Showing Posts For thetwothousand.5049:
Slap a 10s ICD on the new Deathly Chill in sPVP so it doesn’t go bananas and things are looking pretty good for Reaper.
I hope they’ll don’t do it: even 2sec icd would destroy the means of the ice-whirl
ehh either that or rentroduce the condi cap but one of 2 things needs to happen
They where talking about turning DC into a PI type power attack nothing to do with condis.
Also this isn’t WvW. Please take your necro salt to the appropriate subforum.
what salt? And yes makin git like PI could deff make power reaper more viable but it would kill the condi build at the spot
Which is a good thing. The only reason condi reaper is good is because of that one trait, and Reaper is not suppose to be a condi spec! Its crazy to think they will not make a new condi elite spec, so there is no way they’ll keep a competitive condi reaper build around that only works because of one trait.
By making Deathly Chill direct damage we’ll get some actual purity of purpose, and give a badly needed buff to PvE power necro.
I was thinking about this the other day, and I really think the answer to making Power Reaper viable is Deathly Chill.
Now bear with me, there are really two problems with Reaper as a spec. The first is it was explicitly designed as a power dps spec and is horrible at it. The second is that its actually a really competitive condi line, solely because of Deathly Chill. This is a problem because someday, and if leaks are to be believed its going to be soon, anet will want to make a condi based elite spec for necro. When that happens the very first thing that will happen is Deathly Chill getting nerfed to hell-trash, they cant have an old spec being competitive with what the new spec is trying to do.
So instead of just nerfing Deathly Chill so Reaper isn’t competing in something its not suppose to be good at, lets change it. Tackle both problems at the same time by switching Deathly Chill from stacking bleeds on chill to direct damage on chill, similar to Pulmonary Impact. This gives power Reaper an actually useful GM trait in pve, will do a lot to bring up the DPS of greatsword and power shroud, and frees up space to bring Blood Magic for utility/wells. Slap a 10s ICD on the new Deathly Chill in sPVP so it doesn’t go bananas and things are looking pretty good for Reaper.
I’m really excited now with how the Tempest is looking, it is so close to the place it needs to be. I only have a few more changes to suggest for it.
First Harmonious Conduit, this trait brought some game changing buffs to the spec but really needs to be dissected and rearranged . I love that Tempest finally has a damage modifier, and i like the style but i am wary on how well it plays with staff builds. I have thoughts on that below. The buff should also last longer, probably in the 10 second range.
The stability portion needs to be moved though, to either a minor trait or made base line. Otherwise no other trait in the line will ever be taken. It could probably stand to have a second stack of stability as well. I would bring back the CD reduction part of the trait because of how well it plays with the modifier, but move it to GM level in place of Lucid Singularity where its power is more competitive and appropriate.
I want to bring up my feed back for Earthen Proxy again, just for visibilities sake. I think the best course would be to change it to a EA/Spotter/Strength in Numbers type trait, the produces an aura in combat that increases protections effect by 20%. This is obviously dependent on the technology being there, but that would provide a good, unique team buff that isn’t too strong.
Overloads are finally great feeling when completed. It still takes too long for them to become available though, it really needs to be 2 seconds. My other big thought is Fire overloads. Right now it is both redundant as a power based damage skill, were Air handles that role much better, and plays way too well with the meta staff build with Harmonious Conduits buff, and Piercing Shards indirect nerf from the IB fallout. I would suggest dropping the physical damage either entirely or very severally, and up the burning stacks and/or duration. This will give Fresh Air Tempests the chance to breath (ba-dum tish) alongside staff builds in pve, and give condi builds a new avenue for effectiveness.
For skills, small stuff. The casting times on Earth and Water shouts should be removed, they are too punishing. Water globe should really travel on the ele, or at least much slower. I think giving it a small amount of regen per pulse would be good too, to open Tempest synergy with Cleansing Water and give it more condi removal options. Lightning Orb still needs a huge damage buff, it is still bad at its only job. Lastly, Heat Sync needs to be left alone. It is the most fun and unique skill warhorn has, and limiting it to might spreading will reduce it to being a terrible blast finisher. If a nerf really needs to happen, then it should be moved to the 5th spot and given a much larger cool down.
All told the Tempest has come a long way since its reveal. These last few nudges and I will be ready to change my Elementalist into a Tempest on release day.
A little more feedback given based on recent changes to warhorn:
- Imbued melodies offering CDR of 20% is probably too much when stacked with aquamancer’s alacrity. Tidal surge is better than cleansing wave (dagger 5), having the same healing, a condi cleanse from regen, AND a knockback on just a 0.25s cast time. A water field every 16s (water globe) that I can blast always 2 and usually 3 times is OP. With that, every 16s I can full heal with water swap + water dodge + water 4 (to heal AND CC to cover my heals) + water 5—> water 3 (blast)—> earth dodge (blast)—> earth 4 (blast).
- With a 16s water-field, this is one of the only times overloading water would be regularly worth it, as you don’ t mind needing to wait ~16s to get back to water (notice how, b/c they do the same thing, overloads only become viable when mathematically superior, making them just part of a rotation).
-Sadly, without a low-CD water field, I can’t see myself using warhorn over dagger or focus, but with that its just OP.
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I made a suggestion above that Imbued Melodies should get a 10% damage mod while wielding a warhorn, and when i made it I was not aware of the new CD reduction on the trait. I just wanted to re-visit that idea and note that with the CD stacking traits some skills are going to be close to unbalance-able (I agree with you especially on the water traits). I still think the % mod is the way to go with this trait in place of the CD reduction, for the same reasons I made in my last post.
Hi all!
Thanks for your continued feedback on the Tempest. If possible, let’s compile all feedback into this thread.
-Karl
A dev response! This is so exciting. I have been able to play around in the beta this time and I definitely think it’s stronger, but still needs the core issues looked at. The rework of rebound was a main one, and I really like the version you posted. That is something I look forward to playing around with. I also like the addition of mag aura to squall.
But on to the feed back. Numbers feel better from the last BWE. Overload effects now have a noticeable effect if (which is a big if and i’ll come back to in a min) they get off, so do warhorn. Lightning Orb still feels weak for a #5 skill focused solely on damage. Either utility, like the teleport from air pocket, or another big damage buff would do it. Either of those tune ups, plus the aura addition will leave Warhorn in a great place to compete with dagger and focus.
Now changes that still need to happen for Tempest – Overloads and traits.
Overloads – They are still too weak, and take too long to unlock. Maybe 2 secs post swap for overloads instead of 5. A completed channel feels rewarding, but you will never ever complete them. Every single time I tried to channel in pvp I was interrupted. Overloads have a lot of Tempests defense and power baked into them, and playing the spec without overloads is gimping yourself, and losing out on a major reason to play Tempest. My answer is baseline break bars for each attunement.
1. The standard has already been set with Earth. Having the other specs protected by something else, like stability or evasion, would be weird.
2. Break bars are thematically and balance appropriate for the skills. Big spells with big defenses, that can still be individually balanced around the desired risk and reward for each overload.
3. Base line not traited. Having to trait the ability to even use overloads is bad game play design, and no other competing trait would ever be used.
Traits – Overloads are what’s holding Tempest back in pvp/wvw, traits are what’s holding it back in pve. I think three major traits need to change and it would put non-staff using tempests into the game.
1. Add a 10% damage modifier to Unstable Conduit while under the effects of an aura. A d/w tempest can keep this buff up frequently, but not permanently, and a staff build really can’t at all.
2. Add a 10% damage modifier to Imbued Melodies while wielding a warhorn. A d/w build tempest gets this all the time, a staff build never has it.
3. Change Earthen Proxy to an Empowered Allies type buff with the current effect on protection. Right now its boring, and isn’t really worth taking. But make it a party buff, that combined with the above damage boosts, will put Fresh Air d/w builds at the same dps level as warrior or ranger with desirable unique utility. At the same time these buffs are not beneficial to the standard staff rotation, damage, or utility so power creep to one of the best pve builds is avoided.
Right now Tempest is a neat line, but does not have a place in pvp or pve and will never be taken as anything other than a fun open world spec. I do strongly believe though that implementing the suggestions I just made will develop the roles Tempest needs, with out overpowering the base class.
I don’t understand why we can’t get away from support and get better melee support with in the spec. Look at the traits that the other specializations have gotten, they all have choices for different roles. Hell look at the new berserker traits, three lines within the traitline for three different yet complementary roles. Compare that to tempest’s 9 support, but not too much support, traits and i wonder why it can’t have multiple roles too.
This is the first chance to look at this thread, and I was skeptical go in to it. But I love all the ideas here, and wish it was something coming down the pipe line. The new mechanic has interesting useful effects, traits are good but not op and have synergy with other trait lines. And it has freaking sword with good skills. I even like the stances you cooked up, and I normally wave off any influence from the warrior class. Its honestly a shame that a player thought this up, because it pretty much guarantees that not only will it not be used as a base for the next specialization, but the exact opposite will be thrown together by the devs.
It might be too easy to get the cast off, but it’d definitely sound like a Grandmaster trait (meaning the other 2 GMs would have to match its usefulness, hopefully). I wouldn’t mind a trait like one of the above posters that gave you stronger effects from casting the attunement’s spells as another GM trait that then makes you choose between stronger overloads, more reliable overloads and [some other option…more/faster overloads maybe?].
That’s what I like about the break bars. Anet can adjust how much punishment it takes,and they can also change the effects on a successful break. Look at revenant shield 5, once it breaks you are stunned for 2 seconds and have 25 stacks of vuln. That is a death sentence if you use it wrong.
The thing is, overloads don’t do anything the elementalist cant already do. So even if you make it so that overloads are not too hard to pull off, it’s just going to do what the ele can already do in another manner.
The elementalist need the overloads to do something new, like new boons and condi, example: revive allies on water overload instead of more cleanse and healing.
At the end of the day there are a finite amount of ways skills can work in a game. My biggest fear with what your asking in role dilution. How long until every class can do everything and theres no reason to have any diversity at all?
Beyond that somethings, like the water overload converting condis to boons, are useful, new, and probably doable before the game launches. Asking for brand new, custom effects is simply an unrealistic approach at this point. Tempest won’t bring a new role without redeveloping it, but the tools are still there to make old fresh air specs viable again, and put a new spin of classic d/d builds. This is all personal opinion of course, but at this point I just want Tempest to be something decent for HoT, and hope they don’t mess up our next spec so spectacularly.
That’s why they need to introduce new mechanics to the game.
They introduced Slow, Alacrity, Float, and now Reaper has a new minion with a mechanic from Gw1 called Dark Bond.They can’t add stuff just for one specialization? Just in case someone thinks they can’t, I have a quote from the Chronomancer article when it talks about Alacrity: “Chronomancy is the only specialization allowed access to this powerful effect”
There’s simply no excuse. Yes, at this point it’s unlikely to get new things, but that doesn’t excuse the lack of thought that initially went into the Tempest.It’s not that they can’t ever, its that at this stage it is probably kitten well near impossible. The fixes we saw to Chrono and Reaper were mostly numbers fixes. The example that you brought up about Reapers isn’t even that fresh. Mechanically we’ve known that a new minion was likely to happen since the Reaper PoI, and the damage reduction is a mechanic necro and mesmer both have.
We knew they might change the minion to something else, not that we’d get a brand new one and the Dark Bond mechanic isn’t in either of the classes…
That wasn’t just a number fix.Regardless, I gave suggestions a long time ago that were mostly just numbers, but would also change-up Overloads to not compete with D/D Cele Ele and be far more useful for Scepter/Staff Eles and a lot of other people gave suggestions too to tons of stuff. None of it was even considered it seems <—- Hence the guilting of the devs.
Do note: No one is asking for an instant mechanic change, but an acknowledgement of ANY mechanic change would calm down most people. The lack of any consideration is incredibly frustrating, especially for Elementalists who’ve been here for years.
I was wrong that Necro doesn’t currently have a trait like dark bond, but it still functions exactly like mesmer’s Phantasmal Defender, meaning the tech was already in place to work with. And that’s my over all point in this argument.
I am not defending the current status of Tempest, I still think it needs a lot of work on the overloads, traits, and elite to be viable any where at all in the game. But asking for brand new mechanics or conditions or boons to be made now isn’t going to happen, and asking for it is silly. Looking at mechanics that have been partially implemented (break bars on attunements, some shouts missing auras) and traits that will expand its role and viability (damage mods and reduced casting times) are what should be the focus of discussion is what I am saying.
As a finale note I agree with you 100% that the way the BWE feedback results were communicated to us was done terribly. For what ever reason it seems Karl is out of the office atm, and until he is back any of the heavy duty changes that will need to occur are on hold. That is an understandable situation and if that had been communicated to us directly from the get go, instead of a list of number tweaks that were made to look like the sum of the taken feedback, about half the salt of this thread wouldn’t have happened.
It might be too easy to get the cast off, but it’d definitely sound like a Grandmaster trait (meaning the other 2 GMs would have to match its usefulness, hopefully). I wouldn’t mind a trait like one of the above posters that gave you stronger effects from casting the attunement’s spells as another GM trait that then makes you choose between stronger overloads, more reliable overloads and [some other option…more/faster overloads maybe?].
That’s what I like about the break bars. Anet can adjust how much punishment it takes,and they can also change the effects on a successful break. Look at revenant shield 5, once it breaks you are stunned for 2 seconds and have 25 stacks of vuln. That is a death sentence if you use it wrong.
The thing is, overloads don’t do anything the elementalist cant already do. So even if you make it so that overloads are not too hard to pull off, it’s just going to do what the ele can already do in another manner.
The elementalist need the overloads to do something new, like new boons and condi, example: revive allies on water overload instead of more cleanse and healing.
At the end of the day there are a finite amount of ways skills can work in a game. My biggest fear with what your asking in role dilution. How long until every class can do everything and theres no reason to have any diversity at all?
Beyond that somethings, like the water overload converting condis to boons, are useful, new, and probably doable before the game launches. Asking for brand new, custom effects is simply an unrealistic approach at this point. Tempest won’t bring a new role without redeveloping it, but the tools are still there to make old fresh air specs viable again, and put a new spin of classic d/d builds. This is all personal opinion of course, but at this point I just want Tempest to be something decent for HoT, and hope they don’t mess up our next spec so spectacularly.
That’s why they need to introduce new mechanics to the game.
They introduced Slow, Alacrity, Float, and now Reaper has a new minion with a mechanic from Gw1 called Dark Bond.They can’t add stuff just for one specialization? Just in case someone thinks they can’t, I have a quote from the Chronomancer article when it talks about Alacrity: “Chronomancy is the only specialization allowed access to this powerful effect”
There’s simply no excuse. Yes, at this point it’s unlikely to get new things, but that doesn’t excuse the lack of thought that initially went into the Tempest.
It’s not that they can’t ever, its that at this stage it is probably kitten well near impossible. The fixes we saw to Chrono and Reaper were mostly numbers fixes. The example that you brought up about Reapers isn’t even that fresh. Mechanically we’ve known that a new minion was likely to happen since the Reaper PoI, and the damage reduction is a mechanic necro and mesmer both have.
Giving feedback that might actually happen, that will improve the spec and make it usable is more important to me right now than continually guilt tripping devs. There will be plenty of time for that before the next specializations launch when we can focus on why the Tempest flopped the way it did and what should be focused on for the next one.
It might be too easy to get the cast off, but it’d definitely sound like a Grandmaster trait (meaning the other 2 GMs would have to match its usefulness, hopefully). I wouldn’t mind a trait like one of the above posters that gave you stronger effects from casting the attunement’s spells as another GM trait that then makes you choose between stronger overloads, more reliable overloads and [some other option…more/faster overloads maybe?].
That’s what I like about the break bars. Anet can adjust how much punishment it takes,and they can also change the effects on a successful break. Look at revenant shield 5, once it breaks you are stunned for 2 seconds and have 25 stacks of vuln. That is a death sentence if you use it wrong.
The thing is, overloads don’t do anything the elementalist cant already do. So even if you make it so that overloads are not too hard to pull off, it’s just going to do what the ele can already do in another manner.
The elementalist need the overloads to do something new, like new boons and condi, example: revive allies on water overload instead of more cleanse and healing.
At the end of the day there are a finite amount of ways skills can work in a game. My biggest fear with what your asking in role dilution. How long until every class can do everything and theres no reason to have any diversity at all?
Beyond that somethings, like the water overload converting condis to boons, are useful, new, and probably doable before the game launches. Asking for brand new, custom effects is simply an unrealistic approach at this point. Tempest won’t bring a new role without redeveloping it, but the tools are still there to make old fresh air specs viable again, and put a new spin of classic d/d builds. This is all personal opinion of course, but at this point I just want Tempest to be something decent for HoT, and hope they don’t mess up our next spec so spectacularly.
It might be too easy to get the cast off, but it’d definitely sound like a Grandmaster trait (meaning the other 2 GMs would have to match its usefulness, hopefully). I wouldn’t mind a trait like one of the above posters that gave you stronger effects from casting the attunement’s spells as another GM trait that then makes you choose between stronger overloads, more reliable overloads and [some other option…more/faster overloads maybe?].
That’s what I like about the break bars. Anet can adjust how much punishment it takes,and they can also change the effects on a successful break. Look at revenant shield 5, once it breaks you are stunned for 2 seconds and have 25 stacks of vuln. That is a death sentence if you use it wrong.
I also really don’t agree with making a break bar/stability trait. The biggest draw back of overloads, and the Tempest spec, is that they are useless because you will never ever get one off in serious play currently. Making the solution be a trait will 100% lock any Tempest into that trait regardless of what the other options are, and I don’t think Arenanet should be designing of that nature. Overloads becoming viable skills are going to make or break the Tempest spec, and making each overload usable regardless of trait layout is going to be the litmus test imo.
Dear devs,
Please give all of the overloads breakbars and stun them if the breakbars are broken like revenant shield.
Love,
a sad elementalist.
I’ve been advocating for this since the original PoI reveal. The break bar is such a natural defense to the overcast mechanic, that feels thematically appropriate, and retains a good risk-reward ratio. Now that the damage/heals of the spells have been adjusted that’s really all that needs to happen at for overloads specifically to be usable abilities. I think adding a decrease to the unlock timer to the Harmonious Conduits trait would be good too.
I still dont see the big desire for melee cleave. I mean what difference does it make if all your attunements have an auto attack that does the same thing but with different graphics and just having 1 or 2 attunemments with cleave autos and use the others for different functions?
For me at least, its a desire to minimize attunement camping. Obviously swapping attunement’s is currently, and should be, the basis of ele rotations but right now the goal is always to manage CDs to end up in the spec that give you your best auto. With staff unless you are in water for heals/IB burst you stay in fire for the auto. Same with scep/dagger builds but with air. If sword, or any new main hand weapon, came with good equalized autos across all four attunements the rotation would play to the strengths of our CD skills not the auto, like every other profession.
Eles don’t really need another melee set. The class needs a weapon with both range and melee. If you get a full melee oriented weapon skill set with sword, you’ll just complain about lack of range versatility due to lack of weapon swap and skill design in general.
On topic: By his wording on the Guardian forum’s post I thought the write up was going to take a few more minutes, not days. Oh well, take your time Karl (or whoever), I guess.
You quoted me
Its nice that you think you know my views %100. But no I don’t particularly think ele needs better versatility in regards to range right now. Staff is the most viable weapon the ele has across game modes and has a 1200 range that still works great at melee range. And while I agree that someday getting a weapon that splits range and melee between the attunments will be an awesome and unique addition I think that needs to be a 2-hand weapon, something that definitely won’t come from Tempest.
I stand completely by my stance that sword was and still should be the right weapon for Tempest and will open up new game play the way only a main hand weapon can.
Well… yeah, I know what you mean, but it’s a matter of play-tyles, not entirely of what it’s affective at some particular range. Let it be sword, a two hander, whatever, as long as the skill set is worth it.
What I would love to see happen actually is the first patch post HoT release be the type of patch WoW releases. New stuff for the classes, a new instance of challenging content, new pvp rewards ext. Only instead of new specs each class gets one of 3 brand new 2-hand weapons. Bring out the two biggest fans requests, great ax and land spears, and then crossbows or something. Give ele a spear with Fire and Water skills being ranged, and Air and Earth being the melee ones. Give it some sweet animations like what Revenant got with its staff skills, it’d be awesome.
Eles don’t really need another melee set. The class needs a weapon with both range and melee. If you get a full melee oriented weapon skill set with sword, you’ll just complain about lack of range versatility due to lack of weapon swap and skill design in general.
On topic: By his wording on the Guardian forum’s post I thought the write up was going to take a few more minutes, not days. Oh well, take your time Karl (or whoever), I guess.
Its nice that you think you know my views %100. But no I don’t particularly think ele needs better versatility in regards to range right now. Staff is the most viable weapon the ele has across game modes and has a 1200 range that still works great at melee range. And while I agree that someday getting a weapon that splits range and melee between the attunments will be an awesome and unique addition I think that needs to be a 2-hand weapon, something that definitely won’t come from Tempest.
I stand completely by my stance that sword was and still should be the right weapon for Tempest and will open up new game play the way only a main hand weapon can.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. It’s almost as like the Tempest was designed with the sword in mind (or vice versa) but for some reason they decided to go with Warhorn/shouts instead.
It totally was, those sword skills didn’t get data mined out of no where. Everything about the Tempest screams melee range dps’er that got “revisioned” 4 weeks before the war horn got leaked. Hell just compare the warhorn skin to nerco’s great sword. Nowhere near the same level of quality, the warhorn looks like it got slapped together in a day.
If I’ll be perfectly honest my Timbuktu scale wish for the incoming Tempest changes is that the sword comes back, with the warhorn skills. The autos for sword are already designed, we saw from the data mining, and warhorn skills would just be 2 and 3 for each attunment. Then its really just changing coefficients and recharges to fit their new slot on the skill bar and sword is ready to go. Through a 10% mod trait for sword wielders at the master level and a 10% mod to the adept aura trait and its good to go. Add break bars to fire, water, air, some coefficient ticking and overloads are good to go too. Bring focus for the defense it would need to last in pvp vs thief’s and dagger for pve specs and the Tempest spec that the majority was anticipating and excited for is ready to go.
I know it will never happen, and I know its probably a lot harder to design than what I make it out to be, but I really wish it would.
I don´t think a global burn nerf by reducing damage would have much impact on d/d eles. Especially in higer tier play. Maybe its enough. but it won´t solve any build diversity problems and still only leave d/d meta with water + cantrips left. It would also have a slight negative impact on many other ele builds where burn is secondary damage.
Its impact on other builds is unimportant – a global burn damage nerf is going to happen because it is the single most powerful condition in the game right now. Condi builds viability is judged on how good their burn application is, not on the variety on condis anymore.
As for diversity, again burning damage nerfs won’t magically solve that true, but neither will just destroying ele sustain. Its like you didn’t read my first post – we have already seen what happens when ele sustain is nerfed. The class completely disappears from the competition. Culling the strong builds does not enable the weak builds it just culls classes. Buffs to the weak parts of the class (burst, dedicated condi) need to happen for diversity to truly exist.
I am against virtually every suggestion that has been made in this thread. Every single idea on how to “check” ele’s sustain brings me back to the dhuumfire patch in 2013, when ele went from having a good spvp d/d build to being literally unplayable in pvp for over a year. The sustain nerfs that are being suggested here remind me a lot of the nerfs that happened then, and trust me no one should want ele to be back in that sad state. And i think it bears mention, again, that cele d/d is a bunker/sustain build. It is suppose to be able to manage and survive 2v1s until help can show up. Not getting destroyed doesn’t mean its OP, but its doing the job its suppose to do.
As for the fire skill suggestions, again, hold your horses people. Everyone agrees that burning is too strong, but that is case singularly of the damage formula rework that happened in June. It is a noted problem on every profession, on every board and will see a balance hit soon. Until we see the affects of burnings reduced damage calling for nerfs to fire skills is too much too soon.
I am 110% against this. What you are suggesting would break the ele class in pvp entirely, and with no actual suggested buffs to make it worthwhile. If Tempest is bad, which it is, it needs to be buffed reasonably, and there are tons of suggestions on this forum, not breaking the things about ele that sort of make it work as is now.
It just makes no sense to me people that want to buff ele. Every single time, from the devs to random forum goers, the “buffs” start with class breaking nerfs to water or arcane. That is not a viable way to balance classes, no other class get that treatment, and it should not still be happening 3 years into the games life cycle.
No he swapped from cele to marauder. I noticed it as well.
Well that just makes the damage from fire overloads and lightning orb even more pathetic. When skills designed to inflict damage are barely overcoming the damage of retribution with a marauder amulet equip they need to be seriously buffed.
Does anyone notice that Grouch was playing with Marauder Amulet?
I only watched the first match but I was positive he put on the marauder but swapped and actually used a celestial amulet in the match. Which in and of itself just means that cele eles are really good, not that tempest is all that great.
Without rehashing to much, overloads still have too much risk not enough reward. Water overload doesn’t heal enough to justify dropping either the heal on attune from Water spec or EA heal, or even just messing up the rotation on both with the extended cooldown. The fire overloads area of affect is small enough that Grouch could drop it in the middle of the point and his enemy could still easily keep the point contested and avoid any damage from it. I still think a break bar for all attunments and major number buffs are needed.
I also noticed that Wildfire didn’t seem to remove boons – at least it wasn’t a pulsing removal, which is disappointing as it was one of the main skills on WH to look forward to. I thought the movement speed on water 5 was maybe a little to fast to be of any practical use. And Lightning Orb needs a serious damage boost. As a weapon skill that’s only purpose is dealing damage it is bad, the ticks were doing retribution level damage.
I really and truly feel that making conjures into kits would be the best thing for the class. Would make s/x LH into a viable melee alternative to staff that D/F fresh air use to be. Would reduce the number of FBs being dropped in dungeons, and the total shut down of bosses that results. Conjures would be at least a reasonable idea for pvp builds.
If only Earth Shield was an instant cast I’d probably use it over Armor of Earth in PVP most of the time.
Seriously Earth Shield as a kit would be amazing. The skills are all around great for pvp – a block, stun, aoe pull, and an invulnerability. Every skill screams “use me against players” but is never used because of conjures terrible mechanics.
The only weapon-set/playstyle that can afford to even sit in one attunement for 5s to begin with is fire-camping staff pve eles. That is also the only playstyle that can afford the long attunement CD, b/c they wont be swapping out.
Which of course is a build that will never take tempest because there is simply no way the damage of fire, and if we are being generous air, overloads will out weigh the damage mods of water or air specs.
Big wall of text ahead, but these are all my thoughts post reveal.
So like I was assuming there is really no place in game where the tempest is better than what the ele already runs. I will admit it’s currently a bunch of really neat looking stuff, but nothing that will ever get used unlike reaper or chronomancer. The one place it might be better is tanky dagger spvp builds. D/wh running w/ar/temp is definitely something I could see, with some tweaks. If some trait combinations and additions that I’m going to spitball happen I could even see a place for it in pve, and the return of a plausible ele pvp damage spec.
First and foremost break bars need to be added to every attunement, not just earth. Without that protection you are a sitting duck for basically any player with a brain, hell Karl fighting an npc showed how weak the overloads are right now to interruption. With that change, and some number tweaks on the heals and damage, I think the spec would have a good shot at being useful in spvp, maybe wvw.
For pve damage mods are a must. No damage mods and there is zero chance anyone will ever seriously use this spec. Someone earlier mentioned a 10% mod while under the effects of an aura, I’d love to see that added to Unstable conduit. I’d also like to see a 20% while wielding warhorn trait. Stick that in the master line, while combining Tempestuous Aria and Gale Song as one adept level trait. Tempestuous Song could lose the might stacks to keep it balanced. But with these two traits F/A builds would see a potential return in pve and pvp, without the risk of just adding more power to staff builds.
I will always dislike the look of warhorn, but I will admit it has some pretty solid skills. Earth, water, and air skills are all solid imo, just need some tuning. Water 5 could use a CD reduction and Lightning Orb could use some more damage for example. But the fire skills are the worst fire kit ele has, worse than focus. I can’t ever see a reason for fire 4, it’s just a blast finisher i can’t use for anything but might and 90% of ele boons are AoEs already. I’d really just like to see that skill redesigned entirely. The fire field is iffy – if its boons removed on every plus it’s alright, could use still use a 10 second CD reduction imo. If it is not boon removal on pulse, it definitely needs at least a 10 sec reduction, with increased damage and 2-3 burn stacks per pulse.
Tl;dr: Tempest is useless right now, but has good potential. Add break bars to all the attunements, add damage mods to the trait line, rework fire war horn skills, and general number tweaking and it could be what devs and players both want to see from it.
This preview did nothing to alleviate my fears, and really just reinforce them.
Shouts are cool, and definitely better than necros shouts, but they don’t appear to be better than cantrips.
Overcharge is a neat idea, but really limited. With what we have been shown so far they will be nothing but interrupt bait in pvp. And i highly doubt the dps from the fire and air storms will warrant going F/A/W to F/A/T.
And of course Warhorn continues to disappoint. Skills that immobilize, pull, and stun combined with the PBAoE nature of overloads screams melee play style for this entire spec. Hell, Karl even comments specifically that it would play best with dagger. Knowing all this, on top of the data mined sword autos that were found, really just cements for me that Tempest was set to be released with sword but something stupid forced the change.
All in all this has really just drained a lot of personal hype for me, and really makes me reconsider my main. Robert Gee and mesmer are just delivering more of what i want than Karl and elementalist are right now.Well Warhorn is certainly not going to replace staff in anything else than PvP. Unless the damage and control is extremely high and AoE. The Shouts will be good for PvE.
However if you equip Tempest you will probably want to equip Arcane as well, to reduce the recharge on overcharge. That leaves you with the forced build of Water/Tempest/Arcane in WvW, thus losing a dps line unless you’re doing PvE.
I’ still hoping for a trait that extend the range of Scepter to make it viable with Warhorn somehow as a staff replacement. Since overcharge works with fresh air I think S/W would be more interesting. Dagger in WvW is just a kamikaze thing unless you are roaming or dueling.
I agree with you than /wh wont out do staff in pve or wvw, that’s what i meant with my f/a/w to f/a/t line. I doubt the damage from overcharge wont out do the mods from the water line, and adding overcharge to staff build basically just doubles its effectiveness, no need for wh skills.
I also really hope this brings some changes to scepter, and even dagger autos. My biggest hope for this spec is we would see some replacements for the Fresh Air pve and pvp builds that got tanked with specialization overhaul. If we dont see our main hands getting some buffs the whole spec line really just seems sub par.
This preview did nothing to alleviate my fears, and really just reinforce them.
Shouts are cool, and definitely better than necros shouts, but they don’t appear to be better than cantrips.
Overcharge is a neat idea, but really limited. With what we have been shown so far they will be nothing but interrupt bait in pvp. And i highly doubt the dps from the fire and air storms will warrant going F/A/W to F/A/T.
And of course Warhorn continues to disappoint. Skills that immobilize, pull, and stun combined with the PBAoE nature of overloads screams melee play style for this entire spec. Hell, Karl even comments specifically that it would play best with dagger. Knowing all this, on top of the data mined sword autos that were found, really just cements for me that Tempest was set to be released with sword but something stupid forced the change.
All in all this has really just drained a lot of personal hype for me, and really makes me reconsider my main. Robert Gee and mesmer are just delivering more of what i want than Karl and elementalist are right now.
If something is worse by even 0,01% it’s branded as suboptimal. And suboptimal means a kick in an instanced activity.
That’s an exaggeration, especially for ele. Pre-specialization patch plenty of people ran F/A d/f builds and they were not as strong as staff or s/x lh builds. But they were close and brought good utility. Now that they have lost somewhere around 30% of their damage while staff got buffed it d/f builds just aren’t close enough to be a realistic choice anymore.
As for buffing scepter I am all for that in every way. I personally think buffing its autos to a point where they aren’t complete trash, but some where around guardian scepter’s auto effectiveness would be ideal for a pvp solution.
For pve i’d just like to see them change conjures into a kit functionality, eliminating the risks that makes them pretty pointless to take in all game modes outside of FB 4 and 5. That would put s/x lh builds into roughly the same spot old d/f builds held, with better dps too.
This is so disappointing it sent me to the forums to the first time is 3 years.
I simply have no idea how the Tempest spec with what we know could compete at all with the ele class now. With the warhorn as an off hand its stuck with s/wh or d/wh, mainhands that are never used in pve. Then in pvp it has to compete agains /f and /d both of which meld great with our current main hands. kitten many others have pointed out its either going to be undertuned and never used or over tuned and completely erase one or both of our current offhands.
Meanwhile our trait set ups are so solid that the tempest will at best simply over power our current weakest specialization while leaving core builds mostly intact. Staff will still be all thats good in pve and d/x cele will maintaint a strangle hold on pvp.
A viable new main hand was the best, most obvious way to bring actual new options to the class and it astounds me our dev couldn’t pull it off. Now I’m just left with the hope that either scepter is going to get some major buffs or conjures are going to get changed into kits to make them useful for more than 1 skill cast and drops.
And i think its worth mentioning that I have seen nobody actually excited for the warhorn itself. Just people excited for pun opportunities, and a horde of apologists saying we should wait to hear more.
(edited by thetwothousand.5049)