing to fight head to head, melee, with mobs.

This fractal alone can ruin fractals. Mainly because it totally violates some of the basic principles of the rest of dungeon design – mobs respawning and mobs being immune to alternate methods of damage mitigation (blinds and projectile blocks). It also splits the party up at the first stage which just sucks.

Please, this fractal is terrible. Delete it or rework it. I was pleasantly surprised by the changes made to fractals otherwise (especially the lowering of Defiance to 5), but the fact that this fractal is still as terrible as ever really makes me wonder if ANet tested this place at all.

JonPeters.5630:

stuff

OH MY GOD, after months of feeling neglected, the lead game designer finally comes to talk. <3

Let me say this. I think the core of these changes is very good, but I think that moving the “powerful adept traits” – Cleansing Wave, Elemental Attunement, and Renewing Stamina – is pretty bad for a number of reasons.

Cleansing Wave is very powerful. However, outside of it, Elementalists actually don’t have amazing access to Condition Removal unless they take Ether Renewal (which can easily be interrupted). Cleansing Wave allows people to build a number of Ele builds while still retaining a good amount of Condi Removal that the Ele is so good for. Also, this is by far one of the best Support abilities the Ele has in the game, and moving it up means more Eles are going to start going 20 Water as opposed to just 10 Water with the changes made.

On the topic of the dynamic duo – Elemental Attunement and Renewing Stamina – let me be the first to say that these traits are obviously overpowered.

Vigor on Crit should probably be a Major Master Trait for ALL classes that have it (including Guardian and Mesmer), BUT consider that the Elementalist has very few in built defenses outside of Cantrips. Renewing Stamina is so vital to the survival of a lot of glassy Dungeon Elementalist builds, as well as to a lot of bursty roaming and sPvP Ele builds (especially ones that try to take Dagger as opposed to Scepter, since I know the Scepter ability is getting moved down to Adept, which is good). If this change goes through, it’s actually going to be even harder for glassy Eles to exist than it was before, which I think is really bad, considering glass Elementalist is one of the specs that needs the most love in this game.

And finally, Elemental Attunement. I’m actually fine with this getting moved to Master Tier, but NOT if Renewing Stamina gets moved up with it. If Eles cannot take Elemental Attunement/Renewing Stamina/Evasive Arcana all together, you will have actually entirely destroyed a number of builds Eles like to use. While I agree in the goal to create more build diversity, COMPLETELY DESTROYING a spec that Eles have enjoyed and that is frankly underpowered in this current meta, yet players still very much enjoy playing, is really an unnecessary change. I think making the changes you’ve made so far to entice players to try something different by making it equally enjoyable, rather than destroying basically all of the old specs, would be a far better gesture.

Either way though, since you guys are finally reducing the base CDR of Attunement Swapping to 13 seconds (which is wonderful), have you considered making other large changes to the Ele like that? Specifically, Elemental Attunement does indeed feel a bit overpowered, but it’s also something I’ve seen so many Eles splash 10 in Arcana for just to get. I feel like Elemental Attunement is so linked to Attunement Swapping in the way the Ele plays. Maybe consider our dream of just making Elemental Attunement something inherent in the Elementalist so that, on top of the 13-second base cooldown, Eles finally feel like a complete class to most players, even with 0 in Arcana?

P.S. These are some of the most thoughtful comments I’ve seen from a dev on the Elementalist in a while (and some of the most realistic). Please do come talk to us more, we really love it when you do. ^^

The Ele is definitely the spammy-class.

The mantra of the Ele is basically “Press all the buttons, so you can press more buttons.”

The same way ANet solves everything – RNG

Heat Sync is the current Warhorn Fire 4 Skill on Tempest.

Right now, the latest patch notes are set to change Heat Sync to only share Might.

Heat Sync right now is the key to the Tempest’s support spec. Changing this to only share Might removes the Tempest’s particular support style. While I’ve generally enjoyed the Tempest, changing this to only Might could possibly ruin what made it so special.

Right now, as it is, Warhorn has to compete against OH Dagger and Focus. Heat Sync actually made it fairly competitive, in my opinion. Removing this key capability, however, will all but assure that no one will use Warhorn over OH Dagger or Focus, really, ever.

I wish the Charr elites were worth a kitten .

Please don’t change Heat Sync.

It is the key to the Tempest’s Support spec. Removing its ability to share all boons would more or less destroy what made the Tempest’s Support spec special. Right now, as it is, Warhorn has to compete against OH Dagger and Focus. Heat Sync actually made it fairly competitive, in my opinion.

Removing this key capability, however, will all but assure that no one will use Warhorn over OH Dagger or Focus, really, ever.

To be honest, I don’t know if this skill really should be nerfed.

The thing is, it only works if something’s dumb enough to stay in all 60+ ticks and eat all that damage.

Just create encounters and AI that don’t sit in all that damage. Nerfing FGS is just a lame workaround. If anything, a skill like FGS should exist as a deterrent for the devs from creating encounters and AI that allow themselves to be abused in such a manner.

While I’m quite happy to see aura visual noise nerfed, the removal of Shocking Aura’s audio cue makes it pretty hard to know when the effect is going on. While before we had a similar problem (too many auras on at the same time lead to it being impossible to see what aura was on without looking at the buff bar), at least the audio cues of the auras provided a way to know what was going on. The audio cues still exist on the other three auras, to varying degrees. However, missing the sound on Shocking Aura is going to lead to some pretty upsetting situations where you literally just never know if an Ele might have shocking aura or not.

Alice.8694:

I’ve encountered a lot of new or inexperienced players who do not understand why stacking is a viable strategy.
They’ve been mistaught by being carried through dungeons with players who do understand how to stack or through other means such as popular youtubers, streams or other community media that stacking is the easiest and goto tactic to beat a boss.
This causes players to continue to remain uneducated on the bosses basic tactics and continue to depend on being carried by groups that do understand stacking. Meanwhile when they encounter a group not suited to utilize stacking efficiently, they do not understand why it fails and what is expected of them.

What surprised me was the alarming rate that players I was pugging or partying with would immediately call for stacking, even on bosses with moves that punishing stacking. This gave me the impression that the overall skill level of pugs in my absence had gone down.

In closing: Stacking isn’t exactly a problem, I think it’s poor dungeon design but I do not think it’s an immediately destructive to dungeon runs like some claim. It’s an issue that needs addressing on the whole. I do however think it’s teaching inexperienced players poor dungeon skills.

If you want a solution to my issue, when you carry a newbie through a dungeon and use stacking. Explain why it works to them and in what situations it would not work. It won’t take you long and you’ll have the opportunity to improve the dungeon pug skill level considerably. We all win, and if you don’t know… Stop using it till you do.

…………………….

Wuuuuuuuuuut.

WHAAAAAAAT?!

Sorry, I don’t normally get this mad, but this a whole new level of upsetting that I need to comment.

It is not MY fault that players that I PUG with end up as bad players. I take PERSONAL offense to being told that just trying to run a dungeon quickly, even telling people where to go and how the fights work, is somehow me contributing to making players bad.

Kitten you. How dare you blame those of us who have learned encounters of somehow degrading the game as a whole. Were we better off when dungeons were three times as long and we all ranged and kited everything around and kept wiping and res-rushing back? Do you REALLY think those days were better?

They weren’t. I remember them. And players weren’t any better. The only thing that changed was that those who wanted to get better got better. And those who didn’t, didn’t get better. But there was NOTHING of value of running AC and wiping continuously at the burrows or unable to get passed spider queen. There was nothing of value of Arah runs taking hours and constantly wiping on Lupicus. These things did NOT make us better players. In fact I know the players who still refuse to adapt their tactics to Berserker gear or effective Melee pulls, and they’ve moved on to other parts of GW2. And you want to know why? Because using old strats from over a year ago in dungeons that are outdated is kittening painful.

It took a long time just to ingrain in players that Berserker gear was optimal. PUGs are only just slowly starting to realize that not just War-Guard-Mes can be run to good effect in dungeons. Happily, most understand how to kittening stand in the right spot and stack in the right place to make an encounter easier. It took us a long time to get here, but I’m glad at what little progress was made.

And I do not take kindly to kittens like you telling us that we’re making PUGs worse by helping them to get through dungeons in the least painful ways possible. If a PUG wants to get better, it’s their responsibility to get better, NOT MINE.

Ettanin.8271:

Would it still be legendary if everyone has it?

Yes

Toughness scaling is fundamentally an attempt to make Berserker gear and direct damage builds obsolete for high level fractals. But the decision isn’t to stop DPS from being good – instead, it’s to arbitrarily promote Condition Damage as the optimal way to clear high level fractals.

As people here have focused on the fact that high level fractals are pointless right now due to lack of rewards, I also want to bring attention to the fact that high level fractals also arbitrarily favor Condi Damage over Direct Damage for no good reason other than to “challenge the Berserker Meta” (because I guess a Sinister/Viper meta is somehow fundamentally better?)

Regardless, if the developers ever do another iteration of fractals in the future and actually make high level fractals worth revisiting, they should consider removing all Toughness scaling. There is no good reason to favor Condi DPS over Direct DPS.

I agree that having a few mobs or encounters to counter Direct Damage or Condi Damage can lead to interesting variety. However, setting a global rule that from level 60+ fractals onwards, Direct Damage just becomes bad is nothing more than an invalidation of the Ascended Berserker Gear many of us have worked to get, which fundamentally goes against the principle that this expansion wouldn’t obsolete our gear.

Brawler’s Recovery is completely brokenly OP right now.

Right now, any sort of “weapon swapping” will proc the trait, and it has NO Internal Cooldown.

That means you can:
-Spam Bundles
-Spam Tonics

to keep proccing the trait.

THAT MEANS THAT A WARRIOR CAN JUST KEEP PICKING UP THEIR BANNER OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND GET FREE CLEANSING. IT COUNTS ON BOTH PICKUP AND DROP AS WELL, SO IT IS INCREDIBLY RAPID CLEANSING AS WELL.

This needs a 5 sec ICD. There’s no way that this trait should provide continuous free cleansing by just picking up a banner repeatedly.

Please change Vigor on Crit for the Elementalist to an Air trait. You could literally put it anywhere short of being a Major Grandmaster Trait and it’d be fine.

I dislike it because of the way AR has been implemented into the game.

To get to 55 AR, one needs to either spend tons of gold on special infusions, or get Ascended Weapons.

To get ascended weapons, you need a bunch of crafting materials, at least one of which – Dragonite Ore – requires that you champ train.

To progress in Fractals I have to champ train. Ugh.

Also getting a Craft to 500 costs a TON of money. More money than most players can ever hope to achieve in normal gameplay.

And indeed, honestly, if Agony was all avoidable by skill, then it’d be fine. But scripted agony, when combined with incredible grind to get Agony Resistance, is just dumb.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Guys, its Burnfall.
We don’t need to address this any further. If you want to see this guy rage more because he can be killed by another class, go to the thief forum.
He is a little bit like Deimos in that he’s very often wrong and may or may not be trolling, but somewhat worse in that he’s always angry.

However, I do agree that this class needs some looking at. In WvW, we are relegated to a single, mostly boring role in zergs, and in sPvP we are relegated to a single, boring role in a one-shot burst that quite frankly thieves can do better (You can of course run glass staff, but I’m not going to pretend that’s viable, only that it’s fun).
If you’re having trouble clearing any PvE content, you should probably finish levelling up to 80.

I have a solution. What if we LoS Burnfall into the Warrior subforum and get him to post a rant about Healing Sig, and pull Demios’ aggro into the thread onto Burnfall. They’ll meet each other, wrack up infraction points, and then we can jump in at the end and finish them off.

Elemental Attunement is possibly the strongest defensive and utility trait in the game. It’s Grandmaster-level worthy. Given that, it is a bit weird because as far as I know, nearly all Eles take it in PvP formats, and it’s the bread and butter of their survivability. Even though it’s very powerful, it’s also borderline necessary in PvP. It probably should be an inherent part of the Elementalist, I feel.

Recently in the dungeon subforum someone complained about the difficuluty of TA Aetherpath. The puzzles are distinct and the mechanics are strictly enforced. All the mobs must be fought and it’s pretty hard to just shrug off the mechanics of every enemy since they all hit fairly hard. The path itself is decently challenging.

Also, no one runs it.

The thing is, people hardly run dungeons at all. And the dungeons that do have uniquely hard mechanics or are challenging in any discernable way are just never run by the general community.

ANet has no incentive to create interestig enemies at a small-scale level because players have proven by their own play habits that by and large they prefer easy, grindy, mindless content, whether that is open world champ training or getting to fight in a huge zerg in WvW and run over people and call yourself a great PvPer. The entire system of GW2, for all of its great possibilities of small, precisely timed and skillfully played combat, truly encourages people to play at the lowest common denominator, and their attempts to make small content that is difficult has been spurned by the community in favor of more zerg farming and easy path farming if they actually DO dungeons. Sorrow’s Embrace might as well only have Path 1 and Path 3.

ANet can make unique and hard content like you said but why would they do that when most people would rather just do the easy and straightforward? Remember when AC2 used to be the most run path in the game. Now people hardly ever play it because the final boss actually requires a bit of effort, and people don’t want to put that in. ANet wants to make content people will play, not content that they won’t. There’s a reason they’ve abandoned dungeons.

It’s to balance their class mechanics.

Can you imagine a Thief with base 18,000 health? It’d be awful.

For most of the classes, the whole variance in health is actually done pretty decently and fairly.

The classes are sorted by order of their ability to mitigate damage:
-Guardians have tons of blocks, boons, and healing. Thieves have stealth, movement, and evasion, and Elementalists have boons, healing, and movement. All three classes have good access to CC. These three classes have a lot of ways to respond to a situation in combat and either stop lots of damage or run away from it in the case of the latter two.
-Engineers have boons, CC, and healing. Rangers have a pet, evasion, and movement. Mesmers have clones and evasion. These classes have a moderate amount of ways to respond to pressure, yet have a tendency to get easily focused down. They have a Medium HP pool to respond to the lack of flexibility versus pressure that the three low HP classes have.
-Necromancers have deathshroud and CC. They have few abilities to really mitigate or heal through damage, so instead they have a gigantic health pool to just sort of tank damage instead.

Warriors are totally over the top and I have no clue why they’ve become the way they are. :/ High healing, incredible CC, and possibly great movement if they spec for it plus high health is indeed totally over the top and not in line with the rest of the 7 classes.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Neko.9021:

Leaa.2943:

Today was the first time after 3 years and over 6000 hours of playtime that i consider to leave the game. This was the reason https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK1N_vqJPac&feature=youtu.be

No matter how many times i watch this and trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, it still turns out to be Arenanet giving the elementalists the finger, and not in a twisted funny way, but in a gloating ugly way.

Then i see how they tell us that Hey we have buffed your elite skill and it turns out you buffed the glyps, which very few of us ever uses anyway since the pet dies in two hits.

So in the end we still only have one elite still to use which is fiery sword and noone uses it for the damage but to move faster forward. The Icebow is dumbed down to a point were it will be useless, and since the axe and the shield was always uselss, so we now having 5 conjured weapons that noone will use, and we already had the useless glyphs, were one got less cd which have no meaning since the pets are easy to kill, which means in the end ele now have 10 skills that most of us never use.

But thank you for that gloating message from the Arena net staff on the twitch stream, your gtfo message is noticed.

Surely you’ve noticed in your 6000 hours of play that Ele has been the top class in GW2 PvE for a while now. Ice Bow was crazy, did far too much damage, and had to nerfed for the upcoming raid encounters.

If icebow had such a game breaking effect on raids then they should scrap them and start from the beginning.

Ice Bow did far too much damage in PvE encounters, especially against enemies with large hit boxes. It’s as simple as that. It amazes me that people actually think that it was OK for a single skill to deliver so much damage.

Introduction

I really enjoy running a fully specced Tempest with Warhorn and Shouts. While the power level is probably not where everyone wants it to be, I think a few adjustments can put it in a really decent place. The Tempest doesn’t need to be the absolute strongest thing in the game – I think it’s fine if it exists sort of in the middle of the pack of builds.

In a way, this is actually pretty neat. The Tempest and a lot of its abilities are currently overvalued by the devs and underpowered in the actual game, which means there’s still a lot of room for adjustments to be made without creating something that dominates the game.

PvE Tempest versus PvE Core Elementalist

First off – what’s the point of the Tempest anyway, in a PvE context? The Tempest had a pretty difficult challenge, from a PvE perspective, going into the game. The Ele has one of the strongest sustained DPS builds in PvE with a glassy Fire Staff Lava Font spam build, and the Tempest was entering into a game where it would inherently have to compete with that spec.

In this case, the Tempest almost immediately loses while doing any old content. Enemies in old PvE do not move and have large hitboxes. A Glyph of Storms + Lava Font + Meteor Shower combo destroys almost anything, and does a massive amount of AoE damage.

Still, that spec in particular more reflects a problem with the content itself than a problem with the spec itself. This is more apparent with new content – if enemies move, no one wants to run Staff Ele. This makes sense. Since you need an enemy to simply stand still in Lava Font in order for the build to be effective, if enemies start walking around the room (see, the new raid boss), it becomes a lot harder to get a big burst AoE combo, or even get full value off of your Lava Font.

In this way, the glassy Staff Ele spec is actually fine for the game, and serves as a check against the developers from developing lazy content. If an enemy doesn’t move, players will simply destroy it with a Fire Staff Ele. I like this dynamic, so I wouldn’t nerf Fire Staff Ele.

Tempest as Support?

At the same time, getting back to our original topic, one has to wonder then what Tempest should bring.

Tempest could simply try to compete as another pure DPS spec, but from the get go, we see a few problems. The Tempest is clearly meant to be be some sort of hybrid, support-style spec. The 3 Grandmaster Major traits are not DPS traits – two are support, and one is defensive.

I’d like to take this moment to say that this is not a bad thing. Traditionally, players in PvE have shunned support-spec builds that aren’t absolute hard defense (Aegis, Blinds, Reflects, etc.) This is understandable with the content that PvE had – enough of it was easy and static enough that you didn’t need much soft support like defensive boons or healing. However, it is apparent with the switch up in mechanics, both in the new open world and in the new raid content, that they want to make soft defense (healing, Protection, other defensive boons) more valuable.

The Tempest is solidly trying to go the defense and healing route of support. The heal-on-aura trait, as a concept, has a lot of potential to be very strong. Similarly, giving the Tempest a Water Field on its Warhorn, and having Overload Water heal quite a bit show that the Tempest is meant to be able to support a heal-styled spec. The biggest thing though, in my opinion, is “Wash the Pain Away!” This heals, AoE and baseline, 3560 + 1950 + 980 = 6490 HP, with no healing power gear. The heal has a very small radius for allies, but it’s a decent heal outright, and I honestly think that “Wash the Pain Away!” is one of the highlights of Tempest Support. If working with team mates correctly, it is an outright AoE heal that heals yourself and others for 6490 HP if positioned correctly, without having to invest in defensive gear.

Furthermore, the Tempest is able to enhance their auras with the use of many traits, including Powerful Aura in the Water Line, Elemental Shielding in the Earth Line, and Zephyr’s Boon in the Air Line. So from the get go, the Tempest is trying to synergize with these three trait lines. I think this is fine, and sets up the player to make some really interesting build choices.

The issue with Tempest, as a pure Support spec, comes when we start comparing it to other classes – in particular, the Herald (Revenant) spec and the Druid (Ranger) spec. The Herald is able to output massive AoE boons with little effort through the use of Glint’s utilities. It does this while retaining pretty darn good damage with Sword and other DPS traits. The Druid, meanwhile, has massive baseline healing – which by the way is fine. The Druid is meant to be a dedicated healer, so it makes sense that Druid has strong healing.

I don’t like to go around asking for nerfs to all the other classes, especially since I’m not entirely sold that the things that Revenant and Druid do are actually overpowered. So instead, I’d like to focus on what makes Tempest different and special, and try to focus on making those things better.

Overload!

The Tempest’s new mechanic, Overload, is what defines the Tempest. It is a mechanic unlike most others, with a conditional cooldown that starts upon attuning to a new attunement. When channeling an Overload, the Tempest Breaks stun and begins channeling a powerful skill that, at the end, has a massive effect that devastates the battlefield!

Except that it doesn’t, because somehow, over three beta weekends, overloads are still highly, highly, highly underpowered for their investment.

In order to gain an Overload’s effect, one must remain in the same attunement for 6 seconds. Afterwards, they channel the effect for 4 seconds.

That means the skill requires at least 10 seconds in advance thought to finally execute.

Finally, after managing to remain in an attunement, and then overloading for 4 seconds, you are locked out of your attunement for 20 seconds.

This all wouldn’t be much of a problem if it weren’t for the fact that Overloads are the primary mechanic of the Tempest. So there’s no getting away from them. They take up all of the Minor Trait slots as well, with traits based around overloading.

The fact is that Overloads are probably just too costly for what they do. They either need to have their effects buffed, or their costs reduced. And even if their costs were reduced, they’d have to be reduced significantly, since the effects of the overloads really aren’t that impressive as is.

To me, the Overloads are the most undertuned part of the class, which is incredible given that they’ve been buffed each beta weekend. It shows just how weak the mechanic is. And that’s a shame, because being so close to launch, it’s unlikely that a new mechanic can replace them. I’ve tried to be as positive as I could be up till now about everything else in this post, but as they are, and given that Overloads are the key to everything about the Tempest, it’s a shame that Overloads have just been so darn mediocre so far.

So here’s what I would do to make overloads stronger:
First, the channeling of Overloads in itself should be much stronger. When an Elementalist actually sticks around in their attunement and gets ready to Overload, there should be a huge payoff from the start. Here’s what I’d have:

• Overload Fire – The damage was nerfed before, when it really should have been left alone. The Might and Burning should tick twice as fast and twice as much (to increase from 10 ticks to 20 ticks), to inflict 20 stacks of Burn and give 20 stacks of Might.

• Overload Water – This skill need to be much stronger, especially considering that an Ele can easily heal 2600 HP baseline through Evasive Arcana + Healing Ripple. Overload Water should heal 1000 base with 1:1 Healing Power scaling per pulse, removing a condition each pulse. At the end of the channel, you and all allies gain massive Regeneration, cleanse a condition, and heal for an additional 2000 HP with 1:1 Healing Power scaling. The actual Overload Water channel should be a Water Field.

• Overload Air – This skill does a lot of damage, but it’s not much more than autoattacking right now or even Lava Font spam. The damage needs to be buffed by another 30%. Otherwise, it’s fine as it is.

• Overload Earth – This should blast finish at the start instead of at the end. This skill should also grant 3 seconds of stability per pulse, AoE (but should no longer grant 3 stacks of stability at the start). The pulsing should be doubled to be twice as fast and twice as much (going from 9 pulses to 18 pulses), granting 18 pulses of Protection, 18 pulses of Stability, 18 pulses of Bleed, and 18 pulses of Cripple. (This may sound really crazy, but one need only actually ever try to Overload Earth to see just how weak the skill is right now. It really needs a very strong buff in order to be useful for all the investment given into it).

Finally, the range of all over the Overloads should be standardized to 360 Range. As it is, Overload Fire (180 range) and Overload Earth (240 range) are very short Range, while Overload Water and Overload Air are 360 range. Since the cast times have been standardized, you might as well standardize the ranges as well.

Overloads, overall, need to be made much stronger in order for their investment to make any sense. Right now the effects are very undertuned, and they need to be made stronger in order for the Tempest to bring anything special to the class as a whole.

Shouts and the Warhorn

The addition of Magnetic Aura to Warhorn was a really good change, and the decision not to nerf Heat Sync was honestly probably what saved the Warhorn from becoming completely useless . The other skills are OK, though it’s hard to compete with Staff or Focus’ utility. Overall though, if all of the changes I mentioned are made to Overload (which is the most important part of Tempest, really), then Warhorn as is, as a sort of boon-sharing weapon, is probably passable. There clearly needs to be some refinement on the kit (especially that horrid Air 5 skill), but honestly, I don’t want to push too much right now.

The Shouts are probably the most well placed part of the Tempest in terms of where they need to be for power level, but they are still just a little too weak, given their long cooldowns and the other strong utilites (such as Glyph of Storms or Arcane Wave) that Ele can take.

I think one of the biggest things that could change would be to make all of the Utility Shouts (not the Heal or the Elite) into instant-cast shouts. Then, even with an instant-cast buff, “Shock and Aftershock!” still has too high of a base cooldown to be considered, and should be reduced from 50 seconds down to 40 seconds. Finally, the Shout trait should have a CDR effect attached on top of it, in addition to all of its current effects. These changes would really help make Shout Ele a strong support-style build in its own right.

The Traits

Tempest Traits have gotten better, and I think they could still continue to get better.

For myself, I think there’s no other way to go about this than to go through each of the Major Traits, and say what needs to be done:

Adept Major:

• Gale Song – Good as it is.
• Latent Stamina – Increase the range to 600, and remove the Vigor effect. Instead, it should grant 50 endurance (1 dodge) to you and up to 4 allies in range.
• Unstable Conduit – If all of the changes were made to Overloads so that they were actually good, this trait is probably fine. If the changes were not made to Overloads, then move the Aura to the start of the cast of an Overload instead of the end, and have it grant the Aura to allies within 600 range.

Master Major:

• Earthen Proxy – This trait is misleading as it’s written. I spoke to many, many, many people who thought that this trait increases Protection’s protection from 33% to 53%. According to tooltips and just general testing, it seems to just increase Protection to 40%. Honestly, if Earthen Proxy actually increased Protection on yourself from 33% to 53%, it would probably be fine.
• Harmonious Conduit – I would remove the Stability (and add it to Lucid Singularity below). Instead, this trait should grant the Harmonious Conduit buff (10% damage) to you and all allies within 360 range upon completing an Overload. The Harmonious Conduit buff should be increased from 5 to 10 seconds.
• Tempestuous Aria – This should have a Shout CDR effect of 20%, in addition to its other effects.

Grandmaster Major:

• Elemental Bastion – This trait is just weird, but I suppose the biggest problem is that the Healing is just too low. It’s clearly meant to give the Ele a way to support allies with small heals. I would change the heal to 1302 baseline (to reflect Cleansing Wave), with 1:1 Healing Power scaling.
• Imbued Melodies – I like the changes to it, having it cast Sand Squall automatically and give 20% Boon Duration really for the Warhorn. It’s fine as it is.
• Lucid Singularity – This trait does a lot of weird stuff when I think it could be made much simpler. It should just give you 1 stack of Stability and 1 stack of Resistance each for 4 seconds upon starting an Overload.

Playing the Tempest

What’s funny about a lot of these changes is that even if they were all made, I doubt the Tempest would still see much play. That’s honestly why I suggest most of them, because right now, as it is, the Tempest’s power level really is that low. There’s a lot of room for the developers to make changes to the Tempest, and these proposed changes would go a long way to bringing the spec up to speed with the rest of the game. In particular, making Overloads much stronger would do a lot to distinguish the spec as a new playstyle and making it stronger as a whole.

I’d also like to talk about what I think is cool about the Tempest, currently.

Mainly, I think where the Tempest has the most success in new content is as a sort of Aura and Boon share build. Running all shouts with Zephyr’s Boon and Elemental Shielding allows you to put a lot of Swiftness, Fury, and Protection on allies. Combine this with Warhorn’s Sand Squall (for boon extension and a personal Magnetic Aura) and Heat Sync, and you can pump out a massive amount of long duration Might, Swiftness, Fury, and Protection on allies for a long time. This is where Tempest shines the most, and given that it’s probably one of the better configurations on a currently underpowered Elite Spec, I really do think it should be helped along to be made better, rather than ignored or nerfed (such as changing Heat Sync).

At the end of the beta, I found I was running this build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJBIhdSfJUgJ2fJYhJwhJWaAM3Lbmd0OsC6AzQhCQA4DC-TxRBABUcCAuS5HN7PgneAAeAAUq+jZKBJFQgTtA-e

I played around with it in the new Verdent Brink (which was much harder in BWE2, and apparently nerfed in BWE3, though apparently this was a bug and not intended), as well as in the new raid. I particularly liked how “Eye of the Storm!” with its AoE Super Speed helped people quickly get to the little Lightning Circle AoE when you needed to stack 4 people there to keep the raid from wiping, and I liked how “Rebound!” could be used to actually save yourself and 4 other allies in case something bad happened. Furthermore, the interaction between the Overload mechanic and Fresh Air allows you to get quite a few more Air Overloads than you would otherwise, which would go well with an improved Harmonious Conduit (and go better with just stronger Overloads in general). The build relied largely on Air Overload, Fresh Air, and Air autoattacking to keep up its damage.

Given, such a build is ultimately unfit for raids, especially given how much better Revenant and Druid do at doing the sort of support-DPS style than Tempest does, which is a shame, but it is what it is. I think that making more changes to Tempest and helping bring its power level to even just where baseline Ele is right now can help at least make it a decent mid-tier spec in the future. And I think that these changes would at the very least make it a good build for going into the jungle and trying to take on smaller challenges with friends, such as the Canopy Fights with a small number of people.

Also for people wondering if Cele or Cleric gear made a difference, the answer is no – Healing Power scaling was poor on Tempest so there was no point.

Conclusions

I really enjoyed the Tempest overall, even if the spec is very undertuned. I like the Overload mechanic even if the numbers are weak. I really enjoy playing with Shouts and Warhorn, giving allies lots of boons and a small amount of heals, even if Herald (Revenant) and Druid (Ranger) do it much better. I understand that balance happens in cycles, and Tempest will be starting at the bottom of the power curve at the release of HoT. This is fine, as there will always be someone there starting out. All I’m asking is that the gap at least be made smaller. I want Tempest to at least be good at the things it’s supposed to be good at – Overloading and Support. As it is, a Tempest can make a significant investment in traits, utilities, and weapons (no bothering investing in gear since the Healing Power scaling is so bad anyway), and it still comes up as pretty mediocre. Even taking all of the on-Aura traits like Zephyr’s Boon and Elemental Shielding leave a build that is pretty decent at easy-to-apply boon share, but it lacks that final bit to really make it worthwhile. That’s why I think Overloads need to be improved – because those can be that last bit that makes the entire Elite Spec worthwhile. Overloads are the key to Tempest’s success, given it’s the spec’s new mechanic, and they’re just not good enough right now.

But I still enjoy the Tempest, and I’d hope the devs consider making at least a few of these changes to make it stronger with the new PvE content.

Shiren.9532:

EcoRI.9273:

Everything is viable in this game. People have cleared dungeons Naked solo.

These discussions always boil down to “viable” vs “optimal” and I think there is a clear intent from the OP and others that their view of the game is “optimal” (zerker nonsense), “possible” (nomad staff ele auto-attacking Spider Queen for three hours before the redesign) and “viable” (not the best DPS, not the fastest but good enough that the average player or run wouldn’t notice a dramatic different – admittedly this will be a subjective category).

Defining “viable” as “possible” is such a disingenuous way to approach the discussion because it treats every build on the same level as the absolute worst builds.

It’s so much easier to dismiss non-zerker discussions when every other play style is grouped together with a nomad staff ele in water attunement.

Basically: don’t lump me in with those bads, my Soldier’s Ele is way better than their Nomad’s Ele. Really, I promise! I’m not as bad as them! Please don’t put us together ;_;

(lol)

The post itself, for those who still might be confused, seems to be a riff on people who post bad builds, and on the whole #Eletism group thingy that was posted a while back, as well as on people who just generally have self-aggrandized self-images of their own reputations of their abilties in WvW. All of these are common themes posted about, on this forum.

I just thought it’d help to post this, however, just in case people were a bit confused and didn’t see the veiled trolling going on.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Maybe we should see exactly what Anet’s plan is to weaken armor-ignoring damage before we immediately start crying about an extremely vague blogpost?

As the devs implement changes to the game, it’s important for us to give our honest and candid feedback right away as they brainstorm the ideas, rather than simply wait for the day those changes are made to the game in live, and then we have to sit with any problems from those changes for months as they move onto some other project. There’s nothing to be gained by us remaining silent.

Guardians are weird because despite the fact that they fill the job of general mid-bunker support far better than any other class, they aren’t particulalry broken. They do pretty bad damage, can still be focused down if their cooldowns are blown, have limited mobility, and honestly need to work with other players to really accomplish anything (as opposed to the various Condi-Bunkers that can tank as well as do good damage).

At the same time, they certainly just sort of push out any serious mid-support class.

I really don’t think much can be done. While Eles get close to Guardians in terms of boon support, they lack RANGE on their boons. While an Ele in theory should be giving out tons of Protection, Regen, and Stability if set up as Bunker, it rarely turns out this way due to the incredibly small range of Elemental Attunent and Rock Solid – 240 units.

Guardians will always be the best support class if only because their virtues have a massive 1200 range, and their shouts a 600 range.

On the other hand, other classes such as Banner-Bunker Warrior, Decap Bunker Engi, Bunker Spirit Ranger, and Bunker Minion Master Necro all do a far better job at Bunkering the side nodes than Guardian does. So it’s not all that bad.

Encouraging players to play all the classes is limiting to party diversity…
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( sigh…)

Fresh Air DPS (0/30/0/20/20 or 0/30/0/10/30)

This is a new build which has become viable thanks to the addition of a new GM trait in the Air Tree called “Fresh Air”. The build revolves around attacking in air, and rotating between attunements for their utilities/heals/damage, and then getting back into air for more sustained damage. I find this build works best with Dagger mainhand in PvE because the sustained damage of Lightning Whip synergized better with the nature of prolonged PvE combat.

Here are the builds (please note that the “Grounded” trait should be “Fresh Air”, but buildcraft has not yet updated the trait list) :

• This version has Healing Ripple from attuning to Water (0/30/0/20/20)
• This version has 30 points in Arcana and Evasive Arcana (0/30/0/10/30) (Cleansing Wave [Water V] can be Vital Striking [Water VI] if you so choose)

• Damage: Good
• Survivability: Moderate
• Support: Moderate
• Swirling Winds Access: Yes
• Arcana Build: Yes
• Lightning Hammer Synergy: Low

Great for those who want good DPS without having to trait for Lightning Hammer and love the play of Dagger Elementalist. Good for those who have played Auramancer Elementalists for a long time and are looking for something different.

This build’s main selling point is that it has a great deal of damage even without Lightning Hammer. Your Lightning Whips will hit quite hard, and swapping into Air Attunement from another Attunement will give a nice bit of burst damage. Air Attunement conveniently has Swirling Winds and Shocking Aura as well, so if you need to protect yourself from a Melee mob or your team from Ranged mobs, you’ve got both covered.

This build prioritizes Lightning Hammer far more over Arcane Wave, since this build is less about stacking Might and more about rapidly switching in and out of Air for various Elemental Attunement and Electric Discharge (Air 15) procs. This build is a great way to progress from the Auramancer build if you want to gain a bit more DPS without giving up rapid attunement swapping and the various advantages this gives.

I have included two builds – one with 30 in Arcana and 10 in Water, and one with 20 in Arcana and 20 in Water. The advantage of 30 in Arcana is that you have better access to your attunements, and to Evasive Arcana. The advantage with 20 in Arcana and 20 in Water is that you retain the benefits of Healing Ripple (Water 15) so you can heal on attuning to Water without having to waste a dodge. Overall, this is up to personal playstyle preference.

Scepter-Hammer Might Stacker (30/20/0/20/0)

There are actually quite a few people that I looked to when making this build.

First, Kitsune is generally regarded as the first person to try and go for a maximum DPS Lightning Hammer build. His build can be found here, and I suggest you give it a read: . It’s a great example of coming up with something unexpected and different, and was the beginning of taking Lightning Hammer seriously for Elementalst builds.

Next, the Death and Taxes guild [DnT] has experimented with the Hammer, and I looked to their guide, and it does seem that it works quite well as a DPS character in an organized group. In particular, I suggest you watch Inev1tab1e’s guide.

Kitsune’s version used Staff because that seemed to be his preferred weapon set, and most players before the June patch used Daggers because that was regarded as the ‘normal’ dungeon weapon set for Eles.

I then came upon Hamartia’s Guide to the Scepter-Dagger Elementalist, which you should also give a read. When looking at his original builds, I found them to be lacking in sustained damage if the fight went on too long. I pointed out, however, that if you combine Lightning Hammer, its DPS easily skyrockets. Best of all, since the build naturally has a short burst time, it synergizes really well with Lightning Hammer. You can put down a bunch of Might with Scepter-Dagger Combos, and with Persisting Flames (Fire XI) you can easily stack about 1 minute of Fury for your team. Definitely read Hamartia’s guide on how to do this, since he talks about it rather extensively.

I spoke with him and we both found that the combo of using Scepter Dagger’s short burst and Might (and Fury, thanks to the June patch) worked well with Hammer. After you gave your team a good minute or so of Fury and about 18 stacks of Might, you could then use Lightning Hammer to put those stacks to good use, and start doing incredible amounts of DPS.

Here is the build

• Damage: Great
• Survivability: Low
• Support: Great
• Swirling Winds Access: No
• Arcana Build: No
• Lightning Hammer Synergy: Yes

For those who want to do the very best DPS, and for those who want to also boost up their allies’ DPS. Your own survivability be kitten ed. This is the version you bring for organized groups with Warriors, Guardians, and Mesmers.

This is the absolute glassiest version of the build, and will almost definitely lead to problems the first few times you try to use it. Even then, you probably want an organized group that sticks together if you want to try and take a build as glassy as this.

The general idea is to perform a bunch of Might stacking combos with Fire and Earth, then lay down the Hammer and smash things while sitting in Water attunement. Hopefully someone in your group apples Vulnerability (many classes do) so that you can gain an extra 20% damage from Piercing Shards (Water IV).

The nice thing about this build, however, is that it almost certainly does “enough” damage for any group composition out there. With the right circumstances, you can out-DPS Warriors and provide tons of Might and Fury as well. It’s a high-reward sort of build, pretty challenging, but excellent when executed correctly.

Please note that unlike every other build, since this one sits in Water for the most part, you’re better off with Sigil of Force over Sigil of Battle.

Also, note that if you have party members who like to spam other types of combo fields, they may end up getting in the way of your Fire fields and ruining your Might and Fury stacking, so take note of that when forming a group and a group strategy.

Hybrid Dagger-Hammer (20/0/0/20/30)

This is my personal favorite build. This is what I run, after playing around with other builds of the Elementalist.

Here is the build

• Damage: Good
• Survivability: Great
• Support: Good
• Swirling Winds Access: Yes
• Arcana Build: Yes
• Lightning Hammer Synergy: Yes

The general idea of this build is this. You retain 30 in Arcana which allows you to retain the versatility so iconic to the Elementalist. With at least 15 in Water, the very act of attuning to Water heals for about 1600 HP AoE. A dodge roll in Water Attunement gives a massive heal as well.

I prefer Focus offhand to Dagger for Swirling Winds (Air 4) and the two Earth skills.

The two utilities other than Lightning Hammer are up to you. I stuck Arcane Shield and Mist Form in there for pure survivability, but you’re free to put Arcane Wave into one of those slots if that’s your thing.

The basic idea is this – play a Classic Elementalist (I consider the playstyle of the Auramancer to be a Classic Elementalist), dancing between attunements as needed, proccing Protection in Earth attunement when burst damage is about to come and heals from Water attunement when you need heals or cleanse.

Then, when you’ve exhausted your weapon’s burst or feel safe to move away from your normal weapon set’s abilities, feel free to drop down the Lightning Hammer and start smashing stuff.

That’s really all there is to it. I think that when Hammer builds were first introduced to the meta, they were introduced in their absolute most optimal, organized-group (and somewhat gimmicky, honestly) form. A lot of Elementalists have “seen” the Lightning Hammer build but don’t play it for various reasons such as:

• It’s a gimmick build
• It’s too glassy

This build tries to solve those problems, while retaining the playstyle of 30 Arcana Dagger Elementalists.

This is the build that I personally use, and do so because of my experiences with the other 4 builds listed on this page. So please look at those 4 builds’ advice and incorporate that into how to play this version of the Elementalist.

You JUST figured this out now?

Cute.

Get wrecked, BG. <3

Also, yes, ANet is aware of it. They briefly commented about it on their GW2 weekly stream, and said something to the effect that it was an interesting development, to see two servers work out a truce in the game.

The purpose of a 3 way fight is to balance out the “stronger” server in situations like this. That’s why there are 3 sides, not just 2.

Also, everyone’s tired of watching BG winning everything and acting so self-righteous about it. We all want you to lose and we want people like you to finally lose so you can all be brought back down to reality. TC and JQ are double teaming, both servers know this, and we have no shame for doing so.

I feel like it’s a pretty unfair way to shut down arguments about balance by simply saying “just embrace whatever you think is OP.” It’s true that a truly competitive player should just play to win and play whatever is needed in order to do so, but I don’t think that has much bearing on, as a matter of general discussion, figuring out what’s actually too strong and not too strong.

To put it another way, I think embracing only a competitive mindset when talking about a game is a fairly narrow way of evaluating a game. If GW2 devolved into a meta where every player ran 5 Celestial Bunkers that run the timer out every match, which is “countered” by a team of 5 Zerker Burst classes, is it not fair to take a step back and say “hey, this meta kinda sucks” and watch as your already dwindling PvP community continues to leave because of how unfun the game has become?

Taking a pulse on what the community feels and what engages them to play and is enjoyable is important. If a class falls in power to the point where it’s simply unplayable at high level, why shouldn’t the players of that class ask for changes? There was an entire year where the Elementalist was simply unviable in sPvP entirely, and it’s no coincidence that many of the players who mained Ele just quit the game. You can fault them for not being hardcore enough or not Playing To Win enough, but I think the game and community are small enough that we’d be at a pretty big loss if even one of the professions and all the players who enjoy that profession were left out of PvP.

But ultimately, I think what’s really dangerous is trying to kill all balance discussion altogether, with the reasoning that players shouldn’t concern themselves with balance because they’re the players. Quite honestly, the players will have a decent understanding of, at the very least, what is enjoyable and what isn’t, and GW2 is full of terribly unenjoyable things that have brought down the PvP scene. You accuse the developers of paying too much attention to the playerbase, I accuse them of not paying enough attention. Players are sick of fighting minion builds, builds that burst players from 100 to 0 (often from stealth, in the clutter of AI, or from far away), builds that DoT you to death and thus mandate that nearly every class build themselves around condition removal, builds that heal forever, builds that are just so tanky, builds that build up so much damage with Might that squishier more midrange builds can’t be played anymore. Players are tired of not having more game modes. Hell, players are tired of kittenING SKYHAMMER.

GW2 PvP sucks in its current state. And I blame that more on the developers than the players. I’d rather give the players the chance to speak their mind on what should be done, rather than just silence all discussion and quietly obediently obey whatever ANet says should be done.

For raids:

Tempest is a worse healer and doesn’t give damage modifiers. There is no debate here. Druid is a better healer if looking for someone for the heal role.

The nerf to AF today is irrelevant for raids. There’s so much ambient damage that the Druid should have 0 problems building up AF.

Honestly, as an Ele main, it kinda annoys me to see people trying to promote a Tempest healer, when Druid is so much better as a healer. Ele is a fine class and has its role to fill, but that role is NOT main healer.

Hello.

Minion Master: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=;0_-73;0sHkD0z3VI-K0;9;4J-TJ-48;229A46;2U-k66;1TsW6TsW66gj

You are now an expert PvPer.

I dream of a world where you get a small sum of dragonite ore from completing a dungeon path or fractal. I wouldn’t mind that. But as a person who spends a large amount of time in WvW (where keeps give a miserly amount of dragonite ore) and dungeons (where no dragonite ore exists), I find it insulting that of the large amount of time and effort I put into the game and its various modes, I so happen to play the wrong ones, as decided by Anet, when it comes to progressing gear.

Been waiting for this

They once nerfed Signet of Restoration by 18%, and Ele was unplayable for a year. >_>

The sad fact of it is that, unless Ele has a greater Health Pool, Ele will always be forced to go bunker. The bunker spec on its own isn’t even necessarily that bad, it’s just that Burning is so strong, and the Fire trait line is so massively power creeped (Blinding Ashes, Pyromancer’s Training, and Burning Fire are all far too strong) that Bunker Ele can also do massive damage.

Personally, I’d like to see an Ele with a larger health pool, but less sustain. But since they’re never going to do both of those things, the easier answer is to just nerf the overpowered traits in Fire, as well as the Burning condition, so that at least Bunker Ele doesn’t also do too much damage.

Try the faceroll D/D Celestial Ele that people have been running again – 0/0/10/30/30. http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k33;2B2VU0z4-N;9;99TT;45;049A17AUo0;3H7W3H7W30S

Watch Cmc’s twitch stream to see him play the build in action: http://twitch.tv/cmcgw2

Anyway, to answer your questions:
1. This is a terribly confusing thing and I still don’t quite like how they didn’t explain this. Basically, your armor is completely cosmetic. The weapons themselves carry over but the PvE Stats and Sigils do not. You go up into the PvP Build Menu and select your PvP Amulet (which will give your stats), your Rune set, and your Sigils. Traits can be adjusted here too.
2. To join a map with a friend, you must both be friends together. Then, right click their name when they’re in an arena and join them.
3. Click “Play Now” to join a match. If one doesn’t work, click it again till you find a match you can join.
4. Watch streams. Honestly, cmc’s stream is very informative and has become a really great place for aspiring Eles to learn tech and the basics of PvP strategy. Also, the sPvP forums have some good guides about concepts such as Builds and Comps.
5. Play what you enjoy, not just what’s overpowered or flavor of the month. I’d suggest looking at Dantes’ compiled list of builds and try some of those in Hotjoin. Classes that are easy to pick up and play are Warrior, Spirit Ranger, and Necro. Engis have a steeper learning curve but are quite good and easy to play once you understand it. Thieves are actually a bit hard to be effective with in PvP but they’re still very strong (and basically necessary for a competitive team because of their mobility). Bunker Guard is a necessity but can be dull to play. Mesmer is OK. Roughly speaking, if I had to pick what’s “most viable”, it would probably be Warrior.

Do people really not know that sepia-tone is a trope to indicate ‘in the past’ anymore?

That’s really sad, honestly.

Ice Bow had to be nerfed. Raids are coming out soon, and undoubtedly, everyone getting off a huge amount of damage with Ice Bow probably really skewed the encounter balance. It’s no coincidence they’re making the changes in light of the new raid wing that’s about to come up.

Thank you to SoR for being so classy and helpful during our karma train together on SoS BL last night.

The build I have is meant to be used in that fashion. You do a bunch of Scepter-Dagger Might Stacking, then bash with the hammer until it’s used up, then go back to Might Stacking.

You know, since you seem so gung-ho on this, might I direct you to a forum where people PvE theorycraft extensively: http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/viewforum/4280860/m/6563292

It’s a known bug. Not necessarily the whole “reflecting a clone-creating attack creates a clone for the reflector”. That seems intentional, actually. But the fact that you can reflect Mirror Blade when its tooltip clearly says “Unblockable” is a bug.

If you’re NA I’ll do the path with you and help you out.

sorrychief.2563:

30/x/x/x/x is actually the worst spec in the game, have fun dying because you can’t kill things fast enough.

30 fire only appeals to nubs because they see: POWER traitline and automatically think it will give them the most dps.

In an organized group you take it for the Fury-on-blasting-in-a-firefield trait. The 25-point damage modifier, plus the inherent Power of the trait line, does in fact significantly raise your DPS.

But most players, even in their own organized groups, will have a SIGNIFICANTLY difficult time surviving.

That’s why the Ele is in such a strange spot. We have guides for speedclears for classes like Warrior, Guardian, and Mesmer. And these builds are difficult to survive in but it can be done with enough practice. A glass Ele is a whole different league of difficulty when it comes to staying alive, however, due to inherently low stats and very few means of damage mitigation. Given, it is certainly possible, and I know groups like [LOD], [IX], [DnT], [rT], and [HC] have some pretty good players who can play specs like the ones DKeys lists in her own guide. But for many players who just play in PUGs on LFG or with their own random guildmates who may have middling DPS, pure glassy Ele builds with 30 in Fire can be VERY difficult to play with. Enough so that there should probably be some advice for players who want advice on how to run an Ele in a casual dungeon run with reasonable (but not speedclear level) kill times.

To be honest, outside of Quickness and Resistance, I don’t see what’s wrong with sharing the other boons.

It has to be noted that taking Tempest and Warhorn requires two major sacrafices:
-Taking Tempest
-Taking Warhorn

Seriously. The Tempest line is a huge damage and survivability loss to take relative to almost any other trait line. Taking Warhorn means you lose out on the massive DPS of Staff in PvE or the incredibly good kits of OH Dagger or Focus in PvP. Seriously. Outside of Heat Sync, there is very little reason to take Warhorn over OH Dagger and Focus.

The thing is that Ele Offhands or Staff are already super strong. Just look at the OH Dagger kit. It has so many strong skills. Same with Focus, and same with Staff. Warhorn, without Heat Sync, makes 0 sense to be run with any build over these other 3 options. Even a condi option like some people have suggested like “Convert condis to burning” or “convert condis to might” or whatever would be so utterly situational that you would never seriously consider running Warhorn over any other weapon set.

The range of boons needs to be large. Might, Swiftness, Regeneration, Protection, and Fury at least. Warhorn has to compete against superstar skills such as:
-Obsidian Flesh
-Magnetic Wave
-Swirling Winds
-Ride the Lightning
-Updraft
-Ring of Fire
-Cleaning Wave
-Healing Rain
-Static Cage
-Frozen Ground

Warhorn has like… Warhorn Air 5.

Seriously. Even the “good” skills on Warhorn would be the MOVING Water Field and Sand Squall, which while strong, has been bugfixed to now only give 4 sec of Protection and only extend other boons 2 sec instead of 4. Right now, it’s basically Sand Squall versus the kits of the other weapons, and the fight does not look good for it.

Heat Sync, simply put, makes Warhorn a competitive weapon choice with OH Dagger, Focus, or Staff. Without it, or with the very much weaker suggestions put out, Warhorn will never be taken over the incredible Staff in PvE and WvW, or the OH Dagger in sPvP, or even the occasional Focus, which still has an incredible kit. An OH weapon set has to be at least as strong as Focus in order to ever be seriously considered. With a complete nerf to Heat Sync, I can safely say that no one will seriously use Warhorn at any high level of play in PvP, PvE, or WvW. Heck, even with Heat Sync as strong as it was, it still makes more sense to run OH Dagger in PvP and Staff in WvW and PvE. Warhorn is barely hanging on as a Tier 2 weapon choice and it’s being pushed to garbage tier, and that’s just really what amazes me.

Please don’t nerf Heat Sync, or at the very least, allow the skill to share Ele boons like Might, Swiftness, Regeneration, Protection, and Fury.

Personally, I find that the worst class to find in a PUG is Guardian. PUG Guardians are often bunkery healing builds camping Staff. If I had to pick one class to ban when I PUG, I’d select Guard. However, I dislike judging people based on class alone, so I let anyone join my PUG groups.