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Susimusta

PvE DPS Staff Tempest (Updated 10/2016)

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This is the very basic all-around PvE damage spec for Elementalists. This build requires the Tempest specialization. This build is valid also in the current Raid content.

Equipment

Full Berserker's gear (Power/Precision/Ferocity), ascended stat combination name is [Zojja's.. ] 

Berserker's accessories, rings, neck and backpiece

Berserker's Staff

[For min-maxing critical chance instead use 2 Assassin's Accessories (Arah & Caudecus' manor collections or Raids)]

 

Runes / Sigils

Armor: [Superior Rune of Scholar] x6 

Weapon: [Superior Sigil of Force] & [Superior Sigil of Air]

 

Traits

 

Stafftempesttraits.png

 

1st line: Fire: Burning Precision , Pyromancer's Training , Persisting Flames

2nd line: Air: Ferocious Winds , Inscription , Bolt to the Heart

( For special occasions, like Keep Construct (2nd boss in Stronghold of the Faithful), use Tempest Defence as the middle trait )

3rd line: Tempest: Unstable Conduit , Harmonious Conduit , Elemental Bastion

( For stun-break for yourself and your party, use Gale song as the first trait )

 

Utility Skills

elementaliststaffskillsfire.png 

Healing Skill (6): "Wash the Pain Away!"  

Open Utility Skills (7,8,9): "Feel the Burn!", Glyph of Storms, Signet of Fire. Situationally you might want to use Conjure Frost Bow (For Crowd control, damage on big targets or Triple Trouble event), Conjure Lightning Hammer (Triple Trouble) or Lightning Flash (for mobility, for example Sabetha cannon running).

Elite Skill: Glyph of Elementals (for normal DPS rotation), "Rebound!" (for Raid survivability) or Conjure Fiery Greatsword (for mobility). 

 

Food & Consumables

[Plate of Truffle Steak] (+100 Power, +70 Precision) OR [Seaweed salad], but if you want to use Seaweed salad as food, you need to have [Superior Sigil of Accuracy] on your staff and no Assassin's accessories!

[Superior Sharpening Stone] (+Power equal of 6 % of your Toughness, +Power equal of 4 % of your Vitality) OR if you want to invest, [Toxic Sharpening Stone] (+100 Power, +10 % Condition duration) gives you a minor dps increase, by increasing your burning duration.

 

Practice

Begin the combat in Air (F2), so that you have Air Overload ready. While running to your target, cast Glyph of Storms (Lightning Storm) and immediately after that, begin to Overload in Air (it has fairly short range, so make sure you're close enough). After that, switch to Fire (F1) and shout "Feel the Burn!" while casting your Glyph of Elementals. From here on you will be using those two Glyphs and "Feel the Burn!" on cooldown. Cast Lava Font (2) and Meteor Shower (5) on your target on cooldown, in between auto-attacking (1). Overloading (Fire) is always your first priority, so whenever it is off cooldown, use it, keeping in mind that it is melee-range. You can use Burning Retreat (4) for quick movement. 

Skill priority

Overloading (Fire) > Glyph of Elementals / Storm > Meteor Shower > Lava Font > Auto-attack 

"Feel the Burn!" always on cooldown, it's a shout so it doesn't interrupt your casts.

 

Attributes (if you want to compare yours for example)

elementaliststaffattributes.png 

 

This is what your Attributes should look like with full Ascended Berserker's gear (not min-maxed with Assassins' pieces).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope this was useful for you! And thanks to Akke.8502 for helping out! :) You can also contact him in-game for any questions about this spec.

Edited by Susimusta
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Clear guide, well written. One question - none of the guides mention using staff 3. It's 5 target burn DoT with low initial damage. Surely better to trade it for one staff 1, as it has 1/2 sec cast time only? Also you could switch both earrings for Assassin if you're in a zerg or group and will have 25 might.

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We've been kinda going back and forth with bf, whether using staff 3 is useful or not. I don't think it's at least a big damage loss if you actually have multiple targets that it hits, but if it only hits one, I think the auto-attack is more worth it. Sadly we don't have a full-proof way to know, but I think you can go either way. ^^ And yes you can indeed switch 2 earrings to Assassin, however if you get Spotter from Druid, banners from Warriors, Signet of Fire (utility) and a food-buff that gives Precision, you don't need them.

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I'm playing similar build on my main all the time but i'm using Flame Legion runes instead of Scholar. I find it quite difficult (both in open pve - especially HoT content - and rifts) to stay above 90% health to proc the 10% dmg buff.

Do I suck so much at this or there is some "magic trick" to stay healthy ?

 

edit: also, is this screenshot taken in the air stance ? i'm wondering about 67% crit chance... my guess is that it comes from "Aeromancer's training" or does it ?

Edited by Vortok

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I've only tested this in Fractals and Raids. Basically what I've concluded that you're either above 90% of hp or dead because of your really small hp pool. :D Especially on raids with a dedicated Druid healer, his heals basically pop you from 20% to 100%. Also since this is a full on ranged build, you want to stay on range, however so that if you have a guardian for example, you'll still get the protection and other boons. No other tricks in my book for this.

Also the screenshot may very well be taken in air, I can't remember. I can check that later today. :) Edit: Yes the picture was indeed taken in Air, which gives you 190 more Precision due to the Aeromancer's Training trait.

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Great build but I have a question. Is using overload fire really useful? I mean in many guides I saw it is skipped due to lower dmg and larger interval than overload air.

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59 minutes ago, Artolan said:

Great build but I have a question. Is using overload fire really useful? I mean in many guides I saw it is skipped due to lower dmg and larger interval than overload air.

This build focuses on damage the fire attunement provides. It excels at fighting stationary targets with large hitboxes (e.g. Gorseval). On smaller/moving/multiple targets, the fresh air build (the one that focuses on overload air, as you mentioned), does more damage.

Overload fire does a lot of damage if you can manage to hit the target with the full channel (remember, the overload leaves a tornado even after the channel, which constantly burns enemies). On top of that, overload fire pulses might to allies, so it's used for that as well.

On top of all that, the fire build in general pve is probably safer than fresh air due to the distance you can keep between yourself and the enemy.

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Is this still the go-to for Staff builds? It's essentially what I'm running. Additionally, I've seen mention of swapping out to Assassin accessories as mentioned OR Assassins Weapons. I'm guessing the Accessories is better to swap out rather than the weapon, but figured I'd ask.

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My build is quite different, and I base that decision on a cost / benefit analysis that I put together on a spreadsheet. If an NPC walked up to me in game and said "hey, I see you getting a fraction under 5K DPS simply pressing 1 on that trash mob. If I could nudge you over 5K by giving you an extra 300 deeps when you press that button, would you be interested?" I would say "yes, what's the cost?"

NPC answers - "I want 30% of your health pool, and you'll have 15% longer attunement recharge AND you lose 10% boon duration. Deal? You want some of that?"

I would tell that NPC to shove his 300 extra deeps where the sun don't shine.. Too expensive!

Edited by Floppy Chicken

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Well your own build is completely up to you - this build is optimized for damage in a raid environment and is currently meta for that, which is the reason it's fairly expensive (although not nearly as expensive as most condi or chronomancer builds), as a lot of people use it.

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My apologies for making it confusing at the end....

I didn't mean money expensive... I meant stats expensive! I was suggesting that the tradeoff of giving up so much health, cooldowns and durations isn't worth the 300 deeps that I would gain by going zerker..  :) Diminishing returns was my intended message. 30% health loss and longer cooldowns for me to get 5% extra DPS is expensive.. I've lost count the number of times a glass cannon zerker pug gets flattened by RNG on [Insert Raid Boss] and then text chat explodes with "wipe!! /gg" while I stare down at their lifeless corpses..

But my favorite is when we kill the VG in under 5 minutes. Everybody cheers! "We so good! Such DPS! is that a record for us?" Well, yeah, if you ignore the last two hours of wipes and four stacks of expensive food and utilites we went through because we needed to hit a perfect run with perfect RNG just to survive, then yes! It's a record for us. Congrats :D I had nothing better to do with those two hours anyway, I guess..

I've thrown away more than the cost of the zerker build, on multiple occasions while refining my own builds on DPS and condi characters, then testing on the golem and changing stats over and over and over (*cries at such many golds :( ) and I can give any zerker build a serious run for their DPS money in raids, fractals, dungeons and even the test golem with my current build.

I certainly hit hard enough to make it look like I'm a glass cannon zerker build, but without the downside of being a 1-shot RNG glass cannon. And because we know the VG can be killed with 40% of time remaining on the clock if we do it full zerker, then we know there is plenty of room to lose 5% DPS while gaining 30% of stats in glass reduction..

Am I making sense this time? :) Sorry, it was late last night and I really should have been in bed... properly spaced out this morning when I got up.. uff.. work is killing me with overtime!

Edited by Floppy Chicken

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Yes, it makes sense ;) 

And I completely understand your reasoning. If you want to sacrifice some damage for utility/survivability and your squadmates are fine with that, go for it. Raids can certainly be cleared with sub-optimal damage. 
Lowman kills are a testament to that and if your goal is to just get the kill, it's most likely better to get a more survivable build if your group can't handle the squishyness of full zerk.

That however doesn't change the fact that this is considered meta on large hitboxes as most of the raiding community uses it.

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Yeah and as said ALWAYS there are on-time meta builds in places like http://qtfy.eu/builds/. :) We're not stating that these will keep 100 % up to date with the meta, but are a good place to start if you have no idea what to build for your character. And I'm not saying you're playing wrong if you're doing it differently. ;) <3

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