List of reasons why I'm not a big fan of Weaver

I was underwhelmed by the Weaver elite spec pvp weekend some time ago. Weaver has a nice concept going but ultimately the execution feels somehow worse than Tempest, and that's saying something.

1. New dual skills are unremarkable - Compared to the base skills of the elementalist, a majority of which feel original and impactful, the new skills for Weaver all seem... off. Staff dual skills are mostly throwaway aoe's, Scepter's are slow projectiles and rehashes, Dagger is just PBAOE galore and more rehashes. The vast majority of these spells require you to look at your target, and some even require you to sit while casting! (That has to be a bug, right?) It's just unnecessarily clunky. Compared to stuff like Phoenix, Burning Speed, Ride the Lightning, Meteor Shower, Shockwave, there really isn't much variety which makes me a sad panda.2. Sword has an auto-attack chain - That's unheard of for an elementalist (other than conjures). The skills have short range and the cast times are really slow. Sword is known to have higher ranger than Dagger (in general), yet Dagger's autoattacks seem considerably better?3. Barrier - Amount is too small. Maybe it should scale on something other than healing power (afaik that's how it works).4. Stances - I didn't equip them even once. They are severely underpowered IMO and can't hold a candle to the infamous cantrips (or arcane for DPS builds... isn't Weaver supposed to be THE dps spec?)

Last but not least**

5. The inability to access key skills at the right time** - This right here is the deal breaker. Elementalist has been a switch-on / off elements class from the start. Tempest tried to do away with it a little, and now Weaver seems to enforce that design philosophy. I really don't feel like I'm weaving much when I'm forced to sit 4~ seconds in the same attunement! At least with tempest you only had to stay in an element if you wanted to access the overload - not the case with Weaver.I didn't perceive a natural flow when playing this class - sure it was just a weekend - but nothing really clicked for me. This point alone has more significance than the other 4 ones. The spec sincerely feels like it gimps your playstyle by restricting you this much. Unravel fixes it I know, but it's really, REALLY tough to be forced to lose an invaluable utility slot in order to fit this skill in.

Gotta give props for finally giving us an elite worth using though! Just kinda wish it removed cooldowns altogether from element switching (at the cost of -50% boon duration maybe?) Haha.

Hope ANET can fix it before PoF. I honestly believe it's among the weakest elite specs shown.

@Razor.6392 said:2. Sword has an auto-attack chain - That's unheard of for an elementalist (other than conjures). The skills have short range and the cast times are really slow. Sword is known to have higher ranger than Dagger (in general), yet Dagger's autoattacks seem considerably better?

I think this is one of the bigger issues when combined with traits that encourage you to swap attunements regularly. It's unlikely you're going to complete an autoattack chain unless you camp an attunement longer than you probably want to, and that's a shame because the final hits are often pretty decent.

I wonder if it would be possible for attunement swapping not to break the autoattack chain. I suspect that's a pretty big ask here, but it'd go a long way towards making Weaver sword feel a lot more fluid.

Many of the reasons that you listed are also things I saw, but I feel like the dual skills felt good, or at least some did.

I personally enjoy the dual skills to each their own there I guess tho.

The Auto attack chain on sword I don't personally mind and it gave access to something ele never had can be viewed as good or bad I guess.

For Barrier it also scales with vitality and it's more of a anticipation tool I found def work taking the increased vit trait while wielding a sword for weaver.

As for the stances I have to strongly disagree, for starters all of the stances have an ammo system even if some may have a lengthy recharge count its still 2 charges. Next they have great synergy with Bolstered elements giving ele access to a much more controllable stability source outside of just armor of earth or overloading(traited) in tempest. Primordial Stance should beat out glyph of elemental Power in the long run for a pure dps bump for condi eles. Stone resonance pumps out a nice constant flow of barrier and gives a nice sustain option when under pressure and need to heal yourself or run away. Unravel I personally didn't find much use with but did run into someone using it to set up nice burst chains after using dual attunnments. Lastly the best stance Twist of fate is prob one of the best stun breakers ever in the ele arsenal as it not only breaks stuns but gives a full 1 second evade and a pinch of super speed plus it looks awesome. Weave self doesn't really need an explanation tbh. As for the dps comment weaver has damage boosters/modifers in each line adept/masterful/minor grandmaster and grandmaster.

One thing I felt the most when playing weaver was that it wasn't just some spec you could pick up and jump right into and I really had to know each weapon and what their dual wield skills were on each attunement swap not knowing that felt like it hurt even more compared to tempest getting locked out of an attunment after overloading at the wrong time.

@Lalainnia.3598 said:I personally enjoy the dual skills to each their own there I guess tho.

The Auto attack chain on sword I don't personally mind and it gave access to something ele never had can be viewed as good or bad I guess.

For Barrier it also scales with vitality and it's more of a anticipation tool I found def work taking the increased vit trait while wielding a sword for weaver.

As for the stances I have to strongly disagree, for starters all of the stances have an ammo system even if some may have a lengthy recharge count its still 2 charges. Next they have great synergy with Bolstered elements giving ele access to a much more controllable stability source outside of just armor of earth or overloading(traited) in tempest. Primordial Stance should beat out glyph of elemental Power in the long run for a pure dps bump for condi eles. Stone resonance pumps out a nice constant flow of barrier and gives a nice sustain option when under pressure and need to heal yourself or run away. Unravel I personally didn't find much use with but did run into someone using it to set up nice burst chains after using dual attunnments. Lastly the best stance Twist of fate is prob one of the best stun breakers ever in the ele arsenal as it not only breaks stuns but gives a full 1 second evade and a pinch of super speed plus it looks awesome. Weave self doesn't really need an explanation tbh. As for the dps comment weaver has damage boosters/modifers in each line adept/masterful/minor grandmaster and grandmaster.

One thing I felt the most when playing weaver was that it wasn't just some spec you could pick up and jump right into and I really had to know each weapon and what their dual wield skills were on each attunement swap not knowing that felt like it hurt even more compared to tempest getting locked out of an attunment after overloading at the wrong time.

I dunno. Weaver is severely limiting in what you can do and how you can play it.About Stances, remember Weaver is the DPS / damaging spec (as opposed to the healbot one)! Yet none of them have a clear DPS goal in mind. Even arcane is better in this regard. Twist of Fate does look cool but it's just Superspeed (I know there are Superspeed traits), it's no stability or blocks like Armor of Earth or Arcane Shield. Of course every skill is different but I'm just saying that comparatively, it doesn't really stand out.No use for Unravel? How?! Did you try Weaver in pvp? If you get jumped on and you want to access Obsidian Flesh or other key skill in the slots #4 or #5, you can't do it, so therefore you are dead. Unravel helped unlocking those skills for clutch moments.Don't make it sound like I'm a noob >.< I know Weaver isn't a low-skill floor build. It will take work to master but that doesn't mean I can't point out the flaws of the spec. Damage, numbers, combo finishers and rotation are one thing, but when the main mechanic (must... camp... an... element... for... 4... secs) feels extremely restrictive and clunky, maybe something really is wrong!

@Razor.6392 said:

@Lalainnia.3598 said:I personally enjoy the dual skills to each their own there I guess tho.

The Auto attack chain on sword I don't personally mind and it gave access to something ele never had can be viewed as good or bad I guess.

For Barrier it also scales with vitality and it's more of a anticipation tool I found def work taking the increased vit trait while wielding a sword for weaver.

As for the stances I have to strongly disagree, for starters all of the stances have an ammo system even if some may have a lengthy recharge count its still 2 charges. Next they have great synergy with Bolstered elements giving ele access to a much more controllable stability source outside of just armor of earth or overloading(traited) in tempest. Primordial Stance should beat out glyph of elemental Power in the long run for a pure dps bump for condi eles. Stone resonance pumps out a nice constant flow of barrier and gives a nice sustain option when under pressure and need to heal yourself or run away. Unravel I personally didn't find much use with but did run into someone using it to set up nice burst chains after using dual attunnments. Lastly the best stance Twist of fate is prob one of the best stun breakers ever in the ele arsenal as it not only breaks stuns but gives a full 1 second evade and a pinch of super speed plus it looks awesome. Weave self doesn't really need an explanation tbh. As for the dps comment weaver has damage boosters/modifers in each line adept/masterful/minor grandmaster and grandmaster.

One thing I felt the most when playing weaver was that it wasn't just some spec you could pick up and jump right into and I really had to know each weapon and what their dual wield skills were on each attunement swap not knowing that felt like it hurt even more compared to tempest getting locked out of an attunment after overloading at the wrong time.

I'm lost with where you don't think weaver doesn't have a clear DPS goal in mind are you talking about sword specifically? it has damage boosters/modifiers for condi and power based builds.Twist of fate is a stun breaker a 1 second evade and it gives superspeed that's the whole package with the added bonus of granting stab if you trait it.I never said no use for Unravel I said I didn't find much personal use for it but the example you gave is a perfect and life saving one.I'm not sure where I'm calling you a noob I just know that was my immediate feel for weaver when I tried it out. Not really sure where I stated you couldn't point out how you feel about the spec, but if I hurt your feelings sorry?As for the 4 sec camp what exactly would you propose for it to be at 3 2 1 0? I personally didn't have many issues with it, I'm really curious though when ppl say they don't like the 4 second swap what exactly would they want it at no cd on swapping?

@Razor.6392 said:4. Stances - I didn't equip them even once. They are severely underpowered IMO and can't hold a candle to the infamous cantrips (or arcane for DPS builds... isn't Weaver supposed to be THE dps spec?)

About that... I have a feeling I'm going to stick with Tempest for dps in PvE, but I'm going to switch to Weaver for WvW where I don't really get much value out of overloads, save for mopping up downies. Overall though, I don't get the feeling Weaver is meant to be the dps spec. The damage modifiers are nice, but the dual skills are all over the place and don't really compete with the overloads.

personally, i mostly had 2 things I felt was off on it (using staff).

1. I didn't like how the combo skills were very "single purpose focused" and didn't add a significant increase in efficiency compared to the base skills.
2. and didn't like that the GCD on attunement swap landed on all attunements and was so long ^^

I wish they would add multiple effects or/and increase the dual skill effects significantly.something like they did with the elite (though both for elite and utilities it should be a targeting at a range of your weapons, having 1200+skill range on all skills and then utility+elite at 0+skill range (of 300-600ish max) doesn't feel like it synergizes very well.would be cool if all the weaving skills gained in power the more attunements you switched through before reactivating them and had the range of the weapon you use ^^

barrier I am not sure how "good/bad" it is; think as a supplement to allow for time to heal it would be a cool effect setup ^^

so, in short, the most important thing for me is that the Weaving skills and dual skills get a heavy tweak/change/buff, so that it feels "Awesome!" to use them (and will only work imho if the range equals+- the weapons range, else they get locked to only melee weapons) ^^

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAsdnk4CdOgNOA+4CM5iFDAjoKMEaCBBgM5B4+Unqj1A-jJRHAB3XGAgTAQP7PIwDAAA

A build for those who don't have a boner for arcane

I feel like Arcane is almost necessary to reduce the amount of cooldown between attunement swapping. I can see why not having a cooldown would make Weaver a bit too OP but maybe the 4s (or maybe less) cooldown could just be between elements you've recently swapped to.

@TheDetective.8172 said:I feel like Arcane is almost necessary to reduce the amount of cooldown between attunement swapping. I can see why not having a cooldown would make Weaver a bit too OP but maybe the 4s (or maybe less) cooldown could just be between elements you've recently swapped to.

This would then mean that you can only choose one element to trait to, so you'd either have to choose between Air or Fire and if you choose the latter you lose the movement speed, but I guess that doesn't matter in PoF though :open_mouth:

@FrownyClown.8402 said:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAsdnk4CdOgNOA+4CM5iFDAjoKMEaCBBgM5B4+Unqj1A-jJRHAB3XGAgTAQP7PIwDAAA

A build for those who don't have a kitten for arcane

There's no arcane in that build...

Remember a weaver is not suppose to play like a base ele. All attunement going on Cd during a attunement swap is a change in gameplay. The problem is that dual skills are underwhelming and do not make up for the surviablity lost from not having access to offhand reactive skills. Barriers needs a buff. Unravel is underwhelming you give up a utility slot so you can swap to a skill 4sec faster, you might as well equip defensive utility instead. Unravel needs to do more like gain alacrity or quickness when used. I would perfer that primordial stance did not give out that much vulnerability. Elementalist can easily max vulnerability on targets with air traits even in pvp. The Primordial stance Air should be changed to 3sec blind or weakness with a small 2-3 stack of vulnerability 3sec per pulse in air.

Instead of unravel I would love to have a utility skill or F5 that lets me flip main to offhand attunment and the other way around.

@Lalainnia.3598 said:

@Razor.6392 said:

@Lalainnia.3598 said:I personally enjoy the dual skills to each their own there I guess tho.

The Auto attack chain on sword I don't personally mind and it gave access to something ele never had can be viewed as good or bad I guess.

For Barrier it also scales with vitality and it's more of a anticipation tool I found def work taking the increased vit trait while wielding a sword for weaver.

As for the stances I have to strongly disagree, for starters all of the stances have an ammo system even if some may have a lengthy recharge count its still 2 charges. Next they have great synergy with Bolstered elements giving ele access to a much more controllable stability source outside of just armor of earth or overloading(traited) in tempest. Primordial Stance should beat out glyph of elemental Power in the long run for a pure dps bump for condi eles. Stone resonance pumps out a nice constant flow of barrier and gives a nice sustain option when under pressure and need to heal yourself or run away. Unravel I personally didn't find much use with but did run into someone using it to set up nice burst chains after using dual attunnments. Lastly the best stance Twist of fate is prob one of the best stun breakers ever in the ele arsenal as it not only breaks stuns but gives a full 1 second evade and a pinch of super speed plus it looks awesome. Weave self doesn't really need an explanation tbh. As for the dps comment weaver has damage boosters/modifers in each line adept/masterful/minor grandmaster and grandmaster.

One thing I felt the most when playing weaver was that it wasn't just some spec you could pick up and jump right into and I really had to know each weapon and what their dual wield skills were on each attunement swap not knowing that felt like it hurt even more compared to tempest getting locked out of an attunment after overloading at the wrong time.

Now now, maybe I got this wrong but when you were saying "One thing I felt the most when playing weaver was that it wasn't just some spec you could pick up and jump right into" it kinda implies that judgment should be reserved since not everyone knows how to play it right away (thus making my points invalid). I've mained ele since release! Apologies if this wasn't your intention. My feelings remain unhurt.

To all this I ask though, did you even try Weaver in pvp? (you didn't respond when I first asked!)

As for the swaps, 2-3 seconds would be acceptable. The downside is how op the boon-spam on switch (from elemental attunement) would be among other traits, like the heal on Water or fire aura on Fire. Just give them all an ICD and call it a day and make the elite a 0 second cd swap.

@Razor.6392 said:

@Lalainnia.3598 said:

@Razor.6392 said:

@Lalainnia.3598 said:I personally enjoy the dual skills to each their own there I guess tho.

The Auto attack chain on sword I don't personally mind and it gave access to something ele never had can be viewed as good or bad I guess.

For Barrier it also scales with vitality and it's more of a anticipation tool I found def work taking the increased vit trait while wielding a sword for weaver.

As for the stances I have to strongly disagree, for starters all of the stances have an ammo system even if some may have a lengthy recharge count its still 2 charges. Next they have great synergy with Bolstered elements giving ele access to a much more controllable stability source outside of just armor of earth or overloading(traited) in tempest. Primordial Stance should beat out glyph of elemental Power in the long run for a pure dps bump for condi eles. Stone resonance pumps out a nice constant flow of barrier and gives a nice sustain option when under pressure and need to heal yourself or run away. Unravel I personally didn't find much use with but did run into someone using it to set up nice burst chains after using dual attunnments. Lastly the best stance Twist of fate is prob one of the best stun breakers ever in the ele arsenal as it not only breaks stuns but gives a full 1 second evade and a pinch of super speed plus it looks awesome. Weave self doesn't really need an explanation tbh. As for the dps comment weaver has damage boosters/modifers in each line adept/masterful/minor grandmaster and grandmaster.

One thing I felt the most when playing weaver was that it wasn't just some spec you could pick up and jump right into and I really had to know each weapon and what their dual wield skills were on each attunement swap not knowing that felt like it hurt even more compared to tempest getting locked out of an attunment after overloading at the wrong time.

Yes I tried it and if its mainly pertaining to unravel I just personally felt like it wasn't anything amazing. I never really ran into an instance where I wasn't able to pop obsidian before getting nuked.

I'm worried that Weaver will not turn out to be the DPS spec, which it should be given it's lowest health pool, lowest armor, nearly lowest range (with sword, signature Weaver weapon), and really high complexity.

Time will tell, but if a decently-piloted glass Weaver is not the DPS spec, there will be little reason to use it over rerolling onto another profession.

Am I the only one that likes that sword has an auto chain? I really, really like that elementalist gets a weapon that is close combat, not short/mid range or long range. I don't think it will be ideal for all weaver builds but that's fine.

However, i think with so many changes, it's good we provide feedback & that they've got to closely monitor numbers. Especially with Barrier since it's wholly new and seems to be key to Weaver survival.

@Razor.6392 said:2. Sword has an auto-attack chain - That's unheard of for an elementalist (other than conjures). The skills have short range and the cast times are really slow. Sword is known to have higher ranger than Dagger (in general), yet Dagger's autoattacks seem considerably better?

My biggest gripe with the Elementalist Auto attack chain is how slow it is. If you look at almost every other auto attack chain in the game on every other class it's all 1/4 or 1/2 speeds with the occasional 3/4 or longer for a special move (IE: Triple Chop). Most of our auto attack chains are 1/2 to 3/4 and 3/4 which just makes them super slow. I mean literally the slowest auto attack chains in the game slower than 2 handed weapons even. A 3/4 speed was fine on Dagger because most Dagger skills have a 300 range to compensate but with sword being 130 it simply needs a faster auto attack.

I ran into a lot of issues even with the PvE part of the trial where I'd be auto attack chaining something and the dogs or the Hammer Lady would just straight up walk out of melee range and end the whole chain. Hopefully they address this.

Sword is already dead to me unless it gets a major buff. No reason to invest anything there unless you're devoted to the fashion meta (sword will clip when stowed, so there goes that).

Weaver gameplay seems fundamentally chaotic and unresponsive. Where you could swap and hit a 4 or 5 before, you'll have to wait to swap again to hit that 4 or 5 and, in the meantime, you've got a 1 & 2 that may be weak. All weapon 3 skills are replaced when dual-attuned, too, so it'll be a real pain to get to those. There will likely be some combination of swaps, weapon skills, utilities, traits, and Adderall that will yield a perfect storm for a golem rotation. It'll look good on a meta DPS chart, but it won't work on anything except the golem unless the rest of the team is willing to devote itself to your well-being.

While chaotic and unresponsive, it'll be an extremely active playstyle and some people like that. More power to them, I guess, but it's not for me.

@"Amethyst Lure.5624" said:Am I the only one that likes that sword has an auto chain?LOL probably,

My few gripes with the Weaver-Damage coefficients on the sword are terribly low, dagger does more damage yet sword is marketed with weaver as our bruiser dps spec.

• Very few reliable ways to deal with condies outside of water. This needs to change, we need better clears to deal with the current and future condi meta (griever reaper anyone?)
• Barrier is too low (like way to low. For a class with the lowest health you would think we would get barriers comparable or better than the scourge, especially since our barrier is for us only.)
• sword skills need a speed increase , namely the AA chain
• Sword skills need a range increase( namely the AA chain, though if you buff barrier I would be less concerned with this)
• Sword skills need a bigger gap closer ( 600u for flame uprising and 900u polaric leap) (( I did a quick check to see the gap closer range on most classes melee weapons and they out range up by a metric kitten toon, WHY?!))
• The cooldown for fully attuning to an element should be lowered to a .5 CD. Currently some of the traits in game specify you don't get the same benefits when attuning to the same element. Do this for the rest of them and you solve your "double bonus" issue ( I wanted to suggest unravel be the F5, but that may be more work for Anet, and I would like for them to have as little work as possible before the launch so things could hopefully actually get done, no I don't have faith in the speed of the current team, but that's just me)
• Count recharge on Twist of fate should be 25seconds , Cause I like to make people rage with evasion :bleep_bloop:

I think my biggest concern is the global cooldown when switching attunements. It really takes away what I love about the elementalist profession. I have since been considering firebrand as my profession of choice for the expansion. Time will tell!

From a WvW standpoint, I don't see weaver replacing tempest.

The issue is you lose auras , damage, and fields from overload.

I feel the dual attacks need to be improved and/or barriers greatly increased in potency. Without a massive increase in barrier potency, weaver will not see use in WvW because defensively weaver is weaker than tempests. Tempests already build very defensively just to hang in front/midline. Master's fortitude is a half-solution.

Pressure Blast on staff for example needs to scale better or remove condis , in its current state it is weaker than Geyser since you lose the water field. Swapping attunements becomes more of a shuffle because of this.

In its current state the only trait that really stands out to me is Unravel hexes ,but it needs Twist of fate or Elemental pursuit to be usable unless you plan on spamming the long cast-time Eruption.

Weaver is more of a pvp solo build hopefully our first build that is not tanky. The tempest will still be the best support focused build elementalist have. It just that weaver should enable the elementalist meta to change.

@Amethyst Lure.5624 said:Am I the only one that likes that sword has an auto chain? I really, really like that elementalist gets a weapon that is close combat, not short/mid range or long range. I don't think it will be ideal for all weaver builds but that's fine.

However, i think with so many changes, it's good we provide feedback & that they've got to closely monitor numbers. Especially with Barrier since it's wholly new and seems to be key to Weaver survival.

I love that we get aa chains too.I just think they need to be faster and more rewarding, specially the final hit.