Elementalist - S/F Fresh Air Roamer
The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good
Focused on: Strike damage, Mobility and Control
Designed for: WvW Roaming
Overview
S/F Fresh Air is a Power-based WvW roaming build which focuses on burst damage whilst avoiding damage by utilizing Superspeed, Blind, anti-projectile skills and invulnerabilities to make up for its lack of sustain.
Skill Bar
Skill Variants
Heal
- - better condition cleansing, but the long cast time makes it easy to interrupt. This could however allow you to run instead of for more damage.
Arcane variant
There's an even more bursty version of the build with even less sustain. This is a high risk/reward variant:
- Take on Arcane.
- Replace with .
- Swapping out for could also be considered. While Arcane Shield has a longer CD, it protects you from followup damage and could even be used to shield . It even works offensively, the shield can negate incoming attacks while you're bursting targets.
Template Code
Specializations
Equipment
Marauder
Marauder
Marauder
Marauder
Marauder
Marauder
Marauder
Marauder
Marauder
Marauder
Marauder
Marauder
Marauder
Marauder
Marauder
x6
x18
Second set: you may have noticed a Focus on the second set, this one's for the tryhards. While Elementalists can't swap weapons in combat, they can still stack Bloodlust on random PvE mobs before fights using the second set then switch back to the first set once they're ready to PvP. The Bloodlust stacks will remain active without the need to sacrifice a sigil slot on the PvP set. It's enough to put 1 weapon into the second set as they'll inherit the missing one from the main set. If you have no intention to stack Bloodlust before fights then you don't need the 2nd set! It's not mandatory.
Equipment Variants
Sigils
- over Cleansing - better damage if you can affor to give up some condition cleansing.
- Replacing Energy with Air (while keeping Cleansing) could also be considered when playing with .
Consumables
Food
There are plenty of viable choices, including:
- - highest possible damage option, great stats plus armor ignoring damage/healing procs.
- - slightly more defensive version of the Cilantro Lime feast, offering damage reduction instead of the lifesteal procs.
- - non-Ascended version of the above mentioned feasts with the same stats minus the damage reduction and the procs.
- - very similar to the Cilantro Lime feast except it offers Precision and not Ferocity. Worth considering if you're not using Precise infusions.
- or - armor ignoring damage and a bit of extra healing on top of increased crit chance, a suitable budget option.
- - defensive option with more evasion and a bit of Might stacking.
- Budget version:
Utility
- or .
Usage
General
- The build's all about swapping in and out of every few seconds, made possible by which recharges Air whenever you land a critical strike.
- Swapping to Air triggers which you should immediately follow up with a for instant burst damage. Entering this attunement also grants you Ferocity from for a few seconds, which is why most of your heavy hitting skills should land in this small time frame. More on that later.
- Recharging Air: to recharge Air you need to score a critical hit. The fastest way to do it on attunements with slower skills is to start channeling the air autoattack just before leaving . Swapping attunements doesn't break the channeling and Arc Lightning is almost guaranteed to critically hit at least once.
- Arcane variant-only: Immobilize, which makes it harder to avoid your burst. Alternatively cast while still in then switch over to Earth before the projectile hits - this will root the target and you can get back into Air without skipping a beat as Arcane Blast is always a critical hit. With 1.5k range this is also your best ranged option. should usually be used while in for the
- This build can self-stack Might by blasting the fire field created by . Do not prioritize Might stacking, but do take advantage of the incidental opportunities which arise. Your blast finishers are:
- Mobility: and are excellent movement skills that can help you disengage from fights if your defensive CDs ran out, or if you want to get to the other capture point as soon as possible.
- Cleave: and are excellent AoE skills. Use these whenever you need to cleave a downed enemy or want to take a camp (ball up the NPCs in a corner beforehand).
's purpose is twofold.
- Try to aim
- Because of the slow travel time it's best used in melee.
slightly behind your target whenever you can. This skill passes through targets while doing damage, explodes on the ground, then returns to you once again damaging targets it passes through. The goal here is to hit the target with all 3 parts of the skill, not just the explosion damage.
Notable burst combos
These are some of the most common burst combos used by FA players. The quicker you pull these chains off, the better.
If you're playing the default version of the build and not the Arcane variant then skip the
s, everything else is the same.
From Fire:
- ⇒ - both the transmute and Dragon's Tooth have a delay, your goal is to get into Air by the time these go off
- - optional: right at your target before you finish casting Phoenix to cut down on the projectile's travel time.
- - swap to this while casting Phoenix. Note: swapping out of fire triggers an explosion from , dealing considerable damage in melee (after a short delay). Swapping to Air while in melee range of the target therefore adds more damage to your combo.
Note: if Air isn't ready by the time you get to step 3, you need to recharge it somehow with a
proc. This is greedy but you could sacrifice an instant utility skill like or and hope for a crit. That's the most seamless way because it doesn't risk messing up your timing, but a cast or two could also get the job done. With the Arcane variant this is much easier as you can just use an to recharge Air.
From Earth:
- Optional: if you're in melee range of an enemy you may throw in a which can proc if it hits something.
- Immobilize - it moves faster than the other projectiles so timing shouldn't be too much of a problem. + + then swap to during the channeling to make the projectiles land in the right attunement. however must land right before attuning to Air to get the
- to avoid taking damage, but it's not required
From Water:
- - the trident does more damage to Chilled enemies which is important. Shatterstone should secure that but or even could help (when used on Water).
- just before Shatterstone and Water Trident hit the target.
Survival
- makes it easy to kite most specs. Avoid melee range whenever possible! Don't stay in melee unless the target is Blinded, CC'd or you're about to burst them.
- Chill which you can even place behind your back when running away. Chill is great at building distance. is a source of spammable
- Needless to say other CCs can also be used for shaking off pursuers.
- and provide excellent protection against enemies who use projectiles. These however do not work against unblockable projectiles, and some ranged builds - such as this one - are mostly unaffected by projectile reflects and blocks.
- is the build's best condition cleanse which can also be used while stunned.
- offers protection against all kinds of pressure.
- Swapping to Fire procs a Fire Aura from and gaining an aura removes 1 condition via . In the 5th slot on Fire you'll find a skill which grants the same aura, but if you already have the aura it flips over to its chain skill . Smothering Auras removes 2 conditions when you transmute an aura.
- If you need to cleanse a lot of conditions do the following chain:
- - cleanses 1 condition as you gain an aura.
- - cleanses 2 conditions.
- Use Focus #5 , removing yet another condition.
- Transmute again for another 2 cleanses.
- if necessary for another cleanse.
- is great at avoiding crucial skills by blinding enemies, and it also shuts down Power-based specs in general with the Weakness.
Related Builds
- Weaver - Fresh Air Roamer - Weaver elite spec version.
- Catalyst - Fresh Air Roamer - Catalyst elite spec version.
Ratings
Comments
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