Guild Wars 2

there are confirmed to be 3 Beta weekend events. Anet happens to let us know when those events will be a week or two in advance. with all due respect, you have the choice to go do something else for those 3 weekends. IT’S YOUR OWN FAULT for choosing to play during the beta weekend events. 9 days out of 365. YOU CHOSE to play during those 9 days, KNOWING about the beta test AHEAD OF TIME. i feel no pity for you. i offer you no bacon as recompense.

disclaimer: this post has been written for entertainment purposes only, and does not offer any legal advice, nor does it present any legal opinions. the poster is not responsible for any actions you may take as a result of you reading this post.

post script: bacon deficiency disorder sux

PS:

if NPC’s are allowed to knock players off a cliff… players should be able to do the same thing to NPC’s. i’m so tired of NOT being allowed to use knockbacks to the fullest extent against NPCs…

i was playing around with Reaper today, and it hought to myself… WOW, i sure wish Tempest felt this powerful…

i won’t rehash all the previous suggestions, but here’s one i think would help:

[SUGGESTION]

fire overload…. instead of casting on the caster, cast it on the target (1200 range) and the firenado follows the target around, wherever the target is located when the channel is completed, is where the final firenado lands.

or

fire overload: cast your firenado on your target (1200 range), upon completion of the channel, the firenado blasts the area and splits into 5 more firenados that spread out in a star pattern for the next 5 seconds.

[WHY?]

this would give another ranged option for all weapon sets, opening up more possibilities in all game modes.

would it be balanced? right now firenado is hard to use because it’s so easily interrupted, in addition to having to stand on the target as you cast, so it makes it essentially a triple risk, due to how squishy elementalist is.

at triple risk, the fire oveload needs to do way more damage to feel like the risk is worth it. (especially in melee range). i almost feel like, that to make the damage worth the risk, the skill would become OP, being able to kill anyone who stayed in the AOE the whole duration (including 50k health transformed necros) changing the overload to a ranged skill would alleviate some of the risk, and therefore wouldn’t need to be buffed to the point of being OP.

wow, Karl, that sounds like an elite that would actually address some of the elementalist’s squishiness in general. it also fits the tempest’s support role much better than the BWE1, and BWE2 version of the shout.

The Comfy Chair’s feedback pretty much echoes my own. fire overload still feels kinda weak as the big damage dealer. earth and air shouts still take too long to recharge. (air shout really feels like it needs shocking aura)

i’m hoping to see more info on the iterations in quite a few areas of the specialization, especially in the traits. since i’ve given feedback on the traits in BWE1, i’ll direct you to the BWE1 thread.

the main suggestions of course, being to combine the miner traits (and make them work on all channels, not just overload channels), give some stability somewhere (or traited breakbars for all overloads), shout cooldown reduction, damage multipliers (maybe something like how Berserker’s Power works, but the damage boost is granted upon overload channel completion), or add damage pulses every second to all channels for elementalist.

this reminds me of my favorite sardonic statement:

“There are two types of people in this world: those who dichotomize and those who don’t.”

yes, the statement itself is full of sarcasm, and is also inflammatory. it also describes the pitiful closed-mindedness that leads to the toxicity of elitism, and the belief that stereotypes and entitlement give certain individuals the “right” to judge everyone else by a different set of rules than oneself.

the truth is, no member of humankind has that inherent authority, yet it seems that every member of humankind claims it.

Chronic Bacon Deficiency Disorder still sux…

PS:

please forgive me for my passionate responses. i really don’t mean to come across so negative. i’m just as frustrated as you are with the Tempest spec, even though i sound like a sterotypical “fanboi.”

this discussion does in fact point out to me how hard it is to come up with a spec that pleases everyone, even though it’s very well, thought out.

even though we disagree on different points, i offer golden brown delicious crispy bacon to you for this concept. it really wouldn’t surprise me if Anet takes some of these ideas into consideration for a future spec.

Jekkt.6045:

what you kind of misunderstand is that this elite specialisation concept is not designed as a ranged nuker, if i wanted to do that i would have added rifle or pistol as the weapon, not a sword. what you want could be the theme of a different future elite specialiation, why do you need to pack everything into one? mine is designed for close range dps, interesting stuff with combo fields and some goodies for scepter condi players.

staff will never be viable as a ranged nuker in pvp just because of the way the weapon works. it’s slow and ground targeted, so you can walk out of everything. if you want a ranged nuker it needs something that is fast and hits hard with kiting potential, not something that makes you a walking freekill if you play marauder staff.

i think YOU misunderstood. i’m not asking for this spec to BE a range nuker spec. i’m asking for something to compliment a range nuker in PvE, too. I’m asking for some benefit outside of PvP game mode, too.

if you’re designing an elite spec, you can’t ignore the design of the core class all in the name of “specializing”. look at dragonhunter. it offers ranged (longbow) and close (traps) options. the same with chronomancer (wells, shield, traits for phantasm respawn). even Reaper offers ranged options with their shouts. and their traits still offers something for ranged users with chill synergies.

all i’m saying, is that Weaver needs to offer something to all elementalists or it won’t be worth even considering until after a full fledged ranged nuker spec is introduced. what i’m saying, is that you’re shooting your own idea in the foot if you ever want it taken seriously.

Anet is giving us a close ranged support / DPS spec in Tempest, but they still offer ranged users something. if the next elite spec is ALSO a close range spec but DOESN’T offer long ranged users anything, the forums will explode again.

PS: the changes i offered in the other post, would maybe help aleviate some of the hate for how UNviable staff is in PvP. some quickness might help with all those slow lumbering attacks. and maybe those new versions of stances would be better for a staff ele than those really long recharge cantrips. i know they’d make PvE more fun, regardless if i took staff or sword…

here’s some ideas for stances. i didn’t suggest anything for heal because your healing stance was the best of the ideas.

Enervating Charge 6s (cd: 45s): incoming conditions get converted into 2 seconds quickness.

Rust 10s (cd: 60s): your attacks/spells apply one of the following random conditions: poison (3s), bleeding (6s), weakness (2s), vulnerability (5s)

Ash Cloud 6s (cd: 25s): Surround yourself with smoke that moves with you. (combo field: smoke).

Iron Mist 5s (cd: 35s): stun break, convert 3 conditions into boons, gain 500 toughness

Elemental Lord 15s (cd: 120s): stun break. grant 3s (1 stack) stability every 3 seconds. strike your target with an arcane blast for critical damage every time you swap attunements. (this would synergize with arcane traits)

yes, i know i didn’t base the stances around boons. that’s because stances in general in the game are supposed to add affects that can’t be removed. boons can be removed or converted into conditions.

i went with the above suggestions to offer a variety of defense, offense, and support options. the smoke field would really qualify as the only real group support option, but also offers defense through combos.

enervating charge and iron mist are designed to offer alternatives to both cantrips and water spec line.

ash cloud and enervating charge are both designed as offense options.

i felt elemental lord should continue encourage attunement swapping, since the weaver mechanic does as well. i felt it should synergize with arcana spec, since PvPer’s never leave home without it, and yet still offer offense for non melee, non arcana builds. i did feel that your version of the stance was way too powerful with arcana traits. 1 second cooldowns on attunement swaps is just way too powerful.

we could always add another trait to add boons on stance use, but i feel that arcana line offers plenty of boons already.

i do understand that with the shorter cooldowns i offered, that your cooldown trait would probably be overpowered, so the cooldown reduction would have to be changed to 2-3s per stance used. reducing the cdr would definitely require adding a boon to stances to remain in the GM tier.

malicious weaving i feel is powerful, since it applies a long AoE condition every time you swap attunements, but it’s only powerful in close combat. it’s actually a good risk vs reward trait, and i feel it would synergize well with Rust, and even glyph of elemental power, regardless of weapon set chosen. i think it offers a little too much control on short cooldowns though.

combination benevolence does step on water spec’s toes too much, imo. which is another reason i offered more condi removal tools on the stances. so this trait could be removed.

further comments on the weaver spells. there is a lot of control available there. the knockdown, cripple, and immoblize just might need longer icd’s.

now, i personally would also replace hotheaded with something else, for the reasons i mentioned earlier (steps on the toes of air trait)

new adept traits:

Lightning Speed: movement skills evade for 3/4 second (synergizes with dagger, staff, and even cantrips)

Swift recovery: breaking a stun grants superspeed (synergizes with cantrips, glyphs, signets, traits)

PS: somehow i missed the GM minor trait on my first read through. i really like it. it actually gives all weapons something to look forward to. overall. the traits you suggested are pretty good.

basically what i’m saying that is that your weaver spec is designed ONLY for PvP, and there’s nothing there for ranged nukers. if you give ranged staff nukers more in the spec, instead of just “more support”, which staff already has in spades, i’d be much more interested.

you and others complain about how Tempest mainly gives more lackluster support to front-liners, but then you went ahead and did the same thing to staff builds in your concept spec.

sword is melee close range
weaver swaps are all melee / point blank range
the only stance worth taking is the earth one (the air stance is the same as the air shout, except for quickness, and the water stance requires me to get hit to remove conditions?!? and i don’t need the might from fire stance as a staff user…)

the only things that affect ranged users is one scepter trait and one trait giving a damage bonus while using a stance.

basically, there’s no ranged damage options. there’s nothing here to encourage me as a staff user to take this spec over tempest. because it offers me the same exact thing: more point blank effects with the f1-f4 keys.

that’s your problem if you refuse to take cantrips or to play d/d ele, that mindset won’t get you anywhere

i also said i refuse to PvP with my ele as long as this is the general attitude toward elementalist builds in PvP. i hate the build because it’s total cheese, not because of the skill level it takes to run it well. i respect the skill it takes to run it well.

when i want to get up in someone’s face, i use a different class that’s designed with melee autoattack chains, like warrior or guardian. i don’t try to turn the elementalist into a melee class, though i do respect that others want that playstyle. i’m not opposed to it, just offer me more as a staff user. and please remember that staff already offers more support than the entire Victoria’s Secrets catalogue.

now, since i’ve mentioned that i feel stances don’t offer me anything as a staff user (except for earth stance) i’ll try to come up with other ideas that i feel would benefit a staff build, differently than the tools we already have. it may take me awhile. and i might not be able to post again for a week due to my work schedule (kinda hard to post on GW2 forums while driving an 18-wheeler).

i do like this spec, i just think it needs some work. i think i’ll also offer some trait ideas, too…

i’m a little torn.

sword + sword / hammer
ascended knight’s gear
shiro / jalis legend
devestation / retribution / invocation

or sword + shield / hammer
ascended knight’s gear
shiro / jalis legends
devestation / invocation / herald

i haven’t decided if i want the passive defenses from retribution or the active defenses from herald (shield)

i will also have a full exotic zerker set for faceroll content

sorry for the wall of text. i’m really torn on this. i like it a lot, but i have a lot of reservations about it, too.

SWORD

i feel like sword is just a replacement for dagger mainhand.

the ideas for sword feel like each element is just repeating the other elements. there is an autoattack chain skill, there is a mobility skill, and then there is something else. in other words, all the elements feel the same. there’s not enough to differentiate between them. there’s no reason to swap attunements except for the spell that’s cast on swap. and i think this also gives elementalist too much mobility.

now to explain how it feels just like dagger meta. for dagger, there’s a cones. on sword, there’s cones. dagger has point blank AoEs. sword has point blank AoE’s. dagger has leaps and teleports. sword has leaps and teleports. dagger is melee range. sword is melee range

the only real difference is the autoattack chain. on. every. single. attunement. oh, and one riposte style skill. and that the one handed sword takes all the best stuff from mainhand AND offhand daggers and puts them all on one mainhand. nobody would ever take dagger mainhand again!

STANCES

i would like the stances more if they were NOT tied one stance to 1 element, giving us the same boons / conditions from other skills we already have that do the same basic thing.. if we’re ever going to get anything new, we have to stop making utilities of each element for every utility line. so far, only glyphs and arcane skills are brave enough for that, but even glyphs have 4 versions, each based on which attunement you’re in.

as for cantrips, i do appreciate that you’re trying to offer alternatives to them. but to do so, the defense has to be moved onto the weapon itself. otherwise new utlity skills will be pigeonholed into being long cooldown crap that doesn’t add anything new to the class. i personally refuse to take more than one cantrip on ANY of my elementalist builds because of the long cooldowns. (also note that i refuse to play ele in PvP as long as d/d cele cantrip ele is the only viable build, as i really hate that build)

SKILLS

the skills you propose don’t really offer anything new to the class. they pretty much only offer up the same old buffs and conditions that we already have, in the same attunements. (smoke field and autoattack chain being the exceptions) even the stances don’t offer anything really new to the class. (except for healing orbs, and quickness)

TRAITS

hotheaded, on the other hand, is too difficult to use. why not just say “swapping attunements grants superspeed and cures crippled, chill, immobilize. 20 second cooldown” but even then it doesn’t feel new and exciting. it’s too much like the “gain superspeed when attuning to air” trait that we already have.

there are a few traits however, that offer some of the best ideas of your proposal though. traits offering cooldown reduction based on making combos is actually rather brilliant. i wonder if their new tech allows for this (the tech that allows for reduced cooldowns based on how many targets get hit, etc)

it’s actually very fitting that Ele would get the “grant 150 vitality to nearby allies” trait, since we’re the squishiest base class.

GENERAL COMMENTS

if there was no melee spec for ele already, i’d really go for this idea. it’s really awesome. the trouble is, it’s going for the same role as D/D ele. the same role as Tempest. front line attack and support. as someone who loves to nuke at range, i am really feeling left out. (and yes, i’m aware that d/d cele cantrip ele is thought of more as a bunker, but honestly, it does a lot more damage than a typical bunker)

the weaver mechanic really encourages attunement swapping, which is a good thing. i fear though, that it would only encourage spamming all the skills on cooldown, which reminds me of longbow knockback rangers. you’ve cleverly omitted any downsides to the spam everything on cooldown playstyle, which i think is a bad idea.

this weaver spec considerably lowers the skill floor for elementalist, which is good, as it offers an easy to play build for elementalists in PvP, which we are lacking. but it doesn’t raise the skill ceiling, and would therefore get boring for the high skilled players. there is power here, and high reward for low skill, but there’s less risk due to all the mobility. i fear this idea would essentially be the new 100b warrior.

you’ve made another good frontline power spec, when elementalists don’t really have a good condition spec at any range. and i really think i’ve read more complaints about lack of true condition spec (before Tempest feedback), than lack of a melee spec.

wait a second. you want to blame casual players for the corner stacking tactic? i take that as a personal insult, since i’m a casual dungeoneer and i really hate stacking in a corner. i much prefer to run the dungeon “casually” instead of abusing the game mechanics to make it go faster. and by casual dungeoneer, i mean that i’ve been playing 3 years and haven’t even earned my “dungeon master” title yet

it’s the speedclear dungeon hard core players who always insist on stacking in a corner for “optimal performance” for the fastest kill… for example: read the RT “PvE” class guides on Dulfy. they all talk about stacking in corners.

in my opinion, they are all also mis-named “PvE” guides when they should be named “dungeon speedclear” guides.

PvE encompasses dungeons, fractals, open world, world bosses, personal story, dynamic events, living world, jumping puzzles, gathering, crafting, levelling-up, hero challenges, guild missions, and soon to be adventures and “hard content”: many things that are NOT covered or even mentioned in most of their guides.

yes, i really do hate it when people say “PvE” when they really mean “dungeon speedclear.” at least some people say “endgame PvE” and include cursed shore, silverwastes, and dry top as part of the “endgame” category

wow, this thread is more toxic than queensdale champ train map chat… come on guys, be respectful!

i would have personally preferred a ranged condition option, BUT elementalists were lacking true point blank AoE as well… dagger dagger is essentially front facing melee cleave-like in nature. and i really hate that playstyle on such a squishy class. i really wish that people would stop asking for melee options for elementalist.

having said that… i like overloads, but agreed that they were too weak in the beta. that concern is being addressed.

warhorn? i’m glad it finally offers me some offense in my offhand skills. one of the reasons i don’t play scepter or dagger mainhand, is because i hate focus and dagger offhand. they are totally useless to me, because they require attunement dancing to the Nth degree. (did i also mention that i hate the “switch attunements and spam all your skills on cooldown” playstyle of the d/d cele catrip ele? did i mention that i hate the d/d cele cantrip ele?)

i really hope that the next elite spec is a ranged one. NOT melee. i was disappointed on how many control skills are on staff, when i much would have preferred more AoE damage options in the other attunements.

though i could be persuaded to accept sword, IF ONE attunement was melee, and the rest were ranged.

as for the rest of the tempest changes that were not mentioned at the top of this thread, i’m looking forward to seeing how the traits will change based on our feedback. and especially how “rebound!” (and the other shouts) will change.

and i honestly am sooo tired of the “Tempest doesn’t bring anything new.” statements, especially from the same people who keep wanting overloads to seemlessly integrate into their d/d cele cantrip ele rotations. make up your minds! if you want something new, it WON’T allow you to use the same d/d cele catrip ele rotations!

yes, i DO want more viable PvP options, but i want those options to be different. i don’t want all our PvP builds to use a dagger. i don’t want all our viable PvP builds to require complicated skill rotations. i don’t want all our viable PvP builds to be melee oriented.

and so far, it seems to me that the loudest elementalist posters in these forums all want elementalists to be a melee class. THAT’s actually why i’ve stayed out of the discussion all this time. if you want a melee elementalist, go play a burn guardian. give me more ranged options for my beloved elementalist class.

that leads me back to rebound. i’m fine with warhorn and overloads, and even shouts (if their cooldowns get lowered and “eye of the storm!” gets a shocking aura) but give me a large elemental storm of all elements for the elite skill please, that i can either use at range, or that has a 600 radius centered on me when i Shout/cast it!

Honestly, Gaile, I’ve experienced this bug for almost a year on many alts in every single Personal Story instance i’ve done. i submitted bug reports at first, and i thought that maybe it was because i started using my old AMD phenom 2 x4 965 machine (one of the first generation quad core processors) on a x-fi sound card. trouble is, audio gets skipped even on my 17-4930k hex-core processor using default motherboard audio.

if i filed a bug report every single time i experienced this audio issue, i’d never get a chance to play the actual game, from filling out so many bug reports. i gave up on the issue.

and by the way. deleting the local.dat file followed by a -repair has no effect on the issue, as several lines of dialogue in each cinema are skipped, even afterward. all my drivers are up to date. this issue has plagued the game on my hardware regardless of windows 7 pro 64 bit, windows home premium 64 bit, windows 8.1 pro 64 bit, windows 10 home 64 bit, or windows 10 pro 64 bit. i even did a full uninstall – reinstall of the client on one machine… still persists.

it really doesn’t feel like it’s worth the effort to send any info from my PC, for the simple reason that the issue is over a year old, and filing support tickets and waiting for responses sometimes takes weeks on complicated issues. Not to mention the time it takes to “follow the script” of suggested fixes one at a time.

i don’t even know what files to send, and i really don’t care for wasting precious game time going back and forth with support. and game time is very precious to me as a truck driver. i don’t want to spend my home-time dealing with support and trying to fix a problem.

i’d really rather that the dev team start a thread with specific instructions on what info they need to sift through, so that those of us with this issue can simply link or post it in one place, so the dev team has a collective of information relating to the issue, instead of of a bunch of individual reports that the separate support team gives up on after i stop replying to their emails.

or you could try taking shiro and jalis legends, devastation, retribution, and herald traits, sword+shield / hammer for weapons, and still have the f2… just an idea, without any knowledge of the Herald traits and whether they’d be better than the damage multipliers from invocation in a hybrid tank damage (ie knight’s) build…

i never said that water dagger autoattack was good… my point was more that piercing shards isn’t worth using in a staff build, and then i went into hyberbole mode. my bad for assuming that the internet recognizes sarcasm and exaggeration.

PS: the +10% damage against burning foes is all the time, not just when in fire attunement, so the trade off is still +10% damage +150 power in fire attunement, or 20% damage against vulnerable foes in water attunement

the last consideration would be: might stacks… would dropping out of fire attunement for 8-10 seconds lose party might stacks? yes? the trade off isn’t worth it. no? the trade off may be worth it

here’s the thing about DX12: games don’t have to be specifically coded for it, to be able to gain performance from it. DX12 API has a better way of managing multithreads, and performs many more draw calls per second (look up the 3DMark dx12 test on GTX 670) due to the better instruction set.

i’ve run that test on my system as well, with a 4930k, and a single GTX 670 enabled (i forgot to turn on SLI mode for this test)

DX11 Single-threaded draw calls per second: 1 404 929
DX11 Multi-threaded draw calls per second: 1 973 186
DX12 draw calls per second: 11 287 505

(i7-4930k, 2x GTX 670 SLI, 2560×1600 resolution)

for GW2, i’m not sure exactly my performance gain in frames per second, because it varies anywhere from 45 FPS in Teq / Vinewrath fights up to 145FPS out in Kessex Hills. i usually get 60-80FPS in Lion’s Arch. i can tell you that the game runs a lot smoother on my GTX 670 SLI system on Win10 DX12, than on Win8.1 and DX11

are you referring to the track progressing as though you lost, even though you you won the match? if so, i know the feeling.

honestly, piercing shard pairs best with dagger water auto attack, since the projectile (not combo finisher) applies vulnerability and hits all the targets twice with good positioning. pair that with the +10% damage while health is above 90%, and that’s +30% damage before adding runes, sigils, and might stacks. IF you want to use water for damage.

if you’re focusing on meteor shower, don’t bother with gimmicks like swapping attunements to increase the damage on the last 2 seconds of the skill, because you’ll lose damage using other attunements’ skills instead of lava font + fireball.

i find it interesting that people want accounts to be married to each other, with access to shared storage between the accounts. (i hate this idea because of potential hacking issues / claims)

i’m more interested in simply stating “character A is married to character B”, even if the two characters are on the same account. (characters on the same account being able to get married is the most important aspect of any marriage functionality in-game for me. if the characters have to be on separate accounts, then i will oppose it.) with no other benefits than a simple title. no wedding ceremony required. (wedding ceremonies, while traditional, are not a requirement for marriage. any marriage system requiring an actual wedding, i am also opposed to)

the title would simply be “Married to [insert character name here]”

but that would take more coding than other titles, since titles are account bound in this game, and not character-bound

[“EYE OF THE STORM!”]
“Eye of the storm!” is really way too weak for a 45 second cooldown. let’s compare to some other skills of the same basic functionality: AoE stun break and or/ aoe speed boost.

“Eye of the Storm!” – 45 second cooldown: AoE stun break and 5 seconds superspeed: up to 5 allies

Windborne Speed: (Ele) 30 second cooldown: 20 second traited: AoE 10 seconds swiftness and impairing condition cleanse

“Shake it off!”: (War) 25 second cooldown: AoE stun break and condition cleanse, untraited. 20 second cooldown traited, AoE heal traited

“Retreat!” (Grd) 40 second cooldown: AoE 20 seconds swiftness and 20 seconds AoE aegis, untraited. traited: 32 second cooldown, and convert 1 condition to a boon on each affected target.

as you can see, the other 3 skills are all twice as strong, before counting the lower cooldowns..

[suggestion] in order to bring “Eye of the Storm!” into line, one of the following should occur:

a) leave the cooldown at 45 seconds, grant 3 stacks of stability for 5 seconds, grant shocking aura

b) reduce the cooldown to 30 seconds, grant either shocking aura or 3 stacks stability for 5 seconds

c) reduce cooldown to 20 seconds and leave the rest of the skill the same.

though to be honest. i think shocking aura should be added baseline to the shout.

[“REBOUND!”]
i honestly forgot this skill was even on my bar, and never felt that it would benefit me. i think i used it once to see if it would reduce meteor shower cooldown lower, but it really didn’t seem worth it for 5 seconds.

the only skills it would be worth using on would be the 75 second cooldown cantrips, and that kinda defeats the purpose of cantrips, does it not? since cantrips are pretty much needed “right now!” , not 2 seconds from now…

“Rebound!” feels way too much like a mesmer skill anyway. isn’t alacrity a chronomancer-only thing? there is absolutley nothing about the shout that feels Tempest to me.

suggestions:

a) rename the shout “Raging Storm!” , 60 second cooldown: apply 5s quickness and 5 seconds alacrity to allies. (if you insist on giving the Tempest basically an Mesmer style elite skill, at least make it benefit everyone without requiring super voice comm co-ordination)

b) rename the shout “Storm of the Century!” 180 second cooldown: cast a storm of all elements at your location, calling down 15-20 impacts of each element within a 600 radius water field over 20 seconds. each impact hits up to 3 targets. fire impacts burn, lightning strikes apply vulnerability, ice impacts cause chill, earth (rock) impacts bleed. 8 random impacts are blast finishers.

(Or crazy idea for the combos: 8 random impacts cause combo field for 5 seconds, based on element type, and 8 random impacts are blast finishers, but i honestly prefer the constant water field to provide allies the healing support)

[OVERLOADS AND ASSOCIATED TRAITS]
the trait that grants auras for overloads… since the payoff for completing overload channels is built into the overloads themselves (fir tornado and nimbus cloud lingering, extra heal on water, immob on earth.) AND since overloads become great big “kick me” signs, the auras should really be granted when the channel starts, not when it ends. this also offers better synergy with Elemental Bastion, offering a little more guaranteed sustain for non-water eles.

i still feel that the minor traits should be combined into one master minor trait (swiftness and protection on every channel, not just overload channels.) and a new GM minor be introduced: grant 1-2 stacks of stability (or a break bar) whenever you channel any skill.

i’d like to see another trait to add pulsing damage every second while channeling any skill as well.

[AURA DAMAGE MULITPLIER]
i really like the other posters’ idea of a trait that grants bonus damage while under the effects of an aura. since other classes get damage buffs for other specific boons, why not give elementalists a damage multiplier while aura’d?

[“WASH THE PAIN AWAY!”]

i really wish the tooltip told us about the cascading effect, and i wish it gave more information about the heals on each pulse. for 3 pulses, on a 25 second cooldown, it really heals for about 7k if not interrupted. (with zero healing power).

i really hope that doesn’t lose any healing before it goes live. As-is, i think it’ll replace signet of restoration on my PvE bar. if it gets nerfed, i might not even bother with Tempest at all in HoT. i finally felt like we got a decent heal skill after using it.

i find it interesting that people who complain that tempest brings nothing new to ele, want to change overloads so that they don’t have to change their swap-attunements-as-fast-as-possible playstyle. make up your minds?

OVERLOADS
i’m fine with the 5 second charge-up (wait 5 seconds before you can use the overload). i’m fine with the 20 second cooldown for the attunement after using the overload. i am NOT fine with how weak the overloads are. i know i’m repeating myself, but overloads need to be at least as powerful / more powerful than meteor shower, because their channel is longer, and their cooldown is just as long, or longer if swapping attunements.

SHOUTS
another comment i have, is that “feel the burn!” is instant, so can be used at any time during a channel. this is really nice. i just wish the other shouts were instant too. i echo the sentiments of the cooldowns feeling way too long.

Elemental Bastion:
i feel the tooltip needs to better specify that the heal has no cooldown, only the “grant frost aura” has a cooldown. the heal actually offers some sustain (not as much as soothing mists from water line, but it’s a step in the right direction to offer alternatives to the water-arcana meta.)

the minor traits really should affect ALL channels, not just overloads. i echo the sentiment that the master and GM minors be combined. a new GM minor should give additional pulsing damage while channeling any skill. (this would enhance skills like churning earth, meteor shower, and scepter air autoattack, as well as the overloads)

i really like how the overloads and shouts offer point blank AoE play. that’s what the Elementalist truly lacked. anyone who isn’t the top 5% of cele ele d/d “bots” couldn’t deal with melee enemies as well, since a melee enemy could simply run through the ele to cancel the skill casts (MUST FACE TARGET). now, ele’s can cast overloads or shouts to be able to still do damage to those enemies.

however, the overloads are very sensitive to interrupts. and ele’s only access to stability that can be used with overloads is armor of earth. with a 75 second base cooldown. this DISCOURAGES alternates from the water-arcana meta. this is why so many have offered that the GM minor grant stability during overload channeling.

Windows 10 shipped with DX11.2. DX12 won’t be released til around the holidays, earliest.

on my old AMD phenom2 x4 965, 8G DDR3 1600 RAM, with GTX 480, and a 10k rpm HDD, 1600×1200 LCD monitor, i haven’t noticed any difference in framerates, but load times are considerably faster after the initial loadscreen for each character. all my load screens in Win 7 used to be minimum 45 seconds. now they average 15 seconds or less.

i have not upgraded the win8.1 machine yet, and i won’t be for some time.

i only get booted from the game when i try to go in. no error code either. it’s almost like the portal is an Alt-F4 button instead…. and this is AFTER a -repair….

after the 4 aug, 2015 patch, i get a crash to desktop every time i try to enter the fractals, solo, party, doesn’t matter. no error code. it’s almost like the fractal portal became Alt-F4 instead. very frustrating…

i’d like to repeat a suggestion for minor traits.

Forgotten Legend.9281:

honestly, there’s enough aura traits as it is, having one in every single trait specialization. i’d rather see some damage multipliers and stability. or maybe something like

master minor trait: gain swiftness while channeling overloads. swiftness has a 20% chance to evade any incoming damage
GM minor trait: gain protection while channeling overloads. gain retaliation when you gain protection

or

master minor: gain swiftness, protection, and stability whenever you channel a skill
GM minor: whenever you complete a channel, blast the area for an additional 2-4k damage. OR pulse additional 500 AoE damage every second while you channel a skill.

these ideas were based on the notion that they should be useful to more than JUST the overload skills.

the first set of traits grants extra buffs to general boons, in addition to granting those boons while overloading. both swiftness and protection are available to all pre-tempest eles, so the traits would a buff overall.

the second idea set gives the bonuses to ALL channels, not just the overload channels.. meteor shower, scepter air 1, churning earth, would all benefit from the traits, possibly allowing some channels to finally be worth using in PvP. i know meteor shower is often cancelled early in a PvP environment. adding the extra pulses during the channel would allow churning earth to be able to be useful as well.

for example start the churning earth channel, get in 1 or 2 pulses before the enemy dodges, cancel, cast something else, and that channel wasn’t totally wasted because a) you received swiftness, protection, and stability, and b) your enemy took a little damage.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Donari.5237:

I’m a bit sad to only have one slot. Now I have to choose whether to test one thing and advance its masteries enough to give feedback on higher tiers, or to smorgasbord the start of multiple things.

I think I’m leaning to testing Chronomancer in as much depth as I can.

You’ll be getting four beta character slots to play with – have fun!

My revenant thanks you. My Tempest thanks you. My Reaper thanks you! My Chronomancer thanks you! My Dragonhunter would thank you, but will probably be deleted to be rerolled into my Chronomancer. (it would have been the other way around if the Chronomancer hadn’t travelled back in time to change my mind…)

i’ve personally noticed shorter load times on HDD. yeah HDD, not SSD. it’s an old rig, AMD 965 black, 10k velociraptor, great when i built it back in the stone age. still runs GW2 fine though.

one suggestion!

please give us multiple beta character slots! i’d really like to test Revenant and Tempest, and Reaper, and Dragonhunter, and Chronomancer, and be able switch between them without losing character / account progress. (i’d also like to test out how the account-progression for masteries works)

i have almost 20 level 80 characters as it is, and many more low level alts. i love the variety GW2 offers for character builds, and would love that aspect to be available for the BWE as well!

thank you for listening and considering this request.

and bacon to you too!

just like existing legendaries, you’ll have to play all game modes to make the legendary backpiece…

i don’t understand why people think that you will get the legendary backpiece from only doing fractals. the article clearly states that you’ll have to go through the WHOLE PRECESS OF MAKING A LEGENDARY in order to make it.

Fractal-Back
Introducing Legendary Backpacks

Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns players will now have the option of starting a new journey…a legendary journey. A guide will appear in Mistlock Observatory to help point players in the direction of new types of challenges, timed boss encounters, and collections of items to obtain both inside and outside of the fractals. Together with any of the armor crafting professions (armorsmith, leatherworker, or tailor), you’ll start with a simple new backpack and build it into the new precursor back item. Just like all future precursor and legendary items, this precursor will be account bound and can’t be traded—it must be earned. A new series of achievements and collections will track your progress on your quest.

The one final step of taking your precursor and transforming it into the legendary backpack is called Ad Infinitum. However, we’ll come back to discuss how that component works—and how it ties into our next steps for the Fractals of the Mists within Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns—in the future. For now, though, I can tell you that just like existing legendary items, players will need to collect components from all over Tyria. To craft each stage of the precursor backpack, players will need to obtain a new salvage item from ascended equipment

[SUGGESTION]

change blind stacks to be more like stability stacks. each attack that missed because of blind removes one stack.

that one change alone will make Necro party support a lot better. HOW??

necros drop a lot of dark fields. blasting a dark field applies blindness. but currently, blindness only stacks in duration, so a lot of blasts in a short timeframe in a dark field are a waste of blast finishers. if each blast applied a seperate stack of blind, then each blast would cause one attack to miss, so if 5 blasts went off in one dark field, then up to the next 5 attacks in the blind duration would miss.

damage prevention through blinds is just as useful as damage prevention through dodges. but it offers a way for the players to continue to stack, if that’s their preferred tactics….

this is a legendary back piece.
you will need to unlock all the precursor collection masteries to make the precursor.
some of the components you need are from the fractals
some of the components you need are from salvaging ascended gear.
you still need components from all over Tyria from all game modes.

it will probably be worth about 4000 gold of effort to craft. but it won’t be tradeable.

it’s legendary, reread the article and you’ll find a spot where he says that like all legendaries, the legendary back piece will require components from all over Tyria. the fractal component is just one tiny small part of the crafting process. the article also mentions collections as part of the process, and something new to finish it off, that they will discuss in a future blog post.

basically, to make the legendary back piece, you’ll have to do MORE than what you need to do to make Sunrise!

he also says later in the article that, like other legendaries, the legendary backpiece will require things from all over Tyria. that means that the fractal components are only one small part of the journey…

if he ever bothers you, Pimsley… just tell him you’ll make him “late” ;-)

so long! and thanks for all the fish!

PS: feedback from those two skills (plus other player suggestions) resulted in the overloads. lots of people suggest to add pulsing damage to churning earth’s channel. instead they gave us pulsing damage on the overloads’ channels. fire grab is hard to hit because they can run right through you, canceling the cast. the overloads are AoE’s centered on you (and so are the shouts), so that the casts can’t be cancelled so easily, and they don’t require a target, or to be facing said target either.

honestly, there’s enough aura traits as it is, having one in every single trait specialization. i’d rather see some damage multipliers and stability. or maybe something like

master minor trait: gain swiftness while channeling overloads. swiftness has a 20% chance to evade any incoming damage
GM minor trait: gain protection while channeling overloads. gain retaliation when you gain protection

or
master minor: gain swiftness, protection, and stability whenever you channel a skill
GM minor: whenever you complete a channel, blast the area for an additional 2-4k damage. OR pulse additional 500 AoE damage every second while you channel a skill.

Cameron Rich.3905:

rhapsody.3615:

Cameron Rich.3905:

To clarify on what the “Static Schedule” means:

Old System:
Every time you load in from Dessa’s Lab, a random fractal is chosen. If you want to play Swamp, you have to leave and re-enter, “rerolling” until you get that fractal.

New System:
Upon loading in from Dessa’s Lab, you are placed in a particular fractal depending on which scale you are playing at. If you want to play Swamp, all you’ll have to do is enter at a scale associated with it.

Hope this helps!

So these will change daily? Or will certain levels always be locked into certain fractals?

Had to delete my last post because of forum shenanigans. For Clarity:

Scales will now have a specific assigned Fractal associated with them. So certain fractal scales will have you play through the Swamp Fractal, others will be Mai Trin, etc. Each existing fractal has been associated with a number of scales, so you’ll see all of them multiple times on your ascent to fractal scale 100.

With this change, it will be easier for groups who want to practice strategy against a certain fractal to jump right in and play. Additionally, it paces out the rate at which you experience certain Fractals, so you don’t have to fight the same encounters over and over again!

as cool as this is, my favorite thing about the fractals was the random nature of it. i enjoyed NOT knowing which fractals i was gonna get. i really hope there are plans to allow us to select a checkbox to randomly pick a scale (and therefore random fractal)
in increments of 10 (ie [option] surprise me with random scale from 10-19). of course, every set of 10 (1-9, 10-19, 20-29, etc) would be available as choices, as long as all 10 fractal scales in the set have the same agony resistance requirements, according to the chart on the wiki. and i’m assuming that each tier of scales will still have an appropriate tier of AR. (like how 10 AR is good for any 10-19 fractal, 25 AR is good for any 21-29 fractal, etc)

FYI i’m only fractal scale 11, and i never plan on playing the high level fractals with instabilities and such. that’s not my cup of tea. i’m more of a “casual” dungeoneer that doesn’t like to have to memorize all the patrol patterns and optimal speedclear strategies.

;-) and don’t bother threatening to kick me from your PUG speedclear group, because i’ll never join it to begin with. i deal with enough stress driving an 18-wheeler. i don’t need that kind of stress in a video game when i’m trying to wind down after driving 500 miles every day.

MORE COMMENTS ON SKILL FLOOR / CEILING

i agree that fire staff is the lowest skill floor, and basically d/d cele ele is the highest skill ceiling. unfortunately, it seems to me that elementalist players fall into one or the other category, and there’s practically no middle ground.

i actually see the overloads providing a means to move players from the skill floor into the middle ground, because it will encourage fire staff elementalists to switch attunements by allowing more damage tools in other attunements. it also makes D/D builds more forgiving, as it gives additional tools to fall back on when making mistakes while you try to learn the perfect “wall of text” rotations.

as long as ANET is serious about overloads rewarding awareness and good positioning (as a player, i interpret that as “giving a big payoff for choosing to use the overload instead of continuing a standard skill rotation”), then the overloads should end up more powerful than the iteration we saw in the livestream.

without overloads, the staff ele doesn’t want to use anything besides fire because there’s no damage in the other attunements. WITH overloads, i can swap to air for a little bit of control and mobility, and then overload for damage. water overload provides me with more support now, and earth overload provides me with a second immobilize (to be fair, with the breakbar, protection, and immobilize on earth overload, i think the damage numbers can be lower than the other attunements)

I also like how the overloads offer point blank AOE skills to use when someone (ie NPC mobs) get close. and better yet, it’s not based on facing the target. this is needed because staff ele’s always complain about how weak they are in melee (especially when melee fighters run through them, ending up behind, thereby canceling the skill cast due to the “must face enemy” skill casting requirement). and low skilled players won’t even try D/D ele for that same reason.(also because ele’s are so weak against cleaves) the overload finally allows an ele to have a chance at combating that style of enemy.

and, since 3 of the four overloads also offer combo fields or finishers, they offer more tools for higher skilled players to take advantage of as well, just like your example of fire overload inside the lava font fire field. any time i see combo fields or finishers being added in skills, i think of that tagline for that old game: “easy to learn, hard to master.” “combo” skills always offer a means of raising your own skill level, through good awareness and positioning, and i really think / hope these will help raise the skill level of the average elementalist

SUMMARY
i think the charge-up and cooldowns are fine, but in order to compensate, the damage / healing / boons NEED to be very powerful. essentially better than meteor shower to be considered “worth it” I also think that the overloads will offer a much needed way to raise the skill level of the average elementalist without punishing players so severely for a single mistake.

APOLOGIES
after rereading my above post, i feel i sounded as though i was being rather harsh against the OP, and that wasn’t my intention. i was merely frustrated at the irony of what i perceive as the general consensus, and i was afraid that his thread would fall into that same trap. i am pleasantly surprised at the better conversation here than in the plethora of other threads which were eventually combined into the mega feedback thread.

if you’d like to get a better feel of where i’m coming from as well, i offer this link to my revised first impression of the Tempest: (please click the link to read the quoted post. it was too long to be contained within this post as well)

Forgotten Legend.9281:

stuff

i feel like i should define how i use a few words as well, just to avoid confusion:
“charge up” = the waiting period after entering an attunement before the overload is available to use.
“channel”= the time immediately after activating the overload. during the channel, an effect pulses, dealing damage or healing. once the channel is complete, the final effects of the skill are cast.

COMMENTS ON SOME OP SUGGESTIONS

if i understand your post correctly… you’re basically saying that the numbers need to tweaked, and by tweaked we mean buffed for more damage and more healing, possible even larger radius (radii), and i agree with that basic notion.

i’m totally fine with the functionality of the skills as presented in the video. but i also agree that the numbers need to be tweaked / buffed.

i’m actually fine with the 5 second requirement before being able to use the overload. it presents a choice to make: follow your wall of text speedy rotation, or overload. i agree that with the extra cooldown caused by the overload, that the damage numbers need to be buffed in order to compensate.

if you camp fire attunement (in a staff PvE build), you get to use fire overload every 20 seconds, with basically a 5 second channel. that sounds very much like meteor shower when traited for fire cooldowns. as a result, each and every single overload needs to be at least as powerful as meteor shower to be considered “worth it”.

if you leave fire attunement after casting the overload, you’ve essentially put the overload on a 25+ second cooldown. (20 seconds attunement cooldown plus 5 second charge-up time AFTER swapping back into fire attunement, and then the almost 5 second channel,) That’s the main reason why each and every overload spell needs to be better than meteor shower with their effectiveness.

however, if the charge-up time is lowered, and / or the attunement cooldown (when overloaded) is lowered, then the overloads can’t be as powerful as we want them to be, because then they’d merely be “just another skill to use in a rotation” instead of “a situational skill with a big payoff for good positioning and awareness”

<continued in next post>

i find it interesting how the general consensus seems to be:

a) Tempest doesn’t offer anything new
b) don’t force me to change my old habit of rotating through elements and skills as fast as possible.

those two sentiments seem to be diametrically opposed.

my opinion is that overloads are designed for those us who physically CAN’T rotate through all our elements and skills as fast as a top tier competitive D/D player. i don’t have the coordination to rapidly press so many buttons so quickly without making mistakes. i’m not a robot. overloads give ME something, not just the top tier PVP minority.

overloads lower the skill floor a little bit. elementalist were always harder to play well than warrior, ranger, etc, because the other classes weren’t as complicated. other classes’ rotations are basicaly, “use weapon a for range, use weapon b in melee” while elementalist rotations consist of “wall of text” that get real confusing real fast.

overloads allow ME to to keep up in PvE. since YOU are evade tanking the boss with your “Wall of text” rotation, i can camp a single attunement and overload for more damage than i would be able to with my slow reflexes, and therefore i can contribute more to a fight.

and honestly, i think lowering the skill floor for elementalist is more important than raising the skill ceiling right now… mainly because the top skilled pleyers tend to raise the ceiling on their own all the time anyway…

Wondrouswall.7169:

From my experience, I had to remove then reassign Beastmastery, assign Natural Healing, then Swap Pets while in combat for Natural Healing to correct itself. Once I did that after the hotfix, Natural Healing functions correctly when I log in.

that actually worked… craziness

Might be an issue if your Ranger was affected by the trait bug with the initial update (as mine was).

yeah, i got the trait bug for the main update, so that’s very good deduction if you ask me. bacon for you today!

/sigh

the hotfix broke Natural Healing again… no more floaty green numbers. no more pet health going up at all in a fight….

Natural Healing worked after the main update, but after the hotfix (that corrected the “visual bug” responsible for the traits being reset without refunding hero points) Natural Healing no longer heals the pet… i just tested this in cursed shore. no more green float numbers. no more pet health bar going up…. /sigh

Forgotten Legend.9281:

Thank you Arenanet for listening to us about so many things! i was reading through some threads i had posted in over the past year, and discovered just how much our feedback about various things has made it into silverwastes.

1) event loot: based on event completion via bonus chests and prevents “fail-farming”

2) Breach boss fights that allow for certain control effects, without absolute defiant mechanics draining the fun out of the fights, while also creatively encouraging players to pay more attention in the battles.

3) better scaling at the low population end to allow for success with smaller numbers participating (pretty much fixing the main complaint about marionette)

4) Vinewraith meta boss, commonly and affectionately referred to as Marionette 2.0

5) bandit loot chests allows for loot trains (still encourages event completion to acquire shovels)

6) labrynthe allows for more loot trains (encourages breach and VW completion for greater nightmare keys)

7) an awesome jumping puzzle for those who love awesome jumping puzzles

8) [EDIT] and WvW features in PvE (dolyak escorts, siege at forts, air strikes) (thanks KG for reminding me of that one!) {/EDIT]

all these combined make for a very well designed zone. it allows for multiple ways of farming loot and rewarding event completion rather than “fail-training” and for the most part, the community loves taxiing players into specific instances of SW for Breach and Vinewraith, and even other instances specifically for bandit chest farming, while still allowing for chest farming during the “time-out” phase.

i also see people asking where they’re needed for the boss events during pretty much every 70% or higher foothold map. pretty much the only toxicity i see on the map is when the Mordrem own the coloured keeps, and an occasional frustrated player on a low population Vinewraith or breach attempt that doesn’t go so well.

i’ve also seen low population attempts barely succeed with seconds and a single siege carrier to spare! generally, people are giving out better tips in map chat on how to deal with specific champions, and people seem to be keeping their cool, and learning the fights better, too.

Bacon, ArenaNet, and again i say, Bacon to you, too!

the bugs are mostly fixed. IE the trait points / unlocks, etc are fixed.

ceanonmurchadh.1368:

Is it possible for someone to explain what “Light Adaptation” actually does? I have played around with it, but from my point of view all it does is lessen the contrast, and then not even always.

light adaptation is supposed to simulate how your eyes adjust when the lighting around you changes drastically in a short period of time.

for example, you turn a light on in a completely dark room at night. you are immediately blinded because your pupils are dilated for seeing in the dark. so now a LOT more light is being let in. Your eyes need to adjust to the different light level, but they don’t adjust instantly. your pupils “slowly” (over a few seconds) close the opening that allows light to your retina, and the light level goes from being “too bright” to “normal.”

so basically, “light adaptation” simulates the gradual transition of vision from light to dark environments (or dark to light), instead of instantly adjusting.

Natural Healing now shows the green floating numbers when it heals every second THANK YOU SO MUCH! easy verification that the first part of the trait works!

however, the SECOND part of the trait doesn’t seem to do anything… does the 450 healing power only affect the F2 healing? or is it supposed to affect the healing from Natural Healing and Signet of the Wild as well? (the pet healing power currently does NOT affect the healing from Natural Healing nor from Signet of the Wild)

Leo G.4501:

Forgotten Legend.9281:

My first impression is to agree on the following:

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

Forgotten Legend.9281:

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

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

Forgotten Legend.9281:

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

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

Forgotten Legend.9281:

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

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

thanks for commenting.

one thing i forgot, is that the 3 overloads already provide combos of some form: fire offers whirl finisher, air offers lightning field, and earth already offers blast finisher.

i think i’ll edit my earlier post to simply add a damage burst at the end of the channel instead of a blast finisher….

the trait would then look like: when you complete an overload channel, blast the area for an additional 4k damage (not a blast finisher)