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Tempest - Fresh Air

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: Strike damage

Designed for: Open World and Open World General

Expansions required: Heart of Thorns builds

Difficulty:
Easy
This build was last updated on October 13, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A Power Tempest Tempest build for open world. This build has very high AoE damage plus somme boon generation for self and allies, most notably Might Might and Fury Fury. Cast Overload Air to fry your enemies with a nimbus of lightning, then do it over and over again thanks to Fresh Air refreshing its cooldown.

With the trait Lucid Singularity, the build can also sacrifice damage to provide Alacrity Alacrity to allies.

Template Code

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Skill Bar

Scepter/Warhorn
Utility


Weapon Variants

Scepter Scepter+Warhorn Warhorn are your best weapons, providing the highest damage and some utility.

  • Spear Spear - can be considered by players with Janthir Wilds, providing great AoE damage, but it's harder to use.

Skill Variants

Healing

Glyph of Elemental Harmony provides strong burst heal and a boon based on attunement. Other alternatives are:

  • Arcane Brilliance - potentially the strongest heal if there are 5 enemies in range, plus a blast finisher, but very weak healing if there are no nearby enemies.
  • "Wash the Pain Away!" - weak heal, but heals in an AoE and cleanses 1 condition per pulse.
  • Ether Renewal - very situational heal that removes up to 8 conditions throughout its long channelling time.

Utilities

Signet of Fire is here only for the precision buff, so never cast it. If you already have 100% crit chance because you're using full Marauder Marauder gear, equip a different skill.
"Feel the Burn!" has low cooldown, decent damage, and provides Might Might.
"Aftershock!" combines damage, defense, and crowd control. Provides Magnetic Aura Magnetic Aura to reflect projectiles.
Other alternatives are:

  • Glyph of Storms provides AoE damage in fire and air, while on earth it will blind blind trash mobs.
  • Glyph of Lesser Elementals - spawn a small elemental army that dies when you mount up, good for fighting strong bosses.
  • Cleansing Fire - additional condition cleanse.
  • Lightning Flash - for mobility.
  • Your overloads break stun when cast, but if you want a dedicated stun break you can use Arcane Shield, which also blocks 3 attacks, or Mist Form for invulnerability, or Armor of Earth for Stability Stability.

Elites

Glyph of Elementals is simply the best elite for solo play. Cast it on Fire for damage, on Water for support, healing and Knockback Knockback, on Air for a Stun Stun, or on Earth for defense.

  • "Rebound!" - very situational skill that can be considered against certain bosses with oneshot attacks.


Specializations

Variants
  • Tempestuous Aria - sacrifices defense for extra damage. The loss of Stability Stability from Harmonious Conduit may cause you to be interrupted while using an Overload, so be careful about that.
  • Lucid Singularity - useful in groups to provide allies with Alacrity Alacrity. You can technically provide permanent alacrity with only the bonus concentration of Gathered Focus, but this isn't realistic in real fights. This trait works best if you can acquire more concentration from food or gear like Diviner Diviner.

Fire

If using Spear Spear, replace Water with Fire. It is harder to play but has great AoE damage. You still want to spam Overload Air but you will also use Etching: Volcano and Etching: Haboob.


Equipment

This build uses the same gear as power weaver and power catalyst for ease of gearing.

Head
Berserker
Shoulders
Berserker
Chest
Berserker
Hands
Berserker
Legs
Berserker
Feet
Berserker
Backpiece
Berserker
Accessory
Berserker
Accessory
Berserker
Amulet
Berserker
Ring
Berserker
Ring
Berserker
Scepter
Berserker
Warhorn
Berserker
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
x6


Relic
  • Rune of Superior Rune of the Scholar is almost identical to Rune of Superior Rune of the Dragonhunter. Either can be used.
  • You can use Relic of Zakiros to trade a minor amount of damage for sustain, Relic of the Cavalier to start combat with boons, or Relic of Durability for a little extra defense.
  • Equip the highest tier Jade Core you can afford.
  • In open world, you can consider using full Marauder Marauder gear instead of Berserker to sacrifice a small amount of damage for a massive health increase. If doing so, switch your runes to Rune of Superior Rune of the Deadeye. The amulet can be Dragon Dragon. With this gear set you no longer need Signet of Fire and can use another damage or utility skill instead.


Consumables

Budget consumables are acceptable for use in open world.

DPS

  • Prioritize Steak Ascended food.
  • /
  • /

Defense

Farming

  • Prioritize Steak Ascended food.
  • /
  • (and variants)


Usage

Overloads

Overloads are the profession mechanic of the tempest. After attuning to an element, remain in it for a few seconds to achieve Singularity, allowing you to press the attunement key again to Overload that attunement and cast a powerful skill but place the attunement on a long recharge.

In this skill, you will focus on Overload Air.

Damage

Fresh Air resets the cooldown of Air Attunement every time you critically strike while attuned to a different attunement. This includes resetting the cooldown of Overload Air. Thus, the idea behind the build is to use Overload Air, attune to another element and maybe use some skills of that element, and then return to Air, triggering Electric Discharge, the extra ferocity from Fresh Air, and the extra damage from Transcendent Tempest.

Your goal is to spam Overload Air for damage. If you are playing alone, you can also Overload Fire for damage and Might Might. Since Overload Fire creates a fire field, you can use combo finishers to provide yourself and nearby allies with even more might (See: Guide:What are Combo Fields).

After Overloading, attune to another element, cast 1 or 2 skills then return to Air since Fresh Air has recharged it.

Opener

Against bosses and other strong enemies, try to follow this opener:

  1. Overload Air
  2. Lightning Strike and Fire Attunement
  3. Wildfire
  4. Dragon's Tooth
  5. Phoenix
  6. fill the gap with one auto attack
  7. Overload Fire
  8. Heat Sync Air Attunement
  9. Lightning Orb
  10. Arc Lightning + Lightning Strike
  11. Overload Air
  12. Water Attunement
  13. Shatterstone
  14. Water Trident and Air Attunement
  15. Arc Lightning + Lightning Strike until Overload Air
  • If playing in a group giving you Might Might, skip Overload Fire and just return to Air quickly.
  • Lightning Strike has no cast time nor animation, use it while casting other skills or overload.
  • Use "Feel the Burn!" off cooldown.
  • If using high damage skills like Glyph of Storms or Conjure Fiery Greatsword, use them when you attune back to Air because you will be under all these damage modifiers: Aeromancer's Training, Fresh Air, and Transcendent Tempest.
  • You will activate Relic of Fireworks with Overloads, Wildfire, Lightning Orb, and Dust Storm.

Spear

If using Spear Spear (requires Janthir Wilds), replace the Water traitline with Fire as indicated above. Your priority is still to spam Overload Air, but you will want to use Derecho, Volcano and Haboob as well, which will obviously work better if an ally is giving you Quickness Quickness so you don't delay Overload Air too much.

  1. Overload Air
  2. Fulgor and Fire Attunement
  3. Etching: Volcano
  4. Blazing Barrage
  5. Meteor
  6. Seethe
  7. Volcano and Air Attunement
  8. Etching: Derecho
  9. Twister
  10. Fulgor
  11. Energize
  12. Derecho
  13. Overload Air and Earth Attunement
    • Etching: Haboob (skip if you have alacrity)
  14. Earthen Spear
    • Fissure (skip if you have alacrity)
    • Harden (skip if you have alacrity)
    • Haboob (skip if you have alacrity)
  15. Air Attunement and autoattack until Overload is ready, then repeat from step 1.

Always empower Volcano by casting Seethe directly before.
It's generally not worth it to stay in Earth for Haboob, but you can do it if you don't have Alacrity Alacrity from other players. Likewise, Water attunement should only be used if you need condition cleanse from Ripple or a little healing from Jokulhlaup.


Auras

Auras provide useful bennefits to yourself. If needed, they can be shared to nearby allies by using the trait Powerful Aura and even provide boons with Zephyr's Boon. You have several skills that produce auras, including your overloads thanks to Unstable Conduit:

Elementals

Elementals are really good allies in any open world elementalist build. Their only downside is that they die when you mount up. Consider summoning a few elementals before fighting bosses or other tough enemies.

Glyph of Lesser Elementals

Glyph of Lesser Elementals summons one elemental for 2 minutes. If you cast it off cooldown, you can have 3 elementals alive most of the time.

  • The Lesser Fire Elemental deals good melee range AoE strike damage and Burning Burning, and provides Might Might. It has the highest AoE damage of all Lesser Elementals.
  • The Lesser Ice Elemental deals very low damage and inflicts a lot of Chill Chill (80-90% uptime) through an ice combo field.
  • The Lesser Air Elemental deals great single target damage and generates Swiftness Swiftness. It has the second best damage behind Fire, but it's single target.
  • The Lesser Earth Elemental deals low damage, inflicts Weakness Weakness, and is very tanky.

Glyph of Elementals

Elementals have the same attacks and behaviour as Lesser Elementals, but can be commanded to do an additional skill.

  • The Fire Elemental can be commanded to deal damage and Burning Burning in an AoE.
  • The Ice Elemental can be commanded to deal damage in an AoE, while healing nearby allies by 6401, knocking back enemies, and removing 1 condition.
  • The Air Elemental can be commanded to Stun Stun for 1.5 seconds.
  • The Earth Elemental can be commanded to inflict nearby enemies with 1 second of Immobilize Immobilize and 5 seconds of Cripple Cripple, while providing 3 seconds of Protection Protection to nearby allies.

Defense

  • The best defense is always to dodge or sidestep attacks. You have permanent Swiftness Swiftness so you can run around enemies while they die to your AoEs. You cannot dodge while doing an Overload or you will cancel it, but you can use that swiftness to get out of the way of telegraphed attacks.
  • Glyph of Elementals is great for defense, as the elemental will often draw aggro away from you. The earth elemental is quite tanky.
  • You get Stability Stability when you overload thanks to Harmonious Conduit.
  • You get Protection Protection when you overload thanks to Hardy Conduit, from Sand Squall (which also extends existing boons) and from Glyph of Elemental Harmony when cast in Earth.
  • You can increase your toughness with Rock Barrier.
  • Magnetic Aura Magnetic Aura from Sand Squall or Unstable Conduit+Overload Earth reflects projectiles.
  • Overload Water can be used in emergencies to cleanse 5 conditions and heal you a little. However, you will lack sustain as you'll lose access to Soothing Mist due to the increased cooldown of Water after overloading.
  • Overload Earth is great for chipping away at breakbars with its crippled crippled and immobilize immobilize. It also gives you stability stability at the start, and the lingering storm provides protection protection.
  • Attune to Water Attunement periodically to refresh Soothing Mist and heal yourself with Healing Ripple. You also heal yourself with Water Globe and Water Trident
  • Dodging attacks will also heal you thanks to Flow like Water.
  • Blind trash mobs with Blinding Flash, Dust Devil or Dust Storm.

Crowd Control

  • Cyclone - Pull Pull
  • Tidal Surge - Knockback Knockback
  • Enemies that attack you or allies from melee range while having Shocking Aura Shocking Aura - stun stun
  • Crashing Waves (from Glyph of Elementals Ice Elemental) - Knockback Knockback
  • Shocking Bolt (from Glyph of Elementals Air Elemental) - stun stun


Ratings

This build has a rating of 5 stars based on 2 votes.
Log in or register to rate this build.
5 stars
Warming Hearth gave this build 5 stars • June 2024
Great mix of damage, boons, and utility. And very fun to just spam overload air over and over again, especially now that its damage has been buffed.
5 stars
Starlitjupiter gave this build 5 stars • April 2023
Fresh Air Tempest is a mainstay in optimized farm zergs. While it doesn't pack the same punch that Condi Weaver or Catalyst would solo, it provides extremely high cleave / AOE while also maintaining high uptime on Alacrity for itself and nearby allies, something that is essential for a good zerg. In short, this is by far the best elementalist build for general group play in open world and I strongly recommend it.

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