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Open World Domination: Fire Weaver


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You've probably heard that Weaver is too much effort for not enough reward, but it can still be a highly effective class, in particular for open world/story solo play.  If you're struggling with weaver or simply looking for a strong solo play build for elementalist, here are some variations on condition sword weaver.

1) The Dire Build

This is an excellent option for new players.  It performs similarly to the Trailblazer build with the highest health of all of my builds, but lower damage and armor.  The major draw of this build is that the gear required for it is very inexpensive and easy to acquire.  

Here's a sample video and build link.

2) The Celestial Build

This variant provides similar damage output to the Dire build, but has the best overall sustain due to its strong healing, barrier, and evasion.  However, the gear is difficult to acquire for new players unless you use the level 80 boost.

Here's a sample video and build link.

3) The Trailblazer Build

This build deals significantly better damage than the Celestial or Dire builds while also having the strongest passive sustain due to its extremely high armor value.  It is relatively expensive and difficult to gear for new players.

Here's a sample video and build link.

4) The Viper Build

This build deals the most damage but has no additional sustain.  I recommend this for group play and for players who are comfortable playing weaver in solo play without any extra defense.  This build is also relatively expensive to gear for new players. 

Here's a sample video and build link.

If you'd like an alternative with a little better sustain but still like the idea of using Viper stats so you can focus on group play, I recommend swapping out earth for arcane traits like we did with the Celestial build.  Here's a sample video and build link for that.

Feel free to add your builds, thoughts, and any questions you may have to the thread.

Updated Celestial Build for the 2-14-2023 Patch.

Edited by AliamRationem.5172
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This thread is a continuation of a conversation that started in someone else's thread, which is why I wanted to transfer it over here.

I was asked about energy/corruption sigils...

Why use a sigil that procs on weapon swap when elementalists don't swap weapons? The answer is that attunement swapping functions as a weapon swap for activating these sigils.

Why use corruption? The stacks remain as long as you don't go down or leave the map. So this is actually an excellent boost for open world play as it adds a significant amount of condition damage!

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Omg, that's what i was searching for! I always thought ele looks so much fun and the principle of attunment swapping seems also pleasing to me but evrytime i try to get into it i give it up because i felt waaaaay to squishy even while i was leveling up. Would this build work also to leveling up an elementalist? Everybody says fresh air is the way to level but i like the fire and earth kit on dagger mainhand much more than air. If i mainly circle between fire and earth any gear with + to condition damage should work right? So i can take some defstats as secondary? Wich traitline would you go for instead of weaver to farm HP in HoT and PoF?

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@AliamRationem.5172 said:Why use corruption? The stacks remain as long as you don't go down or leave the map. So this is actually an excellent boost for open world play as it adds a significant amount of condition damage!

If you want to be really spicy, you can have a weapon with Corruption on and once you get the 25 stacks, you swap it out for a different weapon with another Sigil on, for example Geomancy.

Can easily do this by simply having an additional weapon equipped as your second weapon set and swapping out of combat.

@SunTzu.4513 said:Omg, that's what i was searching for! I always thought ele looks so much fun and the principle of attunment swapping seems also pleasing to me but evrytime i try to get into it i give it up because i felt waaaaay to squishy even while i was leveling up. Would this build work also to leveling up an elementalist? Everybody says fresh air is the way to level but i like the fire and earth kit on dagger mainhand much more than air. If i mainly circle between fire and earth any gear with + to condition damage should work right? So i can take some defstats as secondary? Wich traitline would you go for instead of weaver to farm HP in HoT and PoF?

IMO Condi builds are the best way to level up. Since Conditions don't care about Glancing Blows you can kill enemies that are up to 9 level higher than you with relative ease which can net you TONS of exp with a Kill Streak booster active.

As far as 3rd spec to use while farming HP's, I'd probably say Water or Earth. Water will provide you with extra sustain and condi cleanse if you feel a little squishy. Earth will provide more damage through stronger Bleeds (You can also pick up Written in Stone and use Signet of Earth alongside Signet of Fire with both getting reduced cooldowns so you can use them more often for more Bleed/Burn application)

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@SunTzu.4513 said:Omg, that's what i was searching for! I always thought ele looks so much fun and the principle of attunment swapping seems also pleasing to me but evrytime i try to get into it i give it up because i felt waaaaay to squishy even while i was leveling up. Would this build work also to leveling up an elementalist? Everybody says fresh air is the way to level but i like the fire and earth kit on dagger mainhand much more than air. If i mainly circle between fire and earth any gear with + to condition damage should work right? So i can take some defstats as secondary? Wich traitline would you go for instead of weaver to farm HP in HoT and PoF?

I think it works best with weaver, but obviously you do have to get to the point where you can unlock weaver to do that! I'm not sure what to recommend exactly, as it's been a long time since I played ele (I picked up weaver 6 months ago after not really playing ele for awhile). But I'd say probably dagger/focus or dagger/dagger with fire, earth, and arcane or water. Fresh air is definitely the way to go if you run power, but with pure condi air is kind of a waste. For utilities I'd probably run healing signet, fire signet, glyph of elemental power, glyph of storms, and glyph of elementals. But others may have some better/different advice on core builds for leveling and unlocking your elite specs!

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@Taril.8619 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:Why use corruption? The stacks remain as long as you don't go down or leave the map. So this is actually an excellent boost for open world play as it adds a significant amount of condition damage!

If you want to be really spicy, you can have a weapon with Corruption on and once you get the 25 stacks, you swap it out for a different weapon with another Sigil on, for example Geomancy.

Can easily do this by simply having an additional weapon equipped as your second weapon set and swapping out of combat.

@SunTzu.4513 said:Omg, that's what i was searching for! I always thought ele looks so much fun and the principle of attunment swapping seems also pleasing to me but evrytime i try to get into it i give it up because i felt waaaaay to squishy even while i was leveling up. Would this build work also to leveling up an elementalist? Everybody says fresh air is the way to level but i like the fire and earth kit on dagger mainhand much more than air. If i mainly circle between fire and earth any gear with + to condition damage should work right? So i can take some defstats as secondary? Wich traitline would you go for instead of weaver to farm HP in HoT and PoF?

IMO Condi builds are the best way to level up. Since Conditions don't care about Glancing Blows you can kill enemies that are up to 9 level higher than you with relative ease which can net you TONS of exp with a Kill Streak booster active.

As far as 3rd spec to use while farming HP's, I'd probably say Water or Earth. Water will provide you with extra sustain and condi cleanse if you feel a little squishy. Earth will provide more damage through stronger Bleeds (You can also pick up Written in Stone and use Signet of Earth alongside Signet of Fire with both getting reduced cooldowns so you can use them more often for more Bleed/Burn application)

Good points!

I use a very similar setup for WvW roaming and carry two focus offhands, one with cleansing sigil and the other with corruption. It doesn't contribute to damage output, but it is nice in places like the new map where there's actually some condition pressure from PvE enemies for a change! But thanks for pointing that out as I don't think that's very intuitive that you can basically use an extra sigil benefit that way!

I also wasn't aware of the no-glancing-blow thing for uphunting while leveling. It really never occurred to me!

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Arcane spec is a huge waste on build that has no crits and in general on condi builds because earth provides much better traits for that (while also improving your base defense). I'd also always use persisting flames in fire due to your huge portion of damage coming from fire fields (as well as giving you another way to rally), while swapping energy sigil for strength one because you have more than enough defense and evades in your kit to not need another dodge.

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@SunTzu.4513 said:Omg, that's what i was searching for! I always thought ele looks so much fun and the principle of attunment swapping seems also pleasing to me but evrytime i try to get into it i give it up because i felt waaaaay to squishy even while i was leveling up. Would this build work also to leveling up an elementalist? Everybody says fresh air is the way to level but i like the fire and earth kit on dagger mainhand much more than air. If i mainly circle between fire and earth any gear with + to condition damage should work right? So i can take some defstats as secondary? Wich traitline would you go for instead of weaver to farm HP in HoT and PoF?

I just leveled up an Ele or still am just unlocked Tempest and I used the metabattle open world build with dagger/focus or dagger, then for HoT scepter/focus and staff on my other weapon slot for groups. I did use all elements but you can get by likely with fire/earth.Remember you can stack might ahead of time even come out in dagger/dagger w/25 stacks. Takes some practice but will help take out HP champs.

I was surprised and died in HoT very little. I felt squisher leveling up in the base game tbh.Along with prestacking might, I used the Privateer runes, I saw Wooden Pots using in a video, this helps survival as the summoned bird will take aggro and can really help spread the damage along with the element summoned.

I was able to survive HPs alone not Balthazar though f that guy.

Cant answer your question but just some ideas to help till you get Weaver unlocked for the OPs build.

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@"steki.1478" said:Arcane spec is a huge waste on build that has no crits and in general on condi builds because earth provides much better traits for that (while also improving your base defense). I'd also always use persisting flames in fire due to your huge portion of damage coming from fire fields (as well as giving you another way to rally), while swapping energy sigil for strength one because you have more than enough defense and evades in your kit to not need another dodge.

I think earth is a great choice for this build, but respectfully disagree that arcane is a waste. "Need" doesn't really factor in here as the build basically rides on fire and weaver. But I have tried it both ways and arcane feels better to me.

I didn't record it, but I hit a new personal record for balth solo this morning at 44 seconds using this build. Honestly, I don't think I want for anything here, so definitely do what works for you. As I said, fire and weaver are the primary components of this build. It will work with whatever third trait line you like!

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I've now at Level 80 and also have unlocked Weaver. Trinkets an weapons are trailblazer, have had tons of map currency so i bought them. Also leggy weapons make statswitch easy. My armor is full dire exotic. I'm not sure if i want to convert my berserker or marauder ascented armor set(s) into trailblazer. Seems pretty expensive to me. Any suggestion what would be an other interresting statcombo wich will pair well with trailblazer weapon and trinkets? Maybe plaguedoctor? Or will the the healing power and concentration some kind of wasted on this build?

Overall i feel very comfortable playing this build right now. Took it into HoT and had no major problems at all. I can solo well but don't have the solo potential i have when i'm on my necro. But this is a learn to play issue. I defenetly want to try soloing bountys and stuff like this if i'm more into the class. All these skills feels pretty overwehlming atm. I'm trying to chain a few together and memorize the attunment changes to the skills.But i have soooo much fun. Even if i don't really know what i'm doing it's just feels so smooth to play weaver. For my dailys i switched back to my necro and after a few minutes on him i thought, my god is this boring o.o

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@SunTzu.4513 said:I've now at Level 80 and also have unlocked Weaver. Trinkets an weapons are trailblazer, have had tons of map currency so i bought them. Also leggy weapons make statswitch easy. My armor is full dire exotic. I'm not sure if i want to convert my berserker or marauder ascented armor set(s) into trailblazer. Seems pretty expensive to me. Any suggestion what would be an other interresting statcombo wich will pair well with trailblazer weapon and trinkets? Maybe plaguedoctor? Or will the the healing power and concentration some kind of wasted on this build?

Overall i feel very comfortable playing this build right now. Took it into HoT and had no major problems at all. I can solo well but don't have the solo potential i have when i'm on my necro. But this is a learn to play issue. I defenetly want to try soloing bountys and stuff like this if i'm more into the class. All these skills feels pretty overwehlming atm. I'm trying to chain a few together and memorize the attunment changes to the skills.But i have soooo much fun. Even if i don't really know what i'm doing it's just feels so smooth to play weaver. For my dailys i switched back to my necro and after a few minutes on him i thought, my god is this boring o.o

Necro is a lot more straightforward and has excellent passive defenses. Weaver is much more reliant on active avoidance and proper use of defensive skills, which is complicated by the way it has to rotate through its massive 26 skill weapon kit!

Having said that, weaver in dire/trailblazer with a little practice is more than tanky enough to solo all of the HoT champions and many of the PoF bounties. I did an avatar of Balthazar solo in 44 seconds the other day! And I have video of some PoF bounty solo up on my channel as well.

I'm with you! This class takes more to learn, but it's super fun to play and very strong with the right build!

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@"AliamRationem.5172" said:I've been hearing from a lot of new/returning players who feel that weaver is too complicated and unforgiving to play. Well, I don't have a build that's going to make weaver less complicated. However, I do have a build that will let you conquer open world/story content with your weaver, using about the cheapest possible gear (dire exotic works great!), and with barely any knowledge or skill required!

First, the build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAw2lZwmYXMJmJOKXdvaA-zRRYcRDHHZQjlROJQmFgDzSVSbA-e

Now a video of the build in action against one of the more difficult HoT champions, Avatar of Balthazar. I manage to solo the boss in 50 seconds at 15.8k DPS, while never using an active heal, never rotating into water, and never dipping below 66% health!

Okay, that's great! It really shows the potential for this build in solo open world play! But maybe you aren't trying to bang out Chopin's etude op. 10 no. 4 every time you play your weaver? I get it. But it's okay! You can afford to take a lot of punishment with this build and you can deal a lot of damage without even using a rotation. Here's proof! I just pop all of my utilities and drop pyrovortex on this group of mordrem, then stand back and let them beat on me. Not even close!

If you love elementalist, but have struggled with weaver, you might give this build a try! And please feel free to offer up alternative builds, video, and discussion. There are many ways to play this class!

@"AliamRationem.5172" said:I've been hearing from a lot of new/returning players who feel that weaver is too complicated and unforgiving to play. Well, I don't have a build that's going to make weaver less complicated. However, I do have a build that will let you conquer open world/story content with your weaver, using about the cheapest possible gear (dire exotic works great!), and with barely any knowledge or skill required!

First, the build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAw2lZwmYXMJmJOKXdvaA-zRRYcRDHHZQjlROJQmFgDzSVSbA-e

Now a video of the build in action against one of the more difficult HoT champions, Avatar of Balthazar. I manage to solo the boss in 50 seconds at 15.8k DPS, while never using an active heal, never rotating into water, and never dipping below 66% health!

Okay, that's great! It really shows the potential for this build in solo open world play! But maybe you aren't trying to bang out Chopin's etude op. 10 no. 4 every time you play your weaver? I get it. But it's okay! You can afford to take a lot of punishment with this build and you can deal a lot of damage without even using a rotation. Here's proof! I just pop all of my utilities and drop pyrovortex on this group of mordrem, then stand back and let them beat on me. Not even close!

If you love elementalist, but have struggled with weaver, you might give this build a try! And please feel free to offer up alternative builds, video, and discussion. There are many ways to play this class!

@"AliamRationem.5172" said:I've been hearing from a lot of new/returning players who feel that weaver is too complicated and unforgiving to play. Well, I don't have a build that's going to make weaver less complicated. However, I do have a build that will let you conquer open world/story content with your weaver, using about the cheapest possible gear (dire exotic works great!), and with barely any knowledge or skill required!

First, the build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAw2lZwmYXMJmJOKXdvaA-zRRYcRDHHZQjlROJQmFgDzSVSbA-e

Now a video of the build in action against one of the more difficult HoT champions, Avatar of Balthazar. I manage to solo the boss in 50 seconds at 15.8k DPS, while never using an active heal, never rotating into water, and never dipping below 66% health!

Okay, that's great! It really shows the potential for this build in solo open world play! But maybe you aren't trying to bang out Chopin's etude op. 10 no. 4 every time you play your weaver? I get it. But it's okay! You can afford to take a lot of punishment with this build and you can deal a lot of damage without even using a rotation. Here's proof! I just pop all of my utilities and drop pyrovortex on this group of mordrem, then stand back and let them beat on me. Not even close!

If you love elementalist, but have struggled with weaver, you might give this build a try! And please feel free to offer up alternative builds, video, and discussion. There are many ways to play this class!

@"AliamRationem.5172" said:I've been hearing from a lot of new/returning players who feel that weaver is too complicated and unforgiving to play. Well, I don't have a build that's going to make weaver less complicated. However, I do have a build that will let you conquer open world/story content with your weaver, using about the cheapest possible gear (dire exotic works great!), and with barely any knowledge or skill required!

First, the build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAw2lZwmYXMJmJOKXdvaA-zRRYcRDHHZQjlROJQmFgDzSVSbA-e

Now a video of the build in action against one of the more difficult HoT champions, Avatar of Balthazar. I manage to solo the boss in 50 seconds at 15.8k DPS, while never using an active heal, never rotating into water, and never dipping below 66% health!

Okay, that's great! It really shows the potential for this build in solo open world play! But maybe you aren't trying to bang out Chopin's etude op. 10 no. 4 every time you play your weaver? I get it. But it's okay! You can afford to take a lot of punishment with this build and you can deal a lot of damage without even using a rotation. Here's proof! I just pop all of my utilities and drop pyrovortex on this group of mordrem, then stand back and let them beat on me. Not even close!

If you love elementalist, but have struggled with weaver, you might give this build a try! And please feel free to offer up alternative builds, video, and discussion. There are many ways to play this class!

I’m looking at the build (on mobile) and I don’t understand the gear list—what prefix should it be geared for? Viper or something?

Sorry noob question but when I look at it I see “condition damage” which makes sense but I’m not sure which stat set is the best.

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@zaekeon.5128 said:

I’m looking at the build (on mobile) and I don’t understand the gear list—what prefix should it be geared for? Viper or something?

Sorry noob question but when I look at it I see “condition damage” which makes sense but I’m not sure which stat set is the best.

In the build link it's mostly Dire and a couple Trailblazer pieces. Dire is the yellow radiationish, I guess symbols, the other is trailblazer.Viper is looks like the snake s symbol.

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@zaekeon.5128 said:I’m looking at the build (on mobile) and I don’t understand the gear list—what prefix should it be geared for? Viper or something?

Sorry noob question but when I look at it I see “condition damage” which makes sense but I’m not sure which stat set is the best.

Odd that it doesn't show the gear (it's in there!). Must be a mobile formatting issue. Oh well! As Vrath.1754 said, I'm using mostly dire with a few trailblazer pieces (the latter for a little expertise to reach 100% increased burn duration). You can get more damage out of sets like grieving/viper, but no matter what you do this build is going to deal most of its damage from burning. I don't find the hybrid stats worth giving up the defense on dire. If anything, I lose damage because I have to play more defensively.

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@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@zaekeon.5128 said:I’m looking at the build (on mobile) and I don’t understand the gear list—what prefix should it be geared for? Viper or something?

Sorry noob question but when I look at it I see “condition damage” which makes sense but I’m not sure which stat set is the best.

Odd that it doesn't show the gear (it's in there!). Must be a mobile formatting issue. Oh well! As Vrath.1754 said, I'm using mostly dire with a few trailblazer pieces (the latter for a little expertise to reach 100% increased burn duration). You can get more damage out of sets like grieving/viper, but no matter what you do this build is going to deal most of its damage from burning. I don't find the hybrid stats worth giving up the defense on dire. If anything, I lose damage because I have to play more defensively.

You can see the stats when you mouse over gear (or click+hold if you're on mobile).

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@"zaekeon.5128" said:Thanks, I got it all sorted. Any tips on how to do the rotation/openers, when to use certain abilities etc? I've never played a condi before.

Sure! Here's a video of one of my favorite moves! A quadruple blast combo on Riptide. Very tricky to pull off, requiring speed, precise positioning, and timing. Full step-by-step explanation in the comments on my Youtube channel! Check it out!

And don't worry if that's too much to wrap your head around. You have leaps and blasts every which way with this build, so even if you can't nail the quadruple combo you can go for 1, 2, 3. Whatever works! It's still good healing and will get you out of trouble quickly!

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@zaekeon.5128 said:Thanks, that helps. Do you just run away usually to get set up for the right attunements to do the above combo or do you somehow anticipate you’ll be taking damage later and switch proactively?

You can pull this off if you happen to be in earth/x or water/earth at the time, but you can still do up to 3 blast heals from any attunement simply by rotating to water. Now you're in water/x and you can do your dodge heal + riptide, then rotate into earth to blast the field at the end.

Keep in mind that the cooldowns on Evasive Arcana dodge effects as well as Earthen Vortex are only 10 seconds while Riptide is only 12 seconds (PvE). Just using those for 2 blast heals plus a dodge heal will give you barrier, regen, plus a good 5k healing on about as short a cooldown as you could ask for!

The catch is that rotating into water and spending all this time evading you deal no damage. Ideally, you don't want to have to rotate into water at all. You can see a really good example of this in my Balthazar solo video linked above. I never use my 6 skill active or rotate into water, so I'm able to focus entirely on dealing damage.

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I'm liking the build so far even without much practice. Is it better to rune Dire everywhere just for cost or stats or do you have variations with more trailblazer? Someone mentioned a variation of Earth instead of arcane. What are the thoughts of pros/cons there as far as how you use this build?

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The goal is to reach 100% increased burn duration. Anything over that is wasted.

I would say that earth is probably better? It increases condition damage and passive defense. I prefer arcane mostly for the boons on demand and dodge effects on evasive arcana, but that could just be a me thing. You should try both and see what you prefer!

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@zaekeon.5128 said:I'm liking the build so far even without much practice. Is it better to rune Dire everywhere just for cost or stats or do you have variations with more trailblazer? Someone mentioned a variation of Earth instead of arcane. What are the thoughts of pros/cons there as far as how you use this build?

Earth allows signets passive to still be active after using, so you'll get a free 3.2k heal from signet of restoration aswell as more condi damage based on % of toughness and more damage to bleeding foes aswell as damage reduction to yourself

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