My thoughts on Tempest and how to improve it! (Suggestions welcome)

[Zenix.6198]

First of all, I wanna say that I love playing support tempest and play it on a regular basis in all endgame content with great success. While I don't think it belongs in the support S-tier, it is a more than viable choice for any form of instanced content and people seriously undersell its qualities. That being said, there are a bunch of pain-points that are holding the build back. Here I will try to lay out my main gripes with the spec and offer some suggestions on how to make it, in general (DPS AND Support), more attractive and fun to play.

 

1. The Issues

 

a) The traitline is just a complete mess imo. 8/9 traits are absolutely meaningless for DPS builds. The entire adept tier is underwhelming. Competing traits within the same tier just leads to unnecessary pigeonholing (Lucid Singularity vs. Elemental Bastion i.e.)

 

b) The way Lucid Singularity applies its alacrity is unnecessarily annoying.
Note: Even though a lot of players would like for alacrity being tied to shouts/auras instead of overloads, I wouldn't prefer this to be honest. Imo it would simply force DPS-Alac variants to run mostly non-DPS shouts or pick up Powerful Aura.

 

c) High Boon Duration requirements for DPS-Alac variants compared to competing builds from other classes. QScrapper, QHerald, ASpecter, ARenegade etc. all need way less -if any- additional boon duration to provide their respective boons at 100% uptime.  

 

d) Fury and -particularly- Stability should be more accessible. Personally I'd trade in some swiftness/regeneration sources (which are overly abundant imo) for some AoE fury.

 

f) The singularity mechanic and the 4s channel-time is outdated and makes the whole profession mechanic very uninteractive AND unresponsive.

Note: I only recently thought of this, but the initial design-choices regarding overloads just don't apply anymore. Back when Tempest released in 2015, Alacrity and Quickness were way more powerful than they are now. Therefor the downtime between overloads was much lower. Obtaining Singularity (with alacrity!) went from 4 to ~5 seconds. The channel-time for overloads (with quickness!) went from 2 seconds to ~3 seconds.This basically means there now is an added ~2 seconds of downtime per overload, which doesn't sound like a lot, but really starts to accumulate on longer fights. Funnily enough, adjusting this would probably already fix point 1.c)

 

2. The Improvements

 

a) Skills:

 

- Eye of the storm: This skill now gives X seconds of fury instead of swiftness (having superspeed+swiftness was kind of a waste anyway). Stability has been increased from 1 stack for 5 seconds to 2 stacks for 6 seconds in PvE only.

 

- Flash Freeze: Removed the regeneration from this skill. Instead it now gives barrier to affected allies.

- Rebound: In addition to previous effects, this skill now always grants stability instead of Fury. Additionally, it provides a boon based on your current attunement when cast.

Fire: 5 stacks of might; Air: Fury; Water: Regeneration; Earth: Protection.

 

- Overloads: The casttime for all Overloads has been reduced from 4 to 3 seconds (see 1.f). Total damage, boons and healing have been adjusted to remain unchanged.

 

b) Traits:

I will just go over all of these from Adept to GM, since these suggestions would change the entire traitline structure and keeping track this way can be hard. I also tried to give each trait-tier a choice for support/DPS/utility respectively.

 

Adept:

 

- Minor: The duration for obtaining singularity has been reduced from 6 to 5 seconds (see 1.f).

 

- Gale Song: In addition to its previous effects, this skill now also grants resistance.

 

- Latent Stamina: This trait has been retired. Invigorating Torrents now takes this slot. Increased Regeneration and Vigor duration from 5 to 6.

 

- Unstable Conduit: In addition to its previous effect, this trait now also increases your strike and condition damage while under the effect of an aura by X%.

Master:

 

- Minor: This trait now increases concentration by X while above 50% health and healing power by X while below 50% health.

 

- Tempestuous Aria: Increased might stacks from 2 to 3. While above X might stacks, gain Y Power/Condition damage (maybe both?).

 

- Harmonious Conduit: This trait has been merged with Hardy Conduit and moved to the GM minor slot. NEW TRAIT: Unbound Conduit.

Remove all movement impairing conditions when starting an overload. While overloading, movement impairing conditions can't be applied to you. (It's basically  old Lucid Singularity)

 

- Invigorating Torrents: This trait has moved position and has been replaced with Lucid Singularity. Half the total alacrity is now applied on the start of the overload instead of at the end. The pulsing properties remain unchanged.

 

Grandmaster:

 

- Minor: This trait has been merged with Harmonious Conduit. Overloads grant Protection and Stability. Protection gains increased effectiveness.

 

- Transcendent Tempest: Singularity Delay Reduction has been reduced from 33% to 20% (basically no change at all with the Adept-Minor change).

 

- Lucid Singularity: This trait has moved, leaving this slot empty. Suggestions welcome. Go Wild!

 

- Elemental Bastion: This trait remains unchanged.

 

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk!

I'd be happy to discuss all of these suggestions and things I maybe (= read as "probably") didn't think of.

Or feel free to call me delusional and tell me how profoundly wrong I am 🙂

 

Edited April 15, 2023 by Zenix.6198
Formating

[Infinity.2876]

Tempest is actually pretty great right now and while I'm not going to say it doesn't need buffs and tweaking the buffs you're talking about are a little overkill especially rebound change. I'm kind of thinking that tempest shouldn't be able to provide ally stability because there are a lot of other classes that can provide it as well and I think tempest should be more heal focused rather than a quickness, stab, alac fountain. 

 

I have a few ideas:

lucid singularity should grant quickness instead greatly improving both support and dps builds simultaneously. 

 

Tempestuous aria should grant more might but not to allies do improve dps builds.

 

latent stamina should now heal allies when they gain vigor instead of endurance

[the krytan assassin.9235]

The most important change to Tempest would be to reduce the amount of time you're channeling & waiting for your overloads to come up. You're literally autoattacking ~50% of the time while waiting for the overload to come off cd due to the lack of casting time on your other skills (especially on scepter). Then you're also channeling 4 sec to complete the overload (which results in channeling like 40% of the time on FA Palac temp). On top of that the effects of the overloads are weak AF (especially when channeling). Overload fire is a slight dps increase while playing on condi and overload water is decent for heals. Overload air and earth are currently completely useless. 

 

Apart from that there are lots of smaller problems, but those problems can be fixed by tons of different ways. Without fixing the channeling time & reducing singularity time it will always be abit clunky to play. 

[MarzAttakz.9608]

Adding my +1 here as on Reddit.

2 hours ago, the krytan assassin.9235 said:

On top of that the effects of the overloads are weak AF (especially when channeling). Overload fire is a slight dps increase while playing on condi and overload water is decent for heals. Overload air and earth are currently completely useless. 

 

Agree with most of your post but disagree about air and earth overloads in a WvW context. Fire is practically useless to me here.

[the krytan assassin.9235]

On 4/15/2023 at 7:19 PM, MarzAttakz.9608 said:

Adding my +1 here as on Reddit.

 

Agree with most of your post but disagree about air and earth overloads in a WvW context. Fire is practically useless to me here.

True, overloads still have some use in WvW and are pretty powerful in PvP. Although in general id say their main usage comes from the effects that are added ontop of the overloads, wether it be aura's (healing+cleanse), Alacrity or an extra dmge buff. Their current status simply isn't aligned with the state the game is currently in. Overload fire for example has a lower dps coefficient in PvE then in pvp/WvW and although 20 stacks of might for 32 seconds is pretty powerfull in PvE, telling your squad theyll completely miss their might in the opening burst is kinda pathetic. Although i agree that some of the might generation in the past has become way to powerful, a slowly building 5 stacks of might for 6 seconds isnt gonna cut it. 

[crosknight.3041]

For Alacrity on Tempest, need more sources. would suggest on rebound (if effect expires natrually), as well as on warhorn fire 4 (able to copy the alacrity you have and give it to others). possibly also rework latent stamina trait (currently gives allies vigor when you swap to water + giving vigor restores endurance) to have a small amount of alacrity when you swap attunements instead (thinking really small like 2s). also for lucid singularity, give the large amount of alacrity at the start of the overload, that way it's less punishing if you have to dodge a big hit or get CC'd.

my main concern is adding more healing options outside of water attunement so heal alac tempests do not have to worry about being locked out of water if they use the water overload.

[zeyeti.8347]

14 hours ago, crosknight.3041 said:

For Alacrity on Tempest, need more sources. would suggest on rebound (if effect expires natrually), as well as on warhorn fire 4 (able to copy the alacrity you have and give it to others). possibly also rework latent stamina trait (currently gives allies vigor when you swap to water + giving vigor restores endurance) to have a small amount of alacrity when you swap attunements instead (thinking really small like 2s). also for lucid singularity, give the large amount of alacrity at the start of the overload, that way it's less punishing if you have to dodge a big hit or get CC'd.

my main concern is adding more healing options outside of water attunement so heal alac tempests do not have to worry about being locked out of water if they use the water overload.

Nice ideas ! fire trait can get a  rework too , especially gm traits , the only good one is +2 sec on all fire fields and bonus damage , the other 2 are utter cr ap , blind every 8 sec on a target when you put them ablaze ... and pyromancer power who is just a prank trait reworked the 1st april i guess .

7% of power converted to healing , your firefields heals allies (bit like firebrands )

+1% burn damage for each stacks of burn the target has (max 10 or 7) , with a think like : burn all targets near when you combo into fire .

I like how they completely reworked the staff to be very support , but i have a concern when you play Hat with staff ... how do you freaking maintain might ??? that tiny 180 aoe pulsing for about 7-8 sec ??? you think ppl will stay inside that thing to have 20 stacks of might ... that should be another trait somewhere , use "heatsync" when you do something , i dunno somewhere ... full of crappy traits can be removed with a nice idea , you have a bunch right up of my comment ...❤️ or just admit that the old spaghetti code can't be handled properly .

And if Hat stays like that , plzzzz have concern about the missing pulse alacrity from earth and water OL , i know it's not emergency , but plzzz

Edited April 17, 2023 by zeyeti.8347

[TheQuickFox.3826]

Hands off "Eye of the Storm" please. I prefer it as it is. Superspeed + swiftness + stability + stunbreak makes a perfect utility skill for me. For sPvP and fractals to move faster (as there are no mounts there) and for any situation where you are being knocked down or dominated by CCs.

 

This skill seems to be a bit unloved by the community but it is in almost all of my builds. It's my "gotta move fast" and "cut the crap already" button.

[JPUlisses.8756]

Before improving tempest they need to buff weaver more.

[zeyeti.8347]

On 4/18/2023 at 1:59 PM, TheQuickFox.3826 said:

Hands off "Eye of the Storm" please. I prefer it as it is. Superspeed + swiftness + stability + stunbreak makes a perfect utility skill for me. For sPvP and fractals to move faster (as there are no mounts there) and for any situation where you are being knocked down or dominated by CCs.

 

This skill seems to be a bit unloved by the community but it is in almost all of my builds. It's my "gotta move fast" and "cut the crap already" button.

I too think that the shouts are great , except the feel the burn and flash freeze , who are garbage , the problem is in pve auras have no use and it's one of the main thing Hat can give to his team , cmon flash freeze give 4 secs of régénération ... 4 secondes ... and feel the burn , well better call it fill the bun , but eye of the storm and aftershock do the job sincerly , wash the pain away is just an aoe healing skill nothing else .

Hat had a great mechanic involving auras for healing , but too bad they put alacrity only source in the gm and now no way you gonna use bastion of elements instead of the alacrity (in pve at least) , it's a trade off ? Yes Ham also has a trade off for healing in gm traits ... as hfb has ... as druid has ... (druid a bit , but it's just for more might , who sincerly if you play well , you don't need that extra might ).

Edited April 21, 2023 by zeyeti.8347