Everyone who is complaining about tempest going against how elementalist are supposed to work by promoting a character to stay in attunements without swapping every 3 seconds, do yourself a favor and as Bruce lee said “empty your cup”. Realize tempest was not designed to be played like a regular elementalist. Which also means a tempest can’t be built like a regular elementalist.
I liked tempest during the beta weekends and still do, albeit there are a few small issues, but the bottom line is, the class works. If you open your mind up, forget how you normally play your ele, and build and play your tempest accordingly, you will also e successful. If you can’t survive in pvp without swapping attunements every 3 seconds, you are playing and building your tempest wrong.
Tempest reminds me somewhat of necromancer because positioning is extremely important, whereas with most ele builds of the past, it just plain isn’t. Also realize you can’t rely on boons from swapping attunements, but Anet has provided a million ways to protect yourself without swapping attunements. Get a little creative and you will see what I mean. I don’t post often so I’m sure many people will think I’m trolling or don’t know anything about pvp, but I’m rank 46, and rank 1060 in wvw, almost exclusively playing elementalist since launch. I know a thing or two about pvp, and tempest is very viable if you approach the specialization with an open mind and forget what you know about old ele.
By the way, my current build is scepter/wh fresh air and it’s absolutely devastating. And I don’t use stability on overload, which most people would think is insane, but I’ve discovered I don’t need it as much as you would think when you play smart and time your overloads. Armor of earth works for 1 guaranteed overload on a 60s cd traited which is game changing in pvp. Just food for thought. I initially hated warhorn but as I’ve continued working with it and learning it’s strengths and weaknesses it’s very very strong. Just having a water field with scepter is amazing once you get used to it, I feel like an engi I can blast my own water field so much when things go south.
Give tempest a try and don’t get discouraged, look at your build and playstyle before you blame Anet. They delivered a spec that is completely different than elementalist as promised, so don’t expect It to be effective if you play it the same way.
And if you tried it and found it to be lackluster? This is another “If you don’t like it you are closeminded” post. A lot of us have already given it PLENTY of tries and plenty of builds. Your point about ways to defend yourself without swapping attunements generally is using your utilities or a getaway skill.
Swapping attunements after dropping your skills or based on what you need at the moment is core to what Ele does. Not waiting around in an attunement for five seconds then overloading for 4 very interruptible seconds (even with one stack of stab) then swapping to another attunement to wait more and not all the attunements have very good things to do within those 5 seconds and certainly not things that are not highly punishable.
While your input is noted comparing tempest to Necromancer isn’t encouraging because Necromancer was not very useful in game modes besides WvW before HoT. And referring to everybody who dissents as “not being open” is just plain wrong.
Oh and Bruce Lee said “Be water my friend” Not empty your cup. And I think it is not a good analogy for this. Maybe if you twisted it and said tempest is completely different and not in any way interacting with base ele but imo.