Tempest - Power DPS

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

Focused on: Strike damage

Designed for: Raids

Difficulty:

TBD

This build was last updated on January 19, 2022 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

Also known as Fresh Air Scepter/Warhorn Tempest, this is an old Heart of Thorns build which has now become one of the best AoE burst damage builds in the game.

Fresh Air Tempest relies on spamming Overload Air and resetting its cooldown with Fresh Air. This, combined with its high damage AoE skills, makes it excel at killing adds and trash mobs. In addition, Tempest provides a lot of Vulnerability, deals excellent burst damage on large hitboxes, and provides a unique damage buff to its party through Overload Air's Static Discharge.

This guide is focused on raids. For the fractal version see Build:Tempest - Power DPS (Fractal).

Skill Bar

Scepter/Warhorn

Utility

Skill Variants

Healing

• Signet of Restoration will provide the highest Rune of Superior Rune of the Scholar uptime in very low damage fights (i.e. fights where you never press your healing skill).
• "Wash the Pain Away!" for a strong group heal.
• Ether Renewal if extra condition cleanse is needed.

Template Code

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Specializations

Specialization Variants

• Stormsoul on Keep Construct.

Equipment

Head
Berserker

Shoulders
Berserker

Chest
Berserker

Hands
Berserker

Legs
Berserker

Feet
Berserker

Backpiece
Berserker

Accessory
Assassin

Accessory
Assassin

Amulet
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Scepter
Berserker

Warhorn
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Equipment Variants

• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Impact instead of Sigil of Superior Sigil of Force on Keep Construct.

Consumables

Food

Utility

Usage

Opening Burst

The opening burst focuses on using all available cooldowns.

1. Cast Lightning Orb from afar then begin channeling Overload Air. Ideally you time the cast to finish on top of the enemy the moment combat begins.
2. Lightning Strike, Lightning Storm and swap to Water Attunement as soon as you begin casting.
3. Shatterstone
4. Fire Attunement, Phoenix, Wildfire, Dragon's Tooth
5. Earth Attunement, Dust Storm
6. Air Attunement, Lightning Strike

Loop Rotation

• If Conjure Lightning Hammer is available, use it immediately after Air Attunement.
  • If it is on a ~35 second cooldown, pick it up off the ground.
  • Do Invoke Lightning, 1 auto attack chain, and drop the weapon.
• If Conjure Fiery Greatsword is available and Conjure Lightning Hammer is not, use Conjure Fiery Greatsword immediately after Air Attunement.
  • Pick up the second Fiery Greatsword from the ground immediately after Air Attunement 1 loop after you have already done so with the Lightning Hammer.
  • Do Fiery Rush, Firestorm, and drop the weapon as soon as the cast bar finishes to skip the massive aftercast.
• In Air Attunement, always cast Lightning Strike, Lightning Orb, Lightning Storm, and Cyclone when they are available.
  • Cast Overload Air after dropping your conjured weapon or, if you don't have one, immediately when it is available.
  • Do not delay the cast of Overload Air to cast Cyclone. You can cast it after, and swap to your next attunement mid-cast.
  • Immediately after finishing Overload Air, swap to either Fire Attunement or Water Attunement.
• If either Fire Attunement or Water Attunement are available, swap to them for key skills then immediately return to Air Attunement to maintain high uptime of Fresh Air.
• Prioritize Fire Attunement first. Cast any of the following skills if available: Phoenix, Dragon's Tooth, Wildfire and then return to air.
  • After casting Wildfire, swap to Earth Attunement and cast Dust Storm before returning to Air Attunement.
• If your next swap to Fire Attunement will allow you to use Phoenix, Dragon's Tooth and Wildfire together, wait for Fire Attunement to come off cooldown rather than delay it by swapping to Water Attunement.
• If Transcendent Tempest is about to expire, wait for Overload Air rather than swap to Water Attunement.
• When swapping to Water Attunement, cast Shatterstone and leave as fast as possible. Doing this slowly can be a DPS decrease over simply waiting for Fire Attunement cooldown.

Video rotation example by Roul

Notes

• Cast Lightning Strike whenever it's available - it doesn't interrupt other channels.
• If you don't have a conjured weapon available, simply use the auto-attack in Air until your overload is ready.
• Step back from the boss before casting Lightning Orb to maximize the hits you get from it.
• If you're unable to do the water attunement section very fast it works out to be a DPS loss, so if you're not confident in your speed you can simply skip that section.