Vinny.7260

I see you all speaking about Willbender. I just gotta say: 🗣️If you're hitting plat in ranked with a build that dishes out a lot of damage, that just means you're good at sniffing out the weaklings. That's good. That's fine. That's not a balance issue. There are people who can do it with LR Weaver, FA Weaver, D/D Catalyst, Power Chronomancer, Power Mirage, CORE Guardian, Terrormancer, and many more. There are obviously outliers, like the more bust-o specs right now, but leave Willbender and its fellow glass cannons out of the crossfire. 😞

Having played FA Weaver a lot, but not being a Grimjack level of min-maxxing, I will say that the damage is missed, but you can still deal plenty of damage anyway. You just can't full-on oneshot people just as easily anymore. Personally if you're wanting to do that, LR Weaver got small buffs (via Dagger mainhand buffs) that make the in-between frames of a burst hit harder. (Drake's Breath hits way harder now). I do think Earthen Synergy could use at least damage back on the first part of the attack, but keep the damage off the second part, the actual stun.

I've been curious about some things, at least logistics under-the-hood when it comes to differences between a trait effect and a trait skill. Two examples that come to mind are Lightning Rod on Elementalist (Deal damage and inflict weakness on crowd control) and Power Block (Deal damage, inflict weakness, and increase the recharge of skill on interrupt). I provided hyperlinks to the GW2 Wiki for the traits to make it easier to compare. What's the reasoning behind Power Block not having a unique trait skill attached? What's the reasoning behind Lightning Rod having a unique trait skill attached? I could theorize and come up with wacky theories, such as something to do with code behind how a trait skill works versus a trait effect. My personal hypothesis is that it has to do with the parameters on how each trait is activated. I'd love to see a developer give us a cool little sneak-peek of the magical pieces behind it all.

It's not really the damage that's the problem, it's the amount of evade frames it has. It requires a base understanding of the profession to use it effectively, which is why you'll sometimes have some vindis drop like paperweights and then the next one be straight up unkillable. It has 2 dodges + endurance regeneration via F2 + Shiro evade + evade from Hammer 3 + Evade from Blue Alliance. It has a lot of cleansing, resistance uptime via Devastation, etc. It makes it difficult to punish with Weakness and Blinds. Meaning you can't reduce their evade uptime much, can't prevent their hits or critical hits (thanks to Daredevil relic). It's essentially doing what Mirage used to do with Chaos Staff, but Power.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwAYpjlhy8g1iFt0X0E-DaoOkMVCBMBCZE44nAAA This is the build. It's not that complicated to figure out. They recently buffed the master trait in Harbinger to give a 2s -50% incoming damage buff on entering shroud. The last two slots are flex slots, you can use any of the elixirs, Well of Darkness, Armor, etc. Lots of options.

I was mostly enjoying this weapon in PvE as an alternative to GS on PChrono. While I couldn't have my gear min-maxxed due to not having legendaries, I was able to crank out some pretty solid damage. ~32k on my best attempt with 89% crit chance with all exotics and 2700ish power. (Comparing to 41k on my best attempt with GS and 100% crit and all ascended with much higher power). Basically uses the same rotation but you can take Empowered Illusions (not sure if it actually works with Spear 4 as it doesn't update the tooltip). Only difference with Spear is that you do: 2 -> 4 -> CS during 4 -> WoC -> Ether -> Disenchant -> 2 -> 4 -> 5 -> 2 -> WoG -> end CS GS being: 2 -> 4 -> CS during 4 -> WoC -> Ether -> Disenchant -> 4 -> WoG -> 2 -> 3 -> WoG -> end CS Spear honestly feels far more fluid than GS does for golem punching and once you have confidence the cast times are definitely way shorter and allow you to squeeze way more buttons out of CS. Notes: Let Fencer's Finesse work with all Spears. Heck, remove the cool down reduction and make the sword CDs baseline. Fencer's Finesse already procs off of the Phantasms on Spear anyway, so just commit to it. Spear Ambush is VERY inconsistent when testing it in PvP and PvE. As other people have mentioned, it feels inconsistent with landing all of its strikes. PvP mention: Spear 2 shouldn't consume Clarity, perhaps make Clarity stackable instead. (Max of 2 stacks). You hardly benefit from Spear 2 providing might anyway.

PvP Perspective: All the autoattacks are useless. Fire 2, Fire 4, Air 2, Air 4, Water 4, and Earth 4 are not retargetable. This makes it borderline impossible to get skills to land. Air 4 and Water 4 either need to guarantee CCing or get damage back. Getting punished super hard just because of the lack of retargeting is insane. Etching is incredibly non-conventional. All the skills also cannot be retargeted. Etching Volcano is useless and incredibly easy to avoid. Fire 3 should not be consumed by auto attacks. Air 2 should critically hit. It's a POWER weapon. Etching bugs out on Weaver if you swap from one attunement to another. Despite the off-hand skills being the same. Such as Water/Water to Air/Water, you won't have access to the follow-up skill anymore. This is incredibly counterintuitive. Why are the dual attacks so incredibly mediocre? You can't make use of Superior Elements AT ALL because none of the dual attacks are dual attacks. Edit: Adding some additional notes here since I've been playing it more. Fire 2: Pathing is lower than it should be and collides into the ground too soon at 1200 range. Fire 4: Animation for the meteor continues even if stowed and is put on full recharge. Water 2: Starting the cast without a target and then targeting removes the beam. Same deal with retargeting. Water 3: Scales with movement speed increases and decreases. Immobilize prevents movement, even if cleansed, entirely, not sure if it's because of the movement speed or not. Air 2: Affects structures and deals damage to them. (WvW issue mostly). Earth 2: Moves like a pool noodle and doesn't reliably land. Fire/Water/Air/Earth 5: Extend the window of the actual skills themselves. 5 seconds with the boons pulsing and field; 5 seconds if successfully unlocked the full skill.

I'm going to just brain dump ideas I've had for Weaver for a while now. A majority of these are PvP-focused and giving Weaver some utility to the party in raids. A lot of them are sporadic ramblings, but I'll try to convey my reasoning. Traits: A lot of the traits we've got these days are starting to show their age. I'd love to see these traits be more competitive in general. If you know, you know. Elemental Pursuit: Gain superspeed when inflicting inhibiting conditions on enemies. While this trait is neat in theory, in PvE, you won't use this trait. You'll use the other two adept traits. The idea of it is to punish the enemy being crippled, chilled, or immobilized. Reduce the recharge to 3 seconds. 10 seconds is insane. Elemental Refreshment: Grant barrier to yourself and nearby allies when using Dual Attack skills. This trait is intended to provide a little bit of sustain to the Weaver while they do their rotation in PvE, and provide some sustain when using your Dual Attacks in PvP. The amount is so little in PvE to matter as a means of providing barrier to allies. Same deal for PvP. Add cleanse a condition when using a Dual Attack in addition to previous effects. New Description: Grant barrier and remove a condition from yourself and nearby allies when using Dual Attack skills. Swift Revenge: Gain swiftness when using a Dual Attack. Deal increased strike damage to enemies while under the effects of swiftness or superspeed. This trait is great for Strike Damage. Link the Swiftness to Elemental Refreshment, allowing you to share it with allies. New Description: Elemental Refreshment now grants Swiftness. Deal increased strike damage to enemies while under the effects of swiftness or superspeed. Elemental Polyphony: Gain attributes based on your current attunement. When dual attuned, gain both benefits. Mediocre for a grandmaster minor trait. The stats themselves are nice, but could have an additional benefit. Elemental Refreshment grants a boon when using Dual Attack skills. The boon granted is based on your primary attunement. New Description: Gain attributes based on your current attunement. When dual attuned, gain both benefits. Elemental Refreshment grants a boon based on your primary attunement. Fire: Might x3 for 6s in PvP; Might x3 for 10s in PvE. (Extra Might for allies). Water: Resolution for 4s in PvP; Resolution for 6s in PvE. (Extra Resolution for allies). Air: Quickness for 2s in PvP; Fury for 6s in PvE. (Rapid follow-up damage for PvP Weaver, fury upkeep for allies). Earth: Protection for 3s in PvP; Stability x2 for 5s in PvE. (Sustain for Weaver, Utility for allies in PvE). Elements of Rage: Gain a bonus to all damage dealt for a period of time when attuned to a single element. Gain precision based on a percentage of your vitality. In PvE this trait is great. Allows you to run all-zerker gear + scholar rune and all damage increase sigils. In PvP, this trait is used for the precision as well. But the damage mod is barely worth it. Increase the damage mod from 5% to 7% in PvP. Woven Stride: Gain swiftness when you are inflicted with inhibiting conditions. When gaining either superspeed or swiftness, also gain regeneration and cleanse a condition. Swiftness has increased effectiveness. Despite how clunky the trait is, I've actually enjoyed using it in PvP. However, if the change to Elemental Refreshment I have suggested goes through, I won't need that additional damaging condition cleansing... Probably. Change from removing any condition to removing only inhibiting conditions. New Description: Gain swiftness when you inflicted with inhibiting conditions. When gaining either superspeed or swiftness, also gain regeneration and remove an inhibiting condition. Swiftness has increased effectiveness. Invigorating Strikes: Gain vigor when using a Dual Attack. Dodge rolling grants a barrier. This trait is alright. It was fundamental for a lot of things on Weaver in PvP, especially Fire Weaver. Link the Vigor to Elemental Refreshment, allowing you to share it with allies. New Description: Elemental Refreshment now grants Vigor. Dodge rolling grants you barrier.

It's mostly an issue with the amount of iframes it can stack. It's basically doing what Mirage was able to eons back. Defiant Stance is fine, it's probably THE only sidenoder spec that can properly do its job. It does have its counters though. I don't think Defiant Stance needs nerfed though. The reason people think it's good is because it's capable of rotating rapidly and sticking to team fights, mostly due to Shadow Portal allowing them to move between nodes quickly. It isn't going to immediately destroy an entire team with someone who camps off node. Their job is to +1 or snipe targets that can't catch them. I personally believe Deathly Chill just needs an ICD. Gets rid of the insane synergy with Relic of the Reaper applying 3 stacks of bleeding, because of Chilling Nova, immediately with "Suffer!". Death Magic might need looked at again considering it's just a better Soul Reaping at this point. Might be worth mentioning that "Nothing Can Save You!" has a 16 second cool down, when every other unblockable is 25+ seconds. References to other unblockables: Signet of Might and Signet of the Hunt. I'd say just start with increasing "Nothing Can Save You!" 's CD to 25s and giving Deathly Chill a 1s ICD PER TARGET. Mace/Mace Hammer is still problematic, especially since they just buffed Jaguar to give an instant-cast stealth with ZERO REASONABLE counterplay. Untamed can still die if they can't play it well. Smokescale + Jaguar allows for combo field Smoke Field and instant-cast stealth (such as when CC'd). I was fighting Anya a few times yesterday (with LR Weaver) and the fight would take forever just because of how much stealth and reset potential the setup has. I'm suspecting they're going to nerf Smokescale in the future. We've even got people like Boyce questioning the lack of nerfs to Ranger. Still kicking despite all the nerfs its received. I doubt it'll be a long term stay with things shifting gradually. Chrono Support is very squishy compared to Guard Support, but it offers a lot of boons in turn... Can people learn how to use the portal please? It's a gimmicky spec at best right now, some people like to use "Feel my Wrath!" with Relic of the Sunless to try to burst someone down. It'll beat up the newbies, but the vets see them as food. Just wait the F3 out. Tools Holosmith might be forced to take the backseat due to the nerfs to Surprise Shot and Particle Accelerator. Apparently the devs want Nade Holo to be the staple for Holosmith rather than Tools, but Elixirs are starting to fall behind with all the power creep. As for Scrapper, it's forced to use pretty much everything in its kit. 3-4 gyros and Nade kit. Slick Shoes is their strongest CC and they give up damage/sustain to use it. Soulbeast is carried by Griffon Stance right now. If that stance gets poked even a little Soulbeast is going down a notch or two. Druid is an alternative to the Mace/Mace Hammer Untamed build, but sometimes uses Sword/Warhorn instead of Hammer, it has more cleanse, sustain, and CC with less pet damage. Harbinger is far too glassy, but it can be carried by a good Necromancer player, but they play Harbinger for flavor rather than viability. They play Reaper and get far more results. (Such as Ckod). Scourge is too squishy for 5v5s, and it shouldn't be a strong pick for 5v5s. It can stay strong in 2v2s/3v3s. D/P Daredevil is okay, but S/D is far stronger right now due to unblockable and built-in cleanse thanks to Acrobatics. S/D is capable of shutting down Catalyst and Spellbreaker thanks to the unblockables. It's a strong contender with Deadeye in terms of best in slot, but it's not currently shared what the meta build is for it. Great for zoning and shutting down the newbies. Depends on the comp, but they can be better than Support Chrono depending on the mobility of the comp and map. As for Core Guard versus Firebrand, Firebrand offers more utility but requires playing the piano in high-intensity situations. It's still a strong pick for 5v5s, but gets bullied by Deadeye and S/D Daredevil. It's capable of countering Condi Reaper thanks to Hungering Darkness having a 1s ICD instead of the intended 3s. It should stay that way if they don't touch Condi Reaper. Power Mirage is the best out of all the builds currently, Power Chrono is okay but requires dropping Domination for Dueling to deal enough damage. You lose out on Boon Strip and Power Block doing this, but hit FAR harder. Power Mirage allows you to take both Dueling AND Domination, plus you're able to poke from range with Greatsword Ambush. Virtuoso is still a fun flavor pick, but it won't be meta. Condi Mirage is very glassy still, Condi Chronomancer is gimmicky about stacking a bunch of phantasms, Condi Virtuoso requires staggering your bursts and can't hold a node or roam. CZerker can still do its job, but it's a niche pick right now. You're better off going Spellbreaker or Hammer Untamed. Does the same job but offers more to the table, such as boon strip and AoE projectile hate. They have no idea what to do with Power Zerker... The recent buffs might make it a better choice, but it's still going to be inferior to Vindicator by a long shot. They probably want Herald to be a Condi spec. Hammer Catalyst is bullied by DE, S/D Daredevil, and loses to Untamed, which is the only strong Catalyst build right now. D/D can work but you can get sniped pretty easily. Condi Tempest got some buffs with Dagger mainhand getting buffed, you might see it around more. It won't be meta though. <Insert Rant Here> Devs aren't sure what to do with Weaver. They keep nerfing the builds that gave Weaver any sort of relevance. They need to seriously look at all the Dual Attacks and give them some revitalization. I've got a handful of suggestions but fighting the demons of "why bother?" considering we've got a Ele Main on the dev team who's having giggle fits about Haboobs. They can do things, but why do less things with less tools. They nerfed Bladesworn, it shouldn't be in PvP with its current design, even in PvE Bladesworns don't like playing Bladesworn. It's a mechanical nightmare for balance. Renegade just received decent buffs and some people are playing some sort of bunker sidenode builds, it might have a chance if any of the revs are willing to cook with it. But it's overshadowed by Vindicator still. This is another design that just shouldn't be in PvP. It's a mechanical nightmare to balance. They'd have to change the design for it to feel remotely like Engineer. Don't buff it as it'll encourage builds that aren't healthy. Change the design. Revamp. Believe it or not, but Terrormancer counters some of the meta specs right now. The weakness is that it's ungodly slow. TL;DR: I disagree with some of the points, expand on some of the points, and clarify some things.

Nudging again, it's been long enough. Let's get some simple UI fixes such as clicking a checkmark to allow moving it. 😆

I personally found Mesmer to have the best effects visually, just because of the theme. The skills are BEAUTIFUL. Though, Ele does have pretty skills too. As for mechanically, I think Ranger and Warrior got the biggest value in PvP. Warrior finally can bully people from ranged, you might see Staff/Spear Spellbreakers this week. Spear for Ranger I don't know yet, but it has a great mechanic built into it. I could possibly see FA Weaver or FA Core using Spear with all the ranged damage. Scepter was limited to 900 range, 1200 range just allows them to keep away from people even more. Especially since Air 2 basically just latches onto a target instead of being a quick zap. It'll be a very different playstyle from old school FA.

What's with the newer weapons having more, or better, mechanics than their profession's elite specs? It'd be nice if the older weapons got this sort of life given to them too. Granted, we all know it probably wouldn't happen. (I'm really hyped about Spears, but it's kinda showing this amazing potential the devs have with the weapons and wish they'd backtrack and give this sorta spice to all of them).

I'm concerned on how it works with Weaver... Given the whole weapon's mechanic is on the 3 key... Oops, I'm a goober. It's on the 5th skill. Might be okay. I am excited to see how it goes regardless.

Please remove the map result..

Nothing was nerfed on Warrior aside from maybe the Restorative Strength trait... But most people took Peak Performance or Brave Stride (Bladesworn) anyway. The most recent things I can think of being nerfed on Warrior was the Staff F1 due to Spellbreaker being able to double-dip the benefits with the combination of Full Counter resetting it and Weakness. Even then, all they did was reduce the healing of the tier 1 burst. Berserker can still benefit from max tier without sacrificing much, thanks to clever timing. And Spellbreaker still has plenty of sustain anyway, plus their damage is great with Impale having high damage. With the changes to Martial Cadence, we might actually see Staff Spellbreaker be a lot more menacing in the upcoming times. Especially with Heretic Amulet coming out.

I miss not having to blink onto people to get the maximum value out of my MB combos :c

Axe 2 just has to hit something, any of the axes will keep all of them. Axe 1 just needs to hit something, they can improve tracking if necessary. Axe stealth attack can be the same as it is. If it ends up being an issue that axes don't generate at all or feel impossible to keep up. Increase the damage Axe 3 to +50% or something instead of +33%. I guess it would be an overall init nerf since it would force Axe 2 spam to be the reliable way to proc max Axe 3 damage. Could increase the duration of the axes, make the axes more obvious for enemies. I just know when I've memed axe I don't really have to pay attention to landing my axes and can just meme into walls and Axe 3. That's the main interaction that needs looked at. It'd be like clones being stealthed with superspeed and no visual tell aside from a mustard yellow icon on the mesmer's status bar. And having those clones before anyone showed up. Virtuoso's compromise is having the cast time. One thing I'd consider instead is Axe 3 having like 0.001s of reveal to give people a way to react. It's hard to differ who is the target of the Axe 3, the compromise can be stealth removal... Aside from the dev-side of things like adding a marker, something like that.

Going to nudge this. Make Dual Attacks better for Pistol. Specifically with the bullet mechanic.

I think all it takes to fix Axe is require the axes to only spawn if they successfully hit something. It'll immediately get rid of all the the kerfuffles people are having with axe. Immediately removes the advantage of being able to spawn Axe 2 without hitting something. No need to raise initiative cost, reduce damage, nuffin'. Just make it so the axes spawn ONLY if it hits a target. Gets rid of the shenanigans like setting up with Axe 1 on a ledge to hide the axes. This reminds me, can Mirror Blade finally bounce off its own clone it spawns again... I miss it. I miss it so much. TL;DR: Make axes only spawn if they hit something. Also I miss old Mirror Blade interactions.

The biggest things I saw this upcoming patch that might be annoying is all the buffs to Condi Tempest. From getting free Barrier on Earth Attunement, Earth Overload (cuz of how Overloads work with the 'on attunement' effects). More Frost Aura from Dagger 3 automatically blasting itself. Fire 2 and Water 2 both being faster and stronger. Protection on Overload applying to allies. Earth 3 being a shorter CD, meaning more evade frames and reliable immobilizing. I'm sad that Earthen Synergy lost its strike damage and didn't compensate the damage anywhere else in the kit... It wasn't like FA Weaver was a problem, it was still capable of being shut down with Weakness... Maybe LR Weaver will make a slight comeback with the buffs to Dagger mainhand, but I kinda doubt it being worth taking over Condi Tempest now.

I actually kinda like the idea of homogenized invulnerability, blocking, and reflecting. It gets rid of all the complicated symbols for the new players to keep up with. Plus it allows them to make the icons the generic light-blue color they like to make those effects. It'd also allow ArenaNet to get rid of a bunch of unique IDs for icons to free up some additional space on their end. Obviously they can also keep those icons additionally for the flavor stuff, so like the Distortion icon + Invulnerability icon to make things easy for tracking unique effects for traits. It's similar to how they made the icons for Auras generic n stuff.

AHHHHHHH. ASSASSIN CHAIN SKILLS. Anyway, might be a fun weapon for everyone. Hard to say without having our hands on it.

I don't know if people will like it, maybe it'll be an alternative to Condition Holosmith or something. Could be more PvP/WvW oriented though.

Sounds like a really fun concept, I can see it being pretty strong for PvP if a Necromancer build can be made to sustain well enough while using it! The fact you can basically repeatably reset your Spear 4 is kinda insane theoretically, I can see Reaper really reaping the benefits of this one.

Sounds like a potentially really strong weapon! Kinda exciting and spooky from a PvP perspective... Considering they already have a relatively strong presence! Any concerns? Speculations?