Quality of life: Tempest and Baseline Alacrity

[Ban Daur.4831]

I loved playing the old heal tempest back when it had 10 target cap and could be fit into squads whitout major drawbacks. The trait and utility selection imo at least were more free and the ability to heal outside of water attunement via auras was amazing as you could gain those via weapon skills, trait choices, shouts and overloads. It promoted a  very fun and active playstyle and did not feel punishing when leaving water. I know lot of people seem to be happy or at least fine whit the new tempest but personally it feels like a shadow of it's former glory. Comparison videos of the old and the new: compare the healing potential and playstyle/gameplay.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND95MQVtekc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ5DtCPSFQQ

 

Having alacrity baseline on tempest would enable lot more play whit the spec and might be balanced as well for it too. Tempest atm is not winning any dps races and it's utility toolbox while a bit better now is not great either. If alacrity became baseline tempest could be played more as a carry healer as it was back then, also the offensive support variant might perfectly align whit the other offensive supports if it had to take some boon duration or run two to fill for uptime similar to renegades and mirages. Compare the full dps tempest to other offensive supports: https://snowcrows.com/benchmarks

 

Of course balancing comes an issue again in both in pve and pvp and for that just have the same treatment herald recently got and make the alacrity another boon for competitive modes or completly not available. This request has already been shouted by so many in some of the other topics and some youtube videos covering the tempest. What I would want to know is why not make it so? Because from my perspective tempest is not topping any dps charts, the healing is not overpowered whit the utility it can bring and it's playrate is low outside of pvp of course.

[Infusion.7149]

The problem is you basically have to play heal tempest without the heal on auras for alacrity because the DPS alacrity variants aren't that great.
That is on top of having to deal with alacrity not being pulsed out on the overload and only when you complete an overload. It isn't going to truly compete with mechanist or druid in a PVE setting, even the older alacrity heal renegade wasn't so finnicky especially with the new tablet changes. In most cases specter is far more robust if you are looking at DPS alac variants along with alacrity mirage and ritualist renegade.

The best way to revise tempest is probably not to make alacrity baseline but to improve consistency of DPS support variants by reducing RNG on the lightning orb and overload air skills.

EDIT: You'd also have to be able to do push roles, so staff's gust would need a cooldown decrease.

Edited October 6, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Serephen.3420]

While I share your sentiment I don't think alacrity should be baseline, instead it should be in the master tier if it's to stay as it is on overloads. And Harmonious Conduit should be reworked and put in the master tier.

Overload cast times should also be reduced to at least 3 or 2 seconds to more accurately reflect their current power.

Then I think tempest for pve and wvw at least(spvp is a different game entirely) should be in a better place again. 

Edited October 6, 2022 by Serephen.3420

[Kulvar.1239]

If you make Alacrity baseline, damage will be nerfed around that fact, and when doing raids/fractals/strikes, pure DPS builds won't benefit from getting Alac externally.

Alac/Quick should always be behind a trait so pure DPS builds get to benefit from getting them externally.