Tempest - Alacrity Support Healer

This is a test build. You may comment and rate it.

Focused on: Healing, Support and Utility

Designed for: Raids

Difficulty:

TBD

This build was last updated on July 21, 2022.

Overview

Tempest is capable of providing permanent uptime of Alacrity, Fury, Might, Protection, Regeneration, Swiftness and high Vigor on their subgroup, and offering more healing than Druid - Boon Support Healer.

Because you provide the same boons and do higher personal DPS and healing than druid, this build excels as a druid replacement for groups that need a little more healing than druid offers. You will miss out on druid's higher CC, and tempest's reliance on being close to the squad for boons makes it a poor kiter, but you gain "Rebound!" which will allow you to skip certain mechanics that would otherwise down the group.

Skill Bar

Dagger/Warhorn

Utility

Weapon Variants

Sceptre can be used instead of dagger if you need to be at range.

Skill Variants

Utility Skills

"Aftershock!" is needed to maintain permanent Protection. As you need to leave Water Attunement for boons, this can leave you without sources of healing, so Signet of Water, Conjure Frost Bow and Glyph of Elementals (water) are there to fill in the gap, but can be swapped out if they are not needed.

• All utility shout skills are provide a number of boons thanks to Zephyr's Boon and Invigorating Torrents, so it is important to keep at least one on your bar, but you can bring more if desired.
  • "Eye of the Storm!" provides a group stunbreak as well as Superspeed which can be particularly useful on "event" encounters such as Spirit Woods or Siege Escort

Elite Skills

"Rebound!" provides a way to skip certain mechanics that would otherwise down the group.

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Specializations

Trait Variants

• Bolt to the Heart and Fresh Air may be more DPS depending on your rotation, Lightning Rod was chosen for the extra weakness uptime, which benefits a few classes.
• Cleansing Wave for a bit more condi cleansing
• Gale Song for an automatic stun break for you and your allies.
• Tempestuous Aria will let you build Might up faster, but you lose the ability to provide permanent uptime of Regeneration and Vigor for the squad.

Equipment

Head
Harrier

Shoulders
Harrier

Chest
Harrier

Hands
Harrier

Legs
Harrier

Feet
Harrier

Backpiece
Magi

Accessory
Magi

Accessory
Magi

Amulet
Harrier

Ring
Harrier

Ring
Harrier

Dagger
Harrier

Warhorn
Harrier

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x16

Infusion
x2

Equipment Variants

• The gear above is designed to cap boon duration when using +100 concentration food. If you are not using such food, you can switch some of the magi pieces to harrier.

Consumables

Food

• or ascended versions

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 Fire Attunement

• Throw out any quick DPS skills such as Wildfire and use "Aftershock!" in the fire field to blast some Might
• Overload Fire to start stacking Might
• Stay in Fire Attunement until you hit 25 Might
• Heat Sync to share the Might and Fury with your squad

Swap to Water Attunement

• Frozen Burst to blast more Might
• Tidal Surge
• Cone of Cold

Swap to Earth Attunement

• Sand Squall to apply Protection and extend boons on everyone
• Dust Storm and other DPS skills
• Wait until Overload Earth is ready and use it

Main rotation

The core of your boon application is to use Heat Sync and Sand Squall whenever they are available (every 24 seconds, with Alacrity), also using the overloads in these attunements. This means you want to switch to Fire Attunement within ~3 seconds of it coming off cooldown, and repeat the opener. You should alternate between Water Attunement and one of the other attunements, using whichever healing skills are available whenever you return to water. It is important NOT to use Overload Water as this will lock you out of Water Attunement for too long. Enter Air Attunement for Cyclone, and you can try to squeeze in some extra DPS via Lightning Orb or Air Overload but it's not essential.

Be aware that your skills that generate Magnetic Aura - Sand Squall, "Aftershock!", Overload Earth via Unstable Conduit, and "Rebound!" while in Earth Attunement - 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.

Healing

• Swapping to Water Attunement will trigger Healing Ripple
• Tidal Surge and Water Globe on warhorn
• Cone of Cold on dagger, plus you can use Frozen Burst to blast the water field from Water Globe for more
• Water Trident on sceptre

Your sustained healing will be lower when outside of Water Attunement, so you should use your other skills to maintain your group's health:

• "Wash the Pain Away!" is your bread and butter emergency heal, as it doesn't require you to break from your rotation to use
• Signet of Water 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
• Conjure Frost Bow is a powerful conjure that will provide you with sustained from Water Arrow if Water Attunement. 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
• Crashing Waves is an enormous heal on a very low cooldown for as long as your elemental is alive

Healing tips

• While not exactly a heal, "Rebound!" 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 Earthen Rush 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 cooldown

You may also wish to avoid Rock Barrier on sceptre, as the extra toughness might make you the tank on some encounters

Fresh Air rotations

If you're running Fresh Air, you can structure your rotation for a bit more damage by going from Earth Attunement → Air Attunement → Water Attunement → Air Attunement → Fire Attunement after the opener staying in Air Attunement long enough to use Overload Air each time. This is a minor reduction in boon generation that allows you to get two uses each of out Overload Air, Cyclone, and Lightning Orb each loop.

Vulnerability

If your group has low Vulnerability, you can boost it significantly by taking Fresh Air and/or sceptre:

• Overload Air generates about 15 stacks
• Lightning Orb can generate 25 stacks even on a small target if aimed properly
• Shatterstone'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:

• Deep Freeze 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
• Crashing Waves if your elemental is alive
• Tidal Surge
• Cyclone
• Shocking Aura → Transmute Lightning on dagger

If you're running Fresh Air 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.