Weaver Specialization Updates for the Path of Fire Launch

@Karl McLain.5604 said:

• Call Lightning: Increased lightning damage by 12.5%. Slightly reduced the aftercast of this ability.That is very nice.Any chance for the air auto chain to be faster? Or slightly higher dmg on the other hits also?@Karl McLain.5604 said:

• Polaric Leap: Increased the leap distance of this ability from 450 to 600. This ability will no longer queue and will interrupt skills, if able, in order to cast.This is nice, and more in line with other classes sword leaps. Any chance the fire leap will get the same treatment?@Karl McLain.5604 said:

• Cauterizing Strike: The physical damage of this ability has been increased by 17%.Both? (against burning and not)@Karl McLain.5604 said:

• Earthen Synergy: This ability will no longer queue and will interrupt skills if able, in order to cast.I guess you meant earthen vortex here.

• Unravel Hexes: Trait has been renamed to Woven Stride. Trait now grants swiftness when inhibiting conditions are inflicted, regeneration when swiftness or superspeed is gained, and increases swiftness effectiveness from 33% to 40%.I can see a lot of people mad with this, as it's not the "get out of water line" card that many were hoping for.But the synergy with swiftness giving regen (if there is no ICD) is amazing! (Air auto 2, updraft, traited air auras, air attune, all removing one condition with water line)

The change to Unravel Hexes is really annoying. People want condi removal WITHOUT having to take the water trait line. This forces people to take the water trait line in order to get what is going to be pretty bonkers condi removal. What was wrong with making unravel hexes exactly as it was just with a 1s icd and remove all conditions? This current version is WAY stronger than condi removal on a 1s icd with super speed but forces you to take water. I can't express how crazy condi removal is going to be with this trait.

Every dual attack, every second auto attack in air, every air attune... and many more sources of swiftness and super speed that are going to make a water/weaver ele immune to conditions basically.

In my opinion revert Unravel hexes to it's normal form, make it remove all conditions, but put it on a 1s icd. This makes it valuable for every trait line that's not water and makes it more valuable for the air trait line while not making the condi removal for the water trait line absolutely bonkers.

The unravel hexes stuff is my main annoyance but also the sword autos are super slow. Every sword and greatsword auto in the game is 1/2, 1/2, 1/2. Elementalist gets 1/2, 3/4, 3/4. The air auto attack buff is a step in the right direction though.

"This ability will no longer queue and will interrupt skills, if able, in order to cast."what does this even mean

@Bear.3689 said:"This ability will no longer queue and will interrupt skills, if able, in order to cast."what does this even mean

It means if you are casting another skill, and activate that ability, you will interrupt yourself to cast it. It states: "if able", to clarify this won't occur during abilities like ride the lightning. This is to allow you to pull off these abilities at a moment's notice without worrying of about a huge delay. Players could already do this with the escape button, but it's more clunky, so this code is included for some abilities.

@Loboling.5293 said:

@Bear.3689 said:"This ability will no longer queue and will interrupt skills, if able, in order to cast."what does this even mean

thanks

hey can you make us not 100% reliant on the dreaded water train line please? like come on its been like this since launch

like all these changes are fine, but honestly how are you supposed to play an offensive weaver with the water trait line? you have to spec water + arcane + weaver or else youre just gonna die to condis.

Do sword auto-attack chains get reset when switching attunements or has that been changed? Resetting the auto-attack chain was incredibly annoying.

I feel like you guys should go back and get Unravel Hexes to work. The goal for weaver felt more like a dps Elementalist. If you are forcing them to take water it kind of nullifies the purpose. Coming from an ele player who was super excited that you guys created a way to remove conditions while giving ourselves super speed by attuning to air sounded amazing. Now that it is gone, weaver kind of lost its luster.

@DanteZero.9736 said:Do sword auto-attack chains get reset when switching attunements or has that been changed? Resetting the auto-attack chain was incredibly annoying.

if you are half done a chain in fire and switch to water, its gonna reset the chain

@Vince.1457 said:I feel like you guys should go back and get Unravel Hexes to work. The goal for weaver felt more like a dps Elementalist. If you are forcing them to take water it kind of nullifies the purpose. Coming from an ele player who was super excited that you guys created a way to remove conditions while giving ourselves super speed by attuning to air sounded amazing. Now that it is gone, weaver kind of lost its luster.

this. a dps elementalist thats forced to run water. where is the logic in that

I am quite upset at the unravel hexes change, I don't understand why ele can't have a condi clear trait outside of water. I was so looking forward to having a decent condi clear outside of water, I had a very good looking fresh air WvW build all set and ready for launch, now I'm probably gonna swap mains. Aside from that sore spot, everything else looks good, sword changes in particular, being able to have split second reaction timing on leap and evade is a must.

I'm super positively surprised that these are pretty insightful changes. Might've been too pessimistic but I thought there wouldn't even be any changes, and we'd be full on trainwreck for a couple weeks at least.

Seriously this makes me more hype than any kind of big budget trailer.

As for feedback, I share the general sentiment that it's a little annoying to have to trait water to get any mileage out of unravel hexes (now called woven stride). Also, if there's no icd on the swiftness gained on impairing a foe's movement, stuff like frost aura will be insanely strong, and just landing an aoe cripple would be a full cleanse. So I'm assuming there'll be an icd on that part of the trait at least.

Quick rundown of problems that will likely remain, just so I can clear my conscience on having been too lazy to post them when relevant:

• Riptide healing numbers seem to be bugged to be quite crazy high. It's a 7k heal with menders, and like a 4k without. For a skill that already evades, regens, retreats, leaves water field, I'd say that's a bit much.

• Autoattack damage on sword is going to remain really bad, exacerbated by the fact that they're all super slow aa chains.

• Earthen vortex self cancels too easily on movement input.

• 80% of dual skills is seriously not good. Especially dagger and staff, but scepter too.

• Tailored victory does not get put on recharge if interrupted.

Can we rename elementalist to water mage?

@"Karl McLain.5604" said:

• Unravel Hexes: Trait has been renamed to Woven Stride. Trait now grants swiftness when inhibiting conditions are inflicted, regeneration when swiftness or superspeed is gained, and increases swiftness effectiveness from 33% to 40%.

Replace the "regeneration" with "resistance" and it may make more players happy :)

@Bear.3689 said:As for feedback, I share the general sentiment that it's a little annoying to have to trait water to get any mileage out of unravel hexes (now called woven stride). Also, if there's no icd on the swiftness gained on impairing a foe's movement, stuff like frost aura will be insanely strong, and just landing an aoe cripple would be a full cleanse. So I'm assuming there'll be an icd on that part of the trait at least.I think it works when impairing movement conditions are applied to you, you gain swiftness. So frost aura won't work with it.But if there is no ICD then jumping on a necro ice field or ranger entangle/mud should give you a ton of cleanses (paired with water GM).

It has some nice sinergy with air too, with superspeed on air, swiftness on auras, etcIt doesnt free you from water (for pvp against condi users) but lets you make some nice combo with air/water/weaver.

@lLobo.7960 said:

@Bear.3689 said:As for feedback, I share the general sentiment that it's a little annoying to have to trait water to get any mileage out of unravel hexes (now called woven stride). Also, if there's no icd on the swiftness gained on impairing a foe's movement, stuff like frost aura will be insanely strong, and just landing an aoe cripple would be a full cleanse. So I'm assuming there'll be an icd on that part of the trait at least.I think it works when impairing movement conditions are applied to you, you gain swiftness. So frost aura won't work with it.But if there is no ICD then jumping on a necro ice field or ranger entangle/mud should give you a ton of cleanses (paired with water GM).

uh i never said that

@Bear.3689 said:

@lLobo.7960 said:

@Bear.3689 said:As for feedback, I share the general sentiment that it's a little annoying to have to trait water to get any mileage out of unravel hexes (now called woven stride). Also, if there's no icd on the swiftness gained on impairing a foe's movement, stuff like frost aura will be insanely strong, and just landing an aoe cripple would be a full cleanse. So I'm assuming there'll be an icd on that part of the trait at least.I think it works when impairing movement conditions are applied to you, you gain swiftness. So frost aura won't work with it.But if there is no ICD then jumping on a necro ice field or ranger entangle/mud should give you a ton of cleanses (paired with water GM).

Uh, weird forum quote bug... it was Gokil that I quoted

Unfortunately, I did not test this out during preview but i heard Unravel Hexes did not work as advertised.
I am not sure how we are to clear condis even with water. The GM trait for Water states "Cleanse Conditions from allies you grant regeneration to." Maybe i am missing something? I feel Unravel Hexes should be left the same and allowed it to cleanse conditions when we had super speed or swiftness with low ICD....

Having to always take water really sucks due to condi's being so OP. If you are forced into taking one trait due to survivability and/or current game meta, we are already at a disadvantage. Most Eles in PvP or in WvW will generally be forced with Water and Tempest....

We need better build diversity overall.....seems every patch you end up with 1 meta build that you almost always have to run to be viable. Sometimes we get 2 viable builds.

This is not just ele but for all classes. Almost every class will be running the same 1-2 builds for that given profession in PvP and WvW..... Be nice if all trait lines were created equal :)

What needed to happen is unravel hexes shouldve stayed and just removed every condition instead of just immobilize, cripple, and chill.. we dont want to run water anymore man

I am disappointed, like every ele, that we will be chained forever to the water-traitline. As with every ele spec, builds now become "So what is the third traitline". Still, I do see at least some decent synergy with both air AND arcana. Obviously, arcana/water/weaver eles will be basically immune to condis (swap air, cure 2 condis, swap water, cleanse 2-3 condis + dodge), use a dual skill and cure a condi, inflict chill - cure a condi), but air/w/w eles might see some play too, as you cleanse slightly less, but get much higher super-speed uptime to stick to foes, and more air-swap procs. Arcana gives you prot and super-duper cleanse, while air gives you mobility and damage. Fire and earth seem to lack true synergy, but perhaps if condi-built fire can see some play for some silly burst builds.

I am concerned with the continued 4s swap time for all attunements, it really forces weavers into using sword as other weapons just don't have enough attacks to justify sitting in an attunement for 4s without losing effectiveness. Also, dagger, scepter, and staff all rely on really-strong 3-skills in their rotations (which this CD and lock-out of the 4-5 skills on-demand promote), while sword seems to have a LOT of defense (evades, mobility, interrupts) built into the 2 and dual skills, making a build less reliant on on-demand off-hand skill defense access.

Also...are we really at the point where changing the 3rd hit of a chain skill by 12.5% is really the level of adjustments being made? Most of these changes seem more like QoL changes that you get in a down-quarter balance pass than truly substantial changes. Perhaps they are planning to tweak quickly after people have more time to play with the specs, but the FASTEST anet ever responds to balance concerns is about 6 months.

Unravel Hexes: Trait has been renamed to Woven Stride. Trait now grants swiftness when inhibiting conditions are inflicted, regeneration when swiftness or superspeed is gained, and increases swiftness effectiveness from 33% to 40%.

How is this is grandmaster worthy???

No changes to the core problem of weaver. 100% disappointment.

So sword is still pretty crap when it comes to damage. The AA needs to be buffed for sword to be a viable weapon in PvE. Also the range is rather kitten with no weapon swap.

@lLobo.7960 said:

@Bear.3689 said:As for feedback, I share the general sentiment that it's a little annoying to have to trait water to get any mileage out of unravel hexes (now called woven stride). Also, if there's no icd on the swiftness gained on impairing a foe's movement, stuff like frost aura will be insanely strong, and just landing an aoe cripple would be a full cleanse. So I'm assuming there'll be an icd on that part of the trait at least.I think it works when impairing movement conditions are applied to you, you gain swiftness. So frost aura won't work with it.But if there is no ICD then jumping on a necro ice field or ranger entangle/mud should give you a ton of cleanses (paired with water GM).

That is.. Pretty nice? I dislike immob immunity on stuff like daredevil and warrior in general, but if that's the road we're going (with the new speed of shadows on necro as well), then I'd like some of it.

I'd hate to play weaver without arcane though. Feels too perfect, and actually speeds up the gameplay substantially.