Support Tempest

August 2023

Support tempest has access to strong healing and condition cleanse, reflects and CCs

Currently, the earth variant is the one used the most as tempest needs the extra survivability from the traitline against the strong power damage dealers.

 

Build fundamentals

As support, your primary job is to keep your team alive, but keep in mind Tempest is a squishy, light armor class. Therefore it is useful if you’re already familiar with kiting and know which skills are ranged. Only "Wash the Pain Away!" first few pulses require you to be close to your allies.

Earth tempest applies high amounts of Protection thanks to Elemental Shielding and has significantly better survivability thanks to its the damage reduction from Stone Flesh, Geomancer's Training and Stone Heart.

Auras

Thanks to  Elemental Bastion and Cleansing Water  auras that you apply to your allies will heal them and also cleanse them, therefore make sure you know which skills provide auras, and remember their effect.

Shocking Aura is perfect for peeling yourself or your allies from pressured situations as it interrupts your enemies without stability, and can interrupt skills that you usually wouldn’t be able to, like Unrelenting Assault or Smoke Assault.

Magnetic Aura is great against ranged enemy pressure, as any projectiles that your enemy shoots at you or your allies will be reflected back at them. It works on many skills like ranger’s Point-Blank Shot to thief’s Head Shot.

Frost Aura is a good aura for extra survivability as it reduced the power damage taken by 10% and chills enemies that attack you. It is generally good in pressured situations where you think you or your allies might unavoidably take some damage.

Fire Aura is a generally okay aura that, if you have it, grants you might when you’re attacked and burns the enemy that attacks you. It is not as important as other auras but, it is definitely good to have when your allies are preparing to burst an enemy or initiate a teamfight.

Here is a good starter list of auras you can provide:

• Magnetic Aura from the third staff skill
• Fire Aura from "Feel the Burn!"
• Frost Aura from Frozen Ground
• "Rebound!" can also provide any aura based on your attunement

Healing

On tempest you have many ways to heal your allies, which include:

• All your aura applications through  Elemental Bastion
• Healing Rain
• Geyser
• Water Blast
• "Wash the Pain Away!"
• Soothing Mist
• Water Attunement through Healing Ripple
• Overload Water which also applies Regeneration

Cleansing

Tempest has access to a huge amount of cleanses through  Invigorating Torrents and Cleansing Water as all the auras you grant to allies will not only heal them and grant them Vigor and Regeneration but also cleanse them.

Switching to Water Attunement cleanses a condition from you and your allies through Cleansing Wave.

Stop, Drop, and Roll also cleanses burning and chill specifically, when you dodge.

Your shouts, "Feel the Burn!", "Rebound!" and "Wash the Pain Away!" cleanse conditions from allies thanks to Rune of the Soldier.

Healing Rain is a massive aoe cleanse that provides a combo field for additional heals through combo finishers.

And finally, one of your strongest heals – Overload Water – will cleanse on every pulse.

Resurrecting

In case your teammates do die you can always resurrect them using Glyph of Renewal. This skill will have a different effect depending on which attunement you’re on when you start casting it:

• Renewal of Fire will make you resurrect yourself after going down for 10 seconds after using it. You can use it without rezzing anyone just to survive but it’s relatively niche.
• Renewal of Earth is useful when your team wipes in a teamfight and are all next to each, especially after something like failed hand resurrect attempt. However that is pretty rare so this version is rarely useful
• Renewal of Water will resurrect your teammate to the full 100% health instead of the usual 50% when they get up.
• Renewal of Air will teleport your teammate to you after resurrecting them.

Self-sustain

Staff tempest can be easily locked down therefore kiting is essential but you also have some tools for survival besides the aoe healing, Protection and the cleanse that you provide.

Transmute Earth and Overload Earth will provide Stability making it harder for enemies to lock you down.

Unsteady Ground and Static Field are powerful crowd control abilites that can even interrupt evades.

Lightning Flash is medium ranged teleport that will help you with escaping your enemies. Burning Retreat is an evade that creates distance as well. Do note that this skill goes backwards so you will have to turn around for a brief moment and then activate Burning Retreat  to continue going forward. Frozen Ground and Frost Aura will apply Chilled that also helps you with creating distance between you and your enemies in conjuction with the Superspeed that you get from Windborne Speed.

However if you feel that you struggle to survive, its a good idea to swap Latent Stamina for Unstable Conduit for more auras for yourself. You can also swap out "Feel the Burn!" with "Aftershock!" for additional reflect uptime.

Combo fields and finishers

Staff tempest has various blasts and combo fields. The most important fields are the water and ice, as if you blast these you will provide aoe healing and aoe Frost Aura which also translates to healing, Vigor and Regeneration thanks to the previously mentioned Cleansing Water, Invigorating Torrents and Elemental Bastion trait interactions. Your blasts can also be used in combination with a smoke field from a  Thief granting aoe  Stealth.
A list of all  the blast you have:

• Ice Spike
• Eruption
• Transmute Earth
• Overload Earth
• "Aftershock!" if you swapped out"Feel the Burn!"