Tempest - Fresh Air
Our curator decided this build is in the current metagame regardless of rating. 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: 
Overview
Fresh Air Tempest is a power-based tempest build that excels in doing AoE damage by spamming over and over again thanks to . Through several traits, it also provides AoE Auras to support itself and nearby allies. This build has permanent 
Fury and 
Swiftness, and can inflict permanent 25 
Vulnerability.
Its strenght is its great tagging potential, making it good for farming events in groups. Its weakness is its low damage.
With the trait the build can also sacrifice some damage to provide 
Alacrity to allies
Template Code
Skill Bar
Weapon Variants
You can use a variety of weapons with this build:
- Scepter is good because this build spends a lot of time casting , and scepter's Air skills have no casting time so they can be cast during that channel.
- Dagger (mainhand) - more mobility, less blast finishers, less range, AoE auto attack in Air.
- Staff - more AoE, lower dps, higher range.
Skill Variants
Let's explain why we recommend these skills, and alternatives you can consider:
Healing
is a great burst heal and provides a boon.
- - potentially the strongest heal if there are 5 enemies in range, plus a blast finisher, but very weak healing if there are no nearby enemies.
- - weak heal, but heals in an AoE and also cleanses 1 condition.
- - very situational heal that removes up to 8 conditions throughout its long channelling time.
Utilities
is here only for the precision buff, so never cast it. If you already have 100% crit chance, equip a different skill.
has low cooldown, decent damage, and provides Fire Aura for great synergy with the rest of the build.
- this is an excellent skill, with the only downside being that elementals die when you mount up. Check the Elementals section below.
- - AoE damage over time.
- - area
Frost Aura for more boons and damage reduction, and to chill enemies. - - area
Magnetic Aura for more boons and projectile reflection, and to impair enemies. - - for mobility.
- strong single target burst damage, but quickly falls off.
- strong AoE burst damage, but quickly falls off.
- Your overloads break stun when cast, but if you want a dedicated stun break you can use , which also blocks 3 attacks. It has a long cooldown, if more frequent stun breaks are preferred over the block, try or .
Elites
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.
- - consider this when you're playing in a group and don't need the utility of the elemental. It offers more burst damage with skills 4 and 5.
- - very situational skill that can be considered against certain bosses with oneshot attacks.
Specializations
- Variants
- - if nearby allies are already providing fury.
- - if there are no nearby allies nor elementals for to share any aura.
- - Sacrifices damage to provide Alacrity to allies
Equipment
- Ascended gear and stat infusions are not required; you can use exotic gear with the same stats. This set uses the same gear as power elementalist builds for strikes, raids, and fractals, making it a good investment for general PvE.
Berserker
Berserker
Berserker
Berserker
Berserker
Berserker
Berserker
Berserker
Berserker
Berserker
Berserker
Berserker
Berserker
Berserker
x6
x17
x1
- This setup relies on and precision food like to reach 99,99% critical chance.
- Budget
- - budget option while working to get Scholar.
- - less damage, more boons.
- Defense
Marauder - can be mixed with other sets to increase defense.- - defense.
- , - defensive sigils.
Gear Variants
If open world and story content is your main game mode, you should really consider investing into a gear set tailored for it. This gear set is obviously worse for strikes, raids, and fractals, but is infinitely better for open world and story.
Marauder
Dragon
Marauder
Marauder
Marauder
Marauder
Marauder
Marauder
Marauder
Dragon
Dragon
Marauder
Marauder
Marauder
x6
- This gear set has about 54% more health and reaches 100% critical chance without , freeing up that utility slot for another skill.
- For ease of gearing at a very minor dps loss, you can just use full Marauder.
Consumables
Prioritize ascended food over everything else; steak (power) and flatbread (conditions). Using cheap/budget food is perfectly acceptable in open world.
- Damage
The build is optimised around precision buff. The best food is but for open world you should use the budget option / . For utility, offers the highest damage, and has good budget options in .
- Farming
Run and (or its other variants) when trying to maximize gold per hour.
Usage
Overload Air
resets the cooldown of every time you critically strike while attuned to a different attunement. This includes resetting the cooldown of . 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 , the extra ferocity from Fresh Air, and the extra damage from . 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 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.
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 due to the increased cooldown after overloading.
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 while filling the gaps with weapon and utility skills.
Scepter+Warhorn
In Fire, use + + . Phoenix and Dragon's Tooth are blast finishers (more about this below). Use when you have boons to share them with nearby allies or elementals.
In Water, use .
In Air, use . Spam off cooldown. can be used for damage if CC is not needed.
In Earth, use . Consider casting for free extra toughness (never use Rock Barrier in raids). Use when you have boons to extend their duration.
Dagger+Warhorn
In Fire, use + + (you can leave Fire during the casting of Drake's Breath). Use when you have boons to share them with nearby allies or elementals.
In water, use . This is a blast finisher.
In Air, use and . Air also has the strongest auto attack.
In Earth, use , , . Use when you have boons to extend their duration.
Staff
In Fire, use + + (you can leave Fire during the casting of Meter Shower). evades and distances you from your enemy.
In water, use , this is a blast finisher. Remember Healing Rain cleanses conditions.
In Air, use then auto attack until you can Overload.
In Earth, use and . 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 : use a blast finisher like to generate AoE Might, 3 stacks for 20 seconds.
- Water fields like : use a blast finisher like 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 :
- Fire Aura: , .
- Frost Aura: , , .
Shocking Aura: , .- Magnetic Aura: , , , .
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
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 , use it right as you attune to Air. Cast and then drop it and Overload Air while casting . 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.
- 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 ,
- You get Protection when you overload thanks to , from (which also extends existing boons) and from when cast in Earth.
- Magnetic Aura from or + reflects projectiles. If using dagger, blocks them.
Sustain
- Attuning to Water gives some healing from and .
- Some of your water scepter and warhorn skills do a little healing: , , . Other weapons do too: and on dagger, and on staff.
- Make use of your finishers. Remember your water fields such as can be blasted with finishers like for area healing.
- You can cleanse one condition with . Or if using staff.
- You can run against enemies that inflict several conditions.
- , used in , creates an elemental with strong healing and condition cleanse on a short cooldown .
- in Water gives you
Regeneration. - If you need healing really badly, you can run away and .
Crowd Control
- -
Pull - - Knockback
- Enemies that attack you or allies from melee range while having Shocking Aura - stun
- (from Ice Elemental) - Knockback
- (from Air Elemental) - stun
- ⇒ (if using dagger) - stun
- (if using staff) - Knockback
- and (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 so that you and an ally can use 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.
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