43 réponses à ce sujet

[TheSilentPee]

I know there are a ton of posts like this out there already, but I just feel like posting my own. This is for a DW rogue.

I am having brain anurisms over specializations and I just haven't been able choose one. I'm really enjoying the stealth aspect of the rogue I'm playing right now and I'm sure Assassin would just be a step up.

On the other hand I have been doing tons of research and Tempest just seems like a blast. Yet it seems like a major change in the playstyle of rogue and Im not sure if I'll like it. It seems like such a cool idea, but I'm scared that it will become extremely boring with just spamming moves over and over again Knight-Enchanteresque. Is that a valid fear? Also wondering if most people include stealth in their tempest builds?

And then right when I think I got it narrowed down, I have a feeling that Artificer may be the way to go. It seems still very stereotypical rogue with stealth and such, but with fun gadgets, that make booms, and very helpful passives.

I think I'm overthinking this way to much and just have to pick one, but I think I'll end up regretting it. Thanks for the the read and any opinion is appreciated.

tl;dr - Choose a rogue dw specialization for me with some reasoning please

[andy6915]

The only spamming you'll be doing with tempest is when fire flask is active, where you would want to use your strongest attack as many times as you can before it runs out. If you really want the absolute best analysis of tempest, to judge whether it looks good and fun to you, then read this-

 

http://forum.bioware...doing-it-wrong/

 

I mostly used stealth when I was overwhelmed, as a tempest. Even a tempest is squishy when their ice flask isn't active, so sometimes even they need to get the hell out of a bad situation fast. And I had shadow strike, which was my strongest move if the enemy wasn't below 50% of their total health (my killing blow was better if their health was low). And shadow strike gets extra damage from stealth. It was also still useful for making ambushes like stealthing into the middle of a group and activating ice flask to freeze every enemy near me before they knew I was there. My suggestion: Stick to detonators. I had twin fangs, shadow strike, and death blow, all of which were detonators. Detonators do extreme damage to disabled enemies... Like being frozen. Get the combo? 3 detonators and a primer both equipped on my character, so that I was freezing and shattering pretty much everything.

 

But yes, even tempest gets good use out of stealth. Although, in that link, the people in that topic thought tempest and stealth run counter to each other. They're wrong. Stealth still gives a lot of advantages, and I really loved coming out of stealth by activating a flask.

 

edit:

 

Might as well explain my setup.

 

1.stealth

2.evasion

3:death blow

4:twin stikes

5:shadow strike

6:lightning flask

7:ice flask

8:fire flask

 

Didn't care for focus abilities, still don't. I never have them equipped on anyone, I find regular skills to be more useful thanks to not being based on a stupid bar I have to refill.

 

It is important to have all 3 flasks equipped. The whole style is about chaining one after the other, anyone not doing this isn't playing tempest right.

[tcun44]

Why agonize over the decision? Get to Skyhold with your Rogue. Engage all three trainers. Get the raw materials needed for each of the three specializations. Make a save. Commit to a specialization- try it out for a few levels. Don't like it- go back to the earlier save- try a different one. Assassin and Tempest are both a blast with Daggers. Artificer- feels under powered as a DW- but is god like as an Archer. 

 

Two fade touched items I really enjoy- that will hep you as a DW Rogue- Fade Touched Gurn Hide- 30% damage bonus if not touched for 5 seconds) and Fade Touched Nevarrite (the one where enemies explode upon death). The latter is particularly useful for trash mobs.

 

Great thing about DW- you can use three masterworks (suit and one on each weapon)

[PapaCharlie9]

Why agonize over the decision? Get to Skyhold with your Rogue. Engage all three trainers. Get the raw materials needed for each of the three specializations. Make a save. Commit to a specialization- try it out for a few levels. Don't like it- go back to the earlier save- try a different one. Assassin and Tempest are both a blast with Daggers. Artificer- feels under powered as a DW- but is god like as an Archer.

Or maybe just pick one and run the other two specializations through Sera, Cole or Varric at the same time? Should save some real time.

TL;DR, just run Assassin. You like Stealth and Assassin is at least as much fun as Tempest. Honestly, all the rogue specializations are fun in their own way, so you can't really go wrong.

[CorniliuS]

You must choose from the perspective of your own gameplay style. Tempest like infantryman very active role, if you want close combat you can do it. Artificer is your artillery, raining down those shots from safe distance nonstop. Assassin is your reconnaissance who after high value targets, he is in no hurry and plays dirty.

[Bigdawg13]

The tempest was the only specialization that had me delete my character.  I hated it so much, that I spent the next several games trying to re-create the face (before black emporium).

 

Reasons I hate the tempest:

1)  The Tempest tree is bloated.  You really want every ability in the tree on your bars, and you only have 8 slots.  This would be an awesome specialization if we had the action wheel from DA2.

2)  The kernal of the tempest is to sequentially fire your flasks such that flask of fire is at the end, thereby having the longest duration.  All so you can spam an ability.

3)  Spamming Twin Blades misses a lot.  Similar problem with shadow strike.

4)  Flask of Frost seemed unreliable, at best, for priming detonations.

5) Flask of LIghtning becomes a glorified re-positioning tool.  Really, it only serves 1 of 3 purposes.  Easy rift closer, stealth-replacer (i.e. reposition), or to increase duration of next flask.  borinnnngggggg

6)  Thousand cuts is basically Hidden Blades on crack, that relies on building up a lot of focus to use.  I'd rather have hidden blades.

7)  No room for stealth.  Tempest really needs all four abilities from it's tree.  For me, DW needs flank attack, twin blades, evade, and deathblow.  No room for stealth.  GAH!!!!!!!  /hate

 

I suppose if I primarily played in tac-cam mode, DW may be more appealing to me.

 

Honestly, I'd pick assassin or artificer any day of the week over tempest.  Hell, I'd rather not play the game, than play a tempest.

 

Reasons to play assassin.

1)  hidden blades is a mini-thousand cuts that you can use A LOT...and it's awesome!

2)  play style caters to stealth and I stealth

3)  Mark of Death is so awesome it should have been the focus (ridiculous amounts of damage possible with this)

4)  You can keep inquisitor focus which is awesome and unique

5)  You can easily solo if you want, or play in a group (stealth = survival)

6)  Unbloated assassin tree means you have great diversity while reveling in the stealth gameplay

 

Reasons to play artificer

1)  Passive and properly spec'd team means you have perma flask of fire

2)  Unbloated artificer tree leaves great diveristy

3)  Encourages unique playstyle as DW artificer as spinning blades and throwing weapons becomes advantageous

4)  Upgraded bombs with +50 stamina necklace is awesome (coupled that with hidden blades on your weapon and hilarity ensues)

 

 

Really, once I realized that artificer is like a tempest on crack, I saw no reason to ever go back to tempest. 

[draken-heart]

@ Bigdawg13: You assassin reasons are part of the reason I am going to make my archer Trevelyan an assassin, not to mention that it fits her Backstory I have in my head right now.

[stop_him]

Yep. 

 

[Tempest sucks]

 

Reasons to play assassin.

1)  hidden blades is a mini-thousand cuts that you can use A LOT...and it's awesome!

2)  play style caters to stealth and I stealth

3)  Mark of Death is so awesome it should have been the focus (ridiculous amounts of damage possible with this)

4)  You can keep inquisitor focus which is awesome and unique

5)  You can easily solo if you want, or play in a group (stealth = survival)

6)  Unbloated assassin tree means you have great diversity while reveling in the stealth gameplay

 

Reasons to play artificer

1)  Passive and properly spec'd team means you have perma flask of fire

2)  Unbloated artificer tree leaves great diveristy

3)  Encourages unique playstyle as DW artificer as spinning blades and throwing weapons becomes advantageous

4)  Upgraded bombs with +50 stamina necklace is hilarious (coupled that with hidden blades on your weapon and hilarity ensues)

 

 

Really, once I realized that artificer is like a tempest on crack, I saw no reason to ever go back to tempest. 

Yep. It's why I made my archer an assassin and my DW rogue an artificer. I made my epic (female) human fail character a DW rogue Tempest who romanced Sera.

[andy6915]

The tempest was the only specialization that had me delete my character.  I hated it so much, that I spent the next several games trying to re-create the face (before black emporium).

 

Reasons I hate the tempest:

1)  The Tempest tree is bloated.  You really want every ability in the tree on your bars, and you only have 8 slots.  This would be an awesome specialization if we had the action wheel from DA2.

2)  The kernal of the tempest is to sequentially fire your flasks such that flask of fire is at the end, thereby having the longest duration.  All so you can spam an ability.

3)  Spamming Twin Blades misses a lot.  Similar problem with shadow strike.

4)  Flask of Frost seemed unreliable, at best, for priming detonations.

5) Flask of LIghtning becomes a glorified re-positioning tool.  Really, it only serves 1 of 3 purposes.  Easy rift closer, stealth-replacer (i.e. reposition), or to increase duration of next flask.  borinnnngggggg

6)  Thousand cuts is basically Hidden Blades on crack, that relies on building up a lot of focus to use.  I'd rather have hidden blades.

7)  No room for stealth.  Tempest really needs all four abilities from it's tree.  For me, DW needs flank attack, twin blades, evade, and deathblow.  No room for stealth.  GAH!!!!!!!  /hate

 

I suppose if I primarily played in tac-cam mode, DW may be more appealing to me.

 

Honestly, I'd pick assassin or artificer any day of the week over tempest.  Hell, I'd rather not play the game, than play a tempest.

 

Reasons to play assassin.

1)  hidden blades is a mini-thousand cuts that you can use A LOT...and it's awesome!

2)  play style caters to stealth and I stealth

3)  Mark of Death is so awesome it should have been the focus (ridiculous amounts of damage possible with this)

4)  You can keep inquisitor focus which is awesome and unique

5)  You can easily solo if you want, or play in a group (stealth = survival)

6)  Unbloated assassin tree means you have great diversity while reveling in the stealth gameplay

 

Reasons to play artificer

1)  Passive and properly spec'd team means you have perma flask of fire

2)  Unbloated artificer tree leaves great diveristy

3)  Encourages unique playstyle as DW artificer as spinning blades and throwing weapons becomes advantageous

4)  Upgraded bombs with +50 stamina necklace is awesome (coupled that with hidden blades on your weapon and hilarity ensues)

 

 

Really, once I realized that artificer is like a tempest on crack, I saw no reason to ever go back to tempest. 

 

Says you. My tempest was some of the most fun I've ever had in DA, and most of the problems you mention are nonsense.

 

1:So... You're point is that it's so awesome that you feel obligated to have all the skills equipped? Uh... Yeah, that's a real big problem. I hate it when skills are so good that I feel gimped by not equipping them, wish there were more sucky skills in the game./sarcasm

 

2:No, you can have any of them be the tail. They all have use being on the tail. I'm not sure how the hell you got that stupid idea.

 

3:That's more of a problem with dual wielding in general, not tempest. Yet... You blame tempest. This is like saying "whirlwind is really unreliable and kinda sucks, therefor reaver is terrible". It makes no bloody sense. You have a problem with it? Get better at aiming those skills or play archer, don't blame a specialization for a dual wielding skill.

 

4:Then you sucked at it, or you was trying to use it on despair demons or giants. Get close=enemy freezes, every single time so long as the enemy can even be frozen to begin with.

 

5:Or it lets you get out of a bad situation like a dragon starting its wing beat attack and you not having enough time to get close to dodge it. Or use it with static cage going... Or really, anything that triggers on-hit. Like a hidden blades masterwork, which will let you do possibly the highest DPS in the entire game if you have even a tiny bit of luck with it activating. But of course, you can't stop for a second to see how being able to hit 10 times faster than usual could have any use .

 

6:So would I. Good thing you can slap on a masterwork that lets you do it during a combo multiple times in a row with flask of lightning. Or is your point that the focus ability sucks? So does Rift Mage's, yet I don't see people saying rift mage completely sucks because of it. But yeah, you love hidden blades so much? Tempest users are the true masters of it, not assassins. They need a masterwork to use it, but having that masterwork with lightning flask will make a proper assassin green with envy at how crappy their hidden blades are in comparison.

 

7:You don't need both stealth and flank attack, not as a tempest. You should either be good enough at surviving as a tempest that you don't need a constant stealthing, or not be good enough and decide regular stealth isn't frequent enough. And flank attack sucks anyway, that is an unreliable skill right there. It only stealths if the second hit lands, which was only about half the time.

 

Seems the pattern of people complaining about tempest always not knowing what they're talking about continues. To quote the topic I linked to "tempest:you're doing it wrong".

[Bigdawg13]

Says you. My tempest was some of the most fun I've ever had in DA, and most of the problems you mention are nonsense.

 

1:So... You're point is that it's so awesome that you feel obligated to have all the skills equipped? Uh... Yeah, that's a real big problem. I hate it when skills are so good that I feel gimped by not equipping them, wish there were more sucky skills in the game./sarcasm

 

2:No, you can have any of them be the tail. They all have use being on the tail. I'm not sure how the hell you got that stupid idea.

 

3:That's more of a problem with dual wielding in general, not tempest. Yet... You blame tempest. This is like saying "whirlwind is really unreliable and kinda sucks, therefor reaver is terrible". It makes no bloody sense. You have a problem with it? Get better at aiming those skills or play archer, don't blame a specialization for a dual wielding skill.

 

4:Then you sucked at it, or you was trying to use it on despair demons or giants. Get close=enemy freezes, every single time so long as the enemy can even be frozen to begin with.

 

5:Or it lets you get out of a bad situation like a dragon starting its wing beat attack and you not having enough time to get close to dodge it. Or use it with static cage going... Or really, anything that triggers on-hit. Like a hidden blades masterwork, which will let you do possibly the highest DPS in the entire game if you have even a tiny bit of luck with it activating. But of course, you can't stop for a second to see how being able to hit 10 times faster than usual could have any use .

 

6:So would I. Good thing you can slap on a masterwork that lets you do it during a combo multiple times in a row with flask of lightning. Or is your point that the focus ability sucks? So does Rift Mage's, yet I don't see people saying rift mage completely sucks because of it. But yeah, you love hidden blades so much? Tempest users are the true masters of it, not assassins. They need a masterwork to use it, but having that masterwork with lightning flask will make a proper assassin green with envy at how crappy their hidden blades are in comparison.

 

7:You don't need both stealth and flank attack, not as a tempest. You should either be good enough at surviving as a tempest that you don't need a constant stealthing, or not be good enough and decide regular stealth isn't frequent enough. And flank attack sucks anyway, that is an unreliable skill right there. It only stealths if the second hit lands, which was only about half the time.

 

Seems the pattern of people complaining about tempest always not knowing what they're talking about continues. To quote the topic I linked to "tempest:you're doing it wrong".

 

 

Andy, you must be easily entertained if you like the Tempest.  It's a one trick pony.  It's ok though...some people like that.  I thought about providing a detailed retort to your troll post, a post whose entire purpose was to make you feel vindicated for your choice of specialization (as if what you liked someone invalidated someone else's opinion).  But I realized I don't really care what you think about my opinions.  If you find joy in bashing someone else's opinions, please continue.  I'm sure your aggressive behavior will convince someone out there to try tempest.  And hopefully they'll like it.  But if they don't, I pray they realize it before they waste too much time.

[andy6915]

Andy, you must be easily entertained if you like the Tempest.  It's a one trick pony.  It's ok though...some people like that.  I thought about providing a detailed retort to your troll post, a post whose entire purpose was to make you feel vindicated for your choice of specialization (as if what you liked someone invalidated someone else's opinion).  But I realized I don't really care what you think about my opinions.  If you find joy in bashing someone else's opinions, please continue.  I'm sure your aggressive behavior will convince someone out there to try tempest.  And hopefully they'll like it.  But if they don't, I pray they realize it before they waste too much time.

 

No, the other 2 are. I can freeze enemies, move at super speed, basically stop time, use suped up versions of tonics like Mighty Offense, spam the hell out of other skills, use hidden blades so often that they practically go out of style... The other 2?

 

One is about spamming hidden blades as much as possible (which isn't as much as tempest can) and using mark of death on basically everything. That's it. And the knock out bomb? Crap. Oh, and it has a few moderately useful passives.

 

Artificier is nothing but passives. 2 out of 3 of its skills are useless, and pretty much every time people talk about it they just mention its passives. It's nothing but a passive machine, there to do some minor upgrades since its actual skills suck. When even big fans of it only ever mention passives when talking about how awesome it is, you know something is wrong.

 

And tempest is the one trick pony? Time slow+super speed+infinite stamina and no cooldown+super tonics+freezing+extra armor, nonstop hidden blades>uncommonly used hidden blades plus mark of death OR admittedly good passives plus one decent skill (elemental mines) for artificer. You... Are you sure you know what a one trick pony is? Because tempest has about 8 tricks. The others? 3 or 4.

[andy6915]

By the way, it's telling that you got defensive and just decided to go off on a little rant instead of actually arguing my points. It's as if someone actually bothering to shoot down your arguments about how terrible tempest is was all it took to completely break your confidence about how amazing assassin is, merely arguing you was all that it took for you to fold. That doesn't tell me that you put much stock in even your own opinions. And I get mocking like that when I think someone has said something especially stupid. I don't post like that often, I only do when someone really asked for it by the things they said. You want to say assassin is great? Go ahead. But don't bash tempest to do it, or you might get someone deciding to flip that around by doing the same thing back to the spec you like. Not that I was just being a devil's advocate, I really do think tempest is objectively the best rogue specialization in the game, its versatility and power are off the damned charts. And you bashed it, the best potentially best spec for rogue in the entire DA series... You better believe I won't just ignore that and be nice while I tear that position down.

[TheSilentPee]

Thanks for all the opinions fellas, I appreciate it!

[stop_him]

[insert personal attacks here]

The Tempest sucks.  You lose the argument automatically by choosing personal attacks over objective arguments.  Next time, attack at the claim, not the person making the claim. 

[Dabrikishaw]

The Tempest sucks.  You lose the argument automatically by choosing personal attacks over objective arguments.  Next time, attack at the claim, not the person making the claim. 

Why did you like his post then?

[CanadianPeanut]

I really do think tempest is objectively the best rogue specialization in the game, its versatility and power are off the damned charts. And you bashed it, the best potentially best spec for rogue in the entire DA series... You better believe I won't just ignore that and be nice while I tear that position down.

From a purely damage #s standpoint maybe. The issue that i and it seems many others have with it is that it does the ridiculous damage by being a 2 trick pony. I'll admit it's more then just spam FoF. It's FoL and auto-attack to proc hidden blades as much as possible then FoF and spam another ability. Effective maybe, but not interesting at all.

Artificer has the same issue imo. Super low CDs so you just rotate which buttons you press but there isn't much emphasis on positioning or ability choice, just rotate through abilities constantly until things die.

Assassin is imo the best spec from a purely gameplay standpoint. It emphasizes stealth, positioning and combos. Not ability spamming with little to no cooldown. It's about quickly and quietly taking out the enemy's back line (mages and archers) and doing so without giving them time to respond.

If I wanted the game to be easy, I'd go with Tempest or Artificer. Since I enjoy the gameplay and challenge, I won't play anything but assassin on my rogues. Say what you will about Tempest being "the best", I respectfully disagree. If there was a pvp multiplayer mode then sure, you have to have a Tempest because you can't ignore the damage potential. I still say it'd be boring and I'd choose assassin anyway.

[andy6915]

From a purely damage #s standpoint maybe. The issue that i and it seems many others have with it is that it does the ridiculous damage by being a 2 trick pony. I'll admit it's more then just spam FoF. It's FoL and auto-attack to proc hidden blades as much as possible then FoF and spam another ability. Effective maybe, but not interesting at all.

Artificer has the same issue imo. Super low CDs so you just rotate which buttons you press but there isn't much emphasis on positioning or ability choice, just rotate through abilities constantly until things die.

Assassin is imo the best spec from a purely gameplay standpoint. It emphasizes stealth, positioning and combos. Not ability spamming with little to no cooldown. It's about quickly and quietly taking out the enemy's back line (mages and archers) and doing so without giving them time to respond.

If I wanted the game to be easy, I'd go with Tempest or Artificer. Since I enjoy the gameplay and challenge, I won't play anything but assassin on my rogues. Say what you will about Tempest being "the best", I respectfully disagree. If there was a pvp multiplayer mode then sure, you have to have a Tempest because you can't ignore the damage potential. I still say it'd be boring and I'd choose assassin anyway.

But tempest is the most interesting. I fail to see how that isn't a fact. It has the most versatility, PERIOD. You can do me with it than the other 2, it has the widest range of skills in the game with it. That isn't just to do with it being best, that also makes it the most interesting.

How is a bear trap, mines, and a weird tether cord thing more interesting than freezing enemies and spawning your own armor and slowing time and having super speed and tonics being way stronger and having temporary infinite stamina and no cooldown? How is doing a shadow clone attack and a knockout bomb and a weird magical mark that merely sits there until it does massive damage more interesting than freezing enemies and spawning your own armor and slowing time and having super speed and tonics being way stronger and having temporary infinite stamina and no cooldown? If your augment is it being too awesome makes it boring to you because it kills difficulty, that's one thing. To say the specialization itself isn't interesting... No.

[PapaCharlie9]

You lose the argument automatically by choosing personal attacks over objective arguments.  Next time, attack at the claim, not the person making the claim.

Tempest in a teapot?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Dabrikishaw]

The one time I used Tempest I never used Stealth, so while I'm sympathetic to Stealth lovers I can't see that as a point for Tempest having too much in it's tree.

 

Tempest being repetitive also isn't much of a criticism. You can say that about...well every specialization depending on how far you want to take the definition of "repetitive". Like how  CanadianPeanut finds Artificer repetitive while I don't, it's all a point of view. Man I used repetitive a lot. 

[Incantrix]

I actually loved my tempest rogue play through. My second favorite to my rift mage.

[Bayonet Hipshot]

The one time I used Tempest I never used Stealth, so while I'm sympathetic to Stealth lovers I can't see that as a point for Tempest having too much in it's tree.

 

Tempest being repetitive also isn't much of a criticism. You can say that about...well every specialization depending on how far you want to take the definition of "repetitive". Like how  CanadianPeanut finds Artificer repetitive while I don't, it's all a point of view. Man I used repetitive a lot. 

Being repetitive is the fault of having too little active spells / abilities that one can use + low level cap + 8 ability lock.

 

I mean, DAI is a semi-open world game and yet level cap is only 27, you can only use 8 abilities in combat (realistically 7 because of Focus) and each tree has only 4 abilities.

[The Baconer]

Approximation of the assassin spec's Mark of Death in Inquisition:

 

[Bigdawg13]

The one time I used Tempest I never used Stealth, so while I'm sympathetic to Stealth lovers I can't see that as a point for Tempest having too much in it's tree.

 

Tempest being repetitive also isn't much of a criticism. You can say that about...well every specialization depending on how far you want to take the definition of "repetitive". Like how  CanadianPeanut finds Artificer repetitive while I don't, it's all a point of view. Man I used repetitive a lot. 

 

I will concede that all rogues end up with a repetitive MO.  What frustrated me about the tempest is how difficult, focii aside, it is to put some serious hurt on a difficult encounter.

 

Assassins can use mark of death in interesting tactical ways, coordinating with the entire groups cooldowns and abilities, choosing to detonate earlier or expire naturally.  This gives interesting play style that requires leveraging the entire group, and timing of abilities.  Sequence of abilities is flexible to some extent, just make sure you stealth before using hard-hitting abilities.  Basically you have to pre-empt damage with stealth.  Simple yes, but easy to integrate 5 other skills with varying order.  Also, mark of death requires tactical management of long cooldown abilities for the entire group.

 

Artificer is extremely flexible as the only valuable non-focus ability in their tree is elemental mines (which btw is ridiculously awesome when upgraded with +50 stamina necklace).  But as an archer I had a lot of fun using hook-n-tackle followed by leaping shot (or explosive shot).  Or you could stand apart and use long shot or full draw.  As a DW artificer I took advantage of unique abilities like spinning blades and throwing knives.  This made a unique play style that was dynamic and variable.

 

Tempest abilities lend themselves to a wide variety of tactical uses for trivial encounters.  But when you are faced with a hard encounter, to take advantage, you must use Flasks in immediate succession ending with flask of fire, and then you can spam an ability a few times.  OMG BORING!!!!!  I'd rather gouge my eyes out.  Flask of Lightning is really over-rated but I will admit it is visually satisfying (sort of like little kid shows).  However, the extra damage you do while everyone else is slowed down is minimal.  And you don't want to burn too many abilities or you'll be left without any stamina.  It really is just a replacement for stealth.  And you have to give up stealth because you need the flasks of lightning instead, so that you can extend flask of fire's duration.  The real nail in the coffin is you need 3 flasks (that fill up 3/8 of your action bars) just to match the artificer passive. 

 

I admit, the Tempest is very flashy and visually satisfying.  But the skill rotation is bloated, highly inefficient, and just inferior when you consider how inflexible it is.  Flask of frost is great, but i'd rather have a tank.  Flask of Lightning is cool, but I'd rather have stealth.  And flask of fire is a great damage buff, but I'd rather have the always-on Artificer passive.

[andy6915]

Tempest abilities lend themselves to a wide variety of tactical uses for trivial encounters.  But when you are faced with a hard encounter, to take advantage, you must use Flasks in immediate succession ending with flask of fire, and then you can spam an ability a few times.  OMG BORING!!!!!  I'd rather gouge my eyes out.  Flask of Lightning is really over-rated but I will admit it is visually satisfying (sort of like little kid shows).  However, the extra damage you do while everyone else is slowed down is minimal.  And you don't want to burn too many abilities or you'll be left without any stamina.  It really is just a replacement for stealth.  And you have to give up stealth because you need the flasks of lightning instead, so that you can extend flask of fire's duration.  The real nail in the coffin is you need 3 flasks (that fill up 3/8 of your action bars) just to match the artificer passive. 

 

I admit, the Tempest is very flashy and visually satisfying.  But the skill rotation is bloated, highly inefficient, and just inferior when you consider how inflexible it is.  Flask of frost is great, but i'd rather have a tank.  Flask of Lightning is cool, but I'd rather have stealth.  And flask of fire is a great damage buff, but I'd rather have the always-on Artificer passive.

 

first part: Flask of lightning does do a sh*t ton of damage if you have the hidden blades masterwork or when an upgraded static cage is in effect or really ANY on-hit abilities, as I told you before. So don't say it can't let you do any extra damage, it can let you do more than mark of death can. Left without stamina? Maybe if you're build is bad, I never had that problem because I got some skills that keep my stamina high. And you don't need to give up stealth, as I already said. Why are you caring so much about matching a passive, they're activated abilities that have active use... Not passives. It's like saying block and slash sucks because it needs to be used multiple times to build up as much guard with it as a single unbowed activation, they're not comparable and they don't have the same function.

 

second part- You make it sound like tempest users are just attention deficit people who are impressed by flashy colors, which is probably more insulting than anything I said to you (which is pretty bad considering how insulting I was). You're seeing lack of flexibility in the spec with the most flexibility, it makes no sense.

[CanadianPeanut]

But tempest is the most interesting. I fail to see how that isn't a fact. It has the most versatility, PERIOD.
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How is doing a shadow clone attack and a knockout bomb and a weird magical mark that merely sits there until it does massive damage more interesting than freezing enemies and spawning your own armor and slowing time and having super speed and tonics being way stronger and having temporary infinite stamina and no cooldown? If your augment is it being too awesome makes it boring to you because it kills difficulty, that's one thing. To say the specialization itself isn't interesting... No.

I'm not trying to defense the Artificer spec at all here so I trimmed that portion of your quote. I don't find Tempest interesting in any way because, as was mentioned in an earlier post, for anything outside of the most trivial encounters you won't be using FoFr or FoL for anything other then extending the duration of Flask of Fire so you can spam your hardest hitting abilities as many times as you can. Sure, there are more "cool" abilities in the Tempest tree. There are also far less interesting decisions about what ability to use when on what target.

The assassin would look at an enemy party consisting of a defender, spellbinder an a couple archers and decide which enemy(ones) get cc'd and what one do I take down first. The Tempest just dives right in, hits flask of fire and spams his hardest hitting abilities until it runs out or they are dead. That to me is not interesting gameplay. Fighting adragon would be the same thing forma Tempest. While the assassin isn't a whole lot different, there's still mark of death to consider at least. "How do I fit as much damage into 7-7.5 seconds as I can? Want to do as much as possible in that time while still being ale to trigger MoD early to get the bonus damage."

second part- ...You're seeing lack of flexibility in the spec with the most flexibility, it makes no sense.

I think the opposite is what is really happening here. You're seeing flexibility where realistically, for any encounter that isn't completely trivialized by levels or gear, there really isn't that much flexibility. Sure, you get to use all your "cool" abilities. The freezing people and the super speed, the abilities with no cooldowns and limitless stamina. The issue is that unlike the other 2 specs, if you don't use your "cool" abilities immediately one after the other ending the cycle with fire you're doing it wrong. If there is a way to play that is categorically "doing it wrong" there's no versatility there. There's no flexibility in a system that "forces" you to give up damage potential to do special things like freeze people or have super speed for a longer duration. Not when you are playing a rogue, THE damage dealing class in DAI. Warriors are tanks, mages are support/CC. Both are capable of dealing damage but its not their main role, its ours.

Perhaps it's just because I've always gravitated towards the stealth, melee assassin type rogues in every RPG I've played. Maybe it's entirely down to my playstyle of letting the rest of my party mainly do their own thing on autopilot while I play (mostly) just the PC taking out the dangerous enemies first while the party distracts everyone else. I don't know what the exact reason is, but I know you won't convince me that the spammy repetitive playstyles of the Tempest or Artificer are interesting or fun. Powerful maybe, and if you enjoy super-power and easymode even on the hardest difficulty then to each their own, but its not something that can be called an interesting playstyle.