Tempest - Condi Tempest

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

Focused on: Condition damage and Defense

Designed for: Open World and Open World General

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on June 24, 2025 and is up to date for the June 24, 2025 patch.

Overview

Condi Tempest is a condition damage based tempest build for open world that focuses on inflicting AoE Burning and Bleeding. It is naturally tanky, with good access to Protection and some Stability. It has great uptime of Might for self and allies, and good supportive options. It is very easy to learn and play.

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Skill Bar

Scepter/Warhorn

Staff

Utility

Weapon Variants

• Mainhand Dagger - higher base damage and more AoE than Scepter, but locked to melee range and harder to use.
• Pistol - strong option with Weaponmaster.

Skill Variants

Healing skill

We default to Glyph of Elemental Harmony as it provides strong burst healing and a boon based on attunement. Other alternatives are:

• Arcane Brilliance - weak heal by default, but is greatly increased if it strikes nearby enemies. Performs a blast finisher, and heals for more when doing so. Excellent synergy with water combo fields. (See: Guide:What are Combo Fields).
• "Wash the Pain Away!" - weak healing, but heals in an AoE and cleanses 1 condition per pulse.
• Ether Renewal - very high healing and condition removal throughout its long channelling time. Great option for raw healing if you can afford the cast time.

Utility skills

We default to:
Signet of Fire: great damage with its active skill, and the passive will remain active thanks to Written in Stone.
Signet of Earth: great damage with its active skill, and the passive will remain active thanks to Written in Stone.
Glyph of Elemental Power - very flexible skill that can do damage, or cleanse conditions, or daze enemies, or give barrier, depending on your current attunement, and breaks stun.
Other alternatives include:

• Glyph of Lesser Elementals - very high DPS skill that can double as damage soak; note that the elementals die when you mount up
• "Aftershock!" - area Magnetic Aura for projectile reflection, Protection, and impairs enemies, plus a blast finisher.
• Glyph of Storms - AoE burst damage from Firestorm (Glyph of Storms) or pulsing Blinded with Sandstorm.
• Arcane Shield - breaks stun and blocks 3 attacks.
• Cleansing Fire - condition cleanse and stun break.
• Lightning Flash - for mobility.

Elite skill

Glyph of Elementals is simply the best elite for solo play. Cast it on Fire for damage, on Water for support, healing and Knockback, on Air for a Stun, or on Earth for defense and tanking. On extremely rare ocasions you can consider:

• "Rebound!" - very situational skill that can be considered against certain bosses with oneshot attacks.

Equipment

• Ascended gear and stat infusions are not required; you can use exotic gear with the same stats.

Standard Equipment

This equipment is useful in general PVE.

Head
Viper

Shoulders
Viper

Chest
Viper

Hands
Viper

Legs
Viper

Feet
Viper

Backpiece
Viper

Accessory
Viper

Accessory
Viper

Amulet
Viper

Ring
Viper

Ring
Viper

Scepter
Viper

Warhorn
Viper

Sigil

Sigil

Staff
Viper

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Relic

• Other relics include Relic of the Adventurer, Relic of the Cavalier, and Relic of Durability.
• For defense, equip the highest tier Jade Core you can afford. Use defensive food, traits, or skills if required. If necessary, use Trailblazer, Celestial, or Ritualist trinkets.

Budget Equipment

A very cheap equipment set with very high HP.

Head
Carrion

Shoulders
Carrion

Chest
Carrion

Hands
Carrion

Legs
Carrion

Feet
Carrion

Backpiece
Carrion

Accessory
Carrion

Accessory
Carrion

Amulet
Carrion

Ring
Carrion

Ring
Carrion

Scepter
Carrion

Warhorn
Carrion

Sigil

Sigil

Staff
Carrion

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Relic

Consumables

Budget consumables are acceptable for use in open world.

DPS

• Prioritize Flatbread Ascended food.
• /
• /

Farming

• Prioritize Flatbread Ascended food.
• /
• (and variants)

Usage

Damage

The build is extremely simple and revolves around Fire Attunement with Overload Fire and Earth Attunement with Overload Earth. Use Signet of Fire, Signet of Earth and "Feel the Burn!" off cooldown. Thanks to Written in Stone, you will not lose the passive effects of signets after using them. Use Glyph of Elemental Power in Fire for damage.

You will spend the bast majority of your time in Fire Attunement and Earth Attunement. Use Overload Fire and Overload Earth off cooldown, and swap to the other attunement when it recharges.

Dagger+Warhorn

• In Fire, use Wildfire + Burning Speed + Drake's Breath (you can leave Fire during the casting of Drake's Breath). Use Heat Sync to share all the Might you generate with nearby allies.
• In water, Frozen Burst can be used if you need a blast finisher.
• In Air, use Lightning Orb for damage, and Cyclone can be used for CC.
• In Earth, use Dust Storm, Earthen Rush, Ring of Earth. Use Sand Squall when you have boons to extend their duration.

Scepter+Warhorn

• In Fire, use Wildfire + Phoenix + Dragon's Tooth. Phoenix and Dragon's Tooth are blast finishers (more about finishers below). Use Heat Sync to share all the Might you generate with nearby allies.
• In Air, use Lightning Orb for damage, and Cyclone can be used for CC.
• In Earth, use Dust Storm and Rock Barrier ⇒ Hurl. Use Sand Squall when you have boons to extend their duration.

Finishers

Elementalists in general have many combo fields and finishers. These skills provide additional effects when interacting with each other. Here are some good combos you should keep in mind, you have to be near the skill to receive these effects.

• Fire fields like Wildfire: use a blast finisher like Frozen Burst to generate AoE 3 stacks of Might for 20 seconds.
• Water fields like Water Globe: use a blast finisher like Sand Squall to create AoE 1320 healing.

You can also use combo fields to generate auras.

• Fire field + leap finisher = Fire Aura
• Frost field + blast finisher = Frost Aura

See also: Guide:What are Combo Fields

Elementals

Elementals are really good allies in any open world elementalist build. Their only downside is that they die when you mount up.

Glyph of Lesser Elementals

Glyph of Lesser Elementals summons one elemental for 2 minutes. If you cast it off cooldown, you can have 3 elementals alive almost always.

• The Lesser Fire Elemental deals good melee range AoE strike damage and Burning, and provides Might. It has the highest AoE damage of all Lesser Elementals.
• The Lesser Ice Elemental deals very low damage and inflicts a lot of Chill (80-90% uptime) through an ice combo field.
• The Lesser Air Elemental deals great single target damage and generates Swiftness. It has the highest single target dps of all Lesser Elementals.
• The Lesser Earth Elemental deals low damage, inflicts Weakness, and is very tanky.

Glyph of Elementals

Glyph of Elementals summons one elemental for 2 minutes with the same attacks and behaviour as Lesser Elementals, but can be commanded to do an additional skill.

• The Fire Elemental can be commanded to deal damage and Burning in an AoE.
• The Ice Elemental can be commanded to deal damage in an AoE, while healing nearby allies by 6401, knocking back enemies, and removing 1 condition.
• The Air Elemental can be commanded to Stun for 1.5 seconds.
• The Earth Elemental can be commanded to inflict nearby enemies with 1 second of Immobilize and 5 seconds of Cripple, while providing 3 seconds of Protection to nearby allies.

Defense

• The best defense is always to dodge or sidestep attacks. Both Burning Speed and Earthen Rush evade attacks while casting.
• You cannot dodge while doing an Overload or you will cancel it, but you can use the Swiftness from Harmonious Conduit to get out of the way of telegraphed attacks.
• Ring of Earth blocks projectiles, while Magnetic Aura from Sand Squall or Unstable Conduit+Overload Earth reflects them.
• Constantly spam skills to heal thanks to Signet of Restoration.
• You get Protection when you overload thanks to Hardy Conduit, and from Sand Squall (which also extends existing boons).
• Dust Storm is a useful blind and very strong against groups of trash mobs.
• Glyph of Elementals is great for defense, as the elemental will often draw aggro away from you. The earth elemental is quite tanky.
• Your overloads break stun.
• If using Scepter, Phoenix cleanses 1 condition.

Sustain

You have some sustain in Water Attunement

• Overload Water heals, cleanses conditions, and applies Regeneration.
• Tidal Surge heals a little bit and applies Regeneration.
• Water Globe heals. Remember you can blast that water field for more healing.
• Glyph of Elementals, used in Water Attunement, creates an elemental with strong healing and condition cleanse on a short cooldown.

Crowd Control

• Cyclone
• Tidal Surge
• Melee range enemies that attack you or allies while having Shocking Aura.
• Crashing Waves (from Glyph of Elementals Ice Elemental)
• Shocking Bolt (from Glyph of Elementals Air Elemental)
• Shocking Aura ⇒ Transmute Lightning
• If you need a lot of crowd control you can use Conjure Frost Bow so that you and an ally can use Deep Freeze.
• You also have a lot of soft crowd control such as Overload Earth or Earthen Rush.