fuzzyp.6295

I said it didn't count because I wasn't thinking about it when I wrote that statement. It was an incorrect phrase on my part, not that it isn't sustain and corrected my terminology. Fire Weaver enters Water to heal themselves up only, you have only one access to regen. If it gets stripped or you don't enter water, then you don't have any passive heals coming in at all other than from your Signet. If that regen gets tore from Water Weaver, its fine because basically anything they do will eventually lead to them reapplying Regen. I'm not saying you are wrong in your comparisons with Barrier as to why its better, but you are vastly underestimating the usefulness of having the 3,000 HP floating around every 10 seconds in addition to your regular heals (which, as you said, is at about the same level of Fire Weaver.) I mean do you not see where that barrier is coming from? It's from the utility skill Stone Resonance...being used in a row twice... which is not by any means a Fire Weaver only skill. If you wanna throw that on a Water Weaver build you'd only make them stronger. I've been trying to discuss this with the idea that we'd be using full cantrips (which is not really ideal nor how I would run a Water Weaver). I wasn't even trying to consider the cantrip regen in the above ~3,000 heals because you still get so much regen from just Woven Stride and Swift Revenge. Stone Resonance on Water Builds is fantastic and you get a lot more use out of it because Water doesn't have barriers. You could also like, I dunno, dodge? Aliam is a great roamer I've fought mutiple times before so I know they know what they're doing. But they also had two dodges remaining during the entire Soul Sprial. A Water Weaver would have dodged instead of eating it. EDIT: A better way to show this off would be to point at the barrier that comes up from Lesser Stone Ressoance after the spin to win at around 20s. THAT shows the benefits of Barrier. Atleast when compared to Fire Weaver v Water Weaver barrier.

Well to be completely fair, double attuning isn't something that you should strive for. Like you said, Cauterizing Strike on Fire is pretty good. And if you are running power focused (Marauder/Beserker), Quantam Strike can actually shred through opponents, don't sleep on it. Aqua Siphon is probably not worth aiming if you're running Fire since Fire Weavers have really no reason to go into water outside of Riptide -> Vortex, but the heal can be pretty fat if you're running more defensive stats and don't mind staying in water longer (or need to for heals). The only irredeemably bad double attune is Rust Frenzy. Nothing about that move saves it. If you're running Fire Celestial then yeah, Air isn't the best when compared to Fire and Earth since Celestial really shines with that extra condition damage. But if you run more power focused (Marauder/Crusader/Beserker) Air can be a pretty heavy hitting spec, even with sword. I've seen some really fat numbers with my old Marauder Sword builds. But it depends on how you trait things yeah. Fair enough. Having lived through the old core D/D days, I don't particularly feel barrier is necessary, but I totally get the value from having it and why its a great thing to have. I personally don't run Bolstered Elements in Fire Weave build because I think its just overkill with Invigorating Strikes (EDIT: Well that and Lesser's disgusting 70 second icd. might as well not even have it). Which yeah, actually, I feel like this whole back and forth makes it seem like I'm trying to champion the wonders of Waters, meanwhile I only play Fire Weaver nowadays lmao. It might be a misunderstanding between what I consider sustain and how I phrased it here. I consider sustain to be more focused on keeping your HP up and stable, which Water does in spades as opposed to Fire and its barrier which keeps it HP safe to begin with. Water has basically near perma regen and soothing mist both of which should be healing you for around 3,000+ every 10 seconds, in addition to the 1,600~ heal you get when you swap into water. Your insane amount of cleanses also means condi chip damage is non-existance, so unless you're condi bombed with 5+ condis at once, you've basically reduced the overall damage any move that uses supplemental condi damage. (Similar to how condi eats away at barrier on Fire Weaver keeping them safe). Between that and Elemental Refreshment to reduce direct damage of incoming attacks, you have the recipe to keep your HP nice and stable. Fire has plenty of sustain if you count Barrier, yeah, but its a different form of sustain and not what I was thinking when I wrote that statement. I should have probably made it more clear. My b. I've played both Water Weaver and Fire Weaver for years now on and off. I've honestly found them to be about the same in terms of survivability, even if you don't take any of those barrier traits. The major difference was that Fire could offer what Water did without losing all of its damage.

If you're interested in Fresh Air you should absolutely play it. Unlike Sword Weaver, which is locked before the elite, Fresh Air exists on every Elementalist spec and has always been a viable option for Ele. While I don't know if Catalyst Fresh Air will be a thing, its never a bad thing to invest in learning. I would say that if you take the time to learn to use Fresh Air you would actually become a better roamer because of it. Fresh Air has one very, very big leg up on Sword Weaver and that is its not held back by its range. If you (or anyone) if interesting in playing scepter though and aren't sold on the idea of Fresh Air, Scepter Lightning Rod can be extremely fun to play around with as well. It's also a bit more forgiving (but slower) than Fresh Air. Also, Fresh Air is definitely the better build if any roamer who wants to gank squirreling pugs in zergs, which can be very cathartic for an Ele.

Celestisal Weaver pumps out enough Barrier and Sustain through its own Healing Power that you really don't need Lesser Stone Resonance and even the Invigorating Strikes. And if you're running Water specifically, you will have better overall sustain with heals meaning that, sure while you'll lose a bit of barrier thats really not make or break on a build but you'll get more damage which any build using Water needs. You still have much higher sustain than on Fire Weaver builds, albeit as incoming heals as opposed to straight up barrier. Thing is with water this "Oh no, 7 different condis on me" situation doesn't happen as often as it does on Fire does because you are constantly cleansing. Water builds don't allow you to get a built up on conditions because you have so many different ways to cleanse and unlike the Detonate Aura cleanse, there is no cool down and less restrictions on using it. EDIT: and in the event where it does happen, say if you're condi bomed when you're in Air/Fire and had just used your detonate aura so thats on cool down... well thats 3 seconds or so till you get back to fire for your first aura and then another 3 seconds to wait till you can detonate it. Even if you Flamewall -> Polaric Leap for an Aura then swap to Fire, thats only two condis cleansed out of 7. Water may have a lot of single cleasnes, but it has a lot more freedom to access them whereas Fire cleanse are really locked around Fire and the Detonate Aura. It may be more overall for Water to 'do' to cleance a condi bomb, but its not as though its difficult. Fire is nicely packed behind its one attunement, which is both a benefit and can be a hindrance if you're caught in a bad part of your rotation. Uhh, Air as a non-damaging attunement lol? Yes, swapping into Water does suck and one of the benefits Fire has over it. But Air is certainly not a non-damaging attunement, even more if you're running a build that uses Air since you'll have tons of access to Fury. (Unless you're specifically referring to the combo of Water/Air? I'm not sure if you mean Air in general or what.) Water has cleansing in every attunement through Dual Attacks meaning you're never don't have a cleanse on you. And yeah, Earth 4 and Lava Skin both work for Water builds too. It's not as if Water builds don't go into Fire ever. So what double attuning doesn't happen? Whenever I run Water builds I double attune when I need Aqua Siphon for an extra heal. But even if you take out the 'double attunemet' for Aqua Siphon and Daze, there is still more options for cleansing in that build than Fire. EDIT: Also, Elemental Lockdown works by giving you the boon based on the attunement when the disable occurs, not cast. This means if you cast comet in Fire/Water, then swap to Water/Fire as the casting animation plays and before the daze hits it will work no problemo. This is very doable giving its animation time. When it connects, you get Regen from both swapping to water AND will proc a second regen with lockdown. Double cleanse and not double attunement need ^_^ Funny enough this also means that other CC's like Gale if cast in Water/Air will give regen and Gale Strike can cleanse up to three conditions if you time your animation with attunement swapping. (Swift Revenge, Water Attunement Swap, Elemental Lockdown) More cleanse for water oh my! Also, did I not say that Fire gets 13 cleanses? Lol 🙃 At the end of the day, it comes down to what I mentioned early. Water offers more sustain cleanses over longer period of time making it the better option if you want to build a bunker focused build and Fire offers better burst cleanses without the trade off of damage. But let me be clear: I was never disagreeing with that fact in that post and wasn't trying to suggest that Fire is somehow less useful at cleansing. I also agree with you in that Fire is the better option for roaming and just over all when compared to Water builds at the moment. It's a nice change of pace from the literal years of being locked behind Water. Fire may have overall less cleanses, but as you explained in your post, it does its job much more effectively than Water does at the moment. The only thing I was only disagreeing with was you saying that water only had cleanses on Attuning to Water, Air and Air Autoattack which was absolutely wrong and misleading. Water has many, many more ways to cleanse and keep cleansing. That doesn't mean its better though.

I think it boils down to a constant sustained cleanse with Water vs a burst of cleanse with Fire. Water has a lot more options for you to cleanse and to cleanse rapidly, whereas Fire's cleanses are all locked within Fire mostly. You also have to rotate through fire twice to get the full effect to detonate the aura and there is still a 10 second cool down for Detonate Fire Aura vs 0 for Cleansing Waters. But when you do get it, its a fat 3 condi removal, and Fire Aura is easy to get since you will constantly be rotating back into Fire. And, if were being honest, you're also not crippled by being forced to return to water frequently either lol. If you were building a bunker build for Weaver, Water/Arcane/Tempest would absolutely be the better choice over Fire. But there is no reason to bunker that heavy in WvW and even if you wanted too, Fire still offers the best trade off between damage and cleanse in the game, so its still the better option.

That's not true, at least with the build above. Every instance of regen would condi cleanse. So this includes: Riptide (Water 2) Aqua Siphon (Double Water 3) Comet (Daze gives Regen with Elemental Lockdown) Polaric Slash (Air 1, second AA) Polaric Leap (Air 2) Attuning to Water Attuning to Air Every Dual Attack (6 in total as they each give swiftness) Every Cantrip (3 in total on that build) Dodge in Water Attunement That's if you're using the build that @Rodril.1385 is using above. I believe thats 17 cleanses? If they were to swap out Signet of Air for Twist of Fate they'd even get 18. I'm also didn't consider that he was running Stop, Drop, Roll which cures Burning and Chill on dodge, so really that Dodge in Water becomes a potential 3 cleanse. Also didn't count Magentic Wave here which cleanses 3. We can also now look at Fire Cleansing options: Fire Aura (Fire 5) Attune to Fire Leap through Fire Field (so we'll count this as a x2 for Fire and Air 2) Dodge in Water Attunement And thats kinda it actually? What makes Fire strong though is that whenever you detonate your aura, you get 2 cleansed. So even though that's only 4 ways to get Fire Auras, thats basically 12 cleanses. But you need to be able to detonate your Aura to get the full effect. (Not counting Lesser Cleansing Flame since thats kind of a 'maybe' for most builds or Magnetic Wave). EDIT: Forgot Water Attunement dodge for Fire, that makes it 13 cleanses. There isn't really much comparison between the two, Water is the cleanse king. But between the sustain Weaver offers through its barriers to help eat up condis and its high healing output, you can usually survive better with what Fire offers for cleansing and don't need all the cleanses that Water offers... most of the time. I also generally think Cleansing Sigil is a great sigil to use on Fire Weaver, atleast it has in the past. With Condi Hearlds not being as incredibly oppressive as before, its not as necessary to run nowadays but still a good option if you forgo more Celestial for DPS gear.

Cele Weaver has poor range, yes. It's why Speed runes are often used to help give Weaver more mobility and actually stick to their opponents as they try to run away from us. Outside of Deadeyes and Immob Druids, range its actually not as horrendous of a counter as everyone thinks. Swirling Winds and Magentic Wave are great anti-projectile hate. Riptide and Earth Vortex can help you evade channeled or telegraphed long range skills like Barrage Rapid Fire or Death's Judgement. And if you use your terrain to cover their range spam and force them to approach you, then the battle shifts back in your favor. You also have to learn when to engage range classes like that and be aware of your surroundings so you can take cover and kite yourself if need be. Thats all stuff that comes with practice though and I'm sure OP will learn (if they don't already). But you are right, Rifle Deadeyes are about as hard counter to Sword Weaver as you can get in this game. But the good news is, even though you'll never hit them, you can also just, like, kinda leave? And theres really nothing they can do about it lol.

While I don't fully agree with the idea that PvE game mode being the be all and end all, as someone who loves PvP and WvW, if this is going to be discussed I also have to raise a question: when has an Elementalist range build ever been truly meta for competitive formats? sPvP Staff used to be good at wiping the first mid fight of an encounter but after that you're basically walking points for any competent roamer. You'd be lucky to cast a lava font and a half channeled meteor before you were back at your spawn. That's been the status quo for like, years at this point. It's only gotten worse but thats because Staff has been nerfed and others power creeped, thats an issue with the weapon not the spec. (Way Late EDIT: There was a point where Bunker Eles were using Staff now that I recall, I think near the start of HoT when we got out first real taste of insane defensive boons classes? But I still recall it was second to D/D WET at the time as a choice to run and overall not as good as Scrapper and didn't last as long. And I'm pretty sure Focus was also used with Dagger now that I think about it.) Scepter was good for like, a year or two and always a decent off choice. But I haven't seen anyone seriously running Scepter in sPvP since around the time PoF dropped. But you know what has been meta? Daggers up and through 2016 and then Sword from 2017 till today, both melee... (for reference, I'm usually playing around Plat 2-3, perhaps its different in other tiers, but game balance is usually top down anyway... I haven't heard its much different in Legendary. EDIT: I should i add, I haven't been playing much recently, but unless the meta has been shaken up in the last few months I'm pretty confident this is still the standard.) WvW on the other hand. Staff has been and still is a top choice for the Elementalist in the Zerg Gameplay/ Although to be fair... even in zergs most are running Dagger and Warhorn Tempest now, so again... meta as melee. This was probably the only mode where competitive ranged Elementalists existed though. And still exist, Staff is still used in many zergs as an option for Weaver. In fact, you almost never see Sword Weavers in a zerg, only Staff Weaver. Which I find interesting related to one of the arguments against Hammer Catalyst but thats not the point here. Sure, Sword and Scepter can be considered meta for the roaming scene. Roaming is the only joy I get out of this game at the moment. But we'd be kidding ourselves to suggest that WvW is balanced around small scale combat where Sword and Scepter shine. But even if we consider this, again.. Celestial Core D/D Ele was king until Sword took its place with Fresh Air Scepter as a good niche build but never considered any more or less better than daggers or sword. Melee as Meta. While I don't agree with the original points that PvE raids are all melee focused and thereby the balance should be focused on melee, range elementalist builds haven't really been shining examples of variety in other game modes either. Only WvW is the one exception, but only in Zergs, and often nowadays competed with against Melee options. You can see this as a justification for another ranged weapon (which I am all for, by the way) to finally bring ranged elementalist in the meta again or a justification as to why ANet continues to focus on melee since its the predominant style anyway. Personally I'm excited for Staff Catalyst and Hammer Catalyst.

It's not that Antitoxin runes are bad, they're still really good to have. If you have Legendary Gear, you should probably carry a set in your inventory to swap in and out. It's just that, as Aliam mentioned above, Fire offers a fantastic condition cleanse in Smothering Auras. Most Weavers use the Bolstered Elements trait, even with Speed runes, because most of the damage comes from burns. But yes, if you want to run a bit more aggressive like with Grieving stats, Swift Revenge is good. But you don't really need to worry about maintaining swiftness for the bonus on Speed Runes, with Celestial new boon duration you basically will have perma swiftness up as long as you attune to air once in a while (which you'll be doing alot for Pyro Vortex and Polartic Leap for mobility) Signet of Air is a stun-break and blind as well, which is why people use it (in addition to the extra speed). Arcane Shield is probably not good since it has a much longer cool down and only blocks and lots of folks use unblockable abilities. Yea, it does damage too, but I only think Arcane Shield is good if you're traiting into Elemental Surge, which you dont want on Cele Fire Weave. That's more of a Fresh Air thing.

I only use Antitoxin when fighting a condi heavy class like Mirage or Herald and mostly for duels. You dont nessicary need those runes to stay clear of condis they just make the fight easier. The best runes as mentioned above are Speed runes. Sword Weaver has some of the worst mobility in the game so the extra bonus to speed from the runes really helps you in keeping up with you opponent and maintaining pressure. Other good runes to consider if you mess around with you stat spread are Durability Runes, Firework/Pack Runes and maybe Balthazar or Orr runes. I personally don't use Signet of Air, I use ToF, LF and Primordial Stance. Twist got nerfed pretty heavy handedly so its recharge is now 75 seconds, which is why some may choose to run signet over Twist since it has a much lower recharge. but I still prefer the evade on twist over signet. Both are good though.

The best build for roaming with Elementalist is the Celestial Fire Weaver build. This build offers great sustain through its barrier and heals while maintaining potent burns and burst with its high might stacking. It's one of the toughest builds to put down in a 1v1 and decently skilled Weavers should have no problem fighting in 2v1s. 3v1s and higher it gets a bit tricky and you'll probably not win but you can still usually stay alive long enough for help to arrive. While I say its Celestial. thats because the majority of the armor is Celestial, its by no means to say that you can't run other stats like Grieving or Trailblaizer to help tailor it more to your personal preference. I personally run full Cele Armor with some Grieving Trinkets and Weapons for more Burn/DPS. But if you want a safe place to start, full Cele is good (Sword/Focus as you mentioned, OH Dagger is not competing with it atm) There are certainly some variations out there that use Air or Water for Sword Weaver, but those are much more niche and are probably finely tailored for each individual weaver with a strange stat spread that works for them. Weaver's Runes, I've fooled around with them in the past and while it pumps out a lot of barrier, I've always found that it was just a bit overkill considering the heals and barrier produced on a normal Celestial build. I don't think any build that uses Air would run Weaver Runes but I could be wrong. I know in the past there have been full Marauder Air Sword builds which were decent in 1v1, but usually it did everything a Scepter build did just worse since you needed to stay in Melee. Water isn't really worth taking on Sword Weaver atm unless you are fighting a pure trailblazer condi opponent and struggling.. but even then, Celestial Fire with Antitoxin Runes usually gets the job done, another reason why Fire is considered the better option for roaming. It offers good, frequent cleanse without trading off all its damage like Water does. (EDIT: To clarify, its not worth taking on a Celestial Fire Weaver. Water can still be useful with Air or Arcane if you decide to go that route, but it brings it own issues.) But if anyone has their own builds with these trait lines, perhaps they could share it with you here. Outside of Cele Fire Weaver, you have your Fresh Air builds that are still fantastic 1v1 and ganking specs but much harder to pull off in outnumbered fights. If you take the time to master them, though, you will probably be better off for it since its not crippled by its lack of range and mobility like Sword Weaver is. Condi Tempest run around and are extremely tanky and hard to take out, although I wouldn't say they are particularly good. Lighting Rod Weavers (Sword, Dagger and Scepter) are also fun niche builds to play that if you take the time to learn can be very rewarding, but have their own downsides. Finally, you have the ol' D/D Core Cele Ele which still sees play, although you kinda need to toss in some Marauders gear more than ever nowadays if you try that.

I just want to comment in case anyone here might be newer to the game. Once upon a time, Elementalist was the king of boon sharing in this game. It remained that way probably up until the release of Heart of Thorns. Elementalist had fire fields for easy party wide Might and Fury, Water for Regen, Cleanses and Blast Heals, Static for stacking Swiftness. A single Ele could provide about all the boons that were necessary for the PvE meta back in the day. I still remember being required to run a scepter/focus to pre-buff everyone up before we would start our dungeon runs. During this time, having all these boons were pretty crazy,. only really Guardian even came close to matching the Elementalist in terms of boon output. Part of the issue with our core skills is that they still reflect that. Yes, they are selfish because basically everything else in the Elementlist kit at the time was party focused. But as the game has evolved, what the Elementliast offers in terms of group support has changed. While we didn't get any of the new boons, ANet decided to try and make Auras an elementlist niche to have them keep up with the other classes who got newer boons. I kinda like to think the moment it all changed for Elementalist was when the community shot down the original version of Rebound, insisting that it was too close to being a mesmer support ability and not thematically an Ele thing. So ANet took from that that Mesmer should be the Support Focused light class and completely dumped the Ele for Mesmer lol.

I feel like folks are saying that now, but it wouldn't be long before we hear the same old song Eles have been singing since 2013: I cant DPS because I'm always down. Good sustain/defense, long range or good damage. Pick two, because Ele will never get all three. Edit: well I guess long range pure condi could but ele will never get a truly pure condi weapon.

Not disagreeing with anything you said about the loss of sustain or changes of melee v range. I was just saying that for a class that focuses heavy on comboing with fields to actually be range, you would need more freedom to access fields. Fields are stationary and work better as a mechanic with Melee if you're gonna be focused on self buffs like the current aura focused Cata. If they were to do anything with fields and longbows for a 'what if...' style of catalyst, the only way I could see it working is if the fields traveled with the Ele to let you move around and combo much more effectively. That way you can reposition yourself (as is important in all range builds due to lack of sustain) and still have more fluid access to combos instead of being locked down in one place.

I don't think a Bow would really work with what Catalyst has. Trying to leap through a field with a ranged weapon sounds weird. Range is all about positioning, you need to be very mobile whereas fields are stationary, limiting your positioning. Bow on what Catalyst is currently just sounds clunky AF. Maybe if we had scrapper like fields that travel with us for combo game, that could have been more fun.

There would need to be a duration if this ever happened to ensure that the burst is used. One issue that could arise is that it will become 'meta' for Catalyst to never use their F5 because they had more DPS by keeping the floating orbs up. That would trivialize the entire point of the Jade Sphere and never use it. EDIT: Oh yes, and the burst aspect takes out the ability for the Cataylst to use the field aspect of the class. If you're saving it for when you have all four orbs instead of when its good to use, that could cause some issue with the flow of gameplay. Also, personal preference here, I don't think we should ever really be encouraging long term passive damage like that, atleast without some sort of cast/management.

I'll put money on Staff seeing a resurgence in use once people realize that the heavy combo weapon Staff works wonderfully with the heavy combo focused spec Catalyst. Disclaimer: This is not me saying Staff doesn't need a buff, but range Elementalist will continue to chug along just fine. Just because something isn't meta doesn't make it unusable.

This is the right answer. I've gotten fat heals of around 7k from the Elemental with only a few celestial trinkets on a 15 second cool down. Basically it was full healing my ele in WvW when I used it. It's a great heal, but it could probably be split for PvE and PvP especially since it dies super quick.

@Jski.6180 Ugh While posted it I accidently deleted my post with all it detailed out. I don't feel like retyping it out since it took me way too long. But basically, following your own suggestions of what would count as a 'magic' skill i came up with "Magical" Elementalist Skills: 82 "Non-Magical" Elementalist Skills: 27 (By your own admission, you actually increased the amount of Fire skills from 22 to 24 with Heat Sync and Pressure Blast now being considered magic as well) And that was being very generous with skills that seem obviously magical (Swirling Winds, Gust, Magentic and Shocking Aura) not counting because they didn't hit your rules of Damage/Condition Damage/Boon or Buff. And this is not touching the traits, utility skills, Trident or Hammer. I also a thing on Unravel and Weave Self wondering why despite it literally doing what you suggested two posts ago is suddenly not counting, but its just pretty clear there is no hoop you won't jump through to discredit the Elementalist's magical nature.

I went through and counted. Dagger - 3 Skills in Fire deal Burning, 2 do not, although one of those two skills has interplay with burning. Scepter - All 3 Skills in Fire deal Burning. Staff - 2 Skills in Fire deal burning, 3 do not, although 1 of those three skills is a Fire Field, which by your own admission is the closest to magic we get in the game. Warhorn - 1 skill deals burning, 1 does not,. Sword - 3 skills deal burning, 2 do not (counting the first two in the auto attack chain as separate, although argument could be made they are all one skill.). EDIT: Oh, forgot about Focus, which both skills cause burning. And this is not counting dual attacks which if we added: Dagger - 5 Burn, 3 No Scepter- 5 Burn, 1 No Staff - 3 Burn, 5 Do not. Sword - 6 Burn, 2 No Overal: 22 (+2 focus, +1 WH) Burn, 12 Don't (+1 WH) And this is just considering Fire... there are plenty of Water skills that Chill, Air that Blind or Debuff and Earth that Bleed or Cripple. Not to mention skills like Phoenix and Lava Skin not only burn, but also support the Elementalist magically. So yes, they have magical properties to them, they're not magic damage types. And your second point is just moving the goal post for what you call magic. It goes from 'being able to self buff is magic' to now being 'well, they self buff but its not unique so not magic.' Is that really a big issue? I'd rather things be uniform for balance so I don't have to learn a 100 different tiny profession unique icons that basically do the same thing. So basically Weave Self and Unravel? Both of those skill give the Weaver the ability to do exactly that, easier access to attunements and skills to cast spells and have better control of their magic. I don't think thats really how magic works in this universe though? Magic in GW2 is more based on the ley lines which can then be channeled into the magic the user wants. Elementalists choose to channel that into the elements, which is why all their magic comes from the Elemental Forces, but that doesn't necessarily mean that their magic is somehow more or less primal than whatever a Ranger uses (EDIT: I know they are said to channel 'primal forces' but I always took that as just referring to the Elements being primal in nature, not that they are somehow tapping into some sort of primal elemental energy that all other classes magic springs from. GW1 was kind of like this with the Magic being linked from the Gods but that has been retconned). This probably just comes down to how people view it though, as I mentioned earlier, Warriors have only one way to throw a rock while an Elementalist has many, thats what sets them apart. When were Arcane skills ever unblockable? And probably the reason they crit and deal high condi damage is because they're the closest thing to the raw, primal energy you want Elementalist to have. Anyway... at the end of the day, as you said earlier this is all your opinion and if you want to have this idea of magical damage being the defining factor of what makes a mage a mage then sure. But when I hear that argument and look at what elementalist offers, I just don't see it.

So like..... Flamestrike? That's basically causing your opponent to burst into flames while doing damage. It also does burning damage, your element effect. Add bonus - it's a ranged ability, no sword here folks. Doesn't that skill fit your definition of magic? So are you discrediting defensive skills like Arcane Shield and Armor of Earth, both which keep the Elementalist safe while casting so they can complete their casting? Wouldn't that be in the same vein as quickness / alacrity? It may not be speeding up the casting animation, but it is still working to allow the Ele to finish their spell. Does it only have to be about spell speed in order to qualify for "magic"? What makes the Elementalist magic any more or less pure than a Mesmer or Ranger? Aren't they channeling magic to create these elemental forces? If anything, Elementalist has the closest thing to pure magic in the game with Arcane, which by your own definition would work because Arcane skills already always crit, making them arguably the "strongest" spells in the game (lore wise, anyway). As for elemental purity, that is definitely one way you can look at it. But you can also look at it like this: The Warrior has a single way to hurl a rock because they are a Warrior and do it only one way. The Elementalist, as a master of the elements, has multiple ways to throw rocks. Some stronger that the Warrior, some weaker, and some with added effects They have a whole lot more access to these than other classes because their magic focuses on the elements.. So, yes, some of their Water spells will be stronger than the Rangers, some won't be because they have access to a wide range as opposed to the Rangers limited spell pool. I get that you have a very strict idea of what is magic and that is fine, but even under your own suggestions the Elementlaist checks some of the boxes of what makes a mage a mage.

Trailblaizer and Vipers will both out DPS Celestial in solo content, so if you're looking for numbers you're probably not going to want Celestial. Between Trailblazier and Vipers, Trailblaizers would be easier to use in solo content because it is such a defensive heavy stat without giving up its main condi DPS. The extra DPS benefits of Vipers don't really do a whole lot (in my opinion) for open world content that running it would really matter. If you're trying group content like raids or fractals, Vipers might be a more attractive option because it should technically be the better DPS overall. It just requires more team support in order for you to reach those levels. In terms of Tempest v Weaver, Weaver is usually the better option if you're going for higher DPS, however Tempest is arguably much easier and forgiving to play than Weaver (depending on your skill level with Ele I'd probably say). While Tempest may have less of an overall DPS output compared to Weaver, you also gotta weigh the fact that you're not DPSing if you're down on Weaver. If you're looking to play Solo with the easiest time, probably a Trailblaizer Tempest. But Trailbliazer is really forgiving of a stat, its not that difficult to play it with Weaver and still be able to smash through most open world content. Viper should be used in more team orientated activities to help off set its loss of defense. And Celestial would be good if you're trying to learn Ele and don't want to risk dying at all but also don't mind losing out on the top numbers. To be fair, since the buff to Celestial its a much stronger stat, but still it will always generally be considered the second best thing to run in solo content if you're looking for numbers. At least these are my opinions. Personally, I run Power Tempest in open world and love it. The best solo build is the one you enjoy. 🙂

(assuming this isn't a troll or anything) Running Scepter and Dagger on core is difficult. If you used it on Weaver, you may have better luck since there is atleast the potentional for playing that risky one shot build. Might be better to swap to Focus, you get two great stuns, an on demand chill and strong condi removal depending on the build you're running. I also think Torando is better to run on core than FGS simply for the knock back. Since Cele Weavers don't have a lot of stab locking them down with Tornado could lead to a follow up burst with Phoenix/Dragon Tooth or Shatterstone. That's assuming you're using fresh air though. If you're running like a condi scepter/dagger well gosh I dunno try the good old mono-earth build and pray haha 😉

Folks have given some good advice. But I want to know what classes are you playing that you are having trouble with Celestial Weaver? Different classes may have different ways of cheesing out a win. Crowd Control is very strong against Weaver as they usually have one a single stack of stab in their entire build. Time your CC so they will burn through their stun break quickly and then go ham. CC'ing while a Weaver is in Water (Riptide) is a great way to punish a Weaver since they wil usually only be hitting Water to heal up. High Burst builds can still devastate a Celestial Weaver. What makes them strong is that they can make the fight go on for a long time while maintaining their heals and barrier. If you can burst them down quickly, they will struggle to regain the momentum of the fight even if they survive. If its a Sword Weaver, then even the slightest bit of range on them should play to your advantage. Keep up your mobility and kite them. If possible, chip them down at a distance and keep them there. Sword Weaver has some of the worst mobility in the game so if you have a good range build, use that to your advantage. Chill is a strong condition against Elementalist because it not only slows down our skills, but attunement swapping. If you can time your chills correctly (usually after they leave Water attunement) you will usually get them in a disadvantaged state. Abuse Stealth. Weaver has no way to reveal any stealth using opponent. Don't be afraid to use it frequently in your fight it if you can.

A lot of fun changes in here. Some are nice, but some are just overpowered. I do find the idea of limiting effects to core classes interesting, but I wonder how letting that genie out the bottle would be. Surely we'd have to go through and apply that to all the classes haha. I don't see a point in trying to nitpick at much of these skills since these changes will obviously never happen. Overall, they're all interesting but some seem like that would be stupidly broken. Stone Heart for example? Unless you forgot to add the only core descriptive to that one. One small thing I do wanna say though is Mist Form needs to stay 3 seconds since its only practical use is safe stomping nowadays. Otherwise, sure, I'm all here for making Ele an OP god. We can all dream, right? EDIT: Oh, Stone Heart said Barrier and Earth, I thought it was just while under Barrier. Nevermind.