Elementalist - S/F Fresh Air Roamer

The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good

Focused on: Direct damage and Mobility

Designed for: WvW Roaming

Difficulty:
TBD
This build was last updated on April 14, 2022 and is up to date for the March 19, 2024 patch.

Overview

S/F Fresh Air is a WvW roaming build which focuses on burst damage whilst avoiding damage by utilizing superspeed, projectile hate and invulnerabilities to make up for its squishiness.


Skill Bar

Scepter/Focus
Utility


Template Code

[&DQYpKhEeJS4XARcB9gD2AJAA6wBQAVABlwCWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]
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Specializations


Equipment

Head
Marauder
Shoulders
Marauder
Chest
Marauder
Hands
Marauder
Legs
Marauder
Feet
Marauder
Backpiece
Berserker
Accessory
Berserker
Accessory
Marauder
Amulet
Marauder
Ring
Berserker
Ring
Berserker
Scepter
Marauder
Focus
Marauder
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
x6
Infusion
x18


Equipment Variants

Stats

  • The ratio of Marauder stats Marauder stats and Berserker stats Berserker stats gear can be changed based on personal preferences. More experienced players can replace some Marauder pieces with Berserker ones.

Runes


Consumables

Food

There are plenty of viable choices:

  • - passive damage mitigation and strong offensive stats.
  • - armor ignoring damage and a bit of extra healing, a suitable budget option.
  • - defensive option with more evasion.
    • Budget version:


Utility

  • or .


Usage

General

  • Much of this build's damage comes from swapping to , as this triggers , followed by . To capitalize on this, you should generally swap out of air immediately or soon after casting Lightning Strike into any other attunement, get a Fresh Air proc and jump back into Air Attunement.
  • Recharging Air: to take advantage of you need to score a critical hit. The fastest way to do it on attunements with slower skill is to start channel the air autoattack just before leaving . Swapping attunements doesn't break the channeling and Arc Lightning is almost guaranteed to critically hit at least once.
  • should usually be used while in for the Immobilize Immobilize, which makes it harder to avoid your burst. Alternatively, cast while still in then switch over to Earth before the projectile hits - this will root the target and you can get back into Air without skipping a beat as Arcane Blast is always a critical hit. With 1.5k range this is also your best ranged option.
  • This build can self-stack might by blasting the fire field created by . Do not prioritize might-stacking, but do take advantage of the incidental opportunities which arise. Your blast finishers are:
  • The build's most dangerous above 90% HP where the and bonuses are active. These bonuses are active in any attunement, but to maximize bursts most of your hard hitting abilities should go off while attuned to Air to benefit from and .
  • 's purpose is twofold.
    • Mobility: and are excellent movement skills that can help you disengage from fights if your defensive CDs ran out, or if you want to get to the other capture point as soon as possible.
    • Cleave: AoE in the build is rather clumsy, except for and . Use these whenever you need to cleave a downed enemy or want to take a camp (ball up the NPCs in a corner beforehand).


Notable burst combos

These are some potential combos you can use based on the techniques outlined above. The quicker you pull these chains off, the better.

From Fire:

  1. (optional, easy to avoid so use it only when the target is CC'd or downed)
  2. - optional: right at your target before Phoenix Goes off
  3. - swap to this just before Phoenix and Arcane Blast are about to land


From Earth:

  1. - projectile must land right before attuning to Air to get the Immobilize Immobilize


From Water:

  1. + right at your target before the trident goes off
  2. just before Shatterstone and Water Trident does damage


Survival

  • makes it easy to kite most specs. Avoid melee range at all costs!
  • CCs can be used for shaking off pursuers.
  • and provide excellent protection against enemies who use projectiles. These however do not work against unblockable projectiles, and some ranged builds - such as this one - are mostly unaffected by projectile reflects and blocks.
  • is the build's best condition cleanse which can also be used while stunned.
  • gives invincibility for a short while, and can be used to survive bursts or to create a window where you can pressure targets in the ehat of battle without any hinderance.


Ratings

This build has a rating of 4 stars based on 3 votes.
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3 stars
Hanz gave this build 3 stars • December 2022
Scepter recently got buffed which made the build a lot better. It's not that hard to play but it has a rather high skill ceiling and does take some effort to pilot. Overall still a bit weaker than elite spec builds and against Celestial builds it's definitely an uphill battle. Very satisfying to pull off though, worth learning for fun or as a challenge but there are easier and stronger builds out there.
5 stars
InvisableYam gave this build 5 stars • January 2017
Still loving this build and small variations to it, S/F ele is all about timing and this build can be very rewarding if you time it right. It's possible to experiment with a Tempest variation, keeping in mind the fresh air aspect and overloading, that's also about right time right place. Great build.
5 stars
Arete gave this build 5 stars • July 2016
Very difficult to play, but with a very high skill cap and high amount of outplay potential. Struggles against some of the new HoT specs such as herald and daredevil but has the potential to win almost all matchups if played well enough.

Comments

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