why is sword weaver dead in wvw roaming?

[RaveOnYou.2819]

I am looking for builds and play styles of sword weaver in wvw environment. There are only one build on meta battle which is starfire roamer with celestial stats obviously. However, i see no one playing actually with sword. For me, it is because sword has too much telegraphed attacks with 130 range and nearly no mobility (beside air 2 leap, but it has no damage if you dont take lightning rod trait). There is obviously mobility meta in wvw for a long time. Is there any hope that anet really look into it? What do you think guys. I think we cant just throw an elite spec weapon that easily. and ele shouldnt be squezed into only core weapon dagger as melee option.

[Guybrush.4762]

Hi, yeah it is not you, Sword weaver is indeed not seen very often these day.

The thing is fire sword weaver has trouble dealing with slippery kiting build and those are really strong at the moment which makes the traditional sword weaver feel lacking. Furthermore and despite what seems the intention of Anet some of the nerfs aimed at catalyst spilled over to the other viable roaming builds for ele and the meta shift did the rest. All in all I feel they ironically pushed player away from Tempest and Weaver and further toward Catalyst. Don't get me wrong the good builds of the past are still playable, but I would not recommend them.

To be fair about your dagger comment: I like it on weaver, it is fun! Please anet make D/D weaver a thing. 😃

Edited June 13, 2023 by Guybrush.4762

[Ban Daur.4831]

I will give my observations and opinnions on why sword weaver is not that popular option for roaming in WvW, though you can make it work and have good time on it but it can be definetly feel bad being cheesed by more mobile, ranged and chill condition applying opponents.

1. The biggest killer of weaver especially sword weaver is chill effects. Chill increases not only the cooldowns but the time it takes to switch attunements this can translate to being stuck inside an attunement after a swap for 5-6 seconds which in a fight is a very long to be whitout access to new skills, cleansing effects from traits, boons or your sigil effects that apply on swap. Other elem specs will still have their access to other attunements long as they have not used them but weaver will always have to wait after an attunements change. The chill is extra bad if you are whit sword on weaver as it also makes you 66% slower to catch up to targets.

2. Mobility is still an issue even whitout chill effects taking place as  there are opponents that are faster and possibly ranged as well so catching up to your target on sword can be difficult especially whit such long cooldown on air 2 skill. You can take lighting flash, run off hand dagger as well and take traits that increase mobility but these will come at some sacrefice when actually standing and fighting your opponent.

3. Sword also feels bit weak in terms of dealing outside of landing it's strongest skills like pyro vortex or quantum strike and these skills are suprisingly hard to land unless you can land a good cc skill prior to using them and this will come down to practicing a lot on weaver and learning your combos and attunements swaps to make it work whit whatever offhand weapon you end up running.

4. Long cooldowns on most sword skills: both "2" and dual skills. Your weapon skills have a long cooldown and a bad attunement swap makes the sword set feel unfun to play if you attune back to an attunement where your skill is still on cooldown this can result in frustration and waiting until you can use a weapon skill. You can of course practice and memorise on what attunements you have been to last and avoid them until you are sure they have come off cooldown. Learning a cycle that goes between all the attunements in a rotation like old condition sword weaver rotation can also help aleviate that but adapted to pvp/wvw setting will help whit this issue but will take practice.

But besides all these issues it can be a fun spec/fighter in the mists if you enjoy the visuals and the weaving between attunements for comboing skills for best effect. It takes time and practice and you will feel like a punching bag while playing it but take the beating, get close and burn your opponents to ashes.

[Wayne.6253]

I think that sword weaver is dead also in SPvP... weaver with scepter it's 10x better, more aoe condi and direct damage if used with wizard amulet and more survability.

If you use sword you are disadvantaged 99% of the time against all ranged builds.

 

[the krytan assassin.9235]

I think one of the troublesome elements that affect WvW/pvp Weaver right now is the current state of conjure weapons. Just give elementalist a proper access to their fgs (and maybe LH) and mobility shouldnt be to big of an issue. Conjure weapons are rarely used by ele's anyways and are by no means overperforming. Ideally i would love them to behave like engineer kits (and probably increase the cd on fgs 3&4 abit in pvp/WvW). That being said, properly fixing all the conjure weapons will probably take up alot of development time that Anet would rather spend on something more impactful then just a couple of utility ele skills. 

Due to wide open battlegrounds and a lack of aspects that fixate combat on a narrow area ranged/stealth/mobility focused builds will always be stronger picks for roaming. Since the release of thieves in gw2 we've always been on a stray path. Removing the mobility/ranged/stealth out of the classes will result in massive backlash by the community so in some way i guess its better to give (some of) these abilities to all classes instead. 

[Jski.6180]

Swords issues is its ranges 130 is not enofe for any class with out stealth and perma super speed (weaver can only get super speed most of the time not perma and the of reistacest holds it back for being allways in on melee).

I could never get d/d on weaver to work right it looks like it should be fun but the lack of an good auto attk on dagger realy holds it back on the weaver class due to long down times on swap. I love to see ppl builds for d/d weaver roming the best i could pull off is marder cele mix water arcain weaver conter condis.

[AliamRationem.5172]

4 hours ago, Ban Daur.4831 said:

I will give my observations and opinnions on why sword weaver is not that popular option for roaming in WvW, though you can make it work and have good time on it but it can be definetly feel bad being cheesed by more mobile, ranged and chill condition applying opponents.

1. The biggest killer of weaver especially sword weaver is chill effects. Chill increases not only the cooldowns but the time it takes to switch attunements this can translate to being stuck inside an attunement after a swap for 5-6 seconds which in a fight is a very long to be whitout access to new skills, cleansing effects from traits, boons or your sigil effects that apply on swap. Other elem specs will still have their access to other attunements long as they have not used them but weaver will always have to wait after an attunements change. The chill is extra bad if you are whit sword on weaver as it also makes you 66% slower to catch up to targets.

2. Mobility is still an issue even whitout chill effects taking place as  there are opponents that are faster and possibly ranged as well so catching up to your target on sword can be difficult especially whit such long cooldown on air 2 skill. You can take lighting flash, run off hand dagger as well and take traits that increase mobility but these will come at some sacrefice when actually standing and fighting your opponent.

3. Sword also feels bit weak in terms of dealing outside of landing it's strongest skills like pyro vortex or quantum strike and these skills are suprisingly hard to land unless you can land a good cc skill prior to using them and this will come down to practicing a lot on weaver and learning your combos and attunements swaps to make it work whit whatever offhand weapon you end up running.

4. Long cooldowns on most sword skills: both "2" and dual skills. Your weapon skills have a long cooldown and a bad attunement swap makes the sword set feel unfun to play if you attune back to an attunement where your skill is still on cooldown this can result in frustration and waiting until you can use a weapon skill. You can of course practice and memorise on what attunements you have been to last and avoid them until you are sure they have come off cooldown. Learning a cycle that goes between all the attunements in a rotation like old condition sword weaver rotation can also help aleviate that but adapted to pvp/wvw setting will help whit this issue but will take practice.

But besides all these issues it can be a fun spec/fighter in the mists if you enjoy the visuals and the weaving between attunements for comboing skills for best effect. It takes time and practice and you will feel like a punching bag while playing it but take the beating, get close and burn your opponents to ashes.

We've only been pointing this stuff out for years, but apparently if it works in PvE it's good enough.   To add insult to injury they make dragons tooth track. Can we get the scepter treatment on pyrovortex so the skill isn't 100% reliant on hard CC to land?

[Stallic.2397]

3 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

Swords issues is its ranges 130 is not enofe for any class with out stealth and perma super speed (weaver can only get super speed most of the time not perma and the of reistacest holds it back for being allways in on melee).

I could never get d/d on weaver to work right it looks like it should be fun but the lack of an good auto attk on dagger realy holds it back on the weaver class due to long down times on swap. I love to see ppl builds for d/d weaver roming the best i could pull off is marder cele mix water arcain weaver conter condis.

 

Remember when Dagger Air auto attack was 400 range? Ah, the good ole days

[Jski.6180]

6 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

We've only been pointing this stuff out for years, but apparently if it works in PvE it's good enough.   To add insult to injury they make dragons tooth track. Can we get the scepter treatment on pyrovortex so the skill isn't 100% reliant on hard CC to land?

I believe all targeted skills work like that but most of them don't have an long delay like dragon tooth. I guess you would say air/air sword 3 works like that but its far faster and it dose not show up as well and that dam super short range (realty should be just an maces not and word on weaver if its only 130).

[AliamRationem.5172]

14 minutes ago, Jski.6180 said:

I believe all targeted skills work like that but most of them don't have an long delay like dragon tooth. I guess you would say air/air sword 3 works like that but its far faster and it dose not show up as well and that dam super short range (realty should be just an maces not and word on weaver if its only 130).

I'm not sure if we're on the same page here.  The issue isn't landing the initial strike (although that is arguably an issue in itself).  It's that pyrovortex creates a stationary vortex that deals its damage over 2.5 seconds.  Against a moving target, not only is it difficult to land the initial strike, but if you don't CC or immobilize them first, they'll just walk out of the vortex.  This is essentially the same issue dragon's tooth had.  The only way to land it was to CC the target so they couldn't just walk out of it.

[Jski.6180]

13 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

I'm not sure if we're on the same page here.  The issue isn't landing the initial strike (although that is arguably an issue in itself).  It's that pyrovortex creates a stationary vortex that deals its damage over 2.5 seconds.  Against a moving target, not only is it difficult to land the initial strike, but if you don't CC or immobilize them first, they'll just walk out of the vortex.  This is essentially the same issue dragon's tooth had.  The only way to land it was to CC the target so they couldn't just walk out of it.

Dragon tooth only is one hit there just an delay in that one hit after you cast a lot of target skills have an very small delay but you dont see them like you would see a dragon tooth. Vortex is more like an pAoE but most pAoE that are melee on an 130 range dont work well.

A real fix would be having it stay on the weaver kind of like lava armor and realy most of the dagger dule skills. Maybe make all of the sword dule skills stay on the weaver so you can cast and effect like pyrovortex and keep runing with some one with poler leap or (long cd) lighting flash.

Edited May 13, 2023 by Jski.6180

[soulknight.9620]

Couple of reasons:

1) EOD power creep. Try chasing a cele harbringer or smtn similar with a sword melee. 

2) Scepter. It just does everything that sword can, but does it better. 

3) lack of mobility/sticking power/range. Thats self-explanatory.  

[Arheundel.6451]

2 hours ago, soulknight.9620 said:

Couple of reasons:

1) EOD power creep. Try chasing a cele harbringer or smtn similar with a sword melee. 

2) Scepter. It just does everything that sword can, but does it better. 

3) lack of mobility/sticking power/range. Thats self-explanatory.  

Pretty much this...

Everything right got speedy gonzalez speed while pewpew huge condi burst from 1200 range......sword weaver decent in a small scale with support but awful as a roamer, you literally have zero chance to catch up with anything. Although the condi burst of a sword weaver still remains a scary encounter for any melee spec so there is that... I still play it where it's safe to do so

[solemn.9670]

(my post here is concerning WvW only; builds are in the video descriptions/pinned comment in video comments)

You still can, but you have to choose between either:

A) playing fire/arcane cele bunker fire weaver which is still pretty good for duels and 1vX (depending on how bad the players you're against are if there are multiple). Recommend focus offhand. It's pretty weak to getting zerged/ganked because of low mobility, which is why I prefer the second build below.

or, my favourite...

B) playing some variant of superspeed spamming fire/air or water/air and using mostly power stats. I recommend dagger offhand.

You can see I did this here, using a marauder+zerk+dragon+little bit of cele water/air build. It cleanses better than pretty much anything else, so there's that, and the damage is good if you're used to it. But ya, it's off meta at most. Inexperienced players will struggle with it

 

Edited May 17, 2023 by solemn.9670

[Jski.6180]

@solemn.9670

Any build with FA in it is no longer an tempest weaver or even catalyses build it is an FA build. The trait FA is so powerful that its an elite spec in it self.

I did like the "fire" build i cant see how it will deal with chain stuns and chain roots though. Wvw kind of an mess with hard cc now it feels like catalyses aura stab the only way to keep from being stunned ever 2 sec. If only weaver stances trait was an stab on stance use and not an barrier.

[Downstate.4697]

My hot take is weaver is a poorly designed elite spec. Sword on its own has never been good. They literally kept adding stuff on to dual skills until it was viable.

[AliamRationem.5172]

46 minutes ago, FrownyClown.8402 said:

My hot take is weaver is a poorly designed elite spec. Sword on its own has never been good. They literally kept adding stuff on to dual skills until it was viable.

It works great in PvE where targets stand still.  You just can't make any of the big damage on sword stick to a moving target.  You basically just hope your opponent doesn't have any stunbreak or stability so you can actually deal damage to them.  Not a great plan.

This could easily be fixed without impacting PvE if they made some changes to a few skills.  Things like making sword attacks have a bit more forgiving range and radius, making pyrovortex stick to targets, adding a bit more soft CC, maybe an immob, reducing CD on polaric leap, etc.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

Sword has been meta in pvp for years, but not really accessible. At PoF release mender sword was a calvary to fight, I remember handle 1v3 on nodes, and ACHIEVE the 3 poor boys. Then fire weaver, fresh air, recently scepter... etc. Big issue with weaver was the huge learning curve and huge disparity between "low" players who died too fast because elem = 12k pv no armor, and high ones who could handle the dozen of buffs and mechanics and overperform.
And devs chose to nerf everyone (and so sword) in pure laziness rather than reduce the "standard deviation" (Hope this is the word in english) by cutting the dependency to all buffs, chain of spells... then rework/buff all others professions.

Edited May 18, 2023 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[AliamRationem.5172]

52 minutes ago, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

Sword has been meta in pvp for years, but not really accessible. At PoF release mender sword was a calvary to fight, I remember handle 1v3 on nodes, and ACHIEVE the 3 poor boys. Then fire weaver, fresh air, recently scepter... etc. Big issue with weaver was the huge learning curve and huge disparity between "low" players who died too fast because elem = 12k pv no armor, and high ones who could handle the dozen of buffs and mechanics and overperform.
And devs chose to nerf everyone (and so sword) in pure laziness rather than reduce the "standard deviation" (Hope this is the word in english) by cutting the dependency to all buffs, chain of spells... then rework/buff all others professions.

Yeah it works as a side node duelist because the mobility isn't as much of an issue when all you need to do to win is hold a small circle and survive.  The problems are more obvious in open field where your opponents are free to kite.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

Yeah it's sad they never changed the CD of polaric leap, but on contrary nerfed CD on riptide. This skill is pivot for PvP.
No need to speak about Lightning Flash with the generous 35sec CD and zero damage rather than 40sec. It's not like they also deleted the CD reduction on cantrips ...

[Jski.6180]

19 hours ago, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

Yeah it's sad they never changed the CD of polaric leap, but on contrary nerfed CD on riptide. This skill is pivot for PvP.
No need to speak about Lightning Flash with the generous 35sec CD and zero damage rather than 40sec. It's not like they also deleted the CD reduction on cantrips ...

If they say add in resistances and maybe stab on cantirp use i think it could make up for the lost of cdr or at least give LF such boons on hit. This would go a long way to letting non eleit spec requirements (catalyest) to play true melee ele. That kind of what this is all coming down to is how do you wvw roam on melee ele and not be an catalyest (dmg) or tempest (support).

[solemn.9670]

On 5/18/2023 at 11:15 AM, Jski.6180 said:

@solemn.9670

Any build with FA in it is no longer an tempest weaver or even catalyses build it is an FA build. The trait FA is so powerful that its an elite spec in it self.

I did like the "fire" build i cant see how it will deal with chain stuns and chain roots though. Wvw kind of an mess with hard cc now it feels like catalyses aura stab the only way to keep from being stunned ever 2 sec. If only weaver stances trait was an stab on stance use and not an barrier.

Well all due respect I've been running sword and dagger mainhand fresh air builds for 4 years or more now and no one complained until recently and nothing has changed about any of those builds I play lmao

[Jski.6180]

9 hours ago, solemn.9670 said:

Well all due respect I've been running sword and dagger mainhand fresh air builds for 4 years or more now and no one complained until recently and nothing has changed about any of those builds I play lmao

But its still an FA build more then it is an weaver build that how all FA builds are. The one trait is so defining in game play that its adds more to the ele class then any elite spec could ever hope to.

Weaver more then any of the other elite spec is missing something to realty define it the swap effect is not enofe nor are more skills. Weaver needs something i am not sure what it could even have at this point boon strips or some boon corruption base off of the weaver main hand atument?

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

1 hour ago, Jski.6180 said:

But its still an FA build more then it is an weaver build that how all FA builds are. The one trait is so defining in game play that its adds more to the ele class then any elite spec could ever hope to.

Weaver more then any of the other elite spec is missing something to realty define it the swap effect is not enofe nor are more skills. Weaver needs something i am not sure what it could even have at this point boon strips or some boon corruption base off of the weaver main hand atument?

Weaver was substantially more powerful when Bolstered Elements granted stability, Twist of Fate had a 40 second cooldown, and Riptide was on a 12 second cooldown.  Another hit that really hit my water sword build was when Woven Stride was changed to a 5 second ICD, cutting my condi cleansing rate nearly in half.  The Weaver's PVP identity pre-catalyst was based around 3 things:  giving barrier, being really mobile, and also debuffing enemy players.  It could very much still be those, but it would require Anet reverting a couple of past nerfs.  

[MasterDeere.3417]

Any power build will destroy weaver