The plasma-facing components (PFCs) in future fusion devices such as ITER will receive intense transient heat fluxes from plasma instabilities, such as edge localized modes (ELMs) and disruptions, which will limit material lifetime. The energy density and transient pulse duration are typically used to characterize the PFC damage threshold. However, these parameters are not sufficient to define a damage threshold, because different transient pulse shapes with the same energy density and same pulse duration produce different peak surface temperatures (and thus stresses, which ultimately determine material damage). The surface temperature and damage of tungsten (the material to be used for the ITER divertor target armor) in the form of surface roughening and melting are investigated using various temporal pulse shapes from an Nd:YAG laser in the PISCES-B facility. The heat flux factor is examined and shown to be an inadequate parameter to characterize the temperature rise except for square temporal pulse shapes. For ELM-like heat pulses, the long tail in the temporal shape results in a lower peak surface temperature and less damage compared to a symmetric triangle pulse with equal energy density.