Debunking Tempest Healing Myths (WvW)

[steki.1478]

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

(Cleansing+Trooper Variant Cleanse-count calculation)Dodge (15)____- 10sCD - 18uses = 180s = 270

How do you get 15 on dodge? Unless we're talking about stop drop and roll which doesnt always cleanse since it's condition specific. Healing rain is also not fully utilized most of the time in the open field.

With fire focus build and aura share you have:

Attuning to fire (5) ~ 10s CD - 18 uses - 90 cleanses (cleansing wave does the same with water attunement so 90 more)

Fire aura from focus (5) - 20 CD - 9 uses - 45 cleanses

Fire transmute (10) - 8s CD (fire attunement dependent so 10 sec CD) - 18 uses - 180 cleansesShocking aura + transmute(10) - 25s CD - 7 uses - 70 cleanses

It also adds 5 cleanses on water overload and 10 cleanses per shout (flash freeze has the same cleanse because of regen).

So in general you lose heals from staff 1 and 3, but gain lots of cleanses, burst heal from healing ripple (since you're not camping water), sustained heal from aura share and high aura output and lots of blinds on enemies.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

@steki.1478 said:

@"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:

(Cleansing+Trooper Variant Cleanse-count calculation)Dodge (15)

____

- 10sCD - 18uses = 180s = 270

How do you get 15 on dodge? Unless we're talking about stop drop and roll which doesnt always cleanse since it's condition specific. Healing rain is also not fully utilized most of the time in the open field.

With fire focus build and aura share you have:

Attuning to fire (5) ~ 10s CD - 18 uses - 90 cleanses (cleansing wave does the same with water attunement so 90 more)

Fire aura from focus (5) - 20 CD - 9 uses - 45 cleanses

Fire transmute (10) - 8s CD (fire attunement dependent so 10 sec CD) - 18 uses - 180 cleansesShocking aura + transmute(10) - 25s CD - 7 uses - 70 cleanses

It also adds 5 cleanses on water overload and 10 cleanses per shout (flash freeze has the same cleanse because of regen).

So in general you lose heals from staff 1 and 3, but gain lots of cleanses, burst heal from healing ripple (since you're not camping water), sustained heal from aura share and high aura output and lots of blinds on enemies.

So i'm assuming we are talking about this build here on metabattle : https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Tempest_-_Frontline_Aurashare

Now, there's a lot i could talk about when going on about W/F/T. From a theorycraft standpoint, the only reason to be taking this traitline is for smothering aura's. So out of all the traits available to you, Smothering Aura's is the only thing benefiting you in terms of support on a large scale, everything else is basically so negligible or irrelevant, that it's just in general a bad way to theory craft a build. Arcane in a way suffered from this too, in that it relied heavily upon Geyser Resurrection and Evasive Arcana, and on a minor trait that reduces cooldown of overloads. Low and behold, all it took was a few nerfs to these traits in Arcane and it's cost to benefit ratio suddenly skyrockets.Don't put all your eggs into one basket as it's said.

Anyway, aside from my personal thoughts on WFT, i'll do a proper, post patch calculation for it, and then size it up to other post patch builds and see how they compare, and then i'll let you know. The calculation isn't exactly easy to do because of how a lot of the mecahnics on ele are time gated by other abilities, but ill put it together and then we can see what we are objectively dealing with. What you are doing is correct to figure out how good it actually is. You just count how many times you are able to use the skill in an arbitrary amount of time, and you add together the total amount of cleansing/healing etc, to get the potential. You then cross reference how realistic your potential is, and that gives you an approximation of how capable the build is.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

@"steki.1478" said:So in general you lose heals from staff 1 and 3, but gain lots of cleanses, burst heal from healing ripple (since you're not camping water), sustained heal from aura share and high aura output

Alright so where do i begin here. First i'm gonna quickly address this, that what this WFT build is fine for is the blindness, burning and other conditions it inflicts. It's not a stretch to see why it's been brought up in the recent condi-meta as it has good synergy with condition based teamcomps.

2nd, Sustained heal from aura share. I'm gonna put this into perspective;

POST Patch Staff 1, has heal potential for 785,000 healing in an 180 second engagment. In order for this aura sharing build to come close to this number, you have to literally be pumping out permanently, aura's on people every 1.73 seconds... And that's just to get to the level of staff 1.

3rd, burst healing from healing ripple....this applies to overloads so i don't get your reasoning here.

Lastly here is the condition cleanse calculation. I was gonna sit here and do an entire heal calculation, but i realized you don't need to look much further than the numbers above with staff 1. If the main healing function on that build can't even scratch that number, it really makes you think about how strong the build really is (in terms of healing)

Now about this condition cleanse calculation, i just want to point out something to take note. You do more cleansing by waiting in the Attunement to use the overload, and actually do less cleansing by switching attunments too often (if you don't spend the time to overload).

So by looking at these potentials, which abilities would you prioritize when it comes to being in a fight? Which abilities are gonna give you the most bang for your buck (in terms of cleansing) if you use them the most often enough? Fire Transmutation and....hmm ohhh....surprise, Overload Water.

Well, it's not that big of a surprise. In comparing this calculation with Evasive Arcana + SD&R , it ends up being about the same as Transmuting. Only problem with transmuting is that it is...just way more difficult to keep track of transmutation recharge times rather than dodges. Keeping track of the somewhat complicated rotation to try and optimize transmuting, you end up trying to micromanage so much and you end up just performing badly and not getting the cleansing you think you'd want. Meanwhile, just dodging is just way easier for the same level of return...so less risk, higher gain...that's something that makes sense.

Btw, This data is based on an arbitrary 180second long engagment, and uses the metabattle build's values.

[steki.1478]

It's still more cleanses than arcane build and has quite a lot of utility build in. Considering that you blind enemies often, it's also a valid defensive option and a potential boon corrupt counter (which basically acts as a cleanse/boon gain) every 8 seconds. Staff also comes in with huge utility in form of CC and protection which get wasted if you camp water. There's also warhorn for pretty solid might uptime, protection and melee CC, but is has less cleanses than focus.

In general I still think you're wrong for focusing only on healing when class provides so much utility with different attunements and weapons, especially after latest patch which made arcane pretty bad for supporting, especially if you dont get the use of protection on attunement swap, which is its highest impact trait. It's much more effective on rev who was most of its support on ventari, staff and F2 and doesnt get the 20 sec overload punishment choice like tempest.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

@steki.1478 said:It's still more cleanses than arcane build and has quite a lot of utility build in. Considering that you blind enemies often, it's also a valid defensive option and a potential boon corrupt counter (which basically acts as a cleanse/boon gain) every 8 seconds. Staff also comes in with huge utility in form of CC and protection which get wasted if you camp water. There's also warhorn for pretty solid might uptime, protection and melee CC, but is has less cleanses than focus.

In general I still think you're wrong for focusing only on healing when class provides so much utility with different attunements and weapons, especially after latest patch which made arcane pretty bad for supporting, especially if you dont get the use of protection on attunement swap, which is its highest impact trait. It's much more effective on rev who was most of its support on ventari, staff and F2 and doesnt get the 20 sec overload punishment choice like tempest.

We can go back and forth about this forever it seems. The way i look at skills is different from how you look at them. When i do the analysis, i yield positive results... So it's not like i'm right or wrong... i simply adjust my game-play and my builds based on objective data. If camping water is the most optimal way to play a build, than that is how i will play the build and i will yield positive results from that.

Now i suppose i should ask, what does it mean to play optimally? For me it means keeping my group alive. For you it might mean pumping out might stacks. You can pump out might or w.e. and that's perfectly fine if that's how you want to play. But how does that hold up in less and less ideal situations? How far will your build take you when you start fighting 15v30's or open field GvG's, or solo supporting your guild. Will pumping out might stacks (at the cost of more valuable support) when you are a group of 10 vs a group of 30 do any good for you?

So i have no real issues with WFT if it was a condo damage build, which is where it would be more useful. As a support, It's a cleanse build designed to cleanse stuff. cool. But would i take this build over a scrapper or Revenant who does the same thing but 10x more and better? nope.

[God.2708]

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Water_Arrow If you want to one spam, this still makes it very viable. Even if you can't access the second conjure to pick it up for 100% duration, the fact it still has the old healing modifier and gives another 20% outgoing healing mod leaves you sitting rather pretty. Of course a water attune overload spammer benefits more from this than aura share given the aura share build wants access to weapon skills.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

@"God.2708" said:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Water_Arrow If you want to one spam, this still makes it very viable. Even if you can't access the second conjure to pick it up for 100% duration, the fact it still has the old healing modifier and gives another 20% outgoing healing mod leaves you sitting rather pretty. Of course a water attune overload spammer benefits more from this than aura share given the aura share build wants access to weapon skills.

Long time ago, before coming to the conclusions made in the Original Post, I usto play the staff build without spamming staff 1, rotating my abilities...However I understood at that time that staying in Water was a key element if I wanted to truly heal. so I found myself wanting to fill the gap in which my skills were on cooldown with something more useful(than the other attunement abilities). So I tried conjures as a sort of rotation filler.

Frost bow was the first weapon I tested. Problem with the frost bow is that it suffers from the same issues as Rev Staff1. It requires enemies to be around, the heal occurs at the location of the enemy, and it is a projectile (Also takes up a utility slot) In practice, it realistically lands like...5% of the time, and the buff it provides, if it does land, doesn’t last long enough to use in a meaningful sense. On paper it seems like a great skill but in practice it is just very very unreliable to depend on for anything other than spam attacking gates.

During these tests I also experimented with Magnet Shield which I found to be very useful. Although I personally didn’t need it for WvW, I ended up using it in my SpvP build, and this was many months before the big patch dropped and people started abusing it because they realized it actually existed lol.

So personal thoughts on Frost Bow is that I did go through the trouble of testing it for a while before just dropping it all together. It was so unreliable in comparison to water staff 1 and really it is what helped me come to the understanding that staff1 was actually much more useful than I had first believed.

[God.2708]

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@"God.2708" said:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Water_Arrow

If you want to one spam, this still makes it very viable. Even if you can't access the second conjure to pick it up for 100% duration, the fact it still has the old healing modifier and gives another 20% outgoing healing mod leaves you sitting rather pretty. Of course a water attune overload spammer benefits more from this than aura share given the aura share build wants access to weapon skills.Frost bow was the first weapon I tested. Problem with the frost bow is that it suffers from the same issues as Rev Staff1. It requires enemies to be around, the heal occurs at the location of the enemy, and it is a projectile (Also takes up a utility slot) In practice, it realistically lands like...5% of the time, and the buff it provides, if it does land, doesn’t last long enough to use in a meaningful sense. On paper it seems like a great skill but in practice it is just very very unreliable to depend on for anything other than spam attacking gates.

It absolutely does not require a target, made me question my experience with it and just went in game to try it again. It does require enemies to get the 20% buff, but just the healing requires no enemies.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

@God.2708 said:

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@God.2708 said:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Water_Arrow

If you want to one spam, this still makes it very viable. Even if you can't access the second conjure to pick it up for 100% duration, the fact it still has the old healing modifier and gives another 20% outgoing healing mod leaves you sitting rather pretty. Of course a water attune overload spammer benefits more from this than aura share given the aura share build wants access to weapon skills.Frost bow was the first weapon I tested. Problem with the frost bow is that it suffers from the same issues as Rev Staff1. It requires enemies to be around, the heal occurs at the location of the enemy, and it is a projectile (Also takes up a utility slot) In practice, it realistically lands like...5% of the time, and the buff it provides, if it does land, doesn’t last long enough to use in a meaningful sense. On paper it seems like a great skill but in practice it is just very very unreliable to depend on for anything other than spam attacking gates.

It absolutely does not require a target, made me question my experience with it and just went in game to try it again. It does require enemies to get the 20% buff, but just the healing requires no enemies.

I’ll look into this again then. I don’t remember that being the case for me but perhaps my tests weren’t reliable or thorough.

If water arrow behaves this way, then that’s actually quite promising. Means there is hope after all.

Edit: So I've been walking around, spamming this at the ground near allied players and the healing doesn't go off. Can you reproduce allied healing from this skill where it doesn't require an enemy?

[God.2708]

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@God.2708 said:

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@God.2708 said:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Water_Arrow

If you want to one spam, this still makes it very viable. Even if you can't access the second conjure to pick it up for 100% duration, the fact it still has the old healing modifier and gives another 20% outgoing healing mod leaves you sitting rather pretty. Of course a water attune overload spammer benefits more from this than aura share given the aura share build wants access to weapon skills.Frost bow was the first weapon I tested. Problem with the frost bow is that it suffers from the same issues as Rev Staff1. It requires enemies to be around, the heal occurs at the location of the enemy, and it is a projectile (Also takes up a utility slot) In practice, it realistically lands like...5% of the time, and the buff it provides, if it does land, doesn’t last long enough to use in a meaningful sense. On paper it seems like a great skill but in practice it is just very very unreliable to depend on for anything other than spam attacking gates.

It absolutely does not require a target, made me question my experience with it and just went in game to try it again. It does require enemies to get the 20% buff, but just the healing requires no enemies.

I’ll look into this again then. I don’t remember that being the case for me but perhaps my tests weren’t reliable or thorough.

If water arrow behaves this way, then that’s actually quite promising. Means there is hope after all.

Edit: So I've been walking around, spamming this at the ground near allied players and the healing doesn't go off. Can you reproduce allied healing from this skill where it doesn't require an enemy?

Not at a computer but what I did was go into pve and let an enemy bash my face in then spam water arrow. I got healing, I did not check to see if it worked on ally players without an enemy, so maybe it's self only without an enemy? That would be weird though.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

@God.2708 said:

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@God.2708 said:

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@God.2708 said:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Water_Arrow

If you want to one spam, this still makes it very viable. Even if you can't access the second conjure to pick it up for 100% duration, the fact it still has the old healing modifier and gives another 20% outgoing healing mod leaves you sitting rather pretty. Of course a water attune overload spammer benefits more from this than aura share given the aura share build wants access to weapon skills.Frost bow was the first weapon I tested. Problem with the frost bow is that it suffers from the same issues as Rev Staff1. It requires enemies to be around, the heal occurs at the location of the enemy, and it is a projectile (Also takes up a utility slot) In practice, it realistically lands like...5% of the time, and the buff it provides, if it does land, doesn’t last long enough to use in a meaningful sense. On paper it seems like a great skill but in practice it is just very very unreliable to depend on for anything other than spam attacking gates.

It absolutely does not require a target, made me question my experience with it and just went in game to try it again. It does require enemies to get the 20% buff, but just the healing requires no enemies.

I’ll look into this again then. I don’t remember that being the case for me but perhaps my tests weren’t reliable or thorough.

If water arrow behaves this way, then that’s actually quite promising. Means there is hope after all.

Edit: So I've been walking around, spamming this at the ground near allied players and the healing doesn't go off. Can you reproduce allied healing from this skill where it doesn't require an enemy?

Not at a computer but what I did was go into pve and let an enemy bash my face in then spam water arrow. I got healing, I did not check to see if it worked on ally players without an enemy, so maybe it's self only without an enemy? That would be weird though.

Hitting an enemy will cause you to heal with it ya. but it requires an enemy to be hit for the heal to go off. The projectile has to physically hit something. Otherwise the heal doesn't happen, not even on yourself. There's also a note about it on the wiki page :

"Unlike Water Blast this requires hitting a target."

[God.2708]

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@God.2708 said:

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@God.2708 said:

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@God.2708 said:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Water_Arrow

If you want to one spam, this still makes it very viable. Even if you can't access the second conjure to pick it up for 100% duration, the fact it still has the old healing modifier and gives another 20% outgoing healing mod leaves you sitting rather pretty. Of course a water attune overload spammer benefits more from this than aura share given the aura share build wants access to weapon skills.Frost bow was the first weapon I tested. Problem with the frost bow is that it suffers from the same issues as Rev Staff1. It requires enemies to be around, the heal occurs at the location of the enemy, and it is a projectile (Also takes up a utility slot) In practice, it realistically lands like...5% of the time, and the buff it provides, if it does land, doesn’t last long enough to use in a meaningful sense. On paper it seems like a great skill but in practice it is just very very unreliable to depend on for anything other than spam attacking gates.

It absolutely does not require a target, made me question my experience with it and just went in game to try it again. It does require enemies to get the 20% buff, but just the healing requires no enemies.

I’ll look into this again then. I don’t remember that being the case for me but perhaps my tests weren’t reliable or thorough.

If water arrow behaves this way, then that’s actually quite promising. Means there is hope after all.

Edit: So I've been walking around, spamming this at the ground near allied players and the healing doesn't go off. Can you reproduce allied healing from this skill where it doesn't require an enemy?

Not at a computer but what I did was go into pve and let an enemy bash my face in then spam water arrow. I got healing, I did not check to see if it worked on ally players without an enemy, so maybe it's self only without an enemy? That would be weird though.

Hitting an enemy will cause you to heal with it ya. but it requires an enemy to be hit for the heal to go off. The projectile has to physically hit something. Otherwise the heal doesn't happen, not even on yourself. There's also a note about it on the wiki page :

"Unlike Water Blast this requires hitting a target."

Oh yup, I'm an idiot, I had signet of restoration and didn't check to see which source was healing me. Alas.