Upcoming Alacrity Tempest, concerned about healing

[Erick Alastor.3917]

"Elementalist: Tempest will now be able to provide party alacrity, with a rework to their grandmaster trait Lucid Singularity."

I've mixed feelings about this change.
I like that we're finally getting alacrity. And on a dps build having to rely on LS can be pretty okay.
I have some concerns about Healing Tempest tho, if we have to sacrifice Elemental Bastion for Lucid Singularity on a healing build, we'll be shoehorned into Staff (just like with cata).
Tempest D/W was one of the most fun healing builds I played, it was dynamic, it had a lot of perks (reflects/blind/decent CC/good boon sharing).
After the aura cap nerf I was hoping it would come back thanks to alacrity, but now I fear we'll get stuck with staff once again.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still happy the class will be viable (in pve), but I find staff gamplay way less engaging...
what do you think?  

[Downstate.4697]

Not an issue and provides a good trade off. Tempest has other heals available

[soulknight.9620]

Tempest has enough sources of healing besides that trait: water overload, Wash away the pain, water elemental, water signet, frost bow, staff water skills, water traitline (soothing mist). You dont actually need that extra heal from auras. 

[LegohBrave.1823]

To me, with over 5k hours on Tempest, this doesn't change anything for WVW. PVE? dunno, I guess who needs heals in pve.

For PVP or WVW? yeah I won't be taking this trait. I notice about 75% of heals come from aurashare. IF the choice is between Lucid Singularity with Alacrity OR Elemental Bastion for HEALS on aurashare... 100% of the time in WVW I will choose Elemental Bastion.

Im in opinion this was mostly focused on PVE. They are still looking to keep Scrapper as the 2nd support for wvw with Firebrand.

Tempests are still dead.

 

[Erick Alastor.3917]

43 minutes ago, soulknight.9620 said:

Tempest has enough sources of healing besides that trait: water overload, Wash away the pain, water elemental, water signet, frost bow, staff water skills, water traitline (soothing mist). You dont actually need that extra heal from auras.

Water Overload, Water weapon skills, WTPA and signet aren't that bad indeed.
The elemental, while being a very strong heal is also kinda unreliable.
The bow is a boosted temporary staff AA, but again if I wanted to spam AA I would be happy to play staff.
Soothing mist shines while camping water too.
Auras are way more healing of what you probably account them for, not only u get auras from trait and skills but also from combo with fields. 
I'm not saying you can't probably still get away with decent healing without them (with a good group at least),
I'm saying that given you'll have to rely on the things you mentioned what's the real point of going D/W?
It would clearly be better almost all the times just going staff. And after the catalyst, this would be the second time :S

Edited June 22, 2022 by Erick Alastor.3917

[Erick Alastor.3917]

45 minutes ago, FrownyClown.8402 said:

Not an issue and provides a good trade off. Tempest has other heals available

What's the tradeoff between a hfb that focus on just healing and one that also brings quickness then?
1 utility skill 
1 elite skill - you lose passive healing (ala soothing mist) or extra heal burst with 90s cd (a little less than 70 with ala)
1 trait - few extra pages every 50s (less than 40s with alac)

Tradeoff for ele (assuming going staff will make more sense):
Around 10 aura applications healing each for around 1k.
Being able to CC whithout sacrficing heal potential.
Area blind.
3 area reflect.
Area absorb with 6s cd.
Perma protection. 
Extra dps.

Not only providing quick barely impacts hfb healing output, but going cele a hfb is also capable of good damage with a quickheal setup.
On the contrary tempest, if people will really decide to even try it for pve, will probably be stuck on camping Water with staff,
if Anet won't force Alac on overloads which at that point will make playing it even more tedious, losing heal on aura while out of water.
Don't misunderstand me, it could be good. Because easy to play.
I'm just thinking that compared to what we already have, if we go the staff way, I don't see that much appeal for our community.
HAM is a decent healer and you barely manage to fill for fractals if you look for one despite it.

 

[Downstate.4697]

6 minutes ago, Erick Alastor.3917 said:

What's the tradeoff between a hfb that focus on just healing and one that also brings quickness then?
1 utility skill 
1 elite skill - you lose passive healing (ala soothing mist) or extra heal burst with 90s cd (a little less than 70 with ala)
1 trait - few extra pages every 50s (less than 40s with alac)

Tradeoff for ele (assuming going staff will make more sense):
Around 10 aura applications healing each for around 1k.
Being able to CC whithout sacrficing heal potential.
Area blind.
3 area reflect.
Area absorb with 6s cd.
Perma protection. 
Extra dps.

Not only providing quick barely impacts hfb healing output, but going cele a hfb is also capable of good damage with a quickheal setup.
On the contrary tempest, if people will really decide to even try it for pve, will probably be stuck on camping Water with staff,
if Anet won't force Alac on overloads which at that point will make playing it even more tedious, losing heal on aura while out of water.
Don't misunderstand me, it could be good. Because easy to play.
I'm just thinking that compared to what we already have, if we go the staff way, I don't see that much appeal for our community.
HAM is a decent healer and you barely manage to fill for fractals if you look for one despite it.

 

Sounds like a firebrand problem

[Monchichi.9301]

The part that worries me more is that this trait is currently tied to Overloads. If alacrity is tied to overloads, we'd have to constantly cycle through the elements and wait for the overload. So we'll only be in water 25% of the time. So no staff water attacks for 75% of the time, no elemental unless we summoned it before leaving water. And if we have to take frost bow, the elementals and water signet, no room for shouts either. 

 

That is far from a heal tempest with auras and shouts that can pop into other elements as needed depending on the situation and still heal with auras.

I don't see a place for tempest alac healers unless the alac is tied to shouts, auras or giving other boons like regen. 

[Razor.9305]

They may be moving Lucid Singularity to the Master tier for example, at least I hope it will be possible to have both alacrity and Transcendent Tempest or Elemental Bastion. Having to trade away both of those means alacrity Tempest would be low on the damage and low on the healing and that would be a sad state to be in.

 

28 minutes ago, Monchichi.9301 said:

The part that worries me more is that this trait is currently tied to Overloads. If alacrity is tied to overloads, we'd have to constantly cycle through the elements and wait for the overload. So we'll only be in water 25% of the time. So no staff water attacks for 75% of the time, no elemental unless we summoned it before leaving water. And if we have to take frost bow, the elementals and water signet, no room for shouts either.

As long as you cycle into water you can retain the passive regeneration buff, which is quite strong. I agree that staff would pretty much be the only healing option without Elemental Bastion though, but if there is any chance of a dps Tempest build, the healing build will have more than enough alacrity duration to stay in water for a while.

[crosknight.3041]

as a primarly fresh air tempest, im looking forward to DPSalac, assuming the alacs are on overloads. though i do agree it sucks on having the auramancer heal having to compete directly with the alac trait.

[saila.6352]

Hard to say anything before whole patchnote comes out.

 

Healing on auras was working in pair with Powerful aura (aura share), grandmaster from Water trait line. Not having to rely on auras for healing allows Cleansing water (huge cleanses) or Soothing Power (better Soothing mist=healing) which are both great options depending the encounter.

 

Also, since you don't need Tempestuous Aria to stack and maintain 25 might, auras (from shouts) are still relevant to give regeneration/vigor through Invigorating torrent (Tempest major trait) and eventually swiftness/fury with air trait line or even more cleanses with fire trait line, not counting auras effect themselves (reflect/damage reduction).

 

Again, hard to be sure without the whole picture, but as far as I can tell, you are panicking for pretty much nothing...

Edited June 23, 2022 by saila.6352

[CharmingRogue.8731]

 

3 hours ago, Erick Alastor.3917 said:

After the aura cap nerf I was hoping it would come back thanks to alacrity, but now I fear we'll get stuck with staff once again.
 

 

Heal Tempest will be stuck with nothing because it won't exist. You need Elemental Bastion, losing out on it is just too big of a loss and it won't be able to compete with other heal classes.

There are a million other ways to introduce alacrity while still being able to choose what build to play, but instead they forced it on a dps spec only. Sad...

Edited June 23, 2022 by CharmingRogue.8731

[Noodle Ant.1605]

any ele with a proper heal setup can get 1k+ heals per second passively from maintaining regen + (traited) soothing mist alone. theres absolutely no need to camp water staff/icebow unless bruteforcing a mechanic by trying to outheal it, and unlike cata, temp has wash the pain away + water warhorn skills + better access to regen. one of staffs strengths is geyser res (where temp might not even take arcane to begin with), while icebow can be slotted as emergency anyway, where its more effective than water staff 1 spam and even allows switching attunements while retaining the 1 spam

the biggest threat to ele heals is condi cleanse, ele isnt given much group condi clear to deal with junk like afflicted on aquatic, but it shouldnt be a sin to ask people in group to switch a utility skill if necessary (though hopefully theres already a cfb spamming purging flames or scg who knows how to press f2 properly)

[Jski.6180]

It sound good so far i would love to see how every thing else will be updated on the ele class. I kind of hope they move the -100% to movement effect to Harmonious Conduit. I realty want to see now what anet is going to do about WH its very out dated after the off hand dagger buff its part of the reason why tempest can heal so well with out taking healing auras.

[Fueki.4753]

14 hours ago, Erick Alastor.3917 said:

what do you think?  

Arenanet should have told us that information on the forums.

On the actual topic, I don't think that even access to Alacrity could make me take another Grandmaster over Transcendent Tempest.

Alacrity should have been a baseline addition to Overloads.

Edited June 23, 2022 by Fueki.4753

[Angelz.9713]

I have several in my static that are excited Ele is getting Alac. It will also mean more people that can provide this boon easily since Ele has made a comeback recently. Its really nice to see Ele being played again and that it can offer some boons as well. Looking forward to seeing the builds that come out of this change. 

[Crazy Nachos.7918]

4 hours ago, Noodle Ant.1605 said:

the biggest threat to ele heals is condi cleanse, ele isnt given much group condi clear to deal with junk like afflicted on aquatic, but it shouldnt be a sin to ask people in group to switch a utility skill if necessary (though hopefully theres already a cfb spamming purging flames or scg who knows how to press f2 properly)

Heal tempest actually has pretty good condi cleanse through the trait Smothering Auras. You will have to give up fury uptime though but that can easily be covered by a quickbrand or a quick harb.

[saila.6352]

2 hours ago, Crazy Nachos.7918 said:

Heal tempest actually has pretty good condi cleanse through the trait Smothering Auras. You will have to give up fury uptime though but that can easily be covered by a quickbrand or a quick harb.

Or if you play a Charr: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Battle_Roar

which in combination with warhorn's duration extend allows more than decent uptime

[Erick Alastor.3917]

7 hours ago, Noodle Ant.1605 said:

the biggest threat to ele heals is condi cleanse, ele isnt given much group condi clear to deal with junk like afflicted on aquatic, but it shouldnt be a sin to ask people in group to switch a utility skill if necessary (though hopefully theres already a cfb spamming purging flames or scg who knows how to press f2 properly)

Right now Cleansing Water + Invigorating Torrent + Shouts nets you all the condi cleanse you'll ever want, you can brainlessly spam shouts in aquatic+afflicted and make it a walk in the park.
We'll still be able to cleanse pretty well even taking Lucid Singularity for its alacrity (granted they won't change anything else), but then good luck healing with your trident without Elemental Bastion.

[Dadnir.5038]

4 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

Arenanet should have told us that information on the forums.

The information is on the official page of the official site linked to this forum and they even add that they will give a full balance patch preview on the forum the 24th.

On topic, this change favor fresh air tempest.

Edited June 23, 2022 by Dadnir.5038

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

12 hours ago, Erick Alastor.3917 said:

Don't get me wrong, I'm still happy the class will be viable (in pve), but I find staff gamplay way less engaging...
what do you think?  

 

I'm more puzzled. It would be an easy update for the "average players" and pick-ups; but I'm concerned about the fact everyboy will get alacrity/quickness and people will still look  for the best match "Sorry, need FB+ ham, no tempest", while they could just have given back uniques buffs and tools to complete the 2 boons in  a group.

Damage bonus or power bonus on fire auras, water overload protect people inside of incoming conditions etc.

Edited June 23, 2022 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[Noodle Ant.1605]

1 hour ago, Erick Alastor.3917 said:

Right now Cleansing Water + Invigorating Torrent + Shouts nets you all the condi cleanse you'll ever want, you can brainlessly spam shouts in aquatic+afflicted and make it a walk in the park.
We'll still be able to cleanse pretty well even taking Lucid Singularity for its alacrity (granted they won't change anything else), but then good luck healing with your trident without Elemental Bastion.

thats the point… trying to access more than a basic amount of cleanse takes away from eles heal economy (soothing mist etc), and is why you feel like there wont be enough healing when there wouldve been if you didnt need to account for cleansing at all. unless its a mechanic designed to kill you, heal eles most efficient answer to condis is just to outheal it (its more efficient if you get someone else that sacrifices less to cleanse for you)

the issue isnt truly related to ele lacking heals (traiting elemental bastion is hardly necessary from a raw output perspective), its more because the current implementation forces eles to choose between healing and cleansing, while other healers have either inbuilt traits or just 1-2 strong cleansing skills that deal with the entire problem

note how i dont specifically write about tempest, but “ele” - i know catalyst (and core) would love stronger group cleansing options for exactly the same reasons

Edited June 23, 2022 by Noodle Ant.1605

[Erick Alastor.3917]

4 hours ago, Noodle Ant.1605 said:

thats the point… trying to access more than a basic amount of cleanse takes away from eles heal economy (soothing mist etc), and is why you feel like there wont be enough healing when there wouldve been if you didnt need to account for cleansing at all. unless its a mechanic designed to kill you, heal eles most efficient answer to condis is just to outheal it (its more efficient if you get someone else that sacrifices less to cleanse for you)

the issue isnt truly related to ele lacking heals (traiting elemental bastion is hardly necessary from a raw output perspective), its more because the current implementation forces eles to choose between healing and cleansing, while other healers have either inbuilt traits or just 1-2 strong cleansing skills that deal with the entire problem

note how i dont specifically write about tempest, but “ele” - i know catalyst (and core) would love stronger group cleansing options for exactly the same reasons

I doubt many people are interested in generically speaking about ele healing capabilities,
probably almost nobody uses core ele to heal, and hqCata is still very niche (but yeah that could use some improvements for condi management).
 
Since the biggest change is coming for tempest I'd like to refer to that .
Tempest barely sacrifices anything to cleanse while healing.  
Moving from Powerful Aura to Cleansing Water will just cut a tiny bit of heals on auras, since most auras will be shared baseline anyway. If you add to that the use of staff, the cleansing is INSANE, boring build, extremely boring build, but huge heals and condi cleanses.

Adding alac to staff build will make hTemp very strong.
Their only way to tone it down is requiring you to overload on each attunement to break the costant healing flow.

Doing this, in my opinion, will make the class feel cluncky.
Alac on overloads (which I really really hope won't happen) would break both staff or d/w tactical use, transforming your strategy into a spamfest.

Right now we have two cases for alacrity and quickness:

1. You need 1 or 2 skills (always available and with fast casting) which main purpose is giving the boon
2. Your boon output is tied to your dps rotation

If they'll tie alacrity to overloads for ele, it would be like forcing another class to constantly swap weapons.
Not considering we'll be locked in tedious channeling animations.

I've never been a fan of alacmirage, dodge-dodge-swap-dodge-spamspamspam.
Remember when dodging used to be required to avoid things and not to barely upkeep a boon or a personal buff?

hTempest d/h is freedom, you can play with its combo in the order you prefer, you have access to specific tools like you'd have with some engi kits. I don't want to be forced to swap to an attunement I don't need in a specific moment only to upkeep a boon.
I don't like the idea of sacrificing so much of my healing for alacrity, or sacrificing almost none (going back to a clunky and boring gameplay) as long as I accept staff.

You shouldn't be asked to choose between being able to heal or being able to give alacrity because you chose a specific weapon in the first place, it doesn't happen on other healing classes, why should happen to hTemp?

The only thing that came vaguely close to this WAS hfb having to pick Empowering Might over Pure of Heart when aegis used to be a thing, but nobody cared because hfb healing was already over the top even without it.

Edited June 23, 2022 by Erick Alastor.3917

[Vincent.1954]

Quote

hTempest d/h is freedom

Exactly this.

I personally find horrendously boring that most builds in the game have to follow a set in stone rotation of sorts in order to perform.

With htemp, going into an attunement or using a certain shout was based on decision making, what we need at a given time. Which is much more fun, skill-based, creative and rewarding. It's also how elementalist should be played, 4 attunements are meant for flexibility in options available, not as rotation extensions imo.

 

With these changes however, I fear that we'll get cornered into an Overload spam rotation in order to keep Alacrity up and still heal, thus losing all agency as to which attunement we want to swap to next.

 

Moreover, htemp without neither group auras nor shouts? Yikes.

[Vidit.7108]

I think there is a lot of overselling what is good about healbrand and under selling what is good about ele. It's been a long time since Tempest saw a lot of use in pugs but it's a great healer with or without Elemental Bastion. A celebrand doesn't heal very well, it's to cover a mistake or two by a high end group and otherwise be a quickbrand. For that matter a full harrier firebrand is just good enough at healing, not spectacular, and to be really effective at healing it has to be less effective at something else (aegis, stability, cleanse). If you're worried about being stuck in water attunement the days where people expected good dps out of their healers are pretty much gone.

Looking over at the cele tempest I've kept in mothballs for 7 years if I don't need auras to heal anymore then I can crank soothing mist to 3000, that's a lot more passive healing than what the firebrand is capable of. In full zerk that's 1600 which is about where harrier healbrand's passive is at. Most new healbrands don't run virtues and make the mistake of having basically no passive healing anyway.

But you're not competing against firebrand, you're competing against the other heal alacrities, alac druid and HAM. If a group forms with two dps quickness it's probably more likely to pick HAM and druid over you. Though the thing up in the air until tomorrow is how much BD you will need to upkeep that alacrity, you might just do better damage and healing than druid if you only needed zealot stats or something. Assuming the fight doesn't need stability.