Guild Wars 2

I wish that it was a joke. Can we have proper fireball back please? looking at the new animation makes me want to cringe.

This isn’t a bug, but it needs to be reverted with the next hotfix. Fireball was never a serious issue in regards to visual clutter and now it looks very out of place when compared to the rest of the staff skills. Every time I throw one of these fire bullets, or whatever they are, a part of me dies.

HoT launched with many crash-related problems. After I installed the 64-bit client, most of my issues were resolved. Unfortunately, this patch makes me constantly crash even while using the 64-bit client. This is a very serious problem, because I can’t even play for 10 minutes without crashing.

When I first saw that little projectile I couldn’t believe my eyes. All of the impact of the skill is gone now, and it went from a visually amazing skill to an extremely bland one. In addition, the skill no longer fits visually with the rest of the staff skills and just looks very out of place due to its tiny size. The flames that appear on your hand are also much larger than the actual fireball, which makes it look even more out of place.

What do we have now? Do we have a fire arrow? Do we have a fire bullet? I don’t know what we have, but it sure isn’t a fireball. Aesthetics are a very big part of this game, so fireball has to be reverted immediately with the next hotfix. Fireball itself wasn’t even a major part of the visual clutter and with the amount of posts that this thread already has, it is clear that people don’t like this change.

Between this and the constant crashes after the update I am really losing my motivation to play. And yes I have the 64-bit client and it worked well before the patch. Please fix these issues with the next patch.

I’m getting the same problem. The last 3 files refuse to download and a few seconds after opening the client I get a “connectivity error” message.

This is very similar to what I have been using for my elementalist in the new PvE zones. I can definitely say that it is better than the typical zerker staff build, especially when you are doing open world content.

However, the tempest just feels like an addition to my build rather than a build-defining elite spec. The play style is not all that different.

I just unlocked the entirety of my Tempest elite specialization and got the Tempest’s loop armor skin. However, it did not count for the North Wind collection. For some reason the collection does not list the armor skin at all, while the other elite spec collections list their respective armor skins.

It is also quite curious that the Machined Warhorn is listed twice in the collection, so this is obviously not intended. I would appreciate it if you guys fixed this minor issue, thanks!

The champ hero points aren’t that bad for now. I was able to get most of the ones I needed done today by either finding people there already or looking in LFG for a few minutes. They are certainly not that time-consuming if you consider that they give 10 HP instead of 1. You can easily get your elite spec a few days after release. I have already got everything with my main except the elite skill.

I have barely touched the 3rd zone as well, which means that I still have a good chunk of exploration and story to do with my e-spec.

Of course, with alts who don’t have map completion it will take longer, but until you are at the stage where you are worrying about the e-specs of alts, you should have quite a few masteries up. I only feel sorry for the revenant mains here, they probably have it prettty bad now since they start with nothing and are trying to catch up.

However, I do agree that the champs might become difficult to find groups for in a few months. When the 2nd expansion comes, it will be all but impossible. I really hope that Anet makes them veterans someday to rectify this.

Tommyknocker.6089:

Look at the bright side guys, the elementalists and most warriors won’t care at all.

Hehehe… That’s so true. I’m taking my time with the expansion and not rushing the hero points at all, it is actually quite enjoyable. But of course I don’t even care much about the tempest, so what do I know about what mains of other professions are going through?

I’ll just go through the heart of Maguuma with my main and once I have a good amount of masteries unlocked I will go with my necromancer and make him a reaper. My main stays an ele, maybe the next elite spec will be enticing enough to get me to spend my hero points.

Agemnon.4608:

Chazz.6709:

Well for some classes , which have a “kitten” spec like " tempest" ( it feels so boring and not special at all so far) is 400 hp kind of a “waste” ? … i mean that effort for … well yeah … tempest ? or other unloved specs ?

I’ve seen the warhorn air skill which pulls in mobs. That sounds great for countering point blank and multi-knockback trolls so you can ensure all mobs get AoE’d most efficiently. Only problem with it though is sacrificing a dagger to have access to it, but staff is typically better in large group outings anyway (I remember in WvW regretting going d/d since I ran into many situations where staff would have been better)

Sacrificing a dagger is not the only problem, you also have to give up a perfectly good trait line for one that isn’t that great in comparison. This is the biggest problem with the spec in my opinion, as the weapon is optional.

I have 213 hero points on my main. However, I’m not sure if I even want to get the Tempest instead of saving up to get the entire second gen elite spec instantly. It will probably depend on the extent of tomorrow’s changes.

As for my alts, my warrior and my necromancer are at around 110-120 each. The rest of my characters are somewhere around 80 HP.

I will probably focus on unlocking the reaper spec once I do a little bit of Halloween and get the awesome shoulders, which should match pretty well.

Shiki.7148:

I’ve only got 195 even with world completion and being level 80… sigh

You can get a total of 200 HP from central Tyria, but you need to also do Dry Top and Silverwastes. Those two maps don’t count for world completion.

reapex.8546:

Ganathar.4956:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Why did they change it so e-specs are something you had to work for only after HoT went live? Good question. How are they going to handle future elite specs when the entirety of map completion only buys 1.5 of them? Another good question. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that, in a year after HoT we get another expansion pack where the new map awards 100 hero points per achievement, and the new elite spec costs 4000.

Anet didn’t want everyone getting their entire elite spec track unlocked at day 1. The final cosmetics, sigils and runes are supposed to be goals to look forward to. If you have prepared by getting all of the central Tyrian hero points it is likely that the entire spec will be unlockable instantly, though you may still need a few hero points for some healing/utility/elite skills.

I also doubt that the next expansion will have 100 point challenges. Elite specs are more expensive than core specs because they are additional progression to that of the core profession. They also add new mechanics and have more than just the trait line to unlock. It wouldn’t make sense to make the second generation of elites more expensive, because only 1 elite can be equipped at a time. Anet will likely want to give new players a choice for which elite to get first on each character, instead of making a linear progression for specs that can’t be even used together. In addition, 100 pt challenges would make the acquisition of the first gen elite specs way too trivial.

The only thing that concerns me with this system is that central Tyrian exploration is massively devalued for new characters, because it is much more efficient to go straight into Maguuma when you get to level 80. It is likely that many of the hero challenges will require masteries, but making them give 10 hero points is too much in my opinion. 3-5 hero points for each challenge would have probably been fine.

They already confirmed, with world completion you will need to do approximately 20 hero points in the Maguuma areas.

You need around 400 hero points in order to unlock the entire track. However, some of the unlockables of the track are runes, sigils and skins. It is likely that these items will be at the end of the track, which means that the traits and abilities will probably be obtained earlier. For this reason, it isn’t a stretch to believe that you will be able to unlock all of the traits if you already have 200 hero points.

However, in order to unlock the abilities and the items, you will need more hero points than 200.

PopeUrban.2578:

Hero points are contained in open world maps.

Living story updates contain new maps.

Living story will continue after HoT launch.

Anet would have to add at least 2 new maps that are of the size of HoT maps to make it possible to get a new elite spec. Even then you would have to get almost every hero challenge in the game to do so. I don’t think that something like this is very likely, though it is technically possible.

That wasn’t unexpected. I always thought that there would likely be 1 elite spec per profession for each expansion.

The “grind” that you have to do if you have 9 characters is probably better than having to grab all of the central Tyrian hero points on all of your characters. Central Tyrian HP completion would get tedious quite fast. Also, when you get the required masteries up, you basically have an enormous shortcut. The challenge will be getting the HP with your main for the first time. For your alts it will likely be a trivial process.

As for tempest, if the changes for HoT launch aren’t good, you could always save your HP in in order to unlock the next elite spec instantly instead. No sense in wasting the HP on something that you will never use.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

1.) It just doesn’t make sense to punish the more casual players this way

Once you unlock whatever rank of masteries that is required for access to the hero points, it will likely be way easier to get the elite spec with your alts than doing central Tyrian map completion over and over again.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Why did they change it so e-specs are something you had to work for only after HoT went live? Good question. How are they going to handle future elite specs when the entirety of map completion only buys 1.5 of them? Another good question. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that, in a year after HoT we get another expansion pack where the new map awards 100 hero points per achievement, and the new elite spec costs 4000.

Anet didn’t want everyone getting their entire elite spec track unlocked at day 1. The final cosmetics, sigils and runes are supposed to be goals to look forward to. If you have prepared by getting all of the central Tyrian hero points it is likely that the entire spec will be unlockable instantly, though you may still need a few hero points for some healing/utility/elite skills.

I also doubt that the next expansion will have 100 point challenges. Elite specs are more expensive than core specs because they are additional progression to that of the core profession. They also add new mechanics and have more than just the trait line to unlock. It wouldn’t make sense to make the second generation of elites more expensive, because only 1 elite can be equipped at a time. Anet will likely want to give new players a choice for which elite to get first on each character, instead of making a linear progression for specs that can’t be even used together. In addition, 100 pt challenges would make the acquisition of the first gen elite specs way too trivial.

The only thing that concerns me with this system is that central Tyrian exploration is massively devalued for new characters, because it is much more efficient to go straight into Maguuma when you get to level 80. It is likely that many of the hero challenges will require masteries, but making them give 10 hero points is too much in my opinion. 3-5 hero points for each challenge would have probably been fine.

I have all the WvW hero points on all of my characters, but I feel the need to ask: How are PvE players supposed to get hero points found in the WvW maps (soon to be only one map)? It is only fair that they have a method that doesn’t require going into WvW, since the reverse is being implemented. I don’t think that having players who do nothing for your server in the map is a pleasant experience for WvW players anyway so it wouldn’t hurt anyone.

Mem no Fushia.7604:

Ganathar.4956:

Markin.9167:

Rune of Mitigation
(1) +25 Healing Power
(2) +10% Protection Duration
(3) +50 Healing Power
(4) 50% chance to apply weakness for 5 seconds when struck while you have an aura (10 sec cooldown)
(5) +100 Healing Power
(6) Gain a random aura every 35 seconds while in combat

what you guys think?

It is a potentially good rune set for the tempest. However, I can’t help but smile at the random aura granted every 35 seconds. It’s an RNG effect that has a chance to land a double RNG effect (chaos armor). Nice RNG-ception

Chaos armor could see change to be aura.

Isn’t it already considered to be an aura? I don’t play mesmer, but the wiki states that it is affected by superior rune of radiance.

Markin.9167:

Rune of Mitigation
(1) +25 Healing Power
(2) +10% Protection Duration
(3) +50 Healing Power
(4) 50% chance to apply weakness for 5 seconds when struck while you have an aura (10 sec cooldown)
(5) +100 Healing Power
(6) Gain a random aura every 35 seconds while in combat

what you guys think?

It is a potentially good rune set for the tempest. However, I can’t help but smile at the random aura granted every 35 seconds. It’s an RNG effect that has a chance to land a double RNG effect (chaos armor). Nice RNG-ception

Bezagron.7352:

My biggest hope is for the the core utility sets that are incomplete to be completed eg:

• Heal skill
• 4 x utility slot skills
• Elite skill

With a rework / redesign to unused sets allowing for a viable playstyle / build option for all sets. Also look at unused or pointless minors (which are forced on you) traits which could be improved & added to these viable options.

This is exactly what needs to be done before Anet even considers adding any more utility types that are not tied to elite specs. The current sets need to be completed and the sets that are unused need either buffs or reworks.

At least with the minion damage changes some of those sets may see use in PvE, so that is a start.

fuzzyp.6295:

I’ll just chime in that I really don’t think Elemenatlist can take much of a nerf to their sustain… all classes have various damage mitigation mechanics build into them, whether it be high armor/hp or various abilities to add blocks/evades. Elementalist doesn’t have any of that… they only really have their sustain. And they only really get said sustain if they trait heavily into it.

I wouldn’t really be opposed to nerfing it a bit. But I don’t think the problem is just their sustain, its that the other train lines still don’t offer much alternatives that won’t leave the elementalist dead in two hits, unless they go full bunker.

This is why you see ele posters frequently say that damage mitigation mechanics need to be added by changing the base skills and not the traits. If elementalists get some decent baseline defenses, their sustain from traits can be nerfed without destroying less viable specs. Maybe base healing of some abilities can be reduced as well, while increasing healing power scaling, so that an ele healer that specs into tempest+water can be a thing.

It is pretty laughable how the only good sPvP spec of a low health spellcaster profession is a bunker instead of a glass canon, it doesn’t make much sense. Not to say that having a bunker option is a bad thing, it is only bad because it seems to be the only option.

This issue doesn’t only impact sPvP, it also impacts raids, because being more squishy is a definite disadvantage which you need to somehow make up for. For this reason I believe that Anet looking at and revising base ele survivability mechanics is not an unreasonable expectation to have. This concerns balance in all game modes, and I would embrace the changes even if they results in some sustain nerfs.

I’m not really an avid PvPer, but I hope that my reasoning makes sense for the game as a whole. Balancing will be done by taking both PvP and raids into account in the future.

Oxidia.8103:

Ganathar.4956:

deSade.9437:

T Eles will always be desired unless they get hit by the nerfbat at least 2 more times – they got everything,

“Eles have everything”.

This is the most common profession myth in the game.

The thing is: it does. It can be great at everything, or it can suck in everything, depends how well you can play the class.

What do you mean when you say “everything”? Is is really every aspect of the game or only the things that are relevant to current content?

Only the daredevil and dragonhunter changes have been posted so far. Does this mean that those two are the only good elite specs?

Alekt.5803:

Coldtart.4785:

Supreme.3164:

This is why the ele community is spoiled, d/d ele spoiled us too much..

Tell me more about how much I’ve been spoiled by d/d when I always and only played staff.

You are a very, very, very, very, very, very,very, very, very,very, very, very,very, very, very, spoiled brat. Okay? Magnetic Aura on 30 seconds cooldown is way too good! Oh and kitten , don’t get me started on Stoning and Shockwave, much wow.

Don’t forget about little gems like lightning surge and gust. Lightning surge can provide blinds on demand and enables the ele to avoid any attack easily. Gust is even better, it must be the most overpowered knockback in the game. (I really hope that Anet doesn’t take this seriously)

Alekt.5803:

Valento.9852:

So we got to spend one major slot for 1 stack of stability? I can’t take it seriously.

I simply tend to agree that overloads are in a good place already. It’s just the rest of Tempest that is seriously lacking.

That might be true, but the tempest and how it fits in the game is quite hard to evaluate overall without more time trying it out.

Still, even if overloads are in a “good place”, we shouldn’t be locking stability behind a major trait. Part of why the overloads feel better than before is the stability that you get from the trait. The major trait slot could be used for something instead of the stability, that would help the rest of the tempest spec out. The stability is mandatory in too many cases in my opinion. This means that harmonious conduit will be stealing the spotlight from other options way too often.

Coldtart.4785:

Even if tempest has more dps in a mobile fight than regular ele it doesn’t matter because engi is still better than both while being better at other things at the same time.

Exactly, which is why I’m saying that tempest needs buffs.

nearlight.3064:

OneKlicKill.4285:

Jski.6180:

That just silly why would you give up on your ele main if tempest is not to your like? If you did like tempest then you would be benched your ele main just the same. So if any thing your more likely to play ele becuse you do not like tempest that or you realy did not like ele in the first places.

Any way every thing ele has tempest gets they are not going to add in another set of cantrip like shouts for tempest becuse tempest can still use cantrips. You would need to remove cantrips from the tempest set to add in more cantrip like ability why replaces something that you already have?

Back to benched ele main if you wanted to play something comply new then you would of benched ele any way and the play type. If you wanted something new for ele then say that do not take it out on tempest something that is set up to be a different class then ele.

OneKlicKill.4285:

I’ve been playing cantrip ele since pre launch beta, tempest failed at making something
A. more enjoyable, and
B. Something equally as viable (preferably with a new role…)

I thought I was pretty clear. I’ve been playing the same ele since pre launch beta. Yes I wanted something new, look at reaper, or chrono, or ranger, or war. They all have synergistic new trait lines that augment their style of play to make it new. Tempest just slaps some abilities on and calls it cost vs reward, emphasis on auras, which are really bad (shocking excluded, and situationally earth), and gave us kittening WH… It’s a bruiser support playstyle, EXACTLY what we’ve been doing, and sitting afk for 4 seconds channeling isn’t my idea of fun, especially when ele has always been one of the most actively engaging classes. And because they didn’t give us a MH wep staying in one attunement isn’t adventagis as our abilities are all balanced around rotating, CDs and Damage

In raids tempest is easily outclassed in its current state and I’ve done my runs through all the instances and fractals be it FA or staff. So I’ll move to something else and enjoy new until they can bring something new to ele THAT CAN COMPETE AND BE FUN.

At the end of the day the ele meta wont change, it’ll be staff/fa in instance and d/d in pvp sounds plenty new eh?

To be fair, its difficult to bring something completely new to a class that can already do nearly everything with a degree of proficiency. They gave us a new playstyle thats more strategic instead of scripted, and I’m happy with it so far, pending some of the traits are brought up to more reasonable levels.

It always amuses me when people say that eles can do nearly everything.

Can they:

• take hits nearly as well as other professions when going full glass?

• have stealth at all?

• use reflect fields against area effect?

• utilise boon-stripping or boon corruption?

• use support that involves resistance, quickness, retaliation, aegis or alacrity?

• have a good condition spec that can deal long-term damage? They are missing a few conditions as well.

• be dedicated healers?

• deal good mobile damage in PvE?

As you see there are a lot of things that the ele either cannot do or at least not perform proficiently at. I am sure that there are more examples than these as well, but that’s all that came to my mind in about 5 minutes.

Ironically, the tempest does have potential to address some things that the ele lacks. Mobile PvE damage is a big one, but the fact of the matter is the tempest needs buffs to compete in that area, especially because the ele needs to also make up for its survivability problems when going glass. The tempest could also have the potential to be a good healer with the right gear, if Anet tried to adjust the healing scaling of ele abilities.

I have also been reading about the tank tempest and that has been an interesting prospect that I never thought of. If you get the right gear and traits for that role, I wonder if it would work.

Coldtart.4785:

Bogus.1598:

I gotta say, last time i checked in the beta test weekend i noticed a good amount of dps, mostly in the form of sustain due to elemental overloads.

Tempest has less dps than regular ele, which has less damage and less survivability and less utility than condi engi.

Actually, I would argue that tempest has higher damage than regular ele when it comes to mobile raid fights. A regular ele loses a lot of damage in this case. The problem is that overloads still cost a lot and that your survivability needs to be paper if you want to do good damage.

In order to compete, the tempest needs more inherent survivability baked into the spec (maybe with new minor traits?), and probably more damage on overloads as well.

deSade.9437:

T Eles will always be desired unless they get hit by the nerfbat at least 2 more times – they got everything,

“Eles have everything”.

This is the most common profession myth in the game.

This needs to be changed. I can already see the increase of complaints coming because of raiding. Even changing the stats of an ascended piece to celestial is time-gated.

Valento.9852:

Ganathar.4956:

Valento.9852:

Ganathar.4956:

Valento.9852:

I believe Tempest will be the elite spec that will need most balances after HoT. This is far, faaaar from the end.

Irenio micdrop after massive Tempest buffs when?

This is a complete different situation. It doesn’t revolve around numbers, which was the case with D/D cele and Ice Bow.

I know that, but a micdrop doesn’t need numbers! Buffs don’t just mean numbers.

You simply can’t nerf something that isn’t functional yet, this is non sense.

That’s not what I meant… I meant that he would do the micdrop while presenting the buffs in 3 years time.

Valento.9852:

Ganathar.4956:

Valento.9852:

I believe Tempest will be the elite spec that will need most balances after HoT. This is far, faaaar from the end.

Irenio micdrop after massive Tempest buffs when?

This is a complete different situation. It doesn’t revolve around numbers, which was the case with D/D cele and Ice Bow.

I know that, but a micdrop doesn’t need numbers! Buffs don’t just mean numbers.

DutchRiders.2871:

Pre patch me and some guildies already discussed the traditional ele’s position:

- Require stationary targets
- Low sustain
- High burst damage, less sustained damage
- And you kinda need to camp fire with staff

Now future raid mechanics might require more AOE/burst and we might see more use for the DPS ele.

This is true for traditional eles. However, Tempest does not require stationary targets because you can move while overloading. It may also be possible that the best tempest damage for moving raid bosses will come by using both fire and air overload, which allows you to use earth or water during their downtime. You simply need to think outside the box in this case.

However, the survivability problems still remain and taking a tempest that does the same amount of damage and gives the same amount of support as other damage dealers yields no benefit. The tempest needs at least a survivability boost or a damage boost if it is to be worth something in the raiding scene in my opinion.

Getting a healing tempest spec probably won’t work because of druid.

rotten.9753:

Ganathar.4956:

Thieves may well end up in the same situation as well. Thief and ele could be the new ranger and necro of raids. The possible exception to this could be the odd fight with a boss that has a big hitbox, since ele staff damage will always be king in those types of situations.

The first boss can be quite mobile. And mobile enemies mean staff damage potential is significantly dropped.

I am aware of this, but I’m speculating that there may be some rare boss fights with huge enemies that have large hitboxes. They can’t make all the fights the same… at least I hope that they won’t make them all the same.

Valento.9852:

I believe Tempest will be the elite spec that will need most balances after HoT. This is far, faaaar from the end.

Irenio micdrop after massive Tempest buffs when?

Belorn.2659:

As things looks to become now, Eles will be in the same situation as Necro is when dealing with fractals and dungeons. Its not that Necro are bad at DPS, but average is not enough reason to pick it without significant utility or party buffs. But there is also a much worse problem that Necro face.

Experience players that focus on fractal and dungeon tend to have multiple characters, and most people will pick the class that is best for the job rather than a average one. This leave a very low average skill level for the people who do stick with the class, thus create a negative experience for those who players with them and after a while the class falls into dislike by the rest of the community. Not short after you get parties that says “no ranger, no necro”, and parties that will active kick people who enter with such class.

Average is not good enough to be played, and bad enough to be turned away when it really matters.

Thieves may well end up in the same situation as well. Thief and ele could be the new ranger and necro of raids. The possible exception to this could be the odd fight with a boss that has a big hitbox, since ele staff damage will always be king in those types of situations.

My primary elite spec will likely be the reaper. It’s very polished and I’m sure that I will have a lot of fun with it if it stays like it was in beta. My necromancer is almost at level 80. I’m leveling through the zones instead of using tomes so that I can get some exploration, learn more about the profession and get hero points along the way.

I will likely go through the HoT content on my ele first though. She has had my favorite play style since I created her and I want to begin the HoT content with a profession that I know how to play better, especially since prices of loot will be crazy at first. I need to get that gold. I don’t think that I will be using tempest though.

I will also undust my ranger and try making a druid hybrid spec for the initial HoT open world content. I’m curious to see if it will work with the changes that Irenio has planned.

Bogus.1598:

Axialbloom.8109:

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Axialbloom.8109:

Jski.6180:

All rolls. That what an ele is the all type class.

Where are you from?

Where is that question from?

I see him post a lot, and it seems he is on the US servers. But his posts are always pseudo-gibberish, even though he seems to understand exactly what others are saying.

Anyway, on topic: I did not see a role for eles in that one raid fight. Warhorn and overloads would especially fail, due to the movement.

I think tempest shines with movement, shouts are on short activation times, warhorn water gives a traveling orb and a traveling wave, so all u have to watch is your direction and your allies, water attunement, u can move in it so that field follows u. Same for all other Overloads. I think a cele/sinister or zerker ele is one of the best things u can have at that fight. Is it for kiting or damage/healing its just an awesome All rounder. But thats just me.

I noticed that the Tempest makes up for the movement problems of traditional PvE ele damage. However I have to ask, is the damage of overloads really any better than what other professions can put out in these fights?

If the damage isn’t better, why take a tempest? The tempest needs to be very squishy to do this kind of damage and needs to be babysat. The tempest also has to sacrifice a lot due to the drawbacks of the overloads. Because of these two factors, you would think that the tempest would be better at damage than most of the competition but is that really the case?

You would say that the tempest also brings support, but the fact of the matter is that other damage specs bring sufficient support as well. I don’t think that the healing would be too useful if you are to bring a druid. If changes to healing power scaling are done across the board and not just for druids, then it may be possible for the tempest to focus on healing. However, there has been no indication so far that healing power is being adjusted for any other profession except druid.

Pandabro.8743:

Iris Ng.9845:

No, thanks. It will create a Cele-nightmare in every PvP matches.

Obviously there’d have to be a PVP split… This game cannot continue to be balanced around PVP when there will be actual end game PVE content.

That’s an idea, or if Anet isn’t ready to split it yet they could simply nerf the total stats of the cele amulet. The cele amulet does have 30% more total stats than other amulets anyway.

Neko.9021:

In PvE, your biggest problem isn’t getting CCed. The sheer time investment (6 seconds of waiting and 4 seconds of channel) and trait investment (all of your Minor traits) into overloads is a big enough problem that it’s hindering the Tempest from being strong enough in a PvE environment. The effects honestly just need to be buffed, because the Tempest needs another meaningful effect on top of its abilities in order to be worth taking over anything else (including a Core Ele).

The minor trait cost of overloads need to be removed, period. Tempest would go a long way towards being competitive if the minor traits begun to actually matter. As for overloads, major buffs are needed for the water overload. The rest of the overloads may or may not need buffs, depending on how good the tempest becomes with proper traits.

Valento.9852:

Khalic.3561:

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Also, Warhorn fire #4 should only share boons eles can produces themselves. Might only would be severly underpowered and all boons seems op because of quickness and alacrity from others.

Just to clarify, alacrity isn’t a boon.

Amen to that. You know how creepy it would cascade across the entire game? hahah

Still, minor traits could use a review. All minors always say: these things are granted by default. If something should be baseline, then it should fit into minor slots, what are your ideas guys?

After giving it some thought, I think that the minors should help with survivablility. The ele is really squishy in raids and I really doubt that our base survivability is getting buffed any time soon. Edit:What if Earthen Proxy is moved to one of the minor slots and buffed from +7% to +10% damage reduction and that reduction also applied to condition damage?

I kinda miss them, but I won’t be using them for a while if tempest is released in its current state. I guess that I should get ready for some heavy withdrawal management.

I had some pretty good fun playing the tempest this BWE and I hope that it will be a serious choice when HoT is released. I want to incorporate it into my playstyle without worrying about being at a disadvantage when compared to everyone else. I didn’t end up playing the tempest as much as I wanted to in BWE3, but my opinions have changed a little since my first post in this thread.

Overloads
I have to say that the stunbreak is an amazing addition, please don’t remove it. With all of the costs that overloads have, this is a pretty good addition to help balance them out.

• Fire: The damage is good, as well as the might stacks and the new fire field. My only complaint is that it’s too small because you need to be at point-blank range to use it and this makes it riskier and more unreliable. If the radius was increased to 240, I believe that the overload would be in a good place.
• Water: The only overload that I can say is outright bad without hesitation. The heal is OK as well as the cleanse. However, this makes you a sitting duck while channeling because you are not dealing any pressure. This either needs to deal some form of pressure or help you avoid the hits somehow. My recommendation would be to make it destroy projectiles and pulse weakness around you, so that it can deal with both melee and ranged threats. I can’t say how powerful it would be like this, but we don’t have any more BWEs to test it. It would also be pretty nice if it left a water field behind, even if it didn’t have any effects except being a field.
• Air: I love this one. It can work very well with fresh air builds, but it isn’t that bad on its own either. It can deal some pretty good damage and has a big radius. The vulnerability can be useful if you have no other source at hand. Its lightning field and static charge also provide some good support.
• Earth: I have no complaints about this one. It does good damage for an earth spell and has some pretty good inbuilt defenses and CC. The radius is also pretty decent.

Traits
The biggest problem with the tempest is the traits in my opinion. If these are brought up to the level that they should be, the spec will instantly become a very temp(es)ting choice.

Minors

• Singularity: Gives access to all the basic tempest stuff, overloads, shouts and warhorn. There is not much to say here as it’s in line with every other elite spec.
• Speedy Conduit: This feels as if it was a basic overload functionality that was ripped from the abilities and given to the trait. Needless to say, it feels like a ripoff because other elite specs don’t need to invest multiple minors into their new mechanics. If tempest was OP because of overloads I would overlook this, but the fact of the matter is that the tempest is under-performing right now. I would suggest to replace this trait and either make the swiftness baseline, or even better give 4s of superspeed to overloads instead.
• Hardy Conduit: The protection boon needs to become baseline for the same reason as Speedy Conduit.

Suggestions for replacements of the minors can be found in a dedicated thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Tempest-does-not-have-minor-traits

Majors

• Gale Song: Not an amazing trait by any means, but it doesn’t need any direct additions. If “Eye of the Storm!” is buffed this will be fine.
• Latent Stamina: I really don’t like this trait. It is very counter-intuitive to have an attunement swap trait in tempest. It is also odd to have it grant vigor while overloading hinders the dodge mechanic. At least the vigor is also granted to allies who can make better use of it. Still, it is extremely underwhelming and I believe that it needs a rework.
• Unstable Conduit: This is a good adept major trait because it gives you more aura access, which also synergies with Powerful Aura if you choose water. This is a perfect example of a good overload trait. It gives a very good bonus, but that bonus is not mandatory to make overloads functional.

• Earthen Proxy: A very underwhelming trait. The 7% damage reduction isn’t very noticeable even if you get permanent protection. Most builds will not be able to get permanent protection by the way. This needs a rework.
• Harmonious Conduit: This trait is very good. It’s so good that it is mandatory. Overloads cannot even function in most competitive environments without this. Unlike Unstable Conduit this is not a choice., you either take it or you kitten yourself. The stability needs to be made baseline and replaced with a 5 second cooldown reduction of overloads. The damage bonus can stay.
• Tempestuous Aria: I can understand why this doesn’t give cooldown reduction. You believe that the might + weakness is pretty strong in itself. It’s definitely more than what most other utility skill traits give if you don’t factor in their CDR. However, some shout cooldowns are slightly higher than they should be. I believe that the base shout cooldowns should be looked at again individually.

• Element Bastion: A perfect grandmaster trait. It has very good synergy with auras, which are a prominent tempest theme. It also provides another aura when you drop below 75%, which gives it synergy with itself. Very good support trait.
• Imbued Melodies: This has the potential to be a pretty good support trait if you really like boons. The boon duration increase is sizable and the sand squall application potential is great. With only a 10s cooldown and a 90% health threshold, you can apply it pretty often if you manage to keep healing yourself or if a friendly druid heals you instead.
• Lucid Singularity: This is the only selfish trait of the grandmaster tier. I have to say that it is a very good option if you are soloing stuff or doing PvP and WvW. When you are overloading, it makes you invulnerable to some of the nastiest control effects out there. Even thought it’s good it is not mandatory for overloads to be functional. Not everyone will take this, unlike Harmonious Conduit.

Shouts

• “Wash the Pain Away!”: A really good healing skill. It does nothing but restore health. However, the healing amount is good and it can also heal allies.
• “Feel The Burn!”: A very nice utility shout. It is an incredibly good skill to use for aura synergy due to its low cooldown. The damage isn’t amazing, but it’s good enough for its cooldown. The skill is even instant, which makes it usable while overloading.
• “Eye of the Storm!”: This is the worst shout. The only thing that it really has going for it is that it’s instant. Stunbreak and superspeed isn’t bad, but the cooldown is way too high for what it offers. The fact that the stunbreak is AoE does not help much, because it is nigh impossible to coordinate its use. If this granted shocking aura for 5s, the cooldown might have been justified. Otherwise, this needs a major cooldown decrease.
• “Shock and Aftershock!”: Feels awkward to use because magnetic aura is a potent defensive tool, while immobilize and cripple are good CCs. Do I use this to reflect projectiles when I’m far away or do I CC my opponent? The cast time on this is rather justified but the combination of effects is weird to say the least. This could probably be shaved to 45 seconds cooldown and still be fine, due to its awkwardness.
• “Flash-Freeze”: This is a decent ability if you need more ways to apply auras, as it’s the second best shout at doing this. Frost aura is also a better aura than fire shield. The frost aura + chill combo may be enough to justify the higher cooldown than “Feel the burn!”, even though this deals less damage. However, it should be instant, so that it works with overloads.
• “Rebound!”: It’s pretty neat that this can help your team recover from a difficult situation, but this is not usually the case due to its low heal. The auras that it gives if you don’t get downed aren’t that good for the cooldown, but they do offer some form of compensation so they are okay. This is probably going to be good enough if you look at adjusting the amount of healing.

Warhorn

• Heat Sync: A somewhat overpowered ability. I would say that this is just about as good as Mesmer’s Signet of Inspiration. However, it is one of the 20 weapon skills of the tempest. The Mesmer needs to sacrifice a utility slot for this. Boonsharing is something that the elementalist has never been able to do, but this needs to be toned down somehow. Restricting it to sharing might only would be a sure way to kill the skill though. I think that it should be able to copy most types of boons. The exceptions should be the most powerful ones. Maybe blacklisting quickness and stability would be sufficient.
• Wildfire: This is an okay ability but nothing spectacular. It’s nice to have a fire field on warhorn, but I think that shaving 5s off its cooldown wouldn’t be asking for too much.

• Tidal Surge: This has a dual purpose, so it could theoretically be really good in certain situations. Unfortunately, these situations don’t happen that often and when they do happen this is way too slow. This needs to become much faster if it is to be used effectively.
• Water Globe: This is a pretty awkward ability to use. You usually want static water fields because they are easier to blast. Since raids will likely require more mobility this might have some use there, but I really don’t believe that it can be used optimally in most situations. Increasing the healing on this would make it better, maybe then it would be worth it.

• Cyclone: This is a decent CC skill that also helps your team maintain mobility. It won’t very useful on any bosses but it can help with other annoyances. It can round them up in one place and get them ready for some AoE.
• Lightning Orb: The worst warhorn skill by far. Its damage is pretty weak and the orb itself is quite slow as well. I don’t know if this can be salvaged, it might need a rework.

• Sand Squall: This is a very good support option. Extending boons on allies by 2s isn’t that bad, especially since it affects all of them. The magnetic aura can also help a lot with projectile reflection and aura synergy. It honestly puts all other aura weapon skills to shame if you compare it.
• Dust Storm: This is an okay skill. It does a little bit of damage, but its primary purpose is to blind a few foes. I don’t find it particularly good, but I’m not sure if it really needs a buff.

Wolfric.9380:

@Ganathar
It would take a bit out of air. But ait is already the best option for tempest after water. The speed in baseline helps non air builds, that need a buff by freeing toolbar or rune.
I struggle to make a shout build out of air and this means you spec for overloads ot drop tempest completely. For me the speed allows more build options.
I testet it and the only working shout build without air i could make was with traveler rune. I testet a bit without speed but it was nearly unplayable for me. I could do a soldiers bunker build, but this kind of thing is something i don´t want to do.
I don´t see a viable ele build for me without speed. (Traveler rune, Air Signet or Air traitline). And this limits me into the ground building tempest.

I see what you mean. In this case I would probably prefer Zephyr’s Speed to be reworked eventually, because it would be pretty worthless in both tempest and arcane builds. Arcane builds already give swiftness on attuning to air and builds that utilize arcane tend to swap attunements a lot, which means that Zephyr’s Speed doesn’t get used there either.

Bacon.1835:

That’s odd. When I opened my trait panel I saw three minor traits for the tempest. You must not have opened the trait panel.

Assume that the first reaper minor only unlocked Reaper’s Shroud with ability 1, while abilities 2+3 where given from the second minor trait and abilities 4+5 were given from the third minor trait. Would you call that 3 minor traits?

Wolfric.9380:

I would make it totally easy.
speedy conduit : 33% speed boost or like cronomancers baseline speed. Druid got one as well.
This would do it in the minors for me :-).

That’s not a bad idea, but won’t it make Zephyr’s Speed completely obsolete if you run air?

The lack of true minor traits is definitely one of the reasons why the tempest is not a competitive spec at the moment.

I believe that both hardy and speedy conduit minors should be removed. The 3s protection on overloads can become baseline while the swiftness should be replaced with 4s of baseline superspeed. Harmonious conduit should either decrease the cooldown of overloads or the initial charge-up instead of providing stability.

Two ideas for minor traits that I have are:

Tempestuous resilience: Protection applied to yourself decreases condition damage taken by 15%. This could help a little bit with the lack of condition cleanse.

Stable channeler: Gain 4 seconds stability(1) when you begin a skill with a channel time of at least 2 seconds. (Auto-attacks are not included. Original channel time is tracked, so quickness does not cancel this.) This affects overloads of course, but it can be used with a few other skills to gain some stability while in the front line.

I’m not sure if my ideas are good, but I would appreciate some feedback.

Valento.9852:

Ganathar.4956:

Valento.9852:

Since when does Fire Overload has a movable Fire Field centered on the player? This is godkitten awesome. I’m not even asking Water Globe to be a movable Water Field anymore, just slow the speed it travels! :0

I actually didn’t notice that, it’s pretty awesome! It even combos with it’s own whirl finisher.

I just tested this with the persisting flames trait and it doesn’t seem to work. The trait reads "Executing blast finishers on fire fields grant fury. Fire fields last longer. Create a lava font when you go down. ". It doesn’t say that the fire fields need to come from weapon skills specifically, so I wonder if it’s intended or a bug.

I think that’s by design, you get roughly 7s-8s (5sec channel+2s/3s aftercast). That’s quite a lot.

It is likely to be by design, but I believe that it should still be mentioned just in case it is a bug. You also get 9 seconds of the fire field. 4 seconds from the channel and 5 from the field aftercast.

Valento.9852:

Since when does Fire Overload has a movable Fire Field centered on the player? This is godkitten awesome. I’m not even asking Water Globe to be a movable Water Field anymore, just slow the speed it travels! :0

I actually didn’t notice that, it’s pretty awesome! It even combos with it’s own whirl finisher.

I just tested this with the persisting flames trait and it doesn’t seem to work. The trait reads "Executing blast finishers on fire fields grant fury. Fire fields last longer. Create a lava font when you go down. ". It doesn’t say that the fire fields need to come from weapon skills specifically, so I wonder if it’s intended or a bug.

Anet should at least try to fill in the missing heal and elite skill types in future patches. It just feels wrong to not have them, because it makes some skill traits a bit less useful. Also, why is warrior mending still not a physical skill?

Forgotten Legend.9281:

as much as i wouldd like ground targeting for fire and air overloads, i won’t trade the stunbreak for them. the stun break finally opened up choices for utility skills. i’m kind of tired of signet of air always being on my bar (it’s the only 20 second stun break for ele. the other stun breaks have way too long a cooldown for my tastes, which would essentially mean taking two stun breaks.) and i still hate cantrips with a passion, so overloads having stun break offers me the alternative from the meta, allowing me to basically take whatever utility skills that synergize with each other, instead of simply “filling kitten in defense” for the build.

In addition to this, the current overload design allows weapons with static attacks like staff and scepter to deal more damage while the target is on the move, so the current design does have some merit. This is not a very important thing for WvW, but it might work well in other game modes. If only fire overload’s tiny radius is increased, it will become much better.