Infusion.7149

The lava font change needs to be reverted or made less severe , but that's not as relevant to tempest.

Harmonious conduit , if changed, still will not compare with weaver's Elements of Rage along with the +120 attribute bonus and ferocity boost. You'd need something that works well with Fresh Air due to the nature of overloads.

I'm guessing you want a PvE buff for tempests because for PvP / WvW nobody mentions hitboxes.

Overload air could add more vulnerability , I doubt damage or target count will increase. Overload fire does more damage but has a smaller radius.

"Aftershock" could use a slight PvE recharge reduction.

"Feel the burn" could use a PvE buff as well, fire aura is easy to attain so it isn't strong , especially with the 25 cooldown.

Ultimately I like tempest more than weaver, but that's due to extra flexibility. Even if you're not specced for healing , "wash the pain away" still works ; overloads still apply protection +swiftness and break stun. I don't like staff on tempest though. There's not enough auras you directly apply: you only get magnetic aura on earth staff 3. You'd have to use water staff 4 (ice field) + fire staff 2 (fire field) + static field (lightning field) for auras but you don't have a leap so the only combo for auras is blasting the ice field.

Usually I'll run Air+Water+Tempest. Air for Fresh air + Ferocious winds , Water for Powerful Aura. Fire traitline would be tempting for staff users.

Sword + focus with GS for power or sword + sword with GS. Sword+ shield if chrono.

* **Fencer's finesse** in dueling if mainly in sword

* **Superiority complex** in dueling is +15% criticals

(People tend to run chrono for power, along with boon sharing or other such things ; Chaotic Persistence / Bountiful Disillusionment in Chaos is used typically so dueling may be dropped)

Staff + scepter or axe (mirage) with torch for condition damage. Staff is more a defensive weapon , but I would categorize it as condi.

* **Chaotic Transference** in the chaos line for more condition damage

* **The Pledge** in Illusions line -- torch bonus

* **Malicious Sorcery** from the illusions line --- scepter bonus

* **Maim the disillusioned** in illusions line

(People tend to run mirage for condi as axe is a condi weapon and Nomad's Endurance is also a condi buff)

Condi is more forgiving statwise as you don't need three stats (power,precision, ferocity), only one or two (condition damage , expertise).

> @"Strider Pj.2193" said:

> > @"Infusion.7149" said:

> > It was patched July 10th.

> >

>

> So, I am not sure if you were serious or sarcasm (which would be funny if sarcasm lol) but Karl noted this a little earlier in the thread:

>

> > @"Karl McLain.5604" said:

> > I can confirm that the initial damage impact is currently too high and we'll be looking to bring it back down to normal levels when possible.

>

>

> Of course, 'when possible' is the interesting statement in that phrase.

>

> Makes me wonder if the Devs were planning an Ele night for reset and figured: "lets buff the heck out of this for a few nights and have some fun!!"

>

> I could see it.... :smile:

I'm serious, it hasn't been one week yet the poster stated they had a whole week. It should have been rolled back ASAP, but I remember CoR being bugged for far longer & hitting through gates and walls.

I wouldn't build an ele just to abuse this, but testing it in WvW suggests it hits higher than it should.

Also , if you're posting a high number, it is pretty useless without context which is why I posted my own testing & derivation for what "normal" damage should be. 14K on 3000 armor is unacceptable , but 10K on 2000 armor is plausible given the right conditions such as full zerker + buffs (in my prior post I didn't even count Presence of the Keep).

Anyone can test it on the golems themselves, then compare it to the damage formula. Fireball is 1.0x coefficient , meteor is 1.6.

> @"ThiBash.5634" said:

> > @"Infusion.7149" said:

> > The most I was hit with was ~ 14K in WvW tonight , I ran 2.5K armor. Any light armor with low HP would be instagibbed.

> >

> > I tested in PvP vs the targets as well. The most I could do without buffs , just zerker + scholar rune was ~9K crit vs PvP light armor golem using fire + air (ferocity), + weaver and about 8K vs the medium armor golem. (2645 power, 234% crit damage) Sigil of force doesn't exist in PvP. This suggests it is innately buggy since it should be roughly 1.6x fireball damage (fireball has 1.0 coefficient) : the most I hit with fireball critical was around 4.4K without **bolt to the heart**. With ascended full zerker gear, 7-9K damage should be attainable on light armor (2185 armor light armor golem vs players running 2000) if it's working as intended sans ** Bolt to the Heart**, over 15K is not.

> >

> > I also tested with no weaver spec (2525 power), using dropping weaver for water's aquamancer training for +10% damage. 3.5 to 3.9K typical fireball crit. Meteor shower crit about 9K , it should be around 6-7K.

> >

> > I tested on the Fractal golem ; similarly it exceeded 2x fireball damage. It's probably ~ 20%-25% extra base damage instead of "20% min damage".

>

> Are you certain that its wrongly scaled in other game modes as well? Because on my dps tempest, I found that the recent nerf put me in the 'barely viable' category of dps (25k). Another nerf to PvE Meteor Shower would mean the end of my favorite build and main character...

Tempest doesn't have the +120 attribute bonus from weaver. This means you're likely seeing the lava font 40% damage nerf, which was heavy handed. Without having ferocity bonus (~13% with marauder) and +10% damage via elements of rage you'd be hard-pressed to do as much damage as others are claiming.

Whenever I run tempest in PvE , I use Fresh air + Ferocious winds + Harmonious conduit (+10% damage after overload) which means dagger is generally better suited since staff air attack is weaker compared to the fireball auto.

The most I was hit with was ~ 14K in WvW tonight , I ran 2.5K armor. Any light armor with low HP would be instagibbed.

I tested in PvP vs the targets as well. The most I could do without buffs , just zerker + scholar rune was ~9K crit vs PvP light armor golem using fire + air (ferocity), + weaver and about 8K vs the medium armor golem. (2645 power, 234% crit damage) Sigil of force doesn't exist in PvP. This suggests it is innately buggy since it should be roughly 1.6x fireball damage (fireball has 1.0 coefficient) : the most I hit with fireball critical was around 4.4K without **bolt to the heart**. With ascended full zerker gear, 7-9K damage should be attainable on light armor (2185 armor light armor golem vs players running 2000) if it's working as intended sans ** Bolt to the Heart**, over 15K is not.

I also tested with no weaver spec (2525 power), using dropping weaver for water's aquamancer training for +10% damage. 3.5 to 3.9K typical fireball crit. Meteor shower crit about 9K , it should be around 6-7K.

I tested on the Fractal golem ; similarly it exceeded 2x fireball damage. It's probably ~ 20%-25% extra base damage instead of "20% min damage".

The scaling is more insane with vulnerability stacks.

> @"Egorum.9506" said:

> > @"Evolute.6239" said:

> > reset was a clown car tonight

> >

> > 10+ eles on both sides just throwing out oneshot zones everywhere

>

> 10? Hod was running 20+ on our home bl. In a map que zerg, so the meteors and circles got culled. I have a clip I'll put up tomorrow where I went from 27k hp to full dead, I was nowhere near the zerg. Combat log showed 19k, 17k, 9k, 12k meteor shower hits

>

> Thank you anet for kitten up reset night by not testing changes, again. This was a known issue all week, wasn't even acknowledged until today @_@

It was patched July 10th.

Why would you want to break balance by allowing 2 elite specs at the same time? Also it would be a nightmare to implement on classes whose F skills change such as Reaper.

Elite specs are more powerful than core specs generally:

Ele: tempest/weaver

Engi: scrapper/holosmith

Guardian: DH/firebrand -- F skill change

Mesmer: Chrono / Mirage -- dodge change and continuum split

Necro: Reaper/Scourge -- F skill change ; scourge needs to be worked on when boons are everywhere (i.e. fractals)

Ranger: Druid / Soulbeast

Revenant: Herald/Renegade -- Renegade needs work

Thief: daredevil / deadeye -- F skill change

Warrior: Berserker, Spellbreaker -- only 2 level burst on SB

If anything core specs should be made level with Elite specs for the most part.

Mesmer hate is real, but understandable. It's mainly elite specs are really overtuned vs core specs.

For PvE, chrono tanking / boon share.

For WvW , mirage roamers and chronos with gravity well / portals / boon share.

Basically I anticipate another heavy nerf to Signet of Inspiration , Bountiful Disillusionment, and the Healing Prism +restorative Illusion traits. Alacrity might be detuned to 15% to 20% too if they really want to hit chrono.

I'd also expect a boon duration cap on Chaotic Persistence or a flat %.

> @"Karl McLain.5604" said:

> I can confirm that the initial damage impact is currently too high and we'll be looking to bring it back down to normal levels when possible.

Thank you for responding quickly!

As far as coefficients go, the coefficient on meteor is 1.6

https://api.guildwars2.com/v2/skills?ids=5501

This is less than CoR's coefficient of 1.75 at max range (it's 1.5 at midrange), or Gun flame's 2.2 multiplier (dragon's tooth on scepter fire 2 is also 2.2 coefficient). Keep in mind the massive channeling time and obvious graphic of meteors falling from the sky unless culling occurs.

Damage = (Weapon strength * Power * Skill coefficient) / Armor

> Staff max weapon strength is 1166 with ascended

> Skill coefficient is 1.6 per GW2 API

> Power is going to be around 2800-3000 without might & food. (2800 is essentially non-weavers in fire attunement with fire traitline)

> +5% from Sigil of force

> + 10% from Empowering flame (while in fire) - fire trait

> + 10% from Burning Rage (fairly consistent due to scourges and firebrands) - fire trait

> + 10% from Elements of Rage (only for 8s while single attuned) , weaver only... not much different than the +10% from Harmonious conduit on tempest other than a ferocity boost

> + 7% from Swift revenge , weaver only (requires swiftness or superspeed)

> 2% per boon in arcane (with a herald near it's easily 3 boons such as might ,fury, swiftness ; there's 12 boons including aegis, protection, regen, alacrity , quickness, resistance, retal , stability, vigor) ... literally exactly the same as revenant's Elder's Force

> +20% with Bolt to the Heart (vs <50% enemies) , in the air line

> + 10% from scholar rune (requires you to be > 90% HP...)

> critical is going to be ~ 2x to 2.6x effective power , more with a revenant running devastation traitline for +150 ferocity (+10%). A revenant brings the crit back to pre-nerf ferocity from Elements of Rage

In order to hit 15K you'd need to have a critical , there's no way even with 25 might (+750 Power) that you'd see more than 6K damage otherwise since 3K power /2K armor with coefficient of 1.6 is around 2800 damage not including traits. You'd need at least three +10% traits/rune to reach the 10K damage unless running Bolt to the Heart (+20% vs targets below 50% HP) in the Air traitline or Bountiful Power (+2% per boon) in Arcane with a critical.

If you reverse solve the damage equation:

Damage * Armor = 1166 weapon damage * 1.6 skill coefficient * Effective Power

Assuming 10K damage ,

10K * 2000 = 1166*1.6 * Effective Power

= 10,720 Effective Power

Divide by critical hit 250%

4288 effective power without critical

Divide by 3000 power and you get 1.42x damage multiplier, which can only be attained through a minimum of sigil of force (1.05x) and three + 10% modifiers (1.1^3) which can be attained with fire and weaver alone

If we do it based on 260% critical , 4123 effective power without critical is required

Divide by 3000 power , you end up with 1.37x damage multiplier required so sigil of force plus three 10% modifiers would satisfy this

What could be partly happening is marauder eles are getting damage boosted to berserker gear levels due to the change on Elements of Rage , plus Ferocious Winds (air traitline) scaling with precision. **If it's truly bugged then it needs to be fixed, obviously.**

I've been critically hit over 12K even before this patch on revenant and I run about 2600-2800 armor depending on if hardening persistence is up. If you're running 2000 armor that's going to be over 15K (12K * 2600/2000 = 15.6K). There has to be might stacking , damage modifiers, and vulnerability involved. If it was just meteor shower with fire traitline, it wouldn't hit that hard.

An ele can have over 2600 power due to Empowering Flame trait (+150 power) + weaver's Elemental Polyphony (+120 Power). Ingame tooltip is based on 2600 armor target, I don't believe that it counts traits such as Empowering Flame (+10%) , Burning Rage (+10% vs burning) or Elements of Rage (+10% damage , 13% vitality to ferocity is around +13% or +14% with marauder) let alone others such as Bolt to the Heart (+20% vs <50% HP) or Bountiful power (+2% per boon) in the arcane line.

If you look at combat log make sure you aren't inflicted with vulnerability. If you were in _well of suffering _ it's safe to say there was at least 4-8 stacks of vulnerability which is +4-8% damage.

If Arenanet nerfs the **Elements of Rage** 10% damage modifier (ferocity boost is still above 10% with marauder so there's a possibility it would be dropped to about +150 ferocity) , the +120 Power from **Elemental Polyphony** while in fire, or +7% damage from **swift revenge** (swiftness on staff ele is only easy to meet all the time with a rev ; I'd imagine if nerfed it would be changed to favor close range / dual attack damage only or something), it will be hard to take weaver over tempest or core ele because defensively it brings less to the party besides water fields since rarely do you see a weaver with water traitline.

In short, unless meteor shower is truly bugged I don't think it's a meteor shower problem. You'd need an isolated test scenario such as a guildhall arena to truly test it , unless it is a WvW split bug (meteor isn't skill split).

edit: confirmed buggy by Arenanet.

Playing core engi well requires deep knowledge of the game such as blasting smoke fields for stealth (leap also), fire fields for might, or water fields for heals (leap also, evident by scrapper hammer).

It also generally involves using kits & stacking multiple procs of traits such as burn/bleed on critical, since pistol and rifle aren't scaled up to elite spec damage.

Don't run healing power.

FGJ is dependent on group comp, with any sort of heralds or fury generation I wouldn't take it.

"Shake it off" might be worth taking. I wouldn't bother with "Fear Me" or "on my mark". In a WvW environment, unless you are fighting groups below 5 people they just aren't going to be strong.

I would probably put in an extra stunbreak such as Balanced stance or Defy Pain as well , or even Stomp for an extra blast finisher.

It's not so much a necromancer nerf as a scourge nerf. Shroud is in part a defensive mechanic, scourge didn't have shroud but had barriers instead.

Scepter had its boon corrupt moved to skill 3.

Blood as sand was a minor change. It's a minor trait as well.

Scourges had trail of anguish for mobility and that's mostly it (similar to Spectral Walk), I don't consider Sand Swell as mobility most times.

The only major change is Dhuumfire doesn't proc more than once every 5 seconds (per scourge).

I like the barrier idea , honestly but it's (shield is) only going to be used in PvP / small scale WvW.

Crystal Hibernation in its current iteration is pretty terrible. Instead of rooting you there , I'd rather have increasing barrier while channeled + some kind of projectile hate. Outright mediocre healing is not enough and it probably shouldn't be returned to its original state either so I wouldn't be annoyed if the healing pulses were dropped for a minor heal. Maybe move the healing til the end of the channel like guardians' **Shelter** if barrier is provided.

Actually since Glint has basically no condi removal I'd rather have barrier + condi removal on shield 5 than a minor heal.

Shield on guardian, engineer, and chrono aren't this terrible.

Most of the time I use sword+sword instead of staff in WvW these days due to +150 ferocity boost with Devastation trait while dual wielding. It might not be optimal though but Unrelenting assault + sword immob / shadow step always surprises people more than staff 5. I've run sword+axe before as well: axe has a pull that makes it good for hammer 2 (CoR) but scaling with power isn't great.

Since you don't need that much precision due to Roiling Mists you can run some Valkyrie , Wanderer's, soldier's or other gear to bump your defense up so long as you have power + some ferocity. Ventari users can pop in some Crusader's pieces.

Having played herald (rev) in WvW the past few months, with the nerfs to weaver you're better off with hammer rev.

For one, the cooldown is minimal on CoR (Coalescence of Ruin , aka hammer 2). Secondly, if you want fury, extra boon duration from facet, or protection it is available to you. With **Roiling Mists ** + Fury you don't need a ton of precision so you can run some pieces of soldier's or Valkyrie. If you run dwarf legend you get extra stability + sustain ; if you run mallyx legend you get resistance + bulk condi clear.

The only time you miss weaver is hitting siege on the backside of a wall. Cannons / oil you can throw hammers at.

I have to agree with you as far as playability, my engineer was used for storage until Scrapper spec came around. With scrapper hammer + toolkit / elixir gun (utility) + mortar you're basically playing 2-3 weapons.

On paper core engineer is "fun" but when you are tired and don't want to aim grenades (you need to aim even for auto attack) or roll through multiple kits (whether it is the mines, toolkit, elixir gun, bomb kit, flamethrower, etc), core engineer is tedious since rifle , pistol+pistol plus pistol+shield aren't great on their own. Elixir gun and flame thrower really need some condi spec to work well ; grenades proc traits with burn/bleeding. Turrets have their own issues since if you're moving along quickly (whether it is WvW / PvE) they will easily not be in range.

Damage coefficients are far higher on holosmith even before heat is involved.

I liked the projectile mitigation of the old toolbelt skill, but the new stun-break of the utility skill is a good change for WvW.

I would have preferred if Fury was also kept for the PvE version of Elixir U.

Quickness isn't amazing anymore due to Firebrand (Stalwart speed) as well as Chronomancers with boon sharing (Seize the moment trait Phantasmal haste, and Well of action).

There was a time quickness was worthy of Elite status (see _Time Warp _ and _"Feel My Wrath"_).

I've never been a fan of scepter because it has no AoE on auto , has delays on the attacks, and requires chaining for spike damage. These factors make it weaker for PvE and WvW than for PvP. Scepter has been buffed quite a few times though.

As far as warhorn (which I use with dagger and Fresh Air) it also has delays. Lightning orb (warhorn air 5) is underrated as it is a line attack AoE similar to the delayed Wildfire (fire warhorn 5). The tooltip doesn't do it justice because you get a bunch of vulnerability depending on how many times it hits. Air warhorn 4 pulls things together ; water warhorn 5 is a moving waterfield ; fire warhorn 4 copies your boons ; earth warhorn 4 lengthens boons and gives you reflect.

I could understand nerfing protection from atttuning to earth , but might / swiftness / regen aren't spectacular so this is disappointing.

I just wanted to express my dislike for the **Blurred Frenzy** nerf.

I'd also like to express my disgust for mirages in PvE that carry *Jaunt* instead of Signet of Humility versus bosses such as the ones on Legendary Bounty trains.

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > @"notkirves.2643" said:

> > The up front damage buff is huge...sure the lava font nerf hurt a bit but I really think we came out on top. I mainly run marauder but my meteor is definitely hitting harder than pre "nerf". Before id top out at around 16-18k buffed up, now im hitting up to 22k per meteor. I feel like survivability went way up with the condi changes. Between twist of fate, dodge roll, and mistform you can negate so much condi damage and cover distance to get safe for your heal/cleanse...rev's and other ele's will still oneshot but if you position right you should be able to avoid the enemy melee train most of the time

> >

> > I dunno, maybe im missing something but im still top dps by a decent amount in group fights and the condi changes bumped my survivability up quite a bit

>

> There's no reason for Meteor Shower to deal more damage:

>

> >Meteor Shower: Fixed a bug that caused the minimum damage of this skill to be higher than intended. The expected minimum damage has been increased from 10% to 20%.

>

> This only concerns how far it will fall off, and honestly it is not clear to me if I should expect it to fall off more or less than before.

> So if you're seeing higher hits, it is likely a bug pending to be fixed.

> Furthermore, Elements of Rage got completely destroyed. The ferocity buff got down from 400+ to like 130, which is over 66% loss. So no, I see no reason to like any of the changes.

Exactly, the ferocity scaling change for the weaver trait is a huge change , with full marauder you're only looking at about 13-14% extra crit damage.

Meteor shower in WvW was/is primarily a skill to handle siege on the inside of walls , whereas lava font provided a way to manage cannons and burning oil more effectively than auto attacking. In open field it is far harder to hit people with it (meteor shower / lava font).

I haven't seen any new developments on acquiring 400 elegy mosaics (+ 750 if you're using them for Funerary Incenses) . It seems the amount from legendary bounties and Serpent's Ire is low compared to the amount you need.

In addition, the treasure chests seem to have random low amounts.

Any suggestions besides binning the Desert Mastery Item?

Anyone on Fedora with 4.17 kernel ?

You won't have good DPS if tanky, it's basically mutually exclusive. For WvW , mesmers are a support class.

Some people feel that mirage is broken, but that's not a zerg build.

All the commanders want Firebrands (mantras are instant) and Scourges.

Your tempest ele build isn't really suitable for zerging because scepter is underwhelming (900 range also puts you at great risk from scourges) and really the only utilities for WvW you ought to use on tempest are the shouts , lightning flash , + stunbreak (such as mist form).

Weaver is used with highly glass builds, my rev has been hit for 8-11K before , not sure with vulnerability or whatnot but it's a huge difference to what you posted with 20K HP.

Before being creative I highly suggest you play a meta build a few days at the very least to get a baseline for what is expected from any build you make yourself.

You need to think of what your build brings to the table other classes cannot. If you go staff tempest _with auras_ for example, auras can't be boon corrupted and you can blow up siege on walls with meteor shower + fireball splash damage.

It's a vastly different environment than before when soldier's armor + berserker trinkets staff ele running arcane+fire+water was a thing.

I'm just wondering other than **trail of anguish ** whether people use the scourge utilities in PvE? I've used Sand Swell on occasion for navigation and breaking aggro.

I noticed quite a few enemies have defiance bars instead of boons in H.O.T. + P.O.F. It would be nice if the boon corrupt utilities actually broke defiance bars a bit , but I doubt that will happen.

(using scourge mid-mid-mid with Dhuumfire)

Obtained the beetle as soon as possible to have the story experience count towards it , with Bronze chest in the "adventure" that introduces jumps and drifting. We could probably use a PvP / WvW oriented mini-expansion pack (DLC) with alliance battles and roller beetle races as the highlight. We're missing Cantha from the original GW1 (Tyria, Cantha, Elona) so there's a whole continent untouched.

The story itself was alright, but the intermediary steps between *Forewarned is Forearmed* and "Be My Guest" that occur in Kourna could be better laid out in the UI. It isn't clear which part you are up to sometimes, unlike prior Living Story steps.

When I attempted it yesterday before several patches , it wouldn't progress without crashing after hitting enemies with the first two skills from Blish's arm. The first story step was also buggy and required relogging to progress the dialogue with the two queens & Taimi.

Also, some the achievements have some sort of "FTT" tag in front of them that is likely not supposed to be shown player-side. The same FTT thing is seen in the story instance on the Inquest turrets. Unless the codes are to make the achievements sound more technical (plausible).