Guild Wars 2

Who would win?

My money, the elementalist hands-down.

I can’t really see any Tempest builds that would give them more of an edge against a regular old Elementalist.

In fact, it seems you lose more when you spec into the Tempest. What do you give up? The Fire or Air-line, your dps? The Water or Earth-line, your survivability? The Arcane-line? The Tempest doesn’t add enough conditions or damage to really compare to Fire or Air. Water and Earth are so powerful against conditions without having to invest into a rune set. And you’re crazy if you want to compare Tempest to Arcane.

The more I look at it, the more it feels like the Tempest is just a throw-away elite so they can say that the core specializations are still relevant.

What do you guys think? Is there a Tempest build that can take on the tradition/meta elementalist in a 1 on 1?

I can see an AIR, Water, Tempest Auramancer build being really good group support.

Air: Zephyr’s Boon -> Tempest Defense -> Fresh Air
Water: Soothing Ice -> Cleansing Wave -> Powerful Aura
Tempest: Unstable Conduit -> Tempestuous Aria -> Element Bastion

- Will be allowed to Fresh Air your Air Overload for some decent damage options and you can basically spam Shocking Aura due to Unstable Conduit.

- Superior Rune of the Soldier will be popular to AE remove conditions. This should make up for the loss of removing on regen and regen on cantrip.

- Powerful aura will be nice if the shout auras double proc … once for the shout which is AE by default and once for Power Aura that AEs aura’s applied to yourself. That will be really nice with Zephyr’s Boon.

Taldren.7523:

I can see an AIR, Water, Tempest Auramancer build being really good group support.

Air: Zephyr’s Boon -> Tempest Defense -> Fresh Air
Water: Soothing Ice -> Cleansing Wave -> Powerful Aura
Tempest: Unstable Conduit -> Tempestuous Aria -> Element Bastion

- Will be allowed to Fresh Air your Air Overload for some decent damage options and you can basically spam Shocking Aura due to Unstable Conduit.

- Superior Rune of the Soldier will be popular to AE remove conditions. This should make up for the loss of removing on regen and regen on cantrip.

- Powerful aura will be nice if the shout auras double proc … once for the shout which is AE by default and once for Power Aura that AEs aura’s applied to yourself. That will be really nice with Zephyr’s Boon.

I was thinking of a similar build but with earth instead of air for stone heart camping and elemental shielding, but this seems like a better idea, given fresh airs power with the overloads and the fact that shocking aura is really good.