Tempest - Frontline Aurashare

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

Focused on: Control, Support, Healing and Condition cleanse

Designed for: WvW Zerg

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

TBD

This build was last updated on June 01, 2022 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

This build fills the role of the healer and cleanser in the party, so it is important to focus on these things first.

Glyph of Renewal is an exceptionally powerful revive skill - in Air Attunement it has the unique effect of repositioning the target, allowing the tempest to fully reset a player that went down in a bad place.

Tempest provides high amounts of might provided with Pyromancer's Puissance, Fire Shield and Transmute Fire as well as unique auras including the very powerful Shocking Aura.

For the usage of attunements and skills, tempest can stick to a relatively simple rotation. While a strict rotation is not optimal in all situations, it is effective for beginners and helps to allow focus on other things while learning.

Skill Bar

Dagger/Focus

Dagger/Focus

Utility

Skill Variants

You can switch any equipped shout for the utilities below, just figure which skill will bring more value for your group.

• "Feel the Burn!" shortest CD shout, for slightly more heal/cleanse
• "Eye of the Storm!" group stunbreak and AOE superspeed
• Conjure Earth Shield for Magnetic Aura share
• Signet of Earth single target Immobilize, good for small group play

Specializations

Template Code

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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

Dagger
Minstrel

Focus
Minstrel

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Rune Variants

• Rune of Superior Rune of the Monk high healing increase, but drops some condition clear and defensive stats
• Rune of Superior Rune of Radiance for Shocking Aura uptime

Consumables

• • personal option

Usage

General

• As soon as you get 25 stacks of Sigil of Superior Sigil of Benevolence and get out of combat, swap back to the set without it
• Unlike most builds in WvW, Dagger/Focus aurashare tempest can be played with a skill rotation
  • Breaking the rotation to survive is fine, breaking it to try and access more healing or condition clear is usually suboptimal
  • The most important part of the rotation is maximizing the amount of swaps into Fire Attunement to proc Sunspot, Smothering Auras and Fire Shield/Transmute Fire
  • The order of the non-fire attunements is not important to the rotation, roughly prioritize in this order, but change based on needs:
    1. Water Attunement - healing and cleanse
    2. Air Attunement - anti-melee CC, projectile hate, single target CC, single target Glyph of Renewal
    3. Earth Attunement - personal survivability, AoE CC, AoE Glyph of Renewal
  • Skipping or cancelling the Overload of Earth Attunement or Air Attunement is fine if you need fast healing/condition cleanse

Skill Rotation Start the fight in Air Attunement Shocking Aura ⇒ Transmute Lightning Overload Air Fire Attunement Transmute Fire Fire Shield Water Attunement/Earth Attunement/Air Attunement Use skills 2 through 5 as needed until- Overload Water/Overload Earth/Overload Air Repeat from step 3. If at any stage your group is not engaged or is standing back, not needing to be cleansed or healed, simply pause and pick up again when you resume pushing or being pushed. If you have plenty of downtime, you can start from Air Attunement again.

Overall Priorities

High

• Glyph of Renewal
• Condition clear
• Healing

Moderate

• CC

Low

• Aura/boonshare

Surviving

• This build has moderate passive defense
• This build has moderate mobility skill access
• This builds has low active defenses
  • Be careful about attuning into Earth Attunement, since you'll lose access to Obsidian Flesh after leaving it
  • Since you lack personal stunbreaks and Stability and you heavily rely on skills with longer casttimes, you want to position safely
    • Stay close to tag, but not directly on top - within 200-300 range is close enough to quickly respond to movements and get boons without getting stuck behind
    • While overloading, if needed, move further away ensure the cast finishes - Powerful Auras has 600 radius

Active defense priority Magnetic Wave - for Immobilize Dodge Burning Speed Earthen Rush Obsidian Flesh

Detailed Explanations

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
• Focus on reviving allies who are far away with Glyph of Renewal, don't waste the skill on players that can be hand rezzed.
• Use Glyph of Renewal in Air Attunement on single players and Earth Attunement on multiple players
  • If the teleportation is not needed (or actively harmful), use the glyph in Water Attunement for the extra heal
• If a downed ally can be safely revived by other means don't use Glyph of Renewal
• If you are under the effect of Illusion of Life you can cast Glyph of Renewal in Fire Attunement to avoid timing out

Condition clear

• Most of your condition clear is tied up in attunements and overloads by Smothering Auras, so conserve your shouts unless you absolutely need them
  • "Wash the Pain Away!" and "Aftershock!" each cleanse two conditions but should normally be saved for healing and Immobilize respectively
• Keep in mind the small, 240 radius of Transmute Fire/Transmute Lightning both significant condition clear with Smothering Auras

Condition clear priority Fire Attunement - Sunspot + Smothering Auras Transmute Fire - Smothering Auras Fire Shield - Smothering Auras Water Attunement Overload Water - Unstable Conduit + Smothering Auras Air Attunement Transmute Lightning - Smothering Auras Shocking Aura - Smothering Auras Overload Air - Unstable Conduit + Smothering Auras Earth Attunement Overload Earth - Unstable Conduit + Smothering Auras "Flash-Freeze!" - Smothering Auras + Rune of Superior Rune of the Trooper "Rebound!" - Smothering Auras + Rune of Superior Rune of the Trooper "Wash the Pain Away!" - Rune of Superior Rune of the Trooper "Aftershock!" - Smothering Auras + Rune of Superior Rune of the Trooper

Healing

• Most of your healing will be passively applied by rotating through your attunements, applying aura skills and Soothing Mist. Your main decision is when to go into Water Attunement and when to use your shout skills
  • Enter Water Attunement when you predict heavy pressure coming in the next 10 seconds
• Tempests biggest burst heal skill is "Wash the Pain Away!"
  • Keep in mind most of the healing is first pulse which only has a radius of 180
• Water Attunement ⇒ Healing Ripple is instant cast, meaning it provides the healing immediately and can also be used while CCed

Healing priority "Rebound!" - only when a target would reach 0hp "Wash the Pain Away!" "Flash-Freeze!" - Elemental Bastion Water Attunement - Healing Ripple Soothing Mist Frozen Burst - water field blast Overload Water - Unstable Conduit + Elemental Bastion Cone of Cold Fire Attunement - Sunspot + Elemental Bastion Fire Shield - Elemental Bastion Air Attunement Shocking Aura - Elemental Bastion Overload Air - Unstable Conduit + Elemental Bastion Earth Attunement Magnetic Wave - water field blast Overload Earth - Unstable Conduit + Elemental Bastion "Aftershock!" - Elemental Bastion

CC

• Use your CC when:
  • Your group calls a spike:
    • Winds - Winds of Disenchantment
    • Wells - Well of Corruption+Well of Suffering
    • Shades - Desert Shroud
    • Traps - Procession of Blades+Test of Faith
  • On top of enemy downs (while alive players are on top of them)
  • Enemy groups moving defensively while your group is pushing
• Be careful using Earthen Rush and Overload Earth since leaving Earth Attunement locks you out of Obsidian Flesh
• Save "Aftershock!" when Earth Attunement is available to CC instead
  • The Immobilize from "Aftershock!" hits in 600 radius
• Gale is great for picking off players left behind their groups and following up on other CC
  • Make sure to check the targets boon bar for Stability

CC priority "Aftershock!" Earth Attunement Earthen Rush Overload Earth Ring of Earth Air Attunement Transmute Lightning Shocking Aura Overload Air - Unstable Conduit Water Attunement Comet

Aura/boonshare

• Try to be in Air Attunement for melee engages to apply Shocking Aura
  • Activate Shocking Aura as soon as you enter Air Attunement so its duration doesn't overlap with Overload Air + Unstable Conduit
• Make sure you're close to your group when leaving Fire Attunement to proc Pyromancer's Puissance, it has a short 240 radius

Settings

• 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.
• Also under General Options / User Interface turn on Thick party health bars
  • Thick squad health bars can be used too as a matter of personal preference, but is not recommended for large numbers
• Under Squad Options uncheck View as a grid. This will allow you to keep track of your allies' boons, conditions and health, enabling a better decision-making and skill management.