chronomancer vs tempest

[Isopod.4156]

Sorry if this is the wrong place but I want to make a flashy spellcaster, chrono has the really cool clock aoe thing (I'm guessing the animation for their continuum split) and ele is ele and tempest is the one that sounds the best for how I like to play, however both intimidate me greatly. Chrono I've read you have to time your split well or your rotation doesnt work, and tempest is elementalist and it's the only class I havent tried at all cause I can barely handle switching weapons let alone four elements. So ele players what do you think, I have tried mesmer and do enjoy it but havent unlocked an elite spec for it. For context I dont like pure dps too much glass cannon for me, compared to having some support as well as dps even if its lower.

[Markus.6415]

You don't really sound like a hardcore player here so don't get scared because of "continuum split and suboptimal rotations". The damage will still be totally fine with chrono nonetheless, the perfect continuum split is just the icing on the cake when you learn to master the spec. In terms of "flashy spellcaster" I feel like the Chronomancer with it's beautifully desigend clock wells and soundeffects could be the go to here.

Elementalists are always very skill spammy, so theres a lot going on the screen. But to survive and perform well with Ele, you should also swap your Attunements very, very often. If weaponswap is a problem already for you already, it might not be the best idea to pick a class that has 4 "weaponswaps".

I'd say try out that Chronomancer, now you're a bit more familiar with Mesmer already, because Ele is quite the different playstyle and theres many weapon abilities to learn and remember.

[Isopod.4156]

1 hour ago, Markus.6415 said:

You don't really sound like a hardcore player here so don't get scared because of "continuum split and suboptimal rotations". The damage will still be totally fine with chrono nonetheless, the perfect continuum split is just the icing on the cake when you learn to master the spec. In terms of "flashy spellcaster" I feel like the Chronomancer with it's beautifully desigend clock wells and soundeffects could be the go to here.

Elementalists are always very skill spammy, so theres a lot going on the screen. But to survive and perform well with Ele, you should also swap your Attunements very, very often. If weaponswap is a problem already for you already, it might not be the best idea to pick a class that has 4 "weaponswaps".

I'd say try out that Chronomancer, now you're a bit more familiar with Mesmer already, because Ele is quite the different playstyle and theres many weapon abilities to learn and remember.

Definitely not hardcore, I want to do raids and stuff one day but I have very slow reaction time, I have a slow brain in general so don't know if I'd ever be able to actually do them. I'll stick with mesmer then maybe one day if I get more used to weapon swap I can try ele cause I really do love its animations,

[Atoclone.4810]

make a level 1 of both and go into the pvp lobby. it'll auto stick you to 80 and allow you to have a proper play around with them. keep in mind that the number and some of the skills will be different but it's close enough to give you a feel to how they'll play

[Markus.6415]

9 hours ago, Atoclone.4810 said:

make a level 1 of both and go into the pvp lobby. it'll auto stick you to 80 and allow you to have a proper play around with them. keep in mind that the number and some of the skills will be different but it's close enough to give you a feel to how they'll play

That's also a possibility to see what those specs all have to offer for you. But playing around with a lvl 80 Ele elitespec while having 0 idea of all those weaponskills might be quite overwhelming 😅. Ele is definately the profession you should lvl up properly from lvl 1 and not use a lvl 80 boost or something.

[Fueki.4753]

There is nothing stopping you from playing both.

As a new player, you should focus on finding your fun first. If you want to to, you can always master a profession or specialisation later on. I don't think there's value in trying to master something that's not fun to you.

Edited Sunday at 08:28 AM by Fueki.4753

[Atoclone.4810]

3 hours ago, Markus.6415 said:

That's also a possibility to see what those specs all have to offer for you. But playing around with a lvl 80 Ele elitespec while having 0 idea of all those weaponskills might be quite overwhelming 😅. Ele is definately the profession you should lvl up properly from lvl 1 and not use a lvl 80 boost or something.

Probably very overwhelming! But will at least give a feel for it. And it may highlight other things. I'm very tempted to give chrono a go due to the cool sounds I hear from my guild mate's when raiding. But if that cool clock sound really annoys you I'd rather find out now than after the levelling journey. Guardian sceptre I am looking right at you

[Markus.6415]

1 hour ago, Atoclone.4810 said:

Probably very overwhelming! But will at least give a feel for it. And it may highlight other things. I'm very tempted to give chrono a go due to the cool sounds I hear from my guild mate's when raiding. But if that cool clock sound really annoys you I'd rather find out now than after the levelling journey. Guardian sceptre I am looking right at you

Gotta say I've never heard someone complain about those sounds. They are just top level sound design, every well has a very different sound too and with the cd's it's not too spammy. Having an annoying sound on autoattack though...

[Chyro.1462]

I can give you a comparison for later on if you do intend to go into group content eventually, I've played both quite a lot. You did mention that you want to lean more into support than pure dps. So I'll tell you roughly what it looks like for the two specs to fill their support role. Note that it's not important when you're just getting into the game and learning the classes, but it's more as an outlook for if you may enjoy those classes later on in their group roles as well.

As boon dps Chrono you're very versatile, able to give either Alac or Quickness just by switching a trait. However it has a rather strict rotation and requires correct use of continuum split to upkeep that boon, cause you need to be generating enough clones to shatter for the boon uptime. It usually doesn't run any boon duration on gear so it has less room for mistakes when it comes to upkeeping the important boon for the group.

Alac dps Tempest needs to constantly be doing overloads, usually swapping between fire -> fire overload and earth -> earth overload. The overloads pulse the alacrity with short duration, and a longer duration when the overload finishes. You have to look out that your overloads don't get interrupted, though there's a stability trait that can help with that (costs a bit of dps thou). The way the overloads work always gives you some breathing time in the rotation, since they're channeled skills that take a while to complete - so you can use that time to easily look at the fight or think of what you need to do next. Definitely lower APM than chrono. And it can run extra boon duration more easily with Ritualist gear (condi + boon, but the gear itself may be some effort to get).

On the healing side, things are similar as for the boon dps - just instead of a dps rotation you have a boon rotation and plenty of extra boon duration on gear. It's easier to upkeep the main boon compared to boon dps because of the stats, instead the gameplay becomes more reactive about when to heal people. Heal chrono can easily just spam out its boons, and has more and easier access to stability + aegis, popular utility boons for a support. It also has a ton of healing output, though also spread among many buttons. Using continuum split as heal chrono correctly can be a nice bonus, but isn't required as much as for the boon dps.

Heal tempest has more of a learning curve - you have to swap elements to overload for the alac upkeep (though not as tightly as boon dps since you have more excess boon duration) and much of your healing is in water. So if you have to heal a lot and just left water, you have some cooldown before you get access to your water skills again. You do have some heals on the utility bar that can help with that, though if they're also on cooldown at that time you may get rather stressed with no immediate access to healing - you do have more passive healing though through soothing mist, which is like a regen on top of regen. It's still a potent healer and has some strong revive tools, but definitely harder to learn than chrono heal.

[Isopod.4156]

That's what I'm worried about with strict rotation timings, I'm just not that fast a person even as I get better. But I was more meaning supporting myself with boons in solo play, having me be a support for a group would end terribly when I inevitably mess up and die

On 6/23/2024 at 11:44 AM, Chyro.1462 said:

I can give you a comparison for later on if you do intend to go into group content eventually, I've played both quite a lot. You did mention that you want to lean more into support than pure dps. So I'll tell you roughly what it looks like for the two specs to fill their support role. Note that it's not important when you're just getting into the game and learning the classes, but it's more as an outlook for if you may enjoy those classes later on in their group roles as well.

As boon dps Chrono you're very versatile, able to give either Alac or Quickness just by switching a trait. However it has a rather strict rotation and requires correct use of continuum split to upkeep that boon, cause you need to be generating enough clones to shatter for the boon uptime. It usually doesn't run any boon duration on gear so it has less room for mistakes when it comes to upkeeping the important boon for the group.

Alac dps Tempest needs to constantly be doing overloads, usually swapping between fire -> fire overload and earth -> earth overload. The overloads pulse the alacrity with short duration, and a longer duration when the overload finishes. You have to look out that your overloads don't get interrupted, though there's a stability trait that can help with that (costs a bit of dps thou). The way the overloads work always gives you some breathing time in the rotation, since they're channeled skills that take a while to complete - so you can use that time to easily look at the fight or think of what you need to do next. Definitely lower APM than chrono. And it can run extra boon duration more easily with Ritualist gear (condi + boon, but the gear itself may be some effort to get).

On the healing side, things are similar as for the boon dps - just instead of a dps rotation you have a boon rotation and plenty of extra boon duration on gear. It's easier to upkeep the main boon compared to boon dps because of the stats, instead the gameplay becomes more reactive about when to heal people. Heal chrono can easily just spam out its boons, and has more and easier access to stability + aegis, popular utility boons for a support. It also has a ton of healing output, though also spread among many buttons. Using continuum split as heal chrono correctly can be a nice bonus, but isn't required as much as for the boon dps.

Heal tempest has more of a learning curve - you have to swap elements to overload for the alac upkeep (though not as tightly as boon dps since you have more excess boon duration) and much of your healing is in water. So if you have to heal a lot and just left water, you have some cooldown before you get access to your water skills again. You do have some heals on the utility bar that can help with that, though if they're also on cooldown at that time you may get rather stressed with no immediate access to healing - you do have more passive healing though through soothing mist, which is like a regen on top of regen. It's still a potent healer and has some strong revive tools, but definitely harder to learn than chrono heal.

 

[Sindust.7059]

Since tuesday power alac tempest is a viable option. But you will have to swap attunements quite a lot, however there is a rhythm to it... You basically jump between air, fire and water, and whenever you're in fire or water, your next element is always air. And when in fire or air, you do the overload before switching to the next attunement. So basically you go something like this:
1. air->air overload
2. fire->fire overload
3. air->air overload
4. water
5. repeat

In between you use whatever damage skills are available (in water you go 2-3-3-2 before swapping, in air you just use 2 and 4 whenever available, as well as the utility skills and in fire you use all weapon skills until overload becomes available after which you swap back to air).

It's almost the exact same as a pure DPS power tempest (the only adjustment would be skipping warhorn 4 in fire, since it only extends boons and doesn't do damage), and to my knowledge the easiest support option on ele. As long as you're doing the overloads ASAP and you have quickness, you shouldn't need to change gear. But I swap the Scholar runes for Fireworks to give me some buffer.

However if you want simplicity, condi tempest with scepter+warhorn camping fire attunement and just spamming damage skills whenever they become available does about 34-35k DPS currently (just tested it myself a few hours ago), which I don't think you would be able to beat on chrono with such simplicity. To get the most out of this playstyle, use Earth+Smoldering runes and swap out Glyph of Elemental Power for Signet of Earth. This will improve uptime on the auras with Unstable Conduit which will improve Tempestuous Aria uptime without you having to watch when you're using the skills that give you auras, which helps if you want to just be button mashing. The rest is the same as the meta build. And if you go into open world, you can slap celestial gear on this build and swap Serrated Stones trait for Elemental Shielding, and you'll be tanky as hell while still doing 30-31k DPS. But that is a pure DPS build which you said you didn't want, so idk.

As for chrono, I have no idea. I couldn't make any chrono build reliably crack the 30k mark, but that's definitely a l2p issue for me.

Edited 18 hours ago by Sindust.7059