About elementalist as PvP class

[Downstate.4697]

18 minutes ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

Most of the ones in NA are running both Harmonious Conduit and Rock Solid in the 3s arenas to counter enemy CCs for themselves and their team mates. Definitely seems to work better in 3s where AoE CCs are being slapped around all over the place.

And yes I am being serious. They pump out too much stab man.

Overloads are powerful skills. Not running stab is asking to get cc’d. I ran the regen on aura trait for a bit and the biggest problem I noticed wasn’t the lack of stab; it was the lack of swiftness to keep up with your team.

[The Ace.9105]

24 minutes ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

Let's take a look at the types of attacks that deliver condition damage in GW2:

1. Warrior condis? All projectile based outside of revenge counter.
2. Guardian condis? Melee or instant strike burn damage. This is one of the only dangerous condi types vs. Ele.
3. Rev condis? Renegade = projectile based. Other variants = non projectile but these build structures are so poor performing right now that no one runs these and they are a negligent argument.
4. Ranger condis? All projectile based outside of entangle/bonfire, two attack that pulse. INB4 discussion about traps because those build are now like rev condis, they just don't work for several reasons. Any good ranger condi variant is running zephyr/sharp/LR/entangle.
5. Thief condis? All projectile based outside of sword 2 strikes or DD whirls that no one uses anymore because they're bad.
6. Engi condis? All projectile based outside of some stray effects that don't pump nearly enough damage to contribute to its main projectile bursting.
7. Mes condis? Mostly projectile based, but a good half of it comes from shatters that go under reflects, which is one of the reasons why Mes is dangerous to Ele.
8. Necro condis? If Harbinger, nearly 75% of your DPS output is directly from projectiles. If Core Necro, at least 50% of your damage output is coming off dhuumfire projectiles. Unblockable staff marks, scepter instant strikes, core shroud pulses, are the ways to land consistent steady damage but these do not land kill threat bursts. The only real condi threat vs. Ele right now from the Necro category is if someone were to run a Scourge and stat it for heavy boon corrupts, and in that case every bit of its condi application/conversaion would be non-projectile and tear apart an Ele. Unfortunately, this counter no longer exists in pvp due to much nerfing and massive limitations in gear stats provided.
9. Ele condis? Strangely all non projectile, every bit of it. This is pretty strong in 2023 patchings where anti-projectile has 100% uptime in team fights.

When we really evaluate this, we can see that 80% to 90% of the game's potential condi damage is coming from projectiles. Does Support Tempest need much condi cleanse for itself or its party when it can maintain routine cycling of mass AoE reflects, which is better than condi cleanse as it is full immunity vs. 80% to 90% of the game's condis?

What I hear from Tempest Support players is that the only time they need to use Fire, is against the rare Burn Guard, Condi Mesmers, Condi Eles, and weird Necro builds ballsy enough to stat for mass corruptions. From what I understand, this rarely happens as the aforementioned builds are trash vs. everything else in the meta except Ele.

I feel like not only is there a good middle ground of defense vs. power & condi here, but that it might be a perfect and bloated middle ground that needs to change. We aren't talking vs. just condi here, we are also talking about all of the projectile based power damage that exists in the game that becomes virtually obsolete in the presence of Tempest Support. That's an awful lot of damage mitigation coming from JUST the reflects alone. This isn't even to mention everything else it's doing for its party and for itself.

Now don't take this the wrong way, I'm being serious, trying to have a serious discussion here. I feel like straight Ele mains are desensitized to how absolute their class's defenses are. The Ele mains who do not often dabble in other classes are well, always playing Ele, so they aren't seeing this from the perspective of Non-Ele players who have to play against Ele. To Ele players who have not done so recently or haven't done it long enough to get a clear perspective on this, I highly urge any Ele main to go play the 3s arena as any class that is not an Ele. After a good 50+ matches, I'd like to see what they have to say about this topic after playing a class seriously that is not an Ele. I would definitely expect a perception shift on the topic after they did so.

Most of the ones in NA are running both Harmonious Conduit and Rock Solid in the 3s arenas to counter enemy CCs for themselves and their team mates. Definitely seems to work better in 3s where AoE CCs are being slapped around all over the place.

And yes I am being serious. They pump out too much stab man.

Tempest's stability is shockingly low in certain situations, particularly outside of the overload channel. It's frustrating to see my character constantly vulnerable to attacks that deal condition damage, which can be difficult to defend against. While the Tempest does have some powerful mass AoE reflects, they just don't seem to cut it when facing projectile-based attacks.

You need to run 3 defensive utilities and I mean, come on, we're talking about survival here. And let's face it, not all players are created equal - some may not have the skill or experience to deal with the Tempest's weak defenses.

Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but in my view, the Tempest's defenses need serious rethinking. There may be those who disagree with me, but I stand by my word that tempest is not the problem.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

10 minutes ago, The Ace.9105 said:

I stand by my word that tempest is not the problem.

I have about 5 hours of 3s footage on twitch in my signature link that showcases a 100% lose rate of teams with no Tempest that go against teams with Tempest.

[The Ace.9105]

46 minutes ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

I have about 5 hours of 3s footage on twitch in my signature link that showcases a 100% lose rate of teams with no Tempest that go against teams with Tempest.

I feel like that's a you issue. I've personally won multiple times vs a team with a tempest and lost while having one. Tempest can be quite difficult to deal with and their ability to reflect projectiles and provide AoE healing and condition clears can be overwhelming, and it can be frustrating to play against. There are ways to counter the Tempest's strengths, such as using CCs and focusing on burst damage. 

[Zuko.7132]

1 hour ago, FrownyClown.8402 said:

Overloads are powerful skills. Not running stab is asking to get cc’d. I ran the regen on aura trait for a bit and the biggest problem I noticed wasn’t the lack of stab; it was the lack of swiftness to keep up with your team.

Bladesworn cries in the corner.

[ZolracAtrox.2908]

Why people stills crying about how hard Ele is.

 

No; Support Tempest is not even considered hard. Catalyst are almost a braindead option.

 

Yes, Sword Weaver is hard to play, and even harder to master; and yes, Almost all PvE builds are hard and complex (Except Tempest, ironically he's the easier Ele option along three game modes) but no, repeat with me, Support Tempest and Catalyst are not hard. Their rotations are intuitive, low effor, low cd options, lots of useful skills, etc. 

 

Tempest was already strong at PvP, those improvements are good for PvE/WvW (PvE requires more Alac improvements, due to that kitten dodge mechanic) and WvW one brings back Support Staff as an option. Not gonna talk about roaming, haven't roaming in WvW by years. But PvP's buff was 100% unnecesary. Buffing again an already strong options instead of touching dead specs... but I hope the fix before conquest season.

Edited February 20, 2023 by ZolracAtrox.2908

[Dr Meta.3158]

9 hours ago, zyra.7860 said:

Are you tired of your favorite support tempest getting nerfed time and time again? Well, listen up because I'm here to tell you why nerfing support tempest is a terrible idea.

First off, let's talk about repetition. How many times have we seen support tempest get hit with nerfs? It feels like every other patch notes include a nerf for tempest. Enough is enough! We need to stand up for our beloved tempest and say no to these constant nerfs.

But it's not just about repetition, it's about hyperbole as well. Let's be real, without support tempest, the game would be in chaos. Support tempests are the glue that holds our teams together, they keep us alive and help us win battles. Without them, we would be lost in a sea of chaos and defeat.

And let's not forget about the emotional appeal. Think about all the times a support tempest has saved your life in a crucial moment. Think about the times they've kept you and your team alive during a grueling battle. The support tempest is not just a class, it's a friend, a teammate, and a savior.

So, to all the devs out there, please hear us out. Don't nerf support tempest anymore. It's time to let them shine and continue to be the vital support class that they are. Let's stand together and show our support for our beloved tempests.

Your circle of hell is playing vs grimjack on support tempest using a harbinger until you finally kill him. Until then you are not allowed to stop playing.

[Sahne.6950]

Dont take this as a attack or anything,...  @Trevor Boyer.6524!  🙂

I am not trying to tell you that everything is perfectly balanced.  I am just trying to tell you how to deal with Tempest, because it isnt this unbeatable monster that you made it sound like.

 

i will start right here:

You said: "I feel like not only is there a good middle ground of defense vs. power & condi here, but that it might be a perfect and bloated middle ground that needs to change."

What your saying is very odd.....  because tempest biggest weakness is, THAT THEY DONT HAVE A MIDDLEGROUND.

They are always Gods towards one damagetype and completly vulnerable to the other.  A Earth/water Tempest has no cleanse.  |   A Fire/Water Tempest has 0 damagemitigations and 0 protection. There is no way around this.

 

Your only way to reliably beat a Tempest is to have both Damagetypes, or atleast swap between the rounds, to catch him offguard!   When skimming thru your stream i saw a few fights against Tempest, and everytime you were struggling, was when you were running 3 powerbuilds. After the Tempest lost the first round, he noticed this and went Earthbunker to completly shut you guys down. Some even took "rock solid" and "armor of Earth" to counter the Spellbreaker.  You 3 however, were not reacting to this at all.

You guys werent loosing because "enemy has tempest and we dont!"   You guys lost because you tried to run 3 powerbuilds into a Stoneheart Earthtempest. You guys didnt even consider that your one dimensional Teamcomp might be the actual problem at hand. If one of you would have changed to condi, those fights would have had a diffrent ending.

And that right there... shows that you dont really understand how to deal with Tempest yet. While it is super strong and can counter very good! The Tempest himself is very vulnerable to being countered, because it has no middleground and is only a raidboss when it comes to one Damagetype.

 

Being able to changebuilds/equip counters after every round of 3v3TDM, might be the bigger problem here, then the actual performance of aurashare ele inside the setting of 5v5Conquest.

If you really want to climb in 3v3, you end up in this weird "i counter you", "you counter me", "now i counter you again" mental game... which is just lame.

 

And yes I am being serious. They pump out too much stab man.

The 5v5Conquest SupTempest only has Stability on overloads. Every other source of stabi, means you are trading alot of sustain for it, or a utilityskill like RezSignet.

But when you are facing a 3manTeam that has alot of CC and no conditiondamage.... its worth it sometimes. And thats where we are right back at the initial problem. swapping builds after every fight, because you are playing TDM instead of Conquest.

Edited February 20, 2023 by Sahne.6950

[Dreams.3128]

17 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

They addressed Catalyst thank god.

Now it's time to address Tempest Support. This build is still pumping out waaaay too much personal and party sustain & sheer damage mitigation.

Some real statistics for you: I was streaming for the last couple of days in 3v3 ranked, and I kid you not, literally "every single game that I lost" was due to the very specific situation of my team not having a Tempest Support and the other team did have a Tempest Support. Don't believe me? Click on the link in my sig and watch the previous broadcast.

Later when I ran 3 man premade teams with some buddies, the same exact thing happened. We lost every single game where the enemy team had a Tempest Support when we ran teams that did not have Tempest Support. 100% lose rate to teams with Tempest Support if we did not use Tempest Support, every time.

Then we stood out in the FFA watching people come and go. It was like 90% of everyone with a plat badge next to their name, was running Tempest Support.

Tempest Support is too valuable, too important, makes way too much of a difference in matches. It needs to be nerfed as well. No one class should be mandatory to bring like this. A Spellbreaker being slightly OP right now as example, can still be dealt with and outplayed by a strong player on a mediocre class/build. But Tempest Support is so powerful that it enables a team of Gold 2s using the Tempest Support to be able to seriously threaten wins against like an old Plat 2 player team that isn't using a Tempest Support.

Core Guard Support is a good example of how a support should be. It makes a difference for sure if played wisely, but its presence doesn't auto guarantee a win vs. a team that doesn't have Core Guard Support. In this case the support is a support and only makes as much of a difference as any other class/build that is played well. Tempest Support on the other hand, is just buffed & jacked to such a degree that its very presence in a match vs. a team without one, almost surely guarantees a win unless the Tempest Support team is greatly greatly outplayed.

I'm not even sure quite exactly what needs to be nerfed on Tempest Support. We can get into that later. But it's obnoxious and dumb. I'm tired of this mandatory Ele required bull****. Bring it down to the importance level of Core Guard Support. That's where it should be. Support in GW2 is just whacko overtuned to begin with, even the rando effects being thrown around by most classes. These effects are just too strong when stacked and layed over each other.

Trevor as someone who had played like three or four games with you when I was duo'd and running solo, I'll say you didn't just lose to Tempest. You also lost to things like core support Guard with random dps stuff. You were in g3 complaining about classes in our matches or whenever brought up Cata. I get you want things to be BALANCED, but the whole guaranteed Tempest Support thing and you guaranteed losing against it is NOT true.

[Sahne.6950]

1 hour ago, Dreams.3128 said:

I get you want things to be BALANCED, but the whole guaranteed Tempest Support thing and you guaranteed losing against it is NOT true.

The thing is.... Trevor isnt even wrong with what hes saying!  When the enemy team is only running 1 Damagetype... the team with the Tempest will win 100% of the fights. Because tempests only weakness, being the other Damagetype... is simply not there.

Edited February 20, 2023 by Sahne.6950

[Dreams.3128]

20 minutes ago, Sahne.6950 said:

The thing is.... Trevor isnt even wrong with what hes saying!  When the enemy team is only running 1 Damagetype... the team with the Tempest will win 100% of the fights. Because tempests only weakness, being the other Damagetype... is simply not there.

And when you watch at trevors stream, you can see that exactly this is happening! Everytime they struggle against a tempest, they have 3 powerbuild and noone can can provide conditionpressure. Also they very rarely focus the Tempest.... for whatever reason xD

Teams need to run both damagetypes! Or atleast have someone that can swap to condi/power when its needed. You then need to identify what build the tempest is playing, by keeping a close eye on the auras. Do they give protection?  yes -> a condibuild has to focus the tempest.   no -> a powerbuild has to focus the tempest.

If you apply this, there is very little the tempest can do, except shout at his team to peel for him.

try that @Trevor Boyer.6524!  bring a "condi druid swap" to your next 3v3 game. And pull it out incase a tempest is acting up. Youd be surprised how effective this can be.🙂

 

Unironically, yes he is right and I agree with you. But I mostly said what I said because Trevor is being disingenuous slightly. But, you are right. You HAVE to run basically hybrid if you are going to expose Tempest's weaknesses, because it is a solid class, but it's not a GOD class either. It is simply a hard counter to one damage type.

 

 

5 minutes ago, zyra.7860 said:

Trevor getting exposed in every thread XD

I only wanted to point out ALL of the facts, not just some cherry picked point tbh. I don't care what people do, but at least say you had other games where that wasn't the case 🤷‍♀️

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

8 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

I am not trying to tell you that everything is perfectly balanced.  I am just trying to tell you how to deal with Tempest, because it isnt this unbeatable monster that you make it sound like.

I never said it was an unbeatable monster. I've been saying for a couple years now, that it "mitigates too much damage and bogs up game flow to the point that matches feel like a traffic jam, where things come to a stand still" often leading to matches that go to the poison fog timer in 2s or 3s. And when one team brings it, you have to bring it, or you will likely lose, because it's too important not to bring.

This is similar to before mobility creep when a good DP Daredevil was most certainly the fastest class to get around the map and decap/+. Back in those days teams with a good DP Daredevil would just win against teams that did not have a DP Daredevil. It's not that DP Daredevil was ever OP but it was too important to the point that teams with the DP Daredevil would almost certainly win vs. teams without the DP Daredevil.

What we are really talking about is class identity and clear job role structure. No class could perform the role of a DP Daredevil like the DP Daredevil, this made him a quintessential pick for any serious team that wants to win. Because he was the only one who could perform this role like this, the DP Daredevil often went through phases where it was straight up WEAK and underperforming in literally every aspect except for its speed, but due to it being too important, it always stayed in the top meta up until recently with the mobility creep of every class. The game is easier to balance this way when classes have distinct purpose in job roles that no class can usurp because no matter how underperforming they are, they are the only class that does what they do, and thus are still important enough to bring. But when every class does everything, the meta just becomes the top 2 classes that shove out the highest numbers.

What's happening right now is that every class, even the Thief, has lost its class job/role identity. Team Fighters and Roamers and Side Noders are the same thing now. This new blended super archetype often also throws around a lot of splash party support as well and could almost be considered half-supports while also being roaming team fight side noders. The only class left that has any distinctive job role that it is absolute at, is Support Tempest. On one hand, it is the last bastion of reason in the intra-class dynamic that at least one class still has real identity, but on the other hand, that is making it too important not to bring, which is annoying to most people when a certain class/build becomes mandatory for use.

Remember when we talked about Catalyst for months and month? I would often describe it as OP or overperforming at T4 OP or God Tier. Even in reference to Spellbreaker & Vindi & Untamed I would describe them as a certain Tier of OP. But you can see that I am not doing that with Support Tempest. I am describing it as "too important" that it "mitigates too much damage" that it "makes the gameplay feel like a traffic jam". What I am talking about here is less about the balancing of class vs. class power and more the balancing of competitive dynamic in general, the way the game feels.

Look, I have no problem with support specs, and I have stated several times over in this single thread why Core Guard Support is a healthy version of a support spec, even if its numbers were a bit overtuned, its dynamic is still healthy and reasonable. A Guard Support does not make a match feel like a traffic jam. A Support Tempest on the other hand makes a match feel like a god awful traffic jam. It's no fun, it's never been fun to play against, and it never will be fun to play against. The effects that it throws around are so distinctive and game changing in the flow of the match that team's with a Tempest Support are nearly surely going to win against a team without one, unless the team with the Tempest is greatly outplayed. Again, it's because it gets to maintain something unique which grants it real class identity as compared to other classes who are now all doing each other's jobs. The Tempest gets to maintain aura spam and this makes it unique like the DP Daredevil and too important.

Now the answer is definitely not to grant all the classes more auras, hell no. These auras which have no counter-play removals like boons, are debatably the most unhealthy mechanic in the game. It is the auras that make things feel like a traffic jam. But I understand that this is a staple of what it does, I get it. I don't know what needs to be done about it, whether you want to target auras directly or create some kind of counterplay against them or simply to throw some nerfs at Tempest so it no longer has top end sustain values, but it makes the game feel bad to play man. I don't know how else to explain this. I mean you compare teams with a bunch of no-telegraph AoE defensive spam like: Tempest - Chronobunker - Firebrand vs. Tempest - Chronobunker - Firebrand, as compared to Spellbreaker - Vindi - Holo vs. Spellbreaker - Vindi - Holo, the Spell/Vindi/Holo match is A LOT more fun to play for every single mentionable reason that could possibly be brought up. After nearly 11 years of GW2, I can say that I now firmly believe that support specs that keep parties alive for way too long or make them unkillable, are unhealthy for game play. Matches need to end, bunker metas are boring, it's as simple as that. If a player is going to not die, it should be because they are excellent on their own mechanically, not because some said support spec creates a traffic jam that passively not even actively, eliminates 75% or great of all incoming potential DPS.

8 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

Your only way to reliably beat a Tempest is to have both Damagetypes, or atleast swap between the rounds, to catch him offguard!   When skimming thru your stream i realized that, everytime you were struggling against a Tempest, you guys were running 3 powerbuilds. After the Tempest did loose the first round, he noticed this and went Earthbunker to completly shut you guys down. Some even took "rock solid" and "armor of Earth" to counter the Spellbreaker.  You 3 however, were not reacting to this at all.

You guys werent loosing because "enemy has tempest and i dont! Tempest is so overpowered! :CC"   you guys lost because you tried to run 3 powerbuilds into a Stoneheart Earthtempest. You guys didnt even consider that your one dimensional Teamcomp might be the actual problem at hand. You guys simply thought Tempest is uberbusted and thats why your loosing.

And that my friend... is a skill issue... right there on video.  (sorry if that sounds hars, but you really need to understand whats happening right before your eyes. Because you apparently dont realize this at all)

 

You need to be alot more selfreflective here... you were playing a projectilebased sicem ganker and you are complaining about the "antiprojectile + Antipowerburst Support".

Thats the same as a deadeye that is complaining about Sicem.....  why can he reveal me for 6 seconds and just 100-0 me from 1500 Range?  Deadeye has no way how to deal with this... He is just dead! But is Sicem overpowered...?  or is it just Hardcountering Deadeye?   OR... and this is something that not many players want to hear......  could the deadeye actually do something diffrent instead of crying for nerfs? could he ACTUALLY have used "sniper cover"!?

Before screaming that something is overpowered, we should all sit down and try to realize how to even deal with the spec in the first place. We need to be aware of its weaknesses to capitalize on those. And thats what I tried to do here.

This reads as kind of insulting, as if I didn't already know this.

I am well known in NA for swapping between Power and Condi play. I am actually probably inarguably the strongest Condi Druid in NA, the strongest Condi Ranger Variant, and strongest Druid player in general. You won't find many people who would argue that statement.

If what you are saying were true, we'd be seeing a lot of Condi Druid in play to counter Tempest or Ele in general, but clearly there are reasons why this is not happening. What you aren't understanding is that despite the earthen weakness to condis, the only things a Condi Druid has that can guaranteed hit the Tempest is Entangle and Bonfire. Everything else the Druid has is a projectile, which the Tempest has absurdly high invulnerability towards. 90% of the Condi Druid's damage comes from the projectiles. If the Druid's burst isn't being negated by reflects, when it does land a burst, then the Ele just uses its small amount of cleanse that it does have, to dampen the burst, or it goes into invuln frames to wait out the bulk of the burst, or can block, or tele away, or benefit random cleanse from its teammates. Tempest is not as vulnerable to these things as you claim, concerning Condi Druid play. Even vs. Immob, it has Earthen Blessing which kills the duration of the Immob and feeds the Ele extra dodge rolls. The Tempest without fire might not have specifically a lot of labeled "condi cleanse" but it has other measures that allows it to deal with condi just fine, and be virtually immune to projectile based condi.

There is also the issue with "What does the Tempest have as team mates?" If the Tempest has a team mate who is running a build that generates a lot of party cleanse, there is absolutely no reason to ever swap off Earth. This is often the case with 3 man teams now that most builds generate random half-support effects. Then we have the issue with if the Tempest has team mates that are good at countering a Druid. For example, if he has a good Spellbreaker with him that I know will chase me 100% of the time. In this case I have to use Soulbeast for greater mobility and greater ability to deal with the Spellbreaker. The Druid is slow, if there is an aggressor pushing with a lot of CC like that, you can't ignore it, and you have to dedicate all focus to dealing with it, which means I can't find breathing room to attack the Tempest at all.

In most cases unfortunately, it is often better to run Power Soulbeast despite an Ele being in Earth, for the kinds of reasons mentioned above. When I choose to swap to Soulbeast or Druid, there is 30,000 games played worth of ranger main experience behind that reasoning.

As far as pointing out how bad our comp was ect ect, dude, we were just having fun that night playing with someone who just came back after an incredibly long break from GW2. If Red and I wanted to seriously grind the 3v3 ladder for rating, I'd go on Necro and swap back and forth between Core, Reaper, Harb, and even Scourge vs. Eles, and we'd call in some P2 worthy Ele to Tempest for us, and we'd be in the top 20 or better over night. This wouldn't be difficult to do, but therein lies the entire purpose of me posting in this thread, and that is that some small handful of classes/builds should not be that much more important to have than others.

And I will stress again, I think you should pick a class/build, any class/build that isn't Ele, and go head into the 3v3 arena for about 50 or 60 games. I think you'd better be able to see where I'm coming from if you were to do so.

Edited February 20, 2023 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[Sahne.6950]

35 minutes ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

I never said it was an unbeatable monster. I've been saying for a couple years now, that it "mitigates too much damage and bogs up game flow to the point that matches feel like a traffic jam, where things come to a stand still" often leading to matches that go to the poison fog timer in 2s or 3s. And when one team brings it, you have to bring it, or you will likely lose, because it's too important not to bring.

This is similar to before mobility creep when a good DP Daredevil was most certainly the fastest class to get around the map and decap/+. Back in those days teams with a good DP Daredevil would just win against teams that did not have a DP Daredevil. It's not that DP Daredevil was ever OP but it was too important to the point that teams with the DP Daredevil would almost certainly win vs. teams without the DP Daredevil.

What we are really talking about is class identity and clear job role structure. No class could perform the role of a DP Daredevil like the DP Daredevil, this made him a quintessential pick for any serious team that wants to win. Because he was the only one who could perform this role like this, the DP Daredevil often went through phases where it was straight up WEAK and underperforming in literally every aspect except for its speed, but due to it being too important, it always stayed in the top meta up until recently with the mobility creep of every class. The game is easier to balance this way when classes have distinct purpose in job roles that no class can usurp because no matter how underperforming they are, they are the only class that does what they do, and thus are still important enough to bring. But when every class does everything, the meta just becomes the top 2 classes that shove out the highest numbers.

What's happening right now is that every class, even the Thief, has lost its class job/role identity. Team Fighters and Roamers and Side Noders are the same thing now. This new blended super archetype often also throws around a lot of splash party support as well and could almost be considered half-supports while also being roaming team fight side noders. The only class left that has any distinctive job role that it is absolute at, is Support Tempest. On one hand, it is the last bastion of reason in the intra-class dynamic that at least one class still has real identity, but on the other hand, that is making it too important not to bring, which is annoying to most people when a certain class/build becomes mandatory for use.

Remember when we talked about Catalyst for months and month? I would often describe it as OP or overperforming at T4 OP or God Tier. Even in reference to Spellbreaker & Vindi & Untamed I would describe them as a certain Tier of OP. But you can see that I am not doing that with Support Tempest. I am describing it as "too important" that it "mitigates too much damage" that it "makes the gameplay feel like a traffic jam". What I am talking about here is less about the balancing of class vs. class power and more the balancing of competitive dynamic in general, the way the game feels.

Look, I have no problem with support specs, and I have stated several times over in this single thread why Core Guard Support is a healthy version of a support spec, even if its numbers were a bit overtuned, its dynamic is still healthy and reasonable. A Guard Support does not make a match feel like a traffic jam. A Support Tempest on the other hand makes a match feel like a god awful traffic jam. It's no fun, it's never been fun to play against, and it never will be fun to play against. The effects that it throws around are so distinctive and game changing in the flow of the match that team's with a Tempest Support are nearly surely going to win against a team without one, unless the team with the Tempest is greatly outplayed. Again, it's because it gets to maintain something unique which grants it real class identity as compared to other classes who are now all doing each other's jobs. The Tempest gets to maintain aura spam and this makes it unique like the DP Daredevil and too important.

Now the answer is definitely not to grant all the classes more auras, hell no. These auras which have no counter-play removals like boons, are debatably the most unhealthy mechanic in the game. It is the auras that make things feel like a traffic jam. But I understand that this is a staple of what it does, I get it. I don't know what needs to be done about it, whether you want to target auras directly or create some kind of counterplay against them or simply to throw some nerfs at Tempest so it no longer has top end sustain values, but it makes the game feel bad to play man. I don't know how else to explain this. I mean you compare teams with a bunch of no-telegraph AoE defensive spam like: Tempest - Chronobunker - Firebrand vs. Tempest - Chronobunker - Firebrand, as compared to Spellbreaker - Vindi - Holo vs. Spellbreaker - Vindi - Holo, the Spell/Vindi/Holo match is A LOT more fun to play for every single mentionable reason that could possibly be brought up. After nearly 11 years of GW2, I can say that I now firmly believe that support specs that keep parties alive for way too long or make them unkillable, are unhealthy for game play. Matches need to end, bunker metas are boring, it's as simple as that. If a player is going to not die, it should be because they are excellent on their own mechanically, not because some said support spec creates a traffic jam that passively not even actively, eliminates 75% or great of all incoming potential DPS.

This reads as kind of insulting, as if I didn't already know this.

I am well known in NA for swapping between Power and Condi play. I am actually probably inarguably the strongest Condi Druid in NA, the strongest Condi Ranger Variant, and strongest Druid player in general. You won't find many people who would argue that statement.

If what you are saying were true, we'd be seeing a lot of Condi Druid in play to counter Tempest or Ele in general, but clearly there are reasons why this is not happening. What you aren't understanding is that despite the earthen weakness to condis, the only things a Condi Druid has that can guaranteed hit the Tempest is Entangle and Bonfire. Everything else the Druid has is a projectile, which the Tempest has absurdly high invulnerability towards. 90% of the Condi Druid's damage comes from the projectiles. If the Druid's burst isn't being negated by reflects, when it does land a burst, then the Ele just uses its small amount of cleanse that it does have, to dampen the burst, or it goes into invuln frames to wait out the bulk of the burst, or can block, or tele away, or benefit random cleanse from its teammates. Tempest is not as vulnerable to these things as you claim, concerning Condi Druid play. Even vs. Immob, it has Earthen Blessing which kills the duration of the Immob and feeds the Ele extra dodge rolls. The Tempest without fire might not have specifically a lot of labeled "condi cleanse" but it has other measures that allows it to deal with condi just fine, and be virtually immune to projectile based condi.

There is also the issue with "What does the Tempest have as team mates?" If the Tempest has a team mate who is running a build that generates a lot of party cleanse, there is absolutely no reason to ever swap off Earth. This is often the case with 3 man teams now that most builds generate random half-support effects. Then we have the issue with if the Tempest has team mates that are good at countering a Druid. For example, if he has a good Spellbreaker with him that I know will chase me 100% of the time. In this case I have to use Soulbeast for greater mobility and greater ability to deal with the Spellbreaker. The Druid is slow, if there is an aggressor pushing with a lot of CC like that, you can't ignore it, and you have to dedicate all focus to dealing with it, which means I can't find breathing room to attack the Tempest at all.

In most cases unfortunately, it is often better to run Power Soulbeast despite an Ele being in Earth, for the kinds of reasons mentioned above. When I choose to swap to Soulbeast or Druid, there is 30,000 games played worth of ranger main experience behind that reasoning.

As far as pointing out how bad our comp was ect ect, dude, we were just having fun that night playing with someone who just came back after an incredibly long break from GW2. If Red and I wanted to seriously grind the 3v3 ladder for rating, I'd go on Necro and swap back and forth between Core, Reaper, Harb, and even Scourge vs. Eles, and we'd call in some P2 worthy Ele to Tempest for us, and we'd be in the top 20 or better over night. This wouldn't be difficult to do, but therein lies the entire purpose of me posting in this thread, and that is that some small handful of classes/builds should not be that much more important to have than others.

And I will stress again, I think you should pick a class/build, any class/build that isn't Ele, and go head into the 3v3 arena for about 50 or 60 games. I think you'd better be able to see where I'm coming from if you were to do so.

"This reads as kind of insulting, as if I didn't already know this."

 I did not want to question you... its just what i noticed right of the bat... and your chat was also going crazy over Tempest, when the solution to the problem was right there... but you didnt do it.

in the clips you then apparently were playing just for fun, and not using everything that you can..... but you were trying to sell it as proof that tempest is mandatory...  "I have about 5 hours of 3s footage on twitch in my signature link that showcases a 100% lose rate of teams with no Tempest that go against teams with Tempest."

 

You still need to make sure to keep in mind you are talking about 3v3 here. 5v5 is Vastly differnt, but i sure dont need to tell you that.

Tempest wasnt even played in the MAT.....

I think your giving tempest a too hard time. And basing alot of it on 3v3.  Because for Ranger... it succs... but for other specs... not so much. And in Conquest... even less.

But its a opinion and you explained your reasons to come to this opinion, which i can respect.

 

 

Edited February 20, 2023 by Sahne.6950

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

3 minutes ago, Sahne.6950 said:

Tempest wasnt played in the MAT.... but support guard was.

That is only because of Catalyst dominating representation and Catalysts were providing the aura play. In that case, selecting the Core Guard for aegis spam was a better bet than overlapping too many auras with too much Ele play.

In the absence of Catalyst, Tempest is definitely preferable over Core Guard.

[Sahne.6950]

4 minutes ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

That is only because of Catalyst dominating representation and Catalysts were providing the aura play. In that case, selecting the Core Guard for aegis spam was a better bet than overlapping too many auras with too much Ele play.

In the absence of Catalyst, Tempest is definitely preferable over Core Guard.

but can we atleast wait out any form of Tournament before making "NERF TEMPEST" suggestions then? 

its TDMminiseason and very hard to tell what will be meta during the real Conquest season.

right now im even thinking Staff could see play... but we just dont know that yet.

Edited February 20, 2023 by Sahne.6950

[Dr Meta.3158]

On 2/20/2023 at 2:59 AM, Sahne.6950 said:

Dont take this as a attack or anything,...  @Trevor Boyer.6524!  🙂

I am not trying to tell you that everything is perfectly balanced.  I am just trying to tell you how to deal with Tempest, because it isnt this unbeatable monster that you made it sound like.

 

i will start right here:

You said: "I feel like not only is there a good middle ground of defense vs. power & condi here, but that it might be a perfect and bloated middle ground that needs to change."

What your saying is very odd.....  because tempest biggest weakness is, THAT THEY DONT HAVE A MIDDLEGROUND.

They are always Gods towards one damagetype and completly vulnerable to the other.  A Earth/water Tempest has no cleanse.  |   A Fire/Water Tempest has 0 damagemitigations and 0 protection. There is no way around this.

 

Your only way to reliably beat a Tempest is to have both Damagetypes, or atleast swap between the rounds, to catch him offguard!   When skimming thru your stream i saw a few fights against Tempest, and everytime you were struggling, was when you were running 3 powerbuilds. After the Tempest lost the first round, he noticed this and went Earthbunker to completly shut you guys down. Some even took "rock solid" and "armor of Earth" to counter the Spellbreaker.  You 3 however, were not reacting to this at all.

You guys werent loosing because "enemy has tempest and we dont!"   You guys lost because you tried to run 3 powerbuilds into a Stoneheart Earthtempest. You guys didnt even consider that your one dimensional Teamcomp might be the actual problem at hand. If one of you would have changed to condi, those fights would have had a diffrent ending.

And that right there... shows that you dont really understand how to deal with Tempest yet. While it is super strong and can counter very good! The Tempest himself is very vulnerable to being countered, because it has no middleground and is only a raidboss when it comes to one Damagetype.

 

Being able to changebuilds/equip counters after every round of 3v3TDM, might be the bigger problem here, then the actual performance of aurashare ele inside the setting of 5v5Conquest.

If you really want to climb in 3v3, you end up in this weird "i counter you", "you counter me", "now i counter you again" mental game... which is just lame.

 

And yes I am being serious. They pump out too much stab man.

The 5v5Conquest SupTempest only has Stability on overloads. Every other source of stabi, means you are trading alot of sustain for it, or a utilityskill like RezSignet.

But when you are facing a 3manTeam that has alot of CC and no conditiondamage.... its worth it sometimes. And thats where we are right back at the initial problem. swapping builds after every fight, because you are playing TDM instead of Conquest.

This works out in automated tournaments when you can switch characters to deal with hard counters but not in any other match type.

Other than that you did highlight a core problem with elementalist in general. It is too extreme in any one direction. And honestly I think this is good for elementalist specifically because of attunement switching but only if that extremity is left within the weapons, not the traits. The traits should bolster a specific element(s) but not be dedicated to eliminating certain playstyles while being incapable of handling others with absurd traits like stone heart negating physical builds  smothering auras negating condition builds, and one with air + fresh air negating melee builds, with conjure earth shield and earth in general negating ranged builds regardless of trait choice. You should be able to handle whatever is thrown at you by swapping to the right attunement with the crutch being that you have to swap eventually to continue pressuring.

From there you can handle rangers by switching to earth attunement but the ranger will eventually overcome you if you don't alternate. Earth becomes your primary element in that fight but the other ones are necessary to counterpressure. This way you have a way to fight the ranger and the ranger has openings to fight back but you can also handle other types of builds as well, just not to an overwhelming dominating degree.

Edited February 22, 2023 by Dr Meta.3158
Fixed autocorrect errors

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

2 hours ago, Dr Meta.3158 said:

You should be able to handle whatever is thrown at you by swapping to the right attunement

I know it's taking this out of context of what you meant, so understand that this is not a poke at what you said, but rather I would like to highlight this statement in example of what I was saying about Ele mains being desensitized to how overly defensive their class is.

You're right about "you should be able to handle whatever is thrown at you by swapping to the right attunement" but there is a difference between being able to handle something and being completely invulnerable to something. Ele mains seem to not understand that it is normal for every other class to be vulnerable to all damage types at all times, even something like a Core Guard Support. A Core Guard Support is always taking plenty of damage from power and condi. He has to position just right, kite & peel often, and very wisely use the CDs of his CCs to not get ripped apart. The Tempest Support at this point in patching, is able to wade into combat situations with far far less regard for positioning or if it gets targeted because it knows it can go literally "invulnerable" towards damage types, completely invulnerable. We can INB4 saying "it needs it" because a Tempest Support is faster than a Core Guard Support due to teleportation. We aren't talking some short 2s Renewed Focus invuln frame on a long elite CD, the Tempest Support can just go virtually invulnerable vs. several damage types at once. And I'm not even talking about actual invulnerable effects yet that work vs. all damage or Shock Aura or blocking or normal dodge rolls being fed by generated through +5 endurance every time they receive a movement condi. Right now I'm talking about stuff like Stone Heart and reflect spam.

I don't get how Ele mains don't see it. They have a ridiculous amount of sheer invulnerability as compared to any other class/build in the game, even other supports. Saying "we need it" and "this is balanced" is desensitization from too much play on Ele vs. other classes and not enough play on other classes vs. Ele. From their standpoint as the Ele player and only ever the Ele player, things seem "balanced" to them, and that "this is how the class is supposed to be".

Let me put this into perspective:

1. Imagine if over night there was a patch that granted any other class/build the ability to go virtually invulnerable and sometimes actually invulnerable vs. several damage types at the same time. Not even tossing this support to allies, just tossing it to themself. The invulnerability is so heavy that the class/build can only reasonably be dealt damage by some one particular damage type, and even when players switch to that damage type, the class/build can change its immunities again. If the opponents don't have the damage type required to reasonably deal damage to the class/build, the only way around this invulnerability is to dedicate 3 man pressure to overwhelm the class/build with sheer CC output and beat on it for 30+ seconds to be able to eliminate the target.
2. If any other class/build in the game were suddenly overnight allowed to do that, the forum would be in an uproar with how dumb and bogus it was, even if it was a Core Guard Support doing it, or even something cheesy and nearly useless like a Staff Druid. Why? Because there is no desensitization here and if that were to happen, people would instantly be able to see the problem.
3. Now let's imagine if my very low damage rando Staff Druid build could go to a side node, become solidly immune to 2x damage types, perpetually heal itself, swap its immunities when needed, and required 3 players to solidly focus me to get me off a node. And then when people complained about it having too much sustain, I would say: "Because you guys aren't counterplaying/using what you have. You have to come at me with a blend of melee ranged power and condi, to be able to find a way to deal damage to me." I mean come on now. When ONE build requires an entire team to design their comp around engaging it to even be able to find a way to deal damage to it, that's not even being overtuned in terms of numbers, now we're getting into the realm of psychological pressure and a hard check on how many classes/builds players know how to run to be able to swap to, to be able to counter one guy? This is what I mean about Tempest Support being "too important". The presence of a Tempest Support on a team too strongly throws down a viability check on the other player's team comp. Defending that and saying it is balanced is very biased, and I only ever see Ele mains defending it, and I do believe it is because of desensitization playing too much Ele and not enough of other classes to see what it's like to play against the Ele. And we can INB4 comparison of Druid Side Node doing it vs. Support Tempest, because there is absolutely no difference between a side noder being able to do it or a support.
4. So Ele mains say "we are vulnerable to either this or that" and they think this makes everything ok. They throw the word vulnerable in there as if they have some great weakness to some damage type. They are never vulnerable to power in the way a DP Daredevil is, which can get one-clapped instantly if it gets caught. They are never vulnerable to condi in the same way these Engi builds are, where it gets immobed once and explodes from a condi burst. And they are almost NEVER able to take damage from projectiles in general. Even looking at the DP Daredevil who is prone to power damage, he isn't immune to condi & projectiles, he takes A LOT of damage from everything. When we look at the Engi, despite his weakness to condis, he also takes A LOT of damage from power and can still easily be hit with projectiles. When looking at a Core Guard Support even, he gets hit and takes damage from everything. Tempest Support is the only class/build in the game that just straight up culls and completely eliminates the majority of the damage being thrown around at itself and its team mates. In Earth they get to be virtually immune to power damage if played correctly, virtually immune to all projectiles, and can potentially be damaged by conditions, but they have plenty of other mechanics to deal with those conditions despite their small list of actual condi cleanses. In Fire they become virtually immune to condi damage, virtually immune to all projectiles, but can still be potentially damaged by power melee non-projectiles, yeah just that one type. I feel like when they say "we are vulnerable to this or that", this is Ele desensitization. Because what's really going on is: "We are virtually immune to all damage types except one at a given time, where you can potentially deal damage to us." They don't realize how insanely strong it is to be able to do that, and that is why I keep urging Ele mains to go play other classes for awhile so they can get a different point of view on this, that it is normal to take damage from things. Taking damage from attacks doesn't mean you're vulnerable. Every other class/build in the game, including supports, take damage from everything, this is normal. It is abnormal that Ele is allowed to turn immune to several damage types at once. Keep in mind we aren't talking dodge roll play, evasion play, correct positioning, correct counter-offense with CCs to prevent damage, like other classes/builds have to do. No, the Ele just gets to turn immune to several damage types at once while wading into the middle of team fight pressure, ON TOP OF having normal dodge rolls, blocks, invulns, teleports to get away, ect ect.

Call me bias, say I'm giving Tempest a hard time, whatever, maybe you're right. I'm typing all of this out not to be a hassle but rather because I'm being serious about it and I know a lot of people feel the same way. But not many people have the stamina to sit down and give feedback like this, so I choose to do it, because someone needs to do it for the sake of discussion. If no one cares to do it, then there are no threads with detailed statements like this, and the balance discussions never happen, and the desensitization continues, sometimes for years and years. Hate me for it, it's fine. I get it, but someone has to bring this stuff up for discussion.

I mean good god man, give it some evade frames on some weapon skills or I don't know, just any other active responsive defenses in place of the personal and party invuln spam, and then nerf the invuln spam. I have no problem with a Tempest or any type of Ele outplaying me with defensive play if that defensive play is active & responsive, reflex and skill based. But just spamming pve type rotations of invuln effects is obnoxious traffic jam dynamic and it's too easy to do for how powerful it is. It also steers the viability checks of any match type way too much, concerning which classes/builds must be in play to deal with the Tempest, or that are viable to use at all.

Again, the Tempest Support has become too important and it denies the use of at least half the content provided in the game's dynamic. That's ridiculous and no one class/build should ever be creating a hard gate like that. It's not just "sort of strong" vs. some things, no it actually completely shuts out any & all viable play from so many class/build structures that would otherwise be fun to play and add to the dynamic of the game.

 

Edited February 22, 2023 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[Downstate.4697]

Treavor I appreciate your passion, but anet doesn’t listen to any of us. They adjust based on meta. Tempest is probably doing a bit too much but nothing will change until it can hard carry a MAT.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

3 hours ago, FrownyClown.8402 said:

Treavor I appreciate your passion, but anet doesn’t listen to any of us. They adjust based on meta. Tempest is probably doing a bit too much but nothing will change until it can hard carry a MAT.

Perhaps.

But the thread discussions I partake in while tossing that kind of involved feedback, typically get thousands and thousands of views, which is a lot more attention that what even the streamer's streams get, outside of Teapot and Vallun.

I don't mean that in an egotistical way but rather in all seriousness, to point out that people are definitely paying attention to these thread discussions, whomever they may be.

These discussions create awareness. The outcome of these detailed debates shift opinions. Even if it's only the community reading these threads, it allows them to form solid strong opinions on a given debacle. All that matters past that point is that they also give some kind of feedback themselves, whether it's a streamer speaking on stream who agreed, or someone making a post response to disagree, or simply casting an upvote or downvote. Because Arenanet is certainly listening to community feedback to some degree. This is why Catalyst was nerfed, as example.

It's important for people to talk about this stuff in their game forum if they care about their game, rather than simply throwing around insults at people and/or tossing around one-sentence grief statements like: "LOL ENGI RIFLE STRONG". No one cares to read any of that, certainly not Arenanet. But I have a hard time believing Arenanet goes out of their way to ignore elaborate feedback discussions/debates being held by the people who they know are the oldest players in their game who know the game the best.

I'm getting old man. I don't have many hobbies left. I like my games and I like to talk about my games. I like to drink a good cup of coffee in the morning while responding to my forum posts. These are all reasons why I do what I do.

Edited February 22, 2023 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[Sahne.6950]

18 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

 In Earth they get to be virtually immune to power damage .

In Fire they become virtually immune to condi damage, 

The Ele just gets to turn immune to several damage types at once while wading into the middle of team fight pressure,

 

I told you a bajillion times already....   its not about swapping to fire to cleanse.... and its not about swapping to earth to get protection....

 

YOU NEED THE CORRESPONDING TRAITLINE!

 

Fire attunement does NOT cleanse when your not taking the Firetraitline.

Earth attunement does not give you damage mitigation when your not taking Earthtraitline.

Because you need to take Water/Tempest by default, you have to decide to either have Cleanse(fire) or have damagemitigation (Earth). 

This Leaves SupportTEmpest with a unavoidable glaring weakness.   THERE IS NO WAY AROUND THIS.

 

Tempest can NOT be quote on quote: "immune to several damage types at once"  THERE IS NO SUCH THING! 

There is alway a very clear damagetype that the Tempest will have literally 0 defenses towards.

 

 

Edited February 23, 2023 by Sahne.6950

[Zyreva.1078]

On 2/20/2023 at 5:59 PM, Sahne.6950 said:

Tempest wasnt even played in the MAT.....

That's incorrect. Last MAT winning team on NA was running tempest and at least one of the better teams on EU had one too. Did not see guard played by any of the top teams. Tempest was also played in previous MATs. It has been the go to support for a while now.

1 hour ago, Sahne.6950 said:

There is alway a very clear damagetype that the Tempest will have literally 0 defenses towards.

There is a big difference between not being able to completely shut down one dmg type and having zero defenses. And neither has earth tempest zero cleanses, nor has fire tempest zero defenses against power dmg. It just can't facetank both condi and power at the same time.

It's like saying FA cata has no cleanses and therefore hard dies to condis, so it was balanced all along and didn't need to get nerfed, players were just to stupid to play condi ...

Edited February 23, 2023 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

9 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

I told you a bajillion times already....   its not about swapping to fire to cleanse.... and its not about swapping to earth to get protection....

 

YOU NEED THE CORRESPONDING TRAITLINE!

 

Fire attunement does NOT cleanse when your not taking the Firetraitline.

Earth attunement does not give you damage mitigation when your not taking Earthtraitline.

Because you need to take Water/Tempest by default, you have to decide to either have Cleanse(fire) or have damagemitigation (Earth). 

This Leaves SupportTEmpest with a unavoidable glaring weakness.   THERE IS NO WAY AROUND THIS.

 

Tempest can NOT be quote on quote: "immune to several damage types at once"  THERE IS NO SUCH THING! 

There is alway a very clear damagetype that the Tempest will have literally 0 defenses towards.

 

 

Yup, I've been playing the game for 10+ years. I know how it works. Clearly I was talking about selecting Fire between Earth.

I've also been playing Tempest Support for about the past three days now so I can assure you that you don't need to correct my knowledge on how things work concerning traits & skills, as I have been very thoroughly testing small changes from listed meta because it's been a long time since I've actually played on Ele. Mainly I've been testing swapping Avatar to Sage and using Scepter for more damage output. Then was testing the absence of Conjure Earth Shield while sliding in alternative skills like Cleansing Fire or even Armor Of Earth. I was also testing the absence of revive glyph. So far I'm finding that neither CES or the glyph is necessary, and that if you fit Cleansing Fire, you never have to swap Earth. It's plenty of cleanse to where you never have to take Fire.

Something additional I'd like to point out is how Tempest Support is absolutely an anti-CC class/build. It comes with 4 free stun breaks with overloads, and then also gets to stat for massive amounts of stability,. Do you realize that other classes have a hard time finding ways to fit one or two stun breaks into their builds and even a single source of long ICD stab proc? This is one of the reasons why Tempest Support is so strong and resilient by nature, those 4x free stun breaks. Then you get a bunch of stab every time you overload or swap to earth ^^ it's totally completely anti-CC man. Like you have to have a Spellbreaker Breaching Striking you or a Necro following you around with mass boon rips to really become "vulnerable" to CCs. This is what I've been seeing.

True story though -> I have so few games played on Ele, that it doesn't even show up in my pie chart to see how many games I have played on Ele. But I log into this Tempest Support and start solo queuing 3s and immediately go on a carry rampage into nearly plat 2. Why? Despite me not playing it to maximum efficiency, it wasn't difficult to figure out the general patterns to use to make sure you're pumping out adequate support and then your team mates just don't die for ridiculously elongated amounts of time, even if they're bad. At first I wasn't versed on it enough to worry about really dealing damage so I was just focusing on support while tightly following the players who needed it and reminding the new players to stay with me. There were times when I won matches simply because the opponents thought that the best strategy would be to kill the Tempest first so they go at me, all three of them, and I just face tank the damage. I mean it's comical actually, how much damage an ele stated for it, can straight up absorb and completely negate. At the time I had Cleansing Fire toggled in and of course had Earth. These three players couldn't deal any significant damage to me to get me bellow like 90% health. Over the course of maybe 2 minutes of not even kiting well, but literally "Face Tanking" three players, my rando PUGs were eventually able to generate a downstate and win the match. I'm not even good enough to quickly enough toggle for all the best field combos yet, I'm just generally rotating between the heavy defenses like reflects, CCs, shock, invulns, blocks, only swap between Earth and Air to keep getting stab and shock, and only using my heal utility for heal, and I'm able to stand there and face tank three players who are 100% focusing me, power and condi damage, and I'm probably one of the worst Ele players in NA. All the while I"m thinking "I wonder what it would be like to play this class at the level of an actual Ele main? Wow." That's what I was thinking.

But now I'm in the phase of devising my own custom version of it. I wanted something that can contribute a bit more damage output while still maintaining the bulk of its important support. I tried Staff and after about 3 games I realized why Staff just sucked and would need a lot of buffs to be viable next to dagger/scepter. I don't know, we'll see how it turns out. But apparently I have to play this to breach p2 margins in our modern patchings. It's making an immediate large difference in ability to win matches just by switching to run Tempest Support. It's actually very frustrating considering that I am more potent player on a class I probably have less than 150 games played on, than I am on a class I have 30,000 games played on.

Make of it what you want.

 

 

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

9 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

Tempest can NOT be quote on quote: "immune to several damage types at once"  THERE IS NO SUCH THING!

All you have to do is take Earth, stay in Earth with only fast swap in and out of Air for shock, and bring cleansing fire while toggling between Mag auras and CES, and you are definitely virtually invulnerable to not just some damage types, but actually all of them, including CCs. That's actually no joke. I noticed this in like the first 10 matches I played. It takes A LOT of very overly precise coordinated orchestrated comp pressure from good players to actually pressure a Tempest's ICDs quickly enough to bottom it out.

That's what I'm talking about ^ that's a lot of preparation and strategy involved to kill one build.

Edited February 23, 2023 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[Sahne.6950]

21 hours ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

And neither has earth tempest zero cleanses, nor has fire tempest zero defenses against power dmg.

Earthtempest has the Earth 4.... and can potentially overload water, which will then lead to a hole in healing after that.  So its a last resort. When you force the Earthtempest to overload water, the healingoutput for the whole team takes a dip. apply 1 more condi... and hes done for.... 

There is no way for a Earthtempest to survive constant Conditionpressure... try it!

 

I said: FireTempest has no (strike)Damagemitigation. Which is 100% true.

Edited February 24, 2023 by Sahne.6950

[Zyreva.1078]

5 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

Earthtempest has the Earth 4.... and can potentially overload water, which will then lead to a hole in healing after that. 

Cleansing Wave, Stop, Drop n Roll,  Wash the pain away, soldier rune ... there are options. Technically earth tempest could even go diamond skin.

5 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

I said: FireTempest has no (strike)Damagemitigation. Which is 100% true.

You said "0 defenses", i even quoted that part. Also earth overload and aftershock still provide some prot regardless of traits and frost aura also provides a little bit of dmg mitigation. That's ignoring all the active defenses, that work vs condi and power alike.

I'm not even saying tempest is completely unkillable no matter what, but you are overexaggerating it's weakness. It's the meta support for a reason.

Edited February 24, 2023 by UmbraNoctis.1907