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 March 01, 2025 and is up to date for the February 11, 2025 patch.
Overview
This build primarily fills the role of the healer and cleanser for its party.
is an exceptionally powerful revive skill - in it has the unique effect of repositioning the target, allowing the tempest to fully reset a player that went down in a bad place.
Tempest provides some 
Might provided with as well as unique auras - primarily and the very powerful .
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
- Dagger/Focus - see Build:Tempest_-_Aurashare
- Utilities
- shortest CD shout, for slightly more heal/cleanse
- group stunbreak and AOE superspeed
Specializations
Variants
Template Code
[&DQYfKxEpMD/HEgAAdBIAAKUSAAAdAQAAmRIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]
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
Consumables
-
- personal option
Usage
General
- As soon as you get 25 stacks of and get out of combat, swap back to the set without it
- Try to spend the majority of your time in so that your and are ready when needed
- Make sure to go into as often as possible while swapping attunements to proc
Overall Priorities
- High
- Condition clear
- Healing
- Moderate
- Low
- Aura/boonshare
Surviving
- This build has moderate passive defense
- This build has moderate mobility skill access
- This build has low active defenses
- 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 - has 600 radius
- Since you lack personal stunbreaks and you heavily rely on skills with longer casttimes, you want to position safely
Active defense priority 
- Dodge
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 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 , don't waste the skill on players that can be hand rezzed.
- Use in on single players and on multiple players
- If the teleportation is not needed (or actively harmful), use the glyph in for the extra heal
- If a downed ally can be safely revived by other means don't use
- If you are under the effect of you can cast in to avoid timing out
Condition clear
- Much of your condition clear is tied up in attunements and overloads by , so conserve your shouts unless you absolutely need them
- and each cleanse two conditions but should normally be saved for healing and
Immobilize respectively
- and each cleanse two conditions but should normally be saved for healing and
Condition clear priority
-
- - +
- - +
- - +
-
- -
- -
- - +
-
- - +
- - (+ )
- - (+ )
- - (+ )
- - (+ )
Healing
- Most of your healing comes from and
- Use and on the fields you make with and for healing or for damage mitigation if healing isn't needed
- It is often worth swapping straight to after to land on a field
- The timing with is somewhat tight so practice it out of combat
- It is often worth swapping straight to after to land on a field
- Tempests biggest burst heal skill is
- Keep in mind most of the healing is on the first pulse which only has a radius of 180
- ⇒ is instant cast, meaning it provides the healing immediately and can also be used while CCed
Healing priority
- -
- - water/ice field blast
- - +
-
- - water/ice field blast
- ⇒
Stability
- Use as the first
Stability application on ranged engages - Other than ranged engages, try to fill any gaps in your guardian's Stability uptime, especially when your group is pushing
CC
- Use your CC when:
- Your group calls a spike:
- Winds -
- Wells - +
- Shades -
- Traps - +
- On top of enemy downs (while alive players are on top of them)
- Enemy groups moving defensively while your group is pushing
- Your group calls a spike:
- Save for when enemies have Stability
- The Immobilize from hits in 600 radius
- The
CC priority
-
- -
-
Superspeed
- Focus on using when your group is pushing or disengaging from the enemy
- Make sure you're close to your group when leaving to proc , it has a short 240 radius
- Use on your group before pushes to give
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.
Ratings
02/20/2025 Tempest can choose to run Staff, D/D, or D/Wh with different strengths and weaknesses.
Staff - High Cleanse, High Healing, High Utility
D/D - High Cleanse, High Healing, Low Utility
D/Wh - Medium Cleanse, High Healing, High Utility
I use the Earth trait line over Fire for Staff and D/Wh.
Okay, but feels underwhelming.
The hot fancy new stability source is nice and may or may not be equal to guard numberwise - but, access to it is gated to earth, which directly hampers its usability compared to guard, which has it in the utilities. Would need Eye of the Storm to fill the stunbreak role, which is single charged and therefore considerably less flexible compared to FBs Mantra.
The rest of the support package is still good - healing, cleanses - but I wouldn't want to run myself as the only stability for my group.
(Even the engage stability role feels iffy to me).
After the february 14th, 2023 patch, staff tempest definetely became a top tier option for open field over the standard dagger/x build, specially for players who enjoy the non-stop usage of ground targeted skills and its gameplay aspect.
The access to magnetic aura through multiple sources (overload earth, staff3 earth, "aftershock!", etc) allows a continuous AoE stab and cleanse output with transmute earth.
On top of that, the recent buffs to staff skills, such as healing rain increased cleansing and healing for each condition removed, frozen ground now granting frost aura, better heal output through geyser and staff autos (on allies), and superspeed access on air4, definetely improved the overall viability of this build.
Also, the possibility to use 10-men ground CC skills such as static and line along with the commander's call to drop wells or spike really makes the gameplay feel more interactive as you aren't purely supporting but also contributing to your group's effectiveness on generating downstates through coordinated damage and CC.
Comments
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