Guild Wars 2

Can´t agree. Pulling one or two overloads per fight works well.
Like start the fight with air overload and when your wait for cooldowns pull one earth overlaod mid or end of fight. For packed guards/monsters i pull fire overload. This works pretty well so overloads are a useful addition to ele options and i can handle the 20sec CD. The 5sec wait is more handicap and kills water overload for me.
If you try more overloads you are lost …. So don´t focus to much on it. Its another ace you can pull out of your sleve.

I would be fine with rebound if its intant cast and on 45sec CD. Then it would still be a weak elite on itself, but gets very useful with some runes like lyssa.

I can´t agree to pack aura traits is good. Of course it would make aura builds more powerful taking that lines. Now you have to decide what to take, which isn´t a bad thing as long as there is enough. You just generate diffrent aura builds.

Same for me. Want to use tempest.
Not 100% shure if it can match my current version, but i hope for some improvements that allow me to build it. It fits my playstyle better then the arcane version. But after i got used to the arcane ele and found my build its feels quite powerful compared to tempest ^^. Instant shouts, 20% CD reduction and baseline speed is missing for me to throw away arcane. It would feel good :-) playing scepter ele :-).

I am also intrested in the explanation. Pointless and inefficient is no explanation.
I have a good experience in mixing in the following order: Condition damage (maxed)/Precision/Toughness/Vitality/Power. Yes its a condi build..
I also feel comftable (as ELE) when puting a splash of Toughness/Vit in a power build instead of a bit ferocity going about 180 critical damage . So i am down about 30 critical damage to full zerker but have about 3k more HP and about 20% more absorb which sounds efficient.
Of course if you are never hit full zerker is best …. Arguable in PvE as staff ele but …
This might work for a professional player with over 2 years daily Gw2 that does speedrun the same dungeon 1001 times a month XD.

My ele uses arcane. Arcane is the line i want to replace with tempest :-). But even with swiftness on swap i run air signet. Maybe i am kind of a rebel avoiding water/cantrips and trying to build diffrent. But it gives me the most fun and also success.
Tempest lacks at some traits and minor is only a stretched tempest base. Adding something that helps the weaker builds is usually best.
It would be better then the current swiftness thats all.

@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 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 :-).

I encountered the same problems. Missing room on the toolbar for shouts.
Two reasons: First condi removal and second speed if not traited air. Since i am a scepter user and earth fan i did see a similar fresh air build phantaram used very fast but its condi defence is nowhere. When i meet a diamond skin player i tend to win because its no problem to shoot him below 90% with scepter, even in my condi setup.
Also the 5s wait on overloads did lead to never using water overload. So thats for a water camping healer build….
For my build i would wish baseline speed (or even 33% like driud got XD). Because this forces me to use air or traveler rune and leads to a gimik build (which i tend to play annyway …). But i can still dream of getting perm 33% speed instead of swiftness in speedy conduit. This would make me a tempest lover :-).

I had a fight VS a staff ele during beta that used Diamond skin.
The start was rough, so yes it helps and it is good against condi builds. Its dangerous to lower the threshold. Could become OP fast.
I won the fight by panicing him with an earth overload, droped him below 90% and he never came back up :-). But first i thought i might loose…

For only giving an aura 75sec cooldown would be like 60sec to long ….. Sadly all utility shouts are better. At about 45sec CD this elite starts to get intresting but only if used with a rune like Lyssa. Then it gives build options by rune combinations. It´s current effect is better then before but still not worth an elite.

I also would just go for larger radius on shatterstone.
I am not as experienced like you with only four month WvW playtime but 1s for earth auto? I would like it but is sounds a very huge increase.

I did testing tempest as much as i could in WvW romaing with a F/E/T scepter condi build.

Overloads:
Fire: Felt about eqal to BW2. The field and circle shown is great. Its was my most used overload for clearing camps. In my small team they noticed the might stacking. Radius felt meh but enough for what i used it.

Air: felt greatly improved. But i only used it as a combat opener in a teamfight where it´s good.

Earth: Its great. The protection pulse + stab make it top and i see the bleeds added. It doesn´t kill fast but its a great condi support now withs prot/cripple/bleed. This one is my favorite and i used it quite regulary also in 1:1 fights where it seemed to scare off oponents ^^.

Water: A bit of a problem here. I replaced arcane with tempest. The result is less ele swaping and very low water useage. Water is situational and the thing here is the 5s wait. To make that overlaod work in a non water build you need to have it at hands when situation calls for. As result i could not pull it off the whole weekend.

conlusion: Overloads are in a good shape now. I even don´t agree making stab baseline is good. In teamfights you can pull them off without stab or from a friend´s stab. When solo only use earth, i got lots of interupts when alone and using non earth overloads without traiting stab. But its a team spec so i am fine.

Warhorn: Not used in BW3. It felt not fitting my build and i focused more on testing shouts. Time is short in one weekend and i can´t play for two days.

Shouts: Not much changes here.
Shouts are the main part i want to use in tempest. So i tried to make them work.

Rebound: It lost very fast and i swaped back to FSG. It might also be because FSG is extreamly well fitting my build. I think a dagger build would make more use of rebound. Even as team emergency you will loose 90% annyway if needed. Guess its a bit better in sPvP. I could make nice use when CD is way down like 60sec + 20% reduction so its on 48seconds.

Feel the burn: The best shout. Soso damage, but its 20s cooldown and instant cast make it good when traited. Its a nice defence/offence mix with heal/weaken/aura.

Flash freeze: The 25sec cooldown make it useful. So traited it works but it needs being instant cast.

Shok/aftershok: I got disapointed. While it has good effects its CD was to long and not being instant hurts. It got removed from my toolbar after a day freeing a place for a cantrip or air sigil again.

Eye of the storm:
Found no place on my toolbar. But the passive version is OK. I agree shock aura instead of speed would be great but this might make it to powerful.

Wash the pain away:
The casting time hurts. The group heal is fine but having to stay so close is also a bit hard. Without having condi cleans this one looses against eather renewal or arcane brilliance.

Conclusion:
Shouts need to be instant cast to ever compete with cantrips and synergize with overloads. Tempestious aria crys for 20% CD reduction.
Shouts are the core why i would take tempest fitting my playstyle. Overloads instead of my arcane ele swaping alone would not pay off!

Traits:
Since i am shout focused i didn´t try much varity. But its easy just by reading the description to tell whats up and most is aleady written. I just can´t agree with stab baseline, because this would allow to go for souts + stab overcharges and this might be a bit much. Latent stamina is weak and the trigger is wrong here. Go for aura or shout as trigger.

What i realy would wish is making speedy conduit a permanent 33% (or at least baseline 25%). I got a jealous when seeing Natural Stride :-/. This is needed to open build options.

Build conclusion:
While there is some condi support, it has major drawbacks. One is condi removal and one speed. Needing to put those on the toolbar ruins my tempest. I did play my non tempest arcane version inbetween, and it felt like an ele with all instants on the bar and arcane tools wrecking oponents much faster …. Once you have learned to play an arcane ele tempest gets a hard competition.
The only way i got it playable was with traveler rune, because it synergizes (15% boon, 10% condi duration) and gives 25% movement. I lost damage but i could at least run around but it did´t fully convince me in being more fun an on par with my arcane + scavenger rune.

well.. Read the first three words and think about what you answer.
But its quite easy to use a fire ele to do a very good job too. Just not the extreme damage to large targets.

But its no aura shout :-). Yes you can put it as shout but no aura means no heal and boons like zephyrs boon too :-).

Traited shouts will become a good option. They give might/weakness/aura/heal and as instant can be used while overloading/channeling. This is a nice mix of party support, defence and a bit damage. It can be used as shout build or in aura builds. Its not fully focused to one thing so its impact might not be so noticeable, but it will do so much things that the whole party sustain is boosted.
There is a drawback. To get a viable impact you should put at least three shouts on your toolbar. Best all three aura shouts. So you forfit all cantrips or stunbreakers. This means the shouts must compete with traited cantrips to be viable.
And with the rest of tempest being no match for other spec lines this means make aura shouts good or tempest is done.

indeed for an pure support auramancer the healing/boon rúne will be a perfect match. But i feel such a build won´t get a viable status since “Healer” is generally shun. Maybe raids change it a bit but thats PvE.

Hmm for daggers its usually celestial. (WH might be the same)
For a tempest heal type its cleric/zealot or maybe apothecary/shaman/settler.
Damage builds using burn go sinister.
Staff or scepter fresh air goes mostly for zerker.
Rare condi builds go mostly rabid maybe mixed with some other condi gear.

So whats the playstyle :-).
I don´t know the raids and what is needed there.
I personaly play scepter/focus 90% of the time. WvW and Pve (staff as backup)
I plan to use tempest and shouts but not WH. I am a bit undecided with my gear setup. I currently use rabid/dire with a splash of rampager but i constantly think of using a sinister armor set for a more hybrid build. In WvW roming it works well.
I use air signet for speed. This is my main problem for using shouts. I need the space on the toolbar. If i remove signet it feels unplayable, if i keep signet no room for shouts and tempest unusable LoL …. Next condi removal. No space on toolbar kills toon or tempest :-/.

For staff i find a mix of valkyr/captain/Zerker good if not a full glass cannon.

well auras remove a condition would be great. And the rune being a condition rune :-). I expect a defensive rune. But this woudl be grim. Tempest is already defensive and needs damage. Condition is somethign eles are weak so this might help while not pushing to much.
A dream Rune would be: Condi rune + aura duration +, remove condition, stack duration.
But i feel the duration stacking on auras can get out of hands to easy stacking eles again for all auras permanently on the team.

Two versions i find fitting.
Superior rune of the apothecary:

1.) +25 healing power
2.) +35 condition damage
3.) +50 healing power
4.) + 65 condition damage
5.) +100 healing power
6.) Auras you apply remove a condition.

Superior rune of the witch:

1.) +25 condition damage
2.) +10%condition duration
3.) +50 condition damage
4.) + 20% Aura duration
5.) +100 condition damage
6.) Auras aplied to you remove a condition.

The second one is more selfish and a strong condition supporting rune. Maybe it can help to make a viable condition build. With such a rune an baseline speed i would immidiateley play tempest.

Exactly Neko. 20% CD on tempestious aria and flash freeze + shock/aftershok instant and woot shout builds kick in. At least something tempest is worth for :-).

Great on earth 3 woudl be:

Glitterdust. Ele is surrounded by a cloud of sparkling glitter :-)

Casttime: Instant
Recharge: 20s

Apply 6s of light aura.

Dang. Great synergy with earth and aura builds. + Light aura would be new to ele.

A shame, I really like non cantrip related defense as it gives us more build options.

This. Eles are crying for it and get naild with cantrips even more by nerfing skills like Blinding Ashes and Renewing stamina :-(.

60s cooldown starting at summon. So you can call a new when the old expires.
Best would be to make it easy to use and like a minion. So It stays and has CD when it dies.

Aww don’t touch magnetic wave. Best skill S/F ele has :-/.
The aura on earth3 would be great. Light aura would be nice but won’t fit eart so good.

This is what i hate most. The nerf itself for DD was OK. Also might from cantrips is a good thing. But BA nerfed is minor for D/D but hits fire scepter builds much more and they did´t deserve that. The same with vigor nerf. For D/D water builds not much change, because more vigor sources with cantrips annyway. All non water that rely on dodges/blinds because less regeneration are hurt much more. So it feels like while bringing D/D a bit down it creates more water/cantrip dependency to survive which is realy bad.
D/D is far from dead. Maybe we have overal less eles but the D/D percentage on eles might even go up.

A lot of threads for scepter buffs already running. I can repeat my suggestions here too if it matters -)

Fire auto: Don´t increase damage, decrease casting time so the burn part gets pushed.

Air auto: Add a condition on the last hit of the channel chain (e-g. 2s confusion, blind, ..)

Earth auto: increase flight speed a bit and give the last hit poison instead of bleed. Or make it 8s bleed duration.
Dust Devil: instant cast
Rock barrier: 1/2 casting time.

Shatterstone: Increase radius.

My scepter suggestions:

Fire auto: Don´t increase damage, decrease castign time so the burn part gets pushed.
Air auto: Add a condition on the last hit of the channel chain (e-g. 2s confusion)
Earth auto: increase flight speed a bit and give the last hit poison instead of bleed. Or make it 8s bleed duration.
Dust Devil: instant cast
Rock barrier: 1/2 casting time.

Shatterstone: Increase radius.

I know that earth beats thiefs. I play nerarly only S/F and after trying elements it settled to fire/earth/arcane. I die to condi mesmers, but zerker builds tend to bite the dust. Thiefs and mesmers included. Fastest thief was about 5s. Died 1 second after restealthing on my cleansing flame when recognizing OooPS …

thats why CD reduction will help. And also shouts as instants. Stacking auras is dangerous and harder to balance.

Thats why i said easyly done increase radius. Then ist a nice tactical AE denial option.

Mee too. RoF was no issue. Most of the time it did not hit me. If in wait and if the ele comes breathign dodge RoF + Flames …. If outside don´t run in. I understand this is more issue to melee classes but when usinge ranged attacks it was just a nice animation ^^.

D/D did not change much. Slight burn reduction and might on cantrips gone. Both was good. The vigor CD hits non water builds that used it but not so much D/D. The blinding ashes is also minor for D/D but hits other non meta builds much more.

I would like more radius on shatterstone. I play some semi bunker S/F build and the ground target will help with tactics. Cast time is still long but its at least a bit buff to scepter. Still won´t change much.

I also see it as a buff. Main function is fire field. Initial burn is better then the ring.
I never had a problem fightign RoF. Outside i don´t run in. If inside i don´t run out, just shoot at the ele if he comes close dodge out of the ring avoiding ring + his attack.
Now it will hit with two stacks.
I am happy with the might nerf and the breath is OK.
The vigor nerf was on the wrong place. Soothing disruption should have been targeted. It hits non D/D water eles much more.
And blinding ashes was also wrong. While it hits D/D a bit other builds are hurt much more.
The ele nerfs overal are good but it has a bad taste. On one side D/D is hit moderately and some non D/D builds out of any meta took a hard punch. It could have been much worse but also a bit better.

For my playstyle it seems to fit much better then water/arcane. Unfortunately arcane/cantrips as instant utilities are hard to come by. Even with traited shouts.

I plan more testing in BW3 runing tempest instead of W/Ar.
The main problem is substituting the toolbar with shouts. And if you stay cantrips then water > tempest and not much room left.
To make that setup work i feel i will need the following:
Shouts instant. Not casting shouts while overloading oder chaneling sceper autos is a pain and can send whole shouts + tempest in the trash bin. Cantrips go on top again here.
Speed. To get the max out of traiting you can´t realy slot air sigil. Forcing traveler rune is bad and kills Sceper because you need every bit of rune power or condi. So it might force you to air traitline and no space left for fire again …

I prefer the agressive F/A/Ar version. Water is OK instead of air.
Soldiers/Zerker is easy to mix, but it falls easily below 40% crit chance and you should lean more to 50%. When going Soldier/Zerker acuracy sigil might be needed. I ran acuracy/strength for a while but got bored with staff very fast.

I prefer hoelbrak rune and strengh sigil. This is good to use in WvW too. For pure fast PvE Damage strength might be slighly better.
A mixed setup not too squishy thats well rounded for pve and WvW. Needs training but works as allround build.
Looks like this. Food is chagable. Power/precision for PvE, lemmongrass for WvW.
Blood sigil is cheap and potent allrounder too. Air or fire instead fits well but cost more.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWnMIC9MglMAeOA0RgBCALKABgFgMJ7AlgaNkGGDA-T1BGwABuAAHV+VRHAgHAgJ1fSt/wUlgBAQAYn78o78o7sQAlHDA-w

The Valk/captian has more crit chance then soldiers/zerker and thats better then a few % more crit damage.
This build is adapted by changing the staff. If you want more defence i suggest knights staff.

But for sPvP i can´t realy tell. Staff Bunker is the meta there. I am a dedicated scepter/focus user :-). I have a only staff as backup with me for Zerg/Keep combat.

360 radius. Easy to do and will help ….

@Glen… me too … Flamestrike and dragon tooth OK but not much help. At least something. Shatterstone doesnt help. I woul have increased the radius to 360.
The nerf of blinding ashes hits many non d/d builds and this is bad. The combination of blinding ashes and vigor nerf in arcane only means more forcing to water+cantrips. A pitty. I play without water and S/F. So i can´t regenerate like water ele and blinds are one of the defences … Gret to nerf a far from meta build eh..

The main problem: If you make an aura trait that competes with tempestious aria or elemental bastion you win nothing. Then one trait must loose. If you want a new version for earthen proxy, then don´t make it aura or shout related. Boon duration would be great. It would synergize with WH trait for even more boon duration.

Tempest already supports condi builds. But not enough. A good way would be to change latent stamina to a condi proc. Puting it against tempestous aria would not work. Shouts are the core condi support tempest offers.
The greatest help options: be baseline speed , condi removal or condi application for latent stamina.

Exact. D/D is OK. Unfortunately evryone trying to build without water is also hit.
The enurance and blinding ashes hits non d/d especially non water and those S/X build need a buff not nerf.

Blinding ashes is not good. It nerfs non water buils much more. :-(.
And the CD on elemental wont change much on elite usage

Im not shure if the condition ele target is completly missed.
Tempest gives some defence and with weakness a def/cover condition. A shout/condi build might be possible and i will test further in BW3. At least for WvW roming. Maybe it won´t work in PvP. As i already wrote to make it work i feel i need the shouts instant and baseline speed to make it work well. My exerience wir a S/F condi ele is not so bad and i did test it with tempest. What i somehow have to get without changing rune to soldiers is condi removal.

Yes. Bolt to the heart lets you kill quicker. Tempest defence too and extra ferocity again.
And on top as a boon: Bolt on ele swap + Vulnerability on crits. It all helps to shoot down your target faster.

I also would say in WvW zerg staff ele is way better.
Also the whole burst heal might not help much.
But tempest is not dead. A few tweaks will give it use. For me als WvW roamer it would be baseline speed. And to make at least the shouts viable make all non healing instant cast. Especially scepter needs to use skills while channeling and overloads requite it too. Needing cantrips again seems to scrap Tempest.

Arcane blast is good because its on a 16s timer, does a strong hit, inflicts a condition and gives you 150 ferocity. So i can keep the crit damage permanently higer. Its fire and forget as soon as its up. In my WvW setup it lost to air signet and the ferocity is not so important, but in an air setup it might find a place. Always hard to decide. If lemongrass + hoelbrak is enough condi defence than the spare place is for lighning flash. But i have no real experience running lemmongrass an alwasy use the flame.

Oh yes… I usually don´t use mist form, but yesterday … I won all three duels in WvW ….
Oponent used their skills to prohibit immidiate finisher and i got shot in the back just a second befor i could end it …
Buts thats not PvE :-). Also cleansing flame is argualbe in PvE but its the only condi remover in a non water build.
And the glyph/ice bow setup i wrote is the heavy hitting PvE setup also MadRabit mentioned. But going tempest defence and arcane utilities is good. In dungeons i swap ice bow in.

I also don´t see a stunbreak on overlaod to powerful. First you need the overload ready, so 5s in the element and then if you suddenly need a stunbreak you propably don´t want to overload at that moment activating a 20s CD on the element. Its more a last ditch thing like befor you can´t do annything and propably die. I expect it as an escape boon when the CC hits you in the back you get the stunbreak, swiftness, prot and stab to maybe get away. So for a stunbreak that suddenly happens and you need it now within your rottion its not realy so good, but its a nice addition.

Staff is fine.

For PvE levling i would use fire/air/arcane
If you don´t have air use air signet as utility on 8.
Use a zerker staff (or assasin) . The rest is power equipement as you like but keep your crit rate above 40%. If not ascended i mix valkyr and knight but for levling it is more or less irrelevant. just take power and precision.
A cheap boost is acuracy sigil and i add blood or when using hoelbrak/strength rune strength sigil.

I recomend use either a glyph setup or arcane setup traiting acordingly.

With elemental sourge in arcane: arcane brilliance 6, arcane shield 7, arcane blast 8

With inscription: healing glyph 6, glyph of storms 7, frost bow 8 + elite glyphs of elements

+ i always have cleansing flame on my toolbar 9. Its offensive + defensive.

I run the arane version with my F/E/Ar setup using the air signet and have a very good experience with it but my build is condi/hybrid.

Normaly eles run water + cantrips but you don´t need it in PvE. Hell i even don´t run it in WvW, its sustain but not fun. I have better killrates without it.

Here a lvl 80 build that is not full zerker to orient how i will play staff in PvE. You can do it as full zerker too.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFEQFAWnMIC9MglMAOOA0RgBBALCAFgHgcJDBpg6N0GODA-T1BGwABuAAHV+VRHAgHAgJ1fSt/wUlgBAQAYn78o78o7sQAlHDA-w

When you want to got WvW with that build you can swap food to lemongrass for a reasonable condi defence. For PvE strength rune is better.
And fire sigil instead of blood fits well. Blood is cheap :-)