DPS Staff Weaver becoming Meta?

With the (necessary) nerfs to guards (and a little revs) ranged damage, will Staff Weavers become meta now? Finally those low-hp, low-armor squishy dudes may do more damage at ranged than those with more hp and armor, as it should be balanced. Though they still have little group support, but maybe doing higher damage than guards will make up for it.I can't wait to play mine more now to see how things have changed.

It never left the meta. You just don't need more than 2 in squad, since you can't really coordinate a weaver spike.

Weaver was only meta to groups that had yet to test core guardian spikes. This does indirectly make Weaver more viable, but its still an extremely squishy and selfish dmg build. RIP core guard, you were fun for 5 minutes being able to do good dmg while actually contributing some support to your squad.

@Bhima.9518 said:Weaver was only meta to groups that had yet to test core guardian spikes. This does indirectly make Weaver more viable, but its still an extremely squishy and selfish dmg build. RIP core guard, you were fun for 5 minutes being able to do good dmg while actually contributing some support to your squad.

This, but to be fair, guardian was over-performing at range.

Those two have different roles, you take core guards and revs for the coordinated spike and a weaver or two for the sustained pressure and cc. Completely different things.

@Absurd.2947 said:Those two have different roles, you take core guards and revs for the coordinated spike and a weaver or two for the sustained pressure and cc. Completely different things.

Over the course of a fight, a guard and rev would out dps an ele. If guards were good only for spike, that would not be the case. They will apply more damage over the length of a fight unless the ele perfectly places a meteor shower and the enemy for some reason stands in it, then it is still close. If all it had was 1 spike, then ele would quickly over-take it in dps over the course of a fight after the first 3 seconds, but in reality usually he is fighting to catch up the whole time. This also ignored the fact that guards have great team support and passive defense as well. OFC this assumes a well playing guardian.

In other words, you can do 3 things to help win a battle:1) do more damage over the length of the battle2) shorten the length of the battle by front loading all your damage...aka spike, typically at the cost of long term damage. (High damage, quick acting skills with long cool downs)3) support your teammatesGuardians were able to do all 3, high spike and keep up the constant damage to stay on top of the chart, with team support.Weaver does the first, and can only exceed (barely) Guardians in that aspect with a perfectly placed meteor shower that isn't dodged. Other classes are in the same boat. Maybe a better method would have been to increase the recharge times more than decrease damage so they kept their spike. But guards also still have good team support, so i think this is where anet wants that class to be (and how it was initially introduced iirc). Also since it is such a defensive class and supportive, it shouldn't also be biggest dps at a distance.

Issue with superspeed being so potent is that:1) enemies will just soon through fields making pulsing AoEs much worse2) You need to stack on the commander to get some superspeed yourself

Both facts make Ele worse as the best you can reach is enemy firebrands and you're also prone to getting long range CCd and bursted.

Tune down superspeed from 100% increased movement speed to 66% and the game is pretty well balanced.

Its not even close to meta any more. Rev out preforms it at all points.

it is meta only for damaging siege weapons rn lol

Great Weavers easily make up their spot in their squad with their damage. Before the Revs would only slightly do less damage with a boat load more utility and ability to dive. With Revs losing a fair amount of burst the high risk high reward of the Weaver is now more reward than risk.

They do amazing damage and while greedy, they are meta after the December patch.

... meanwhile, the scourge huddles in the dark corner, watching everything out of the corner of their eyes, and sinisterly grins ....

@LadyHawk.5319 said:... meanwhile, the scourge huddles in the dark corner, watching everything out of the corner of their eyes, and sinisterly grins ....

Wait wait wait... are you saying a SUPPORT class scourge should be doing the same dmg as a weaver left alone a rev? I think that is where the balancing problem mind set is right now and is the very def of why things are messed up as much as they are.

@Jski.6180 said:

@LadyHawk.5319 said:... meanwhile, the scourge huddles in the dark corner, watching everything out of the corner of their eyes, and sinisterly grins ....

Ive never seen that be the case in large scale fights. Don't worry. They do well on single/low target counts or when pugs are clouding and you can only hit 1 at a time.

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@LadyHawk.5319 said:... meanwhile, the scourge huddles in the dark corner, watching everything out of the corner of their eyes, and sinisterly grins ....

They still have wells so... there will never be a time where necro any thing cant to large scale fights.

dps staff weaver has always been there. u just have to play it very glassy, and therefore u need quick fingers to make it worth its spot on the map. many weavers i see just go too close towards the enemy groups and then just explode thaha.

weaver has a ton of combos in its skillset. kinda offense-bomb help combined with a tertiary support class, pretty good. it doesn't really need to be in the squad to do its job, as a selfish dps satellite you have to keep yourself up. it's a better pug than offmeta classes like thief and ranger, bc it has better aoe.

The main thing holding weaver back from being true meta for dps is that most of its dule skills are projectiles. They are able to be both blocked and reflected by counter projectiles. There just simply a lot of it in wvw making a lot of these slow moving skills worthless or even danger for your team. Like using Shock Wave and rooting your team because of a reflection.

WEAVER ,except for the 1% elites , is OFF meta , roll a power guard , a scourge/reaper or a rev...if you want efficiency. META is : FB. ENGI, REV, SCOURGE,DPS GUARD . MESMER can also be extremely usefull...and a couple of support spellbreakers... Most elementalist classes are DEAD . play something else... its a lost cause. also yes projectiles are not very good vs good zergs .

Yeah staff Weavers suck, please buff them! They definitely do really really low DPS and definitely need many buffs. Thanks Arenanet!

@LordTemujin.5498 but exactly there u missed something, the fire-earth elite combo can do a ton of damage through reflects, since it uses Aoe fields. also all the utility... surely, to run with a zerg helps it effectively more, but weaver is the only legit satellite class that can have an impact on largescale fights

(the chronos are usually integrated within the groups, a weaver only slightly benefits from that imo, since it often stays out of range during the buff times.) like yeah, if u get a fireband u can use him as refill station which is superhelpful for the glasscannon that a weaver simply is, but i only join squads as weaver if it's really necessary and they got enough space for it.

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:Finally those low-hp, low-armor squishy dudes may do more damage at ranged than those with more hp and armor, as it should be balanced.I can't wait to play mine more now to see how things have changed.

Low armor, low hp, squishy, and does not do more damage.Already meta?

If your low armor, low hp, squishy, I sure hope you do more damage than those with more hp/armor. If not, POINTLESS to play.If they had low armor low hp, and LOWER damage? Why even play? USELESS!

ScenarioHi I'm a low damage/hp/armor squishy, how you doing ranger.I'm doing just fine, I'm a more hp/damage/armor not squishy, killing everyone because I'm more.Hello balance? I'm low hp/armor, how come my damage is lower too? Balance? Hello balance?

Now the low armor/hp lower damage people... They may do more damage now than other people!?!?! And you calling for nerf?Its called BALANCEThey suppose to be good at something, not lower at everything. They got low friggin hp/armor for crying out loud.

You asking if they META now???Lets check, they have MORE HP? MORE ARMOR? Nope.META usually means, better armor, better hp, better damage. NO FLAWS. (hmm sounds like a guardian to me)They STILL low hp/armor.

ScenarioThiefTICK TICK TICK, that meta elementalist is down. This is for sure aint meta, he went down like a pancake

It's viable, but it will never be meta.

Weaver just melts when dropping Meteor on a group of goons with Retaliation.

@Yasai.3549 said:It's viable, but it will never be meta.

Weaver just melts when dropping Meteor on a group of goons with Retaliation.

and that is why you drop your meteor on them in a bubble.

Since the patch out damaging revs is not a problem anymore.

the weaver is too slow with its skills. have you checked that cast time on meteor shower? the bubbles are only 5 seconds and all necros, revs and guards and heck even berserkers burst much faster and their damage doesnt depreciate per hit like meteors do.

ele both heal and dps arent meta but can still work.Anet just overnerfed staff and arcane immobs.

Anyone who says X class/build can outdps a Weaver just hasn't played enough Weaver. Or they're "one of those". You know, the "it doesn't work when I play Weaver and I've been playing for a long time, so it doesn't work for everyone else too" kind of guy.

Staff Weaver has been top of the chart if played correctly for awhile, at least in the past 3 years.source: myself

People who say it's too squishy have never played staff weaver. I play it full glass and often out-survive ministrel firebrands, no exaggeration. Position yourself/use movement skills better. edit: yes rallying is part of my rotation sometimes. Just the way she goes. It does happen sometimes but I almost never go down before the first 75% of the group as a full glass staff weaver.

In this thread: people who don't play Weaver discuss Weaver

@anonymous.7812 said:Yeah staff Weavers suck, please buff them! They definitely do really really low DPS and definitely need many buffs. Thanks Arenanet!

Well said. It's just awful playing staff weaver, not meta whatsoever, please give us more buffs to please the W-keyers and make my favourite zergling build literally god-mode.

@kamikharzeeh.8016 said:dps staff weaver has always been there. u just have to play it very glassy, and therefore u need quick fingers to make it worth its spot on the map. many weavers i see just go too close towards the enemy groups and then just explode thaha.

weaver has a ton of combos in its skillset. kinda offense-bomb help combined with a tertiary support class, pretty good. it doesn't really need to be in the squad to do its job, as a selfish dps satellite you have to keep yourself up. it's a better pug than offmeta classes like thief and ranger, bc it has better aoe.

+1

Frankly, it feels like a lot of the complaints about weaver in this topic are solved by actually putting weaver in a party with support. Meteor shower's channel isn't so bad when you have quickness, no? And if there's a bit of alacrity oh boy howdy. The only struggle weaver has is that it gets redundant really quickly (there's no reason to have more than 1 per 20 opponents) and that it thrives off game mode knowledge a lot more than class knowledge, as you have to interpret commander calls or zerg movements into weaver language rather than taking them at face value.