Bruiser?

Can someone please explain to me what a "bruiser" is? I am so confused right now. I've played Glass thief/DD, glass necro/reaper, and glass mesmer/chrono for most of my time in GW2 and have never had an issue surviving in the open world, including HoT. I prepped for PoF by making an ele and running him through all 100 fractals as a d/wh zerker to get used to being a piece of paper so that weaver would feel great. I was always having to think 10 steps ahead to make sure my 11k hp didn't instantly hit 0. I was so ready to try the "bruiser" ele elite spec. I thought finally the game was going to let me play a true battle mage with the tools needed to stay alive in melee range with skillful play but also deal decent damage for the trouble. What Im sitting here with now is the same 11k hp light armor ele with the added handicap of having to be inside the mob while attacking, worse damage and limited access to my defensive OH skills. What the hell am I trading in for my durability? Because it sure isn't damage. I mean, even Reaper AT LEAST got to be a solo PVE god.

I was small team roaming in WvW last night and it's a struggle. The boon strip is so prevalent that you cannot rely on boons for anything. Protection and stability? Forget about it!

So defense that can't be stripped seems to be where it's going. For Weaver, I guess that means barriers.

"it sure isn't damage," are we playing the same elite spec? I'm constantly crushing mobs, even with sword! I've been using lightning rod with a sword/focus setup and I've never seen so many lightning strikes in my life. Air 2 is a daze, air/earth 3 is a lift, air 5 is a knock down, water 5 is a daze. I'm having more fun in melee range than I ever did as a d/d or d/f. I think staff brings a lot to the group comp as well with Pile Driver being the single most devastating skill the Ele has across the board. While group roaming the other night I was consistantly posting 10k+ Pile Drivers with 4k+ LR procs all with a 2s daze on top for more damage from the team. It's a killer.

@"Swanky McDanky.5214" said:"it sure isn't damage," are we playing the same elite spec? I'm constantly crushing mobs, even with sword! I've been using lightning rod with a sword/focus setup and I've never seen so many lightning strikes in my life. Air 2 is a daze, air/earth 3 is a lift, air 5 is a knock down, water 5 is a daze. I'm having more fun in melee range than I ever did as a d/d or d/f. I think staff brings a lot to the group comp as well with Pile Driver being the single most devastating skill the Ele has across the board. While group roaming the other night I was consistantly posting 10k+ Pile Drivers with 4k+ LR procs all with a 2s daze on top for more damage from the team. It's a killer.

Its a lot of fun on open world, but sword is not very good on endgame pve.Air autos seem to deal less dmg than earth, dual skills don't get any CD reduction from traits, and fire (and air/fire) fields don't last long enough to be an improvement to auto-attacks.

I've been using a Sw/d griever build for raids, and in certain scenarios I can be top dps as the set offers more mobility, so I can be back in melee range quick after any spread phase with air#2 and #4, but I need to do everything flawless to even reach close to 30k.

It's not like sword needs a major overhaul, but it seriously need some tweaks on coefficients like:

• Higher power coefficient on air autos and lightening strikes;
• Swiftness on first strike of air auto, 1s quickness on second, vulnerability on each air strike on third;
• Higher field duration on fire#2 and air/fire#3;
• More burn stacks on fire auto: 1s burn on first strike, 2s burn on 2nd strike, 2x3s burn on third (already there)
• Cripple on first strike of earth auto, weakness on second, 3x bleed on third;
• Improved healing power coefficient on water autos

@lLobo.7960 said:

Its a lot of fun on open world, but sword is not very good on endgame pve.Air autos seem to deal less dmg than earth, dual skills don't get any CD reduction from traits, and fire (and air/fire) fields don't last long enough to be an improvement to auto-attacks.

I've been using a Sw/d griever build for raids, and in certain scenarios I can be top dps as the set offers more mobility, so I can be back in melee range quick after any spread phase with air#2 and #4, but I need to do everything flawless to even reach close to 30k.

It's not like sword needs a major overhaul, but it seriously need some tweaks on coefficients like:

• Higher power coefficient on air autos and lightening strikes;
• Swiftness on first strike of air auto, 1s quickness on second, vulnerability on each air strike on third;
• Higher field duration on fire#2 and air/fire#3;
• More burn stacks on fire auto: 1s burn on first strike, 2s burn on 2nd strike, 2x3s burn on third (already there)
• Cripple on first strike of earth auto, weakness on second, 3x bleed on third;
• Improved healing power coefficient on water autos

I disagree with the Earth changes. I don't think any kit should have cripple on it's first hit, swap the weakness and cripple around and I think that's more balanced. I say this only with PvP and WvW in mind, seeing as how opposed to skill splitting ANet seems to be between game modes. I know it's happening for select traits, but it'd be difficult to justify changing a weapons auto chain between modes regardless. Many of the other changes, I think I could agree with without too much fuss. The numbers on the fire auto chain may need some scrutiny, applying burn for no more than a second on the first and second hits with the third delivering a 2s or so burn with a few stacks.

Also, Air/Fire 3 isn't a technically a fire field, it's more like a localized dot that a target can move out of. I don't believe this should be the primary focus of the skill as it already has a decent initial damage paired with essentially applied burning. The vortex is more like icing on the cake, adding additional damage AND more burning ticks. If anything, I'd have it apply more stacks of burning rather than lasting longer.

But overall, this is a class that is in a far better place than many of the people on this forum would have you believe. People are crying about risk vs. reward being disappointing when that's just not the case. It's a new way to play Elementalist, and I feel like it's a refreshing take on the 'battle mage' that people have asked for.

I get that it's difficult to post perfect DPS, especially with a rotation as complex as Weaver's, but I believe it'll get easier and better in time as people really get used to the class and what it does.

@"Swanky McDanky.5214" said:"it sure isn't damage," are we playing the same elite spec? I'm constantly crushing mobs, even with sword! I've been using lightning rod with a sword/focus setup and I've never seen so many lightning strikes in my life. Air 2 is a daze, air/earth 3 is a lift, air 5 is a knock down, water 5 is a daze. I'm having more fun in melee range than I ever did as a d/d or d/f. I think staff brings a lot to the group comp as well with Pile Driver being the single most devastating skill the Ele has across the board. While group roaming the other night I was consistantly posting 10k+ Pile Drivers with 4k+ LR procs all with a 2s daze on top for more damage from the team. It's a killer.

I only care about Sw/d weaver and Im commenting solely on Open world PvE. Idk if its just that you've never played HoT maps as a zerker weaver so maybe we're on completely different wavelengths or if you've never played a good open world class like thief/necro/mesmer so you don't have a good frame of reference but trust me, go try one of those and you'll realize how bad weaver is. I don't know what the numbers you posted have to do with anything. I see big crits on my weaver all the time but most of the mobs in HoT have dumb gimmicks that require either a big hp pool or some sort of active mitigation to help with.

If I need to post vids of what a good open world spec looks like I will. Ele's "bruiser" sepc can't even hold a candle to core mesmer lol.

@Near.7439 said:

I only care about Sw/d weaver and Im commenting solely on Open world PvE. Idk if its just that you've never played HoT maps as a zerker weaver so maybe we're on completely different wavelengths or if you've never played a good open world class like thief/necro/mesmer so you don't have a good frame of reference but trust me, go try one of those and you'll realize how bad weaver is. I don't know what the numbers you posted have to do with anything. I see big crits on my weaver all the time but most of the mobs in HoT have kitten gimmicks that require either a big hp pool or some sort of active mitigation to help with.

If I need to post vids of what a good open world spec looks like I will. Ele's "bruiser" sepc can't even hold a candle to core mesmer lol.

I guess I don't understand, I haven't had any trouble killing anything. I don't typically play HoT, popping in for the AB meta and Dragon Stand now and again, but the Desert maps are entirely different and I understand that. Are you disappointed that you're dying or are you upset that you're not killing things fast enough? Because either way, I'm satisfied with how Weaver is playing both offensively and defensively.

@Swanky McDanky.5214 said:

@Near.7439 said:

I only care about Sw/d weaver and Im commenting solely on Open world PvE. Idk if its just that you've never played HoT maps as a zerker weaver so maybe we're on completely different wavelengths or if you've never played a good open world class like thief/necro/mesmer so you don't have a good frame of reference but trust me, go try one of those and you'll realize how bad weaver is. I don't know what the numbers you posted have to do with anything. I see big crits on my weaver all the time but most of the mobs in HoT have kitten gimmicks that require either a big hp pool or some sort of active mitigation to help with.

If I need to post vids of what a good open world spec looks like I will. Ele's "bruiser" sepc can't even hold a candle to core mesmer lol.

I'm annoyed that at the inconsistency of the balancing in this game. Reaper is necro's "bruiser" spec but it gets a massive HP pool/shround without sacrificing any of the burst dmg that is needed for quickly getting through open world content AND doesnt require you to put even one point into vit/toughness. And its not like sword weaver gets the benefit of at least being high dps in endgame pve. No, for that you have to store your sword and grab the same stupid staff everyone has been abusing for 5 years.

A good comparison is attempting to complete the Dynastic End achievement during the Hallowed Ground story chapter. You have to kill all bosses within the time limit (which I think is 10 minutes?).

Anyway, it's a DPS race. I completed on Scourge with 2 minutes to spare. I did not meet the time limit on hybrid Sw/D Weaver.

I was surprised how hard I worked with Weaver and with Scourge it was easy.

@Swanky McDanky.5214 said:

@Near.7439 said:

I only care about Sw/d weaver and Im commenting solely on Open world PvE. Idk if its just that you've never played HoT maps as a zerker weaver so maybe we're on completely different wavelengths or if you've never played a good open world class like thief/necro/mesmer so you don't have a good frame of reference but trust me, go try one of those and you'll realize how bad weaver is. I don't know what the numbers you posted have to do with anything. I see big crits on my weaver all the time but most of the mobs in HoT have kitten gimmicks that require either a big hp pool or some sort of active mitigation to help with.

If I need to post vids of what a good open world spec looks like I will. Ele's "bruiser" sepc can't even hold a candle to core mesmer lol.

The complains about the lack of dmg don't come from people killing mobs in the desert.Anything can do that. You can autoattack them do death in water attunement if you want.

The lack of dmg comes from a high-end pve scenario (raids and t4 fractals) and from pvp/wvw.

In those scenarios sword weaver is the squishiest dpser, that needs to stay the closest to the danger, while doing one of the most complicated rotations, without any roon for mistakes, and still comes out 10-20k dps lower.Even comparing the sword to the dagger, on the same spec (traits and gear) you get over 10k less dps due to really bad coefficients on sword attacks (specially fire and air).

What people want is to be able to use sword for something in end-game pve content and wvw.

For this there are a few things that need to be set:

First sword needs a focus. This means that there is need for a defined role. Staff is king of large hitbox power dps, dagger is great for burn. Sword can either be the best small hitbox power or be the best hybrid.. if we give it too much condi it will just outclass dagger and thats a bit lame. So to make sword a good hybrid weapon without overcoming dagger burn potential, there needs to be a improvement on power coefficients specifically on air and fire skills.

The other side is that for pvp and wvw the sword really struggles to get hits. The range is really short so its hard to hit someone that is moving around, even more with high ping. One way to fix that is to make auto chains of air and earth to provide something to help you hit the target.A short cripple on earth and swiftness on air (short durations) helps this aspect and keeps with the theme of each. But they need to be on the first strike as most of the time the second strike won't hit anything if you cant keep up.

@lLobo.7960 said:

@Swanky McDanky.5214 said:

@Near.7439 said:

I only care about Sw/d weaver and Im commenting solely on Open world PvE. Idk if its just that you've never played HoT maps as a zerker weaver so maybe we're on completely different wavelengths or if you've never played a good open world class like thief/necro/mesmer so you don't have a good frame of reference but trust me, go try one of those and you'll realize how bad weaver is. I don't know what the numbers you posted have to do with anything. I see big crits on my weaver all the time but most of the mobs in HoT have kitten gimmicks that require either a big hp pool or some sort of active mitigation to help with.

If I need to post vids of what a good open world spec looks like I will. Ele's "bruiser" sepc can't even hold a candle to core mesmer lol.

Weaver is posting 48k Benchmarks, and people think that's low? I get that the benchmarks are posted in 'unrealistic' settings as you'll never have a perfectly ideal setup in a real combat scenario, but that's true for ALL benchmarks. It's potential, nothing more. If you want my honest opinion, the sword has no place in raids not because it lacks damage but because ele has better options. The fun in the Elementalist is surviving and putting up damage despite the fact that you're squishy. The Ele has incredible support, damage, and control all rolled into a single class, and people want it to be the master of all of them. I get that you're jealous other classes are able to burst so highly, but when you can sustain with a water swap and keep the pressure on is nothing to scoff at.

I guess that mentioning the pve content I play will now detract from my case that I've played WvW solely as an elementalist for the last four years; oh well.

People want Sword ele to do a lot of things, and a lot of things it shouldn't. Ele is meant to be squishy, I get this. The vast majority of players do. But yet they want it to have as much cleave potential as a Reaper? I don't buy it. The sword kit is definitely VERY potent in roaming and duel scenarios, even small team fights if the group comp supports it well enough. A sword ele is not meant to be used in a zerg environment, the Weaver traitline doesn't offer the sustain that the tempest did for this very reason.The Weaver has no issues keeping pace with many classes, as you have tremendous swiftness and superspeed uptime via traits. That people feel gilted because they can't get all that AND the damage modifiers of other traits baffles me. With the shadowstep on Air 2 and things like lightning flash, Weaver is very mobile and will be able to close in on just about anything that isn't a Thief or Warrior in full sprint. Which is perfectly fine.

If a tweak to power coefficients for certain attacks are REALLY necessary for people to get kills, fine, whatever. But I have no trouble fighting most anything. Do I get beat every now and again? Yeah, everyone does. But I still enjoy dueling against classes that have been tough matchups for me as I learn to combat their abilities better.

I don't know, I'm not the best player ever, whatever, I still think the Weaver does what it was designed to do just fine. The sword has it's own play style and best use environments and the traitline itself augments existing pla ystyles and weapons quite well.

Bruiser mostly an ideal for pvp games every one a "brusier" in pve if they are not all in glass. For weaver it would be full cele with sword or dagger main and dagger or foces off. It will do soso dmg and will have soso tanklyness. In effect it would do nothing but keep it self alive most of the time.

Something like this but i do not see this build ever doing any thing importan much like a spellbraker brusier or even a reaper brusier.http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAsYnk4Ct4idOAG5CM5iFTAjoCEAaA3j528cu4EkBuiA-jVhaAB+o+Tm7PgiSQAU+NieASBw6QL-w

As a bruiser you need to do good dmg over time or good cc or good support or good conter boons weaver just dose not do any thing that well. Tempest may fill the bruiser roll better with its abitly to be hard to kill and do good support.