Mimiga.9815

Aha, they stealth patched the fact that almost all the skills on core pistol apart from water didn't require facing. Now what I considered the most interesting thing about this weapon is gone. It's a good thing they buffed sword then. There's no reason to run such a bland and one-dimensional weapon apart from raw numbers, but then are you really having fun or are you just performing well? I would vastly prefer that scepter keep its place as a genuine ele weapon with hybrid capabilities and not be shoved into a particular role just because the shiny new toy had the lead-based paint scratched off it.

Pistol straight up has no power scaling whatsoever. It's Fresh Air that's going to ruin your day, and maybe the LR Weaver build if it wants to spare the rotational utility of Unravel for more damage. I'm still holding judgement until I see how janky or smooth the "leap" animation is supposed to be. FA not being able to load their immob into Arcane Blast is not necessarily a nerf but it's certainly not going to help set up the burst. Either way, it's obvious they want sword back.

You must not have tested very thoroughly, then. In the core skills, only your 2 and 3 in Water Attunement require facing, and dual skills in Weaver also require as much. Every other skill apart from your autos can fire at targets behind you. I've been roaming with a particularly gruesome cele build and have been having great success with kiting, possibly more than I would have with scepter considering the condi pressure. I will admit that pistol is not what I wanted. I've been praying for Longbow for years now, if only to use some of my favorite skins in the game that I will never hold in my main's hand. Pistol has great efficacy if you're willing to put up with it, but it isn't exactly thrilling to use in any case, apart from maybe the one molecule of serotonin that gets launched into my brain when water 3 works as a real road skill.

After having used the pistol for a while, I still think that, even with the buff indicators, it's still far too easy to lose whether or not you have a bullet loaded. I stack a lot of personal buffs and don't care for squinting at the dozen little icons in fast gameplay. Personally I would love it if the skill icons themselves had either a flipped state with a slightly different illustration to denote that they have extra effects, or something similar to how combo skills will glow if they would proc a field when cast.

I've done a bit more testing regarding SPvP viability. It's safe to say that Carrion stats are pretty much the only reliable spread since elementalists need to take Vitality, condi builds need more defense to allow their burst to eat through, and there's nowhere near enough power to warrant hybrid damage. I've been having decent success operating as a duelist in most games, using the Fractal Relic combined with a starting attunement in double Earth as Signet Weaver. Taking Undead runes for some Toughness along with Signet of Earth really helps to round out the numbers, and /F offers its utility and defense as always. Of course, 4 Signet elementalist works well regardless of what you're using for the most part, as it's a build carried by traits and utilities. Pistol being condi just helps its case. I was having trouble finishing targets off since, by its nature as a weapon, pistol doesn't really DO anything after its initial volleys. Weaver helps by offering an extra button to press, but I was really starting to notice how the core skills don't require facing but the dual skills do, and I found my ability to kite severely limited while I was between attunements.

At first glance from a PvP perspective, and from a general outlook, the bullets need more than a character-locked visual indicator above your head. The system is simple and binary, but it is extremely difficult in such a visually overloaded game to tell which bullets you have and don't have, especially on Weaver. I find it easier to just roll my keyboard over which skills I need at the moment than worry about the bullet mechanic at all, barring very specific interactions I'm attempting to get (Air 2 , Air/Earth 3 for a double interrupt). The bullet system itself is underexplained and strange. I may just be forgetful but I don't recall if the bullets have effects outside of their respective attunements, apart from that pitiful unload skill. I was very much hoping for more damage coming out of this weapon. Freshweaver is my favorite build, but the power coefficients and base damage on nigh all of the pistol skills are negligible, and I have yet to find a reasonable rotation to provide any real damage. The condition damage itself is largely understated, and has been mostly been tempered by the coverage that the Fractal Relic provides during burst windows. Ele has always been a class that had to really work for its cover conditions, but it doesn't feel like there's quite enough to work with. A Signet condition build would work well regardless of which primary weapon you were using anyway. I will say that I am pleased to see that every core skill apart from water attunement and the auto-attacks do not require facing to cast. This at the very least makes it somewhat competitive with scepter, which still outshines this weapon in most regards. The capacity for a ranged weapon to operate while still controlling space is huge for viability. Air 3 acting as a dash, being able to the follow-up at the target you're fleeing from, then getting another dash feels good. This is all still in the realm of first impressions so perhaps some of these issues have resolutions somewhere in the kit that I haven't found yet.

The only way to recuperate PvP modes is through organized community events. There once was a mode in which a player took in three heroes and battled another player controlling the same, but it was removed along with Team Battles in favor of adding the Codex Arena. As a reminder, Heroes Ascent has henchmen available meant to fill out teams that are most commonly used as bot fodder so that people can progress through and gain Fame points. It's already happening, and the change of adding heroes to competitive missions wouldn't change much other than compromising most of the other modes.

-Ultimately there isn't much of a defined rotation when it comes to elementalist in PvP, especially with Tempest specifically. It tends to be an ebb-and-flow type game in which you are bouncing back and forth between applying pressure with your offensive elements and sustaining on your defensive ones. There likely aren't too many times you should be sitting in one for too long, as accessing fresh cooldowns will often be more rewarding than waiting for others that are still several seconds away. There are exceptions, of course, but those are contextual. Keep in mind that the trait Harmonious Conduit can vastly assist in your ability to complete your overloads, and just the same an overload can be canceled right after it's started so that you can benefit from the stability while using another skill. -Tempest is currently in an excellent place as a support in PvP, though as a whole tends to suffer in other departments. Running the Air traitline and using Warhorn for Lightning Orb can get you some cheeky kills as a DPS, but ultimately it's heavily affected by CC and projectile hate and you will only really catch people off-guard with it once. You are ultimately better off playing support most of the time. In this sense, we are all typically subject to the team we get queued with, but it would pay to mind what kind of fights you are going into as a support. You should always be trying to head towards or fight with your team unless things go weird. A support gets the most value out of having teammates around, and additionally you can somewhat force people to peel for you. Know that abandoning a fight that's going south is often better than rushing in. Two dead players is worse than one dead one alive. -Yep. Luckily Tempest has a wide access to CC and you have points to be fighting over. -Staff is a gimmick weapon at best in PvP. You would benefit far more if you ran Dagger Focus, even if you are shorter range. This can be compensated for partially by using your environment to leave your opponent's line of sight and forcing them into your range. Additionally, Dagger Focus offers a great deal more defensive capabilities with plenty of Transmute skills, Shocking Aura access on demand (which is a huge reason Tempest is good in the first place), Gale, and the entirety of Focus Earth. Even as a more damaging build, these things still greatly raise your survivability for the times when someone would've just walked through all of your staff CC skills.

I've been playing around trying to make full Vipers work by grabbing alternative sources of Boon Duration and just relying on those instead, but I'm not sure how much success I'm really having. Taking Arcane over Earth and gives 12% Boon Duration as well as helps out by lowering the overload cooldown, but the grandmasters don't really help Condi out all that much and your bleeds are less impressive. I have been testing out runes of the Traveler for that extra 10% condi duration and the 15% boon duration since I couldn't afford Leadership yet, but even that's not all too impressive. You can just barely hit the alac uptime with 50% BD and Sand Squall helps you breathe a bit, but I just don't think the damage is going to be too amazing even then. And I don't think I hit 100% burning duration cap, either. I don't know, I'll have to see whether trying so hard to avoid concentration really makes a difference after all the other concessions you have to make.

I can see Harmonious Conduit having more relevance in possible WvW content, but otherwise in organized PvE where you would want to be playing a heal boon support I don't think you're going to be kneecapped into needing to take that stability at any point (unless you're trying to build for the encounter specifically, I suppose). A pure healing build would've lost out on their healing proc from being interrupted anyway, so I don't see how it's much different for the alacrity build. You also have to keep in mind that Alacrity is a boon which essentially helps to propagate itself, reducing the cooldowns of the very skills you used to gain it. Under its effects, it takes 4.5 seconds to charge your next overload and 4 to complete it, assuming you're not in a group which is providing you with Quickness. Now if you were going to be bouncing overloads as much as possible then you would only need to reach just around 9 seconds of Alacrity, which is only 50% boon duration by itself. Tempest by itself provides you with 8% flat and a less reliable additional 8%, so there's room to grow even if you don't take Arcane. Now if you do take Arcane, however, even overloaded elements only have a 13.5 second cooldown (with the Alacrity you are trying to maintain), and you gain another 12% boon duration for free. This means that your auras have less actual boon impact than a traditional Tempest healer, as you wouldn't be able to provide the Protection uptime from Earth, but what it does do is give you even more room to stack less Concentration and more potent healing or dps stats. At 13.5 seconds, with a Quickness provider nearby, your Overloads take 2 seconds to cast and 4.5 seconds to charge (as far as I'm aware), making your required boon duration almost negligible if circumstances are perfect. Runes of the Monk add another 15% while also still being one of the best choices for pumping out raw green numbers. I admit that your hesitance to rely on passive regeneration or weapon skills is a strong concern here since Ele really does struggle with that thing, but it could surely be supplemental enough so long as you don't need to burst heal between the fifteen or so seconds of Water Overloads and Wash Away The Pains. Your heals are much less on-demand and therefore notably unreliable as you said. At the very least 25 Might is super easy to maintain, but it always is.

I believe that you may need a great deal less concentration than you think you do. Boon Duration is a very cheap stat when it comes to Elementalists. Tempest itself offers 8% plus an additional 8 while topped up on health, and if you take Arcane then you gain an additional 12% for free while also reducing the breakpoint for permanent Alac by reducing attunement cooldowns for your overloads. By this point you are able to comfortably take healer runes with Boon Duration or Leadership runes to bridge that last couple of seconds in order to maintain Alac granted you are overloading as often as you can, and you can improve your wiggle room even further with a 10% sigil. At this point you haven't invested in Concentration at all, and any additional percents you would earn just give you even more room to breath. Meant to add that, since you are able to invest in raw healing power so easily, you can give up having the burst healing that Tempest typically is know for and rely on your weapon skills and regen ticks more. Technically you can even forego Powerful Auras and go for the improved Soothing Mists, using Shouts to distribute your Regen instead of just overloading and gaining an aura from it.

There is a special place in my heart for Freshweaver, though I always love the unconventional efficacy of Core Condi Signet Ele. Throwing a Signet of Fire out over a crowded downed body and watching them not notice those two little stacks of burning that are trying to chunk two-thirds of their health over the next four matches is always satisfying. The fact that your damage is so front loaded and that you take Earth makes you tanky both statistically and by virtue of having more time to concentrate on survival. It's a shame that Ele's core weapons don't do much to help it. I'm also rather fond of running Staff Daredevil. Not with Bound or some other hyper-offensive traiting, just Staff. You get enough free Vitality from the staff-centric trait to justify Divinity Berserker, too. It's clunky as hell but surprising people with Scorpion Wire and lining up your 5 to earn a free hit takes a surprising amount of timing and foresight.

Sounds like you weren't around for the Core days, huh? We DID used to be the strongest. Celestial D/D bruisers. Tornado Meteor Showers. FGS wall exploits. Hell, back when blast finishers were amazing we could throw out 25 might and permanent fury for the whole group no problem. Thing is, most of those strats were fixed, and the aspects which made our Core kits strong became commonplace with the addition of elite specs. I recall a time when you swapped to a scepter before a fight and did this whole might-stacking rotation to earn the full stack before you engaged. With Tempest, you pressed F1.

There were a few character aspects I feel weren't really given enough time or weren't addressed at all in End of Dragons, so I whipped something short up to scratch the itch. https://archiveofourown.org/works/37644370