Weaponmaster Training Beta Feedback: Elementalist

[Skyroar.2974]

My thoughts:

Sword + Warhorn as a Non-Weaver

This must be one of the most enjoyable playstyles unlocked by weaponmaster training.

I always wanted to play with a simpler, non-dual skill sword playstyle, which will finally be a reality. This, coupled with warhorn, creates a very unique, new playstyle despite using already-existing weapons. Feels "new" to me, and it's very flexible in OW PvE (warhorn and tempest/catalyst offer support and mob tagging to a MH weapon that is bad at both but good at soloing bosses).

Very fun.

Hammer Weaver

The best iteration of Hammer. I never liked the orb mechanic, always felt it added a lot of busy work to Catalyst, especially when you had F5 on top of it. My number 1 complain about Catalyst is that's it's a bloated spec that focus on quantity of mechanics over quality.

Surprisingly, Weaver streamlines this playstyle significantly. With orbs only requiring 3, or even 2 skills to get the full passive effects, and with no F5 effects to worry about, hammer no longer feels bloated and I can finally appreciate the slower-paced nature of its remaining skill design.

Weaver, in general, is a spec that adds complexity to existing weapons, but here it does the opposite, and in such a great way.

[TheDetective.8172]

5 minutes ago, Havondor.5346 said:

The Hammer Weaver combo skills feel out of place for Weaver. For the rest of the weaver weapons the combo attack is its own ability not just a combo of the 2 Element attacks. So instead of 6 new abilities on Hammer you just have a quicker application of the Orbs. There are opportunities here if you want to still stick with Orbs being the identity of Hammer, a Plasma Orb for Fire/Air, a Steam Orb for Fire/Water, a Lava Orb for Fire/Earth, a Mud Orb for Water/Earth, a Cloud Orb for Water/Air and Sand Orb for Air/Earth. I would still make Grand Finale be capped at 4 orbs but maybe with Weaving you get a reduced CD on it.

Even if we want to stick with the two orbs being generated through weaving the same CD as original of Grand Finale feels off. Furthermore, there is now really no benefit to the weapon for Double weaving on Hammer as the Combo abilities are just inherently better.

I agree that the Hammer dual skills are lazily done and need a look at.

[Kilty.4906]

My initial thoughts:

• Sword/Warhorn is pretty fun on pretty much any spec;
• Hammer Dual Attacks are bland and overly complicated; I believe it would be interesting if they had "normal" skills on those slots when attuned to two elements. In other words, the Weaver would "weave" between being fully attuned to get the buff/orb/Grand Finale and dual-attuned to get a "normal" skill on that slot.

[Skyroar.2974]

5 minutes ago, TheDetective.8172 said:

I agree that the Hammer dual skills are lazily done and need a look at.

Heavily disagree.

Hammer's dual skills streamline the weapons' playstyle to the point that it actually makes it enjoyable to players who dislike the orb mechanic.

If they were to be entirely new skills, then mantaining orbs would be HELL. You would be forced to dual-attune to every single of the four attunements under an extremely strict rotation in order to get the 4 orbs going, as otherwise they get easily buried beneath the new skills.

Dual orb skills are a (much needed) QoL upgrade.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Skyroar.2974

[TheDetective.8172]

4 minutes ago, Skyroar.2974 said:

Heavily disagree.

Hammer's dual skills streamline the weapons' playstyle to the point that it actually makes it enjoyable to players who dislike the orb mechanic.

If they were to be entirely new skills, then mantaining orbs would be HELL. You would be forced to dual-attune to every single of the four attunements under an extremely strict rotation in order to get the 4 orbs going, as otherwise they get easily buried beneath the new skills.

Dual orb skills are a (much needed) QoL upgrade.

Well, in my opinion, the orbs should be removed entirely because they're a lazy way to give insane buffs and are going to continue to break the game. Catalyst would get compensated somehow via traits and it would actually open up more possibilities for Catalyst to not have to take hammer because of the buffs it provides.

[Havondor.5346]

5 minutes ago, Skyroar.2974 said:

Heavily disagree.

Hammer's dual skills streamline the weapons' playstyle to the point that it actually makes it enjoyable to players who dislike the orb mechanic.

If they were to be entirely new skills, then mantaining orbs would be HELL. You would be forced to dual-attune to every single of the four attunements under an extremely strict rotation in order to get the 4 orbs going, as otherwise they get easily buried beneath the new skills.

Dual orb skills are a (much needed) QoL upgrade.

Then I think the issue is more that the Orbs are just a poor design choice and need to be rethought entirely.

[Havondor.5346]

8 minutes ago, Kilty.4906 said:

My initial thoughts:

• Sword/Warhorn is pretty fun on pretty much any spec;
• Hammer Dual Attacks are bland and overly complicated; I believe it would be interesting if they had "normal" skills on those slots when attuned to two elements. In other words, the Weaver would "weave" between being fully attuned to get the buff/orb/Grand Finale and dual-attuned to get a "normal" skill on that slot.

I also like this idea as opposed to mine, if we want to make orbs be the normal skills.

[Skyroar.2974]

5 minutes ago, TheDetective.8172 said:

Well, in my opinion, the orbs should be removed entirely because they're a lazy way to give insane buffs and are going to continue to break the game. Catalyst would get compensated somehow via traits and it would actually open up more possibilities for Catalyst to not have to take hammer because of the buffs it provides.

5 minutes ago, Havondor.5346 said:

Then I think the issue is more that the Orbs are just a poor design choice and need to be rethought entirely.

I definitely agree. But unless/until Anet is willing to rework Hammer, I'd take Weaver's current QoL changes over something that would have been overcomplicated.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Skyroar.2974

[Jaden.1420]

My first impressions:

Hammer Weaver is interesting, because of the additional crit chance from the orbs you can basically go full Dragon stats. Not sure about the rotation, though.

Sw/Wh FA Weaver dps is fantastic.

Oh, and Catalyst ulti Elemental Celerity doesn't refresh neither Warhorn nor Sword skills.

[soulknight.9620]

14 minutes ago, Jaden.1420 said:

Sw/Wh FA Weaver dps is fantastic.

You mean broken in a way that it will get 100% nerfed into oblivion? 

Kinda sad that both sw and wh will get nerfs after this system goes live. I actually did enjoyed sw/wh catalyst. 

[Zionite.5924]

Does anyone have any videos of the gameplay from their beta testing?

[Batalix.2873]

Rifle instead of pistol on Ele. Pistol is just going to compete with scepter, whereas Ele could definitely use a big blasty 1200 range weapon on top of staff. Thanks.

[fuzzyp.6295]

2 hours ago, TheDetective.8172 said:

I agree that the Hammer dual skills are lazily done and need a look at.

100% this. .

[fuzzyp.6295]

So far the only spec combo I'm enjoying is Sword Catalyst. It feels good, the  combos are great, its nice to have synergy with the Auras. Quickness helps out extremely. Will probably need to look at the Sword 3 skills, particularly Earth 3. That skill is just straight up garbage as it is right now.

Hammer Weaver feels like it should be good, but falls flat. I'm hoping as I play with it more I can find ways of making it work, but right now its a really bland...

Sword/Warhorn was fun in PvE atleast.

[StarPT.7431]

Yhe...Hammer is pretty underwhelming on weaver

Sword/warhorn is looking mighty fine, though.

[Aelin.9317]

I am liking sword warhorn on tempest, not got to try much yet but I am hyped to see what the theorycrafters come up with. I am just enjoying the new weapon combos. I did want to do more than just wvw support on my tempest and it looks like I will get the chance with the new weapons and traits. 

[Utnapishtim.4021]

Sword warhorn catt

air sphere Air 5, 4, 2, 3, fire 4, 5, 2, 3, water 4, earth 3, 2, 2.

Had some fun in wvw with this

[illuminosity.8537]

5 hours ago, Havondor.5346 said:

The Hammer Weaver combo skills feel out of place for Weaver. For the rest of the weaver weapons the combo attack is its own ability not just a combo of the 2 Element attacks. So instead of 6 new abilities on Hammer you just have a quicker application of the Orbs. There are opportunities here if you want to still stick with Orbs being the identity of Hammer, a Plasma Orb for Fire/Air, a Steam Orb for Fire/Water, a Lava Orb for Fire/Earth, a Mud Orb for Water/Earth, a Cloud Orb for Water/Air and Sand Orb for Air/Earth. I would still make Grand Finale be capped at 4 orbs but maybe with Weaving you get a reduced CD on it.

Even if we want to stick with the two orbs being generated through weaving the same CD as original of Grand Finale feels off. Furthermore, there is now really no benefit to the weapon for Double weaving on Hammer as the Combo abilities are just inherently better.

100%, it was amazing how quickly I went from being excited to disappointed when thinking about hammer dual attacks and then seeing them. Also worth pointing out that hammer has tons of combo finishers and basically no fields, and ele utilities are useless for generating fields too. Catalyst compensates for this with its class mechanic, and tempest can at least somewhat compensate with overload fire and air, but what is a weaver to do? Rely on ally fields and hope they hit the right ones? The dual attack skills are the perfect opportunity to fill in this gap. You can even keep an orb-y theme if you want. Some basic ideas:

Fire/Air: Fire a plasma orb that explodes when it hits its target leaving behind a fire field in the indicated spot.
Fire/Water: Fire two orbs of frost and flame that burn / chill targets they hit, then meet at the indicated spot, leaving behind a water field.
Fire/Earth: Fire a lava orb straight towards the target that pulses burning to nearby targets and leaves behind a fire field.
Water/Air: Fire a frost orb that shoots nearby targets with ice shards inflicting bleeding, and leaves behind a frost field.
Water/Earth: Summon a mud orb out of the ground at the targeted location that immobilises targets.
Air/Earth: Fire a sonic orb that explodes when it reaches the targeted area, dazing targets for a duration based on how close they are to the center of the explosion.

[Tambaloneus.6290]

Important! When they're using Air Overload on Tempest with hammer change the animation so it shows the hammer in their hand so it looks extra kitten 😄

[Tambaloneus.6290]

lmao the word filter T_T haaa the baddest kitten

[Serephen.3420]

6 hours ago, TheDetective.8172 said:

Sword/Warhorn is literally god-tier on Weaver... Sword is also amazing on quick heal catalyst with off-hand warhorn.

You shouldn't spread misinformation.

Wait, sword on quick heal cata? As in this is serious? (Can't get ingame yet so haven't tried) that said it would have 0 stab support without staff so not sure how well it can really work.

[TheDetective.8172]

1 minute ago, Serephen.3420 said:

Wait, sword on quick heal cata? As in this is serious? (Can't get ingame yet so haven't tried) that said it would have 0 stab support without staff so not sure how well it can really work.

You'd be surprised the healing on water auto and aqua siphon water 3! 

[Serephen.3420]

13 minutes ago, TheDetective.8172 said:

You'd be surprised the healing on water auto and aqua siphon water 3! 

I can't remember but is water 3 aoe? That said, it's weakness would be purely melee range heals. But definitely an interesting concept!

[Doggie.3184]

Weaver Hammer 3 legendary weapon effects don't work.

[Downstate.4697]

This is my feedback based on my pvp experience today.

 

Weaver

Warhorn - It didn't feel bad, but it felt so out of place since it is a failed support weapon. It needs the offhand dagger treatment. Lower all of its cooldowns in water/earth by 10s. Boost the healing in water. If you prevented the water field from moving I wouldnt be mad either.

Hammer- The barrier output felt great and that was it. You don't have the cleansing you would have on focus. It kind of highlights the fact that weaver needs condi removal in its traitlines. Change woven strides to just cleanse a condi instead of granting regen and its honestly good. The orbs felt bad at 8s. Making it 15s on weaver is probably a good move.

 

Tempest

Sword- this is not good on tempest. Tempest has design problems that prevent it from having damage specs. I will explain how to improve sword in catalyst section.

Hammer-also not good on tempest. Hammer without barrier output or stability just sort of sits there and dies.  I could see sword and hammer being good if you enabled overloads at the start of the attunement swap and then lowered the cd when overloading to 15s. Transcend Tempest could lower that cd to 12s. I really cant see tempest being good on anything but support builds without those changes.

 

Catalyst

Sword- It actually felt really good and synergizes well with catalyst. I see why you wanted signet builds to be good, as that is where it felt the strongest. The biggest issues is the 3 skills are all like 180 range. Nothing is worse than missing the enemy and it going on full cooldown. 15s seems like the sweet spot for cooldowns on the 3 skills and should be baseline on each attunement. Aqua siphon could maybe do more damage and heal for a bit more. Rust Frenzy felt the worst. Its slow and stationary and ruins the flow of combat. If it worked like flurry on warrior (maybe also block missiles) that would be a good option.

Warhorn-Kind of the same thing as on weaver. Outside of its cc it really just felt like an inferior offhand dagger. I really wish that earth 5 applied barrier or gave stability. I really wish fire did something other than give allies might like cleansing conditions. I think it needs to keep its identity as a support-like weapon otherwise its just always gonna be dropped in favor of dagger.