The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great
Focused on: Healing,Support and Utility
Designed for: Raids
Expansions required:
Difficulty:
Normal
This build was last updated on June 28, 2024 and is up to date for the March 19, 2024 patch.
Contents
- 1 Overview
- 2 Skill Bar
- 2.1 Weapon Variants
- 2.2 Skill Variants
- 3 Template Code
- 4 Specializations
- 4.1 Trait Variants
- 4.2 Specialization Variants
- 5 Equipment
- 5.1 Equipment Variants
- 6 Consumables
- 7 Usage
- 7.1 Opener
- 7.2 Main rotation
- 7.3 Staff Rotation
- 7.4 Healing
- 7.5 Damage
- 7.6 Crowd control
Overview
Tempest is capable of providing permanent uptime of Alacrity,
Fury,
Might,
Protection,
Regeneration,
Swiftness and high
Vigor on their subgroup, along with a lot of healing.
The need to constantly switch attunements makes the rotation quite rigid, so it has to rely on utility skills for reactive healing, and its reliance on being close to the squad for boons makes it a poor kiter. On the plus side, you gain "Rebound!" which will allow you to skip certain mechanics that would otherwise down the group, and
Arcane Resurrection allows you to help revive players without locking yourself into the animation.
Skill Bar
Dagger/Warhorn
Utility
Weapon Variants
- Staff has greater healing potential, but the lack of Warhorn creates a shortfall in boons that needs to be addressed.
- Sceptre can be used instead of Dagger if you need to be at range, but you will lose significant healing from
Cone of Cold.
Skill Variants
Utility
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.
"Feel the Burn!" provides long-range
Might to make up for the small AoE of
Overload Fire. Any of these skills can be swapped out if desired:
- If using
Relic of Karakosa,
Arcane Wave provides some extra on-demand healing (assuming there is a field to combo with).
- Most utility shout skills provide a number of boons thanks to
Invigorating Torrents, so it is important to keep at least one on your bar, but you can bring more if desired.
"Aftershock!" provides
Aegis and a blast finisher if using
Relic of Karakosa.
"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. It also offers some extra
Stability, which may be useful during
Overload Fire as you don't use
Harmonious Conduit and being interrupted mid-cast will cause you to drop
Alacrity.
"Flash-Freeze!" is your only reliable way to access Frost Aura, which can be a potent defensive tool against attacks that cannot be blocked with
"Aftershock!".
Elite "Rebound!" provides a way to skip certain mechanics that would otherwise down the group.
Template Code
[&DQYROiUXMC7HEscSBQF2Eo8AjwB0EnQSJgCZEgAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADLwBnAFkAAA==]
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Specializations
Trait Variants
Stop, Drop, and Roll on encounters with a lot of
Burning or
Chilled.
Powerful Aura, in combination with the Fire variant below, can be used for extreme condition removal.
Unstable Conduit could be used in combination for even more auras.
Gale Song for easier
Protection uptime.
Tempestuous Aria will let you build
Might up faster, but you lose the ability to provide permanent uptime of
Vigor for the squad.
Specialization Variants
Arcane is chosen as a default traitline as the lower cooldowns on attunement swapping and overloads allows you to be more flexible with your rotation, and the extra Protection from
Elemental Attunement means you don't need to rely on
"Aftershock!" to make it permanent.
Arcane Resurrection is a nice bonus.
This said, Arcane is a rather unimpressive traitline, so it can be freely swapped to another traitline:
- Fire and Earth add a lot of potential condi cleanse via
Smothering Auras and
Diamond Skin, respectively. They both provide a comparable amount of condi cleanse, but Earth doesn't require you change other traits and has more synergy with the rest of a healer's kit.
- Air offers higher CC.
Earth
Rock Solid provides
Stability, which can be problematic on encoutners that corrupt boons. In this case take
Earthen Blessing instead.
Equipment
Head
Harrier
Shoulders
Harrier
Chest
Harrier
Hands
Harrier
Legs
Harrier
Feet
Harrier
Backpiece
Magi
Accessory
Magi
Accessory
Magi
Dagger
Harrier
Warhorn
Harrier
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
x6
Infusion
x16
Infusion
x2
Relic
Equipment Variants
Relic of the Monk is the best option for players that don't own Secrets of the Obscure.
- The gear above is designed to cap boon duration when using +70 concentration food.
Sigil of Superior Sigil of Renewal and
Sigil of Superior Sigil of Water offer nearly identical healing. Water was chosen as it is cheaper and heals more frequently.
Consumables
Food
- as a cheaper alternative
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 Air Attunement
Convergence to blast
Swap to Water Attunement
Frozen Burst to blast more
Might
Tidal Surge
Cone of Cold and swap during the cast
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,
Air 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. While in
Air Attunement you can use
Cyclone for extra
Swiftness or CC.
The blast finisher from Convergence is slightly delayed, so it is possible to cast it then switch to Water and use
Frozen Burst before the blast hits, getting two comboes.
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.
Staff Rotation
The main selling point of Staff is the amount of long-range healing it can provide while in Water Attunement, so it is worth camping this attunement for most of the loop.
Overload Water does not quite provide enough
Alacrity to make it permanent, so it is necessary to regularly swap to
Fire Attunement for a second overload and
Might.
As it also lacks the utility of Warhorn, "Feel the Burn!" is essential as you otherwise lack
Fury, and your
Might would be less reliable.
Be aware that the boon radius for Might on
Overload Fire is only 180, so significant
Might uptime will be lost if you're not stacked tightly on your group. This can be somewhat mitigated by bringing extra blast finishers and comboing with fire fields, or using
Glyph of Lesser Elementals in
Fire Attunement (or swapping to a Warhorn build).
Opener
Start in Fire Attunement
Overload Fire to start stacking
Might
"Feel the Burn!"
Swap to Earth Attunement
Eruption for the blast finisher
Swap to Air Attunement
Windborne Speed for
Swiftness
Swap to Water Attunement
Ice Spike quickly to squeeze in another blast finisher
Rest of the Rotation
While in Water Attunement you can autoattack and use
Geyser for group healing.
Ice Spike is a blast finisher on a low cooldown, and your skills 3-5 all provide combo fields, and
Healing Rain provides AoE condi cleanse. Use
Overload Water as soon as you can, but don't swap attunement immediately. A good rule of thumb is to use
Ice Spike three times while you're in Water. Use a combo field as one of your last skills, then swap to
Earth Attunement for
Eruption, then
Fire Attunement. None of the skills in fire are particularly useful, so just use
Overload Fire as soon as you can and repeat the Opener.
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 Blast and
Geyser on staff.
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
- If using
Relic of Karakosa,
Arcane Wave is an instant-cast blast finisher, and thanks to it having two charges, it can be provide a lot of burst healing if used in quick succession.
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 rotationsIf 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.
VulnerabilityIf 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.