Tempest - D/F Auramancer

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

Focused on: Support and Utility

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on November 21, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

This PvP support Tempest build uses its excellent damage mitigation, condition cleansing, direct healing, projectile denial, CC and auras to keep alies alive in teamfights. While it doesn't have as much healing as the Staff Version, D/F offers better personal survivability, anti-projectile tools and access to Shocking Aura (which is the strongest aura).

Skill Bar

Dagger/Focus

Utility

Skill Variants

Utility

For the optional slot (or even over Conjure Earth Shield if you want another stun break or simply don't want to deal with the extra complexity of another 5 skills):

• Lightning Flash - makes it easier to navigate maps in general and reach people who need emergency healing. Could also act as a panic button that can take you to the safety of the highground to resustain.

• Armor of Earth - strong defensive skill that helps against any form of pressure, breaks stun and makes it easier to complete your Overloads.

• "Aftershock!" - AoE healing, damage mitigation and projectile denial. Great at shutting down specs such as Deadeyes or elite skills like Lich Form.

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Specializations

Variants

• Rock Solid is also a viable option if you're afraid of CC more than conditions. This extra bit of Stability could make it a lot easier to successfully channel "Wash the Pain Away!".

Variants

• Invigorating Torrents improves your support capabilities but makes it much harder to pull off Overloads or even get Swiftness.

Specialization Changes

Earth works best against power damage builds while against comps with heavy condition pressure you might want to trade it for Fire which offers better cleansing:

Equipment

Dagger

Focus

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

Equipment Variants

Relics

• Relic of Reunification - adds more aura sources to the build, along with a brand new type of aura. However auras of the same type don't stack, so take Stop, Drop, and Roll instead of Soothing Ice on Water. It's worth noting that this rune's effect only goes off after successful casts of your entire healing skill, any interruption will deny the aura procs.

• Relic of Antitoxin - better group cleansing, lower healing.

Runes

• Rune of Guardian - bit higher healing at the expense of personal survivability.

• Rune of Svanir - Chill messes with attunement cooldowns which can really screw Elementalists over. This rune combined with Earthen Blessing makes you all but immune to it. It's worth considering especially against Necromancers.

Sigils

• Sigil of Cleansing

• Sigil of Purging

• Sigil of Escape

Usage

General

• Under General Options / User Interface enable "Thick party health bars" and "Always show health bars". These will make it much easier to keep track of who needs your support. For more tips check out our settings guide.

• Obsidian Flesh is your main panic button, should mainly be used when you'd die otherwise. Lightning Flash is panic button #2 but can be used more freely, even as a mobility skill between capture points.

• When playing with Powerful Aura, every aura applied to you is also granted to nearby allies. This isn't restricted to elementalist auras only - using Magnetic Leap in a Chaos Storm for example will share Chaos Armor with allies. Auras can't be applied to downed players.

• Auras in the build:

• Shocking Aura from Overload Air and dagger #3 in air.
• Frost Aura from Overload Water, Frozen Burst plus the trait procs from Elemental Bastion and Soothing Ice.
• Fire Shield from Overload Fire, Fire Shield on Focus, and combos suchs as Flamewall + Magnetic Leap.
• Magnetic Aura from Overload Earth and Magnetic Surge (an Earth Shield skill).

• Tornado is useful in just about any situation. Whether you have to run away from a fight, peel for your allies, or interrupt an enemy stomp/rez attempt (it works on downed targets), can't go wrong with Tornado!

• Avoid getting locked into 1v1s, always be in teamfights. You depend on your allies just as much as they depend on you! Tempest's job is to keep party members alive through support, and these allies must peel for you in return (if the enemy team gets to focus you without allies counterpressuring them you'll probably end up dead).

Overloads

• These skills become available after having spent at least 6 seconds in the same attunement. Switching to another attunement while overloading will interrupt the skill, yet still puts the attunement on the increased CD of 20 seconds.

• Beginning an overload procs Stability, Protection and Swiftness on top of breaking stuns.

• Overloads have some of the longest cast times in the entire game, which means they can be easily interrupted. Of course there are ways to reduce the chance of that happening:

• Overload Fire is without a doubt the least important overload in the build and can be used more freely, even as a mobility tool between capture points or simply as a stun break in combat.
• Overload Air can be shielded through Swirling Winds from projectile-based interrupts such as Headshot and the stun from dagger's Shocking Aura can win a couple of seconds of freecasting vs melee specs. Even on an Avatar Amulet build this overload pumps out a considerable amount of AoE damage, use it to help your team get kills and to cleave downed targets.
• Overload Earth is the hardest to mess up because it comes with Stability, but if you're afraid that won't do the trick then Magnetic Wave could at least shield you from projectiles while channeling.
• Overload Water is the only overload which doesn't do damage, thus won't break Stealth. The build itself doesn't provide any access to stealth, but in an organized team you can coordinate this with an Engineer for instance and ask him to throw a Toss Elixir S at you. This should make it significantly easier to get this channel off, but you'll still be vulnerable to PBAoE like Jade Winds.

• Fire is arguably the least important attunement of the build, although you could still use the Overload to break stun or share auras, and it has another aura on skill #5 plus a short evade frame on Burning Speed.

Earth Shield

• Conjure Earth Shield is one of the strongest defensive skills in any Elementalist's toolkit. Use it whenever you're under heavy focus and running out of CDs.

• Stone Sheath (skill 2) blocks the next hit and grants you barrier.

• Magnetic Surge (skill 3) is the most versatile skill on this conjure as it has a bit of everything: mobility, CC, even Magnetic Aura application for group support + projectile reflect + aura trait synergy including healing and Protection.

• Magnetic Shield (elementalist) (skill 4) is an AoE pull. Might not always be the best under pressure because of its relatively long cast time but it could be great at peeling for allies by pulling enemies off of them, and it does offer barrier/protection for personal survivability while disrupting enemies if it goes off. You could even set up kills for your team by pulling enemies from the safety of the highground.

• Fortify (skill 5) is the ultimate defensive skill, making you immortal (but also immobile) for its duration. Should be the first skill you use on Earth Shield if you're taking a lot of damage. This is a great skill when you're trying to stall a bit while waiting for CDs to come back up.

• You're free to use Overloads and swap attunements while holding the shield.

• When you cast the skill a 2nd shield spawns on the ground. Both you and your allies could make use of the second shield, but keep in mind that dropping the first shield and picking up the second one doesn't refresh the CD of shield skills. Using up all the shield skills, dropping the shield to use weapon skills and then picking up the 2nd shield a bit later is fine though.

Support and sustain

• Auras and overloads grant ~3 seconds of Protection, which is further empowered by Hardy Conduit resulting in a ~40% direct damage reduction instead of the usual 33%. Frost Aura can reduce incoming damage for all affected allies by another 10% (and that's without even factoring in being on Earth for Geomancer's Training).

• Every aura you apply also heals allies via Elemental Bastion.

• Chaining Burning Speed and Earthen Rush is a strong defensive combo. Both are evade frames with mobility, ideal for building distance while avoiding damage, not to mention Burning Speed leaves behind a combo field while Earthen Rush can use that field to combo Fire Aura for AoE healing and cleansing.
  • Make sure you don't have an enemy targeted when you're trying to run away, otherwise thse skills will take you right back into the fight.

• Overload Earth is the best source of protection in the build. Not only does it pulse this boon each second, it'll also leave behind an AoE that does the same thing after a successful overload.

• Water Attunement is where most of your non-aura based support comes from:
  • Always try attuning to Water next to an ally to share the healing from Healing Ripple. Don't idle in it too much because you should fit as many Water swaps into a fight as possible.
  • Use Cone of Cold on allies whenever necessary, and make sure that you don't have an enemy targeted otherwise some pulses may go in the wrong direction.
  • Overload Water is one of the best support skills you have, both for AoE healing and cleansing. Top priority when you or an ally is getting condition bombed.

• Earth Attunement is associated with self-sustain:
  • Merely just swapping to this attunement can already negate Power based burst damage for a few seconds thanks to Stone Heart.
  • Magnetic Wave can be used to instantly cleanse conditions from yourself, reflect projectiles, or to blast combo fields. Both this and Obsdian Flesh can be used while CC'd.
  • Obsidian Flesh is one of the best defensive skills an ele could have, this skill is basically second Mist Form.

• Air Attunement has various tools to mitigate and prevent damage:
  • Convergence applies AoE Weakness after a small delay, significantly reducing direct damage dealt by enemies.
  • Shocking Aura CCs any target that strikes you in melee. This is one of the strognest defensive tools in your kit! Pressing this at the beginning of an air overload could also make it way easier to get the full channel off and then gain a second Shocking Aura right when the first one expires. Always use Transmute Lightning when this aura is about to run out for yet another AoE CC.
  • Swirling Winds is great versus projectile based attacks but will do nothing against melee.
  • Gale is an unblockable ranged CC that could pin enemies down so allies can burst them down, or it could simply be used to stop enemies from doing damage for a while and chase allies.

• "Wash the Pain Away!" is a very powerful AoE heal for both yourself and the team. Try to coordinate it with your allies so that they receive every pulse of the channel to maximize the healing. The first pulse heals the most but has the smallest radius, while the other two pulses have a lower healing value but larger radius. Lightning Flash can be used to instantly move in and heal up teammates who are far away but need emergency healing.

• When playing with the Fire specialization the 5th skill of Fire Attunement is your best source of cleansing. Swapping to Fire Attunement grants you a Fire Aura from Sunspot which you can immediately transmute with Transmute Fire, this combo cleanses 3 conditions thanks to Smothering Auras. Then you get to use Fire Shield (skill 5) to reapply the aura and transmute it again for another 3 condition removals. You could even do a Fire Overload and transmute that too for another 3.

Reviving allies

• Glyph of Renewal is a very potent ranged rez with a secondary effect that can be customized to fit a bunch of different situations. In general you should just focus on getting the rez as soon as possible regardless of attunement, but if you're able to swap to the right element beforehand this glyph becomes even more powerful. Couple of things to note:
  • The attunement bonus depends on which attunement you've started channeling this skill on. Swapping from Air to Fire in the middle of it for example is going to proc the Air bonus.
  • When playing with Rock Solid consider swapping to earth for the Stability while channeling the glyph.
  • Air Attunement teleports the ally to your location. It's great if you're in a safe spot, you may even consider teleporting to the highground beforehand with Lightning Flash.
  • Water Attunement brings them back with max HP, which is probably the best option if you only have to rez one ally and you're not in a safe spot.
  • Earth Attunement is for reviving multiple allies as it is an AoE rez.
  • Fire Attunement is mainly for your personal survivability. Even if you don't have an ally to rez, you could use this glyph on Fire and give yourself a 15 second window of immortaility, as using this skill in Fire revives the caster when they go down!
  • If you're absolutely certain that a teammate is going to die in 2 seconds, you may consider using this skill on their location in advance to bring them up a split second after they go down. This is a bit risky however, as if they don't die (or don't die inside the range of the skill) you're going to have to cancel cast with a weapon stow. While the weapon stow only sends it on a short CD of 5 seconds, that's more than enough for enemies to finish off your ally.

• Reviving counts as healing and is therefore affected by Poison's 33% healing reduction. When you're trying to use the Glyph on a low HP downed ally that's poisoned there's a chance that they won't be revived completely, in that case you'll have to go in and rez them manually.

Swiftness stacking

• Stack Swiftness for your team before the match starts!

• Switch to Air Attunement before the 10 second countdown even begins. The moment the countdown starts cast Overload Air whilst running towards the exit from spawn, this skill will produce a Static field. Use Convergence and Frozen Burst then follow up immediately with Comet while holding the right mouse button and looking at the sky. If Comet doesn't have a target then your camera angle controls where it's going to fall down - looking up as much as possible causes it to fall closest to you, inside your field. Finish the combo with Magnetic Wave.

• When you're done switch to Fire Attunement as you don't want to start fights in Earth or Water (you'd lose out on valuable on-swap traits related to these attunements).

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