Semi-economical Tempest Burn Build?

[Jenny.4831]

Hello everyone,

In my continuing saga of Elementalist vs Mesmer that I thought I had come to a decision on, I've been thinking about switching over to a condi build with improved tankiness to deal with my lack of being awesome at this game and squishiness issues.

Now, I do not have access to Plague Doctor or Trailblazer at this time and Viper doesn't have any defensive stats.

Due to my own preferences, at least until I get the hang of Weaver if I ever do, this build is Fire/Arcane/Tempest (which in itself may not be optimal, I merely copied the Burn Weaver link someone gave me and replaced Weaver with Tempest and then altered the equipment to things I have or have access to.)

What I do have that might be somewhat useful are the Cele trinkets. I saw Dire insignias on the TP the other day so I could buy and craft exotic of that along with weapons. Sigils and Runes are easily enough as well.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGxEsEmpMCmCbh1wIxR5artB-zxQYVFCE9xT6aFSOhSvJQHVhDDA-e

Here's something I am not sure of. Base build I have 70% burn duration. I threw in a 5% condi damage sigil but would it be better with a 20% burn duration one instead?

Also, because an Ele can't change weapons in combat and the sigil of cleansing or energy specifically state combat, are they useless to an Ele or does changing attunements count as a weapon swap?

Thank you for any help, insight, flames, whatever, you can provide,

Jenny :)

[Lillbryschan.3281]

Yes. Swapping attunements counts as weapon swap so, in my opinion, those sigils are even more fulfilling on ele than for other professions. Not sure if they trigger on overloads though, but that should be easy enough to test.

Not sure if your talking about PvE or WvW. You have a strong cleanse in Fire traitline; Smothering auras. Giving up the Sunspot trait though. I’m currently experimenting with some Condi builds in PvE, both Tempest and Weaver, in which I currently run Fire 1-2-2 Earth 2-1-2. In earth there’s also a nice cleanse trait in the grandmaster line; Diamond skin. Because of this, I don’t need any cleansing sigil, being able to run some damaging sigil instead. I’d go with the burn sigil in your case.

[Jenny.4831]

Thank you,

This is primarily for open world and story. Maybe fractals and raids if my guildmates don't mind me tagging along, not that I want to be a burden. I've never really liked PvP in games like this and haven't even tried it in this game. I'm only level 9 in WvW and haven't even finished the Warclaw, so I haven't done much there either.

[steki.1478]

This is an extremely weak build to be honest.

• For a burn focused build, you lack a lot of burns : fire signet, glyph of power, glyph of storms. Those 3 on themselves provide more damage in 10-20 seconds than your whole build here in a minute.
• Arcane is pointless if you dont swap attunements (and you generally dont want that on burn tempest because 95% of your damage comes from fire attunement as well as overload) as well as if there's no people around (where you can share traited arcane power to share aoe burns with). Earth provides more damage and better defense for such build while also scaling great with your toughness.
• Pyromancer puissance is generally not worth it because you'll swim in might already from fire overload, aura, blasts and heat sync. What you dont have is fury which you can get from other GM trait (which can even secure your rally when you get downed if you used viper/grieving gear).
• Healing power is worthless stat here. You dont even have sustain on this build and wash the pain away with healing power has lower healing than glyph with no healing power (which also gives you might) on same cooldown. Protection from tempest overloads, vita+toughness from gear (as well as extra toughness from earth) is already too much defense for open world where you barely even need defense (sand storm is also great if there's too many mobs). You already have a pet to tank for you as well as range to freely kite stronger enemies while your overload is on cd so there's no need to even stack this amount of defense. If you're not fighting tough enemies (and for the most pve you're not), you'll rally practically always because you'll have strong burns, but in order to have strong burns you need to do what I mentioned above.

[Downstate.4697]

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGxEgEmpMB2Eji1wIxRexstB-zxQYVFCE9xVyaKgCJnQp3EojowhB-e

Give this a shot. Dagger warhorn will give you much more aoe burn.

[Jenny.4831]

Thank you for your responses, you all have definitely given me some things to think about. Still not sure what I was thinking trying to use the same utilities as my marauder tempest. I never even looked at the other ones, let alone those that would be more useful for a burning build.

The Cele trinks were simply because those are what I have along with Zerker ones. Neither would be ideal for this though.

Would 2400 defense be enough to give me a sense of tankiness/survivability (given my limited skills at this game) or will I need closer to 2800 or so? The reason I ask, and assuming power would help this at all, is instead of Dire or Cele trinks, I could get Carrion ones for the condi, vitality and power rather than stack toughness through the roof. While I want to live without having to play perfectly, I'd like for things to die in a reasonable time frame too.

I suspect I'm a couple million HoT xp away from getting the language thing I would need for Trailblazer.

Not sure what happened to the burn duration I thought I had. Balthazar's used to do 50% I thought but now it's showing 36%. A nerf I suppose that hadn't made it into the build template until some time today. Do I even want 100% burn duration? Without expertise gear, I think I can squeeze out 86% with a fire trait, +20% burn duration sigil and +10% all condi duration sigil. Potentially handicaps me in other ways so I don't know.

Thanks again,

Jenny

[Infusion.7149]

When I saw 2600+ armor level I thought it was a WvW build , especially due to condi focus.You shouldn't surpass 2271 armor in PVE because you pick up aggro from heavy classes such a firebrand or renegade.Your best bet for economical is grieving armor + enough viper trinkets (do Bjora marches/Dragonfall to get Living Story season 4 accessory+ring+amulet) + smoldering sigil to hit 100% burn duration. If you're having issues surviving then maybe run some carrion pieces for vitality.

For most people power elementalist is better because you don't have to deal with condition ramp time. (Fresh air tempest or sword weaver.) Marauder pieces don't force you to get toughness either.

edit: also if you're tempest it generally it is run with air traitline for power ; fire+earth traitline for condition damage

[steki.1478]

@Jenny.4831 said:Thank you for your responses, you all have definitely given me some things to think about. Still not sure what I was thinking trying to use the same utilities as my marauder tempest. I never even looked at the other ones, let alone those that would be more useful for a burning build.

The Cele trinks were simply because those are what I have along with Zerker ones. Neither would be ideal for this though.

Would 2400 defense be enough to give me a sense of tankiness/survivability (given my limited skills at this game) or will I need closer to 2800 or so? The reason I ask, and assuming power would help this at all, is instead of Dire or Cele trinks, I could get Carrion ones for the condi, vitality and power rather than stack toughness through the roof. While I want to live without having to play perfectly, I'd like for things to die in a reasonable time frame too.

I suspect I'm a couple million HoT xp away from getting the language thing I would need for Trailblazer.

Not sure what happened to the burn duration I thought I had. Balthazar's used to do 50% I thought but now it's showing 36%. A nerf I suppose that hadn't made it into the build template until some time today. Do I even want 100% burn duration? Without expertise gear, I think I can squeeze out 86% with a fire trait, +20% burn duration sigil and +10% all condi duration sigil. Potentially handicaps me in other ways so I don't know.

Thanks again,

Jenny

If your skills are really that limited then just go for full dire, however, the whole point of this build is to camp fire and spam everything on cooldown so it's kinda impossible to mess up.

You get the most value of dire gear if you use earth spec. 300 power from carrion wont do anything on 4% crit chance and 150% crit damage. If you go for hybrid route with viper/grieving you can consider 321 air even or 1x2 arcane if you're in some kind of group (in which case it's great to bring arcane heal and arcane power instead of storm glyph). Trailblazer is completely unnecessary for this build because it focuses on one condition that you can already max out (or get very close to it) in condi duration.

You also need to remember that just stacking toughness and vitality doesn't make you tanky. You have plenty of active defenses that work much better than gear stats. Sc/w with storm glyph is basically untouchable for 10-15 seconds due to the amount of aoe blinds it can chain. Engaging combat with jackal gives you huge barrier to secure that you aways finish your fire overload if you're fighting just a few mobs that may hit a bit harder etc. And remember, dead enemies don't do any damage and ele scales well with both power and condi damage, so it's much better to stack offensive stats rather than defensive ones.

I'd run sigils of corruption and smoldering. Just make sure that your burn duration doesn't go over the top, but don't bother maxing it, even 80% is pretty strong for the content you're doing. You can also try to find some cheap food that gives condi dmg+expertise if you really wanted higher condi duration.

[Aigleborgne.2981]

Armor is important if you want to solo champions.You can do some without, but one mistake will kill you.Actives defenses are better but not always available, especially when facing multiple cc foes or after you burnt all of them.

Glyph of storm (earth) is great but long cd. Without any armor, it can be hard to fill the gap (case of difficult solo event). You will also feel miserable vs dredges and they do hurt a lot (veterans+).

Yes, you can easily rally with full dps build and lava font. However, in a tough situation, it is possible to get past 4 rallies in a minute. Not to mention that lava font is useless vs ranged enemies. You can use mist form to reach them, but be sure to wait for the ICD.

Of course, if you play with allies around, go viper.

[steki.1478]

@Aigleborgne.2981 said:Armor is important if you want to solo champions.You can do some without, but one mistake will kill you.Actives defenses are better but not always available, especially when facing multiple cc foes or after you burnt all of them.

Glyph of storm (earth) is great but long cd. Without any armor, it can be hard to fill the gap (case of difficult solo event). You will also feel miserable vs dredges and they do hurt a lot (veterans+).

Yes, you can easily rally with full dps build and lava font. However, in a tough situation, it is possible to get past 4 rallies in a minute. Not to mention that lava font is useless vs ranged enemies. You can use mist form to reach them, but be sure to wait for the ICD.

Of course, if you play with allies around, go viper.

You wouldn't be able to solo any champ on this build anyway. It requires sustain and you don't have any with this build (or that sustain comes with 0 damage output at which point you can just get out of range and heal slowly on any build).

You rarely need sand storm more than once per fight because mobs die anyway. I've yet to see a group of mobs that didnt die in 15-20 seconds and that could outlive the blinding aoes AND outlive your damaging aoes+lava font (unless you're playing a build with no dps which is counter productive). There's no gap to fill, you can still kite enemies forever, on both dagger and scepter, all of your damage comes from >400 range.

Just like lava font is useless against ranged enemies, melee enemies are useless against you because it's easy to burst them down before they even get in range and kite them when they get close.

[Jenny.4831]

Thank you everyone for your thoughts.

I tried the modified build (using the burn signets and the like and dumping arcane) in open world VB just to get a taste of lesser HoT content. It didn't work particularly well. Not only was it painfully slow, I went down a few times I shouldn't have. Switched back to my Marauder build and it was quicker and smoother.

In order to test it, I crafted Dire weapons and armor, used Balthazar runes (which oddly enough on my character sheet said 50% before adding 20% from a sigil in my weapon and trait in the fire tree) so I had 90% burn duration. I looked at the laurel trinks for something that might work, but there weren't any with the exact stats I wanted and didn't want to use up too many resources for this experiment anyway.

Suffice it to say, I doubt this will be a thing for me. I didn't enjoy it at all.

I wonder if I would have the same problem on a condi-Mirage or if it would be the same experience, slow and ultimately feeling worse with seemingly less survivability.

Quite possible I was doing it wrong, but I really didn't think it would be so horrible.

-Jenny

[steki.1478]

@Jenny.4831 said:Thank you everyone for your thoughts.

I tried the modified build (using the burn signets and the like and dumping arcane) in open world VB just to get a taste of lesser HoT content. It didn't work particularly well. Not only was it painfully slow, I went down a few times I shouldn't have. Switched back to my Marauder build and it was quicker and smoother.

In order to test it, I crafted Dire weapons and armor, used Balthazar runes (which oddly enough on my character sheet said 50% before adding 20% from a sigil in my weapon and trait in the fire tree) so I had 90% burn duration. I looked at the laurel trinks for something that might work, but there weren't any with the exact stats I wanted and didn't want to use up too many resources for this experiment anyway.

Suffice it to say, I doubt this will be a thing for me. I didn't enjoy it at all.

I wonder if I would have the same problem on a condi-Mirage or if it would be the same experience, slow and ultimately feeling worse with seemingly less survivability.

Quite possible I was doing it wrong, but I really didn't think it would be so horrible.

-Jenny

Hard to know without seeing your gameplay. Power builds do tend to kill things a lot faster, but burn focused builds arent far from that. Try using dagger/focus for some extra burst from skills 2 and 5 in fire.