Guild Wars 2

Iason Evan.3806:

Beldin.5498:

Extreme.8350:

You are not gonna wait around for druid its the second most played class
but everyone tell them to re roll guardian because it sucks but there will be
plenty of healers if it turns out to be meta which you don’t know.

But all those healer suck hard because they run around with bears, no matter
that maybe cats will die in 2 seconds at raids anyway .. but better a dead cat
than a bear

Oh .. and btw. @Iason Evan.3806 : there you have your “stow pet” function .. just let it die ^^

:)

Dude bears (and moas) are going to be the best pets for healing…

Obvious celestial build is obvious

Jordo.5913:

Tempest is getting the short end of the stick

That’s because it sucks. We’ve had a close range support spec for 3 years already. On top of the bad concept, the implementation is also bad to the point where there’s almost no reason to use the spec mechanic. Even the animations look silly.

1 reaper
2 daredevil
3 scrapper
4 druid
5 chronomancer
6 herald
7 berserker
8 dragonhunter
9 tempest

IMO it’s pretty clear that it’s going to be better to have a larger number of dps/support hybrid specs than attempt to have dedicated dps and heal specs. The game just isn’t setup for that.

Yep. I think you’re underestimating mesmer mantra healing

Sylvari, because racial elite is easily the best elite for ele.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Earth Shield will never be usable as long as it has a casttime.

I’d totally use it over armor of earth or arcane shield if it was instant and a stunbreak.

Such a little change could bring so much build diversity, but Arenanet don’t care…

Yep. And you could generalise your comment to say all conjures.

Even if conjures were instant, they would still be a little underpowered because of the high opportunity cost of losing 21 skills to gain 5 fairly mediocre skills.

Specifically for earth shield:

• The leap on earth shield should also be longer.
• The melee-range auto-attack is pointless, should be buffed quite a bit, eg: knockback on the 3rd chain skill.

ScribeTheMad.7614:

scerevisiae.1972:

Well it can’t be worse than Tempest

This is anet handling ranger we’re talking about, the same people who’ve left it a broken mess for 3 years. I’d rant but the topic is too depressing already.

Ele has been no less well handled, we’ve been stuck with the same basic builds for the past 3 years, and then along comes Tempest, which is aa carbon copy of D/D with a few new animations.

Well it can’t be worse than Tempest

I don’t have a problem with making it worthwhile to camp attunements, the problem is that Overloads aren’t worth casting and that Tempest fills the exact same role as D/?

The Great Al.2546:

With the proposed changes to Heat Sync I can’t think of a single reason to take warhorn over OH dagger or focus.

I can’t think of a reason to take tempest at all. It offers nothing we don’t already have. Even worse, anet have almost completely ignored our feedback and is still only twiddling with numbers.

no new role.

feedback totally ignored.

Pregnantman.8259:

It is sad to see that Tempest isn’t that exciting for eles. Adding something that excites a class community can be hard, especially if the said class has almost everything at its disposal already.

Disagree. It is not hard to come up with something genuinely new for Ele, I think they got carried away on the overload idea and forgot to think through Tempest’s role. It doesn’t speak very highly of Anet’s design process TBH.

As for new specs, you alluded to an obvious avenue in your last sentence – a role other than being jack of all trades, ie a spec with NO or little group support is an obvious way to do.

I’m pretty sure a lot of Eles would have been quite happy with a spec that emphasised damage, control, and/or mobility instead of group support and healing.

pmnt.4067:

MadRabbit.3179:

If you use Metabattle as a reference and look at all the builds and their variants across >>PvE<<, PvP and WvW, you end up with the following patterns…

That’s it. The Arcane/Water+Cantrip core is mandatory in PvP and it’s the PvP build hasn’t really changed since release. PvE builds always maxed out fire and took the damage modifiers from the other trait lines (which are currently in Air and Water)

This. If you restrict the discussion to just pvp/wvw the brokenness becomes a bit more obvious.

Ryou.2398:

scerevisiae.1972:

By all means try stuff but the general opinion is that conjures are terrible in pvp/wvw because they’re clunky to use and require you to give up 21 skills to gain 5 mediocre ones.

Well I was mostly talking about pve.

That would have been a good thing to say in your OP…

nearlight.3064:

And Tempest, while it is derivative of base elementalist roles, it attempts to do that while offering a playstyle that isn’t based on attunement swapping, and to me, thats as different as an elite spec can get.

the part about the playstyle being less about attunement swapping is tempest’s only saving grace. the real issue is its role of close range support completely overlaps with existing D/? specs.

Nike.2631:

Karl McLain.5604:

It currently has three pulses and heals for smaller amounts each pulse (skill facts will be visible next beta). Radius is 180, 240, 360. It’s a bit unique in that it heals all allies for the full amount, so long as they receive all three heals (the ele always receives all three).

While a cool concept, it’s probably a good idea to have a certain amount of uniformity amongst skills sharing the ‘shout’ tag. Would you consider 200/400/600 as most beneficial shouts have a 600 radius?

Agrèe. Why not make WTPA a consistent 600 range like all the other shouts and downscale the healing based on lineal distance from the Ele?

By all means try stuff but the general opinion is that conjures are terrible in pvp/wvw because they’re clunky to use and require you to give up 21 skills to gain 5 mediocre ones.

Bandit.8279:

It’s Looking Better

Still same role

So basically no changes other than simple numerical tweaks. I thought it was blatantly obvious that the primary issues with Tempest were lack of new role, and opportunity cost of overloads, and yet you’ve completely ignored the former and only slightly addressed the latter.

Soilder.3607:

Devourers for me. Have never once tried to seriously use them because they’re just bad.

In regards to moa’s, the black and pink one can be surprisingly good with taunt. Taunts their enemy right into a 2s daze. It can also hit up to five targets provided they’re in range of the shriek.

The introduction of taunt is probably one of the best things to happen to the ranger class. It allows a lot of f2’s that would previously never land to be reliable. Still, we shouldn’t have to waste a grandmaster to have our class mechanic function as it already should.

Quoting with emphasis. I think ranger pets are just done so poorly in this game, you could basically say every pet that isn’t a wolf or jaguar is bad in some way.

Darkness.9732:

Tentonhammer got the point .
ranger has so many problems…why anet doesn’ t solve em?

Because B2P model. They already have your money, so they don’t really care anymore.

Agree it’s a pretty weak trait, especially nestled among 2 virtually mandatory condi removal traits. I think +50% on poison plus some kind of limited condi transfer from ranger to target might bring it up to par.

zebbers.6139:

Tempest is a different feel .

Tempest is a different feel alright – it feels bad being stuck in a silly-looking animation for up to 5sec achieving almost nothing while your opponent casually DPSes you into the dirt.

you need to play with P/P a fair bit first, then after that it’ll be hard enough for you to unload in someone’s face.

wow, censorship. that is a new low.

have a look at the author’s other articles, he has tons. there’s no way he’d pull his own article unless asked by senior management.

Nike.2631:

scerevisiae.1972:

I’d be very happy if tempest lost all its support, as would many other ele mains. It’s a large part of the reason why tempest is so hated.

And I think it’s blatantly obvious the Devs would like to see less absolute domination of DPS (with and without team synergy) over all other possible roles tackling the content. Churning out more DPS-heavy build options isn’t going to make that happen.

Doesn’t have to be replaced with just deeps, personally I’d like to see tempest become more about movement and control through aoe storms/fields.

Ganathar.4956:

scerevisiae.1972:

The main problem is not that druid and forge are the last specs to be revealed. The issue here is that they will only get one BWE to provide feedback to fix any possible issues and there is no time to change much until launch. I doubt that even all of the already tested specs will release in a good state, especially the dragonhunter and the tempest, which were available from the first beta weekend.

This does not bode well for the druid and the forge, as they need to be in a good state from the start or they won’t be fixed by release. I believe that there should have been a much larger beta test for the elite specs, but the time for that has passed. It would be a shame if rangers got the short end of the stick once again, so I really hope that the druid is worthwhile.

You are smoking crack if you think Tempest is in a good state. 90%+ of the ele community hates it.

Agree though it would be totally unfair if both druid and forge weren’t revealed by BWE3. It’s kind of unfair that other specs have already had 2 weekends of play/refinement.

Re-read my statement, I said that I doubt that tempest and DH will be released in a good state. This means that I believe they will be bad at launch.

Yep i see that now, my apologies.

Seeinf as there’s only 2 profs left, maybe they’re skipping the teaser as it’d be too obvious now and instead will surprise us by just showing forge/druid? Would certainly be unfair if they weren’t in BWE3….

The main problem is not that druid and forge are the last specs to be revealed. The issue here is that they will only get one BWE to provide feedback to fix any possible issues and there is no time to change much until launch. I doubt that even all of the already tested specs will release in a good state, especially the dragonhunter and the tempest, which were available from the first beta weekend.

This does not bode well for the druid and the forge, as they need to be in a good state from the start or they won’t be fixed by release. I believe that there should have been a much larger beta test for the elite specs, but the time for that has passed. It would be a shame if rangers got the short end of the stick once again, so I really hope that the druid is worthwhile.

You are smoking crack if you think Tempest is in a good state. 90%+ of the ele community hates it.

Agree though it would be totally unfair if both druid and forge weren’t revealed by BWE3. It’s kind of unfair that other specs have already had 2 weekends of play/refinement.

Zenith.7301:

Random.4691:

I wonder if Anet is seeing the pattern, it seems many are very disappointed with Dragonhunter and Tempest.

It’s not like guardian and ele need any help. They’re by far the supreme classes of this game, being the backbone of any group in EVERY SINGLE GAME FORMAT.

If power creep is gonna come to these specializations, they’ll need to nerf the base classes.

I’d be very happy if tempest lost all its support, as would many other ele mains. It’s a large part of the reason why tempest is so hated.

Conncept.7638:

The entire elementalist community.

This. Tempest is just a copy/paste of D/D with new animations and an unusable spec mechanic.

tostadude.9214:

tempest is the dude in the middle of the zerg or team, supporting through heals and boons.

therefore he should be mid/close range

that’s what D/D and D/F already do, very well. thing is, we’ve all been doing it already for 3 years.

noone wants a copy/paste with a few new animations, we need something new.

they can’t not do anything after the near-100% negative reaction after BWE1, they would just look ridiculous. There are a number of things they could tweak to differentiate Tempest from being just another version of D/D… i’m semi-hopeful.

The real question is what on Earth gave them the idea that copying the close range support role of D/D combined with slow, easily interrupted overloads with crappy effects were ever a good idea?

Imagine how much work and $$$ could have been saved by releasing a video preview of the spec months ago to gather feedback?

Wtf. It can be whatever it’s designed to be. Ele currently only has 1 real ranged weapon – even sceptre is effectively close range. A tempest casting ranged storm aoes makes perfect sense.

You must be new to gw2, or are pve only. No way are you ever going to overload versus decent players without getting interrupted or simply avoided. the 20 cd on interrupt also usually means you’re dead.

It’s a really horrible mechanic in current form, worse than ranger’s pet, and that’s saying something.

The last thing i wanted was another close range support role, so tempest literally could not have been worse in my view.

Bad concept, bad implementation.

I would have liked a highly mobile ranged control oriented caster with minimal support, that could have made a decent alternative to staff in wvw.

When i think of tempest, I think aoe storms/fields, traveling across the battlefield, wreaking havoc. Ie something you cast at point blank range but then travels forwards in a line.

Needs role differentiation

the overloads are mostly ineffectual even if they are not interrupted – just walk away a short distance and apply ranged damage while the Ele sits there like a target dummy.

Elite spec isn’t supposed to mean stronger.

Agree with all that. Now if they could just make tempest not suck/play just like a D/D ele that’d be great. They really screwed the pooch on that one.

Sounds good to me, the pve in this game is way too easy. I think it’s mainly a problem of crappy AI, not damage per se.

Kashrlyyk.5364:

Release date is Oct. 23rd. So ANet has decided that Tempest is an awesome spec and only needs some minor number tweaks.

So I am not going to waste the BWEs with providing feedback since it will just be ignored anyway.

Please do provide feedback. Silence will be taken to mean “tempest = awesome because we fiddled with a couple of numbers”

incoming BWE2 QQ

only 1 thing required IMO – make overloads work at range.

1) make overloads cast storms that appear at the caster, and travel across the battlefield up to 900/1200 range so they work with all Ele weapons.
2) make the traits interesting
3) replace the elite

Taldren.7523:

Also, what the hell does anything the Tempest do have to do with the name Tempest?

A point that should be brought up a bit more often actually. Tempest implies storms, but currently the only “storminess” is the fire overload, and we all know how much overloads suck.

guys, post in the BWE feedback thread.

I think the biggest problems are 1) the overloads, and 2) the lack of new role.

Overloads
I just don’t see them ever working at point-blank range with such long cast times and punitive CD lockout.

I feel the best solution to all the problems with overloads is to make them cast at point-blank range but make the resulting storm/effect move in the direction of the cast up to 900-1200 range (perhaps creating moving fire/water/lightning fields). Keep the earth overload point-blank because it has the prot + defiance.

This change would make Overloads useful with any weapon, and keeps them as powerful but risky-to-cast effects, with a nice range of risk vs reward depending on whether the caster attempts to cast in close range or from a distance (where they’re much easier to avoid).

Role
Tempest is way too much like current D/?, it’s that simple.

Ranged overloads (as suggested above) makes Tempest more like a mid-range brawler, which IMO would be a step in the right direction.

Closing remarks, it’s hard to see myself ever slotting any of the shouts over another cantrip.

All the other stuff is readily solvable with number tweaks. For me it’s the fundamental role and spec mechanic that are broken.

myself.2143:

Just take tempest and fire specs, equip a staff and condition gear, and watch the world burn.

why do that? there’s nothing in the Tempest line that benefits you there, you’re better off with the standard fire/water/arcane line.

It would be nice if there was some upside to the Tempest, but there isn’t. It’s a slightly different version of D/D with a handful of new animations that fills the exact same role as D/D has for the past 3 years.

That’s before we even get into how bad the Overloads are.

It’s terrible.