Evoker - Fresh Air Harevoker

The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Strike damage

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on November 14, 2025 and is up to date for the November 11, 2025 patch.

Overview

An Evoker take on the Fresh Air archetype. The playstyle is still the same. This PvP build is meant to deliver quick bursts with very little downtime while maintaining a safe distance and avoiding enemy pressure via mobility and control.

Skill Bar

Scepter/Focus

Utility

Skill Variants

Utility

You don't have to play the Arcane variant. For a slightly more defensive playstyle with better charge building for Zap make the following changes:

• Armor of Earth over Arcane Shield

• Take the trait Evasive Arcana on Arcane.

Template Code

[&DQYpKiUuUBZiHQAA9gAAAJAAAABxHQAAah0AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADVgAxAAkBAA==]

Copy Template Code

Specializations

Variants

• Lightning Rod is also a viable option. It gives you a bit more sustain via Weakness, boosts the damage potential of your elite significantly, and could give you better bursts when CC is involved. Fresh Air is more consistent however.

Equipment

Scepter

Focus

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

Note: attunement swapping counts as a weapon swap for Elementalists, allowing us to use Sigil of Cleansing and Energy even on this build.

Equipment Variants

Relics

• Relic of the Phenom - makes the build more forgiving to play and better at taking 1v1s. Worth considering when playing with several meditation and cantrip skills.

Usage

Evoker basics

• Evokers gain access to a new skill slot, this is where you select your familiar. Here we chose Hare for ranged burst damage.

• Using skills gives you charges - at maximum charges you get to use the base special ability of your familiar - Zap.
  • Trait procs count for building charges too! Including the on-dodge abilities of Evasive Arcana.
• Zap itself is building charges of a different kind. After every 3rd use of Zap, you gain access to an empowered version of the skill: Lightning Blitz.

• While your familiar cannot be targeted, it is an entity present in combat. It means that the hare itself is executing Zap and Lightning Blitz, you only command it to do so. If you command it to Zap while Lightning Blitz (LB) is active, Zap will override and cancel LB! The hare can't multitask.

General

• Use Rejuvenate as soon as the game starts, even before the gates would open. This immediately charges up Zap, and the heal should recharge by the time you'd need it.
  • During combat always make sure that your Zap isn't wasted when you use Rejuvenate. Since your heal charges up your Zap, but you can only store one fully charged Zap at a time, if Zap is already at max charges when your heal goes off you basically waste a free Zap. Always check your Zap's state when you heal and fire it as you're casting your healing skill if it was at max charges!

• The build's all about swapping in and out of Air Attunement every few seconds, made possible by Evocation which drastically reduces the CD of Air. You no longer need to score critical hits to get back into Air, as opposed to Fresh Air builds of other specializations.
  • When playing with Fresh Air you can still carve a few split seconds off of the attunement recharge by scoring a crit immediately after swapping attunements, but that's very rarely relevant.

• Swapping to Air triggers Electric Discharge which you should immediately follow up with a Lightning Strike for instant burst damage. Entering this attunement also grants you Ferocity from Aeromancer's Training and Fresh Air, which is why most of your heavy hitting skills should land while attuned to Air.

• Ideally you should start every burst combo with Zap. Not only does it deal great damage, it also marks the target which increases the damage done to them. While the skill has no cast time, it does have a delay.
  • Zap ignores line of sight, you can use it from behind walls.
  • While landing Zap inside Air does a bit more damage due to trait synergy, it's not required. Usually it's better to just fire Zap as soon as it's available, because you don't want to waste any potential future charges by sitting on this skill. If you keep spamming Zap every few seconds, you're going to keep your damage boosts active which is the most important thing here.

• Lightning Blitz is a one button burst combo, you can use it on its own or in place of Zap in other combos. But bear in mind that LB has a cast time, whereas Zap does not!

• Speaking of one button burst combos, your elite Elemental Procession almost always finds good value. It unleashes the empowered version of every familar's attack, all at once at the target location. It's good for bursting multiple targets, CCing them, or even healing your team.
  • Hare will do Lightning Blitz for burst damage.
  • The Toad will CC targets and limit their movements by locking them inside a stone circle.
  • Otter will heal and create a water field you can blast for even more healing.
  • Fox adds some extra damage.

• While Hare's Agility is a defensive skill first and foremost, it can also be used to keep pressuring targets even while you're being focused. The blur will cancel out the incoming attacks, and you can keep casting while it's active.

• This build can self-stack Might by blasting the fire field created by the Fire Jade Sphere and Flamewall. Do not prioritize Might stacking, but do take advantage of the incidental opportunities which arise. Your blast finishers are:

• Dragon's Tooth
• Phoenix
• Comet
• Magnetic Wave
• The first dodge you perform after swapping to Earth attunement

• Gale is an excellent skill for setting up burst, use it right before swapping out of Air into another attunement.

• A common tactic is to cast Dragon's Tooth and burst enemies before it falls on them. This presents a no-win situation for many builds: they can either facetank your burst but dodge the tooth, or dodge your burst and facetank the tooth.

• Try to aim Phoenix slightly behind your target whenever you can. This skill passes through targets while doing damage, explodes on the ground, then returns to you once again damaging targets it passes through. The goal here is to hit the target with all 3 parts of the skill, not just the explosion damage.
  • Because of the slow travel time it's also best used in melee.

Notable burst combos

These are some potential combos you can use based on the techniques outlined above. The quicker you pull these chains off, the better.

From Fire:

1. Dragon's Tooth
2. Zap
3. Fire Shield ⇒ Transmute Fire for more Might (it also does good damage in melee). The transmute, Dragon's Tooth and Zap all have a delay, ideally you'd get into Air by the time these went off, but it's fine if only Dragon's Tooth lands in it
4. Phoenix - optional: Lightning Flash right at your target before you finish casting Phoenix to make it near instant. You don't have to do that if you were already in melee.
5. Air Attunement - swap to this while casting Phoenix
6. Lightning Strike
7. Blinding Flash to avoid taking damage in melee, but it's not required

From Earth:

1. Rock Barrier
2. Optional: if you're in melee range of an enemy you may throw in a Magnetic Wave which can proc Relic of Fireworks if it hits something.
3. Zap + Stone Shards + Hurl then swap to Air Attunement during the channeling to make the projectiles land in the right attunement.
4. Lightning Strike

From Water:

1. Zap
2. Shatterstone
3. Water Trident - the trident does more damage to Chilled enemies which is important. Shatterstone should secure that but Freezing Gust can do the trick too.
4. Swap to Air Attunement while casting Water Trident, preferably even before the 2nd strike of Shatterstone goes off so that it may benefit from Air's damage modifiers.
5. Lightning Strike

Survival

• Swapping to Air is just as important for defense as it is for offense. When you're outranging your opponents or trying to survive, the Superspeed procs upon entering air and the Blind of Blinding Flash can be life savers.

• One with Air makes it easy to kite most specs via Superspeed. Avoid melee range whenever possible! Don't stay in melee unless the target is blinded, CC'd or you're about to burst them.

• Blinding Flash is great at avoiding crucial skills by blinding enemies, and it also shuts down Power-based specs in general with the Weakness. Being an instant cast skill this can also be used while CC'd. Dust Devil fills a similar purpose, although that one has a cast time.

• Shatterstone is a source of spammable Chill which you can even place behind your back while running away. Chill is great at building distance and swapping to Air gives you Superspeed which makes it even easier to run away.
  • Swapping to Water, dodging for healing/cleansing then dropping Shatterstone on top of your target before going back to Air is a common defensive rotation.

• Needless to say other CCs can also be used for shaking off pursuers.

• Hare's Agility is your most powerful defensive cooldown, granting blur. It's instant cast, shields you from incoming attacks, and even lets you cast other skills while active (like your healing skill) without the fear of interruption.
  • Blur is not a full fledged invulnerability however - it does NOT cancel the damage from conditions that are already on you.
  • You can safely rez allies or stomp enemies while blur is active!

• Magnetic Wave and Swirling Winds provide excellent protection against enemies who use projectiles. These however do not work against unblockable projectiles, and some ranged builds - such as this one - are mostly unaffected by projectile reflects and blocks.

• Magnetic Wave is the build's best condition cleanse which can also be used while stunned.

• Condition cleansing in the build is rather scarce. You're limited to Magnetic Wave, a dodge roll in water, and the occasional Sigil of Cleansing proc. Your best defense once again is not getting hit in the first place.

• Obsidian Flesh offers protection against all kinds of pressure, including conditions that are already on you. In that sense it's stronger than Hare's Agility, but you must keep channeling this skill to maintain it.

• The first strike of Dust Devil Blinds enemies while the snare is useful for keeping distance.

Related Builds

• Evoker - Scepter Harevoker - WvW version of the build.