Guild Wars 2

Xovian.8572:

Rain.9213:

Also if range is an issue, you can run Bandit’s Defense and block every single Rapid Fire shot from a Ranger…..

1 sec block vs 2 and half skill…blocking all…. really?
Can i hakzor too?

The block duration is laughable.

Okay maybe not all of them but the point is, you won’t get nuked by a Rapid Fire, especially with 8-10 cd on Bandit’s Defense. You will be mitigating a ton of damage and use that to either run towards the Ranger, port and start wasting them or stealth up and recover. Trust me, I fought several LB rangers on my Daredevil and ended them rightly. Range is not that big an issue with what we got on DD.

Cronicle.5691:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn6_4KPYh7E

Good discussion video.

I agree with you on a lot of points especially the AA3 on Staff. It’s so awkward to use. I would definitely like to see a new animation on it also a slight buff to auto attack in general. Staff 2 also could use either some protection or stability while using it as it feels like its designed to rush right into a group fight to apply weakness to multiple foes but the pay off isnt that great considering the weakness doesnt last long enough and it’s a huge risk to use it in a group fight.

I would also like to see a sort of Bash animation for Staff Stealth 1 maybe like Warrior Hammer 3 but with a faster cast time and without the ground shock wave. As for combo fields on Staff… idk. I mean it would be really awesome as it would provide more survivability but it could be potentially too strong considering how much evasion you already have on Daredevil. Adding easy access to stealth could be a bit too much.

Fist Flurry, I found probably works best with Sword/Dagger or Sword/Pistol as you can Infiltrator’s Strike and then Fist Flurry to burst. Basilisk Venom also works beautifully with Fist Flurry as it will allow you to land every hit.

Impact Strike I found was very useful and vastly superior to Basilisk venom at least for my playstyle. The damage in the chain is considerable and the cc is great to use both defensively and offensively. I had several fights where I was able to postpone my death by using Impact Strike 1 and 2 and then recover and continue fighting.

As for the grandmasters, I highly agree. Even though I love Bound, it doesn’t feel very fluid compared to the old dodge and Dash feels even worse for me. They need to fix it so you aren’t punished for dodging.

Saku Joe.2857:

Staff thieves will get crush easily by any ranged weapon.. the only thing that may help you to deal dmg is the fact that “Bounding dodger” and staff 5 share almost the same animation, so you ennemy may lose CD trying to hit /rupt you during the Bound dodge, thinking you’ve used staff 5..

Thieves in general are crushed by ranged weapons if you’re not close enough so that’s nothing new.

Also if range is an issue, you can run Bandit’s Defense and block every single Rapid Fire shot from a Ranger or you can run Shadow Refuge/Hide in Shadows like I did to buy you time to get close.

I mean if you’re just looking at the Staff skills without the utilities, it’s not that great but you get CC utilities, CC in stealth, and snares which allow you to set up Vault and you also can still have access to stealth, shadowstepping, traps, and now access to a block which all synergizes really well with what Staff is designed to do.

Cecilia.5179:

Without Mallyx, Revenant simply doesn’t stand a chance against even the most temperate condition specs. During the beta weekend, I easily defeated the Revenants I faced on my condition Reaper because none of them were using Mallyx. There wasn’t even a competition. Even Engineers are harder to kill on necro. Against one of them, I was able to tear him apart with just the slow scepter/dagger skills. I feel like condition removal needs to be better distributed to each revenant legend so that revenant doesn’t just feel like, “Use mallyx or run from all condi specs.” Personally, I think that this level of hard countering creates unneeded animosity towards condition builds from potential revenants, and it seriously restricts revenants in wvw where 40% boost foods make conditions extremely overbearing.

Sorry but I’m gonna have to respectfully disagree.

Let the enemy bomb you with conditions, casually pop Glint’s heal skill and get healed back to full.

See the problem is you’re thinking full condition removal but Revenant isn’t about that. Revenant is about making conditions ineffective. That’s why Mallyx has resistance and why Glint’s heal turns condition ticks into healing.

I was running a Shiro/Glint Revenant with Runes of Hoelbrak to reduce condition duration and I would get conditions, pop my heal skill then once it ended, Hoelbrak would make said conditions either go away or not hurt me as much.

I really like your choice of utilities! Bandit’s Defense+Shadowstep makes for some awesome survivability while the knockdown on Bandit’s Defense sets up Fist Flurry so nicely! Awesome fights dude and glad to see someone else using Staff effectively

Ihales.3820:

Are those only the duels you won or were all opponents that bad? That thief blinded you twice in two duels. Second video is pretty much same. Those thieves never heard about 3rd and 4th skill on DP, only the last one accidentally pressed headshot once. Seems to me like all were WvW players relying on lucky backstabs to win, unfortunately in sPvP they don’t hit that hard so their strategy didn’t work.
No offence but I haven’t seen anything that would persuade me that staff is good in it’s current state.

Oh don’t worry. Those thieves weren’t bad. They actually got me several times but nobody watches duel videos to watch you lose haha. The MAD thief in particular was good. You’re only seeing some of the fights I won in these videos. I tried to pick the more intense or cool ones.

[Teef] Member got me once or twice too, Engi beat me once, and my D/P buddy got me as well when he was actually able to land the headshots.

I know that everyone complains that these Thieves were not using blinds or headshots but the fact is that, I would dodge them and they would just end up wasting initiative so they would not be spamming them while fighting me.

Remember, you get 3 dodges plus recover one when you steal plus Staff 3 lets you evade attacks really easily so yes, it is possible to evade pretty much every blind and headshot a D/P thief tries to get off on you.

Furthermore, if a D/P thief manages to blind you, it’s not the end of the world. One evade removes it and if that 1s condi cleanse is on cooldown, then the fact that you land on your enemy with a Bound cleanses it and you’re set to keep damaging.

On paper, D/P should beat Staff but with the tools that Anet has given us on Daredevil, Staff actually functions really well in a fight against it. Also don’t think they were fighting some baddie that got on Thief for the beta either. I’d say I’m not too bad on Thief considering it’s my main and S/D evasive set has been my build for 2 and a half years :P So picking up Staff evasive set quite similar with just enough differences to cause me to make some mistakes while dueling as I’m sure you saw xD

Daendur.2357:

Too bad 1vs1 duels means nothing.

It’s not bad in group fights either. The amount of cleaving potential you have is really good, not to mention Vault annhilates enemies caught in it. I had moments where I came into a fight, used Impairing Daggers and proceeded to Vault enemies to death. Then when their buddies tried to rez them, I vaulted them as well while at the same time killing the downed players in the process.

Furthermore, that new Elite skill is AMAZING! I was able to secure stomps without the need of my Shadowstep and I was even able to get insta-kills by landing the last hit on the chain on the enemy while they were really low preventing them from going into down state and just killing them instantly. One moment in particular had my team losing a fight for Tranq in Temple and I got clutch rezzed by my buddy. Then I saw the enemy’s Ele was low, so I got the Impact Strike chain off on him, killed him instantly and that changed the tide of the battle and allowed us to wipe them and grab Tranq. Clutch moments like that are the reason this spec shines for me.

Kocoff.7582:

The duels were entertaining, it show how staff, although I am skeptical, has the sufficient tool to fight openly. Staff #3 combined with dodges is priceless, mastering those two is the real crucial point.

GG. well done.

The music is definitely inspired by video games boss fights lol.

Haha yeah! Since your normal dodge was changed to Bound, it’s really nice having the Skill 3 on Staff which essentially acts like the old dodge but also removes cripple and immob.

Thanks and yeah Cruel Deity in particular writes a LOT of music that would be perfect for boss fights.

I’ll be editing and uploading one or two Revenant videos later this week running Sword/Sword+Staff Shiro/Glint

I’ll post a link here when they’re up!

Shockwave.1230:

I watched part 1, I’d say the level of play is lacking vs the opponents. But giving some benefit of the doubt that could just be unfamiliarity with Daredevil.

For the D/P matchup I didn’t see any good use of interrupts vs HiS or Vault, or even blind attempts vs Vault. D/P can beat staff easily between blinds, interrupts, sustain, and stealth.

The way that staff is designed, it’s more of a rushdown weapon. It’s basically go ham or die, the problem with that is oither builds like GS Warriors and DPS guardians do that way better than Daredevil, because of their survivability options.

You can’t use celestial, because you don’t have conditions or might stacking to go with staff. You could use soldier’s, but staff gives you nothing over other point holder builds on other profs.

Staff lacks the survivability that you see in other thief weapon sets like D/P and S/D. I haven’t seen anything over the weekend that has changed my mind about this. Unless staff is changed to somehow offer survival options on par with D/P or S/D, it will never have a chance at being used in a meta build.

Most of the players I dueled had either been watching me fight for a while, had fought me previously or I explained to them what each of the staff skills and utility/elite could do so they could fully understand how to fight me. I even showed them the difference between Bound and Vault so they can try to see whether to dodge or interrupt/blind.

And yeah the staff is designed as a full frontal fighting weapon even a bit more so than the sword but they do give you plenty of tools to survive and retaliate. Skill 3 on staff is amazing and even more reliable way of evading than both Death Blossom and Flanking Strike. Plus it deals decent damage and removes Immobilize which is HUGE. If you watch my WvW video, you will see me drop to 500 HP and survive long enough to heal and win. So the survivability IS there.

Terrorsquad.4802:

Rain.9213:

knyy.6427:

Terrorsquad.4802:

Staff is bad vs players who know how to play. You won vs d/p thieves as staff thief? That means they weren’t good because D/P hardcounters staff, with shadow shot alone.

Cheers

Exactly. Your Vault didnt got blinded interrupted or evaded? You had really skilled opponents.

It’s called baiting and blind removal. You guys should really look into it.

Same reason a hammer warrior and necro can land hits on a D/P Thief :P

D/P > Staff. Link me your vid when you got it and let us judge about their skill

Cheers

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Daredevil-1v1-Duels-PvP-and-WvW-Videos

Don’t hate. Appreciate.

Part 1 has me fighting a Minion Master Reaper, an Engineer, a shout heal Warrior, and one of my buddies on his full glass D/P Thief.

Part 1: https://youtu.be/jsrt9NKfSFw

Part 2 has got some duels against another Reaper, a D/P+P/P from our friendly neighborhood Teef guild, and a D/P Thief who was running SA then switched to Full Glass.

Part 2: https://youtu.be/YgBGg_Vl7CY

And lastly a few WvW duels I managed to snag before ending my Beta Weekend session. Note that I had Traveler runes, and incorrect stats on gear thanks to some lame gear choices from Anet but oh well! The damage was still pretty good. Also, that warrior had 25 stacks of bloodlust AND guard stacks both times I fought him T_T

WvW: https://youtu.be/UXGOZGQPecU

Hope you guys enjoy and hopefully this helps prove that Staff can indeed keep up and even sometimes beat D/P!

It’s really fun! It’s like a cross breed between Scepter and Dagger in terms of how you deal damage but it has really nice group support as well.

I’m running Air/Water/Tempest with Wash the Pain Away, Lightning Flash, Armor of Earth, Aftershock, and Rebound.

Overall impression of my Tempest: 8/10 would date.

As for feedback, I think the overloads could use a bit more work but the way I see it, Fire overload is for group might stacking PVE, Water can function nicely in pve and pvp for group condi cleansing and self sustain(especially with my build since you can afford to camp water attunement as I’m using Piercing Shards and Lightning Rod to make water actually deal good damage), Air works good with my build as well as you can drop a swirling winds or Aftershock and drop lightning strikes on the enemy in a group fight(not worth using in 1v1’s though), and lastly Earth can help you kite enemies with Focus considering you can camp Earth focus long enough trying to survive to actually use the overload.

In my opinion, these overloads really should only be used in group situations and should NOT be seen as good skills for dueling. So with that in mind, I’m mostly okay with them. The Air attunement actually cleaved several enemies down for me in a group fight, Water saved me once and allowed me to tank 3 enemies but I havent used Earth or Fire yet as I did not see any reason to.

I really liked the GS also. It’s slow and methodical but guess what? That’s the Reaper in a nutshell xD

I’ve used it to great success in PvP as well coupled with Staff for range and condition removal. Works great. Beat a lot of things.

No. Reaper Shroud is not OP. It’s good, don’t get me wrong but definitely not OP.

Doesn’t need nerfs, leave it as it is. You just have to try to avoid getting close to a Reaper while it’s up and/or evade the Skill 5 and Skill 4 and you’ll be fine.

I’ve played against a Reaper and as a Reaper and in no way does that scream OP to me.

/endthreadnow

Vulcan.7035:

God, this is so true.

@rain, the reason everyone is up in roar is because not a single animation is new. They are copy/pastes from other professions…

Ah okay. See that wasnt a big deal to me but I can understand people wanting new anims. I think aside from Vault and the dodge though, it would be cool to see new animations.

Ah okay. Yeah I was wondering because I made a Zerker and got the skin but didnt get one on my DD. Strange that Anet made it like that :o

Hmm not sure about that last bit with extra might stacking but YES to the rest.

These are actually really good ideas IMO. Make the last hit spike harder than the others and reduce each individual strike damage BUT, if you manage to land the last hit, you will punish the player for running towards his team and make up for the loss of cleave within a short radius, maybe about… shadow refuge radius?

Idk but I love the idea.

I’m actually okay with this. If you manage to land the last hit, the Might stacking will make it spike even harder than before but at the same time, the target can evade if it they are good and survive.

I don’t have any trouble with it at all but maybe that’s because I’m playing Daredevil and hitting me is a miracle xD

Only Skill 2 and 4 feel weird. All the others feel fine to be honest. I don’t get the hate on the animations :o

Vault in particular is awesome and the evade skill reacts really fast and feels good to use.

Apparently I’m not getting the skin :s
Anyone have this issue or know of a work around?

Okay so if I remember correctly, these should not cost initiative but they do. Total of 3 initiative. No where on tooltip does it say this should happen. Strange because I didn’t notice it ocurring yesterday.

Oh yeah, let’s make a skill that applies 8 seconds of bleeding, 6 seconds of torment, and 3 seconds of cripple not reveal you so you can stealth and spam it till the enemy dies xD

Sorry OP, but this would be too strong.

Terrorsquad.4802:

Rain.9213:

knyy.6427:

Terrorsquad.4802:

Staff is bad vs players who know how to play. You won vs d/p thieves as staff thief? That means they weren’t good because D/P hardcounters staff, with shadow shot alone.

Cheers

Exactly. Your Vault didnt got blinded interrupted or evaded? You had really skilled opponents.

It’s called baiting and blind removal. You guys should really look into it.

Same reason a hammer warrior and necro can land hits on a D/P Thief :P

D/P > Staff. Link me your vid when you got it and let us judge about their skill

Cheers

Keep in mind also that I said THIEVES. Plural. Haha but yeah I’d be glad to share the video.

knyy.6427:

Terrorsquad.4802:

Staff is bad vs players who know how to play. You won vs d/p thieves as staff thief? That means they weren’t good because D/P hardcounters staff, with shadow shot alone.

Cheers

Exactly. Your Vault didnt got blinded interrupted or evaded? You had really skilled opponents.

It’s called baiting and blind removal. You guys should really look into it.

Same reason a hammer warrior and necro can land hits on a D/P Thief :P

It’s…. beautiful….

Now get the Dreamer

Runes of Strength, Glint/Shiro, Sword/Sword+Staff… by god… bodies were dropping left and right. Permanent 10+ stacks of might… tons of evades and two blocks. It was a slaughter.

I even fought a burn guard who stacked a ton of burning and I simply just activated Glint’s heal and went back up to full

ROY! Y u so good at your job?!

Here I thought boon Revenant was gonna be outshined by Karl’s literal face stomping Daredevil (running Staff+Bound for maximum ground stomps) but wow I was blown away. Both are very skill based and fun specs.

This BWE just made the wait for HoT more unbearable for me xD

Pic related

Reason I didn’t post this in Daredevil Feedback thread is because I feel it will get drowned out in all the negativity of people who don’t know how to use it.

First off, Staff+Bound is easily the must have combination for it to be any good as it deals damage and acts most like the old dodge that keeps you alive but doesnt reveal you in stealth if you know where to dodge or moves you to far way from the enemy which is something you DONT want on staff.

Second, I have beaten Interrupt Chronomancers, Shout Heal Warriors, D/P Thieves, Glass Rifle Warriors, and I’ve completely nuked enemies in team fights using Staff+SB

And if you all don’t believe me, I will be uploading a 1v1 video after the BWE and maybe some regular pvp matches as well. It IS good and viable though.

The only 2 problems I have with it are:

1. Staff animation aftercasts can be murder sometimes

2. Auto Attack is really weak BUT I feel like it’s just a filler skill and I don’t use it too much to be honest. I would like to see a slight buff to it or maybe have each skill in the chain apply vulnerability to make it worth using but aside from that, I rarely touch it unless I’m low on initiative, which may be the playstyle Karl intended for it. But I still think it needs a slight buff.

Anyway, don’t trash Staff. I wanted to make this post to get word out that it’s a matter of L2P staff and not that it is bad.

As long as there are no nerfs to Staff skills or Bound+Steal combo, I think Staff can rival old school S/D and even D/P in certain scenarios.

Knighthonor.4061:

So Rev get less base skills than other classes, and the dull Elite Spec to go with it, buts its all optional, so no big deal.

am I getting this right?

I think calling it dull is subjective.

I’m personally really excited to try Herald this weekend as I think it will make Revenant much more desired in group content as well as increase their damage significantly through Might stacking+Perma Fury. My only concern with it is condition removal but that heal skill makes every tick of damage turn into HP and if you combine that with either Runes of Lyssa or Hoelbrak, you can potentially have a good method of surviving conditions. We’ll see tomorrow though.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Legendary Dwarf Stance (Jalis) is planned to be the starting legend.

Woo! I guessed it right Do I get a cookie?

If you’re levelling though, it’s not a big deal. I can wait a couple dozen levels to get Shiro. After all, once you’re 80 you’ll have everything unlocked anyway. Plus Shiro isn’t even good until you’ve unlocked his lifesteal traits. If anything, you’ll get Jalis first, then Mallyx which I think is good for pve levelling. Both their heals are really good and getting resistance on Mallyx only requires the first minor trait.

I’m pretty sure the starting legend will be Jalis. He’s got a very simple Heal Skill that will be good while playing as a low level to clear both conditions and recover HP. Plus being the tanky spec, new players will be able to use him to survive longer in PVE scenarios while they are levelling. Plus he’s not evil and fits the Hero category better than any other legend.

I think Skill 3 is fine. It’s supposed to be like Withdraw and I actually like that I can use it as a dodge roll. Plus it combos really well with Vault as you can roll back and then leap back in.

Skill 4 is meant to be used from a distance as well. Skill 3 then Skill 4. I just love how Skill 3 sets up 4 and 5. I like the design idea of Skill 4 so far and I’d prefer to keep it as a ranged attack. As it lets you blind an enemy before you jump back into the fight.

As for Skill 5, if the damage coefficient on the build editor is correct, it’s going to nuke everyone it touches and having an evade frame on it would be ridiculously unbalanced.

These are all my opinion though. Also, I’m okay with Stealth 1 as it sets up Fist Flurry and Vault really nicely. I can’t comment on the Auto Attack yet though. If it’s as strong as Sword Auto, I think it could be good.

Well feel free to change the armor stats however you’d like! I, personally prefer not to rely too heavily on one form of damage with this build. With the amount of condition damage you will be putting out combined with raw power as well as above average toughness and a large health pool, I don’t think having low power will be an issue. This is a hybrid build after all meant to emulate a Celestial Engineer/Elementalist. I do find it interesting how good Sinister is though. I’ll have to experiment with that in a separate build.

A trickery S/P Daredevil running Haste, Flanking Strikes, and Sleight of Hand could completely abuse the crap out of Pulmonary Impact once an enemy’s stab is gone. That’s where the potential for the S/P lies. Right now, S/P isn’t that good but having that really nice damage spike from Pulmonary Impact could potentially make S/P one of the best single target DPS sets to run.

Khristophoros.7194:

Actually Rampager’s and Sinister are both more power damage than Celestial, and of course more condi damage too. Celestial is really bad for power damage.

I’m not a fan of Celestial at all since I learned that. You really need to use the healing power in addition to the other stats for it to be good.

Yeah but then you miss out on the Ferocity+Toughness+Vitality that Celestial gives. I think especially on this build where you lack blocks, hammer cc, double endure pain, and cleansing ire, having as much vitality+toughness as you reasonably can is essential. At least to me. I prefer having a balanced playstyle as opposed to full offense.

Hey everyone! I’ve been messing around on the build editor a lot since it was updated with the new specializations and ever since I saw Berserker, I knew right away that I wanted to try a Celestial Greatsword build with it. So here’s my result so far!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQNAsfRnMdAVhglkCehAEliliATpLE9yCGDgHQA4t4ucnuA-TRSHwA1VC2RfwH1fKcCAaq8LwRAAwhAg0+DCeAAkCwPxWA-e

(For pvp just use Celestial Amulet, obviously)

Food is optional but basically, I feel like this build will be really powerful. You use Greatsword to stack might to increase your overall damage and you can go Berserk to burn a ton of enemies. Sword+Torch gives you even more condition application plus Final Thrust hurts and Torch gives you some nice condition cleansing as well.

You get access to 3 rage skills(one being going Berserk) allowing you to apply even more burning with the trait setup. Your elite will stun you but thanks to Outrage, you can break the stun very easily and gain stability. I felt with that in mind, Balanced Stance wasn’t as necessary. Also, I chose not to run King of Fires as I felt that 20% burning would probably be better on a full condition build and giving you access to a 10 second stun break that also applies burning and stability was much more preferable for me.

Runes of Strength are obviously good to have for the might stacking and as for the sigil choice, Energy and Battle on Sword+Torch lets you recover your dodge for survivability AND damage on dodge and you can stack might while not on GS. Geomancy and Doom on Greatsword lets you have some cover conditions on greatsword to keep the burning on your enemies as well as nerf their healing.

Anyway, I’m just sharing this to hopefully stir up the pot, so to speak, and hopefully get a viable build out to the public! If you decide to try this build out this weekend, let me know if you enjoyed it and what changes you made, if any! Hope you guys like it

Let’s not forget the Makeshift staff coming in the xpac!

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Makeshift_Staff

It looks freakin awesome

If anything, I feel like the only overloads worth using are Fire and Water. Earth Overload doesn’t seem to have much pay off for sacricing your Earth line and neither does Air at least with my D/D build.

Fire stacks a ton of burning and might though and Water can provide excellent healing for a non-heal skill plus condition removal.

Personally, what excites me more about it is the playstyle with Aura Manipulation more so than the Overloads. As I showed in my build on my first post, you get a lot of benefit from apply Auras. With my trait selection you have access to 3 Auras through weapon skills(one is fire field+earth leap combo), 2 through traits with an option for a third if you don’t mind dropping Lucid Singularity(attune to fire gives fire aura, getting cc’d gives shock aura, being hit while under 75% gives frost aura), and lastly 2 more auras through shouts.

I might actually drop Lucid Singularity in favor Element Bastion as well as I feel like having access to these 8 auras in a fight with each healing you for 700 would be really good sustain. We’ll see during the BWE but yeah. Auras for me are what make Tempest interesting. Overloads might need some more touch ups.

Chrono.6928:

ps: everyone speculating thief’s got a rifle… you were wrong, unfortunately Doesn’t really seem fair everyone else get’s their own new unique weapon but thieves and rangers both get staffs. But that’s its own topic.

Mesmer’s Chronomancer and Revenant’s Herald both got shields and no one was upset about that.

Anyway back on topic there are plenty of staves in the game right now that look good for melee. Most of them though are basically long maces. I would like to see more staves in a similar style to the Daredevil’s bo-staff looking weapon.

It’s cuz the Build Editor seems to have the wrong coefficients and is making staff skills ridiculously stronger. Not to worry though, BWE should clear things up. And if these skills really are this strong…. then may Dwayna help us because we will be in for some nerfs.

Yeah the number definitely seems to high. If I recall, Vault should be doing a bit less than a backstab. In the POI stream, I think Karl said he actually had a Marauder amulet so we can probably take those numbers as a pretty solid representation of the actual damage.

SrebX.6498:

Rain.9213:

posthumecaver.6473:

The thing is, it brings nothing new to the class.

All the things Tempest can do, you can do some weapon and some spec of the Elementalist already.

Now can you say that with Reaper, Chronomancer, Daredevil,…?

So as Ele Main, you will pay the expansion to do exactly the same things as before.

It does push group support a bit more though. Ele already has practically everything, that’s why you can’t expect anything new. They have amazing close range dps, mid range with scepter, and long range with staff. They have invulns, condi clear, conditions, boons.

What more can you expect? Stealth? That would just be silly.

Actually what I expected was this in-your-face tanky-supportive frontline playstyle with some AoE overloads, fields for the zerg and Cc for the enemy..
So yeah, staff ele can do this, only it’s not in-your-face at all…

You do get some of that with the moving water field, and tons of might application as well as aoe stun breaks and aoe immob/chill and heals. But I think the issue is the Warhorn, as I said. I found it very “meh” which is why I came up with a d+d Tempest build instead haha.

To OP:
While I understand what you’re saying, I don’t think your argument is justified as the specialization is balanced around letting you choose your playstyle. By forcing you to pick one, you have to really think about what you want in your build. All three of these dodge effects are very powerful and Anet likely chose to make them Grandmasters as giving us even more will probably make Thief an uncatchable, nuking menace. I mean…. remove a condition on dodge AND heal for 450 every second… Seriously, that’s ridiculously strong. We also get a 3rd dodge, recover a dodge on steal, and can deal 10% more damage after a dodge, apply tons of weakness, or reduce the cooldown on our Physicals which are also extremely powerful. Personally, I like how much stuff they gave Daredevil. It looks strong but not OP which is always a good thing.

posthumecaver.6473:

Rain.9213:

Idk, I feel like Ele’s evade a crap ton already considering they get a ton of vigor from Arcana, Burning Speed is an evade, Updraft is an evade, and on top of that they get blind on burns plus invulns. And there are already those eles who run sigil of energy so…. yeah…

I feel like Evades wouldn’t have really added anything either. Plus we already got Daredevil and Shiro Revenants and even to some extent, condition Rangers, to cover the evasive specs. It wouldn’t have really been that original or different from dagger/dagger anyway.

So practically you are saying an Ele Main has no reason to buy this expansion because there is nothing new to bring to the Ele profession.

Thx for the tip.

If you want to take it that way, sure… but for me, Tempest could potentially add a style of dagger/dagger or dagger/focus that doesn’t involve going into Arcana and Water and instead provides a lot of swiftness and fury uptime, good group support by constantly applying aoe weakness and might as well as condition cleansing and lastly some cool looking overload effects that further provide survivability and group support. I see my Tempest build as a potential DPS/Support similar to my Longbow/GS Shout Ranger and that is exciting for me. Plus with shouts and soldier runes, it could potentially provide the survivabilty I need to not run Water/Arcane and instead use Fire/Air how I’ve wanted for a long time.

Neko.9021:

I’m very excited for Tempest. It looks really fun, and I had a lot of fun playing it during the BWE.

Glad to see others like it too! I do agree that some things on Tempest could be better such as maybe not forcing you to camp an attunement to unleash an overload effect but aside from that, I think this could be a very fun playstyle.

Idk, I feel like Ele’s evade a crap ton already considering they get a ton of vigor from Arcana, Burning Speed is an evade, Updraft is an evade, and on top of that they get blind on burns plus invulns. And there are already those eles who run sigil of energy so…. yeah…

I feel like Evades wouldn’t have really added anything either. Plus we already got Daredevil and Shiro Revenants and even to some extent, condition Rangers, to cover the evasive specs. It wouldn’t have really been that original or different from dagger/dagger anyway.

posthumecaver.6473:

The thing is, it brings nothing new to the class.

All the things Tempest can do, you can do some weapon and some spec of the Elementalist already.

Now can you say that with Reaper, Chronomancer, Daredevil,…?

So as Ele Main, you will pay the expansion to do exactly the same things as before.

It does push group support a bit more though. Ele already has practically everything, that’s why you can’t expect anything new. They have amazing close range dps, mid range with scepter, and long range with staff. They have invulns, condi clear, conditions, boons.

What more can you expect? Stealth? That would just be silly.

I mean, I don’t understand why everyone is so upset about Tempest. Ele already has extremely powerful offensive options in the form of D/D, S/F, and Staff which cover all of Ele’s core weapons. So why is everyone so mad that they are going for a more group supporty playstyle on Tempest?

I even came up with this cool build which looks very good on paper.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAoYn0XC9XiFYCOYCcYiFBAzN1+avtBBgCQRUYDECOiA-TJRHwAFeAA82fAwJA4YZAA

I, for one, am super pumped to see how this plays. Auto stun break every 45 seconds+super speed, aoe 2 stacks of might and weakness when using a shout that also removes a condition with runes of soldier, and immunity to soft cc’s while using overload? This just sounds super fun for me and strong (on paper).

Is it because the warhorn that the Ele forums are upset? If so, I totally understand. I didn’t like that thing at all.

I’ve been a Thief main since the game first came out and while I do agree that S/D Thief right now isn’t that good in pvp, D/P is still strong as hell. I feel if they can just properly balance Ele and Mesmer, D/P will be one of the top meta builds. S/D would also rise back up a bit too. I mainly play S/D thief with acro even right now and in a 1v1, I can take on any class and build and hold my own but the two things that always feel so unbalanced to fight are Ele and Mesmer. These two can accidentally kill you just by facerolling the keyboard in PvP. In WvW, not so much because you don’t have to stand on a point. Imo, the buffs to those two are the reason Thieves are feeling so underpowered. I do think some small buffs are needed for Thieves just to make other sets more viable like blind on Cloak and Dagger baseline but for the most part, Daredevil will add some great new stuff to Thief and once Ele and Mesmer are balanced, I feel the Thief won’t feel like a +1 class.

Impaling Lotus daggers would work really well with a P/P too. Immob and then unload for a really nice damage spike if you’re running power. You can also run Staff as your second set should you need some cleave and mobility or Sword/x.

Shadowstep would be a must, imo though to escape being focused down.