Weaver and its new sword...

Hey guys,

So after the first hours of 1v1-ing, Roaming and fighting in a zerg with the new sword I wasn't just disappointed by how little damage i dealt with the sword, but also irritated.I spent quite some time on setting up a build.At that point of time I used the avaible Base Damage Values and Scalings on the gw2 wiki.So I just checked everything again and found the following out:

-The numbers on the wiki are not the actual values ingame.-The build-editor seems so show the ingame values, at least for most skills.-The weavers sword is either bugged or it is set up to be useless.

Im not going too much into detail here for now.My Weaver has the following offensive stats:2,3k Power , 189,4% Crit Damage. 0 Condi Damage.

NONE of the weavers single-hit skills display more than 2k Damage.Most of the swords skill on the well-known damaging attunements (Air & Fire) are not even dealing 1k damage.The new Elite Skill - which you have to set up for ~10sec and is really easy to dodge - deals 500 Damage non crit. Considering that the Mesmer has pretty much the same skill that easily crits up to 4k there HAS TO be something wrong.If there is nothing wrong with it, I do not know what to think anymore.

To put this even more into perspective, I went on and buffed myself with 25 Stacks Might ( an Increase of 750 Power):That showed that most of the skills have a ~0.2 scaling (that means 150dmg more on most skills which is ridiculous...), same goes for the elite skill with a basedamage of 224(!?!).

I think we need some major buffing here otherwise this sword won't be viable in any kind of situation.

Yea, sword is really bad.

100% agreed here, i was hoping to finally return to my ele roaming days but i guess we're stucked being kittened over by anet :dissapointed:

@MrAidenVoid.7416 said:100% agreed here, i was hoping to finally return to my ele roaming days but i guess we're stucked being kittened over by anet :dissapointed:

I wanted to do the exact same and ended up pretty much just running away from most fights since I got outdamaged by pretty much everything except condition necros with which i could fight for 5-10 minutes, while we both failed to apply any pressure whatsoever <.<

@Sandwich.8173 said:0 Condi Damage.

Well there's your problem.

It's not just the Sword. The utilities feel like they have been purposefully weakened to make them fit this unnecessary Ammo system. Take the Barrier one. It has a 50second recharge time and i am getting a MASSIVE 3.4k Shield!? Really!? The same goes for the traits, the GM traits are not worthy of being called GM traits. They are so weak compared to other classes GM traits.

I'm beginning to think power-staff is where it's at.

Survivability is difficult in melee in the new zones. Even with Arcane/Water, I'm working hard to stay alive. I was all celestial but the damage was not cutting it with water/arcane. I'm now Marauder armor with celestial trinkets, runes of strength, marauder staff with bloodlust and strength sigils.

I'm taking the dmg traits in Weaver. At 2700 power, if I time the attunements right I see 4-5k hits, but I'm working my kitten off trying to sequence it right and still not die.

If you are taking 0 condition damage, then you are doing it wrong.

@juno.1840 said:I'm beginning to think power-staff is where it's at.

Survivability is difficult in melee in the new zones. Even with Arcane/Water, I'm working hard to stay alive. I was all celestial but the damage was not cutting it with water/arcane. I'm now Marauder armor with celestial trinkets, runes of strength, marauder staff with bloodlust and strength sigils.

I'm taking the dmg traits in Weaver. At 2700 power, if I time the attunements right I see 4-5k hits, but I'm working my kitten off trying to sequence it right and still not die.

Yeah i have noticed, oddly that staff for me deals more damage with auto attacks than my Sword does. When surely. It should be the other way around given if you're running sword you are 90% melee. You have limited access to gap closers and very limited ranged options. I am talking WvW group/zerg fights, i deal more damage with staff (worse stats) than i do with my Ascended sword, sure i die fast when caught running stff but i sitll have the chance to escape unlike Sword with its crappy mobility. Either way, if i am caught in either. Its death. I just have better chance at living if im at range (shock) but also deal more damage.

On open sword Im running sword/dagger with the new griever stats and having a blast.

jump in with air 2, air/earth for cc, fire for fire field and air-fire...water and earth both have good evade on #2 to help avoid big attacks.

the dmg coud be better, the speed too...

@lLobo.7960 said:On open sword Im running sword/dagger with the new griever stats and having a blast.

jump in with air 2, air/earth for cc, fire for fire field and air-fire...water and earth both have good evade on #2 to help avoid big attacks.

the dmg coud be better, the speed too...

Is that PvE? WvW? PvP? I dont think that would be that viable if roaming WvW. You do get mobility (sorely needed) but the loss of sustain and defense that Focus offers would be killer for the kinda damage that some of the specs can deal. The problem is still the case for ele - having to use multiple skills, combos and such to do something that other classes can do without even weapon swapping at times.

Though thats an odd opener. I would have gone for something like Fire/Air. You use Ride the Lightning to get in, then use Updraft, followed by Flame Uprising. Then go into what ever combos and such you want. This leaves you with Polaric Leap as another CC, gap closer option. Or maybe even Air/Air start with the same Ride The Lightening and Updraft, then use Polaric Leap followed by Quantum Strike. Then you could go into Earth for Gale Strike and so on.

@lLobo.7960 said:On open sword Im running sword/dagger with the new griever stats and having a blast.

jump in with air 2, air/earth for cc, fire for fire field and air-fire...water and earth both have good evade on #2 to help avoid big attacks.

the dmg coud be better, the speed too...

Where do you get those griever stats anyway? I need them badly xD

@Rain.9213 said:

@lLobo.7960 said:On open sword Im running sword/dagger with the new griever stats and having a blast.

jump in with air 2, air/earth for cc, fire for fire field and air-fire...water and earth both have good evade on #2 to help avoid big attacks.

the dmg coud be better, the speed too...

ascended pvp and wvw armor and legendary itens

Have only spent maybe five hours on Weaver w/Sword so far, so I'll be the first to admit I've got a lot to learn about the class mechanics. That said, the reaction that's stuck with me the most so far is that Weaver, regardless of mainhand weapon, isn't as fun to play as Tempest, or base Ele. The dual-attunement mechanic doesn't feel like weaving, so much as interruption. I'm sure I'll get better at this elite if I put in the time, but the fun factor is harder to improve. It just doesn't 'flow', the way previous ele builds have. Sword is especially bad in that regard; the barrier system is nowhere close to compensating for putting a squishy class in the thick of melee, so fighting just to stay alive becomes the focus.

Skills are sweet to look at, though.

Sword is like so super bad.

So they wanted to give us a 130 "proper" melee range weapon. Okay, cool. However what isn't cool is that it's literally the slowest auto attack chain weapon in the game. With POF being heavily movement based PvE (everything is constantly running around or moving) it's pretty damn horrible. And when I mean slowest, I mean even compared to 2 handed weapons of other classes. It's unforgivably slow for it's low damage.

So that leaves you spamming the abilities. Except most of the abilities just aren't very good. I mean there's a few one notes, but most of them are focused on mobility instead of damage and that just doesn't work with the auto attack chain being so bad.

@Rain.9213 said:

@lLobo.7960 said:On open sword Im running sword/dagger with the new griever stats and having a blast.

jump in with air 2, air/earth for cc, fire for fire field and air-fire...water and earth both have good evade on #2 to help avoid big attacks.

the dmg coud be better, the speed too...

Raid vendor, all hot rings have new stats on them.

@Javelin.7960 said:Have only spent maybe five hours on Weaver w/Sword so far, so I'll be the first to admit I've got a lot to learn about the class mechanics. That said, the reaction that's stuck with me the most so far is that Weaver, regardless of mainhand weapon, isn't as fun to play as Tempest, or base Ele. The dual-attunement mechanic doesn't feel like weaving, so much as interruption. I'm sure I'll get better at this elite if I put in the time, but the fun factor is harder to improve. It just doesn't 'flow', the way previous ele builds have. Sword is especially bad in that regard; the barrier system is nowhere close to compensating for putting a squishy class in the thick of melee, so fighting just to stay alive becomes the focus.

Skills are sweet to look at, though.

Fully agree for sword, but mostly disagree in regards to weaver overall.

Weaver staff feels amazing, so much better than Tempest staff. Yeah, no overloads, but I'm actually jumping between elements a lot now, and even if I accidentally jump into water it's not terrible. Staff tempest is all about your fire spells, because outside of air overload, the other attunements are pointless. It felt dismal using FGS to cover lacklustre air autos, waiting to get back into fire. A complete waste of potential. Weaver, on the other hand, feels like a proper elementalist, jumping between attunements to use cross-attunement spells as well as powerful abilities often overlooked due to being attunement-locked with tempest.

Sword though? Yeah, no. I'm not using that trash. The range makes it incredibly painful, and it's not tanky/bursty enough to make up for it. Needs a complete rework, imo.

@obstinate giraffe.9276 said:

@Javelin.7960 said:Have only spent maybe five hours on Weaver w/Sword so far, so I'll be the first to admit I've got a lot to learn about the class mechanics. That said, the reaction that's stuck with me the most so far is that Weaver, regardless of mainhand weapon, isn't as fun to play as Tempest, or base Ele. The dual-attunement mechanic doesn't feel like weaving, so much as interruption. I'm sure I'll get better at this elite if I put in the time, but the fun factor is harder to improve. It just doesn't 'flow', the way previous ele builds have. Sword is especially bad in that regard; the barrier system is nowhere close to compensating for putting a squishy class in the thick of melee, so fighting just to stay alive becomes the focus.

Skills are sweet to look at, though.

Staff is fun i must say seeing the numbers but its just that numbers a raw dmg wepon there nothing "good" about it in a pvp setting of any type. That is what ele and weaver is lacking real anty dmg mitigation tools. I think adding in unblockable real anty heals and anty boon effects would go a long way to making a wepon like sword usable for weaver.

@Cynn.1659 said:

@Rain.9213 said:

@lLobo.7960 said:On open sword Im running sword/dagger with the new griever stats and having a blast.

jump in with air 2, air/earth for cc, fire for fire field and air-fire...water and earth both have good evade on #2 to help avoid big attacks.

the dmg coud be better, the speed too...

Weird, I didnt see any griever there

@lLobo.7960 said:Didnt see any griever there

If you have the items, you can get some of them from the Skirmish dude in WvW i believe, i also noticed that the triumphant gear that i was hoarding also gave me the option to use griever but as a roamer, that would be suicide so i thought no thanks.

First of all thanks for all the replies on my thread.

This > @Rain.9213 said:

@Sandwich.8173 said:0 Condi Damage.

What i said had nothing to do with condi damage. Its about the skills having no real Power Scalings. That results in running a power based build being useless.Plus you cant tell me that the sword is a condi based weapon either, with how little condi stacks you are able to build up especially in PvP / WvW scenarios.A lot of people already pointed out that the AA-chain is way too slow for either dealing raw damage and stacking up conditions.

About what some people said about the utility skills on weaver.I feel like the dodge and fully attuning ones are totally fine when in to comes to WvW/roaming in terms of cooldown and the possibilities they give you.The Elite skill though... as I stated above already, its just useless.

@ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:It's not just the Sword. The utilities feel like they have been purposefully weakened to make them fit this unnecessary Ammo system. Take the Barrier one. It has a 50second recharge time and i am getting a MASSIVE 3.4k Shield!? Really!? The same goes for the traits, the GM traits are not worthy of being called GM traits. They are so weak compared to other classes GM traits.

I'm totally with you on this one. The barrier's cooldown and how much it grants is nothing but a joke.

@Javelin.7960I'm totally with you when it comes to how little of a barrier you get for using your Skills!To solve that issue Arena net should seperate the base values of the barrier depending on which weapons you use, so that a Weaver that runs staff on 1,2k range doesn't get too much barrier considering that the barrier should be designed to help an ele fight in the midst of a battle, imo.

About what most people said: The Staff being fine.I'm totally with you, i haven't taken that close of a look on the Weavers Staff but it seems fine from what I've seen so far.

Edit: forgot two words...
"I feel like the dodge and fully attuning ones are totally FINE when in to comes to WvW/ROAMING in terms of cooldown and the possibilities they give you."

@Sandwich.8173 said:First of all thanks for all the replies on my thread.

This > @Rain.9213 said:

@Sandwich.8173 said:0 Condi Damage.

Yeah the sword is absolutely terrible for power damage. Even running full zerk+scholar with Air/Arcane/Weaver and full damage traits, I'm barely able to deal the amount of damage I would effortlessly put out on a marauder build Revenant with defensive traits slotted in. It's pretty sad and laughable.

Hence my previous comment directed at you. It seems very clear to me that the sword is designed for hybrid/condi damage. By itself, it really doesn't stack many conditions as you said but combined with the Fire or Earth line plus the access to conditions on Arcane, you can actually pump out a good variety of conditions. While the only big damage will come from burning, the bleeding stacks will help your damage and the rest will let you cover your damaging condies. Plus if you're running some Grievers or Viper's gear, you will be hitting some additional decent spikes in damage with some of the dual skills- particularly Fire 3, Air 3, and Earth 3- that will help you apply some instant pressure while your burning and bleeding melts them.

Still, I agree with you completely that the Sword needs a physical damage buff. I really hope they rework or tune down some of the damage boost traits and move that damage over to Sword, thereby nerfing that ridiculous 45k staff Weaver build and giving sword a chance to at least shine in WvW and PvP.

@Rain.9213 said:Yeah the sword is absolutely terrible for power damage. Even running full zerk+scholar with Air/Arcane/Weaver and full damage traits, I'm barely able to deal the amount of damage I would effortlessly put out on a marauder build Revenant with defensive traits slotted in. It's pretty sad and laughable.

Hence my previous comment directed at you. It seems very clear to me that the sword is designed for hybrid/condi damage. By itself, it really doesn't stack many conditions as you said but combined with the Fire or Earth line plus the access to conditions on Arcane, you can actually pump out a good variety of conditions. While the only big damage will come from burning, the bleeding stacks will help your damage and the rest will let you cover your damaging condies. Plus if you're running some Grievers or Viper's gear, you will be hitting some additional decent spikes in damage with some of the dual skills- particularly Fire 3, Air 3, and Earth 3- that will help you apply some instant pressure while your burning and bleeding melts them.

Still, I agree with you completely that the Sword needs a physical damage buff. I really hope they rework or tune down some of the damage boost traits and move that damage over to Sword, thereby nerfing that ridiculous 45k staff Weaver build and giving sword a chance to at least shine in WvW and PvP.

The problem with it being a hybrid weapon is that it does dreadful direct damage but it only has TWO conditions that deal damage. They get cleared and you have to start all over again. Add in that Sword is 100% melee, you will struggle against anyone that has range or mobility. What i would have liked to have seen if they gave us some access to Torment to counter the fact that we are so limited with mobility and range.

biggest problem for me is that the barrier amounts are too low, its basically nonexistent mechanic. Both in HoT and PoF content it makes no difference to survivability, if i have barrier or not on me. If you have 20k HP, which goes to 0 in like 3-4 seconds against 2-3 mobs, 500 barrier is a joke, which ofc decays pretty fast too, which makes barrier even smaller by the time the enemy actually hits you.The best survivability, which also deals ok damage build i have is air+earth for perma regen and the mass CC i have+ stability trait for stances.

Barrier needs to be increased a lot and the decay part removed in combat, but only kept outside combat so you can't have pre-combat barrier.

@HyperLooser.2698 said:biggest problem for me is that the barrier amounts are too low, its basically nonexistent mechanic. Both in HoT and PoF content it makes no difference to survivability, if i have barrier or not on me. If you have 20k HP, which goes to 0 in like 3-4 seconds against 2-3 mobs, 500 barrier is a joke, which ofc decays pretty fast too, which makes barrier even smaller by the time the enemy actually hits you.The best survivability, which also deals ok damage build i have is air+earth for perma regen and the mass CC i have+ stability trait for stances.

Barrier needs to be increased a lot and the decay part removed in combat, but only kept outside combat so you can't have pre-combat barrier.

Yeah but it would need to be increased differently for each class, look at all the access that Scourge has for example. An idea could be something like:Replace Woven Strikes with :Hexed Strikes: You take reduced damage from Conditions when you have barrier active. Remove 1 condition every 1/2second when you have Barrier active.

I would say making it an active version of the old Diamond Skin would be good. So you become immune to conditions while you have Barrier up and you remove condis with it being active. I think the reason this would be balanced is because we have really low access to Barrier unlike say Scourge. Along with this, i would buff Elemental Refreshment to make it at least 1k base and maybe improve the scaling for it because Ele has VERY low access to it and its meant to be pretty much our defense when in melee.