healing tempest for t4 fractal pugs

[uta.8412]

Hey folks. Recently, I got enough AR to start running t4 fractals on dps weaver.  It's quite fun and challenging. Kudos to all the "chill" and "casual" pug groups so new players can get started in t4.  Problem is, I would like to run a healing tempest on t4 fractals but pug group advertisements are nearly always asking for HB( healbrand ) and not heals.  I have seen a druid heal a pug run.  Perhaps these groups advertising for healbrand would accept a healing tempest?  I don't want to put in the gear up time and not be able to run the content.   Cheers.

[ButterPeanut.9746]

The primary reason (but not only) you might get some push back is because you cannot provide quickness. If you join on that, just be sure to immediately bring up "hey I can heal/might/fury/swiftness/prot/etc", but will need someone else to do quickness. Can anyone do that?" 

Some groups might be willing to easily swap, and others might not. 

[Cyninja.2954]

It works, but as mentioned you might get push back.

 

What your target groups should be are:

- regular T4 (not CMs)

- low or no requirements

- beginner friendly

 

The main issue here being that heal tempest, while a strong carry, is not the ideal solution to the boons desired for 5 mann content. Now this is less of a concern to more relaxed players, but will be of more concern to more demanding players.

 

In any case, make sure to mention this to the group at the stat as to not run into some surprised face later on (because surprises can turn toxic).

[Infusion.7149]

Had someone with fractal god try to run scrapper quickness and another run plaguedoctor scourge...
All I have to say is heal tempest will not have aegis , zero quickness or alacrity, and not much if any access to stability. Even if you think you can heal you probably would want a condi firebrand in the party. Outright healing doesn't help you speed up the pace in fractals and you're probably better off running a hybrid (see plaguedoctor scourge or seraph healbrands).

 

There's a reason why even though mirage is underwhelming versus alac renegade it is taken more often than not for alacrity. When confusion doesn't proc (i.e. when defiance or "break bar" is broken) the damage is actually less than alac renegade and alac renegade despite being mediocre sustained DPS has a strong power damage burst/spike (74K if full DPS and ~61K if raid gear close to full diviner).

[uta.8412]

thanks to Infusion, Cyninja, and ButterPeanut for the responses. I'll skip making a heal tempest build.  At this point, only interested in builds that are in demand for fractals and raids. I think ill do condition scourge next.  cheers. 

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

16 hours ago, uta.8412 said:

thanks to Infusion, Cyninja, and ButterPeanut for the responses. I'll skip making a heal tempest build.  At this point, only interested in builds that are in demand for fractals and raids. I think ill do condition scourge next.  cheers. 

It is in demand, just not for Fractals. Heal Tempest has always been meta backup healer in raids due to being one of the few classes that can heal and buff ten allies at once (the other mostly being Druid).

 

Its also meta in WvW, and does really good in PvE open-world group events, especially world bosses.

 

Fractals just have a lower player count, so groups can't afford to take an HT. The healer for Fractals is almost always FB, Rene or Chrono, all of which provide Quickness and sometimes Alac, or Scrapper in a pinch.

 

Of these FB just tends to be the most common due to Aegis+Stab.

Edited August 12, 2021 by Hannelore.8153

[Fuchslein.8639]

On 8/11/2021 at 10:45 PM, uta.8412 said:

thanks to Infusion, Cyninja, and ButterPeanut for the responses. I'll skip making a heal tempest build.  At this point, only interested in builds that are in demand for fractals and raids. I think ill do condition scourge next.  cheers. 

 

I've had a lot of raids lately where Heal Tempest was involved. And am now equipping mine again to support our training group~.
In combination with another healer, Tempest is really good. Just not optimal in 5 man content ^^.

[Firebeard.1746]

On 8/10/2021 at 8:11 AM, uta.8412 said:

Hey folks. Recently, I got enough AR to start running t4 fractals on dps weaver.  It's quite fun and challenging. Kudos to all the "chill" and "casual" pug groups so new players can get started in t4.  Problem is, I would like to run a healing tempest on t4 fractals but pug group advertisements are nearly always asking for HB( healbrand ) and not heals.  I have seen a druid heal a pug run.  Perhaps these groups advertising for healbrand would accept a healing tempest?  I don't want to put in the gear up time and not be able to run the content.   Cheers.

Heal tempest doesn't have the same defensive tools as an HB. HB provides a lot more group mitigation and can even buff group damage output if less defense is necessary by swapping traits. Tempest, while a strong healer does not provide the same utility as other supports, namely some combination of damage and/or stab/blocks. If you just care about rewards and PuG, follow metas. I'm the first to say metas suck, but that's the best thing to do for your time and sanity. A lot of yolo groups run a lot of bad players. Unfortunately. If you had a group of dedicated friends who ran them with you, maybe you guys could work out a reasonable alternate comp.

Edited August 16, 2021 by Firebeard.1746

[Charybdis.3695]

When you find a firebrand who is willing to play a build that is geared to boost boon duration with utilities focused on stab/aegis/quickness, then pretty much any healer works. I think the main issue is people think it's fair (for example) to blackball revenants on alacrity renegades but not feel the same about firebrands on boon support.

[Infusion.7149]

2 minutes ago, Echo.6310 said:

When you find a firebrand who is willing to play a build that is geared to boost boon duration with utilities focused on stab/aegis/quickness, then pretty much any healer works. I think the main issue is people think it's fair (for example) to blackball revenants on alacrity renegades but not feel the same about firebrands on boon support.

Only need 24.6% boon duration
https://discretize.eu/builds/guardian/power-firebrand

https://lucky-noobs.com/builds/condi-quickness-firebrand

 

Renegades need 78%+ boon duration unless condi RR (2 of them to cover a 10 man squad) so that's a different scenario.

[Charybdis.3695]

Is 24.6% boon duration enough for being the only source of stability? Those links only refer to quickness which makes sense. Wife gets near permanent stability at 68%, with omnipotion makes it 80%.

[Infusion.7149]

You can time your stability for the CC if not using aegis on mantra of solace which is on short cooldown. The only exception that comes to mind right away is in Chaos on the boss platform because everyone gets dazed on the brazen gladiator's third hit. When I play renegade on Chaos I usually run Inspiring Reinforcement.

 

Some things outright ignore stability such as water pushes in Sunqua Peak or the wind gust in Siren's Reef when you're on the boat.

 

One thing to keep in mind is those builds using bare minimum boon duration are for experienced groups that are using the quickness providers to supply damage ; healing is often supplemented with Soulcleave summit and barriers from scourges or other such skills. The more extra boon duration you put in the less your damage, which is in contrast to healbrand where either way your damage isn't significant.

Edited August 20, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

3 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

You can time your stability for the CC if not using aegis on mantra of solace which is on short cooldown. The only exception that comes to mind right away is in Chaos on the boss platform because everyone gets dazed on the brazen gladiator's third hit. When I play renegade on Chaos I usually run Inspiring Reinforcement.

 

Some things outright ignore stability such as water pushes in Sunqua Peak or the wind gust in Siren's Reef when you're on the boat.

 

One thing to keep in mind is those builds using bare minimum boon duration are for experienced groups that are using the quickness providers to supply damage ; healing is often supplemented with Soulcleave summit and barriers from scourges or other such skills. The more extra boon duration you put in the less your damage, which is in contrast to healbrand where either way your damage isn't significant.

I never understood why players expect the healer to do damage to begin with. For example Harrier's gear isn't truly optimal from a support standpoint, yet is the standard just so the healer can do a whole 5k DPS.

 

Is it..really worth it?

 

I've just always built my supports as full supports, to squeeze out every last bit of healing, cleansing and boon output that I could, because thats what always seemed to help allies the most--not doing 500 damage autos. I guess Quickbrand is the one exception to this since they aren't really mean to heal but to be a DPS booner.

 

But then you need a backup healer for some content and that's just eh. Your example of needing a Rene/Scourge/etc. is exactly what I mean, hybridising various builds instead of just having 4d1h.

Edited August 21, 2021 by Hannelore.8153

[Infusion.7149]

31 minutes ago, Hannelore.8153 said:

I never understood why players expect the healer to do damage to begin with. For example Harrier's gear isn't truly optimal from a support standpoint, yet is the standard just so the healer can do a whole 5k DPS.

 

Is it..really worth it?

 

I've just always built my supports as full supports, to squeeze out every last bit of healing, cleansing and boon output that I could, because thats what always seemed to help allies the most--not doing 500 damage autos. I guess Quickbrand is the one exception to this since they aren't really mean to heal but to be a DPS booner.

 

But then you need a backup healer for some content and that's just eh. Your example of needing a Rene/Scourge/etc. is exactly what I mean, hybridising various builds instead of just having 4d1h.

 

Not sure why you quoted me? Did you read the links I posted? There are no heals there.

People PUGing are running harrier's for boon duration on might and fury not just healing ; harrier's on radiance FB actually has decent crit chance if you have banners. If you run minstrel's you don't have as much boon duration outside of fractals; if you run magi or something like that then it has zero boon duration. The only exception is probably plaguedoctor. If the group you are in isn't terrible you can run plaguedoctor or celestial (in fractals, not raids because of toughness aggro) if they need some heals but not a lot. This is especially true if you run a CFB stack because you will have an incredible amount of aegis output that will block most large attacks.

 

In fact the hardstuck version of CFB actually runs plaguedoctor pieces. https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/builds/guardian/condition-dps-firebrand-r23/

 

People are playing with no heals on high req groups , the only "heals" are from 50%-80% boon duration alac rens or condi RR (0% boon duration) when they use soulcleave summit and scourge barriers. Your suggestion that renegade or scourge are offheals or something like that is incorrect because the heals/barriers can be part of their skill rotation and they do just as much as full DPS classes if not more. Because of the dominance of condi right now , there isn't a reason to even top off health for scholar uptime.

 

If you're talking about heal tempest specifically it is due to role compression that people want to eek out damage from it. It doesn't provide quickness or alacrity, mainly might (see also Grace of the Land on druids). Usually supports that provide quickness(see scrapper as well) or alacrity are given more leniency with respect to damage. Chrono doesn't heal well so the ones that run inspiration (which is less DPS than dom+dueling variants) are usually expected to also provide some alacrity.

 

Celestial healbrand does ~17K

 

Cele tempest only ~11K and does not provide quickness

 

Edited August 21, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Talindra.4958]

Heal tempest is great but hbf offers more than healing need. Imagine able to negate damage for 10 sec. That is the time where group can dps hard where tgey dish out the best rotations of skill and kill without having to move or get interupted. Hfb provide good sustain. Tempest do not have stability to sgare and aegis or retaliation. So if you want to pug in high end contents and more accessible.. make a hfb. Its very easy to play after the new update of  mantra skills. 

In addition it provides quickness 

 

Technically the oldway was druid chrono bs and dps.. the composition now is good coverage of all maps. 

 

So if you are just focusing on heal.. who in the team can cover for the others .. which the team will hv to readjust to make sure optimum output for both defensive and offensive sides

 

Btw.. you can still keep your heal tempest.. they are still very good for certain boss if the team are generally need additional support.

Edited August 21, 2021 by Talindra.4958

[Vidit.7108]

On 8/20/2021 at 5:10 PM, Hannelore.8153 said:

Is it..really worth it?

In pugs IMO, it's not worth it. People seem to bring harriers because they see it on build websites. It's better to have harriers or something like it in a static group where you can more guarantee the skill level of other players in your group.

What a pug healbrand wants/needs is full boon duration and whatever the best healing is they can get with whatever stat combo will give both of those to them. I used to never use bow of truth when I started healing in fractals until time made me realize I absolutely need a greater number of heals at my disposal. Some pugs will see me run at them with my tome out and dodge backward away from me to avoid more damage instead of letting me hit them.

I have some minstrel and magi gear on because harriers gives me too much boon duration with my AR.

[Vinceman.4572]

Advertise your own group:
"Chill Daily T4s, Heal already here - Let's go!"

 

Problem solved and you can run heal tempest for years.

[Armen.1483]

No.

[AliamRationem.5172]

Practically every pickup group I join is nothing but firebrand, renegade, and scourge.  They do everything better than everybody else.  It's pretty sad and frustrating that ANet allows this to continue.  Absolutely horrible class balance and they do nothing for months, years.  It just never ends.

[AliamRationem.5172]

On 8/20/2021 at 6:40 PM, Infusion.7149 said:

 

Not sure why you quoted me? Did you read the links I posted? There are no heals there.

People PUGing are running harrier's for boon duration on might and fury not just healing ; harrier's on radiance FB actually has decent crit chance if you have banners. If you run minstrel's you don't have as much boon duration outside of fractals; if you run magi or something like that then it has zero boon duration. The only exception is probably plaguedoctor. If the group you are in isn't terrible you can run plaguedoctor or celestial (in fractals, not raids because of toughness aggro) if they need some heals but not a lot. This is especially true if you run a CFB stack because you will have an incredible amount of aegis output that will block most large attacks.

 

In fact the hardstuck version of CFB actually runs plaguedoctor pieces. https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/builds/guardian/condition-dps-firebrand-r23/

 

People are playing with no heals on high req groups , the only "heals" are from 50%-80% boon duration alac rens or condi RR (0% boon duration) when they use soulcleave summit and scourge barriers. Your suggestion that renegade or scourge are offheals or something like that is incorrect because the heals/barriers can be part of their skill rotation and they do just as much as full DPS classes if not more. Because of the dominance of condi right now , there isn't a reason to even top off health for scholar uptime.

 

If you're talking about heal tempest specifically it is due to role compression that people want to eek out damage from it. It doesn't provide quickness or alacrity, mainly might (see also Grace of the Land on druids). Usually supports that provide quickness(see scrapper as well) or alacrity are given more leniency with respect to damage. Chrono doesn't heal well so the ones that run inspiration (which is less DPS than dom+dueling variants) are usually expected to also provide some alacrity.

 

Celestial healbrand does ~17K

 

Cele tempest only ~11K and does not provide quickness

 

ANet: Balanced.

[Asum.4960]

3 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Practically every pickup group I join is nothing but firebrand, renegade, and scourge.  They do everything better than everybody else.  It's pretty sad and frustrating that ANet allows this to continue.  Absolutely horrible class balance and they do nothing for months, years.  It just never ends.

While it certainly isn't perfectly balanced, it never will be. There was, is and always will be one best comp, be it Druid+Chrono or Renegade+Firebrand, or whatever will be next. 

 

The fact that this one best comp is then pretty much exclusively all you will ever find played is as much, if not more so, a player/community issue than a balance issue though. 

As long as you have Quickness, Fury, Might, Vuln and some form of support, >90% of non-speedrunning groups would be doing just fine.

People could clear Fractals and co. very comfortably on Tempest+Quickbrand, Tempest+Chrono, Tempest+Scrapper, Scrapper+hScourge, hScourge+Quickbrand, Scrapper+Renegade, Druid+Quickbrand, Druid+Scrapper and on and on, they just choose not to because it takes minor adjustment from the norm for slightly less payoff. 

 

But the days where Chrono just did literally everything (all boons, boon strip, CC, Skips etc.) and was just so far ahead of everything else that it was irreplaceable are long gone. 

There are plenty viable comps. 

 

But why play with something different that you don't know as well to play around that does slightly worse and likely takes much, much longer to find groups for since it's not the standard, when you could just run that? 

 

That's the main issue. The GW2 community gets stuck in metas hard. Sometimes to a point where they run sub-par comps still for months to even years after they have already been surpassed by something new and better, because it's not that "one default comp everybody runs and is used to". 

 

The playerbase at large just isn't competent enough with the game to understand build craft and game system interactions themselves to see, try and play the plentiful alternatives that exist at this point themselves - with everybody just copying the publicly shared very top and then sticking to it like a dogma, with Meta switches basically just happening when Anet annihilates the current standard so people have to jump to the next thing to become the problem. 

How close Anet can manage to balance things beyond that is almost irrelevant to this issue at this point. As long as something is ahead, no matter how miniscule the advantage (and something always will be), that will be picked up as the standard everybody gears, plays and learns to play around.

Edited October 14, 2021 by Asum.4960

[Infusion.7149]

4 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

ANet: Balanced.

Sad part is since I posted that there's been even higher benchmarks for cele FB:

Full DPS cele tempest ~24K:

 

Due to agony ticks (-70% healing) in fractals I'm not sure people would even take a tempest over plaguedoctor scourge which now is no longer meme , it's ~27K DPS while putting out barriers that ignore agony in fractals versus the full DPS ~37K so you lose ~10K DPS. I've played in groups with plaguedoc scourge + power quickness scrapper before torment patch and CQB (so full 30-34K DPS) +plaguedoc scourge (~27K) after exposed change. The meta with seraph FB (~24K DPS) and condi scourge (~37K) is similar. Heal tempest is so behind in fractals it is ridiculous because aegis and barrier mean large heals aren't the answer.

Seraph FB + condi or power alac + cScourge = 24+30+37 = ~91K  , meta more or less
cele FB + condi or power alac + cScourge = 21+30+37= ~88K
cQB + plaguedoc scourge + condi or power alac = 30+27+30 = ~87K

cQB + cele tempest + condi or power alac = 30+11 (presumably) + 30 =~71K ...

quickness scrapper + alac + cele tempest = 28 + 30 + 11 = ~69K , no large condition exposed bonus for quickness scrapper
heal quickness scrapper  + alac + full DPS scourge / condi FB 5 page = 0 + 30 + 37 = ~67K

Using discretize's beta calculator (https://discretize.github.io/discretize-gear-optimizer/) and setting 162AR to fit the majority of the playerbase:
* CFB quickness does ~34.8K as opposed to ~30K in raids, 59K vs exposed
* Hybrid Virtues FB (25% BD, 600+ Heal power) does ~30.2K , 51K vs exposed
* Hybrid Honor FB (25% BD, 600+ Heal power) does ~27K, 45K vs exposed
* Condi /Cele alac ren  (79% BD , leadership rune) does ~33.6K , 57K vs exposed
* Alac ren (79%+ BD) does ~35.7K, 44.7K vs exposed
* quickness scrapper (34% BD),  ~35.5K , 45K vs exposed
* power holo ~44.7K , 57K vs exposed
* pchrono ~43K , ~55K vs exposed  --- factor in the rampup
* condi daredevil ~42.6K , ~74K vs exposed
* hybrid weaver just under 42K , ~65K vs exposed
* condi weaver sword ~41K, ~68.5K vs exposed
* power weaver 46.6K , ~59.5K vs exposed
* power DH ~43K  , ~53.6K vs exposed
* power BS ~41.5K , ~51K vs exposed
* CFB DPS ~40.3K , ~69K vs exposed
* Condi scourge ~40K , 69.5K vs exposed
* condi deadeye ~39.2K, 67K vs exposed
* hybrid soulbeast ~40K , 64K vs exposed
* condi soulbeast ~38K, ~66K vs exposed
* power soulbeast ~37.5K, ~47K vs exposed
* condi BS ~37K , ~64.5K vs exposed
* pQFB ~33.3K, ~41.6K vs exposed

If you take condi tempest settings and slap min 600 heal power and drop earth traitline for water traitline, with condi boon gear as a preference you get ~36K instead of ~40K for full condi DPS tempest in viper gear. The gear suggested is full cele with viper headpiece.

... so the situation is possibly worse in fractals


Tempest needs more damage (and more reliability on that damage) to be attractive if it's for fractals  , it cannot hinge on 10 man healing in fractals. It is decent in raid due to 10 man healing and the healing range , it can replace a druid if you have a DPS soulbeast bringing spirits.

Edited October 14, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[AliamRationem.5172]

2 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

While it certainly isn't perfectly balanced, it never will be. There was, is and always will be one best comp, be it Druid+Chrono or Renegade+Firebrand, or whatever will be next. 

 

The fact that this one best comp is then pretty much exclusively all you will ever find played is as much, if not more so, a player/community issue than a balance issue though. 

As long as you have Quickness, Fury, Might, Vuln and some form of support, >90% of non-speedrunning groups would be doing just fine.

People could clear Fractals and co. very comfortably on Tempest+Quickbrand, Tempest+Chrono, Tempest+Scrapper, Scrapper+hScourge, hScourge+Quickbrand, Scrapper+Renegade, Druid+Quickbrand, Druid+Scrapper and on and on, they just choose not to because it takes minor adjustment from the norm for slightly less payoff. 

 

But the days where Chrono just did literally everything (all boons, boon strip, CC, Skips etc.) and was just so far ahead of everything else that it was irreplaceable are long gone. 

There are plenty viable comps. 

 

But why play with something different that you don't know as well to play around that does slightly worse and likely takes much, much longer to find groups for since it's not the standard, when you could just run that? 

 

That's the main issue. The GW2 community gets stuck in metas hard. Sometimes to a point where they run sub-par comps still for months to even years after they have already been surpassed by something new and better, because it's not that "one default comp everybody runs and is used to". 

 

The playerbase at large just isn't competent enough with the game to understand build craft and game system interactions themselves to see, try and play the plentiful alternatives that exist at this point themselves - with everybody just copying the publicly shared very top and then sticking to it like a dogma, with Meta switches basically just happening when Anet annihilates the current standard so people have to jump to the next thing to become the problem. 

How close Anet can manage to balance things beyond that is almost irrelevant to this issue at this point. As long as something is ahead, no matter how miniscule the advantage (and something always will be), that will be picked up as the standard everybody gears, plays and learns to play around.

Sure, but these classes do too much.  It's obvious.

[Vidit.7108]

I think this topic is getting a little off the rails. Going to focus mostly on Tempest.
1.  First Cele-healbrand will do more damage than the golem benchmark because of some weird damage scaling specific to fractals and mist potions. Benchmarks don't mean spit if you're pugging a daily t4 or cms because you can't guarantee the skill level of other players. Sometimes the instabilities dictate what skills you're bringing and that means less damage no matter what your stats are. Some high AR firebrands are just THAT good but it shouldn't be mistaken as easy for your average HB to heal, aegis, reflect, stab, and do damage.

2. Anet is just not paying a lot of attention to fractals when they balance classes. A lot of Elementalist is balanced around the 10 person group. You've got support traits peppered outside of Water spec but a lot of them are kind of alone on the trait line in terms of what they bring in support. The water traits are also maybe too competitive with each other, like those grandmaster traits are all amazing, it'd be nice if Powerful Auras was somewhere else like on Arcane, Fire or Earth. There is a very narrow range of things each attunement lets the Ele do, some of your boon support skills are spread between 4 weapon cooldowns. Core Guardian by contrast was given support traits on almost all of it's trait lines, a full range beginning to end. It's not possible to use all of them but it gives versatility and real options to choose from for each encounter. In the 5 person fractal group that versatility is everything to the one or two support roles. As another example the Renegade can do a lot of different things and knowing which Legend to bring to which fractals separates a good AlacRen from a bad AlacRen, it's also very doable to switch to AlacHealerRenegade and have no healing or reflects from the Firebrand. It's just easier that pugs have all agreed to let the firebrand do all the healing. A lot of pug Renegades already seem to resent having to provide alacrity I think it's probably a lot harder to get them to bring a set of healing gear too.

3.  Playing with a healTempest in t4 dailies is very possible.  To do this requires really two things, first that the dps are more aware of mechanics and doing more than just dps, second that players understand the intricacies of the healer they bring. Most dps don't really get what Healbrand does or why, a lot of them just expect to be able to stand there and hit the thing. But with a healing Tempest the players really have to know that when you're on Earth attunement to give stab your healing is limited. A static group can make it work, the players can all learn how to do fractals with a healing tempest in mind and get great clear times. But pugging is a different story, it operates a lot on not thinking about what other players are really doing.

Fractal instabs have really helped to entrench the meta more than change it. Sometimes there is just a constant stream of damage or projectiles and that really isn't doing Tempest favors when it has to switch to fire to give the party might. Chrono-Druid could probably still work if you can get players to stand in wells but it really falls apart in some newer fractals with a lot of movement and no or limited burst phases.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

What HealTempest brings to Fractals is perma 25 Might, Fury, Swiftness, Regeneration, Vigor and Protection, high uptime on reflects and easy access to a massive amount of CC and healing. Some of these were super significant in the dungeon area, and for most of the lifetime of Fractals, but have fallen off after the introduction of Firebrand.

 

Why? Well, basically its because of Aegis and Stability spam. Its not even Quickness. You can forego every other boon, even in most cases reflects and sometimes even healing entirely as long as you block everything, and make sure that allies never get knocked down and have their skills interrupted.

 

To give another example: HealTempest loses to Alacren too, because even though perma Vigor+Mobility potions always hit the Endurance regen cap and this used to be vital in high-end content because dodging was the core mechanic of all encounters, these days its just spam Alacrity so you can use your #6 heal skill/etc. more often and everyone can sustain themselves instead, while also doing more damage due to lower weapon skill cooldowns.

 

Have you ever seen how much sustain a player can have when they take the cooldown trait on their own healing skill and then get Alacrity on top of it? Some of them are useable every 10sec. And that's not counting the fact that every source of Alacrity (even Mirage, if built for it), provides some healing too.

 

So to summarise, the key boons in 5man these days are Aegis and Stability, and optionally Alacrity and Quickness. Nothing else matters when you can just avoid all damage and hit like a racecar instead of a truck.

 

I love Tempest, its my main and has been for many years and I still play it in Fractals. But it'll never be a true support in any content because it brings dated boons to encounters, and until we get Catalyst with perma Quickness that's not likely to change for Ele in general.

Edited October 16, 2021 by Hannelore.8153