Why does Weaver do so little damage relative to the effort required?

[Atheismo.5164]

Seriously, I play my Reaper and upon going into shroud and hitting #4 I can do more damage than an entire Weaver rotation requiring 8 buttons in half the time.  Hell I'm pretty sure my shroud auto attacks with permanent free quickness does about as much as pianoing my way through half a dozen attunement swaps.  And all this with a second healthbar. 

 

Why does anyone play Weaver?  Is it just the cool factor?

[Widmo.3186]

Because ANet doesnt like ele and doesnt know what to do with it and how to balance it. All they can do is meme about it during interviews, just like serious adults would. So if you arent staying for piano gameplay or animations against all odds, Id suggest changing class.

Youre welcome

[Downstate.4697]

WeAvEr DoEs HyBrId DaMaGe!

[Obtena.7952]

1 hour ago, Atheismo.5164 said:

Seriously, I play my Reaper and upon going into shroud and hitting #4 I can do more damage than an entire Weaver rotation requiring 8 buttons in half the time.  Hell I'm pretty sure my shroud auto attacks with permanent free quickness does about as much as pianoing my way through half a dozen attunement swaps.  And all this with a second healthbar. 

 

Why does anyone play Weaver?  Is it just the cool factor?

That's pretty simple ... because some people actually LIKE the challenge of playing that way. Some people actually find it boring to camp AA and still get 40K DPS (exaggeration I know but ...). 

[fuzzyp.6295]

1 hour ago, Atheismo.5164 said:

Seriously, I play my Reaper and upon going into shroud and hitting #4 I can do more damage than an entire Weaver rotation requiring 8 buttons in half the time.  Hell I'm pretty sure my shroud auto attacks with permanent free quickness does about as much as pianoing my way through half a dozen attunement swaps.  And all this with a second healthbar. 

 

Why does anyone play Weaver?  Is it just the cool factor?

 

Why play Weaver? Because its fun. You may have a lot of DPS in that Reaper Shroud, but I mean, all I really gotta do when you pop it is lightening flash away and oops, what can you do about that? Hop out of your Shroud to try and deal range damage cause you have no other options, but then I can burst you down with some a 25 might enchanced Pyro Vortex followed by my Flame Expulsion on Fire Weaver or one shot your glassy lil necro body with a Fresh Air burst because now you gotta wait for your Shroud to go off cool down.

................All this assuming you don't manage to land a Spinal Shivers ofc~ love those 7k "just dodge lol" hits.....................

Every class has its up and downs, Reaper is no different. People play Weaver because it works with their playstyle. That might not be dishing out the most damage right away, but staying alive and carefully planning your move to take advantage of your opponent when they're in at a disadvantage. There are always going to be classes that are pretty easy to master (Necro) and class that require more time and practice (Elementalist). Its a basic game design fundamental to ensure that no matter your skill level there is something for you to enjoy. Your class doesn't need to be the DPS King to be the most enjoyable for you.

Edited September 4, 2021 by fuzzyp.6295

[SoundWave.9154]

Honestly, I think a lot of people are just not aware of this. They go in thinking there is some general risk/reward "balance" (not sure that is the right word).

 

Because obviously, why would a player think a game developer purposely makes a class achieve the same results with twice the effort, especially in PvE where it doesn't really matter that much. 

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

To be honest Weaver was godlike at pof release, in raids, in pvp ; same level as the d/d elem at the "3 specs" template release.

But weaver was demanding; high skill ceiling, high learning curve ; not all weavers could pretend to be half-god ...while for example you can be pur kitten with mirage, scourge with low skill floor, low knowledge, and defective keyboard.

 

But people started to complain.

They saw one or two very good mender sword weavers holding points 1v4; that's not right. They didn't care half weavers / elems were actually trash and below average, if some players could reach this level, it was inacceptable anyway.

They died in <2sec with a fire-weaver, that's not right. They didn't care those weavers died too in 2sec or half weavers / elems were trash and below average, if some players could kill them in 2sec, it was inacceptable.

They saw staff weavers do 45k in practice, in real situation, well ... it was acceptable; but not for devs. No sustain, no support, reliant to buffers, boons, healer, not even half players could reach these numbers; they didn"t care, we don't have to reach so high numbers with ranged weapon.

 

And people are still complaining.

For example; with no judgement, nowill to hurt him; I saw players complaining about Cellofrag when we were against his server ... Really ? Of course, he was just trolling people with a bunker build spamming evades and barriers...

If people died of some burnings because they were greedy newbies against a good player, it is not the fault of weaver.

 

So now, weaver has still high learning curve, but you can't do nice things anymore.

And core elem ? Doesn't exist.

Tempest ? Yeah ... you have healing for wvw ... and a dps build not very good nor popular in practice (Like you see scrapper doing better dps than fresh-air tempest against some bosses on wingman.. totally fine)

 

We are just emotional nostalgic for a bygone era; and we love the gameplay.

Plus sometimes it is also gratifying to win tournaments or outnumbered fight in wvw with an unpopular class.

Edited September 4, 2021 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[Jski.6180]

At the end of the day weaver is a cele dps class it will never be seen as a pure dmg class because of that and will always be balanced in that mind set. Anet see ele as a cele class over all even after most of the classes in the game are also cele classes at this point. Its the mind set they head for ele from day one of gw2 and it has done nothing more then endless nerfs to the class. You can go years and see a very much progression of nerf after nerf for the ele class with massively out dated skills that seem more like places holders from the very start of the game to skills that are not even balanced right for the standers of the current game.

 

I images the cele point of view is the sames reason why tempest is out healed by med kit on eng just the kit not the class and now is out booned by scraper who seems to be a lot more tankly then tempest too when they push dmg or support.

[Zunki.3916]

I play ele because I like playing an elemental caster. But Anet forgot about such players, they balance around everyone just playing meta specs and they dont care that any elemental caster out there might like to play in ranged staff.

 

In the end I play some okayish dps builds with decent vitality to dont fall behind. In pugs I can do enough dmg to not be carried but ofc if I would play literally any other class I might do more dps with the same effort and bring support too. I hope we get alac with the hammer, but I doubt it, as it's not allowed to see "9/10 lf any ele spec" in raidfinder for reasons I cannot udnerstand.

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

Because all anet looks at when balancing classes are golem benchmarks. As long as the theoretical performance is high (whether its pve or pvp), they will never buff ele. Also anet just doesnt care about ele so we never get trait or utility reworks.

[SeTect.5918]

1 hour ago, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

Because all anet looks at when balancing classes are golem benchmarks. 

Sorry but i will never understand this. If this would be the case, there would literally be no boon reworks or boon buffs/nerfs because every class has all needed boons on golem. There happened a lot with boons last months. (May 11 update...mirage got alac and overall resistance got nerfed and so on)

 

Sometimes the buffs/nerfs are strange and yes ele surely needs more love.

But seriously all this people talking about "Anet just looks at golem benchmarks"......r u serious?

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

4 hours ago, SeTect.5918 said:

Sorry but i will never understand this. If this would be the case, there would literally be no boon reworks or boon buffs/nerfs because every class has all needed boons on golem. There happened a lot with boons last months. (May 11 update...mirage got alac and overall resistance got nerfed and so on)

 

Sometimes the buffs/nerfs are strange and yes ele surely needs more love.

But seriously all this people talking about "Anet just looks at golem benchmarks"......r u serious?

I think its pretty obvious they dont really understand high end pve or pvp gameplay. Saying "they just look at golem benchmarks" is just touching on a much bigger problem.

 

From the recent elementalist patch notes:

 

their fragility leaves little room for mistakes in play

 

Elemental Refreshment: The total amount of barrier granted by this trait and the increase per point of healing power have been increased by 20% in PvE only.

 

They seriously thought giving weaver roughly 100-200 extra barrier every 9 seconds would help in any way? For comparison that is less than 1 proc of battle scars, or 700-1400 damage worth of barrier on scrapper. It takes an experienced weaver 5 seconds to read that and know that the extra barrier wont ever be noticeable.

 

Almost every single patch by the pve team in the last few years has completely missed the mark on what would actually make classes more diverse and engaging. Either they make some stupid power crept garbage like with alac mirage or torment & exposed debuff that throws balance and existing design out the window, or they make half-assed attempts at nerfing overpowered classes like with the scourge and holo pvp nerfs.

 

Maybe its just me but i see no consistency or long term planning in their balance updates. It all just seems randomly thrown together and indecisive.

[Obtena.7952]

7 hours ago, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

Because all anet looks at when balancing classes are golem benchmarks. As long as the theoretical performance is high (whether its pve or pvp), they will never buff ele. Also anet just doesnt care about ele so we never get trait or utility reworks.

Wait a minute ... Anet has NEVER told us how they measure balance on classes and I'm doubtful they are all that concerned with golem benchmarks to do that either, if at all. I get some people got some issues with how Anet does things, but let's not resort to inventing things here. 

Edited September 6, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[SeTect.5918]

2 hours ago, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

I think its pretty obvious they dont really understand high end pve or pvp gameplay. Saying "they just look at golem benchmarks" is just touching on a much bigger problem.

 

From the recent elementalist patch notes:

 

their fragility leaves little room for mistakes in play

 

Elemental Refreshment: The total amount of barrier granted by this trait and the increase per point of healing power have been increased by 20% in PvE only.

 

They seriously thought giving weaver roughly 100-200 extra barrier every 9 seconds would help in any way? For comparison that is less than 1 proc of battle scars, or 700-1400 damage worth of barrier on scrapper. It takes an experienced weaver 5 seconds to read that and know that the extra barrier wont ever be noticeable.

 

Almost every single patch by the pve team in the last few years has completely missed the mark on what would actually make classes more diverse and engaging. Either they make some stupid power crept garbage like with alac mirage or torment & exposed debuff that throws balance and existing design out the window, or they make half-assed attempts at nerfing overpowered classes like with the scourge and holo pvp nerfs.

 

Maybe its just me but i see no consistency or long term planning in their balance updates. It all just seems randomly thrown together and indecisive.

I get what u r saying and i dont totally disagree. I was just talking about the part where u said:

 

 

9 hours ago, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

Because all anet looks at when balancing classes are golem benchmarks.

So you and lots of other players are saying that anet just looks at golem benchmarks when balancing classes. And then you come around with barrier buffs that have nothing to do with golem benchmarks. I think its obvious that they dont just look at golem benchmarks.


But as i said, i get what u mean and i also know why u say that anet doesnt care about ele, especially because they say something like:

"With this update, we're making two PvE-specific changes: improving the weaver's ability to upkeep weakness on their targets via Superior Elements, and increasing the weaver's personal sustainability by increasing the amount of barrier granted by Elemental Refreshment."

and then buffing barrier by around....nothing.
And yes i know your frustration, one of my 3 fav classes is ele (weaver specifically) and it really needs some love. A lot of classes need love and often balance in this game sounds strange and i often disagree whats written in the balance patch notes too.

But all i want to say is, that its not right to say anet just would look at golem benchmarks. Its obvious that they dont.

Edited September 6, 2021 by SeTect.5918

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

No one knows what data they collect and how they use them. It's easy to assume they know better than everyone else, you don't take risks but still we don't know their goal.

When players say "they just look at golem benchmarks" its a manner of speaking because can't see any  logical reason, no need to bounce back each time you see the sentence.

 

 

I get it why a game can't have 9 classes at "same level" in all games modes and gameplay, and the need to renew meta by arbitrary buffs and nerfs; and most of the time they explain it rather well (Like 2020 february patch on Power) but when you look at patchnotes for elem since 2 years  you just don't understand on what they rely on.

 

Like the famous "Elem is in good place in all game modes" WHAT THE ****

It's not even if we had a poor defined role like war with banners, or thiefs with the stolen skill for boons etc; elem did not exist in any game modes but indomitable Gauls trying hard.

And the barrier buff ... looks like a private joke between devs.

[SeTect.5918]

2 hours ago, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

 

When players say "they just look at golem benchmarks" its a manner of speaking because can't see any  logical reason, no need to bounce back each time you see the sentence.

 

Well i did it 1 time and then s/he told me stuff about ele that i already know so i just wanted to do it another time, under the same post. I dont do this each time. Would be an enormous time waste.

Just wanted to make sure what i mean, i am not against ele or anyone here. But it seemed to me like s/he didnt understand what i wanted to basically say. So i just...tried to explain somehow.

Edited September 6, 2021 by SeTect.5918

[Loke.1429]

6 hours ago, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

And the barrier buff ... looks like a private joke between devs.

@Josh Davis.7865 please revamp / micro-manage cmc's work process for me? It must be a joke or based on some dice game. Idk how you as a studio let this change be part of ANY patch. This change made me very angry. It is so weak that it doesn't make any difference, so it was insulting. Oh, so you invited me to your birthday with free food? Great! Please accept my amazingly reciprocal gift of one dollar, and proceed to be insulted because we both know its almost nothing. Anyway welcome to this dev-abandoned corner of the forum where we discuss the insulting "buffs" we get inbetween pve-dps-nerfs. Care to comment on the state of balance of ele and its elite specs? I play staff. There are so many broken builds in wvw that is ridiculous. Looking forward to future balance. Can you give another dev responsibility for "live wvw balance" then cmc can do some better balance "shake-ups"? The 0.01 dmg coeff nerf on all dmg skills without the same treatment to condi was BS, and it left many skills feeling very broken. Some dmg nerf adjustment was needed for knockdown and stun skills but kitten. We desperately need small fine/better tuning more frequently. Promised follow-ups to big shakeups are still missing. Imo healing is currently too op on many profs, and many condi builds are way over the top strong. Tanky builds are too strong. Some classes have WAY too much mobility (ranger elites, thief). Some classes have way to long duration knockdowns. Dont give cc the same duration scaling as other condi from stats. Some cc is just simply way too long. Why is engi grenades so strong, and without circle marker? Why is norn racial elite skill + 5 soulbeast meme 50k stealth onehit still a thing? Can you maybe invite some streamers to a recorded discussion on balance? The list is too long but you gotta start somewhere. You need the balance input really badly and I need to see devs opinions on balance / them discussing current pain points in wvw balance.

TBH you need a balance panel of devs playing wvw, maybe get input from guilds and be open about it. Cmc clearly isnt playing / cant possibly play all builds. The bias is real. Cmc play time per class, per specialication, per build, in WVW?

Also please note that wvw balance will be an increasingly large issue as more players get legendaries, and "build/gear mobility" increases.

Why doesnt skill tooltips damage accurately reflect the stats a player have, and the damage they will do on avg armor? Or atleast show coefficients in tooltips? I believe it is because you know things are broken, but prefer that only veteran players know about it. Good recipe for a great new player competive experience... Its so stupid that it is still like this

Edited September 6, 2021 by Loke.1429

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

10 hours ago, Loke.1429 said:

sniff

I think, the game is at the stage where it can't really be balanced in the slightest.
You can take as an example the failed system of e-speces, where A-net tries so hard to squeeze whole class mechanic into 1 traitline, in comparision to core, which they have 5 traitlines as base, it's simply impossible to do so. Then they release abominations like Mirage which breaks the very basic core mechanic "dodge", it really doesn't matter how they'll tweak numbers on skills, it'll always be broken mechanic because of it's flawed design.
Another problem is they base the balance changes on what exactly? Most of the time it really looks like they do some run checks on DPS PvE golem and call it a day, sometimes maybe watch a video or two on youtube how people fight raid bosses and dandy, few % here and there. 
I'm not even sure, if they still have some kind of "vision" for each class of their strong and weak points...

[Fearless.3569]

On 9/4/2021 at 1:54 PM, Widmo.3186 said:

Because ANet doesnt like ele and doesnt know what to do with it and how to balance it. All they can do is meme about it during interviews, just like serious adults would. So if you arent staying for piano gameplay or animations against all odds, Id suggest changing class.

Youre welcome

 

Or just change MMOs. To one where a Elementalist like class is actually competitive in the effort vs reward department. At the moment Ele just feels like a meme that will never be elevated. 

 

I was hoping that ANet did Elementalist Elite Beta for the next Expac. But since they didn't. I guess they did hoping not to announce the next Ele crappy E-Spec. This game had so much potential to be my main MMO. But it took my favorite class to play and make it bottom tier bottom feeder that is a piano.

 

Ok I'm done ranting. 

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

Honestly I'm not so sure that it is a high effort class.  Three that come to mind as harder to play are condi renegade, condi engineer, and axe mirage.  In high damage areas the reaper's DPS plummets because they can't sustain shroud for long.  The condi builds for ele are harder to run, but the power builds are pretty easy.  It's basically sword skills left to right, swap attunement, repeat.  That's on the PVE side.

 

On the WvW side, I think we do have higher offense than other professions.  At least while roaming/small scale.  I've been playing sword/dagger celestial weaver for an unholy amount of time to get legendary armor, and it surprises me how relentless the damage is.  Most people who fight me spend most of the fight running away, and the few who don't usually die during the genjutsu (barrier) phase.  With all of the circular AoEs there's a zone of death in close proximity around me, giving me good area control.  Other professions have one or two burst skills where the majority of their damage is located.  With weaver it is more spread out, meaning that without chill there's almost never a break in the offense.  Every 4 seconds it is another dual skill, except when I use Fresh Air to throw out 3 at once.  Most of my attacks are AoEs, which has led me to win a shocking number of 1v2 and 1v3s, and I'm not even particularly skilled at PVP.  My Earth/Fire opening rotation buffs me to 25 might, and Air gives me permanent fury, leaving me buffed to the nines with no team support.  The air line can debuff an enemy to 25 vulnerability, too.  Then, if all of that fails... I drop FGS, spin and dash like a maniac for awhile, and then all of my skills are off cooldown.  

Edited September 7, 2021 by Blood Red Arachnid.2493

[Loke.1429]

On 9/7/2021 at 8:31 PM, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

...

Video or it didnt happen. Pull of that level of self buffing / debuffing in wvw on a build that can also dps down targets? Why yes of course it is 25 of everything, permanent, all the time, etc. I am calling your BS.

I can't comment on PVE, since I avoid it.

WvW centered balance patch please!

Edited September 8, 2021 by Loke.1429

[Orimidu.9604]

The barrier buff was actually good when it was proc'd by every skill. Some players reached a huge barrier amount with it though and that was a no-go. Instead of nerfing the barrier to unnoticeable numbers it should have been given a ceiling. Maybe 2-5% of all elementalist players can actually play the class optimally in the current balance, and by that I mean actually reach close to golem benchmarks.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

On 9/5/2021 at 1:42 AM, Jski.6180 said:

At the end of the day weaver is a cele dps class it will never be seen as a pure dmg class because of that and will always be balanced in that mind set. Anet see ele as a cele class over all even after most of the classes in the game are also cele classes at this point. Its the mind set they head for ele from day one of gw2 and it has done nothing more then endless nerfs to the class. You can go years and see a very much progression of nerf after nerf for the ele class with massively out dated skills that seem more like places holders from the very start of the game to skills that are not even balanced right for the standers of the current game.

 

I images the cele point of view is the sames reason why tempest is out healed by med kit on eng just the kit not the class and now is out booned by scraper who seems to be a lot more tankly then tempest too when they push dmg or support.

Path of Fire literally shipped with the Grieving stat set designed for Elementalists, mainly Weaver. It was hyped as being the next big thing, so the devs clearly don't consider them to be a Celestial class.

 

The reason for the weak balancing is because Weaver like all variants of Ele carry a huge kit on their weapons, plus summoned weapons on top of that, so theoretically have access to a massive amount of skills. For example other classes have to give up some skill slots or use a special weapon to have CC, but Ele always has it, even on damage-focused builds, and this has a huge impact on competitive modes.

 

Because of this properly played the class was always a powerhouse in PvP, its literally been God Mode at several points in the past, which is why you get so many nerfs and wishy-washy balancing.

 

Even after everything, I wouldn't say its bad even now. (Main for over six years now.)

Edited September 8, 2021 by Hannelore.8153

[draxynnic.3719]

In a PvE context, it seems to be largely the fault of raids.

 

Elementalist on release had that high-risk, high-reward style. They had the lowest base health and armour, but enough damage that you could compensate for this by using equipment with defensive stats and still do similar damage to other professions with full berserker. Or you could go full glass and have the damage to match.

 

Raids, though, kinda made defensive stats somewhat irrelevant (especially Sabetha and Gorseval with instant death effects and DPS checks). So the optimum approach became to have your healers, your chrono, assorted other support...and then stack elementalists for damage. Probably with ice bow. The damage output for full glass elementalists then needed to be normalised to be similar to other professions so that other professions even had a chance.

 

Which has had the effect of swinging the pendulum the other way, since it now means that elementalists need to work harder than other professions to get the same results, and their greater reliance on rotations makes them more susceptible to losing DPS due to mechanics.

[Acyk.9671]

deleted

Edited April 3, 2022 by Acyk.9671