User:Masel/Builds/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
Difficulty	1/5

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

Skill Type	Skills
Overloads
Fire Attunement
Utility 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)

Skill Choice	Notes
Arcane Brilliance	This 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
Arcane Power	This will make yourself and allies apply burning. It can be precast
Glyph of Lesser Elementals	Precast as many elementals as possible for a faster damage rampup!
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 (30% overall condition 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 that includes 70 Expertise.

Gear

Armor	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
Trinket	Prefix
Amulet	Grieving
Ring 1	Grieving
Ring 2	Viper's
Accessory 1	Viper's
Accessory 2	Viper's
Backpack	Viper's
Weapon	Prefix	Sigil
Scepter (Main Hand)	Grieving	Superior Sigil of Earth
Focus (Off Hand)	Viper's	Superior Sigil of Bursting
Warhorn (Off Hand)	Ritualist's	Superior Sigil of Concentration
Purpose	Item Type	Source
Damage	Ascended Food	Cilantro and Cured Meat Flatbread
Damage	Non-Ascended Food	Plate of Beef Rendang
Survivability	Ascended Food	Peppered Cured Meat Flatbread
Survivability	Non-Ascended Food	Oysters Gnashblade
Damage	Utility	Toxic Focusing Crystal
Survivability	Utility	Potion Of Karka Toughness
Damage	Relic	Relic of the Fractal

• 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.
• Ascended Food is always ideal, but never required.

Traits

Fire
Arcane
Tempest

• The default specializations for damage are Fire, Arcane and of course Tempest.

Fire

• 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.

Arcane

• 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.

Tempest

• 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  Hardy Conduit,  Protection is actually stronger on tempest, making it reduce incoming strike damage by a whopping ~40%.

DPS Rotation Showcase

You can find my most recent rotation showcase here.

Open World Build

You can find my most recent open world build showcase here.

Increasing General Survivability

• 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%.

Earth

• 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.
• Through this, every utility skill i chose applies an aura, either only to yourself (signets) or even on allies around you (shouts).

Utility Skills (Open World)

Skill Choice	Notes
Signet of Restoration	This heals you for every skill you cast, including instant casts. This leads to a quite nice amount of passive healing. You can also activate it for another heal without losing the passive healing. It will also apply a frost aura, reducing damage you take by 10% for 4 seconds.
Signet of Fire	BIG DAMAGE and Fire Aura in Open World)
"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.
"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

• 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.

Boon Coverage

•   Overload Fire,   "Feel the Burn!",   "Aftershock!" and all Fire Auras will cover  Might.
•  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.
• To cover more boons, make use of   Jade Tech Offensive Overcharge and   Jade Tech Defensive Overcharge.
• These give for 150 additional Toughness, Vitality, Condition Damage and Power as well as all boons aside from  Stability,  Resistance and  Resolution on entering combat. These effects can be pre-stacked by using an Enchanted Snow Diamond Tonic repeatedly when out of combat. The  Quickness and  Alacrity from this increases damage noticeably!
• In story instances (or if you don't want the hassle of reapplying protocols), you can abuse the synergy between Relic of the Cavalier and   Blast from the Skyscale to apply lots of  Aegis,  Resistance,  Might and  Quickness to yourself. It does not have an internal cooldown and applies the boons on every hit of   Blast.

Dealing with Conditions and Control effects

• 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!