Pilz

Part of the current metagame

Our curator decided this build is in the current metagame regardless of rating. The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Control, Support, Healing and Condition cleanse

Designed for: WvW GvG

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

TBD

Overview

The Fire Tempest provides strong condition cleanse and healing. It has access to one of the strongest revive skills, Glyph of Renewal, brings access to auras and provides a good amount of crowd control.

Skill Bar

Dagger/Focus

Dagger/Focus

Utility

Skill Variants

Utilities

Signet of Earth provides a very strong single target immobilize. However, it can be switched out for other utilities in some situations. Especially for starting out, the alternatives are easier to use.

• "Flash-Freeze!" the best option for another aura/heal utility
• "Eye of the Storm!" group stunbreak and AOE superspeed

Elite

• "Rebound!" this is usually not worth using, however it synergises with Illusion of Life as it can prevent players from dying to the debuff.

Template Code

[&DQYfKxErMD/HEgAApRIAAHQSAAAdAQAAmRIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]

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Equipment

Head
Minstrel

Shoulders
Minstrel

Chest
Minstrel

Hands
Minstrel

Legs
Minstrel

Feet
Minstrel

Backpiece
Minstrel

Accessory
Minstrel

Accessory
Minstrel

Amulet
Minstrel

Ring
Minstrel

Ring
Minstrel

Dagger
Minstrel

Focus
Minstrel

Sigil

Sigil

Scepter
Minstrel

Dagger
Minstrel

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Rune Variants

• Rune of Superior Rune of the Trooper can be used if extra tankiness is required. It increases the amount of condition cleanse.
• Rune of Superior Rune of the Monk increases the healing but loses quite a bit of defensive stats compared to the other choices.

Consumables

• • personal option
• • is worth using if you can go for many revives

Usage

General

• This build fills the role of the healer and cleanser in the party, so it is important to focus on these things first.
• The Glyph of Renewal is very powerful. Especially used in air attunement, it can completely reset a player that went down in a bad place. Make sure to be in a save position when this is needed.
• Auras are quite powerful and since the access is mostly limited to Elementalists, you should applies these as much as possible.
• The amount of might provided by Pyromancer's Puissance is a lot, however the range is small. If possible, make sure to get value out of this trait.
• Since you do not have good access to stunbreaks and stability for yourself and you heavily rely on skills with longer casttimes, you want to be in safe positions during the round. Especially while overloading, it is perfectly fine to move a bit away from the commander to ensure the cast.
• For the usage of attunements and skills, you can stick to a relatively simple rotation. This is not optimal in all situations but it is a very solid start and helps you to focus on other things while learning.
  • Fire Attunement - This is the source of most cleanses tied to the Focus skill Fire Shield / Transmute Fire. This is also the source of a large amount of AoE might coming from the trait Pyromancer's Puissance. Maximize the frequency with which you use this attunement.
• For attunements:
  • Water Attunement - This is a great source of healing. Use Overload Water whenever possible.
  • Air Attunement - Shocking Aura is by far the strongest Aura. Therefore, use the Dagger skill Shocking Aura and Overload Air often. Keep this attunement ready for Glyph of Renewal if you expect someone to die off position. Use Swirling Winds to counter enemy Necromancer's Lich Form. Use Gale for one of the strongest single target CC effects.
  • Earth Attunement - This is mostly a filler attunement you want to switch into to start the cooldown on the Fire attunement. It provides an invulnability on Focus, Obsidian Flesh. In Earth, Glyph of Renewal becomes a AoE revive with a decently large radius.

Engage Skill Usage Start the fight in Earth Attunement and use Earthen Rush on the first engage. Switch to Fire Attunement and spam Fire Shield / Transmute Fire for cleanses. Be ready to get into a safe position and switch to Air Attunement to cast Glyph of Renewal if someone dies on the first engage.

Rotation Skill Usage Starting in Fire Attunement, use Transmute Fire on the aura from Sunspot for cleansing. Use Fire Shield and wait for Transmute Fire. Use Burning Speed for repositioning. Optimally, get into 180 range of allies to give them might with Pyromancer's Puissance. Do not use Overload Fire ever. Switch to Water Attunement. Note that this gives a decent heal with Healing Ripple as well as cleanses with Cleansing Wave. Use Comet for a ranged AoE CC skill. Use Cone of Cold for a small heal until the overload is ready. Use Overload Water for a large amout of cleanses, a good heal and Frost Aura. Switch to Fire Attunement and do the same steps as above. Briefly switch into Earth Attunement if Air Attunement is not up. Use Earthen Rush for repositioning. Using Overload Earth is generally not recommended. Switch to Air Attunement and use Shocking Aura if available. Use Transmute Lightning if the cleanse is needed. Use Swirling Winds if the enemy is using ranged damage such as Necromancer's Lich Form. Use Gale if your squad is going for a single target. Use Overload Air for the extra Shocking Aura. Switch to Fire Attunement and repeat.

Overall Priorities

Highest

• Glyph of Renewal

High

• Condition clear
• Healing

Moderate

• Sharing (Shocking) Aura
• CC

Low

• Share Might

Surviving

• Despite the choice of purely defensive gear, the Elementalist suffers from the lowest base stats in the game. Paired with the lack of good access to stunbreaks and stability, this makes you an easy target if you get yourself in a bad position.
• That being said, you have very good mobility and should be able to position yourself savely. Having Sigil of Superior Sigil of Energy} as well as Burning Speed and Earthen Rush gives a lot of access to evades. Using this well means that you can avoid most damage.
• If targeted, keep your access to Earth Attunement with Obsidian Flesh open. Use the invulnability to reposition.
  • Try to get into Stealth by blasting a 24px Smoke Field, such as Scrapper's .
• For movement, you can use Burning Speed and Earthen Rush on a low cooldown. Together with Sigil of Superior Sigil of Energy, you have a large amount of dodges.
  • If necessary, Tornado gives access to another dash Dust Charge. Using this defensively is not recommended but can save your life.

Detailed Explanations

Positioning

• Since you have many long cast times, you want to stay in a save position slightly behind the squad. To ensure that most skills land, you want to keep a distance of around 200 to 240 units.
• When overloading air, you can move further away if it is needed. The aura applied by Powerful Aura has 600 range.
• Make sure you are in a good position when people might get in trouble, so that you can use your Glyph of Renewal if needed.
• When pushing, this usually means you want to go ahead of the group with Burning Speed and Earthen Rush.
• Once Glyph of Renewal is used, you can position more aggresively and try to land to low range support skills in more dangerous positions. You still want to keep some distance though, to ensure the casts go through.

Glyph of Renewal

• Under General Options / Combat/Movement turn on Allow Skill Retargetting and set Ground Targetting to Instant Cast, this will make Glyph of Renewal cast at the location your cursor is at the end of the cast, instead of where you initially targetted
• Use Glyph of Renewal mostly in Air Attunement to revive allies that are far away from your team or in Earth Attunement if there are multiple players in downstate.
  • If a downed ally can be safely revived by other means, usually Glyph of Renewal should not be used.
  • If the teleportation is not needed (or activly harmful), use the glyph in Water Attunement for the extra heal.
  • Using the glyph in Fire Attunement can be useful in rare situations, especially if you are under the effect of Illusion of Life.

Condition Clear

• You mostly clear conditions by going to Fire Attunement for Sunspot and useFire Shield / Transmute Fire due to Smothering Auras. Notice that the range is rather small here.
• Using Water Attunement cleanses a condition on instant cast.
• Using Overload Water provides a good amount of condition cleanse but is rather slow to access and use.
• Transmuting Shocking Aura in Air Attunement cleanses conditions due to Smothering Auras.
  • "Wash the Pain Away!" cleanses one condition but is mostly used for the heal.
  • "Aftershock!" cleanses one condition but should be used for the immobilize mostly.

Healing

• Most of your healing will be passively applied by rotating through your attunements, applying aura skills and Elemental Bastion.
• Your biggest burst heal skill is "Wash the Pain Away!". Notice that most of the heal is in the first heal of this skill which only has a range of 180.
• One of the most powerful heals is hidden in Water Attunement with Healing Ripple and Cleansing Wave. This is instant cast, meaning it provides the healing immediately and can also be used while CCed.
• Making sure that Overload Water is not interrupted provides another very powerful heal. Due to the cast time, this requires some timing to use most effectively.
  • Healing Ripple is a passive healing effect applied automatically. Keeping this up is not a priority but should happen automatically as you should attune to water regularely.
  • Cone of Cold can be used to heal allies. This is not very potent but is a good filler skill while wating for Overload Water.
  • "Aftershock!" heals due to the aura application and Elemental Bastion but should be used for the immobilize mostly.

Crowd Control

• Use your CC in coordination with your team. This means:
  • If your team is focusing on a single player, use Gale and Signet of Earth.
  • If your team is going for a an AoE damage spike provide Immobilize using "Aftershock!" and Earthen Rush and share Shocking Aura.
• Use Tornado to stop the enemy from reviving downed players by knocking them away.
• Use Tornado if you notice that the enemy ran out of Stability and access to it.
• Comet can be used as often as possible.

Settings

• Under General Options / Combat/Movement turn on Allow Skill Retargetting and set Ground Targetting to Instant Cast, this will make Glyph of Renewal cast at the location your cursor is at the end of the cast, instead of where you initially targetted
• Under Squad Options use View as a grid. This will allow you to keep and easy overview of the squads condition and spot early on if you need to be ready for Glyph of Renewal.
  • Seeing conditions on allies in party view is nice, but most condition cleanses are used anyway as part of a rotation. Movement impairing conditions are easily noticable by looking at the player's character. Similarely, seeing allied player's boons is rarely of actual use, since this build does not provide ciritcal boons like Stability or stunbreaks.
• Under General Options / User Interface check Always show squad health bars and Always show party health bars. These will make it much easier to keep track of who needs your support.
  • The options Thick party health bars and Thick squad health bars can be used too as a matter of personal preference.