Tempest - Staff Support

The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good

Focused on: Control, Support, Healing and Condition cleanse

Designed for: WvW Zerg

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Easy

This build was last updated on October 27, 2025 and is up to date for the October 28, 2025 patch.

Overview

This build primarily fills the role of the healer and cleanser for its party.

Glyph of Renewal is an exceptionally powerful revive skill - in Air Attunement it has the unique effect of repositioning the target, allowing the tempest to fully reset a player that went down in a bad place.

Compared to D/X builds, staff excels at CC but has lower personal survivability.

Skill Bar

Staff

Staff

Utility

Variants

Weapons

• Dagger/Dagger - see Build:Tempest_-_D/D Aurashare

Utilities

• "Feel the Burn!" shortest CD shout, for slightly more heal/cleanse
• "Eye of the Storm!" group stunbreak and AOE superspeed
• "Flash-Freeze!"
• Arcane Wave
• Arcane Power Lets you use a weapon skill twice. Syncs well with Geyser if rotating between Water and Earth attunements, allowing you to use Geyser twice per rotation.

Specializations

Template Code

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Copy Template Code

Equipment

Head
Minstrel

Shoulders
Minstrel

Chest
Minstrel

Hands
Minstrel

Legs
Minstrel

Feet
Minstrel

Backpiece
Minstrel

Accessory
Minstrel

Accessory
Minstrel

Amulet
Minstrel

Ring
Minstrel

Ring
Minstrel

Staff
Minstrel

Sigil

Sigil

Staff
Minstrel

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Relic

Equipment Variants

Relics

• Relic of the Monk

Consumables

• • personal option

Usage

Quick Guide

• Staff Tempest is a secondary support that relies on Relic of Karakosa for healing output
• Your largest sources of Healing and Condition Clear are from Blast Finishers via Relic of Karakosa and Diamond Skin

List of Blast Finishers

• "Aftershock!"
• Water Attunement
  • Ice Spike
• Earth Attunement
  • Eruption
  • Transmute Earth
  • Overload Earth

• Use Glyph of Renewal to revive downed allies, usually either in either Earth Attunement or Air Attunement
• Start fights in Fire Attunement to Overload Fire before engaging
• Rotate between Water Attunement and Earth Attunement for Healing and Condition Clear
  • In Water Attunement use all your weapon skills before Overload Water
  • In Earth Attunement activate Transmute Earth as often as possible by gaining Magnetic Aura via the weapon skill, "Aftershock!" and Overload Earth + Unstable Conduit
• CC enemies when your group spikes with "Aftershock!", Unsteady Ground in Earth Attunement and Static Field in Air Attunement
• Whenever there is low pressure incoming and you don't need to CC go into Fire Attunement and charge up Overload Fire

General

• As soon as you get 25 stacks of Sigil of Superior Sigil of Benevolence and get out of combat, swap back to the set without it

Surviving

• This build has moderate passive defense
• This build has moderate mobility skill access
• This build has low active defenses

Defensive Skill List

• Burning Retreat - Evade and Movement
• All Overload skills - Stunbreak

• Since you lack personal stunbreaks and you heavily rely on skills with longer casttimes, you want to position safely
  • Stay close to tag, but not directly on top - within 200-300 range is close enough to quickly respond to movements and get boons without getting stuck behind
  • While overloading, if needed, move further away ensure the cast finishes - Powerful Aura has 600 radius

Priorities

High

• Glyph of Renewal
• Healing/Condition Clear

Moderate

• Stability
• CC
• Superspeed

Low

• Aura/boonshare

Detailed Explanations

Glyph of Renewal

• Under General Options / Combat/Movement turn on Allow Skill Retargetting and set Ground Targetting to Instant Cast, this will make Glyph of Renewal cast at the location your cursor is at the end of the cast, instead of where you initially targetted
• Focus on reviving allies who are far away with Glyph of Renewal, don't waste the skill on players that can be hand rezzed.
• Use Glyph of Renewal in Air Attunement on single players and Earth Attunement on multiple players
  • If the teleportation from Air Glyph is not needed (or actively harmful), use the glyph in Water Attunement for the extra heal
• If a downed ally can be safely revived by other means don't use Glyph of Renewal
• If you are under the effect of Illusion of Life you can cast Glyph of Renewal in Fire Attunement to avoid timing out

Healing/Condition Clear

Healing Skills List

• "Wash the Pain Away!"
• Water Attunement - Healing Ripple
  • Water Blast
  • Geyser
  • Frozen Ground
  • Healing Rain
  • Overload Water
• Any Blast Finisher via Relic of Karakosa

Condition Clear Skills List

• "Wash the Pain Away!" cleanses 3 condi but best used as a burst heal.
• Water Attunement
  • Healing Rain
  • Overload Water
• Any Blast Finisher via Diamond Skin

• Start fights in Fire Attunement for Overload Fire before you engage the enemy
• Outside of the opener your attunement priority is:

1. Water Attunement - Priority whenever healing/condition clear is needed
2. Earth Attunement - Secondary Priority whenever healing/condition clear is needed
3. Air Attunement - Priority for CC
4. Fire Attunement - Priority when low enemy pressure and CC isn't needed

• Once all of your skills are on cooldown on one attunement you should immediately swap to the next best attunement for your situation
  • You Overload skills can be powerful, but take a lot of time to cast and increase the cooldown of your Attunement
    • Water Overload should always be cast unless the healing and Condition Clear isn't needed
    • Earth Overload should usually be cast, but cancel it if nessecary
      • Make sure to cast Transmute Earth after finishing Earth Overload before you swap Attunement
    • Air Overload should sometimes be cast, don't worry if you have to cancel it or can't stay in Air Attunement long enough to charge it
    • You shouldn't often be in Fire Attunement long enough to charge Fire Overload but if incoming pressure is low feel free to charge and cast it for Might
• Your largest sources of Healing and Condition Clear are from Blast Finishers via Relic of Karakosa and Diamond Skin
  • Your own fields have priority for combo finishers. You have access to three field types that are useful to blast: Fire on Overload Fire, Water on Geyser and Healing Rain, and Ice on Frozen Ground
    • Water is generally the best field type to blast
    • Prioritize blasting your fields, but don't delay your healing just to do so

List of Blast Finishers

• "Aftershock!"
• Water Attunement
  • Ice Spike
• Earth Attunement
  • Eruption
  • Transmute Earth
  • Overload Earth

• Use Ice Spike and Eruption on the fields you make with Geyser and Healing Rain for healing or Frozen Ground for damage mitigation if healing isn't needed
  • It is often worth swapping straight to Earth Attunement after Water Attunement to land Eruption on a field
    • The timing with Eruption is somewhat tight so practice it out of combat
• Use Transmute Earth whenever you can while in Earth Attunement
  • Try to cast "Aftershock! in Earth Attunement whenever it will be useful for an extra Transmute Earth proc
• Tempests biggest burst heal skill is "Wash the Pain Away!"
  • Keep in mind most of the healing is on the first pulse which has a radius of 240
• Water Attunement ⇒ Healing Ripple is instant cast, meaning it provides the healing immediately and can also be used while CCed

Aura/Boonshare

• Overload Fire is a significant Might generator, but limited by the long charging and casting time in an Attunement with very little support value otherwise
  • Try to go into Fire Attunement whenever you're in a low pressure situation, such as both groups disengaging from each other to regroup
• Use Magnetic Aura ⇒ Transmute Earth as the first Stability application on ranged engages
• Other than ranged engages, use Transmute Earth as frequently as possible
• Use Frozen Ground on your group before pushes to give Frost Aura

CC

CC Skill List

• "Aftershock!" - Immobilize
• Air Attunement
  • Gust
  • Static Field - Stun
  • Overload Air via Unstable Conduit - Stun
• Earth Attunement
  • Unsteady Ground - Line
  • Overload Earth - Immobilize

• Use your CC when:
  • Your group calls a spike such as Wells (Well of Corruption)
  • On top of enemy downs (while alive enemies are on top of them)
  • Enemy groups move defensively while your group is pushing
• Be careful not to knock enemies out of your groups spikes with Gust

Superspeed

• Focus on using Windborne Speed when your group is pushing or disengaging from the enemy

Settings

• Under General Options / User Interface check Always show squad health bars and Always show party health bars. These will make it much easier to keep track of who needs your support.
• Also under General Options / User Interface turn on Thick party health bars
  • Thick squad health bars can be used too as a matter of personal preference, but is not recommended for large numbers
• Under Squad Options uncheck View as a grid. This will allow you to keep track of your allies' boons, conditions and health, enabling a better decision-making and skill management.