Scepter changes - Heal tempest

[the krytan assassin.9235]

20 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

On its own the water trident change isn't that large for DPS eles since it will be 1.6 coefficient in PVE and hit 3 targets (which fits the trident part of the name better also). On the whole, the amount of AoE added to scepter is quite significant as is the rock barrier resistance and barrier change.

• Shatterstone is going from 1.6 to 2.0 coefficient and no longer going to do nothing if targets walk out of the AoE since it double hits
• Lightning strike is going to cleave 3 targets and is going from 1.2 to 1.5 coefficient while the notes say nothing about giving it a cast time
• Blinding Flash is going to blind 3 targets and becomes an ammo skill
• Dust Devil is going to blind in AoE and cripple bleeding targets on following strikes 

In WVW hammer might gain viability for DPS catalyst since the orbs are no longer projectile, but staff and dagger have always been stronger picks for heal elementalist in competitive modes due to auras. Scepter might get some use in smaller groups for DPS due to a 0.6 coefficient initial hit of shatterstone, AoE lightning strike, and a tracking Dragon's tooth would make it more usable in openfield. Scepter autos don't really cleave (and I've never been impressed with the air auto chain despite it hitting 3) so you probably want to use Dragon's tooth, phoenix, and shatterstone often against larger groups as those aren't projectile.

This means that in mobile scenarios elementalist has a stronger ranged damage option since staff is reliant on slow attacks such as Ice Spike, Eruption, Chain Lightning, Lava Font (DoT), and meteor shower which isn't remotely usable when moving. Staff could really use a faster autoattack on air attunement though especially given the subsequent hits to the nearby targets is lower than the initial hit.

Arenanet has stated they want to narrow down the usage of each skill to one primary purpose ("purity of purpose"). If they cave in to people wanting a "burst" heal on water trident it will probably mean it only will be used for healing meaning it will likely be completely unchanged and have its meager damage removed. It is unrealistic for them to implement a 2 ammo 1.6 coefficient attack that cleaves and also heals for more than 1K in AoE. 

So your point is? Scepter AA are still complete garbage for PvE, so it won't be a viable Pdps weapon for PvE. 

For WvW an 1.2 dmge coefficient nets you around 3k dmge. Shatterstone still has .5 casting time and a 0.67 delay on 2nd impact, so still probably gonna hit the targets only once. 

Lightning strike only has a 0.6 dmge coefficient so gonna crit 1.5k max. 

Phoenix projectile moves slow AF and although unblockable im pretty sure it still is vulnerable to reflects. 

Scepter offers no boonrip/CC (except some soft cc chilled on shatterstone).

Weaver dual skills on scepter are quite bad. Also earth attunement still does not provide enough good quality skills to fill up the 4 sec cd on attunement switch. 

Scepter lacks combo finishers for decent uptime on EE/empowering auras/hardened auras. 

Overloading attunements on Tempest places the Burst dps ele in a very vulnerable position. 

For any burst dps build to work properly you need to run glasscannon build. Small scale roaming group meta is completely the opposite; all builds have a good amount of utility/surviveability built in their build.

For solo roaming you'll have to compete with catalyst & its antitoxin runes, gl with that.

Dragons tooth is nothing more then a forced Dodge for any semi competent roamer/pvper. 

 

Sure there is a very small minority that is actually able to consistently pull off scepter burst, in pvp/roaming.  They'll probably get abit better and you'll probably get some extra players that will be able to make somewhat work in pvp/roaming. But really thats it. 

 

P.s. aslong as shift signet still exist Anet cant complain about a skill not fitting in its purity of purpose design. Also its current purpose has been the same since launch. Why should the purity of purpose suddenly be a problem?

[Infusion.7149]

4 minutes ago, the krytan assassin.9235 said:

So your point is? Scepter AA are still complete garbage for PvE, so it won't be a viable Pdps weapon for PvE. 

For WvW an 1.2 dmge coefficient nets you around 3k dmge. Shatterstone still has .5 casting time and a 0.67 delay on 2nd impact, so still probably gonna hit the targets only once. 

Lightning strike only has a 0.6 dmge coefficient so gonna crit 1.5k max. 

Phoenix projectile moves slow AF and although unblockable im pretty sure it still is vulnerable to reflects. 

Scepter offers no boonrip/CC (except some soft cc chilled on shatterstone).

Weaver dual skills on scepter are quite bad. Also earth attunement still does not provide enough good quality skills to fill up the 4 sec cd on attunement switch. 

Scepter lacks combo finishers for decent uptime on EE/empowering auras/hardened auras. 

Overloading attunements on Tempest places the Burst dps ele in a very vulnerable position. 

For any burst dps build to work properly you need to run glasscannon build. Small scale roaming group meta is completely the opposite; all builds have a good amount of utility/surviveability built in their build.

For solo roaming you'll have to compete with catalyst & its antitoxin runes, gl with that.

Dragons tooth is nothing more then a forced Dodge for any semi competent roamer/pvper. 

 

Sure there is a very small minority that is actually able to consistently pull off scepter burst, in pvp/roaming.  They'll probably get abit better and you'll probably get some extra players that will be able to make somewhat work in pvp/roaming. But really thats it. 

 

P.s. aslong as shift signet still exist Anet cant complain about a skill not fitting in its purity of purpose design. Also its current purpose has been the same since launch. Why should the purity of purpose suddenly be a problem?

1a) Given the low cooldowns on the skills such as Shatterstone or Dragon's Tooth you won't need to AA often. Every #3 damage skill is more or less 10s cooldown on scepter, and the proposed Water Trident change makes it an ammo skill. Condi core ele was tested on fire attunement to do something akin to 30K DPS, a large part of that is AA. The current iteration of scepter is more conducive to grieving with burn duration modifiers however. Sure Arenanet could have upped the AA on air attunement, but that is a completely other topic.

1b) You do realize that 1.2 coefficient in WVW is a high coefficient? Skills like CoR are ~1.0 coefficient and most #2 staff skills on ele are minimally higher in the range of 1.1.

2) Dragon's tooth is getting tracking

3) Never said anything about catalyst using scepter

4) No boon rip on scepter is no different than literally everything on elementalist, berserkers, DHs, DPS holos/scrappers not using mine kit, power revenants, or soulbeast rangers. Saying it is has no CC is meaningless on a mainhand since you have an offhand, dual attacks on weaver that provide stun/chill, and even in the past people were able to damage with scepter the way it is now.

5) Scepter dual skills are bad in your opinion but they are good enough to be the meta condi weaver in PVE. In addition, Plasma Beam has 2.2 coefficient in competitive modes. In addition, scepter is getting barrier on rock barrier which means it will be less glassy even if running glasscannon. See GW2 - Fresh Air Weaver Roaming Build - GuildJen

6) The purpose of scepter was never healing at launch and scepter was hardly used at all. Staff did top DPS at HoT era too. Water Trident was on 20 cooldown before August this year which also means that the overall heal per time interval was never this high previously. If people want burst heal they can use "Wash the Pain Away", Signet of Water, or "Rebound" for a potential downstate.


Moreover, this is a straight buff to scepter across the board, yet people still are complaining only because of water trident heal. Seems petty. How often do you even see people ingame ask for heal alacrity tempest? Arenanet needs to address how alacrity is provided instead of simply sidestepping the issue. DPS alacrity tempest would be a better possibility if Arenanet would improve Lucid Singularity's function.

[the krytan assassin.9235]

4 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

1b) You do realize that 1.2 coefficient in WVW is a high coefficient? Skills like CoR are ~1.0 coefficient and most #2 staff skills on ele are minimally higher in the range of 1.1.

Yes, i do realize. Still 1.2 dmge coefficients equates to around 3-3.5k dmge tops. 

4 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Dragon's tooth is getting tracking

Yes, all im saying is that regardless of how powerful dragons tooth is for WvW zerg gameplay, it won't be viable. Also don't expect dragons tooth on a 2.0 dmge coefficient. They nerfed all ranged dps to hit like a wet noodle in the may balance patch. The only reason they're left out is no one was playing scepter zerg ele anyways. Even in the livestream the already hinted at nerfing the damage. 

 

4 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

No boon rip on scepter is no different than literally everything on elementalist, berserkers, DHs, DPS holos/scrappers not using mine kit, power revenants, or soulbeast rangers. Saying it is has no CC is meaningless on a mainhand since you have an offhand, dual attacks on weaver that provide stun/chill, and even in the past people were able to damage with scepter the way it is now.

Sure, for single player roaming you dont necessarily need group cc/support/boonrip. For small scale/zergfights this is not the case. Just name a single role in WvW zergs that is only able to provide damage. The only somewhat close alternative is staff ele which basically got yeeted out of any guildraid comp exactly because of this reason.

 

4 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Scepter dual skills are bad in your opinion but they are good enough to be the meta condi weaver in PVE. In addition, Plasma Beam has 2.2 coefficient in competitive modes. In addition, scepter is getting barrier on rock barrier which means it will be less glassy even if running glasscannon. See GW2 - Fresh Air Weaver Roaming Build - GuildJen

Sure a 2.2 dmge coefficient is nice for pvp/single player roaming. For small/large scale WvW fights your basically better of with any random aoe attack. Sure condi ele uses fracturing strike, but we were talking about WvW. PvE balance is a completely different story. 

 

4 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

The purpose of scepter was never healing at launch and scepter was hardly used at all. Staff did top DPS at HoT era too. Water Trident was on 20 cooldown before August this year which also means that the overall heal per time interval was never this high previously. If people want burst heal they can use "Wash the Pain Away", Signet of Water, or "Rebound" for a potential downstate.

Ah so the purpose of scepter was to be not used at all? Just like staff and dagger they have served multipurpose roles. Staff is irrelevant in this discussion due to wh being Tempest's speciality weapon so it requires an offhand weapon. Dagger support has always focused on more aura support whereas Trident was more focused towards healing/blind/extra surviveability. If Anet removes 90% of the aurashare synergy off of HAT, dagger is simply no longer a support weapon for PvE. 

 

4 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Moreover, this is a straight buff to scepter across the board, yet people still are complaining only because of water trident heal. Seems petty. How often do you even see people ingame ask for heal alacrity tempest? Arenanet needs to address how alacrity is provided instead of simply sidestepping the issue. DPS alacrity tempest would be a better possibility if Arenanet would improve Lucid Singularity's function.

Im not complaining about anything but water trident, all other changes are fine. Support Tempest has been the most popular ele build in instanced PvE for a while now, and certainly the most viable one compared to the average Weaver/cata and their respective skill level. Still i agree you barely see any HAT compared to HfB druid or ham, so why should Anet nerf the viability of HAT even when its already struggling to keep up. Sure there are some QoL issues that need to be addressed and i even wouldn't mind losing some of our healing in that process if we have to. Yet the devs didn't make a single change to the Tempest spec at all. If Anet cant fix some of the deeper rooted issues on Tempest, the least they could do is keep the HAT relevant by not nerfing it on their core traits/weapon skills. 

[Infusion.7149]

8 hours ago, the krytan assassin.9235 said:

Yes, i do realize. Still 1.2 dmge coefficients equates to around 3-3.5k dmge tops. 

Yes, all im saying is that regardless of how powerful dragons tooth is for WvW zerg gameplay, it won't be viable. Also don't expect dragons tooth on a 2.0 dmge coefficient. They nerfed all ranged dps to hit like a wet noodle in the may balance patch. The only reason they're left out is no one was playing scepter zerg ele anyways. Even in the livestream the already hinted at nerfing the damage. 

 

Sure, for single player roaming you dont necessarily need group cc/support/boonrip. For small scale/zergfights this is not the case. Just name a single role in WvW zergs that is only able to provide damage. The only somewhat close alternative is staff ele which basically got yeeted out of any guildraid comp exactly because of this reason.

 

Sure a 2.2 dmge coefficient is nice for pvp/single player roaming. For small/large scale WvW fights your basically better of with any random aoe attack. Sure condi ele uses fracturing strike, but we were talking about WvW. PvE balance is a completely different story. 

 

Ah so the purpose of scepter was to be not used at all? Just like staff and dagger they have served multipurpose roles. Staff is irrelevant in this discussion due to wh being Tempest's speciality weapon so it requires an offhand weapon. Dagger support has always focused on more aura support whereas Trident was more focused towards healing/blind/extra surviveability. If Anet removes 90% of the aurashare synergy off of HAT, dagger is simply no longer a support weapon for PvE. 

 

Im not complaining about anything but water trident, all other changes are fine. Support Tempest has been the most popular ele build in instanced PvE for a while now, and certainly the most viable one compared to the average Weaver/cata and their respective skill level. Still i agree you barely see any HAT compared to HfB druid or ham, so why should Anet nerf the viability of HAT even when its already struggling to keep up. Sure there are some QoL issues that need to be addressed and i even wouldn't mind losing some of our healing in that process if we have to. Yet the devs didn't make a single change to the Tempest spec at all. If Anet cant fix some of the deeper rooted issues on Tempest, the least they could do is keep the HAT relevant by not nerfing it on their core traits/weapon skills. 

If you are complaining about doing 3.5K damage in WVW then you are fighting people in full minstrel or something. 1.2 coefficient is on the higher end of the coefficients for anything that isn't a channeled skill. Cele tempest is a roaming build so if sustain is your only concern you can play that.

So dragon's tooth isn't getting nerfed yet you are projecting it will be nerfed in the future, okay. You do realize that is pure speculation unlike the nerf they have planned for Fervent Force on untamed? The same goes for "if Arenanet removes aura synergy", that is also pure speculation.

The reason staff ele fell out of favor was 2019 gyro changes and the nerfs to lava font and meteor shower. Melee groups were able to close the gap far quicker. It has nothing to do with damage because fireball, lava font, and meteor is by far the best way to hit any structure, unlike CoR on revenants, DH (which is nerfed to sword of justice, staff symbols, and symbol of energy on longbow which is projectile), or any ranger build (projectile and barrage is the only usable ranged AoE really).

This bit about heal alac tempest being popular doesn't add up. I have literally not seen anyone ask for heal alacrity tempest. In addition to that, unless healbrand is absolutely not usable and replaced by other dominant quickness sources you won't be using double healers. Guardian "mains" are stating that the patch will hurt CQB and CFB more than HB.

It's kind of funny you mention skill level. The "low intensity" version of heal tempest has been listed as staff tempest with arcane traitline (heal and condi cleanse on dodge) for quite a while on hardstuck. You're suggesting that people go play the snowcrows scepter alacrity tempest that is less than a half year old at the expense of several DPS builds for elementalist. That is scepter condi / hybrid (grieving) weaver which is the defacto condi weaver on snowcrows but as I listed above it was a build since 2021 before sword fell otu of favor, any condi tempest variants that run a power stat (viper/grieving/cele), any alacrity DPS tempest, any core condi ele. To that end you are intending to hold back a potentially positive change that will allow for DPS alac tempest to gain acceptance. If DPS elementalists have to use dagger it means that dealing with mechanics is inherently worse due to lack of weaponswap whereas using staff at range for healing (as opposed to damage on any build save for the niche staff condi weaver) or dagger for stacked scenarios has no such drawback.