Build:Tempest - Fresh Air

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

Focused on: Strike damage

Designed for: Open World and Open World General

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on August 26, 2023 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A Power Tempest build for open world. This build has good burst damage, self boons, and can provide support to allies in the form of Might and Alacrity. This build is designed for both solo and group play.

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Skill Bar

Sword/Warhorn

Staff

Utility

Weapon Variants

• Scepter - ranged mainhand but much lower damage

Skill Variants

Heals

• Arcane Brilliance - blast finisher

Utilities

Try not to replace Signet of Fire unless necessary.

• Glyph of Lesser Elementals - spawn a small elemental army that dies when you mount up, good for fighting strong bosses.
• "Flash-Freeze!" - area Frost Aura for more boons and damage reduction
• Cleansing Fire - additional condition cleanse
• Lightning Flash - for mobility.
• Arcane Wave - AoE burst and tagging.
• Your overloads break stun when cast, but if you want a dedicated stun break you can use Arcane Shield, which also blocks 3 attacks. It has a long cooldown so, if more frequent stun breaks are preferred over the block, try Signet of Air or Glyph of Elemental Power.

Elites

• "Rebound!" - used to cheese powerful boss mechanics.

Specializations

• Lucid Singularity - use in groups to provide allies with Alacrity.

Equipment

Ascended gear is not required, exotics work just fine.

Standard Equipment

This set uses gear that can be used throughout all of PVE.

Head
Berserker

Shoulders
Berserker

Chest
Berserker

Hands
Berserker

Legs
Berserker

Feet
Berserker

Backpiece
Berserker

Accessory
Berserker

Accessory
Berserker

Amulet
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Sword
Berserker

Warhorn
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Staff
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Relic

Equipment Variants

• Defense - Invest in a T6+ Jade Core for additional defense.
• Defense - If more defense is needed, swap trinkets to Knight as a last resort.
• Budget - Replace Rune of Superior Rune of the Scholar with Rune of Superior Rune of Infiltration

Relics

There are many good relics for general play in open world and others that may be specific to this build. Swap based on preference.

• Relic of the Cavalier - dps/defense; use with Skyscale's Fire Field for stacking boons.
• Relic of Speed - mobility
• Relic of the Adventurer - defense

Consumables

Budget consumables are acceptable for use in open world.

DPS

• Prioritize Steak Ascended food.
• /
• /

Farming

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

Usage

Outdated

This section is currently out of date due to Weaponmaster and is pending a review.

Overload Air

Fresh Air resets the cooldown of Air Attunement every time you critically strike while attuned to a different attunement. This includes resetting the cooldown of Overload Air. Thus, the idea behind the build is to use Overload Air, attune to another element and maybe use some skills of that element, and then return to Air, triggering Electric Discharge, the extra ferocity from Fresh Air, and the extra damage from Transcendent Tempest. Use your air skills while waiting to achieve singularity (when the overload becomes available), but don't delay it once it is ready.

Other overloads

If you're fighting in a static place, it is absolutely worth it to Overload Fire and stay inside the skill to gain high amounts of might. As this creates a fire field, you can use combo finishers to provide yourself and nearby allies with 25 might.

Overload Water can be used in emergencies to cleanse 5 conditions and heal you a little. However, you will lack sustain as you'll lose access to Soothing Mist due to the increased cooldown after overloading.

Overload Earth is great for chipping away at breakbars with its crippled and immobilize. It also gives you stability at the start, and the lingering storm provides protection.

Damage

The build is extremely simple and revolves around spamming Overload Air while filling the gaps with weapon and utility skills.

Scepter+Warhorn

In Fire, use Wildfire + Phoenix + Dragon's Tooth. Phoenix and Dragon's Tooth are blast finishers (more about this below). Use Heat Sync when you have boons to share them with nearby allies or elementals.

In Water, use Shatterstone.

In Air, use Lightning Orb. Spam Lightning Strike off cooldown. Cyclone can be used for damage if CC is not needed.

In Earth, use Dust Storm. Consider casting Rock Barrier for free extra toughness (never use Rock Barrier in raids). Use Sand Squall when you have boons to extend their duration.

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 when you have boons to share them with nearby allies or elementals.

In water, use Frozen Burst. This is a blast finisher.

In Air, use Lightning Orb and Convergence. Air also has the strongest auto attack.

In Earth, use Dust Storm, Earthen Rush, Ring of Earth. Use Sand Squall when you have boons to extend their duration.

Staff

In Fire, use Lava Font + Flame Burst + Meteor Shower (you can leave Fire during the casting of Meter Shower). Burning Retreat evades and distances you from your enemy.

In water, use Ice Spike, this is a blast finisher. Remember Healing Rain cleanses conditions.

In Air, use Lightning Surge then auto attack until you can Overload.

In Earth, use Eruption and Shock Wave. Eruption is a blast finisher.

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 Phoenix to generate AoE Might, 3 stacks 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

If you want to know more about combos, check the official wiki.

Auras

In this build, on top of their normal benefits, Auras also provide Fury and Swiftness, which is great because you really want Fury. You have several skills that produce auras, including your overloads thanks to Unstable Conduit:

• Fire Aura: "Feel the Burn!", Overload Fire.
• Frost Aura: Frost Aura, "Flash-Freeze!", Overload Water.
• Shocking Aura: Shocking Aura, Overload Air.
• Magnetic Aura: Magnetic Aura, Sand Squall, "Aftershock!", Overload Earth.

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 singe target dps of all Lesser Elementals.
• The Lesser Earth Elemental deals low damage, inflicts Weakness, and is very tanky.

Glyph of Elementals

Elementals have 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.

Fiery Greatsword

If taking Conjure Fiery Greatsword, use it right as you attune to Air. Cast Firestorm and Fiery Rush then drop it and Overload Air while casting Lightning Strike. If using dagger or staff, you cannot use skills during the Overload so you can keep the greatsword until the channelling finishes and drop it when leaving Air to benefit longer from the extra power.

Defense

• The best defense is always to dodge or sidestep attacks. You have permanent Swiftness so you can run around enemies while they die to your AoEs. You cannot dodge while doing an Overload or you will cancel it, but you can use that swiftness to get out of the way of telegraphed attacks.
• Glyph of Elementals is great for defense, as the elemental will often draw aggro away from you. The earth elemental is quite tanky.
• You get Stability when you overload thanks to Harmonious Conduit,
• You get Protection when you overload thanks to Hardy Conduit, from Sand Squall (which also extends existing boons) and from Glyph of Elemental Harmony when cast in Earth.
• Magnetic Aura from Sand Squall or Unstable Conduit+Overload Earth reflects projectiles. If using dagger, Ring of Earth blocks them.

Sustain

• Attuning to Water gives some healing from Healing Ripple and Soothing Mist.
• Some of your water scepter and warhorn skills do a little healing: Tidal Surge, Water Globe, Water Trident. Other weapons do too: Cone of Cold and Transmute Frost on dagger, and Geyser on staff.
• Make use of your finishers. Remember your water fields such as Water Globe can be blasted with finishers like Frozen Burst for area healing.
• You can cleanse one condition with Phoenix. Or Healing Rain if using staff.
• You can run Ether Renewal against enemies that inflict several conditions.
• Glyph of Elementals, used in Water Attunement, creates an elemental with strong healing and condition cleanse on a short cooldown Crashing Waves.
• Glyph of Elemental Harmony in Water gives you Regeneration.
• If you need healing really badly, you can run away and Overload Water.

Crowd Control

• Cyclone - Pull
• Tidal Surge - Knockback
• Enemies that attack you or allies from melee range while having Shocking Aura - stun
• Crashing Waves (from Glyph of Elementals Ice Elemental) - Knockback
• Shocking Bolt (from Glyph of Elementals Air Elemental) - stun
• Shocking Aura ⇒ Transmute Lightning (if using dagger) - stun
• Gust (if using staff) - Knockback
• Static Field and Unsteady Ground (if using staff) - Stun and Knockback, respectively. These only work if an enemy crosses the edge of the skill, they have no effect on targets that don't cross it.
• If you need a lot of crowd control you can use Conjure Frost Bow so that you and an ally can use Deep Freeze to stun.

Video examples

• vs. Vampire Beast Broodmother (Pile of Guano Hero Challenge) Great showcase of what this build does best. Run around while chipping away at enemies and staying alive with your sustain. It also has amazing crowd control over time. Unfortunately, the amount of burst crowd control is not enough to interrupt the life steal attack, but that only makes the fight longer.
• vs. Champion Coztic Bladedancer (Coztic Itzel Belongings Hero Challenge) Triple Magnetic Aura takes care of the 2 adds. The rest of the fight is just staying out of range of the boss's deadly melee dagger attacks. When it teleports, it switches briefly to a bow, and you can dodge or reflect his arrows.