Alacrity tempest: is making the alacrity pulse really the best solution?

[Infusion.7149]

PREFACE
I was thinking about alacrity tempest and the problems it currently has given the 7s of alacrity application since July 2022. Most notably the hitbox variance is an issue if you use lightning orb but also the way alacrity is applied. It takes 6s to reach singularity normally and also you have attunement recharge time. This means the bare minimum boon duration is around 30% ignoring aftercast since an overload under quickness takes just under 3 seconds to finish (with aftercast overload air is ~3200ms, overload fire is ~3200ms, overload earth ~2760ms). The benchmarker Fennec actually suggested people use 45% boon duration for power and 65% for condi (10% extra boon duration in either case). Attunement recharge is less of a problem with fresh air but the dominant build right now is the condi variant using arcane and fire traitlines to do conditions on crit. This does allow you to have easy access to heat sync and sand squall (lengthening boon duration). I've seen full berserker power alac tempest (using 100 concentration food , air, arcane) however it cut very close to minimum boon duration (it was 34% meaning if you are below 90% health it won't have enough boon duration) and does not crit cap under the current banner situation.

Having alacrity apply on overload isn't necessarily a bad design since it is usable in any attunement (unlike quickness catalyst which can only apply quickness in air attunement) and the overloads do something for your boon support role. However, if you are trying to play heal alacrity it is severely diminished in healing due to loss of heals on auras. This means it is best paired with a heal quickness and since generally that is heal firebrand and maybe heal herald, it leaves out most quickness builds. Heal quickness warrior really isn't great (soldier's comfort is underwhelming and shouts are mutually exclusive with banners), neither is a healing StM chrono; quickness harbinger doesn't really have any healing tools. Heal scrapper is normally ignored in favor of heal mechanist (and does no damage whatsoever while in med kit).

I've seen posts in the past suggesting alacrity pulse but that means if you are interrupted (or dodge) then you still lose alacrity application. Really it means under 2 seconds of alacrity per pulse using the current value of 7s.

ALTERNATIVES TO PULSING ALACRITY

IDEA #1: Shorter cast time when Lucid Singularity is traited in exchange for fewer total damage pulses
I was thinking about if the overloads themselves had a ~1.75s shorter base cast time (to match Drake's Breath / Cone of Cold 2.25s base cast) and 2s shorter duration if you trait Lucid Singularity. This would keep them easily counter-able in PVP/WVW at 2.25s base cast (not to mention most people use the Elemental Bastion aura heal trait) and not massively increase DPS in PvE. If you use an overload and it casts quicker then you can use more of them as well as any other skills you have on your skillbar. Total time including 6s of singularity time and the cast time would be ~7.5s (just under 8s if you count aftercast on overload fire or air) which would result in far less required boon duration and more consistency. Tempest innately has 16% boon duration in PVE (240 concentration) putting lucid singularity at 8s. Of course the voice lines might need to cut the dialogue if under quickness. (1.5s cast under quickness or ~2 seconds including aftercast means not much time for Fired Up! Inferno! Cooling Down!)
* Note that overload air is a top contributor to damage on the power alacrity variant.
* lower lingering storm duration makes it less susceptible to movement
* Overload Fire would hit for 8 times instead of 10 with a traited field duration of 3s , Overload Earth would hit for 7 instead of 9 times with traited storm duration of 2s, Overload Air's upper limit is 14 so probably would hit 10 times (attack interval is 0.5s and the field lasts 4 seconds normally meaning 2s duration with this change) but you get to use it far more and are less likely to cancel it
* I simulated canceling an overload aftercast by using "Wash the Pain Away" after the 4th tick of damage on overload earth or 5th tick on overload fire, you sometimes do not get any alacrity whatsoever currently and you don't get the lingering field effect.

IDEA #1 alternate implementation of cast time reduction (PVE only):  ~2s cast time with half the interval time (~2.5s including aftercast) while keeping existing field duration. This allows for much faster might generation.
* Channeling part of Overload Fire would hit every 0.5s on par with melee weapons, Overload Earth would hit every 0.5s, Overload Air would hit every 0.25s (same pace as lightning orb), Overload Water would pulse every 0.5s
* Chrono has improved alacrity so this would be essentially improved quickness but only for overloads that are applying alacrity.

IDEA #2: Transmuting aura shares 2s of alacrity , so there is an alternative source of alacrity other than overloads.
Self explanatory, it would be an improvement to shock aura and also make using focus or offhand dagger on tempest less penalizing.

IDEA #2a: Frost aura applies alacrity as well and not just overloads
Another way I could see helping is any frost aura application traited with Lucid Singularity also applying ~2s of alacrity (frost aura is available to overload water which isn't used on the DPS variants, but also on "Flash Freeze" which is underwhelming and "Rebound" ; blasting Frozen Ground would be far more meaningful this way on staff variants; there would be a stronger reason to run PvE aurashare again instead of stronger Soothing Mist). That way overloads are not the sole source of alacrity which hurts heal tempest since overload fire (might) , earth (protection), and water are the only ones they want to use (overload air doesn't put out boons).

IDEA #3:  Vigor applies short duration alacrity in addition to overloads
Vigor applies 2s of alacrity to others in PvE when traited with Lucid Singularity in addition to the alacrity on overloads. This indirectly benefits overload water , invigorating torrents which requires auras, and Latent Stamina which has an internal cooldown of 10s. It also indirectly makes auras stronger and allows for a tempest without stability on overload to reasonably function as an alacrity source. This setup is in a similar design as Stalwart Speed on Firebrand.

BORING IDEA #1 and reasoning: Alacrity changed to beginning of cast when traited
Lucid Singularity applies alacrity at the beginning of the overload similar to how quickness on catalyst works or wells on specter. Superspeed on quickness scrapper was also changed to the initial pulse. Possible "problems" with this are people intentionally cancelling overload air on heal alacrity tempest (i.e. using "Wash the Pain Away", dodging, or attunement swap) or condi tempest and swapping out immediately. Condi tempest benches at 33K-36K so it won't be a negligible DPS disparity (you lose the 15% modifier from Transcendent Tempest) just running alacrity. This also presents the problem of having far less counterplay in competitive modes. Personally I would rather have a far more palatable cast time or supplemental alacrity.
* Since it takes 6 seconds to attain singularity even if you spam overload air you still need added boon duration with 4s base cast time.

BORING IDEA #2: More consistent boon duration 
Lucid Singularity alters Gathered Focus to no longer have the 90% threshold in addition to providing alacrity on overloads. This doesn't solve the issue completely but makes it less dependent on boon duration. You can test this idea out in fractals due to the additional boon duration, it doesn't make it drastically better to play.

BORING IDEA #3: Stat conversion to concentration
Lucid Singularity converts power to concentration. This lowers the boon duration requirement from gear but doesn't solve the problem of being interrupted. Therefore it doesn't inherently make it easier to execute ; harrier is already capped on concentration.

NOTE

Right now alac tempest is competing with:

• (Heal) Alac mechanist which is preferred on more or less every strike mission released as well as general fractals due to barrier application : you don't need to choose between alacrity and healing --- doesn't work underwater
• Alac heal druid/untamed where druid is more or less the preferred spec for Vale Guardian , Gorseval, Sabetha, Conjured Amalgamate (Rebound could make Tempest competitive there), and Soulless Horror : you don't need to choose between alacrity and healing (Fervent Force is likely to be nerfed so I don't consider untamed to be a stable alacrity spec in the long run) --- janky underwater
• Condi Alac mirage which is decidedly better on Twin Largos , Soulless Horror, and even Matthias as alac DPS. CnD guild actually showed a 10 man alac mirage. --- doesn't work underwater , horrible versus trash mobs
• Chrono alacrity is kind of offmeta, but alacrity application happens on the cast of the well. It isn't a particularly strong build and I'd imagine you would only run it when it is a power favored fight where alac mirage is not going to work (see low tier fractals with adds).
• Alac renegade (and heal renegade) which is far better on Soulless Horror and Matthias ; more CC allows for far superior fractal performance and Ventari "dome" is outright superior when you need projectile destruction (see W6 CA CM, Harvest Temple, W7 Adina / Sabir)
• Alac specter which is far better on Soulless Horror and Matthias as alac DPS especially considering the barrier output ; in fractals without large amounts of additional mobs it is far superior due to barrier output --- doesn't work underwarer , heal scaling is terrible on wells
• Alac willbender which is probably even worse , but is meaningless in the grand scheme of things since everyone asks for firebrand instead in most cases
• (Necro and warrior don't provide alacrity currently)

The main place you would use alac tempest is actually underwater sadly. (The only other one that really works underwater is alac renegade.)

I haven't seen much discussion about alacrity tempest and have not seen it run by other people save for one time someone was an ele main.  Thoughts?

Edited January 25, 2023 by Infusion.7149

[the krytan assassin.9235]

"My power, coming to a peak!"

Overload your attunements to become a powerful singularity of elemental power, shouting at your foes and calling upon your allies. The tempest specialization offers superior area-of-effect abilities in exchange for a slower attunement rotation.

— In-game description

 

The whole class mechanics of the Tempest is fcked honestly. The traitlines are average at best (and terrible for dps) and the overloads arent that actually powerfull anymore.

The only reason i actually overload on Tempest is the extra benefits from transcendent tempest and Lucid singularity. Also the 4 second casting time is simply to long for the fast paced PvE/WvW/PvP combat we have today. 

The Tempest needs to be redesigned to properly fit the in game description once again and this all starts with overloads becoming more powerful once again. Shortening the channeling time would definitely help with this. Another feature i'd like to see removed is the extended cooldown after overloading or atleast shortening it abit (this would also be in line with the removal of several Espec trade offs from 4th october patch and onwards). 

Both these features would also help the overall alac uptime. Alacdps wouldn't have to constantly worry about not locking himself out of Fire for a couple seconds (and could even camp fire if you slot in enough boon dura) and Htemp would become more consistent in its healing output. It would also be beneficial for Htemp whenever the Tempest is forced/wants to camp a single attunement abit longer after the OL. Shortening the channel time would also make it easier to finish your overloads so you'll have more consistency on your alac output. A 2 second channel time would be perfect imo (maybe reduce base alac dura to 6s to compensate).

 

 

 

[Erenias.6947]

You've mentioned it in your post, but I'm a fan of adding more sources of alacricy to tempest. When there first were rumours of alacricy on tempest I saw four ways to add it.

 

On overload

On aura

On shout

On warhorn

 

They chose to add it in my least preferred way, which was on the overload. I think adding another source of alacricy to tempest is the right way to go. I'd say the simplest implementation would be to add some alacricy to the shout trait, as it's currently useless. 

 

I also wouldn't be opposed to the 4 skill on warhorn (every attunement) giving alacricy, as those skills all have a support aspect to them. 

 

Alacricy on aura would of course be the best, but I think it might be too easy to maintain alacricy, so they'll have to need it hard.

[Jski.6180]

Having an powerfully boon at a perma level needs to cost you a lot to pull off more then just max boon duration. Overloads are one of the biggest risk effects in the game as you cant dodge during them or even atument swap (something that is far more of an risk then any thing for the ele class).

If you want to make the overloads during the cast stronger by making the alacrity pulse i think overloads need to eat endurance to use but have no wait time for swaping to an new atument. A kind of making tempest into an endurance base class that ele is missing atm. Keep in mind this maybe to much to update for the class.

Let be fair the warhorn blows (hehe) for effects and skills on the ele class for support its a better dps wepon oddly. That an different topic but i dont see anet added in alacrity for the warhorn skills.

I think shouts ARE the aura skills for tempest so they fall into both at the same time and they seem to low risk to use for an powerfully boon effect.

[crosknight.3041]

my biggest issue with current alac application on tempest is the "All or Nothing" aspect of it, followed by the trait being in direct competition with the tempest trait that makes it extremely viable to heal outside of water attunement.

in terms of all or nothing, with quickness and having alacrity, to grant the full 14s of alacrity (assuming you have 100% boon duration)  it would take about 7 seconds to swap into an attunement and to get the overload off. 4.5s just to get into the overload. so if you cancel the overload for whatever reason (interupted or having to dodge or user error accidentally swapping attunements early) it can feel quite punishing.

imo atleast 2 warhorn skills should have alacrity functions (looking at fire 4 and earth 4) as well as a shout or 2 (thinking rebound atleast).

i think the biggest fix for support alac tempest would be core utility reworks to have more group heals/utility, atm imo core ele utilities feel like like they are some of the worst in the game. FB and Ham have far more versatility and on demand healing then tempest without that aura heal trait so reworking core utilities would go a long way balancing ele that lacks the on demand healing and powerful boons FB and HAM have. the overload application of alac on tempest also make it difficult to go into water when you need to having to sacrifice time that would be spent overloading to cast your heals. ele also lacks on demand healing that FB has, as swapping out of water puts it on a 10s cooldown (8 if you have arcane trait line)

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

11 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

Having an powerfully boon at a perma level needs to cost you a lot to pull off more then just max boon duration.

Alacrity doesn't work that way on any other class. Pretty much everything except Ranger is press buttons and go, and even Ranger is just mildly vulnerable to CC while casting and that's it.

 

Elementalist is always designed to be hard to play for basically no reason, or payoff.

Edited January 26, 2023 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Jski.6180]

9 minutes ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

Alacrity doesn't work that way on any other class. Pretty much everything except Ranger is press buttons and go, and even Ranger is just mildly vulnerable to CC while casting and that's it.

 

Elementalist is always designed to be hard to play for basically no reason, or payoff.

Its annoying for sure but they "should" work that way and ele mostly dose.

Ele is the biggest risk taker as an class and overloads are the highest risk skills to cast and complete. Even channel skills on ele at least you can swap atument during the channel you cant do that with overloads.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

14 minutes ago, Jski.6180 said:

Its annoying for sure but they "should" work that way and ele mostly dose.

Ele is the biggest risk taker as an class and overloads are the highest risk skills to cast and complete. Even channel skills on ele at least you can swap atument during the channel you cant do that with overloads.

Unfortunately the devs don't balance PvE based upon risk. If you want Ele to have a hard time pulling off Alacrity, then the payoff needs to be that they get permanent Alacrity easier than other classes, not harder. The more difficult it is to give the boon, the bigger the payoff should be when you do.

[Jski.6180]

32 minutes ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

Unfortunately the devs don't balance PvE based upon risk. If you want Ele to have a hard time pulling off Alacrity, then the payoff needs to be that they get permanent Alacrity easier than other classes, not harder. The more difficult it is to give the boon, the bigger the payoff should be when you do.

That is an underlying problem with the game is that the differences in hp and def dose not seem to be used for balancing at all its just an left over that has never been fixed.

It should not be easier to get any of these strong boons ele has it worst off then most classes when it comes to perma builds but its the effect of the overload it self that should be buffed more not the added effects you can trait for. (All overloads really should have an field during there cast as well as an after cast field too.)

A lot of what wrong with tempest alacrity is the lack of healing effects from wepon and utility to make up for the lost of healing auras (and well not being able to do any thing during the overloads them self with skill that have an cast time hehe.)

[Dadnir.5038]

7 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

If you want Ele to have a hard time pulling off Alacrity, then the payoff needs to be that they get permanent Alacrity easier than other classes, not harder.

The thing is that, from an objective point of view, Tempest don't need boon duration to upkeep alacrity via lucid singularity. If you rotate through all attunments and use all overloads, you'll offer 28s of alacrity with skills that have a 20s CD (16s with alacrity).

For the devs, this permanent pay off that you expect is already there. You even have the leeway to screw up one of your 4 overloads as 3 overloads will still net you 21s of alacrity.

The truth is that other professions do need boon duration, Tempest do not need boon duration. You only take boon duration as a tempest to minimize/optimize your rotation.

 

NB.: Keep in mind that the devs balance things in order to push players to rely on their character's main mechanism and for elementalist it's attunment switching (and it's true for all elementalist's e-specs). From their point of view, 7s of alacrity at the end of an overload is probably already overly generous knowing that a tempest have 4 overloads. (They probably only see it as balanced due to the time to attain singularity and the need to have quickness to catch up with the alacrity at the end of the overload)

[Jski.6180]

4 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

The thing is that, from an objective point of view, Tempest don't need boon duration to upkeep alacrity via lucid singularity. If you rotate through all attunments and use all overloads, you'll offer 28s of alacrity with skills that have a 20s CD (16s with alacrity).

For the devs, this permanent pay off that you expect is already there. You even have the leeway to screw up one of your 4 overloads as 3 overloads will still net you 21s of alacrity.

The truth is that other professions do need boon duration, Tempest do not need boon duration. You only take boon duration as a tempest to minimize/optimize your rotation.

 

NB.: Keep in mind that the devs balance things in order to push players to rely on their character's main mechanism and for elementalist it's attunment switching (and it's true for all elementalist's e-specs). From their point of view, 7s of alacrity at the end of an overload is probably already overly generous knowing that a tempest have 4 overloads. (They probably only see it as balanced due to the time to attain singularity and the need to have quickness to catch up with the alacrity at the end of the overload)

There a 4 sec delay in there dose that messes up the duration vs cd? Well with out any boon duration i find in wvw you need to push it to 11 to 12 sec to have "perma" duration seeing how you need to do more on the fly for wvw then say in pve.

Its more then just the duration its that you cant do any thing else during overloads not even atument swap witch is deadly for the ele class in both out put and keeping it self going. There are very few classes that have an channel for as long and that is so restricted as overloads for the ele class (keep in mind classes with better passive def are better at channel skills so ele with some of the weakest passive def is one of the worst even tempest out of the 3 elite spec of ele has the weakest passive def.)

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

6 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

The thing is that, from an objective point of view, Tempest don't need boon duration to upkeep alacrity via lucid singularity. If you rotate through all attunments and use all overloads, you'll offer 28s of alacrity with skills that have a 20s CD (16s with alacrity).

For the devs, this permanent pay off that you expect is already there. You even have the leeway to screw up one of your 4 overloads as 3 overloads will still net you 21s of alacrity.

The truth is that other professions do need boon duration, Tempest do not need boon duration. You only take boon duration as a tempest to minimize/optimize your rotation.

 

NB.: Keep in mind that the devs balance things in order to push players to rely on their character's main mechanism and for elementalist it's attunment switching (and it's true for all elementalist's e-specs). From their point of view, 7s of alacrity at the end of an overload is probably already overly generous knowing that a tempest have 4 overloads. (They probably only see it as balanced due to the time to attain singularity and the need to have quickness to catch up with the alacrity at the end of the overload)

It doesn't work that realistically because Tempest can't upkeep Stability through every overload, can't dodge while overloading and will inevitably get interrupted at some point. There's been a half dozen threads about it posted here, so I'm not the only one who found it the most frustrating drawback of Alacrity Tempest.

 

Also that's not a comparison to something like Renegade, which literally pushes one button. I mean sure, they need like 80% boon duration to pull it off, but its one button, off-cooldown, that doesn't interfere with their damage (beyond the BD), the legend swapping, their rotation or anything in any way.

 

I sincerely doubt half the people who talk about Elementalist have even played it in hard content. After maining it for nearly a decade all I can tell you is its the most frustrating class because you can pour your heart and soul into it, you can get everything perfect, and then someone else comes along and just blasts out everything you did with a faceroll on their keyboard. It makes you want to throw your computer through a window and onto the street.

 

Please don't look at things in a vacuum, look at the reality of it, the real world.

Edited January 26, 2023 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Sindust.7059]

So I'm new to healing and particularly doing so on tempest, but I tried it once in fractals, and really my biggest problem was that I can't heal while providing boons or vice versa. I wanted to go here and give feedback, and I see that the top thread is already basically about the same problem I had. 😆

 

My solution would have been to ask for 2 more seconds of base alac duration, because that's the minimum that would be needed to maintain 100% alac with just water overload, which would allow staying in water attunement and to keep healing.

Or alternatively significantly increase Soothing Mist duration and make it radiate healing from the tempest rather than apply the buff once, and everyone who isn't in range at the time gets no healing until the next time the tempest switches to water.

[zeyeti.8347]

It's a personal opinion , but having it pulse wouldn't be enough to be a good healer agaisnt what we have already (hfb , druid , mech) , the healing power of the tempest is good , he obvioulsy has the most powerfull heal of all the game : the water overload . 

But it's heal access he lacks the most , i find it very cringe to not have the choice to take bastion of elements if you want alacrity , would been very good if alacrity came from aura share , i know that would seriously hit the tempest condi dps alacrity as you need to have water aura share traitline , but for power and healing it could be great , water attunement has a +20% damage (power) modificator possibilty and +10% if you are in water .

So if Invigorating Torrents could give alacrity , the tempest will be at the same level as the others healers , your overloads will still give alacrity at the end if you choose the right trait to do so , and if you got interrupted you can give yourself an aura trough other skills like shouts or some weapon skills who are difficult to fail launching .

Also not in the same subject , fire and earth overload should extend their boons to a 360 aoe not 180 , thats freaking small , and has you the obligation to play with warhorn an dagger for heat sync , i gladly would like to play staff as healtempest (warhorn is great , but dagger , yuuukkk) , giving might over 9 secs in a small 180 aoe with not other option to extend it is very awfull to play , for example : mechs player who gives might every AA is on a 600 range ... it is very comfortable to play and cannot get interrupted at all.

 

[DaKillaOfHell.5907]

21 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

The thing is that, from an objective point of view, Tempest don't need boon duration to upkeep alacrity via lucid singularity. If you rotate through all attunments and use all overloads, you'll offer 28s of alacrity with skills that have a 20s CD (16s with alacrity).

For the devs, this permanent pay off that you expect is already there. You even have the leeway to screw up one of your 4 overloads as 3 overloads will still net you 21s of alacrity.

The truth is that other professions do need boon duration, Tempest do not need boon duration. You only take boon duration as a tempest to minimize/optimize your rotation.

 

Well, that is not objective at all since you dont see the massive drawbacks of such a playstyle:

 

1.) You don't have enough stability for a four-second-cast being non-interrupted.

 

2.) Using OL is a four-second-channel, in which you cannot do anything else, not dodging, nothing. In fact, no other class, no other ability has a channel time that long, while being completely disabled not doing anything.

 

3.) In the four-second-cast, a lot of things may happen, group gets tons of conditions, for example, or lot of bullets incoming, which is especially bad when having the wrong attunement and wrong OL, however, interrupting the overload is the worst because full CD still applies to OL. So in order to help the group, you need to finish the cast, switch attunement, wait for 5 seconds, and then do OL again. 

 

4.) Worse than that, the alac buff only applies if you cast the full 4 seconds, which makes it utter garbage compared to any other way of applying alacrity for any other class.

 

5.) Using OL applies, as stated, higher CD, which also means that changing the attunement will not let you use that attunement again for 20 seconds. So by changing, you might be locked out of, for example healing for 20 seconds. I dont need to mention how devastating it is for a heal not to be able to heal for example...

 

 

But I think, this shows the large difference between devs not playing the class and therefore having no idea of affecting class mechanics as well as other players not playing elementalist to players like me, who play elementalist every day as their main.

Only because something seems good on paper doesnt make it good in actual combat.

[soulknight.9620]

A lot of the problems u brought up can be easily resolved with adding a few secs of alacrity to underused shouts like "feel the burn" or "flash freeze". It would cover the slow start in generating alac until u can get a full OL and get the thing going. Aswell as generate more "slack" (stack more alac in advance) and minimize the impact of canceling OL to dodge a mechanic or something. 

[Joswi.2635]

I've thought it should be tied to auras for a while now. My thought was that it could be something along the lines of you when apply an aura to yourself you apply alac to allies around you and not directly tied to giving auras to others. That way you wouldn't need powerful aura to apply it and could take soothing power to offset some of the healing you are losing by not taking elemental bastion.

[Jimbru.6014]

The problem with Tempest alacrity is one of accessibility and over-specialization.

Tempest: Has to select a specific trait to give alacrity, and constantly switch elements and spam overloads to maintain alacrity, while giving up other important traits affecting overloads, resulting in lower DPS, reduced support abilities, and more stressful gameplay.

Mechanist: Also has to select a specific trait to give alacrity, BUT can maintain perm alacrity simply by auto-attacking with mace and Barrier Burst, with only slightly less DPS and no negative effect on support abilities.

Until this disparity is fixed, Tempests will remain the least desirable and least fun class for providing alac.