Level 80 Tempest Build Guide in Dragon Nest [T4]

Tempest skill builds

All DPS skills in this game receive major increase in damage after every 5 levels, 1, 6, 11, and so on. Therefore, my build focuses on getting those skills to those levels. 

Archer:

Here, you pretty much have two options: lvl 26 twin shot and lvl 1 multi shot, or lvl 1 twin shot and lvl 26 multi shot. This option is purely by preference, as the damage difference is pretty insignificant, twin shot is preferable because it is one of the very few skills that you have with a decent range (the other being spirit shot which does almost no damage). Other than that, the only thing that people might not do is get wisdom of the owl. Everything else is pretty self-explanatory, max evades, max physical mastery to increase HP, and max MP recovery skill, you will run out of MP very quickly. Pin wheel is your get up attack, somersault kick is required for somersault dance, and moon kick is helpful for landing on the ground quickly. Fury of the owl requires no SP to get and is a really nice buff for raids. 

Acrobat:

The left side is the tempest side skills, so of course all of those skills are raised to their most optimum levels. Some skill builds simply max these skills, but the damage difference really isn’t significant for it to matter. Chain tumble and butterfly float are maxed to decrease their cooldowns. Shortbow mastery is max to increase your damage. Spirit focus and spirit boost are both really good buffs, spirit boost is your reason for being accepted into raids and spirit focus increases your damage. Spiral kick is another of your iframes, but since you don’t have enough SP for it to be worth increasing its level, it stays at 1. Air pounce is one of your highest DPS skills, so it gets increased to 16. Spirit shot, ring shot and counter ring shot are nice utility skills that have, but their damage is terrible so they are left at 1. Eagle dive is not that important of a skill for tempests to have, it does nice damage at level 1 but if you want to save the 3 SP and use it somewhere else, that is also an option. Finally, in order to get tempest skills, you have to have at least level 1 nature’s rage and also, get falling star because it is so much easier to hit than nature’s rage. The 1 SP that went into nature’s rage can go into wisdom of the owl, marionette, or if you don’t get eagle dive, you can put all 4 SP into somersault dance in order to max that skill.

Tempest:

This part is pretty much self-explanatory, you max everything because all skills are very useful. There are some people who don’t max untouchable because the random proc can mess up skill combos, and the higher the skill level is, the higher the chance for it to proc. However, that skill will save your life.

Skill crests

For your skill crests, you have one pretty much required crest, and then a couple of options besides that one. Also, if you get the crest expansion from the dragon vault, you can take a few more options. The skill crest that is required for any decent tempest is spirit boost cooldown decrease. Other than that crest, your options are:

• Kick shot damage – less important now than it used to be, since you have other skills that do much better damage

• Somersault dance damage – one of the more important ones, as this skill is one of, if not the most, the highest damaging skill you have

• Furious winds action speed – Personal preference.

• Hurricane dance damage – this used to not be a good option, as hurricane dance was considered as a utility move, but now at 80 cap with the EX as well as the upcoming revamp, its damage is quite good

• Marionette damage – This is an option too. Marionette does that great damage but you use it very often for the debuff it provides

• Air pounce damage – This skill does a lot of damage.

Other skill crests are not recommended for PvE tempest, but all of the ones above give you a lot of options to choose from.

Basic information and stat gains

Tempest is one of the sub classes of the archer class, by choosing archer > acrobat> tempest. The main focus of the class is support, however it still maintains a good amount of DPS (damage per second) if built correctly. Tempests, but more generally acrobats, usually have a spot in raids due to the buffs they have. There are not a lot of classes that contribute similar buffs to what tempests have. Tempests have a great number of iframes (invincibility frames) which make it easier for them to survive, so they don’t need to have as much HP as some others classes require. Tempests also have the shortest ranges for almost all of their attacks, basically being a melee class even though they are archers. 

Final Damage is by far the best stat to stack, but also the hardest and most expensive. Not including final damage, here is a list of importance of stats for tempests:

Physical damage > agility > vitality > defense/magic defense > strength > HP > intellect

A good thing to note is that archers gain .5 physical damage from agility, and .25 from strength. Physical damage being most important is self-explanatory, tempests are a physical class. Next, archers gain the most physical damage from agility, plus you also get crit. Followed by vitality because that increases HP and defense at the same time. Even though I said that you have iframes and you don’t need a lot of HP, if you think you’ll be perfect with every single iframe that you ever do, go ahead and don’t get any vitality. Next, defense and magic defense are both just as important because you don’t really gain a lot of either from any other stat that you stack, so they end up being about equal, with defense being a bit higher due to vitality. Put strength before raw HP due to it increasing crit damage as well as a slight increase to your physical damage. Finally, the only reason intellect is on this list is purely because it can help raise crit damage. Other than crit damage, intellect raises magic damage, which tempests do not use at all, but every little bit helps if it can push crit damage to the next percent. If you’re able to raise your crit damage enough, you’ll do a bit more damage overall. Note that crit is not listed here at all, that’s because you should be able to have enough agility to max crit, and if not you also have a 20% crit buff which requires no SP to learn, as well as another buff which increases your crit by 50% of your current crit, but we will get into skills later. 

How to gear

As for gear, naturally you would want to build on everything that is listed above. So you would aim for gear which increases physical damage in their set bonuses. For each armor piece, you want to go for windswept and life-giving gems. On your weapons you will want destructive and windswept gems. On your rings you would also use destructive gems. On the earring and necklace you have a choice between windswept or life-giving gems. This choice is basically, do you need the backup HP or not?

Note that you can also use conversion gems instead of destructive, in which cause your main hand weapon would have the conversion gem and all of the rest of your destructive gems would be replaced with a physical version of the specific element that you convert to. If soloing, it is better to have destructive and not convert, but as long as there is at least one class which buffs the element you are converting to, your damage will be at least equal to what it is without converting.

The skill gems that you use are not extremely important compared to the rest of your gear, but there are a few things to note about them. The skill gems on your weapons should match and should be focused on what the majority of your party uses. For example, if your party is mostly light element, you would use a light debuff skill gem on both of your weapons. However, it doesn’t matter too much, you can also use physical or crit debuff gems which would also benefit the party as well. On your armors it doesn’t matter that much what you use, they’re all useful.

The stat crests that you would want to use are basically all of the ones in the above list; destructive, windswept, health, life-giving, sturdy, and adorned are the important ones, which gives you 2 more open crests, one of which you would fill with ultimate plate, which is final damage, as well as the option between brutal or spirited as your 2 next most important plates to get.

Finally, acrobats should get a tech accessory for spirit boost at the minimum, which is necklace. Spirit focus tech ring for another +4% agility boost is also a good choice

List of iframes

• Tumble – self-explanatory, every character has this skill

• Power tumble – can be used after getting hit, useful for getting out of multiple hit moves

• Pin wheel – get up attack, iframe lasts until last hit

• Aerial evasion – can be used when hit midair

• Kick shot – iframe lasts until you move back to shoot the arrows

• Spiral kick – used after tumble, chain tumble, butterfly float, or untouchable; iframe lasts until you start slowing down

• Chain tumble – extends tumble iframe, useful for being midair for stomp mechanics

• Ring shot – iframe lasts until you shoot the arrows, also used for being midair

• Somersault dance – entire skill is iframe, but setup and exit skills may not have iframe; setup skill being somersault kick, exit skills being moon kick, falling star, eagle dive or butterfly float

• Counter ring shot – another aerial evasion, identical to ring shot otherwise

• Furious winds EX – a note for this one, ONLY the EX skill has an iframe, which starts after you hit left or right mouse button; right mouse button has a slightly longer iframe, as well as farther dodge

• Butterfly float – useful for being midair for stomps, iframe is the arch of the skill, meaning not the very beginning nor the very end; can be used after several other skills to extend iframes or get away from an area quickly

• Untouchable – random chance for this skill to proc when you are about to get hit, but when it does the iframe lasts until you stop spinning

• Hurricane dance – there is no iframe until after you land your first hit, after that the iframe lasts until your final hit; note that this skill cannot dodge some stomp mechanics

Other information and closing

Other info about skills:

• Hurricane dance can be used at the very beginning of certain boss battles in order to stun lock the boss. The easiest to do was stun lock the flower in DDN. The amount of time that the boss gets stunned is for as much as a second, depending on how exact the timing is.

• Another thing that hurricane dance can do is get rid of the iframes that a boss has when it spawns. If it isn’t a boss that can be stun locked, instead when it is spawning, hurricane dance will hit through its iframe making it vulnerable for everybody in the party to start attacking. However, since it no longer has its iframes, it will begin attacking immediately instead of being in its iframe state for a bit longer. This wouldn’t affect you unless it is a skill that can hit through hurricane dance iframe, such as certain skills in BDN. 

Everything else about tempest needs to be learned by playing the class itself.

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