Tempest - Alacrity Support Healer

This is a test build. You may comment and rate it.

Focused on: Healing, Support and Utility

Designed for: Raids

Difficulty:

TBD

This build was last updated on February 14, 2022.

Overview

Tempest is capable of providing permanent uptime of Fury, Might, Protection, Regeneration, Swiftness and Vigor on the entire squad, and offering more healing than Druid.

Because you provide the same boons and do higher personal DPS and healing than druid, this build excels as a druid replacement for groups that need a little more healing than druid offers, without having to bring a second healer. You will miss out on druid's multiple damage buffs and higher CC, and tempest's reliance on being close to the squad for boons makes it a poor kiter, but you gain "Rebound!" which will allow you to skip certain mechanics that would otherwise down the group. Additionally, as Druid's buffs are most beneficial to power DPS, swapping the druid for a tempest is a minimal group DPS loss if people are playing condi DPS builds.

Skill Bar

Dagger/Warhorn

Utility

Weapon Variants

• Sceptre can be used instead of dagger if you need to be at range

Skill Variants

Utility Skills

• Signet of Water may be taken instead of "Aftershock!" for an additional ranged heal/revive, or on encounters where reflects are undesirable (such as Cairn or Matthias)
• "Eye of the Storm!" provides a group stunbreak as well as Superspeed which can be particularly useful on "event" encounters such as Spirit Woods or Siege Escort

Elite Skills

• If "Rebound!" won't be useful you could use Glyph of Elementals in Water Attunement - Crashing Waves is a massive heal on only a 15 second cooldown, and is a small CC as well

Template Code

[&DQYpOREuMD/HEscSwxLDEqUSpRJ0EnQSmRKZEgAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]

Copy Template Code

Specializations

Trait Variants

• Bolt to the Heart and Fresh Air may be more DPS depending on your rotation, Lightning Rod was chosen for the extra weakness uptime, which benefits a few classes.
• Cleansing Wave for a bit more condi cleansing
• Gale Song for an automatic stun break for you and your allies.
• Tempestuous Aria will let you build Might up faster, but you lose the ability to provide permanent uptime of Regeneration and Vigor for the squad.

Equipment

Head
Harrier

Shoulders
Harrier

Chest
Harrier

Hands
Harrier

Legs
Harrier

Feet
Harrier

Backpiece
Magi

Accessory
Magi

Accessory
Magi

Amulet
Harrier

Ring
Harrier

Ring
Harrier

Dagger
Harrier

Warhorn
Harrier

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x16

Infusion
x2

Equipment Variants

• The gear above is designed to cap boon duration when using +100 concentration food. If you are not using such food, you can switch some of the magi pieces to harrier.

Consumables

Food

• or ascended versions

Utility:

Usage

The basic rotation idea will be the same regardless of which mainhand weapon you're using, as your key skills are on your overloads, warhorn, and shouts, leaving mainhand weapon skills predominantly for damage.

Opener

Start in Fire Attunement

• "Feel the Burn!" to provide some initial Might and Fury
• Throw out any quick DPS skills such as Wildfire and use "Aftershock!" in the fire field to blast some Might
• Overload Fire to start stacking Might
• Use "Flash-Freeze!" and stay in Fire Attunement until you hit 25 Might
• Heat Sync to share the Might and Fury with your squad

Swap to Earth Attunement

• Sand Squall to apply Protection and extend boons on everyone
• Dust Storm and other DPS skills
• If you don't need to apply Protection you can switch to another attunement, otherwise wait until Overload Earth is ready and use it

Main rotation

The core of your boon application is to use Heat Sync and Sand Squall whenever they are available (every 24 seconds, with Alacrity). This means you want to switch to Fire Attunement within ~3 seconds of it coming off cooldown, and repeat the opener. The rest of the time you can balance between Water Attunement and Air Attunement if you wish to focus on healing or damage, respectively.

Be aware that your skills that generate Magnetic Aura - Sand Squall, "Aftershock!", Overload Earth via Unstable Conduit, and "Rebound!" while in Earth Attunement - will cause your group to reflect projectiles. This can be very useful, but can also lead to problems at encounters such as Matthias or Cairn if you are not careful when you use them.

Healing

Most of the time, your healing will be done passively through aura sharing from your shouts and overloads (thanks to Elemental Bastion), and from your Regeneration. If extra healing is required, you have the following skills available:

• "Wash the Pain Away!" is your bread and butter emergency heal, as it doesn't require you to break from your rotation to use, and can hit up to 10 players
• Swapping to Water Attunement will trigger Healing Ripple
• Tidal Surge and Water Globe on warhorn
• Cone of Cold on dagger, plus you can use Frozen Burst to blast the water field from Water Globe for more
• Water Trident on sceptre

Healing tips

• Try to space out your auras (such as from your utility shouts) a bit after the opener so that you have persistent healing
• There are additional auras on Sand Squall and Shocking Aura, and Earthen Rush can provide another aura if you combo with an appropriate field such as that from Overload Fire
• Using Overload Water will put Water Attunement on a 20-second cooldown, so it should only be used as a last resort
• While not exactly a heal, "Rebound!" can be much more effective by negating incoming damage that would otherwise down multiple people - good encounter knowledge will help you make the best use of this
• On dagger, the long cast time of Drake's Breath allows you to switch to Water Attunement during the cast to get a free Healing Ripple if you use it as the last skill in Fire Attunement, then switch to Earth Attunement as normal

Damage

Conveniently, just about the only skill that isn't a DPS increase or a heal is Earthen Rush on dagger (and even that can be a heal if you can get an aura combo), so as long as you keep switching attunements at the correct time you can go pretty far by just mashing any skill that's off cooldown

You may also wish to avoid Rock Barrier on sceptre, as the extra toughness might make you the tank on some encounters

Fresh Air rotations

If you're running Fresh Air, you can structure your rotation for a bit more damage by going from Earth Attunement → Air Attunement → Water Attunement → Air Attunement → Fire Attunement after the opener staying in Air Attunement long enough to use Overload Air each time. This is a minor reduction in boon generation that allows you to get two uses each of out Overload Air, Cyclone, and Lightning Orb each loop.

Vulnerability

If your group has low Vulnerability, you can boost it significantly by taking Fresh Air and/or sceptre:

• Overload Air generates about 15 stacks
• Lightning Orb can generate 25 stacks even on a small target if aimed properly
• Shatterstone's short cooldown allows it to be used twice each time you switch to water, for an extra 10 stacks per loop

Crowd control

You don't have a huge amount of CC available, and what you do have is part of your rotation so you may need to delay some skills if there is a defiance bar coming up:

• Tidal Surge
• Cyclone
• Shocking Aura → Transmute Lightning on dagger

If you're running Fresh Air you can keep your air skills off cooldown and go about your rotation as normal, as this trait means you will always be able to switch to air as soon as a defiance bar appears.