This is a sPvP-only thread. Please refrain from commenting about WvW or PvE

For those of you that don't know me, I'm Husky, usually a mid-level plat player (finished at 1675 this season, 1650 the previous season). I multiclass, and Sc/F FA ele has been one of my favorite builds. I've been playing power S/D ele recently with demolisher amulet, and here are my observations about S/D's role and potential improvements:

S/D roles

• Decap/+1 role: Plays marauder/demolisher/berserker amulet. Can move around quickly to decap, but no stealth. Doesn't have the ability to quickly secure kills. It can secure a kill in less than 10 seconds, and is unlikely to die to aoe or sudden bursts. In this role it is outclassed by D/P or S/D thief, radiant guard, meditrapper, power rev, power shatter mes. C+ rating overall.
• Point-holder role: Plays Mender or Avatar amulet. It's good at this role, however, dagger isn't very good at defense. Can hold the point for a long time against basically anyone, but doesn't sustain long in 1v2s. To be effective in this role it's necessary to take avatar or mender, which makes it incapable of filling the +1 role. Outclassed by Mender Scrapper, Mender Symbolic guard, Mender Druid. Equivalent to scourge, Magi firebrand, spellbreaker in this role (debatable). B rating overall.
• Duelist role: Plays Avatar amulet. Weakest role choice. Sword weaver wants to hug the target and put on constant pressure, but lacks skills like warrior stances or heavy classes' inherent bulk to constantly pressure opponents. In this role it is outclassed by basically all mesmer builds, S/D thief, radiant guard, meditrapper, scourge, power rev, holosmith, mender druid, power soulbeast/core power ranger, spellbreaker, core warrior, and probably more. F rating overall.

What to do about this

I have a few specific changes that would improve Power Sword on the dueling and +1 side of things.

• Dueling: Reduce Natural Frenzy channeling time to 3/4s. Change the vulnerability to 1/4 chill per hit. Casting time is fine but the channel time is far too much risk for reward. Also make projectiles into finishers to take advantage of sword's many fields.
• Dueling: Rework Riptide such that it doesn't evade backwards. Maybe make it work like Flame Uprising, putting the field on top of the enemy. As it is it creates distance between me and my enemy, which is bad.
• Dueling/+1: Make Twin Strike a knockdown, but change it to be single target. This will give it more synergy with Fire Grab.
• Dueling/+1: Reduce Fire Grab CD to about 8s. It's already conditional damage so it's not like it could be spammed off-CD. Ele really needs this damage more than every 25s.
• Dueling/+1: Reduce Quantum Strike's casting time to 1/2s. Quantum Strike has a similar effect to Pyro Vortex, yet doesn't have the bonus effects of casting a dual attack, YET still has a longer casting time. Doesn't make sense.
• Dueling: Make Gale Strike single target and 600 range.
• Dueling/+1: Change Piercing Shards such that it applies no matter the attunement. Nobody is trying to do damage in Water.
• Dueling/+1: Remake Shearing Edge into an Ice Beam type move, similar to Plasma Beam, but 600 range. In its current form it rarely hits and doesn't do a significant amount of damage. The swiftness and barrier I get are more useful than the actual projectile itself.
• Dueling/+1: Give Churning Earth 4 pulses, pulse the same damage and conditions each time. This is 100% a PvE skill at the moment. Useless except for cleaving bodies.
• General: Give Arcane Shield infinite blocks for the duration of the skill, and move the explosion to the time of the casting, rather than it triggering after 3 blocks. Reduce duration to 4s.
• General: Reduce CD of Lightning Flash to 30s.
• General: Consider upping ele's access to might outside of blasting fire fields and the Fire traitline. The Arcane traitline helps with this but there is no real way to get significant enough might stacks to warrant a Rune of Strength build, which could be fun.

Conclusions

Power S/D, despite being pretty much the highest-damage melee weapon combination for weaver, doesn't have enough damage. Power coefficients are too low, and cast times are too high. In order to be either a duelist or a +1, it needs casting times closer to mesmer. Ele is the squishiest class in the game, so it must be better than other classes at its role by comparison, or nobody will take it.

Sword is designed around killing mobs, not players. If you make a dps test, sword weaver deals quite some damage, although the risk/reward ratio is still way off. But that's just the damage on paper. In reality, casttimes, low range and general clumsiness reduce the damage output of sword against other players to a really low amount. They have to reduce casttimes and increase the range of sword to 300 if they ever want to make sword weaver viable in pvp.

As a low gold weaver with 51% win rate I can hardly approve or disprove anything but from the time I had with sword/dagger|focus it certainly feels somewhat behind in comparison to other classes with similarly skilled players that have optimized builds.

YES but first please buff main-hand Dagger. It's worthless in everything now.

With some I agree with some i don't but even all where implemented sword dps still would be bad...simply because we don't have fury on demand like most dps 1v1 and +1 builds in meta.

I bit overworked lately so i can't comment on everything but Churning Earth the way it now is often used by ele's as spike skill...by casting it from distance...and just lighting flash it directly on the target at the almost end of animation. Your Proposition is to make this skill kinda tempest overload and that means you will never successfully cast it in 1v1. For example spellbraker will just remove stability from you (cause you would be stupid to no cast it whiteout stab) and easily interrupt.

So my point is that Churning Earth should stay as it is cause it good skill in pvp for surprise spike...basically it needs only fury to not be pure RNG skill

Arcane shield is cool in theory the way it is now, but it can be popped in less than a second by a lot of classes.I won't really comment on anything else since I haven't really played since the expansion came out, but this seems pretty spot on from over 6 months ago. GG anet up to your old tricks again

@FrownyClown.8402 said:Arcane shield is cool in theory the way it is now, but it can be popped in less than a second by a lot of classes.I won't really comment on anything else since I haven't really played since the expansion came out, but this seems pretty spot on from over 6 months ago. GG anet up to your old tricks again

Personally I don't use that gimmick. My general setup is usually LF, Twist of Fate, and Stone Resonance.

Also wb

@Abelisk.4527 said:

@FrownyClown.8402 said:Arcane shield is cool in theory the way it is now, but it can be popped in less than a second by a lot of classes.I won't really comment on anything else since I haven't really played since the expansion came out, but this seems pretty spot on from over 6 months ago. GG anet up to your old tricks again

I've been switching between marauder and demolisher, using LF Twist of Fate and Armor of Earth, using the cantrips trait. Works really well, Armor of Earth is enough to allow me to cleave or land important melee CCs against pretty much anybody that doesn't have boon hate. Still have yet to master the mechanics though.

I didn't read the whole thing I'll admit but I did want to put in my 2 cents for riptide. I'd rather see it function similar to warrior's gs 3 where you can direct where you want to move so that the skill can be used to create distance or close it instead of just picking one function.

@Ario.8964 said:I didn't read the whole thing I'll admit but I did want to put in my 2 cents for riptide. I'd rather see it function similar to warrior's gs 3 where you can direct where you want to move so that the skill can be used to create distance or close it instead of just picking one function.

That's a good idea. Would be nice to have ground targeting. Makes the game more skillful too!

i wish u could pre cast moves like pyro vortex before the teleport you get from polaric leap so u could hit people with dual attacks similar to the thiefs steal combo

@Huskyboy.1053 said:

@Ario.8964 said:I didn't read the whole thing I'll admit but I did want to put in my 2 cents for riptide. I'd rather see it function similar to warrior's gs 3 where you can direct where you want to move so that the skill can be used to create distance or close it instead of just picking one function.

Just thought that with ground targeting it'd allow for a weaver to help with support in a significant manner with targeted heals in teamfights or skirmishes. That'd be a great thing to give to weaver so it gets a better role in teamfights.

@caveman.5840 said:i wish u could pre cast moves like pyro vortex before the teleport you get from polaric leap so u could hit people with dual attacks similar to the thiefs steal combo

They could achieve that by just making it a port hit like judge's intervention instead of a sword attack. Then it works basically like steal without giving you an item and it allows for comboing of skills.

@Abelisk.4527 said:YES but first please buff main-hand Dagger. It's worthless in everything now.

It's been a long time but you should make another thread about specific changes you'd like.

I run Sw/d weaver with celestial amulet and leadership runes and some minor trait changes from the usual and it does quite well. I like it more than avatar or menders as I have a bit more toughness to deal with power specs (war, thief) and can deal good dmg with both power and condi. 5-7k firegrabs are not uncommon if I build might properly.

I think a good change would be to revert arcane prowess (first arcane trait minor) to give fury again. The loss of fury on attunement hurt all pvp specs (pve has persisting flames).

Polaric leap (air Sw #2) needs to have its range increased to at least 900. The current 600 is barely enough to chase someone on top of the clocktower in khylo.

The main thing with sword weaver as a dueling spec is that ele has no base defenses. Low Hp, low armor, no built in teleports (like steal) or evades/blocks (like virtues or shatters). So to become a duelist, the ele needs to invest heavy on survival (water line, defensive traits in arcane, defensive traits in weaver) and loose its dmg potential. On top of that there is no amulet (besides celestial, but that gives too little of everything) that can give ele a decent amount of armor, vitality and healing power while also providing some way to do dmg.Without tons of teleports, stealth or evades, any ele going for dmg will be easy target to thieves, revs or even guards that can port to you and instant kill you with condi (due to low hp pool) or power dmg (due to low toughness).

For the sword weaver to be a decent duelist, dual attacks needed to deal more than just dmg.Air/Fire should be a short evade followed by the vortex.earth/earth should be an evadewater/water should be a block->healfire/fire, if hit a burning target, should spread the burn in a small aoefire/water should have a short evade between the strikes

(PVP) It's old post but it's crazy that still nothing happened:

We can all agree that:

1. Something is wrong with sword damage:
   • no more arcane fury
   • slow and small reach of sword skills
   • sword autos damage is too low and (again) to slow
   • generally pros view sw/d as boring builds that doesn't do anything meaningful in current meta.
2. Tempest is dead
   • can't survive teamfight without (LOL) support of other healbot (firebrand)
   • it supposed deal nicely with power damage? PoF laughs on all our passive damage reductions that were already joke in HoT.
   • Firebrand can provide any possible type of support in this game and tempest has heals, aoe protection and some projectile denial...
3. Fresh build's lost ability to one-shot stuff. We all knew it will happen but LITERALY NOBODY asked for nerfing core build. The question is -> how those builds could compete as +1 like thief without it's mobility and STEAL.

@"Mr Godlike.6098" said:(PVP) It's old post but it's crazy that still nothing happened:

We can all agree that:

1. Something is wrong with sword damage:
   • no more arcane fury
   • slow and small reach of sword skills
   • sword autos damage is too low and (again) to slow
   • generally pros view sw/d as boring builds that doesn't do anything meaningful in current meta.
2. Tempest is dead
   • can't survive teamfight without (LOL) support of other healbot (firebrand)
   • it supposed deal nicely with power damage? PoF laughs on all our passive damage reductions that were already joke in HoT.
   • Firebrand can provide any possible type of support in this game and tempest has heals, aoe protection and some projectile denial...
3. Fresh build's lost ability to one-shot stuff. We all knew it will happen but LITERALY NOBODY asked for nerfing core build. The question is -> how those builds could compete as +1 like thief without it's mobility and STEAL.

I talked to Phanta last night, he suggested his Sw/F Lightning Rod build that's on his twitch. He was in a match with me against decent players and managed to 1v3 for quite a while. I'm sure it's a high skill cap build but clearly viable in mid-Plat.

@Huskyboy.1053 said:

@"Mr Godlike.6098" said:(PVP) It's old post but it's crazy that still nothing happened:

We can all agree that:

1. Something is wrong with sword damage:
   • no more arcane fury
   • slow and small reach of sword skills
   • sword autos damage is too low and (again) to slow
   • generally pros view sw/d as boring builds that doesn't do anything meaningful in current meta.
2. Tempest is dead
   • can't survive teamfight without (LOL) support of other healbot (firebrand)
   • it supposed deal nicely with power damage? PoF laughs on all our passive damage reductions that were already joke in HoT.
   • Firebrand can provide any possible type of support in this game and tempest has heals, aoe protection and some projectile denial...
3. Fresh build's lost ability to one-shot stuff. We all knew it will happen but LITERALY NOBODY asked for nerfing core build. The question is -> how those builds could compete as +1 like thief without it's mobility and STEAL.

Never said that something is not viable in ranked...I always talk from perspective of tournaments. If you are psycho you can get to plat with staff whatever build. In case of phanta build not enough people tested it in actual competitive environment (never seen it in my ques also) so it's still hard to rate this build. Still I have full respect for him that he works on crafting dps build.

I have been getting more and more into sword weaver lately (really my first go at the spec since PoF release) and so far im having a blast with it.But I have to agree ....some skills feel really lackluster. While I dont agree with all of OPs suggestions I think some are fairly decent...I really like the churning earth one.

While dmg surely can be buffed by some mere number tweaks on some of the skills, I still think the functionality of most of them are fine.What I much rather would like to see tho - Just like OP pointed out - is might stacking capabilites. On demand access to fury would be nice as well. Its utterly frustraing to see classes like rev (just one example) cap out on might and100% fury uptime without any proactive contribution whatsoever.

My "balance wishlist" - would look somewhat like this:

• Flame Uprising (Sw Fire 2): Increase the fire field duration to 4 seconds.
  as it is right now you can barely get some combos going. In a realistic combat scenario you cant even walk out of it and dodge into it for evasive arcana combos.

• Arcane Prowess (Arcane trait): Increase might gain to 2.pretty self explanatory.

• Polaric Leap (Sw Air 2): Successfully interrupting a skill gives Fury (duration is up for debate). Personally I'd also argue for a drastic base dmg increase....121 base dmg and 0.33 power coefficient are laughable if you dont run lightning rod.

• Shearing Edge (Sw Air/Water dual skill): Either make the projectile much faster or turn it into a melee aoe blast (similar to cleansing wave) that chills enemies AND grants fury.

• Weave Self: Woven Air (elite skill): 50% Moevmentspeed is simply overkill....especially since it (with swiftness) exceeds the in-combat MS cap anyway. 20% Movespeed and 20% increased critchance for its duration would feel much better. Other Woven Elements are fine.

• Aquatic Stance (Heal): SImple number tweaks. Preferably better Healing Power coefficients.

• Unravel (Utility): Needs a rework altogether. I like the base Idea of it, since the main drawback of dual attunements is the lack of immediate access to offhand skills (of which some can be pretty high imapct). Maybe make it similar to Weave self, where you get reduced recharge on attunement swap for its duration. But even then it would need something extra to make it worth considering.

As it may be apparent, I'd like to get some more fury or crit modifiers on weapon or utility skills and have more passive might-stacking capabilites. Everything else would just be soem QoL improvements. Also .....can we please get a buff to Celestial amulet? Not restoring it to +560 straight away. But seeing as no spec really uses it anyway, Id say that a buff to ~520 would be warranted.

Edit: Didnt initially see that this post is quite outdated so I started a new thread about it. Sry for "necro-posting"

@BikeIsGone.8675 said:

• Arcane Prowess (Arcane trait): Increase might gain to 2.pretty self explanatory.This needs to be reverted to fury on attunement.

@BikeIsGone.8675 said:

• Polaric Leap (Sw Air 2): Successfully interrupting a skill gives Fury (duration is up for debate). Personally I'd also argue for a drastic base dmg increase....121 base dmg and 0.33 power coefficient are laughable if you dont run lightning rod.

I'm fine with it not doing much dmg. But it needs a better range. 900 at least so you can actually at least try to port to top of any small level difference in maps.It already requires a target, give it some distance at least.If you are going to add effects on interrupt, I think a lightening bolt that deals a bit of dmg and inflict weakness would be the best setup.

• Shearing Edge (Sw Air/Water dual skill): Either make the projectile much faster or turn it into a melee aoe blast (similar to cleansing wave) that chills enemies AND grants fury.