Aura Share Tempest - What are your thoughts on Warhorn vs Focus? (PvP)

I've been playing a Mender Aurashare D/Wh Tempest in PvP and it feels decent enough, it's a lot of healing and utility and great vs condi. It hits like a damp potato though, except for it can easily stack 25 might to allies (using might blasts and wh 4 in fire) and air wh 5 does a ton of damage and vulnerability if you aim it right.

I've been running warhorn because of the easier access to extra auras and the condi cleanse and water field in water for the extra healing, and mainly to provide a ton of might to allies. The CC is arguably better than focus, Gale is a nice knockdown but it's on a long cooldown (40 seconds), Cyclone is on a much shorter cooldown (25s) and is AoE, it can pull multiple foes together into a damage spike. Comet is also only a daze, warhorn water 4 is a heal, condi cleanse and knockback.

Seems like the main plus points of focus are the two big utility skills - Swirling Winds and Obsidian Flesh. Swirling Winds' need is negated with Warhorn 4 + "Aftershock!", since a reflect is more damage than destroying a projectile. Obsidian Flesh is pretty neat though, it's defintely harder playing without it, though I usually slot mistform in that case. Stomping is pretty easy with earth 5 for the blind, and mistform is shorter duration which is better for contesting points. However, you can still use skills during obsidian flesh.

Seems like Warhorn is better vs high condi and Focus is better vs high power? Perhaps I'm horribly wrong, but I've had a lot of fun playing Tempest lately and I desperately wish it was good, and it's been fun trying different weapons.

Basically wondering on peoples' thoughts of running warhorn/focus, and which is better.

I believe, it greatly depend on your build. If you go fire/water/tempest, I'd say focus is better. If you chose to not take fire warhorn might be more interesting.

Well the main point why even in infamous bunker ranked season 1 warhorn was not used is simple - without focus tempest defenses goes down to zero. Also is annoying to use - you have to always facetank everything while using it and you barely can see if you can hit something with tidal surge. Yet I think you made right call to run it with mistform. Well i won't say to not use it even if i have really bad opinion about it - ranked is bad anyway cause even in plat you will get bronze people. That's why we have glass cannon staff ele's in plat! Better pvp player WILL carry terrible build/weapon.

More in depth comparisonwarhorn offers:+more damage+more healing via blasting+leap+magnetic aura (2nd the strongest aura)+good fire field (well better than focus at least)focus offers:+more condi cleanse (Magnetic Wave +2 fire auras)+a lot projectile hate - tempest with focus is the best counter vs ranged builds (forget about it vs unblocable longbow rangers)+obsidian flesh (rare type of weapon skill that let's us avoid damage on demand, big weakness of all ele builds that weaver corrects)+gale (one of best cc's ele has: ranged, unblocable and hard to dodge) and comet, freezing gust combined let's us help our team in teamfights from distance. With warhorn we can't really see if we can hit or not stuff with it's cc's.+2 blast finishers (might staking via fire field in outdated in pvp but every source of ice field means + 2 extra frost auras - that's why smart tempest stick around reapers :)

But you know what? I would call warhorn really good pvp weapon if i could use it with sword. It really begs for more defense oriented main hand. In open world pve with FA is fun.

If we were to compare every single off-hand weapon elementalist can use, those are the dagger, focus and warhorn. The dagger is an offensive weapon, the focus is a utility weapon and the warhorn is a hybrid weapon, that is it has both damaging skills and utility skills. I can't imagine any elementalist running a non mending weaver build without the focus.

The reason why the warhorn works better in PvE than in PvP is for the powerful projectile skills like Lightning Orb that can stack a lot of vulnerability. This is why warhorn works best with Fresh Air builds because it helps with reaching the maximum vulnerability stack which is great for fights that last for a long period of time whereas fights in PvP are far shorter and the cast times on the warhorn can slow you down and probably kill you.

If you're on DPS or hybrid builds, then they're all pretty equal--each with their own benefits and drawbacks, but if you're looking to purely buff and support, the skills on the off-hand dagger and focus aren't so great.. using auras for healing and cleansing can only do so much.

So it all comes down to whether you want to DPS, CC, or support, basically. (I use warhorn..)