User:Masel/Builds/Elementalist

Elementalist is known to include lots of "downstate gameplay", as it is a natively squishy profession. But there are easy ways to make it very resilient, so that you will be able to solo most content in the game without issues.

Tempest

Sc/F Fire Condition Tempest

Build Rating (Subjective)

Criterion	Rating
Burst Damage	3/5
Sustained Damage	4/5
Utility Options	5/5
Survivability	5/5

Fire Tempest is not a build that’ll put you on the top of the dps charts everywhere, but does great damage nonetheless. It excels at doing harder content in OW and in situations where support is lacking. It is my personal favourite open world build for elementalist due to its versatily, support options and easy damage. Plus, it fulfils the definition of a fire mage!

Links to Build Variants in the Build Editor:

Open World Build

Condition DPS

Playstyle & Skills

Overall, the Tempest adds a few dimensions to the Elementalist profession, giving players access to potent shouts and overload abilities. These overloads are one of the defining aspects of the Tempest. Overloads have different effects depending on the attunement the Tempest is currently using and provide powerful offensive or defensive capabilities. In this build, we’ll be camping fire attunement all day, except for when defense or breakbar damage is needed, then we’ll go into earth, air or water briefly.

Overloads

The main overload to use is   Overload Fire. This skill shoots a barrage of fire projectiles, creating fiery explosions and inflicting  Burning on foes caught in the radius. It also grants 2 stacks of  Might per pulse, allowing you to cap it on yourself and allies quite easily, especially when using arcane or combined with the shout   "Feel the Burn!"; more on that later. The first part of this ability is a channel, during which you spin. This applies burning while spinning and is both a moving Fire field and a Whirl finisher. So, on top of the burning you see in the toolip, it applies more during the channel. Once you stop spinning, this overload leaves behind another Fire field.

Depending on the trait choices, overloads gain additional benefits. With  Harmonious Conduit, you gain both  Stability and  Swiftness when starting an overload, preventing enemies from interrupting the channel.  Unstable Conduit also makes your overloads apply Auras.

Auras

Auras are effects that apply conditions, damage, stuns etc. to enemies and boons to you when you get hit. Auras are an integral part of tempest, since granting or gaining auras has additional benefits too. When using  Tempestuous Aria, you gain additional damage when you apply an aura to yourself or allies and when using earth,  Elemental Shielding applies  Protection whenever you grant an aura.

Skill Usage & Choices

In   Fire Attunement, you’ll want to use all skills on cooldown. They are all more or less there to apply tons of burning to enemies.

•   Dragon's Tooth is a delayed attacks that does great damage. This is also a blast finisher, applying might to allies when used inside a fire field.
•   Phoenix is a ground-targeted projectile that applies burning, and more burning to enemies that are already burning. Once it returns to you, it also cleanses a condition and grnats vigor, which is very nice.
•   Flamewall is ground-targeted and another fire field. Fire fields are important as sources for additional burning and might, and will increase your strike damage via  Persisting Flames!
•   Fire Shield applies a  Fire Aura to you and does not have a cast time. This will trigger all benefits of gaining an aura immediately after using it, so it grants increased damage and/or protection depending on which traits you use!

Utility Skills

DPS Variant	Open World Variant	Notes
Arcane Brilliance	Signet of Restoration	Arcane brilliance will also apply burning when using the arcane specialization via the trait elemental surge. When using the Signet with the earth specialization, you retain the passive afterwards and gain an aura; when using arcane, you do not.
Signet of Fire		BIG DAMAGE (and Fire Aura in Open World)
Arcane Power	"Feel the Burn!"	FTB grants another aura and might to yourself and allies and applies damage + burning in large radius. Really good skill, especially for open world.
Glyph of Lesser Elementals	"Aftershock!"	Aftershock is a great shout that synergizes very well with the kit. It grants aegis and and a magnetic aura to allies and causes bleeding for Relic of the Fractal
Glyph of Elementals

CC Skills for Breakbar Damage:

•   Gale
•   Comet
•   Shocking Bolt - This requires you to cast an air elemental first!

Gear

Important Stats (descending in Importance):

1. 100% Burning Duration
2. Maximize Condition Damage

Since the vast majority of damage comes from burning, it is important to reach 100% condition duration on it. I chose the gear variant below to give more freedom regarding the food option, since you can use any standard condition food.

Armor & Trinkets

Piece	Prefix	Rune
Head	Viper's	Superior Rune of Balthazar
Shoulders	Viper's	Superior Rune of Balthazar
Chest	Grieving	Superior Rune of Balthazar
Gloves	Viper's	Superior Rune of Balthazar
Legs	Viper's	Superior Rune of Balthazar
Boots	Viper's	Superior Rune of Balthazar
Amulet	Grieving
Ring 1	Grieving
Ring 2	Viper's
Accessory 1	Viper's
Accessory 2	Viper's
Backpack	Viper's

Weapons

Piece	Prefix	Sigil 1	Sigil 2
Scepter	Grieving	Superior Sigil of Bursting
Focus	Viper's	Superior Sigil of Earth
Warhorn	Ritualist's	Superior Sigil of Concentration

• The Warhorn can be used to provide support in Open World and is the primary weapon for the variant that provides  Alacrity.
• For a budget variant, simply replace all armor pieces of Viper's with rare/exotic Ritualist's and all Grieving with rare/exotic Carrion.
• Ascended gear is always ideal, but exotic gear is fine for everything aside from higher-tier fractals.

Food, Utility and Relic

Piece	Name
Ascended Damage Food	Cilantro and Cured Meat Flatbread
Non-Ascended Damage Food	Plate of Beef Rendang
Ascended Survivability Food	Peppered Cured Meat Flatbread
Non-Ascended Survivability Food	Oysters Gnashblade
Damage Utility	Toxic Focusing Crystal
Survivability Utility	Potion Of Karka Toughness
Relic	Relic of the Fractal

Ascended Food is always ideal, but never required.

Default DPS Build

You can find my most recent rotation showcase here.

• The default specializations for damage are Fire, Arcane and of course Tempest.
• Fire is used on all iterations the same way. It is beneficial for both condi and strike damage, makes you apply more burning and makes burning have a longer duration. It also reduces the cooldown of fire weapon skills, so it fits to the build very well.
• Fire also increases the duration of fire fields you place, e.g. flamewall and grants you increased strike damage every time a fire field placed by you hits a foe. Since tempest deals a quite noticeable amount of strike damage even on the condi build, this is important.

Tier	Trait		Description
Minor Adept	Empowering Flame		Gain power while in fire attunement.
Major Adept	Burning Precision	5	Burning you inflict has increased duration and your critical hits gain a chance to inflict burning.
Minor Master	Sunspot		Gain a fire aura, and damage nearby foes when you attune to fire. Also triggers on overload skills.
Major Master	Burning Rage		Sunspot inflicts burning, and its radius is increased. Your condition damage is increased.
Minor Grandmaster	Pyromancer's Training		Your fire-weapon skills gain reduced recharge. Deal increased strike damage to burning foes.
Major Grandmaster	Persisting Flames		Fire fields created by weapon skills last longer. Whenever your fire fields hit a foe, gain increased strike damage for a duration.

• The second specialization for group content is arcane. You can also use earth for a very small dps loss, but with arcane your damage ramps up much faster, so I’d recommend going for arcane in groups.
• The concentration from this also increases your coverage of boons, which is a nice side-effect. With the traits of choice, arcane will further apply burning on critical hits every 3 seconds and on every hit of arcane skills. Remember that the grandmaster trait  Arcane Lightning triggers on every hit of   Arcane Power and the burning stacks applied by allies from it count for your damage. You can also precast   Arcane Power to have it ready faster after a fight starts, as it is NOT removed on combat start.

Tier	Trait		Description
Minor Adept	Arcane Prowess		Gain boons when you switch attunements.
Major Adept	Arcane Precision	3	Your critical strikes have a chance to inflict a condition based on your attunement.
Minor Master	Elemental Attunement		Grant a boon to nearby allies when changing attunements. Note: This effect will not trigger when attuning to the same element.
Major Master	Final Shielding		Cast Lesser Arcane Shield when you use an elite skill.
Minor Grandmaster	Elemental Enchantment		Gain concentration and your attunements gain reduced recharge.
Major Grandmaster	Arcane Lightning		Arcane skills grant increased ferocity and have additional effects.

• Tempest, the elite specialization of choice makes this spin-to-win. With the traits of choice, tempest makes overloads grant auras and protection, gives you you increased concentration and 10% more strike and condition damage for a time when applying an aura to an ally.
• Due to   Arcane Power is actually stronger on tempest, making it reduce incoming strike damage by a whopping 40%.

Tier	Trait		Description
Minor Adept	Singularity		Attain elemental singularity by remaining in an attunement for a period of time. Upon attaining singularity, you may overload the attunement to your vicinity. Gain access to Shouts.
Major Adept	Unstable Conduit		Overloads grant an aura based on your attunement.
Minor Master	Gathered Focus		Your concentration is increased. Gain additional concentration while above the health threshold.
Major Master	Tempestuous Aria		Using a shout grants allies might. Granting an aura to an ally increases your outgoing damage for a period of time.
Minor Grandmaster	Hardy Conduit		Overloads grant protection. Protection gains increased damage reduction.
Major Grandmaster	Transcendent Tempest		Time to attain singularity is reduced. Upon successfully completing an overload, gain increased damage.

Open World Build

For OW, it can make sense to make a build more forgiving, so that you can sustain on your own.

• The first major step to increase survivability is to use Earth instead of Arcane. We wont be swapping to earth very frequently, but the traits of choice make the build very tanky without affecting damage too much. I run earth in open world everywhere, even in harder metas like Dragon's End where damage matters. It natively decreases damage you take from nearby foes by 10% and all incoming strike damage by another 10%.

Tier	Trait		Description
Minor Adept	Stone Flesh		Strike damage taken is reduced while attuned to earth.
Major Adept	Elemental Shielding		Auras you grant to allies also grant protection.
Minor Master	Earthen Blast		Damage and cripple nearby foes when attuning to earth. Also triggers on overload skills.
Major Master	Strength of Stone	3	Gain condition damage based on your toughness. Inflict bleeding when you immobilize a foe. Bleeding can only occur on the same target once per interval.
Minor Grandmaster	Geomancer's Training		Strike damage from nearby foes is reduced. Earth weapon skills gain reduced recharge.
Major Grandmaster	Written in Stone		Signets continue to grant their passive bonuses while recharging. Gain an aura when you use a signet skill.

• Here, the two key traits are elemental shielding and  Written in Stone.  Written in Stone makes your signets keep their passive effects when they are on cooldown, and further grants you an aura upon activating one.
•  Elemental Shielding applies  Protection every time you grant an aura to yourself or allies. This way, applying auras is a simple way to maintain protection, massively increasing survivability.
• In case you need frequent condi cleanses,  Smothering Auras in fire is worth looking at. This cleanses conditions whenever you grant an aura to an ally, and transmuting one via focus 5 cleanses 2 conditions in an aoe around you. This costs some damage, but can make your life in some situations much easier!
• Finally, using  Harmonious Conduit gives you  Stability and  Swiftness on using an overload. This is good to prevent enemies from interrupting your overloads!
• If you want, you can also use  Elemental Bastion instead of  Transcendent Tempest. This will heal the target of any aura you apply, including yourself. It also gives a  Frost Aura in an area when you get hit below 75% health, giving you and allies another safety net.