Fire/Air Tempest Builds

[ChampionMasquerade.5283]

Are there any good skill/armor builds for an Elementalist that uses daggers in both hands and works best with Fire and Air skills? (I occasionally switch to water for healing purposes but Earth is just lost on me). Just to be clear, this is for Story Mode purposes, though if it works for PvP as well that’s helpful.

[ChampionMasquerade.5283]

I normally used armor with toughness to make up for the general weakness of the Elementalist class, but from what I can tell that’s not common (I’m guessing due to earth defense but I’ve never been able to make much sense of Earth skills.)

[steki.1478]

You can play dagger/warhorn fresh air tempest (find it on metabattle, might be with scepter there). Offhand dagger is pretty weak for pve and warhorn gives you great damage, heal as well as a strong blind field making you practically invulnerable against most mobs. Toughness is useless in a game where you can defend yourself with blinds, CC, reflects, evades, positioning etc etc. Earth spec is also useless for the most part (unless you play a condi build).

The "weakness" of ele is bypassed by killing mobs fast, not by stacking more defense and making your fights last a lot longer and by doing that, more riskier.

[ChampionMasquerade.5283]

@"steki.1478" said:You can play dagger/warhorn fresh air tempest (find it on metabattle, might be with scepter there). Offhand dagger is pretty weak for pve and warhorn gives you great damage, heal as well as a strong blind field making you practically invulnerable against most mobs. Toughness is useless in a game where you can defend yourself with blinds, CC, reflects, evades, positioning etc etc. Earth spec is also useless for the most part (unless you play a condi build).

The "weakness" of ele is bypassed by killing mobs fast, not by stacking more defense and making your fights last a lot longer and by doing that, more riskier.

That build looks, promising, though the gear’s not easy to get. Does the site have versions with non ascended equipment?

[ChampionMasquerade.5283]

@ChampionMasquerade.5283 said:

@"steki.1478" said:You can play dagger/warhorn fresh air tempest (find it on metabattle, might be with scepter there). Offhand dagger is pretty weak for pve and warhorn gives you great damage, heal as well as a strong blind field making you practically invulnerable against most mobs. Toughness is useless in a game where you can defend yourself with blinds, CC, reflects, evades, positioning etc etc. Earth spec is also useless for the most part (unless you play a condi build).

The "weakness" of ele is bypassed by killing mobs fast, not by stacking more defense and making your fights last a lot longer and by doing that, more riskier.

That build looks, promising, though the gear’s not easy to get. Does the site have versions with non ascended equipment?

On a different note though, I’m more used to Fire than I am Air, so I’m not sure if I’d excel in an Air centric build.

[ChampionMasquerade.5283]

@"steki.1478" said:You can play dagger/warhorn fresh air tempest (find it on metabattle, might be with scepter there). Offhand dagger is pretty weak for pve and warhorn gives you great damage, heal as well as a strong blind field making you practically invulnerable against most mobs. Toughness is useless in a game where you can defend yourself with blinds, CC, reflects, evades, positioning etc etc. Earth spec is also useless for the most part (unless you play a condi build).

The "weakness" of ele is bypassed by killing mobs fast, not by stacking more defense and making your fights last a lot longer and by doing that, more riskier.Yeah, after testing out the build, I’m not quite able to keep up with the constant attunement switch.

[AliamRationem.5172]

@"steki.1478" said:You can play dagger/warhorn fresh air tempest (find it on metabattle, might be with scepter there). Offhand dagger is pretty weak for pve and warhorn gives you great damage, heal as well as a strong blind field making you practically invulnerable against most mobs. Toughness is useless in a game where you can defend yourself with blinds, CC, reflects, evades, positioning etc etc. Earth spec is also useless for the most part (unless you play a condi build).

The "weakness" of ele is bypassed by killing mobs fast, not by stacking more defense and making your fights last a lot longer and by doing that, more riskier.

That depends on the build. Some condi builds can actually deal solid damage while also being extremely tanky. Also, extra passive defense stats allow you to play more aggressively, compensating for the damage loss to some degree.

I have videos up on my channel that demonstrate this. For example, my Mirage mushroom queen test videos. I was able to complete that challenge in 2:33 using Viper, but in Trailblazer I completed it in 1:29. The fight was just far more difficult with Viper and the power/precision on that set doesn't add all that much damage to a condi build. Being able to shrug off hits and stick to melee range with sharper rotations resulted in much better damage using the tankier set.

Fire weaver is the same way. I can solo champion avatar of Balthazar in under 60 seconds running full trailblazer. I doubt I could even survive that challenge running a glass build. Some builds just work better with passive defense included, and it's a no-brainer if you can still deal great damage!

[Lillbryschan.3281]

@ChampionMasquerade.5283 said:

@"steki.1478" said:You can play dagger/warhorn fresh air tempest (find it on metabattle, might be with scepter there). Offhand dagger is pretty weak for pve and warhorn gives you great damage, heal as well as a strong blind field making you practically invulnerable against most mobs. Toughness is useless in a game where you can defend yourself with blinds, CC, reflects, evades, positioning etc etc. Earth spec is also useless for the most part (unless you play a condi build).

The "weakness" of ele is bypassed by killing mobs fast, not by stacking more defense and making your fights last a lot longer and by doing that, more riskier.Yeah, after testing out the build, I’m not quite able to keep up with the constant attunement switch.

You could try something like this. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgEgEWmArhdx2Yk4Itk12A-zRJYiRDfZURBkeCoyA-eYou can run all exotics if you don't have ascended marauder. The runes and sigils are pretty much optional, as well as the utility skills. You can also swap Tempest traits 3-2-1 for Tempest traits 3-3-3 for even more sustain. The build allows you to pretty much stay in Fire Attunement all the time, however, all attunements have strong skills especially Air 5 has crazy damage.You can overload fire, press fire 4, swap to water, press water 3, swap to earth and press earth 4 for almost instant 25 might.

[steki.1478]

@ChampionMasquerade.5283 said:

@ChampionMasquerade.5283 said:

@"steki.1478" said:You can play dagger/warhorn fresh air tempest (find it on metabattle, might be with scepter there). Offhand dagger is pretty weak for pve and warhorn gives you great damage, heal as well as a strong blind field making you practically invulnerable against most mobs. Toughness is useless in a game where you can defend yourself with blinds, CC, reflects, evades, positioning etc etc. Earth spec is also useless for the most part (unless you play a condi build).

The "weakness" of ele is bypassed by killing mobs fast, not by stacking more defense and making your fights last a lot longer and by doing that, more riskier.

That build looks, promising, though the gear’s not easy to get. Does the site have versions with non ascended equipment?

On a different note though, I’m more used to Fire than I am Air, so I’m not sure if I’d excel in an Air centric build.

All builds that you ever see will be in ascended, but that doesnt mean that you should copy paste the whole build (unless you're playing raids/fractals). You can run exotics, but with same gear stats as well as some different utilities (if conjureds are too hard to use for you).

I also dont understand your logic behind camping fire instead of camping air when it's just pressing a different F skill. Power tempest excels with air skills, especially overload with fresh air trait. Rotation couldnt be much easier, you use air damaging skills, you overload, you swap to fire for its burst, you go back and repeat (if fire is on cooldown you go earth or even water).

Air attunement gives you more damage on overload (vulnerability), better range for kiting enemies while overloading and a stronger autoattack. Fire skills are mostly good for their burst, their sustained damage isnt as good as air and they provide no utility. If you want to camp fire you can use the burn tempest build, it's still pretty bursty due to nature of burning condition and it's great in group events because it provides a lot of might and fury for allies.

[ChampionMasquerade.5283]

@steki.1478 said:

@ChampionMasquerade.5283 said:

@ChampionMasquerade.5283 said:

@steki.1478 said:You can play dagger/warhorn fresh air tempest (find it on metabattle, might be with scepter there). Offhand dagger is pretty weak for pve and warhorn gives you great damage, heal as well as a strong blind field making you practically invulnerable against most mobs. Toughness is useless in a game where you can defend yourself with blinds, CC, reflects, evades, positioning etc etc. Earth spec is also useless for the most part (unless you play a condi build).

The "weakness" of ele is bypassed by killing mobs fast, not by stacking more defense and making your fights last a lot longer and by doing that, more riskier.

That build looks, promising, though the gear’s not easy to get. Does the site have versions with non ascended equipment?

On a different note though, I’m more used to Fire than I am Air, so I’m not sure if I’d excel in an Air centric build.

All builds that you ever see will be in ascended, but that doesnt mean that you should copy paste the whole build (unless you're playing raids/fractals). You can run exotics, but with same gear stats as well as some different utilities (if conjureds are too hard to use for you).

I also dont understand your logic behind camping fire instead of camping air when it's just pressing a different F skill. Power tempest excels with air skills, especially overload with fresh air trait. Rotation couldnt be much easier, you use air damaging skills, you overload, you swap to fire for its burst, you go back and repeat (if fire is on cooldown you go earth or even water).

Air attunement gives you more damage on overload (vulnerability), better range for kiting enemies while overloading and a stronger autoattack. Fire skills are mostly good for their burst, their sustained damage isnt as good as air and they provide no utility. If you want to camp fire you can use the burn tempest build, it's still pretty bursty due to nature of burning condition and it's great in group events because it provides a lot of might and fury for allies.

Sounds good to me, is this the correct build or did I find the wrong one? https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Tempest_-_Burning_Auramancer

[ChampionMasquerade.5283]

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@"steki.1478" said:You can play dagger/warhorn fresh air tempest (find it on metabattle, might be with scepter there). Offhand dagger is pretty weak for pve and warhorn gives you great damage, heal as well as a strong blind field making you practically invulnerable against most mobs. Toughness is useless in a game where you can defend yourself with blinds, CC, reflects, evades, positioning etc etc. Earth spec is also useless for the most part (unless you play a condi build).

The "weakness" of ele is bypassed by killing mobs fast, not by stacking more defense and making your fights last a lot longer and by doing that, more riskier.

That depends on the build. Some condi builds can actually deal solid damage while also being extremely tanky. Also, extra passive defense stats allow you to play more aggressively, compensating for the damage loss to some degree.

I have videos up on my channel that demonstrate this. For example, my Mirage mushroom queen test videos. I was able to complete that challenge in 2:33 using Viper, but in Trailblazer I completed it in 1:29. The fight was just far more difficult with Viper and the power/precision on that set doesn't add all that much damage to a condi build. Being able to shrug off hits and stick to melee range with sharper rotations resulted in much better damage using the tankier set.

Fire weaver is the same way. I can solo champion avatar of Balthazar in under 60 seconds running full trailblazer. I doubt I could even survive that challenge running a glass build. Some builds just work better with passive defense included, and it's a no-brainer if you can still deal great damage!

Do you mind linking the video with the Trailblazer set?

[AliamRationem.5172]

@ChampionMasquerade.5283 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@"steki.1478" said:You can play dagger/warhorn fresh air tempest (find it on metabattle, might be with scepter there). Offhand dagger is pretty weak for pve and warhorn gives you great damage, heal as well as a strong blind field making you practically invulnerable against most mobs. Toughness is useless in a game where you can defend yourself with blinds, CC, reflects, evades, positioning etc etc. Earth spec is also useless for the most part (unless you play a condi build).

The "weakness" of ele is bypassed by killing mobs fast, not by stacking more defense and making your fights last a lot longer and by doing that, more riskier.

That depends on the build. Some condi builds can actually deal solid damage while also being extremely tanky. Also, extra passive defense stats allow you to play more aggressively, compensating for the damage loss to some degree.

I have videos up on my channel that demonstrate this. For example, my Mirage mushroom queen test videos. I was able to complete that challenge in 2:33 using Viper, but in Trailblazer I completed it in 1:29. The fight was just far more difficult with Viper and the power/precision on that set doesn't add all that much damage to a condi build. Being able to shrug off hits and stick to melee range with sharper rotations resulted in much better damage using the tankier set.

Fire weaver is the same way. I can solo champion avatar of Balthazar in under 60 seconds running full trailblazer. I doubt I could even survive that challenge running a glass build. Some builds just work better with passive defense included, and it's a no-brainer if you can still deal great damage!

Do you mind linking the video with the Trailblazer set?

Sure. Here's a 1:10 solo kill I uploaded a couple of months ago, but I am probably using a slightly different build now. The core concept is the same, though. I can beat every HoT champ with this build and most of them in around 1 minute. Only mushroom queen takes a little longer because having no ranged option against her is a real pain! But we're talking more like 1.5-2.5 minutes there (haven't tested that one in awhile), still pretty decent.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAw2lZwmYXMJmJOKXZvaA-zRJYkRDfZkTCkZB4wsUl0G-e

[Jski.6180]

Maybe a spcter for spvp you just cant run melee glass ele vs humans.

[ChampionMasquerade.5283]

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@ChampionMasquerade.5283 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@"steki.1478" said:You can play dagger/warhorn fresh air tempest (find it on metabattle, might be with scepter there). Offhand dagger is pretty weak for pve and warhorn gives you great damage, heal as well as a strong blind field making you practically invulnerable against most mobs. Toughness is useless in a game where you can defend yourself with blinds, CC, reflects, evades, positioning etc etc. Earth spec is also useless for the most part (unless you play a condi build).

The "weakness" of ele is bypassed by killing mobs fast, not by stacking more defense and making your fights last a lot longer and by doing that, more riskier.

That depends on the build. Some condi builds can actually deal solid damage while also being extremely tanky. Also, extra passive defense stats allow you to play more aggressively, compensating for the damage loss to some degree.

I have videos up on my channel that demonstrate this. For example, my Mirage mushroom queen test videos. I was able to complete that challenge in 2:33 using Viper, but in Trailblazer I completed it in 1:29. The fight was just far more difficult with Viper and the power/precision on that set doesn't add all that much damage to a condi build. Being able to shrug off hits and stick to melee range with sharper rotations resulted in much better damage using the tankier set.

Fire weaver is the same way. I can solo champion avatar of Balthazar in under 60 seconds running full trailblazer. I doubt I could even survive that challenge running a glass build. Some builds just work better with passive defense included, and it's a no-brainer if you can still deal great damage!

Do you mind linking the video with the Trailblazer set?

Sure. Here's a 1:10 solo kill I uploaded a couple of months ago, but I am probably using a slightly different build now. The core concept is the same, though. I can beat every HoT champ with this build and most of them in around 1 minute. Only mushroom queen takes a little longer because having no ranged option against her is a real pain! But we're talking more like 1.5-2.5 minutes there (haven't tested that one in awhile), still pretty decent.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAw2lZwmYXMJmJOKXZvaA-zRJYkRDfZkTCkZB4wsUl0G-e

I'm gonna need to acquire some more exotic gear and set it to Trailblazers then. So the burning does most of the damage here due to lack of power? Also, does this still work for Tempest instead of Weaver? (Also, do non ascended Trailblazer items not include expertise?)

[steki.1478]

@ChampionMasquerade.5283 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@ChampionMasquerade.5283 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@"steki.1478" said:You can play dagger/warhorn fresh air tempest (find it on metabattle, might be with scepter there). Offhand dagger is pretty weak for pve and warhorn gives you great damage, heal as well as a strong blind field making you practically invulnerable against most mobs. Toughness is useless in a game where you can defend yourself with blinds, CC, reflects, evades, positioning etc etc. Earth spec is also useless for the most part (unless you play a condi build).

The "weakness" of ele is bypassed by killing mobs fast, not by stacking more defense and making your fights last a lot longer and by doing that, more riskier.

That depends on the build. Some condi builds can actually deal solid damage while also being extremely tanky. Also, extra passive defense stats allow you to play more aggressively, compensating for the damage loss to some degree.

I have videos up on my channel that demonstrate this. For example, my Mirage mushroom queen test videos. I was able to complete that challenge in 2:33 using Viper, but in Trailblazer I completed it in 1:29. The fight was just far more difficult with Viper and the power/precision on that set doesn't add all that much damage to a condi build. Being able to shrug off hits and stick to melee range with sharper rotations resulted in much better damage using the tankier set.

Fire weaver is the same way. I can solo champion avatar of Balthazar in under 60 seconds running full trailblazer. I doubt I could even survive that challenge running a glass build. Some builds just work better with passive defense included, and it's a no-brainer if you can still deal great damage!

Do you mind linking the video with the Trailblazer set?

Sure. Here's a 1:10 solo kill I uploaded a couple of months ago, but I am probably using a slightly different build now. The core concept is the same, though. I can beat every HoT champ with this build and most of them in around 1 minute. Only mushroom queen takes a little longer because having no ranged option against her is a real pain! But we're talking more like 1.5-2.5 minutes there (haven't tested that one in awhile), still pretty decent.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAw2lZwmYXMJmJOKXZvaA-zRJYkRDfZkTCkZB4wsUl0G-e

I'm gonna need to acquire some more exotic gear and set it to Trailblazers then. So the burning does most of the damage here due to lack of power? Also, does this still work for Tempest instead of Weaver? (Also, do non ascended Trailblazer items not include expertise?)

Burning is the main damage, any build with at least 1 offensive stat will work on every class in open world and stat names give same stats regardless of gear quality.

[AliamRationem.5172]

@ChampionMasquerade.5283 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@ChampionMasquerade.5283 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@"steki.1478" said:You can play dagger/warhorn fresh air tempest (find it on metabattle, might be with scepter there). Offhand dagger is pretty weak for pve and warhorn gives you great damage, heal as well as a strong blind field making you practically invulnerable against most mobs. Toughness is useless in a game where you can defend yourself with blinds, CC, reflects, evades, positioning etc etc. Earth spec is also useless for the most part (unless you play a condi build).

The "weakness" of ele is bypassed by killing mobs fast, not by stacking more defense and making your fights last a lot longer and by doing that, more riskier.

That depends on the build. Some condi builds can actually deal solid damage while also being extremely tanky. Also, extra passive defense stats allow you to play more aggressively, compensating for the damage loss to some degree.

I have videos up on my channel that demonstrate this. For example, my Mirage mushroom queen test videos. I was able to complete that challenge in 2:33 using Viper, but in Trailblazer I completed it in 1:29. The fight was just far more difficult with Viper and the power/precision on that set doesn't add all that much damage to a condi build. Being able to shrug off hits and stick to melee range with sharper rotations resulted in much better damage using the tankier set.

Fire weaver is the same way. I can solo champion avatar of Balthazar in under 60 seconds running full trailblazer. I doubt I could even survive that challenge running a glass build. Some builds just work better with passive defense included, and it's a no-brainer if you can still deal great damage!

Do you mind linking the video with the Trailblazer set?

Sure. Here's a 1:10 solo kill I uploaded a couple of months ago, but I am probably using a slightly different build now. The core concept is the same, though. I can beat every HoT champ with this build and most of them in around 1 minute. Only mushroom queen takes a little longer because having no ranged option against her is a real pain! But we're talking more like 1.5-2.5 minutes there (haven't tested that one in awhile), still pretty decent.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAw2lZwmYXMJmJOKXZvaA-zRJYkRDfZkTCkZB4wsUl0G-e

I'm gonna need to acquire some more exotic gear and set it to Trailblazers then. So the burning does most of the damage here due to lack of power? Also, does this still work for Tempest instead of Weaver? (Also, do non ascended Trailblazer items not include expertise?)

I need to amend my recommendation here a bit. I wasn't thinking and I shared the build I use, which is not optimized for open world but is just a lazy adaptation of my WvW roaming build. In other words, I don't care enough about the extra stats in open world to bother switching my gear to the optimal setup (even though I have legendary gear and it wouldn't be a huge inconvenience! How bad is that?). But since I'm giving you advice, I should probably give you the best advice I can!

Okay, so what am I on about? The issue is condition duration. In WvW I take Bolstered Elements instead of Weaver's Prowess. I also run speed runes instead of balthazar runes. This results in a 70% burn duration swing between my open world and WvW setups with this build. Since condi duration from expertise and other sources is capped at +100%, all additional expertise stat is wasted. So, Dire is a better choice than Trailblazer and MUCH cheaper besides!

So, with that in mind, here is my new recommendation:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAw2lZwmYXMJmJOKXZvaA-zxIU8ohvQYjzJBysAcYWWUaD-e

You will come up a few percentage points short of max burn duration here (remember weaver's prowess is +20% but doesn't show in the sidebar stats because the buff is only present in combat!). You could get some trailblazer to max it out, but you won't even notice a difference either way.

[ChampionMasquerade.5283]

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@ChampionMasquerade.5283 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@ChampionMasquerade.5283 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@"steki.1478" said:You can play dagger/warhorn fresh air tempest (find it on metabattle, might be with scepter there). Offhand dagger is pretty weak for pve and warhorn gives you great damage, heal as well as a strong blind field making you practically invulnerable against most mobs. Toughness is useless in a game where you can defend yourself with blinds, CC, reflects, evades, positioning etc etc. Earth spec is also useless for the most part (unless you play a condi build).

The "weakness" of ele is bypassed by killing mobs fast, not by stacking more defense and making your fights last a lot longer and by doing that, more riskier.

That depends on the build. Some condi builds can actually deal solid damage while also being extremely tanky. Also, extra passive defense stats allow you to play more aggressively, compensating for the damage loss to some degree.

I have videos up on my channel that demonstrate this. For example, my Mirage mushroom queen test videos. I was able to complete that challenge in 2:33 using Viper, but in Trailblazer I completed it in 1:29. The fight was just far more difficult with Viper and the power/precision on that set doesn't add all that much damage to a condi build. Being able to shrug off hits and stick to melee range with sharper rotations resulted in much better damage using the tankier set.

Fire weaver is the same way. I can solo champion avatar of Balthazar in under 60 seconds running full trailblazer. I doubt I could even survive that challenge running a glass build. Some builds just work better with passive defense included, and it's a no-brainer if you can still deal great damage!

Do you mind linking the video with the Trailblazer set?

Sure. Here's a 1:10 solo kill I uploaded a couple of months ago, but I am probably using a slightly different build now. The core concept is the same, though. I can beat every HoT champ with this build and most of them in around 1 minute. Only mushroom queen takes a little longer because having no ranged option against her is a real pain! But we're talking more like 1.5-2.5 minutes there (haven't tested that one in awhile), still pretty decent.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAw2lZwmYXMJmJOKXZvaA-zRJYkRDfZkTCkZB4wsUl0G-e

I'm gonna need to acquire some more exotic gear and set it to Trailblazers then. So the burning does most of the damage here due to lack of power? Also, does this still work for Tempest instead of Weaver? (Also, do non ascended Trailblazer items not include expertise?)

I need to amend my recommendation here a bit. I wasn't thinking and I shared the build I use, which is not optimized for open world but is just a lazy adaptation of my WvW roaming build. In other words, I don't care enough about the extra stats in open world to bother switching my gear to the optimal setup (even though I have legendary gear and it wouldn't be a huge inconvenience! How bad is that?). But since I'm giving you advice, I should probably give you the best advice I can!

Okay, so what am I on about? The issue is condition duration. In WvW I take Bolstered Elements instead of Weaver's Prowess. I also run speed runes instead of balthazar runes. This results in a 70% burn duration swing between my open world and WvW setups with this build. Since condi duration from expertise and other sources is capped at +100%, all additional expertise stat is wasted. So, Dire is a better choice than Trailblazer and MUCH cheaper besides!

So, with that in mind, here is my new recommendation:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAw2lZwmYXMJmJOKXZvaA-zxIU8ohvQYjzJBysAcYWWUaD-e

You will come up a few percentage points short of max burn duration here (remember weaver's prowess is +20% but doesn't show in the sidebar stats because the buff is only present in combat!). You could get some trailblazer to max it out, but you won't even notice a difference either way.

It’s a good thing Dire is a better option since I think the ring I bought is Dire anyway. Thank you for all the help, you really went in depth!