The secret to Open-World

In instanced content, sword weaver DPS can still do quite well babysat but the lack of self-sufficiency has always been a problem for elementalists in the open world; where not taking full offensive traits and gear simply makes things much too slow and boring, even risking mobs respawn before you clear them all if you go too defensive.

Quickness solves all of that! (and as a bonus also lets you farm nodes faster!)With quickness you can pump out massive damage doing golem-like rotations (but modified because you don't exactly the alacrity to do that) while your sustain through Signet of Restoration goes through the roof as though you had 1000+ Healing Power.But wait, Eles don't have Quickness beyond the short and pitifully short Lightning Leap that's hard to access on Lightning Hammer?

Quickness is accessible to everyone through Sigil of Celerity, Rune of the Cavalier and Cups of Light-Roasted Coffee.With enough boon duration, you have access to -almost- permanent quickness (limited by remounting and rune of cavalier's quickness applies while you have mount's stats so it doesn't actually get boosted by boon duration but coffee's quickness still gets boosted).

With the introduction of the Diviner's stat you can have boon duration without sacrificing damage too much. Mixing pieces in for 50%+ boon duration allows maintaining a decent amount of Might stacks, permanent Fury and Swiftness (and protection or regen) and a high uptime of front-loaded Quickness to almost finally match the boon-upkeep of a soulbeast or holosmith!

Sample build (BYO coffee and magic find enhancement, build editor doesn't support those):http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAsYncMAtMg94CG5CM5ilGAr4QeDTk3V6OdoWIQGA+gA-jxBEQBA4EAAnHAgc1DYXlfwc/h7qE0fq/AA-e

Bonus tip: alternate between regular dismount and engage dismount when farming nodes/opening chests.

Why not use Sigil of rage ? It is not that bad 3sec quickness every 20sec + Rune of the pack for example, it gives power/precision, mights + 15% boon duration instead of rune of cavalier that is good only for recolt.

Also I tried to add Quickness in the sigils for pvp/wvw too, big issue with sigils is the rng; like you crit a guy while dodging but you didn't want to attack him after or I want to use #4 + #5 dagger earth but sigil on CD ...If only we have a little more concentration in the arcane trait, or some quickness access in elem/weaver specs and skills.

Edit²: Yes tempest is "easier" to tag mobs in pve + you have 300 free concentration (+20% boon duration) if you want to keep quickness.

Honestly, its a bit of a waste of time.You get 5s quickness on dismount/engage and then some more on interrupts. Sure, quickness is nice, but I doubt anyone having problems with surviving in open world will do better by reducing their power and getting some quickness...

The issue with sword weaver in open world is not survivability. Its just cleave.Sword has bad cleave, and in open world you want to kill packs of mobs not just 3 of them... Even more if you end up in a zerg and need to tag things...

That is why FA tempest is so much better in open world. Air overload kills lots of things and you can do it while kiting. Dagger hits more mobs and warhorn can bring CC or dagger OH for mobility and burst.

You can use that same gearset and runes to get your quickness but it would still be much better in open world going tempest for more cleave, cc and AoE.

@"Zhaid Zhem.6508" said:Why not use Sigil of rage ? It is not that bad 3sec quickness every 20sec + Rune of the pack for example, it gives power/precision, mights + 15% boon duration instead of rune of cavalier that is good only for recolt.

Also I tried to add Quickness in the sigils for pvp/wvw too, big issue with sigils is the rng; like you crit a guy while dodging but you didn't want to attack him after or I want to use #4 + #5 dagger earth but sigil on CD ...If only we have a little more concentration in the arcane trait, or some quickness access in elem/weaver specs and skills.

Edit²: Yes tempest is "easier" to tag mobs in pve + you have 300 free concentration (+20% boon duration) if you want to keep quickness.

3 is just too short of a base duration. Celerity's 5 seconds can be extended by boon duration much better and can be activated on demand. I don't recommend the quickness sigils in WvW since you want more decisive fights with meteors than prolonged fireballing. PvP's only agility sigil has a 18 second CD so it's not very compatible with Ele with only one weapon set (other professions get to put it on their bursty weapon so it's up every time they switch to that weapon).

@lLobo.7960 said:Honestly, its a bit of a waste of time.You get 5s quickness on dismount/engage and then some more on interrupts. Sure, quickness is nice, but I doubt anyone having problems with surviving in open world will do better by reducing their power and getting some quickness...

The issue with sword weaver in open world is not survivability. Its just cleave.Sword has bad cleave, and in open world you want to kill packs of mobs not just 3 of them... Even more if you end up in a zerg and need to tag things...

That is why FA tempest is so much better in open world. Air overload kills lots of things and you can do it while kiting. Dagger hits more mobs and warhorn can bring CC or dagger OH for mobility and burst.

You can use that same gearset and runes to get your quickness but it would still be much better in open world going tempest for more cleave, cc and AoE.

The boon duration for quickness/might stacks adds much more damage/makes up for than the <20% loss of damage from the drop in power and makes Churning Earth useable.

The efficiency between tempest and weaver also depends on what kind of open-world you're specifically doing. For Istan, I'd never play Ele in any form however since it's tagging potential is actually poor and even the faster activating Air Overload only tags three whereas Scourges for example can tag 10 at a time every f2 spam and 5 every staff mark. In Silverwastes farming though, I've found the higher DPS/kill rate of sword weaver helps you annihilate different packs of mobs to out-of-combat rotate through events and detour for caravans much better than Tempest. The quickness also helps you pick up chests faster, which is AMAZING.

I have the luxury of legendary armor so I like to be as efficient as I can with everythinggg.

Overload air hits 3 targets just like sword, it's that the range isn't melee range. The damage coefficient on overload air isn't amazing, it's merely 0.715 (source: https://api.guildwars2.com/v2/skills?ids=29719 )

If you run tempest the warhorn air 5 (lightning orb) actually cleaves quite well but the tooltip doesn't do it justice.

I've long held the belief sword on weaver should have higher damage , at least in PvE.

Doesn't it bother anyone that you would need quickness to make this hypothetical setup to work?

@"Infusion.7149" said:Overload air hits 3 targets just like sword, it's that the range isn't melee range. The damage coefficient on overload air isn't amazing, it's merely 0.715 (source: https://api.guildwars2.com/v2/skills?ids=29719 )

If you run tempest the warhorn air 5 (lightning orb) actually cleaves quite well but the tooltip doesn't do it justice.

I've long held the belief sword on weaver should have higher damage , at least in PvE.

Doesn't it bother anyone that you would need quickness to make this hypothetical setup to work?

It does work and its AMAAAZING, I wouldn't post about it without trying myself and getting great results.... buuuuuuuuut it's pretty niche for the average player who sticks to only one PvE setup to invest in. For me the greatest bonus is it lets me stick to the timing of skills after autoattacks more similar to fractal/raid settings to keep me sane because overriding third autos triggers me. It's problematic that the devs have balanced eles around weavers and around raid DPS when it doesn't normally get quickness and that's why it suffers but what we caaan do at least is build for it in Open World!

Also:

• Lightning Orb doesn't reallllly cleave, it shoots only 1 bolt at the closest target to it per interval so it depends on it's position relative to mobs/how spread the mobs are. For example straight down the middle of 5 mobs means the further two doesn't get hit by it at all.

• Sword DOES have higher damage, it's the highest DPS of all ele weapons since except Meteor on massive targets. Even it's lack of range vs dagger I find isn't too bad given it does so much more damage by far/ Polaric Leap letting you zip around with the superspeed makes up for the lack of range and totally more fun than spending 80% of the time on Lightning Whip.

The secret is to tag and move. Open world pve is a joke and any thing works in it. Think of open world pve like a loot shower that you only need to stand in it and grab loot and gold as it gose by.

OW is elusive because typically, there isn't one build on a class that optimizes over the whole of OW zones. For example, what is optimal in Orr could get you eating dirt in HoT or LS2/3.

I think people underestimate the quality of game OW can bring to different people. No, you can't just play 'anything' because it's not a joke. IF you want to play optimally in OW, there are builds relevant to that, just like raids and other instanced content. Don't be dismissive of OW and what works well in it; it's just as must reason to play an optimal build in OW as there is anywhere else.

Overall, the Ele class doesn't score high on OW builds; it takes more than lots of DPS to be optimal in OW. If you really want to be successful in OW, you need to be able to handle all kinds of scenarios on your own, including cleansing, breaking stuns. You also want lots of front loaded DPS ... none of this procing or 'on conditional' DPS boosts. You also don't want to slow, though mounts kind of removed that requirement at the class level. .. but then again, not every has mounts so ... worth considering.

Specifically for Ele, I haven't found a satisfactory build that provides everything I want in any OW zone.