Tempest - Alacrity Support Healer
The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good
Focused on: Healing, Support and Utility
Designed for: Raids
Overview
Tempest is capable of providing permanent uptime of Alacrity,
Fury,
Might,
Protection,
Regeneration,
Swiftness and high
Vigor on their subgroup, along with a lot of healing.
The need to constantly switch attunements makes the rotation quite rigid, so it has to rely on utility skills for reactive healing, and its reliance on being close to the squad for boons makes it a poor kiter. On the plus side, you gain
which will allow you to skip certain mechanics that would otherwise down the group, and allows you to help revive players without locking yourself into the animation.
Skill Bar
Weapon Variants
- Staff has greater healing potential, but the lack of Warhorn creates a shortfall in boons that needs to be addressed.
- Sceptre can be used instead of Dagger if you need to be at range, but you will lose significant healing from .
Skill Variants
Utility
As you need to leave for boons, this can leave you without sources of healing, so , and are there to fill in the gap. provides long-range Might to make up for the small AoE of . Any of these skills can be swapped out if desired:
- If using , provides some extra on-demand healing (assuming there is a field to combo with).
- Most utility shout skills provide a number of boons thanks to
Aegis and a blast finisher if using .
provides Superspeed which can be particularly useful on "event" encounters such as Spirit Woods or Siege Escort. It also offers some extra
Stability, which may be useful during as you don't use and being interrupted mid-cast will cause you to drop
Alacrity.
provides a group stunbreak as well as - is your only reliable way to access Frost Aura, which can be a potent defensive tool against attacks that cannot be blocked with .
, so it is important to keep at least one on your bar, but you can bring more if desired.
Elite
provides a way to skip certain mechanics that would otherwise down the group.
Template Code
Specializations
Trait Variants
Burning or
Chilled.
on encounters with a lot of - could be used in combination for even more auras.
, in combination with the Fire variant below, can be used for extreme condition removal.
Protection uptime.
for easier Might up faster, but you lose the ability to provide permanent uptime of
Vigor for the squad.
will let you build
Specialization Variants
Arcane is chosen as a default traitline as the lower cooldowns on attunement swapping and overloads allows you to be more flexible with your rotation, and the extra Protection from means you don't need to rely on to make it permanent. is a nice bonus.
This said, Arcane is a rather unimpressive traitline, so it can be freely swapped to another traitline:
- Fire and Earth add a lot of potential condi cleanse via and , respectively. They both provide a comparable amount of condi cleanse, but Earth doesn't require you change other traits and has more synergy with the rest of a healer's kit.
- Air offers higher CC.
Earth
Stability, which can be problematic on encoutners that corrupt boons. In this case take instead.
provides
Equipment
Harrier
Harrier
Harrier
Harrier
Harrier
Harrier
Magi
Magi
Magi
Harrier
Harrier
Harrier
Harrier
Harrier
x6
x16
x2
Equipment Variants
- is the best option for players that don't own Secrets of the Obscure.
- The gear above is designed to cap boon duration when using +70 concentration food.
- and offer nearly identical healing. Water was chosen as it is cheaper and heals more frequently.
Consumables
Food
-
- as a cheaper alternative
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
- Throw out any quick DPS skills such as
Might
and use in the fire field to blast some Might
to start stacking - Stay in
Might
until you hit 25 Might and
Fury with your squad
to share the
Swap to
- to blast
Swap to
Might
to blast more - and swap during the cast
Swap to
Protection and extend boons on everyone
to apply - and other DPS skills
- Wait until is ready and use it
Main rotation
The core of your boon application is to use Alacrity), also using the overloads in these attunements. This means you want to switch to within ~3 seconds of it coming off cooldown, and repeat the Opener. You should alternate between , and one of the other attunements, using whichever healing skills are available whenever you return to water. It is important NOT to use as this will lock you out of for too long. While in you can use for extra
Swiftness or CC.
The blast finisher from
is slightly delayed, so it is possible to cast it then switch to Water and use before the blast hits, getting two comboes.
Be aware that your skills that generate Magnetic Aura - , , via , and while in - will cause you 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.
Staff Rotation
The main selling point of Staff is the amount of long-range healing it can provide while in Alacrity to make it permanent, so it is necessary to regularly swap to for a second overload and
Might.
As it also lacks the utility of Warhorn, Fury, and your
Might would be less reliable.
Be aware that the boon radius for Might on is only 180, so significant
Might uptime will be lost if you're not stacked tightly on your group. This can be somewhat mitigated by bringing extra blast finishers and comboing with fire fields, or using in (or swapping to a Warhorn build).
Opener
Start in
Might
to start stacking
Swap to
- for the blast finisher
Swap to
Swiftness
for
Swap to
- quickly to squeeze in another blast finisher
Rest of the Rotation
While in you can autoattack and use for group healing. is a blast finisher on a low cooldown, and your skills 3-5 all provide combo fields, and provides AoE condi cleanse. Use as soon as you can, but don't swap attunement immediately. A good rule of thumb is to use three times while you're in Water. Use a combo field as one of your last skills, then swap to for , then . None of the skills in fire are particularly useful, so just use as soon as you can and repeat the Opener.
Healing
- Swapping to will trigger
- and on warhorn
- on dagger, plus you can use to blast the water field from for more
- and on staff.
Your sustained healing will be lower when outside of , so you should use your other skills to maintain your group's health:
- is your bread and butter emergency heal, as it doesn't require you to break from your rotation to use
- is a substantial heal and partial revive that can target players up to 1200 away. This makes it by far your most reliable ranged heal and therefore it should probably be saved for when it's needed rather than using it on the stack
- is a powerful conjure that will provide you with sustained from if . The splash healing only works if you hit a target, but it could be used to provide healing to the stack if you need to be at range
- is an enormous heal on a very low cooldown for as long as your elemental is alive
- If using , is an instant-cast blast finisher, and thanks to it having two charges, it can be provide a lot of burst healing if used in quick succession.
Healing tips
- While not exactly a heal, 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
Damage
Conveniently, just about the only skill that isn't a DPS increase or a heal is
on dagger, 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 cooldownYou may also wish to avoid
on sceptre, as the extra toughness might make you the tank on some encounters
Fresh Air rotations
If you're running , you can structure your rotation for a bit more damage by going from → → → → after the opener staying in long enough to use each time. This is a minor reduction in boon generation that allows you to get two uses each of out , , and each loop.
Vulnerability
If your group has low Vulnerability, you can boost it significantly by taking and/or sceptre:
- generates about 15 stacks
- can generate 25 stacks even on a small target if aimed properly
- '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:
- is a significant amount of CC, and can be pushed higher if you're able to build up two stacks of water arrow before using it
- if your elemental is alive
- → on dagger
If you're running
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.Ratings
![4 stars](/wiki/images/b/b1/4-star.png)
![5 stars](/wiki/images/d/dd/5-star.png)
![3 stars](/wiki/images/f/f0/3-star.png)
Comments
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