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[Bayonet Hipshot]

So with the recent patch of Flask of Fire and Thousand Cuts exploit, there is this thought that Tempest specialization is now weak or is now inferior.

 

I am going to make the case that this is not only false, but that many have been playing the Tempest the wrong way. 

 

Let us take a look at the Tempest tree.

 

Here is a link for those of you who wish to see the tree in all its glory.  :- http://i.imgur.com/xKKgN2H.jpg

 

The Tempest passives are what I am going to focus on here. We have four of them,

• Flaskmaster - Extra potion and 25% chance of not triggering a cooldown for your elixir.
• Fury of the Storm - Damage increase when you stamina drops below 50%.
• Killer's Alchemy - 15% stackable bonus damage when you use a potion or an elixir.
• Ride the Storm - +3 second duration when you activate one elixir immediately after another. 

If you play as a Tempest and you have more than one elixir ability on your skillbar, you will notice that each elixir has its own cooldown. This is not like other Bioware games where if you use one ability, all the others go on cooldown. 

 

So for example, if you activate Flask of Fire, and you have Flask of Lightning on your skillbar, after Flask of Fire has run out, your Flask of Lightning cooldown will not trigger. 

 

This is highly important because of the Tempest passives, specifically Killer's Alchemy and Ride the Storm. Say for example you open a fight with Flask of Lightning and then right after Flask of Lightning runs out, you activate Flask of Fire immediately. You will gain +15% bonus damage and a +3 second duration to Flask of Fire. After Flask of Fire's duration runs out and if you activate Flask of Frost immediately, you get the +15% bonus damage and +3 duration, because they stack. 

 

I have not tested enough to see if the passive stack after more than one three consecutive elixir usage because enemies would be dead by then. But the point is that you stand to gain far more if you activate one elixir after another than just activating one, waiting for it to go on cooldown and then reactivate it again. The specialization passives simply do not support this one ability spam playstyle. The support a very specific style of spamming. 

 

Next we move on to Flaskmaster and Fury of the Storm. If you do as I stated previously and that is chain your elixirs properly, your stamina will be quite low, which triggers Fury of the Storm, giving your extra damage. With Flaskmaster, you have a 1 in 4 chance of not triggering an elixir cooldown which is nice but the icing on the cake here is the extra potions that you can carry. This is because the extra potion slot ties in with Killer's Alchemy where if you use a potion or an elixir, you get a damage boost. For maximum effect, bring along Mighty Offense Tonic. However, I am not sure if it works with Poisons or Grenades. 

 

The gist of it all is that the Tempest is neither an Artificer nor an Assassin. Many have been trying to play the Tempest like they would an artificer, trying to get an ability to have low cooldown so it can be spammed. This is usually done with Shadow Strike. I myself did this until I realize that the Tempest is not about a single elixir spam. It is about spamming all the elixirs in consecutive succession one after another plus the occasional dunking of Mighty Offense Tonic or any potion really. 

 

This is in many ways, the gist of what Kihm, the trainer for Tempest specialization said. The tempest is not subtle, it is about making a chaotic elemental storm. Specifically, a mix of fire, frost and lightning elemental storm. Not just spamming one single elixir or flask. 

 

All in all, the Tempest is still extremely powerful. In fact, you can ignore the Thousand Cuts focus and the Tempest will still be powerful. They just do not play like an Artificer or like an Assassin and that is something many people, I think, missed. 

[GoodFella146]

Well I knew about that exploit and am not surprised it's been fixed, but other than that Flask of Lightning is insane.  I'm not sure if people fully realize that.  Static Cage + Flask of Lightning is a lot of damage.

[Arvaarad]

Well I knew about that exploit and am not surprised it's been fixed, but other than that Flask of Lightning is insane. I'm not sure if people fully realize that. Static Cage + Flask of Lightning is a lot of damage.

Lightning Cage, or anything else that triggers on hit. Slap on some Hidden Blades procs, and the tempest is going to be doing bizarre amounts of dps.

Combine Sera with Cole on the end fight, and even if you're appropriately leveled, you'll have to be careful to avoid the phase skip bug (where he goes to 0 health before he can run away). Without even using Thousand Cuts, or any tonics. Just use a Flask of Lightning + Mark of Death.

[themageguy]

I totally approve of this thread

"The storm approaches. We get to say that."

- Kihm, Tempest trainer.

[WillieStyle]

One somewhat under noticed benefit of Thousand Cuts is the Invincibility Frames. Also, Flask of Frost + Twin Fangs and Drathblow make you a shatter combo machine. My party triggers so many combos that I can use focus abilities every 2-3 fights.

[Bayonet Hipshot]

One somewhat under noticed benefit of Thousand Cuts is the Invincibility Frames. Also, Flask of Frost + Twin Fangs and Drathblow make you a shatter combo machine. My party triggers so many combos that I can use focus abilities every 2-3 fights.

 

Make that Mighty Offense Potion + Flask of Frost + Twin Fangs / Deathblow. 

[Bigdawg13]

Curious what tactics people when considering tempest flasks. It's all to easy to get into the mindset of FoF and long shot spam. I'll list the ones I've seen.

Flask of Fire:

1. Long shot spam
2. Shadow Strike spam
3. Twin Fangs spam
4. Leaping shot spam against a building/structure
5. Hook & Tackle -> FoF -> Leaping shot spam

 

Flask of Lightning:

1. Auto attack
2. Interrupt a Rift
3. Resurrect a fallen party member
4. Re-positioning (high ground, flanking, break line of sight)

 

Flask of Frost:

1. Increase duration of next flask
2. Survive imminent damage
3. Cross-class combo as a DW with twin fangs follow-up

My beef with the tempest, is that it becomes too easy to get into the routine of stacking flasks back-to-back, just to spam long shot (or leaping shot).  That is boring.  Good damage, but still boring.  I'm curious what other tactics others have thought of.

 

The other issue I have is that a tempest really wants all the abilities in the tempest tree.  That's 3 skills + a focus (half of your available 8 skills).  Once you pick up skills from the archer tree, there isn't room for stealth.  I should have spent more time as a DW tempest, but so many times I found myself whiffing with shadow strike while under the effects of FoF.

[Bigdawg13]

Well I knew about that exploit and am not surprised it's been fixed, but other than that Flask of Lightning is insane.  I'm not sure if people fully realize that.  Static Cage + Flask of Lightning is a lot of damage.

 

Are there any videos that demo this?  Most tempest vids dem thousand cuts and/or flask of fire spam/tactics.  When they show flask of lightning, it's mostly auto attack spam.  It looks cool...but then when you're playing it you realize it's boring to just auto-attack.

[Angry_Elcor]

Nah, I'm still doing it right.

[rpgplayer1]

What I like to do is to spam flask of fire with flank attack.

Since flank attack hits anyone between starting location and target, it leads to massive damage to group of enemies if done correctly.

[Bigdawg13]

What I like to do is to spam flask of fire with flank attack.

Since flank attack hits anyone between starting location and target, it leads to massive damage to group of enemies if done correctly.

 

Just wanted to add only the first hit will hit multiple enemies.  It also uses the offhand damage rather than mainhand as of patch 5.

[rpgplayer1]

Sure, but it is still a lot of damage, due to hitting multiple targets.

 

Also, it is really fast, and as long there is at least two enemies, it is more effective to spam it instead of twin fangs or deathblow.

Although it does take a lot of pausing and switching targets, after each attack.

[Bayonet Hipshot]

There is an issue with the Tempest specialization that I think I must point out. This is not a weakness per say but rather a byproduct of the specialization itself.

 

It is a problem that is very similar to the Knight Enchanter in that the Tempest specialization makes your character not be a rogue anymore. 

 

What do I mean by this ?

 

A rogue is someone who employs subterfuge, stealth and trickery to solve any problems they come across. In Dragon Age, the ability "Stealth" is a defining rogue ability. 

 

A good rogue is one that can synchronize their base abilities with their specialization abilities. By good here I do not my good damage but rather the ability to blend it all the abilities they have. 

 

The thing with the Tempest is that all its abilities do not work with Stealth and in fact make Stealth for rogue completely unnecessary. The whole specialization is about being seen, is about creating a big elemental storm using alchemy as opposed to being sneaky or being very trickster-ish. 

 

You can make a Tempest build by combining the three flasks with archery abilities and perhaps the sabotage skill that grants you poison and that's it. You are good to go. You do not even need to bother with subterfuge.

 

You are no longer very rogue-like in the conventional sense as a Tempest in the same way you are no longer very mage-like in the conventional sense as a Knight Enchanter. 

 

Both Spirit Blade and Fade Cloak combined with a Basic Fade Step is all that is needed to get the best out of the Knight Enchanter, which no longer makes it very caster-like and similarly, you only need the three Flasks with an ability that has a quick action time or short animation to get the best out of Tempest, which no longer makes it very stealthy or sneaky. 

 

Contrast this with the Artificer or the Assassin. Artificer has good synergy with Stealth with being sneaky and the Assassin is all about being in the shadows...

 

Again, this is not a weakness but just a side effect, in the same way the Knight Enchanter does not become weak from just spamming Fade Cloak, Fade Step and Spirit Blade...Just makes it somewhat repetitive...

[themageguy]

Its not an issue, the tempest leaps where they should not!

that line from Kihm pretty much accurately describes the tempest- they are not one for stealth, to hide amongst the shadows.

And i welcome the hybrid play style tempest brings. Its such a unique specialisation and i believe that if it is present in future games, we will see this spec grow into a true storm.

I've never been one to play as rogue characters, but inquisition changed that.

And realistically, any character build has the chance to feel repetitive. If i ever get bored of playing with the inquisitor, i will usually just switch to another party member of a different class and play that for a while.

Playing as Solas, and seeing my Tempest and Sera crackle with lightning and machine arrow enemies looks awesome- something i miss if using the flask myself.

[wepeel_]

Curious what tactics people when considering tempest flasks. It's all to easy to get into the mindset of FoF and long shot spam. I'll list the ones I've seen.

Flask of Fire:

1. Long shot spam
2. Shadow Strike spam
3. Twin Fangs spam
4. Leaping shot spam against a building/structure
5. Hook & Tackle -> FoF -> Leaping shot spam

 

6. Throwing Blades spam - (for melee rogues) minimizes the risk of getting interrupted/out of range during the flask duration and does decent damage

7. Death Blow spam - most of the time only relevant for dragons and other bosses with enough health to withstand multiple death blows, but when you use this at 50% enemy health it's like an execute ability, doing outstanding damage that increases with each activation.

[Jormangandr]

A rogue is someone who employs subterfuge, stealth and trickery to solve any problems they come across.

What about hired muscle? Or a rogue who opts for strength over stealth? A thug? Wouldn't they still be a rogue?

[Dr. Rush]

Wait a second, wtf is a "Thousand Cuts" ? That is Jade Empire...

[Duelist]

A rogue is someone who employs subterfuge, stealth and trickery to solve any problems they come across. In Dragon Age, the ability "Stealth" is a defining rogue ability.

Not at all.

Not all Rogues are the same and not all of them employ Stealth.
Duelists specialise in calling out and quickly finishing enemies, Bards operate as spies and rely on hiding in plain sight and Tempests use alchemy to either wreak havoc on the front lines or rain death from on high.

That said, the big knock on Tempest among Rogue players is that it's repetitive and that is true irrespective of whether you're melee or ranged.

[Gya]

That said, the big knock on Tempest among Rogue players is that it's repetitive and that is true irrespective of whether you're melee or ranged.

 

Agreed. Though Tishen-13's build should go some way towards remedying that issue, from the look of it. 

 

I also have to admit, as much as I loved the assassin, it did also become a bit repetitive towards the end. As in stealth->twin fangs->stealth->stab stab->stealth->twin fangs->oh look, an elite/boss->flank attack->hidden blades etc etc.

 

I guess the same could be said of most specialisations, and it's more a case of how I play rather than a problem with the specialisations themselves.

[Arvaarad]

Agreed. Though Tishen-13's build should go some way towards remedying that issue, from the look of it. 

 

I also have to admit, as much as I loved the assassin, it did also become a bit repetitive towards the end. As in stealth->twin fangs->stealth->stab stab->stealth->twin fangs->oh look, an elite/boss->flank attack->hidden blades etc etc.

 

I guess the same could be said of most specialisations, and it's more a case of how I play rather than a problem with the specialisations themselves.

 

Your assassin rotation is missing a key component, which is yelling catchphrases.

 

 

*sneaks up behind templar behemoth*

 

*decloaks to throw hidden blades*

 

SURPRISE, MOTHERF******R!

 

*behemoth falls over in shock, and also is dead*

 

 

I have yet to become bored of this rotation.

[Gya]

Your assassin rotation is missing a key component, which is yelling catchphrases.

 

 

*sneaks up behind templar behemoth*

 

*decloaks to throw hidden blades*

 

SURPRISE, MOTHERF******R!

 

*behemoth falls over in shock, and also is dead*

 

 

I have yet to become bored of this rotation.

 

Hehe, true. I also forgot to include mark of WINNING. I have to admit, it's never boring to watch a dragon's health drop like a stone. I swear the Abyssal High Dragon actually looked surprised when it was already dead. 

 

Also fun is re-speccing to get shadow strike, going into stealth, running up to a terror demon and jumping up into its butt for a change. While shouting "HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOOOOOW!?"

[Arvaarad]

Hehe, true. I also forgot to include mark of WINNING. I have to admit, it's never boring to watch a dragon's health drop like a stone. I swear the Abyssal High Dragon actually looked surprised when it was already dead. 

 

Also fun is re-speccing to get shadow strike, going into stealth, running up to a terror demon and jumping up into its butt for a change. While shouting "HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOOOOOW!?"

 

Ah, Mark of Winning. It is indeed the best. My favorite part is when the boss does that frantic pee-dance because they skipped past 4-5 boss phases and now they can't hold it in any longer.

 

Sometimes I'll intentionally over-DPS Corypheus just to watch him do that funny bouncing thing when he's glitched at 1 HP. He looks so offended that I interrupted his monologue, it's great.