High risk, low reward

[Athan.7956]

I was quite excited to play elementalist, the ability to command all four elements at once had a cool vibe and was fun at first. This is what got me to start playing GW2. However, the more I continued into the game, the more I understood why everyone recommended players (especially newbies) stay away from this class.

The class is essentially high risk for average or low reward. It is a light armor class with the lowest hp in the game, making them *the* squishiest class in the game. On top of that and despite this handicap, the class is forced into melee range through all core and elite specs: daggers, swords, hammers. I'm sorry but I thought this was the mage class? Scepter is not even properly ranged, the only truly ranged weapon is the staff, but it's a dps loss and only useful in some support builds. With this class you're also constantly attunement swapping, because the skills have too long cooldowns and want to push you to swap elements. As such, you're often locked out of the skills you need. 

The reward is versatility, but that's about it. The class does not offer more damage than other classes and relies on constantly dodging everything or camping water to survive. As an elementalist, I always found myself playing water just for the passive healing because otherwise I would be dead. Downed elementalists are a meme for a reason... Even veteran players say that the class is too much effort for what it's worth so this isn't just me. Sure, highly skilled elementalists may pull off some nice dps, perhaps even a little higher than other classes, but at what cost? Memorising 25-30 different skills (especially for weaver) for and swapping around elements just to pull up the skill you need? Why do this when other classes can just spin-to-win with 1-2 skills and achieve the same result?

Frankly elementalist, although a great concept, is poorly executed and driving players away from playing it. I swapped to another easier class and never looked back. I'd only play elementalist to RP being the Avatar or if I really wanted to cripple myself. Unfortunately, it sounds like the new catalyst spec will perpetuate the above issues too.

Edited January 13, 2022 by Athan.7956

[AliamRationem.5172]

Honestly, if they'd just nerf the monster over-performing classes, give ele some utility that groups actually want, and kitten do something about staff already I think the class would be in good shape.  It should always be high-APM/high-intensity and there can only be so much reward for that without creating balance issues.  But yes, the lack of action on this and the odd choices for catalyst seem pretty tone-deaf and it's frustrating.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

The theory I have right now is that the devs are trying to mold Ele into using Celestial gear, raiders be darned. 

The ele was designed to do a bit of everything at once, but in practice it means the profession is constantly fighting against itself.  The splits between condi damage and power damage frequently mean that Earth attunement is not worth going in to due to the damage loss.  The requirement for healing power means that the water attunement is mostly useless, giving very little damage for a miniscule amount of healing.  The trait system is weird, enhancing specific attunements instead of specific aspects of the class, tying in strange utility buffs with particular elements.  The ele is designed sideways, where most of the group support and versatility of the class comes from the weapons and traits, and the utilities themselves are largely selfish or generic.  It is all pretty terrible, unless you're wearing celestial gear to enhance everything.

One of the weirdest things in this game is how Elementalist is mediocre or bad at PVE, but an utter monster in WvW.  Using my own water/arcane/weaver celestial build and blasting my own fire fields, I provide a large amount of boons, condition cleanses, group heals, CC both hard and soft, and even a spare FGS to all of my teammates.  It does solid damage, too.  It works, largely because I can wear celestial which lets me be mediocre at everything.  In a pvp setting, overall statistical fortitude and mechanical effects actually matters, which is what lets ele shine there.

I can run this build in PVE, and it can survive well enough to let me solo hard champions.  But, for most PVE settings it pays to specialize.  Being a mediocre and versatile booner/healer means nothing compared to having a dedicated DPS and a dedicated support.  The enemies are stationary, mechanically bereft HP sponges, so traits like Invigorating Precision, Parasitic Contagion, Impact Savant, and Might Makes Right are able to accomplish on a pure DPS build what equipping Celestial gear and running the entire water line does for elementalist.  If another profession wants to give out a bunch of boons, they just equip the utility or a side trait that lets them do this, whereas an ele needs to take arcane and wear a lot of specialized gear.  To engage these tactics, other professions press 1 button or passively sit out boons, whereas the ele needs to rotate into different fields/finishers, sacrificing damage along the way.  

 

I'm not sure if this is just me being weird, but in retrospect it seems like the buff to Celestial gear was an attempt to mold Elementalist into playing how Anet wanted us to play ele, rather than an attempt to fix the problems with the profession.  In the history of this game, there's been very few changes to gear presets.  The only other one I can think of at the moment was when they specifically cut down the crit damage bonus to nerf berserker gear.  So, if celestial was buffed, then there was probably an intention behind it.  A place and a profession to use it.  A true fix for the ele class is hard, because the entire thing was made wrong, so it might have simpler to make gear that makes Ele better.  Then, they gave starting professions celestial gear, partly to help out new ele players who don't understand this complicated class.  

Edited January 14, 2022 by Blood Red Arachnid.2493
spellechecked

[Jski.6180]

The true risk ppl do not seem to understand is the cast time and the after cast you have millions of skills but your at complete risk if you cant use an skill fast enofe to deal with an in coming attk. Ele use to have channel added effects they where removed yet more channel skills where added in. If you just stop your skill mid way to deal with an attk then often your making your kit and build pointless for a fight a non class that can only keep it self a live but dose nothing else.

[Flori.2194]

On 1/13/2022 at 2:22 AM, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

So, if celestial was buffed, then there was probably an intention behind it.  A place and a profession to use it. 

Firebrand, Revenant and Scourge.

[bluberblasen.9684]

23 minutes ago, Flori.2194 said:

Firebrand, Revenant and Scourge.

+ ranger especially in wvw...

[zitounae.4803]

weaver being enjoyable in PvE and somehow at WVW even with low skill like me, i m just surprised and glad it isn't burnt to the ground already tbh.

[AliamRationem.5172]

39 minutes ago, zitounae.4803 said:

weaver being enjoyable in PvE and somehow at WVW even with low skill like me, i m just surprised and glad it isn't burnt to the ground already tbh.

I love weaver.  It's the only class I play and it's a joy, but I could roll face on firebrand/renegade/scourge and have better sustain, similar damage, and way more group utility.  That's the problem with the borked balance in this game.  They allow critical support roles to basically be the only thing that matters in a group.  It's like they said "Okay, guys.  Trinity is played out.  That 3 class roles thing sucks.  How about we just make it 1 class role to rule them all instead?"  Enter firebrand...

[Jski.6180]

1 hour ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

I love weaver.  It's the only class I play and it's a joy, but I could roll face on firebrand/renegade/scourge and have better sustain, similar damage, and way more group utility.  That's the problem with the borked balance in this game.  They allow critical support roles to basically be the only thing that matters in a group.  It's like they said "Okay, guys.  Trinity is played out.  That 3 class roles thing sucks.  How about we just make it 1 class role to rule them all instead?"  Enter firebrand...

What truly wrong with weaver even though it takes a lot more skill to play over all its duel skills do not have enofe impact or are too easy to counter to be worth the cast time a lot of the time. Staff mainly all of its duel skills are projectiles and slow ones at that.

[The Boz.2038]

On 1/14/2022 at 4:09 PM, AliamRationem.5172 said:

I love weaver.  It's the only class I play and it's a joy, but I could roll face on firebrand/renegade/scourge and have better sustain, similar damage, and way more group utility.  That's the problem with the borked balance in this game.  They allow critical support roles to basically be the only thing that matters in a group.  It's like they said "Okay, guys.  Trinity is played out.  That 3 class roles thing sucks.  How about we just make it 1 class role to rule them all instead?"  Enter firebrand...

There's another side of this equation, though.

The high-level PvE content, raids, are pretty much balanced around irrelevant health. Nobody has any need to sustain "incidental damage"; every hit is telegraphed and absorbed by aegis/protection/barrier/heals; no difference in survivability between 2000 Armor 12k HP and 3000 Armor 20k HP. 

While I agree that the convoluted loops and turns an ele is supposed to navigate through to reach (a shadow of) "comfier classes" performance are ridiculous, there is a risk of overbuffing them in "my glassyness is irrelevant" game modes.

[AliamRationem.5172]

2 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

There's another side of this equation, though.

The high-level PvE content, raids, are pretty much balanced around irrelevant health. Nobody has any need to sustain "incidental damage"; every hit is telegraphed and absorbed by aegis/protection/barrier/heals; no difference in survivability between 2000 Armor 12k HP and 3000 Armor 20k HP. 

While I agree that the convoluted loops and turns an ele is supposed to navigate through to reach (a shadow of) "comfier classes" performance are ridiculous, there is a risk of overbuffing them in "my glassyness is irrelevant" game modes.

Honestly, at this point with the shitshow of balance they've made with firebrand, renegade, and scourge I think we could do worse than to aim to simply make classes that aren't completely faceroll a little OP for a change.

[Nephalem.8921]

37 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

There's another side of this equation, though.

The high-level PvE content, raids, are pretty much balanced around irrelevant health. Nobody has any need to sustain "incidental damage"; every hit is telegraphed and absorbed by aegis/protection/barrier/heals; no difference in survivability between 2000 Armor 12k HP and 3000 Armor 20k HP. 

While I agree that the convoluted loops and turns an ele is supposed to navigate through to reach (a shadow of) "comfier classes" performance are ridiculous, there is a risk of overbuffing them in "my glassyness is irrelevant" game modes.

True and false at the same time. It makes a difference when ele gets oneshotted by mechanics that put scourge to 60% hp for example. Scourge doesnt have to dodge or care about most things while ele and a lot of other classes have to dodge or avoid them.

Example: SH spinning attack

MO exploding circle

Sama aa. Easily avoidable but they can kill an ele very quickly

CA basically everything.

Dhuum basically everything. You dont have to react to chains as fast and generally cant really die as scourge unless you make really bad mistakes. ele needs fast condi cleanse and a lot more babysitting.

Existence of different health tiers in the current form is really stupid if the difference is this extreme. 

[Downstate.4697]

Its two biggest problems are out dated weapons and poor heal/damage ratios.

[Bakeneko.5826]

4 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Honestly, at this point with the shitshow of balance they've made with firebrand, renegade, and scourge I think we could do worse than to aim to simply make classes that aren't completely faceroll a little OP for a change.

At this point ele is in such a bad spot as power class, there is no obvious way where to start. Anet made mistake after mistake by hitting core ele traits/weapon skills/utility skills, to the point, where core ele is a joke of some sort. Anet needs to look into meteor shower modifiers, lightning storm CD (and move some dmg around, this skill is responsible for WAY too much dps on power specs), even frost bow could use to return to glory days and I doubt it would change much even then. Laval font CD reduction to something in between now and pre nerf would help quite a bit, too. For it to be competitive with current, loaded with utility, meta of CFB and Ren it needs to do close to 46-50k dps just to outweigh lack of utility.

[Puck.3697]

4 hours ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

For it to be competitive with current, loaded with utility, meta of CFB and Ren it needs to do close to 46-50k dps just to outweigh lack of utility

I wouldn't agree. 

Pure DPS builds all bring lack of utility for example a pure DPS renegade isn't bringing high uptime on alacrity, a pure DPS chronomancer ain't bringing quickness or tanking potiental. These speccs do 40k DPS are are taken into raids. 

Problem is weaver sustain means the vast majority when trying to play weaver flop over dead so people don't tend to want them in the run compared to a safer option. 

Also means the vast majority aren't interested in playing weaver as it makes solo content a absolute pain to do due to no sustain options and it's fine saying "trailblazer tempest" 

But this means you expect a player to farm double the HPs 2 sets of gear + weapons to do the same thing something like necro Can just use the same build in all content. 

And let's be honest. Nothing competes with CFB and renegade... These 2 speccs need dramatically nerfing. Not things been upped to their levels. 

Delete quickness from Firebrand. 

Reduce alacrity to 5 man and force it to use boon gear instead of RR builds. 

And re instate that bug they had where weaver was generating masses of self barrier back. Weavers PvE sustain being buffed doesn't damage the game at all. Just let weaver have it back in PvE only 

Edited January 18, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[Athan.7956]

Given how extremely convoluted and complicated weaver is, I wouldn't mind if it were OP. If you're an excellent weaver you get stellar dps, if you make mistakes you're downed. Seems only fair to me. As things stand, you do stellar dps with faceroll classes clicking 1-2 buttons, and as weaver you do poorly if you're mediocre and "okay" if you're good at it. Makes no sense and contradicts behaviorism and game design.

[Puck.3697]

25 minutes ago, Athan.7956 said:

Given how extremely convoluted and complicated weaver is, I wouldn't mind if it were OP. If you're an excellent weaver you get stellar dps, if you make mistakes you're downed. Seems only fair to me. As things stand, you do stellar dps with faceroll classes clicking 1-2 buttons, and as weaver you do poorly if you're mediocre and "okay" if you're good at it. Makes no sense and contradicts behaviorism and game design.

see this conceptually works however it doesnt actually work.

Because once this became a thing, it'd become a expectation, Remember in HoT when the meta become Play Tempest or be Kicked in a DPS Position.

People will make playing elementalist Compulsory, thus would make the game Less accessible and likely damage the numbers participating in content.

Its fine conceptually to make such things however. player perception and more will drive this sorta sentiment ALot of people consider "viable" as "Meta" generally your either top 3 Choice or ur trash thats just as simple as it is realistically it'd do more Damage then u think it would be making Weaver Overpowered

It doesnt contradict behaviourism or game design as its Stand. u choose a Proffession you enjoy. on a Difficulty curve you find enjoyable, thats Effectively how this Works. Some players for Reasons cannot play a Proffession like weaver (Weather this is aging, 1 armed Players, or more personal problems or just enjoy Easy to play options) The game Portrays "Do whatever u want and we'll award you". how does this contradict this?

The problem with weaver is its Sustain and lack of Group support options realistically 

they will make weaver easier to play, before they created such a circumstance the Popularity decrease would be too large for them to realistically ignore.

also. I'd like to state. Elementalist Was my first ever proffession, i litterally boosted it upon joining the game. Weaver isnt as Difficult to play as People like to make out. Rotations become muscle memory realistically. Weavers Difficulty is primarily from its lack of Sustain, Condi Weaver actually is rather forgiving of Mistakes DPS Wise hybrid Weaver is Super close in DPS and FAR easier to nail down.. and Power Weaver is extremely easy to play outside of Sustain issues.

Put weaver on par sustain wise to the other options and u'd find weaver alot easier to play, hence why the bug happened where weaver started achieving huge barriers due to a bug LOOOADS of people flocked to the proffession and enjoyed it. The problem people have with weaver is its considered "perma Down state".

Edited January 19, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[Bakeneko.5826]

5 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

Pure DPS builds all bring lack of utility for example a pure DPS renegade isn't bringing high uptime on alacrity, a pure DPS chronomancer ain't bringing quickness or tanking potiental. These speccs do 40k DPS are are taken into raids.

Chrono and renegade still have something to offer, 2 condi renegades can cover perma alacrity, power chrono helps with quickness a bit too. Ele brings only dmg and I wouldn't say weaver needs a lot of sustain, but rather it needs reliable sustain.

 

3 hours ago, Athan.7956 said:

Given how extremely convoluted and complicated weaver is, I wouldn't mind if it were OP. If you're an excellent weaver you get stellar dps, if you make mistakes you're downed. Seems only fair to me. As

That's how most RPGs operate - low sustain, low health characters hits like truck-kun in trash isekai.

 

3 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

Play Tempest or be Kicked in a DPS Position.

Post timing is somewhat bad with new expac on doorstep, but in general, atm there are only two dps specs that are very good. I doubt elementalist could become so oppressive in current meta as to go into such extreme. Idealy, it should be do you want dps with your utility, or even more dps? And it makes weaver (and currently ele) very hard to balance, if too much damage is put in, it pushes down other classes, if not enough, elementalist is pushed out.

 

3 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

Elementalist Was my first ever proffession, i litterally boosted it upon joining the game. Weaver isnt as Difficult to play as People like to make out. Rotations become muscle memory realistically.

Ele first char love ❤️ Also, agree on Weaver being not hard to play (with exception of condi weaver, whos rota is on borderline of piano).

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

@Daddy.8125 There's an issue with saying that weaver has poor sustain.  It... really doesn't.  In fact, Weaver has some pretty immense sustain options.  They get about 3k health from Master's Fortitude, 894 barrier on dodge from Invigorating Strikes (paired with vigor to dodge more), 680 barrier per stance activation on Bolstered Elements, 523 barrier per dual skill from Elemental Refreshment, and a total of 16,035 barrier from Stone Resonance + Lesser Stone Resonance from Bolstered Elements.  This isn't including any of the weapon skills, or any of the core sustain options, but those are available.  Believe it or not, I've taken weaver into fractals many times, and I've even done it for a few raid wings now.  It's not much more frail than running guardian or thief, and you don't see many more complaints about those.  So long as both you and the healer are competent, you should have no problems in endgame content with the weaver.

What you're asking for isn't for weaver to have good sustain.  You're asking for weaver to have good sustain while wearing  pure Berserker/Marauder/Viper while running purely offensive traits, utilities, and adhering to a specific damage rotation.  That's a bit of a harder sell to make, because you're essentially telling Anet "I keep dying, but I refuse to equip any of the ample sustain options you've given me.  Please buff me!"  You're not necessarily wrong, because the social pressures for DPS and buildcraft are as real an obstacle as any enrage timer.  This ties in to what I said earlier in this thread:  Anet has a design philosophy with preconceived notions on how each spec is supposed to play.  What isn't regarded in these notion is the stringent demands of elitists in a very specific section of the game.  The real challenge is convincing Anet to cater to these elitist demands, because for the most part an ideal-driven Anet employee will say "Those elitists are wrong to make such demands and you should ignore them," while giving no further thought on the matter.

I don't say this without evidence.  We've already seen Anet's response to protests about Weaver's frailty:  They buffed Elemental Refreshment by 20%.  If you read between the lines, this was Anet saying that they think Weaver's sustain is fine, and they'll give the players a pittance to deflect player's concerns rather than anything real.  For one, the way the update was worded was weird.  Instead of listing the actual numbers as they do for every other skill and trait, they made it a percentage.  20% sounds a lot higher than what the real change was, which was 434 to 523 barrier on dual attack.  Second, getting 89 more barrier on dual attack is insignificant, for most enemy attacks hit for several thousand each.  The irony is that the duration buff to Superior Elements did more to help Weaver survive than the extra barrier did, because weakness is a substantial damage nerf to anything without a break bar.  Third, there has been no mention or additional buffs to survival since, telling us that Anet thinks Weaver is fine now.

They've changed the class to suit gear prefixes in the past, too.  I can't source this, because it came from third-hand sources, but the word out there is that the Grieving set was designed to work with the Weaver and vice versa.  Grieving, however, was a largely unpopular gear prefix, only serving as a trivial alternative to Vipers for firebrand.  That is until Anet changed Elements of Rage from 10% strike damage to 5% strike with 5% conditions.  Now, hybrid weaver with Grieving does more damage than the pure power builds, albeit less flexibly and with more punishing rotations.

 

If Anet wanted to fix weaver's sustain they'd make Elemental Refreshment give 900-1000 barrier on each dual skill, or they'd switch it's place with Master's Fortitude to make that trait baseline.  But... they aren't, which makes me think that this profession has been relegated to some unspoken ideal.  It would be nice to get a direct answer on how Anet regards the social pressure to build for pure DPS, or whether they're pigeonholing this profession into using non-acceptable gear choices, but Anet will probably stay silent on this.  

[The Boz.2038]

45 minutes ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

What you're asking for isn't for weaver to have good sustain.  You're asking for weaver to have good sustain while wearing  pure Berserker/Marauder/Viper while running purely offensive traits, utilities, and adhering to a specific damage rotation.

Any other full zerk DPS spec has more sustain or or tanking capacity. The barest, most zerky daredevil has three dodges, blind, evades in skills, etc. The barest, most zerky warrior still has twice the HP, even if currently zerking and being brought down to about the same armor as an elementalist. A full DPS Scrapper has permanent 8k barrier that gets fully refreshed every two seconds (even if they don't reach theoretical Ele numbers, it's still built in). I don't even want to mention necro, guard, or rev.

But for Ele, you need to make gear and skill concessions to get anything like that, and those concessions *do* wreck your damage. Your wrecked damage negates the point of playing as the damage role, as you can't compete with a 40k daredevil's rotation that has them in evade frames 60% of the time*.

The "tanky by design" vs "not tanky by design" trend doesn't work, if they're both expected to deliver ~the same performance. And if they're not expected to deliver the same performance, we're down to "DPS slots is ele, we have a guardian and druid to keep them topped off" meta, permanently.
Two classes should be kinda the same in their ability to withstand damage. A necro should do it through shroud or barrier. A warrior should do it through armor, a huge sponge, and low-intensity constant regens. And an elementalist should have something else built in, possibly of a more active type than the previous two, much like how guardian is the tankiest class with the lowest HP pool through at-will aegis, protection, block...

 

* - barring specific encounters where compulsory mobility will get you killed

[Puck.3697]

4 hours ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

Chrono and renegade still have something to offer, 2 condi renegades can cover perma alacrity, power chrono helps with quickness a bit too. Ele brings only dmg and I wouldn't say weaver needs a lot of sustain, but rather it needs reliable sustain

 

Renegade needs to be forced into boon gear for alacrity. Reduce it to 5 man and nerf it's duration to force RR out. 

By the looks of new speccs. 10 man boons are getting looked at anyway. 

The boon problem needs solving. As this is something catalyst will struggle with if it's going to serious be competing against firebrand. These key proffessions currently are just better then every option not just elementalist. 

I think the results would be better if it was fixed by nerfing them however. 

[Puck.3697]

2 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

What you're asking for isn't for weaver to have good sustain.  You're asking for weaver to have good sustain while wearing  pure Berserker/Marauder/Viper while running purely offensive traits, utilities, and adhering to a specific damage rotation

What I'm asking for is weaver to not have existing mechanics in raid fights which players just state u will need reviving afterwards. 

It's "immense sustain" is tied to direct DPS losses and CDs and not to any level of passive sustain. 

Lots of top players who play very well like Mela have stated this. In a raid enviroment Weavers sustain is 100x more punished for by mistakes then other options. 

Every other proffession gets exactly this.

I run around on my viper scourge renegade or power reaper and I can solo the whe world no problem with a few buttons. 

Why is weaver exempt from the rule? 

Top level Weavers such as Mela who has played elementalist far more then any other proffession even states he doesn't play it cause he knows it just does alot more then other proffessions. 

Edited January 19, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[Bakeneko.5826]

11 minutes ago, Daddy.8125 said:

against firebrand

At the moment, i doubt there is even one class, past or past EoD release, that could replace FB. It does WAY too much atm. Even if quickness were removed, it provides might, and quickness will be covered by chrono support, with alacrity on top. It would push alacren to DPS spot, but no much would change.

[Emberheart.8426]

2 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

@Daddy.8125 There's an issue with saying that weaver has poor sustain.  It... really doesn't.  In fact, Weaver has some pretty immense sustain options.  They get about 3k health from Master's Fortitude, 894 barrier on dodge from Invigorating Strikes (paired with vigor to dodge more), 680 barrier per stance activation on Bolstered Elements, 523 barrier per dual skill from Elemental Refreshment, and a total of 16,035 barrier from Stone Resonance + Lesser Stone Resonance from Bolstered Elements.  This isn't including any of the weapon skills, or any of the core sustain options, but those are available.  Believe it or not, I've taken weaver into fractals many times, and I've even done it for a few raid wings now.  It's not much more frail than running guardian or thief, and you don't see many more complaints about those.  So long as both you and the healer are competent, you should have no problems in endgame content with the weaver.

What you're asking for isn't for weaver to have good sustain.  You're asking for weaver to have good sustain while wearing  pure Berserker/Marauder/Viper while running purely offensive traits, utilities, and adhering to a specific damage rotation.  That's a bit of a harder sell to make, because you're essentially telling Anet "I keep dying, but I refuse to equip any of the ample sustain options you've given me.  Please buff me!"  You're not necessarily wrong, because the social pressures for DPS and buildcraft are as real an obstacle as any enrage timer.  This ties in to what I said earlier in this thread:  Anet has a design philosophy with preconceived notions on how each spec is supposed to play.  What isn't regarded in these notion is the stringent demands of elitists in a very specific section of the game.  The real challenge is convincing Anet to cater to these elitist demands, because for the most part an ideal-driven Anet employee will say "Those elitists are wrong to make such demands and you should ignore them," while giving no further thought on the matter.

I don't say this without evidence.  We've already seen Anet's response to protests about Weaver's frailty:  They buffed Elemental Refreshment by 20%.  If you read between the lines, this was Anet saying that they think Weaver's sustain is fine, and they'll give the players a pittance to deflect player's concerns rather than anything real.  For one, the way the update was worded was weird.  Instead of listing the actual numbers as they do for every other skill and trait, they made it a percentage.  20% sounds a lot higher than what the real change was, which was 434 to 523 barrier on dual attack.  Second, getting 89 more barrier on dual attack is insignificant, for most enemy attacks hit for several thousand each.  The irony is that the duration buff to Superior Elements did more to help Weaver survive than the extra barrier did, because weakness is a substantial damage nerf to anything without a break bar.  Third, there has been no mention or additional buffs to survival since, telling us that Anet thinks Weaver is fine now.

They've changed the class to suit gear prefixes in the past, too.  I can't source this, because it came from third-hand sources, but the word out there is that the Grieving set was designed to work with the Weaver and vice versa.  Grieving, however, was a largely unpopular gear prefix, only serving as a trivial alternative to Vipers for firebrand.  That is until Anet changed Elements of Rage from 10% strike damage to 5% strike with 5% conditions.  Now, hybrid weaver with Grieving does more damage than the pure power builds, albeit less flexibly and with more punishing rotations.

 

If Anet wanted to fix weaver's sustain they'd make Elemental Refreshment give 900-1000 barrier on each dual skill, or they'd switch it's place with Master's Fortitude to make that trait baseline.  But... they aren't, which makes me think that this profession has been relegated to some unspoken ideal.  It would be nice to get a direct answer on how Anet regards the social pressure to build for pure DPS, or whether they're pigeonholing this profession into using non-acceptable gear choices, but Anet will probably stay silent on this.  

The elemental refreshment and superior elements changes were in the last "balance" hotfix they ever did. It was not a full balance patch, and the majority of professions barely got any changes. There is no indication that this patch was supposed to fix the majority of balance issues. And of course weaver got no changes since then, because there has been no real balancing since then.

[The Boz.2038]

16 minutes ago, Daddy.8125 said:

Renegade needs to be forced into boon gear for alacrity

93% of an alacren's gear is Diviner, for boon duration. 

Only condi RRs can ignore boon duration, by virtue of there being two of them, and covering full alacrity uptime together across 10 people.