Alternative weapons for PvE weaver?

[Wisely.4819]

Hey, I really like playing weaver, and I quite like sword, but being locked into melee range without a weapon swap is very obnoxious at times (bounties, bosses, anything slightly more challenging). I've played tempest too and I know it has scepter/staff builds, but I specifically enjoy the double elements of weaver. Are there any weapons that can deal moderate amounts of damage, comparable to sword? I'm mainly an open world pve player so it doesn't need to be anything terribly meta. I tried scepter/x with my condi build and it stacked burning nicely, but I wonder if anyone has experience with power scepter on weaver or power staff.

[Arheundel.6451]

Running a mix of assassins and marauder/cavalier , a power scepter build will work nicely in PvE. Your highest hitting skills will be: fire scepter 2 and water 2 for groups of enemies and air/ earth and air/fire dual skills.

Something across these lines ...http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAs2FDhpwiYkYRb5+2A-zRpYbRDtbIoAxQEhREE4RQGngiHA-e

You can add/remove toughness and vitality as you see fit but overall crit chance MUST be above 50% and crit dmg above 200% with base power not below 2100 for optimal dmg, focus on quick kills rather than tanking dmg

[Wisely.4819]

Why the sword vitality talent without wielding a sword? Also, no healing power? It seems pretty strong on ele in terms of sustain.

[Arheundel.6451]

With that build, you have already enough precision and vitality trait works regardless of the main hand weapon used, it simply add more vitality when you equip a sword.

About the build you want to use, just tell me what you need and can suggest something, I am quite good at stats mixing thx to years of WvW gameplay but for starters :

-scepter is mostly power dmg, actually the dedicated condi skills don't do enough to deserve a heavy stats investment-power specs doing optimal dmg require huge stats sacrifices and that normally means low toughness and zero healing power-You can still run bruiser builds for PvE but I don't recommend running scepter...staff on the other hand, yeah you can make a bruiser staff ele with a mix of celestial/crusader/captain stat then use Fire/air line to gain enough might/precision/ferocity buffs

PS you can change arcane with water like and run : Piercing shard - Flow like water and Soothing power , 2-3-3, you would have more than enough sustain even without running any healing power...at least in PvE

[steki.1478]

Just run a condi build with sword and dire/tb gear. You're practically a tank with the same if not better damage than whatever you're using now.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/107218/open-world-domination-fire-weaver#latest

[Touchme.1097]

If you are looking for a decent PvE open world weaver build forget snowcrows and metabattle raid builds, their weaver builds are so squishy and elementalist is the squishiest designed profession with a complex rotation and it doesn't even top the damage meters for being a glass cannon as there are other professions who are tankier, easier to play and do a lot of damage baseline like all of them. Unless we get some serious PvE buffs who are not aiming to make the profession significantly overpowered I would go for the marshal or dire/trailblazer condi build to be on par with the self sustain other professions get baseline or rolling another profession and stop playing elementalist altogether because the Meta in PvE is already set in stones and is not seeing any significant balance improvements. I use staff as my secondary weapon to swap to on my weaver in order to get the job done on those annoying fights that are not melee friendly and seriously punish players for playing a melee build.As a weaver, outside of Signet of Earth, you lack strong hard CC on demand combos like the dragonhunter's Bane Signet+Dragon's Maw combo or Thief's conditions+Signet of shadows+Basilisk Venom combo. I am sure the other professions have better break bar damage than elementalist except Deadeye which has been left with weak break bar damage to compensate on nothing but single target dps.

[Wisely.4819]

@Touchme.1097 said:If you are looking for a decent PvE open world weaver build forget snowcrows and metabattle raid builds, their weaver builds are so squishy and elementalist is the squishiest designed profession with a complex rotation and it doesn't even top the damage meters for being a glass cannon as there are other professions who are tankier, easier to play and do a lot of damage baseline like all of them. Unless we get some serious PvE buffs who are not aiming to make the profession significantly overpowered I would go for the marshal or dire/trailblazer condi build to be on par with the self sustain other professions get baseline or rolling another profession and stop playing elementalist altogether because the Meta in PvE is already set in stones and is not seeing any significant balance improvements. I use staff as my secondary weapon to swap to on my weaver in order to get the job done on those annoying fights that are not melee friendly and seriously punish players for playing a melee build.As a weaver, outside of Signet of Earth, you lack strong hard CC on demand combos like the dragonhunter's Bane Signet+Dragon's Maw combo or Thief's conditions+Signet of shadows+Basilisk Venom combo. I am sure the other professions have better break bar damage than elementalist except Deadeye which has been left with weak break bar damage to compensate on nothing but single target dps.

I was thinking of trying marshal stats, do you have any experience with it?

@Arheundel.6451 said:With that build, you have already enough precision and vitality trait works regardless of the main hand weapon used, it simply add more vitality when you equip a sword.

About the build you want to use, just tell me what you need and can suggest something, I am quite good at stats mixing thx to years of WvW gameplay but for starters :

-scepter is mostly power dmg, actually the dedicated condi skills don't do enough to deserve a heavy stats investment-power specs doing optimal dmg require huge stats sacrifices and that normally means low toughness and zero healing power-You can still run bruiser builds for PvE but I don't recommend running scepter...staff on the other hand, yeah you can make a bruiser staff ele with a mix of celestial/crusader/captain stat then use Fire/air line to gain enough might/precision/ferocity buffs

PS you can change arcane with water like and run : Piercing shard - Flow like water and Soothing power , 2-3-3, you would have more than enough sustain even without running any healing power...at least in PvE

I don't really have an idea of a build, I'm just looking for anything functional. I love how active weaver is, but as a necro/mes main, it's been a challenge to make it anywhere near durable as the other two light classes with comparable damage. As far as I know, there's no cheese rune that works on ele like it does on mes/necro (tormenting; not that necro even needs it), is there? I tried vampirism, but that obviously doesn't work against bosses.

[Arheundel.6451]

@Wisely.4819 said:

@Touchme.1097 said:If you are looking for a decent PvE open world weaver build forget snowcrows and metabattle raid builds, their weaver builds are so squishy and elementalist is the squishiest designed profession with a complex rotation and it doesn't even top the damage meters for being a glass cannon as there are other professions who are tankier, easier to play and do a lot of damage baseline like all of them. Unless we get some serious PvE buffs who are not aiming to make the profession significantly overpowered I would go for the marshal or dire/trailblazer condi build to be on par with the self sustain other professions get baseline or rolling another profession and stop playing elementalist altogether because the Meta in PvE is already set in stones and is not seeing any significant balance improvements. I use staff as my secondary weapon to swap to on my weaver in order to get the job done on those annoying fights that are not melee friendly and seriously punish players for playing a melee build.As a weaver, outside of Signet of Earth, you lack strong hard CC on demand combos like the dragonhunter's Bane Signet+Dragon's Maw combo or Thief's conditions+Signet of shadows+Basilisk Venom combo. I am sure the other professions have better break bar damage than elementalist except Deadeye which has been left with weak break bar damage to compensate on nothing but single target dps.

I was thinking of trying marshal stats, do you have any experience with it?

@Arheundel.6451 said:With that build, you have already enough precision and vitality trait works regardless of the main hand weapon used, it simply add more vitality when you equip a sword.

About the build you want to use, just tell me what you need and can suggest something, I am quite good at stats mixing thx to years of WvW gameplay but for starters :

-scepter is mostly power dmg, actually the dedicated condi skills don't do enough to deserve a heavy stats investment-power specs doing optimal dmg require huge stats sacrifices and that normally means low toughness and zero healing power-You can still run bruiser builds for PvE but I don't recommend running scepter...staff on the other hand, yeah you can make a bruiser staff ele with a mix of celestial/crusader/captain stat then use Fire/air line to gain enough might/precision/ferocity buffs

PS you can change arcane with water like and run : Piercing shard - Flow like water and Soothing power , 2-3-3, you would have more than enough sustain even without running any healing power...at least in PvE

I don't really have an idea of a build, I'm just looking for anything functional. I love how active weaver is, but as a necro/mes main, it's been a challenge to make it anywhere near durable as the other two light classes with comparable damage. As far as I know, there's no cheese rune that works on ele like it does on mes/necro (tormenting; not that necro even needs it), is there? I tried vampirism, but that obviously doesn't work against bosses.

As others have said, elementalist is extremely hard to play compared to the rest and not really that rewarding if you consider the effort required to play it optimally, if you like weaver and just want have fun then play a condi burn sword weaver...anything besides that requires effort and time investment to get optimal results and in the end you can get same result for a fraction of the effort on other professions.

If you want to have sustain on this class, you have to sacrifice damage and other way around...there is no free cookie on ele like necro or mesmer...sorry to say that, I can see that you really like ele, all I can say for now focus on sustain builds (so forget the build I have posted) and as you get more comfortable with the class, drop some sustain for dmg

[mizaru.1385]

@"steki.1478" said:Just run a condi build with sword and dire/tb gear. You're practically a tank with the same if not better damage than whatever you're using now.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/107218/open-world-domination-fire-weaver#latest

Just go to this thread and ur golden. Can basically solo anything u want from legendary bosses to group evens.

[Touchme.1097]

Hi Wisely.4819, I don't have a direct experience with marshal stats but you can watch Cellofrag on youtube to get a good view at how they perform on your sword weaver. The difference in DPS is not too much of an issue either and you can play WvW and PvP with those stats.

[AliamRationem.5172]

@"Touchme.1097" said:Hi Wisely.4819, I don't have a direct experience with marshal stats but you can watch Cellofrag on youtube to get a good view at how they perform on your sword weaver. The difference in DPS is not too much of an issue either and you can play WvW and PvP with those stats.

I love Cellofrag's videos and I'm a subscriber to his channel, but for several reasons I can't recommend Marshal stats for PvE solo play.

You'll deal majority condition damage if you run Marshal with a sustain build like Cellofrag's, but condition damage is a minor stat on Marshal. That translates to poor damage output. That situation is exacerbated by running healing stat primary with no passive mitigation or additional health while also running the healing signet. The signet is great for healing over time, but terrible for recovering from spikes. Marshal is setting you up to have to heal via rotating to water far more often than is necessary which results in even more damage loss. It's also worth noting that sword weaver's baseline healing via riptide combo chains is amazing as it is.

Why run low-damage power-forward hybrid builds when you can deal 23.3k DPS over 7 seconds with 94% damage from burning and a peak burn tick of 32k with 0 power/precision/ferocity stat?

Why take healing power when you can combo riptide for 12.5k heal chains with 0 healing stat?

You can visit my channel from the video links here and in my thread the others linked if you want to see more including plenty of boss solos. Here are a few build variants to try. The fire/earth versions are stronger and easier to play.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAw2lZwmYXMJmJOKPnvbA-zRJYkRD/YkIB6UA6nFfl2A-e

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAw2lZwmYXMJmJOKXevaA-zRJYkRDfZkQCkZBo3sUl0G-e

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAw2lZwmYXMJmJOKXevaA-zRRYcRBnHZkgCLjMLgeTAHmlqk2A-e

[Wisely.4819]

I watched your videos before, I found the quad healing combo quite difficult to pull off!Also, that sword weaver trailblazer is very durable is nice, but it still doesn't do anything against bosses that can't be damaged from melee :/ I did manage to solo the chak challenge in your video with scepter weaver with little difficulty, though.Do other heals than signet offer better survivability? I saw lord Hizen used the glyph heal in his solo weaver videos.

[TheAgedGnome.7520]

@"Wisely.4819" said:Hey, I really like playing weaver, and I quite like sword, but being locked into melee range without a weapon swap is very obnoxious at times (bounties, bosses, anything slightly more challenging). I've played tempest too and I know it has scepter/staff builds, but I specifically enjoy the double elements of weaver. Are there any weapons that can deal moderate amounts of damage, comparable to sword? I'm mainly an open world pve player so it doesn't need to be anything terribly meta. I tried scepter/x with my condi build and it stacked burning nicely, but I wonder if anyone has experience with power scepter on weaver or power staff.

I don't find scepter works well on weaver. Fire scepter attacks are waaaay too slow, you lose access to Riptide (water2) on sword, and air/earth is just meh.

I'd stick with sword and adjust your build. I like this belt-and-suspenders earth & water build with mostly Cele trinkets and Marshal's elsewhere. I use Traveler runes for the mobility and and it's all-around stats. It's quite sturdy for a weaver, and although the stats don't look impressive it still kills most things pretty quickly. Cleansing sigils prevent condis from being much of a problem, and Armor of Earth and Soothing Ice help limit damage, while Sigil of Restoration is constantly healing while you attack, and Written in Stone lets you get that extra emergency heal or place a large burn on your target without losing the passives of the two signets. This also works well with staff as my alternate weapon. I also use it in WvW as backline staff, with Signet of Fire replaced with Lightning Flash.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGxAwiZlZwuYUsI2JeaT9vTA-zRZYBRBUFkvbkxFUGRUB9mCyPNM4MC-e

I'd say my skill level is pretty much at the pinnacle of mediocrity =) but I still do decently well. I mainly had to adjust to the idea that 'melee range' did not equate to 'tanking', like on my warrior or rev; instead 'melee range' on weaver is the available area to dance around the target while still doing damage.

[AliamRationem.5172]

@Wisely.4819 said:I watched your videos before, I found the quad healing combo quite difficult to pull off!Also, that sword weaver trailblazer is very durable is nice, but it still doesn't do anything against bosses that can't be damaged from melee :/ I did manage to solo the chak challenge in your video with scepter weaver with little difficulty, though.Do other heals than signet offer better survivability? I saw lord Hizen used the glyph heal in his solo weaver videos.

If you feel more comfortable having a large active heal for recovery, then the glyph heal is a good choice. Many players like the signet heal on sword weaver because you use so many skills that it ends up healing for quite a lot and you have that excellent backup heal with riptide combos for rapid recovery. Don't worry if you can't manage to squeeze in 4 combos. You'll still get about as much healing out of a double combo as you do from a heal like the glyph and that should be easy to pull off (remember leap combos like air or fire 2 heal you for just as much!).

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

Weaver is actually better on Power Staff than Core Ele or Tempest. Not nearly as squishy due to their barrier application. But this is rarely used outside of competitive (mainly WvW) because in Fractals and such it means camping Fire 24/7, which is boring.

[Yasai.3549]

Power Sceptre.

Yu can shoot lazer beams of death.