Is Tempest and Warhorn any useful?

Tempests have been replaced with Weaver in almost any game mode and meta. Yesterday I wanted to try out a Tempest support and damn... does it a bad job at supporting people.

Tempest was designed to be a support elite spec but compared with Druid or Firebrand it's so lackluster. And the warhorn weapon is just so bad and I don't see why anyone would use it ever. Offhand dagger and focus are just better in any situation.

So what do you think about this?

Tempest support is far from being lackluster. It's just not considered meta, because it's a few percent less effective in certain aspects of support. Just like other builds deal a few percent less damage than overpowered meta builds, and are called trash and worthless and what not. Let's have a look at the support Tempest brings: nice healing , several boons like fury, might, protection, regen and vigor on auras (which Tempest can dish out like crazy), either aura share (and in turn boon share) or condi-remove on giving auras, the aura effects themselves imcluding projectile reflects, damage reduction, might generation and stuns.

Warhorn gives you even more support with additional healing and boon share (fury, might). Focus and Dagger bring some support too, but each different from another and Warhorn. The same goes when comparing Firebrand, Druid and Tempest. All bring great support, just different kind. For example, Druid brings more healing, but less boon share or projectile hate than Tempest.

@Patty.3268 said:Tempest support is far from being lackluster. It's just not considered meta, because it's a few percent less effective in certain aspects of support. Just like other builds deal a few percent less damage than overpowered meta builds, and are called trash and worthless and what not. Let's have a look at the support Tempest brings: nice healing , several boons like fury, might, protection, regen and vigor on auras (which Tempest can dish out like crazy), either aura share (and in turn boon share) or condi-remove on giving auras, the aura effects themselves imcluding projectile reflects, damage reduction, might generation and stuns.

Warhorn gives you even more support with additional healing and boon share (fury, might). Focus and Dagger bring some support too, but each different from another and Warhorn. The same goes when comparing Firebrand, Druid and Tempest. All bring great support, just different kind. For example, Druid brings more healing, but less boon share or projectile hate than Tempest.

I have to disagree there. Auras are pretty useless to begin with. Only shocking aura is good. Firebrand has also a lot of projectile hate with f3 - 3 and shield and the projectile reflect wall etc. Druid shares crazy amount of might and can cap 25 might easily solo for the entire group + spirits and other buffs which is most important. Tempest can just share some boons here and there that other classes such as firebrand or druid can give out even more and easier. I just don't see why you ever want to bring a Tempest if you could go for any other support class.

Y'know, people always say that Warhorn is a bad and I should feel bad for using it, but I actually prefer it to the x/Focus or x/Dagger (At least in PvE). The blastable waterfield, Heat Sync, Wildfire and Sand Squall make for a decent hybrid between dps and support.

People seem to want tempest to be this awesome supporty spec that deals 1 damage because weaver is the flavour of the month, but I don't think that's the correct way to look at it. Tempest, at present, already outshines Weaver in sub-optimal situations where your team can't stack vulnerability or has trouble with weakness or boon uptime. In a solo or pug group, I would take a fresh air tempest over weaver anytime.

The reality is that:support:

• Tempest is superior to druid in regard of pure healing.
• Druid is the favored support healer because he got ranger's frost spirit (+10% damage).
• When it come to boons Druid and tempest are even on 5 man groups but druid overwhelm tempest in 10 man content.

Damage:

• Tempest still dish out as much damage as it did before PoF which still put him above most other professions meta dps spec.
• Tempest condi dps specs are easy to play.
• Tempest as a power dps is more reliable than weaver.

warhorn:

• Warhorn is a good tool for support due to it's boonshare and water field.
• Warhorn is a good tool for damage essentially due to ligthning orb which shine on large targets.
• Warhorn is good for CC which are usefull against enemies with breakbar as well as against players.

Why is tempest not popular:

• Weaver well played dish out more damage than tempest making this spec favored by guilds that establish boss kill records. (it is the most effective tactic available in well rounded groups. Which are the minority that PuG looked up at and always try to mimic.)
• PvP players felt forced to play tempest support for 2 years straigth and they hated this. It doesn't mean that tempest support wasn't effective but the elementalist player base have grown extremly weary of playing this and would rather play anything else than that.

@Sodeni.6041

Before I get to the points you've made, I'm going to make it clear where I'm coming from. I don't like druids. I think their current design in conjunction with what's available to them in core ranger trait lines offers too much for a support role and doesn't force players to make meaningful choices for what they want to bring to an encounter or particular group because they can bring just everything their class offers with respect to support. This is unhealthy for the game as a whole because druids have ended up choking out all other supports save for chrono.

You're right about some auras being useless (what are fire and frost auras supposed to even do at this point?) and druids offering things which tempests cannot (Spotter, Glyph of Empowerment, Frost Spirit), but what's this about might capping? Tempests can do that as well, it's just not as brain-dead simple as what a druid needs to do. The warhorn is actually very important in this regard and it isn't surprising you bring up might generation as a concern when you appear to have been unable to make good use of it.

As for the spirits, those are overpowered, even more so when used with Nature's Vengeance, and in need of nerfs or redesigns; they offer far too many boons to way too many targets for something which players can 'set and forget.' As a personal side-note, I find it funny how some people were criticizing herald for being a passive boon bot, yet I've never seen that said about druid despite their spirits functioning in almost the exact same way, not even once. Maybe I'm just not looking in the right places.

Overall, what I'm seeing from your post is that you tried a support tempest, couldn't use it very well, then wrote it off as bad. Is it worse than a druid? In most cases, and assuming both builds are being played by people who know what they're doing, yes. Is support tempest itself bad? No.

@Dadnir.5038 said:The reality is that:support:

• Tempest is superior to druid in regard of pure healing.
• Druid is the favored support healer because he got ranger's frost spirit (+10% damage).
• When it come to boons Druid and tempest are even on 5 man groups but druid overwhelm tempest in 10 man content.

Damage:

• Tempest still dish out as much damage as it did before PoF which still put him above most other professions meta dps spec.
• Tempest condi dps specs are easy to play.
• Tempest as a power dps is more reliable than weaver.

warhorn:

• Warhorn is a good tool for support due to it's boonshare and water field.
• Warhorn is a good tool for damage essentially due to ligthning orb which shine on large targets.
• Warhorn is good for CC which are usefull against enemies with breakbar as well as against players.

Why is tempest not popular:

• Weaver well played dish out more damage than tempest making this spec favored by guilds that establish boss kill records. (it is the most effective tactic available in well rounded groups. Which are the minority that PuG looked up at and always try to mimic.)
• PvP players felt forced to play tempest support for 2 years straigth and they hated this. It doesn't mean that tempest support wasn't effective but the elementalist player base have grown extremly weary of playing this and would rather play anything else than that.

I'm seeing this too. I tried weaver in fractals, but PUGs started dying on me left and right except when a druid was in the party.Before that I had been using berserker, but people died too often and I do not have an schedule that allows me to join a a fixed group or patience to deal with people who want meta pugs, so I experimented with different sets of stats to raise my 'babysitting' potential until I settled for Zealot.I went back to Tempest and experimented using Marshall stats, and PUGs stopped dying on my anymore, and I'm doing more damage than with Zealot.

I hope they release Mender stats for PvE one day, I want to see how that one would do.

Warhorn and tempest is missing support condi clear as a base line and not reg clears only.

It realty needs it in wvw as effects like winds of disenchantment stops the reg clears for ppl. You never get to apply the reg so you do not get the clear.

Rip tempest support lol wow.