Guild Wars 2

Solori.6025:

So let me get this straight.

Top players are now running 3-4 ele comps.
It takes either a really good cele necro or 2-3 people to kill and ele.
And we still have no nerf to the class…

AND

Tempest got buffs.

GG

To be fair, Tempest really needed those buffs (and tbh it still needs a total trait overhaul) while the fire line for ele and burn stacking ability needs to be nerfed into the ground to make it “balanced”.

Dakunaito.9602:

nearlight.3064:

The reason berserker can keep their old burst system is their compensation for only getting a new offhand. Reaper and DH both get a new two-handed weapon so their mechanic skills are completely changed.

you know that this an excuse right? as i said before, you can add both shrouds and make them share the cd and let players choose which one they want to use. since they will share cd there is absolutely no problem at all. Berserker/Warrior don’t need compensation. they need nerf without any kind of compensation. class is 2 times stronger than Necro/Reaper and has 0 drawbacks. the only way Berserker kept it’s old burst is cause Arenanet decided so

While I agree that having both shrouds available to us would be awesome, its not Arenanet’s official position on the issue. Would you want DH to be able to swap through both sets of virtues? Because thats the only way to make it logically consistent.

So I remember seeing a datamined berserker trait on reddit that would give them a breakbar while they were berserking. Was this lost in iteration and replaced with stability from eternal champion?

Part of the reason that I’m concerned is that I beleive that the elite spec blogpost promised a defiance bar through traits, and so far herald has it on shield and tempest has it on earth overload. I don’t think the thief/ranger specs sound very likely to get a defiance bar, but the engineer one possibly could.

What are your thoughts on this?

The reason berserker can keep their old burst system is their compensation for only getting a new offhand. Reaper and DH both get a new two-handed weapon so their mechanic skills are completely changed.

Right now I feel that thief only has favorable matchups against other zerkers, except for ones on a similar or greater level (mesmers) or ones with lots of condi/pressure/cleave (guard, medi or burn). I mean thieves are the primary reason things like fresh air ele and zerker well necro are bad in serious play.

I’d say that the biggest problem is the traits, they don’t really allow the temepst to specialize in anything cohesively great.

Reaper is the master of chill, chronomancer is the master of alacrity (and slow and quickness to a lesser extent) while berserker is the master of burn?

What is tempest the master of? Breaking stun for allies? Auras? Protection? I honestly cannot tell, but protection seems like the obvious choice, its too bad that earthen proxy is a wasted opportunity.

In my opinion the traitline for Tempest needs to be redone overall.

Tier Line 1 should power up auras and shouts for a brawler sustain spec and should fold in aura traits from water/fire/earth/air.

Tier Line 2 should power up protection by increasing overall effectiveness and duration, and giving better and more interesting ways to apply it. Tempest should be able to take those traits to the master of protection.

Tier Line 3 should be more offensive and focus on improving overloads. My biggest issues with the current traits is that there are so many traits that make the overloads less kittenty to use by reducing the drawbacks (harmonious conduits, lucid singularity) but none that make the overloads truly more potent by providing more damage or control or even support from the overloads.

Right now the traits within the Tempest line lack synergy and don’t improve the spec at all, they’re merely bandaids for poorly thought mechanics, mechanics that could be good if the traits were drastically redone and reorganized and improved.

I just hate that most of the other elite specs have a certain boon or condition that comes packed into the specialization, like alacrity for chrono, chill for reaper, and burn for zerker, but tempest doesn’t really get that. The closest thing we get is protection, but its only through one trait (earthen proxy) and we’d need at least 2 more traits in order to be the masters of protection, which is the only thing close that tempest has thats consistent with the other elite specs, but the traits just aren’t there.

Arkimedes.8730:

You have a short memory, apparently.

Celestial builds only became viable when they changed strength runes. Might stacking is what makes celestial runnable at all. Boons are the problem.

also the prepatch cele engi build didn’t focus on mightstacking at all since vamp runes and intell sigils with high condi pressure gave it enough damage to not even need it.

Well the soldier’s elixir build that chaith made works decent with cele with firearms over tools, but its still weaker than prepatch cele because you can’t take tool kit and slick shoes as elixir S is needed to stay alive, and elixir B is needed to build might and have swiftness. Its really not a bad build, but soldiers just deals with focus fire better.

Better Than Tempest

In regards to Tempest traits, I’m sad because they don’t really follow the theme of Robert Gee’s designs, which are basically 3 unique playstyles that fall under the overarching unique playstyle of the elite spec.

In my opinion, Tempest traits fail to do this and are honestly a cluttered and unfocused mess, so that taking Tempest traits actually hurts you compared to taking fire or earth traits.

Line 1 of Tempest traits is focused on shouts/breaking stuns for allies. The gale song proc is marginally useful, but the shout trait is wasted because of shout CDs and the overall ineffectiveness of the non-heal shouts compared to cantrips. Imbued melodies breaks the theme a bit by not having anything to do with shouts, and breaking stuns for allies isn’t the type of useful support that it sounds like, because warhorn cast times make it impossible to break stun on allies before the disable wears off, an ally breaks its own stun, and its overall too difficult to coordinate to be meaningful support.

Line 2 attempts to focus on overall other passive boosts, but it also fails to do this meaningfully. Latent Stamina is quite possible the worst trait I have ever seen. Since the vigor nerf, that amount of vigor is useless and 10% enduarance is far too little to be worth anything. Plus that and heatsync are the ele’s only way of granting vigor to allies. Earthen Proxy is a very good idea, but its overall a wasted concept. The 7% extra damage reduction accomplishes little compared to stone heart (even if facerolled). Lucid Singulairty in this line is so out of place and has nothing to do with the other traits in this line.

Line 3 focuses on auramancy (sort of). Elemental Bastian and unstable conduits open up an actually newish playstyle but there are some problems. Shouts are required to do auramancy effectively, so it would make more sense for tempestuous arias to be in this line as its overall better synergy (harmonious conduits should honstly just be folded into the class baseline).

I instead recommend that we take the chrono/reaper/berserk approach to traits and try to make 3 unique playstyles in each line of the of the elite spec’s trait options. In general, these are that 1 line tries to make a sustainy brawler/bruiser, 1 line focuses on the buff/condition that the spec focuses on (alacrity/chill/burn with the above examples) and line 3 focuses on making something that’s more DPS based in nature to use the typical examples. (some of the liens amongst these different specs are in different orders but you get the picture).

For Tempest:

Line 1: should focus on making a sustainy brawler/bruiser so auras and shouts should be folded into that line, as they provide support through auras and boons while improving overall sustain.

Line 2: should focus on improving the tempest’s specialized buff/condition, which for them is probably protection. Have earthen proxy be here, make it better, and give traits that give extra bonus ways to apply protection to self/allies and have protection apply stability and stuff like that. This would let tempest apply support through mastery of protection.

Line 3: should be a more offensive based line that tries to harness the offensive potential of the overloads. I’d recommend traits that power up overload damage and potency, and maybe something that lets you get the overloads off without being interrupted as easily (moar breakbars plz). Even though tempest wants to do support, it should still allow an offensive playstyle to happen, since we’re trying to summon storms on our opponents.

tl;dr- the Tempest trait’s individual lines are very unfocused and lack synergy at all. We should take the example of Robert Gee’s designs and go with 3 different playstyles represented through tiers of the traitline, one being sustainy/supporty, one focusing on protection, and one focusing on damage, offense and overloads.

Aretak.3826:

Not a fan of his ‘designs’. Chronomancer is Mesmer 2.0, Reaper is Necro 2.0 and now Berserker is Warrior 2.0. It’s more of the same, especially in the case of the Reaper as the core profession is so lacking. With the Berserker everything is in the wrong direction.

To really get use out of the spec you need to be running a condition build. Most of the primal bursts just got changed into a condition focus (burning on greatsword, really?) or made unnecessarily different like Combustive Shot or Earthshaker. The only utility worth using is the elite and maybe the heal as Warrior is a joke without the current meta utilities in PvP, and they don’t do anything for PvE where ‘selfish’ is just another word for useless.

This first round of Elite Specs has been disappointingly unimaginative so far. They don’t change how the professions play and struggle to contend with existing core specialisations. I can only hope the medium armour ones step it up.

I see your point, but at least they offer viable and interesting gameplay through new mechanics, skills, and traits, unlike Tempest and Dragonhunter that might as well go back to the drawing board due to their overall uselessness, despite their creativity.

Basically my point is that Gee is good because he makes viable new specs, while the Non-Gee ones are bad because they’re unviable.

Sparda.9750:

ye, i m curious to see ya
btw, i find a lot of problem fighting renger.. too many cc and after the taunt the minions go completely freak.. they don t attack anymore and stand looking at me like this :\

Rangers are tough to deal with because they have a ton of AoE condi pressure, and while minions can cleanse themselves with necromantic corruption, its tough to outheal it. They usuallydon’t bring the poison trap, so that helps. Overall I win most of my MM necro vs. ranger fights, but its always down to the wire.

The hardest matchup I think is hammer/GS zerk warrior if they’re good, since they can CC the necro into oblivion and cleave the minions down very quickly.

Staff eles are also problematic in teamfights due to meteorshower alone.

Celestial necromancer is a strong build, but its nowherre near the godmode status of cele ele or prepatch cele warrior/engi because it doesn’t take any traits/skills for AoE heals, and it really can’t becuase it requries such a specific combination of traits to have any synergy and effectiveness at all.

You’d pretty much put necromancers back into the post-dhuumfire-nerf days, and necros would be forced to run tanky soldier’s builds that do 0 damage or minion builds to do anything since condi necro is useless and zerker wells is thief food.

Now ask yourself, do you really want that?

Comparing skills across professions isn’t very constructive…. but at least be glad we don’t have something truly useless like “Rebound”!

Honestly its because Karl McLain designed Tempest and Dragonhunter (the baaad specs).

While Robert Gee designed the Reaper/Chronomancer/Berserker that all look great so far. Roy is somewhere in btween them with his work on the revenant but is leaning closer to Robert.

Well, the problem with a lot of meta builds is that some of them (fire D/D ele, and matnra mesmer pre-nerf) are god mode builds. All builds should have some weakness that should be exploitable, not by everything but by some of the things it goes up against.

And overall I think its fine that mesmer in general is weak to conditions (unless it goes inspiration) because there are so many other things that it does well, and the condition weakness can be covered by teammates with AoE cleansing.

In pvp people get concerned about being able to win every 1v1 matchup 100% of the time. A true meta build should both competent and capable 1v1 and in teamfights. Some of the builds that are more OP in 1v1 (trap ranger, MM necro) tend to be extremely weak in teamfights since they take so many utilities for their 1v1 ability that they can be focus fired out of existence in teamfights.

Also as a general note, I haven’t seen much in the way of condi removal in any of the current elite specs, just by looking at the traits by themselves. I think this could be potentially a problematic result of having so many things packed into specializations. For most classes, the healing/sustain line gives condition removal, while the offensive lines are devoid of it. I think its a bit problematic that most classes can’t get condi removal through non sustain/defensive lines (necromancer curses and the cleansing fire proc in fire are examples that come to mind, and those traits are part of the reason that those classes use those offensive lines so effectively).

The elite specializations should ideally be designed to have 3 playstyles (1 in each tier) in each of the 3 traitlines, but not all of them have really captured 3 unique feels to a build that uphold the overarching theme for the elite spec.

For example, Reaper has three lines, the brawler/brusier line (augury, blighter’s boon), the chill debuff line (chill traits) and the untoppable monster movie line (decimate defenses/reaper’s onslaught).

Chronomancer’s lines seem focused on improving clone generation/superspeed, debuffing through slow, and buffing through alacrity-quickness. There are 3 unique approaches.

Other elite specs like tempest have completely failed at this approach. The Tempest traitline is an untterly unfocused mess with no unique playstyles at all, with no meaningful traits.

Rambing aside, berserker seems to follow that theme as well (all hail Robert Gee)

Well in regards to your analysis about mesmer, you leave out the fact that one of the reasons that they were so weak prepatch is because of portal. Its a game changing utility that can make rotations so much better for a team in pvp, and is probably the best tactical skill in conquest in the entire game. It made sense that they were weak fighters, because their utility was so great.

Now I feel that they’re almost in a balanced spot after the nerfs. Its just that PU is slightly too strong as it makes playing mesmer even more forgiving than shadow arts thief.

This might be fun tier, but I tried cleric MM with curses for the cooldown reduction on CC and the weakness spam. Not really sure how great it is since I don’t get any meaningful damage out of it, just more debuff pressure and and the overpowered ability to blind myself!

I think reaper would work better if Rise gives good damage reduction potential and I might use the heal shout traited to have a pretty low cooldown in bigger fights.

I play necro probably 80% of the time, either as a cele signet build (or another variation) a minion build, or a tanky power build. I’ve grown to have pretty high MMR and I regularly face off against ESL players when I queue.

Overall I feel that necro’s weaknesses and strengths vary depending on build. Disengaging is very hard, but taking flesh wurm can make it much easier as long as you use it with foresight (use it before engaging, not during a fight). In fact Nos sometimes uses a variation of his build that take flesh wurm over armor and MoC over PoC with corrupt boon and plague cooldowns, and its much easier to disenegage and counter builds that have more cover boons (like bunker guard).

I’d say minions would be one of the strongest builds if the AI was better, since other than that they just melt to the combo of heavy cleave and CC (staff ele or hammer/GS war). Other than that the build with a cleric setup is really really good.

So wait… you didn’t notice the shoutbow warrior’s immense personal and group condition cleansing during the peak of the cele meta push ALL condition build out of the meta?

The only reason condition classes came back in spvp is because of burning, and well dhuumfire wasn’t really enough to save condi necro’s lack of sustained condition pressure.

If you take SoV, in a spite build would signets of suffering work since it works with blood bond too?

Knighthonor.4061:

And what main hand weapon combo will work off that?

Well theres the sword leap and the axe whirl finish, but I’d say it’s be best to see what Combo finishers the primal bursts bring to the table.

In what way exactly? Honestly, I’ve barely played warrior, but this elite spec looks cool as hell with a lot of neat tools, and Robert Gee has probably the best track record of any balance dev when it comes to elite specs.

This one should suit your needs just fine.

Sigmoid.7082:

ronpierce.2760:

I mailed Gee about that. I really wish VP degeneration rate was baseline. It alone makes build diversity really hard. The rest of the tree is give or take no big deal, still good but not mandatory, but VP in pvp is so hard to not run.

Its for that reason lots of other traits were base baseline so i believe it should be because…i mean is there a single build that doesnt take that one trait?? Literally every build i have seen takes that one trait because of the -50% degen.

Our build diversity would increase tenfold if that trait was made baseline.

Yay ron, VP not being baseline is the biggest problem I have with necro build diversity!

Anyway, the only builds I can think of that don’t use Soul Reaping (for pvp) are Minion builds, and even then they have the option of taking either that or spite, so many run it regardless. I’ve tried making variations of the “meta” cele signet builds that take blood over soul reaping for the extra suport, heals, and the blood bond proc signet, but it just honestly quite sucks without soul reaping, mainly due to the lack of vital persistence.

Sparda.9750:

@bhawb
could u explain better??
what do u mean with: focus iis a noob trap??
and the part about soldier amulet??

i wanna understand better this build because, honestly, is very funny and i feel a rock

Focus is bad because the 5 skill (spinal shivers) while powerful very rarely ever hits anything becuase its cast time is so long, so most people just trait for it in spite with Chill of Death to get it as a passive proc with no cast time.

Soldier amulet makes you more tanky upfront and do more personal damage, but clerics is better since with blood magic traits it lets you heal your minions and keep them alive. Plus you get more sustain through life siphons, and you can heal allies better.

Bhawb with reaper do you think you’d take Unholy Sanctuary or Death Nova? Death Nova seems powerful with Rise, but Unholy Sanctuary also seems really strong with blighter’s boon (if you end up running that).

Dear devs,

Please give all of the overloads breakbars and stun them if the breakbars are broken like revenant shield.

Love,
a sad elementalist.

When the earth one pops you simply have earth attunement go on longer cooldown and you don’t get the immob/blast at the end. don’t quote me on this, but I think the breakbar needed 3 or 4 CCs to break. I’d be 100% fine with breakbars of that level on each overload even if it meant dealing with something like a stun/vuln if it broke, since right now the overloads have the same penalty as earth for being interrupted and they don’t even get breakbars.

Also I have to add that this build has a lack of movement speed due to now warhorn, locust signet, or blood traits that give that as well, which is generally a build turn off for me since I hate being too slow to rotate well, although your chilling victory (this is the new name) usage seems powerful enough.

Yo Jake Demoni, I fought with/against you in ranked several times last night, and I’ll say that you’re lich plays were quite impressive!

I was the necromancer (Near Light) that ran minions, and other random hybrid support experimental builds that sucked a bunch of times, and I was queueing with a burn engi friend whose burns you probably used to kill my team

But yeah, you’re a solid player man! Although wells aren’t really my playstyle at all, as I pretty much take flesh wurm as gtfo button on every build I have.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Arenanet tried to nerf celestial by 10% for the last patch. This failed because they didn’t understand the changes they were making. The amulet got reduced stat advantage but overall a CELESTIAL SPEC got buffed in terms of the percentage stat differential they have over other specs due to the fact that they removed previously equal points from trait lines. So the amulet is now responsible for more stats.

I doubt ele is too good, it is just celestial amulet which gives those specs a 13% gear advantage (it was previously around 12% before the last patch).

You’re so wrong. Celestial is perfectly fine. Ele is the problem because they can have 50% uptime on skills like ring of fire that cause 4K damage in burns every time you walk through it if left uncleansed.

I mean no one complains that cele necros are too strong, and cele engis and cele warriors don’t exist in the meta anymore because of trait changed and the fact that celes defenses on those classes can’t keep up with the thief/mes zerker ammy power creep.

Well now the weapon skills and overloads will be brought into line to be worth losing, but I still have to say that:

1. Rebound will still be a terrible elite skill

2. Traits will still feel very underwhelming in the strength of the benefits they bring.

But I’m glad the strength of the basic effects has been buffed, that is a good start to putting Tempest back on track.

But seriously though, Tempest has some of the worst traits I’ve ever seen in a video game during all of my days. All of the other elite specs had their traits looked at or adjusted to be rebalanced, and since Tempest has arguably the worst traits of any elite spec so far, I am a bit appalled that they weren’t looked at.

Unless of course you use Robert Gee’s reasoning of not wanting to buff too much all at once.

The changes are posted in the sticky above. Basically they gave us sandsquall as a blast finisher, and buffed the damage of a few warhorn skills considerably, buffed the damage of the overlaods considerably, and buffed the heal power scaling of water overload by 400%.

I’ve thought a lot about this as well and I feel like I can weigh in on some of your ideas. I have a hard time dropping spite due to to its ability to power blighter’s boon and I have a hard time dropping soul reaping because of vital persistence (and dhuumfire is straightup better than death perception overall, even on a soldiers build its more DPS). I also do feel that curses is pretty much needed to make a celestial necro build work since you’re dead without permaweakness, but without the mightstacking, I’m still skeptical.

Overall though I’d say this builds is good but the lack of might may be the only biggest issue. I tried a very similar cele build with master of corruption, CC, CB, and Plague, which was decent but the damage was a tad lacking compared to meta necro.

The only other thing I’d suggest is maybe using you’re all weaklings over plague sig, and flesh wurm over spectral armor, should you prefer disenage ability over staying power on a node.

Mesmer was already nerfed, and its probably in a pretty good state of balance now in my opinion. As for ele, I’ve heard from a streamer that was at the WTS that the ele balance dev is on vacation right now, so thats why there hasn’t beenany real balance for eles. Thats also why the tempest beta weekend notes aren’t up yet.

Anyway though I seriously doubt mesmer will be nerfed again. It feels to be relatively well balanced again, and the only thing thats close to over the top is PU, which isn’t that strong in conquest, so I don’t mind too much. Plus Robert Gee is on top of his kitten as a balance dev and probably would have nerfed it by now if he thought it was needed.

TheLastNobody.8319:

I think one of the biggest problems with LF gain is that they treat it like it’s heals, or at least that’s the way it comes across. I honestly think all skills should have a bit of LF generation, with some skills providing an increased amount. Then make it so LF no longer passively degenerates while in DS, and give us unique 6-0 utilities that instead drain LF for benefits. Like 6 cause your DS to defen but in exchange you refill your health pool, and then an elite that gets rid of all your LF for one big attack. 7-8 provide something that benefits both power and Condi. Like with what reaper does.

Yeah I’ve always thought that this would be a much better and more complicated system that would work better in practice.

MM necromancer’s main issue is that the minion AI has problems sometimes. Other than that its not too bad compared to cele signets, even though many higher tier PvP players think of it as a joke build.

Soldiers is often used, but I know bhawb is a firm believer of cleric MM builds that focus on healing minions to keep them alive. Since the new Rise! shout seems cool, I’ll probably get more into minion builds, but I need to test things out.

I’d say that death magic is the most mandatory traitline to take (obviously) but blood magic is strongly recommended for more siphoning and minion-healing. Spite was often picked in the past, and is a good choice for more damage, but soul reaping gives a bit more personal sustain that shouldn’t be overlooked. Reaper will probably be the ideal first traitline if Rise turns out to be powerful.

Akrasia.5469:

What do you think of Nemesis’s latest build?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es1-hqsKcdg

One person commented that he stole half the build from Celestial Sigil but the concept was started pre patch is seems to be a much different type of build. It’s another counter type build and I have a feeling with the success of CS builds that more counter necro builds are going become the standard. We seem to have the tools to counter whatever top build becomes the standard though we probably won’t become the top build any time soon if ever.

That trait spread reminds me of the kittenty crusader build I made a while ago that wasn’t that good (may try a different crus build though). I don’t think its that great though because I think death magic sucks. Unholy santuary is a good trait though, but I don’t see the point of shrouded removal when you can just transfer condis back. To be honest he should have just picked a less useless amulet. Also I think he should have used curses since his build is very corruption heavy skill wise.

Rym.1469:

Bhawb.7408:

nearlight.3064:

@manveruppd, what do you think necros will run when ele gets nerfed? Also I heard from a popular streamer that the ele balance dev is on vacation right now so thats why it hasn’t been nerfed yet… but I guess it will be soon since vacations can’t last forever.

They’ve been on vacation for two years? Man I want to work at ANet.

Side note – I wouldn’t bury Blood Magic Necros. Some traits, like Life from Death, are being incredibly underestimated or considered only with MMancers, while other builds can make great use of these.

Yeah, I’ve been trying soldier’s blood magic with signets and its been doing pretty well in teamfights, but can’t 1v1 very well compared to celestial.

ronpierce.2760:

I’ve messaged Roy a little bit here and there. Celestial would work great if they’d bump the damage from Mace. Currently, mace is a bit like Scepter on Necromancer, where it could be closer to Warrior Sword. Much of the Power related stats on it gets mitigated by low Coefficients, unfortunately. Not to mention, the Burn value on Mace 2 doesn’t quite match up to Ele/Guardian burns. But beyond that, it definitely COULD work.

Here’s to hoping Mace power coefficients get bumped up a little bit to be a better hybrid weapon, while retaining the capability of being a full condition weapon, but not out-class Sword as a primary Power weapon.

That said, I’m almost more excited about Crusader Revenants these days… the synergy is just better there, especially with the newly found evades on sword/Hammer and buffs to Staff. Staff/Hammer or Sword/Shield Hammer Crusader might really work.

(PS: Still bump Power Coefficients on Mace, especially the auto. <3)

Yeah that actually sounds like a good idea with all the boosted fury and crit related boosts the rev traits have to offer, crusader looks viable. Would you run that with maniacal persistence? I’ve tried to make crusader work on necromancer with death perception, but the lack of vitality or my horrid trait spreads kinda killed it for me (I tried a crusader unholy santuary, death percepting minion build…)

And yeah, I looked at the mace auto coefficients and tried not to cringe while writing this. I guess part of the issue is that making a hybrid build from class that relies on swapping stances and weaponsets that are generally considered to be highly specialized is a difficult feat.

What do you guys think about for a celestial revenant (or herald, probably including herald) build for spvp? Knowing how great ele and necro can be with cele stats makes me think that Rev has a lot of potential to follow in their overpowered footsteps!

So generally the success of a celestial build is dependent on many things.

Offensive components of a Cele build:

1. Might Stacking- This is very important so you don’t hit like a wet noodle from celestial stats!

2. Mix of power and condi pressure- To take advantage from the 4 offensive stats you get.

Defensive components of a Cele build:

3. Healing- This is important in order to have high levels of sustain and attrition.

4. Relative ability to tank damage- This is more important than most people realize. Right now cele engi and warrior are out of the meta because their tankiness (and healing to a smaller extent) doesn’t let them tank the crazy bursts that the buffed zerker amulet can put out. Elementalist can outheal it and have a ton of protection, while cele necro has a ton of health with DS and perma weakness to reduce that damage.

So does the Rev/Herald have these 4 tools to make a viable celestial spec?

Lets look at our tools. The Glint facets are basically glorified boonspam which provide many of the boons that other celestial builds are known for pumping out to help sustain and deal damage. Facets of Strength gives might with a relatively long base duration that can further be boosted by runes (probably hoelbrak unless you go mallyx on the side). Additionally you can also gain might from the devastation trait with shiro, the invocation trait when consuming energy below 50% and the jalis trait from retal (probably don’t try that last one). The herald master trait shared empowerment aslo gives a huge amount of might to allies, which is honestly quite insane imo. So herald looks like it will have the tools to have mightstacking capability (as well kitten many other boons).

Now for the split between condi damage and power damage, the revenant has a well balanced choice of a hybridized weapon with mace. Its fire field with echoing eruption can even stack help to stack might! Therefore I predict that mace/shield (or OH axe) will be a viable weaponset for a celestial revenant. Sword/axe (or shield, or sword really) looks like a powerful choice for the other weaponset for higher physical damage and mightstacking with sword 3 (so glad it evades now). So overall the weapon skills look greatly supportive of a cele rev at least offensively. Furthermore, skills like elemental burst help maintain the condi pressure.

Now lets look at the rev’s abilities defensively. Most of the defensive abilities are tied to legend skills. While glint will be a most have for the might stacking mentioned above, it also looks like it will bring a ton of regeneration and protection. The shield gives further regeneration and the crystalline hibernation looks like a powerful extra heal, should it’s breakbar not be depleted (it’ll depend on how easy it is to break). Since rev has 2 heal skills, I’m not too worried about its healing ability.

I’m more concerned about its ability to tank damage, but traits like hardening persistence alleviate my concerns, especially if it can be maintained relatively well through massive energy use! Revenant looks relatively weak to focus fire, but so is necromancer, and traits in other lines look helpful for dealing with that weakness. Overall I think the rev/herald’s ability to tank damage and heal through it will determine its viability as a celestial bruiser build, because the offensive tools are all there.

Off the top of my head, I imagine that some combo of mace/any offhand and sword/antother offhand (probably axe so as to maintain condition pressure when switching) with glint will make for a good celestial spec. The secondary legend will be up to the user to decide, but I think mallyx has the best potential for a secondary legend since it increases your overall condi pressure, utility, and ability to manage condis by a long shot, and facets of nature seems almost meant to be used to stack massive amounts of resistance. And banish enchantment and unyielding anguish are amazing utility skills, which helps as well.

Overall the trait spread I’d chose (note I’m a scrub at this class), would be something like

Glint: (1 or 2), 2, 1
Corruption 1, 3, 3
Whereas the third traitline could be any of the remaining ones to round out the build further.

What do you guys think about this?

Blaine Tog.8304:

Honestly, I really, really wish that the new weapons weren’t tied to elite specializations. I wish we were just getting a new weapon for each Profession as a baseline.

I agree with this so kittening much! While it does generally make sense thematically, it always doesn’t sync well with good build design in practice.

For example, the tempest warhorn is considered to be a weapon with a lot of great skills, and some that need minor tweaks, but no one will ever run it because tempest traits are poop. Or at least they are in their current state.

TheLastNobody.8319:

nearlight.3064:

TheLastNobody.8319:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

And now we get minions that tank for you. I’m happy ^.^

What you talking about Willis?

Look at Robert Geesus’s Reaper Changes from beta feedback thread thats stickied above. Now “Rise!” is instant cast, unblockable, and instead of jagged horror’s, it now summons shambling horrors, which take 50% of the damage you receive to themselves, much like the mesmer skill, illusionary defender.

As for what a shambling horror is, its this:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Shambling_Horror

….permission to squee captain?

Permission granted.

I think it could have some serious potential, since MM necro has been actually quite good these days when played by someone whose not a newb, but MM necro was always kinda weak in teamfights since the minions could be cleaved down while the necro could be focusfired without worry of them using spectral armor or whatnot. Now with rise, they’ll get tons of minion uptime and passive defense in larger fights, which I hope turns out to be good.

It will depend on how much health the shambling horrors have compared to jagged horrors, as they’ll still lose health each second making it more of a teamfight oriented minion skill.

TheLastNobody.8319:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

And now we get minions that tank for you. I’m happy ^.^

What you talking about Willis?

Look at Robert Geesus’s Reaper Changes from beta feedback thread thats stickied above. Now “Rise!” is instant cast, unblockable, and instead of jagged horror’s, it now summons shambling horrors, which take 50% of the damage you receive to themselves, much like the mesmer skill, illusionary defender.

As for what a shambling horror is, its this:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Shambling_Horror

Hahaha well it looks like the rumor I heard (from a streamer that was at WTS) that the reason ele hasn’t been nerfed/balanced is because the ele balance dev is on vacation, is actually true!

At least I offer quantitative evidence to back up my claims unlike your unsubstantiated spouting. While it may be outclassed by offhand dagger, I merely asserted that it was the best part of the speciazliation (or least bad part if you will), but that doesn’t mean its good. Meanwhile, it would seem that most of the ele forum would agree with me.

I don’t think we have to worry about rangers being meta unless D/D ele gets nerfed back into 2013 and Spirit ranger gets restored back to its 2013 state :P

Taldren.7523:

nearlight.3064:

Tempest defense squad, you rang?

Seriously though we all can agree that the warhorn is the best part of the elite sepcialization, as evidenced by the voting thread. And honestly all we really need to make tempest good is to make the overload storms actual storms in their potency and changing traits/skills/mechanics to be overall more impactful, and hopefully with a healthy dose of stability!

No. It isn’t even least bad. That honor goes to Shouts as there are a couple of good ones. Although they still have nothing to do with the Tempest name.

You’re wrong according to this poll, in which the warhorn received the highest rating, although utilities were only a tad lower.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Tempest-BW1-Let-s-Vote/first#post5364184