Druid has been the meta raid healer for a while now due to its strong heals and insane boon support. While druids remain nearly essential because of their might-stacking ability and large number of class-specific buffs, it’s not essential to have two. In fact, with recent nerfs to druid healing, the improved sustain that a tempest auramancer brings may be the perfect complement to the druid.

Tempest healing feels more like a traditional healer when compared to druid, which appeals to a lot of people. The sustain is real with tempest, too. Passive healing produced by Soothing Mist and regeneration keep the team topped-off through light and moderate damage, and you have an impressive assortment of water fields and blast finishers that can be used when burst healing is required.

With so much at your disposal, it can be tricky to know what to use and how to be most effective. I’ve compiled this guide to help get you started. It covers your basic healing toolkit and touches on some less-obvious, advanced usage relating to dodging and attunement swapping.

Water Attunement Heals

Your bread & butter healing comes while attuned to water. You pump out Soothing Mist to allies, you can overload for a big area heal, and every weapon skill can provide healing. I typically use Ice Spike off-cooldown as long as Geyser, Frozen Ground, or Healing Rain is available to thrown down as a blastable field. Soothing Mist and regeneration tick for a lot of healing and, when combined, provide very strong group sustain.

Soothing Mist This is a passive, class-specific regen that’s applied to allies whenever you’re attuned to water. Its effectiveness is doubled with the trait Soothing Power. Water Blast Water auto-attack that heals allies. Face camera down and cast with no target to heal the area around you. Geyser A powerful small-area heal and a water field that can be blasted for additional area healing. Geyser also revives downed players. Frozen Ground An ice field that can be blasted to apply frost aura, which grants regen when traited with Invigorating Torrents. Healing Rain A large-area regen that also clears condis and another water field that can be blasted. Clear even more condis when the Cleansing Water is selected. Overload Water Arguably your strongest healing skill. Heals for a large amount, applies regen, and removes condis. Evasive Arcana Cast Cleansing Wave when dodging while attuned to water, which heals and removes 1 condition from nearby allies.

Healing & Utility Skills

Water Attunement gives you a lot of tools for healing, but there’s a whole host of other skills that also provide healing. In my utility slots, I typically run two shouts for healing-via-auras and choose the third based on the fight.

Skills That Heal

The following skills can be used for more healing. My default setup uses Feel the Burn and Flash-Freeze because they have lower cooldowns than Aftershock, but it’s worth noting that Aftershock has higher burst-healing potential due to the fact that it’s a blast finisher.

Wash Away the Pain A powerful group heal. Other healing slot skills only heal yourself, making this a no-brainer. Feel the Burn Grants fire aura to allies; heals and applies regeneration when traited with Invigorating Torrents and Elemental Bastion. Flash-Freeze Grants frost aura to allies which provides damage mitigation; heals and applies regeneration when traited with Invigorating Torrents and Elemental Bastion. Aftershock Grants magnetic aura that reflects projectiles to allies; heals and applies regeneration when traited with Invigorating Torrents and Elemental Bastion. It’s also a blast finisher. Signet of Water A low-cooldown targeted AOE heal. It also revives for a small percentage. Arcane Wave A blast finisher with 2 charges that combo nicely with fields from weapon skills. You can blast the same water field twice for respectable burst healing. (Blasting the ice field twice is not advisable since re-applying frost aura overwrites duration rather than extending, but it can still be effective for extra healing in a pinch.) Rebound Prevents a killing blow and heals instead or applies an aura based on your attunement. It’s generally used when you see that somebody’s about to die or you know there’s a damage spike on its way.

Utility Skills

These skills should be used situationally. My default is Lightning Flash for mobility unless CC is needed, in which case I favor Conjure Frost Bow.

Notable Trait Alternatives

My default build can be viewed here, but I do swap some traits as-needed depending on the fight.

Water

Stop, Drop, and Roll for fights with burning or chill

Stop, Drop, and Roll for fights with burning or chill Cleansing Wave for more condi cleanse

Cleansing Wave for more condi cleanse Cleansing Water for more condi cleanse

Tempest

Gale Song for automatic group stun break

Gale Song for automatic group stun break Harmonious Conduit for stability/stun break on overload at the expense of regeneration

Advanced Techniques

It’s easy and tempting to sit in water attunement and heal, but you give up a lot by doing so. By camping water, you’re basically forfeiting benefits provided by traits like Healing Ripple, Cleansing Wave, and Elemental Attunement. You’re also missing out on blast finishers that can be used to chain together huge burst-heal combos. For example, the water field left by Healing Rain lasts long enough to attune to earth and blast it with Eruption. For a quicker blast, you can simply dodge while attuned to earth thanks to Evasive Arcana.

When you put these concepts together, you can build some pretty gnarly combos:

(Attune to water)

Dodge roll (casts Cleansing Wave to heal & cleanse condi)

Cast Ice Spike

Cast Healing Rain

Attune to earth

Cast Eruption

Dodge roll (casts Shockwave which blasts water field for area healing)

Cast Arcane Wave to blast water field for area healing

(Ice Spike blasts water field for area healing)

(Eruption blasts water field for area healing)

Cast Overload Earth

Cast Eruption

Attune to water (casts Healing Ripple)

Cast Ice Spike

Cast Geyser

(Eruption blasts water field for area healing)

(Ice Spike blasts water field for area healing)

Cast Overload Water

Cast Ice Spike

Cast Frozen Ground

(Ice Spike blasts ice field for area frost aura which heals & applies regen)

(Back to beginning)

Crowd-Control (CC)

Don’t forget to help out during CC phases there, Mr. Healer. You’ve got a few tools at your disposal. The number shown in parentheses below is how much defiance bar damage the skill does. Your most reliable CC comes from Deep Freeze and Gust. Static Field and Unsteady Ground provide decent punch but can be difficult to land, as they require the target to move into the ability to trigger it.

Ice Bow #5 Deep Freeze (300)

Air #3 Gust (150)

Air #5 Static Field (200)

Earth #4 Unsteady Ground (150)