State of weaver (feedback)

[soulknight.9620]

Good day!
I would like to address an issue with the most "forgotten" ele spec atm. Weaver, tempest and catalyst all have the same amount of DPS potential. However, both catalyst and tempest have some utility and support potential (qCata, aHealTempest, aTempest etc). Weaver on the other hand has none of that. The only thing weaver can currently accomplish is roughly the same dps as the other two specs with full boons. Weaver lacks "flavour" and "purpose". Even when it comes down to OW builds, tempest and catalyst can utilize their support to provide somewhat comfortable gameplay and even provide some of that support to others around them. However weaver cannot properly function without quick and/or alac uptime (although quickness is somewhat mandatory to comfortably play a weaver). We get it, that weaver is a selfish spec, but atm it doesnt fit that role whatsoever. 

Judging by the latest balance patch preview none of the abovementioned has been addressed. So i would like to propose to make some changes in weaver traitline to include some self quickness uptime (at the cost of dps/sustain) in PVE only. So that weaver once again would be enjoyable to play as in open world at least. It wouldnt brake any balance since basically the same thing is available to reaper with no cost to dps (the trait is a meta dps trait anyway). 

 

[Arheundel.6451]

Quickness at the cost of sustain..lol no ty. Weaver was played perfectly before even quickness was invented. Specs like reaper gets quickness at zero cost on top of ferocity all baked into the same trait

[Mevelios.4809]

As much as I'd love to see quickness on it, I don't really care for open world, targets fall to two skills usually. Champions take a little longer, but aren't much of a threat when running less of a glasscanon build with the proper weapons. Still, IMO traits that could easily be replaced in PvE only would be Elemental pursuit & Woven stride, which are utterly meaningless in that game mode. Compared to other traits on their respective lines, they would make the player drop either offense either defense for a quickness providing trait, without removing the usual options for damage dealing or doing HK on Deimos.

Edited May 28 by Mevelios.4809

[AliamRationem.5172]

It was supposed to be fine.  Why not have a selfish DPS?  It was only later that they decided it wasn't good to take that into account in the power budget.  No boons even for yourself?  No problem!  Until they decided every class should be able to play support and almost every single spec except weaver now has quickness or alacrity along with other boons.  It just doesn't make sense anymore.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

You forget the insane 250 barrier for 5 players on dual attacks, best support trait of GW2.

[soulknight.9620]

14 hours ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

Quickness at the cost of sustain..lol no ty. Weaver was played perfectly before even quickness was invented. Specs like reaper gets quickness at zero cost on top of ferocity all baked into the same trait

Im advocating for options, not obligations. I would like to get some self quick with no cost, but im ready to negotiate with anet -_- (thats how desperate i am)

Quickness was "invented" way before weaver showed up. 

12 hours ago, Mevelios.4809 said:

As much as I'd love to see quickness on it, I don't really care for open world, targets fall to two skills usually. Champions take a little longer, but aren't much of a threat when running less of a glasscanon build with the proper weapons. Still, IMO traits that could easily be replaced in PvE only would be Elemental pursuit & Woven stride, which are utterly meaningless in that game mode. Compared to other traits on their respective lines, they would make the player drop either offense either defense for a quickness providing trait, without removing the usual options for damage dealing or doing HK on Deimos.

Sure, you can go full cele build and have 0 problems with any of OW content solo, but when you compare cele weaver to lets say cele catalyst you will notice dps difference and "fluidity" difference. But some weapon/build combos are "not playable" (you will have a hard time) without quickness (for example pure power zerk sword weaver). You simply lack dps to get things done fast enough. 
As for mentioned traits, fully agree. They could swap superspeed for quickness in PVE only on elemental pursuit. Btw im kinda advocating for changes in OW cause in group content you kinda have perma full boon uptime (if supports know their thing). 

7 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

It was supposed to be fine.  Why not have a selfish DPS?  It was only later that they decided it wasn't good to take that into account in the power budget.  No boons even for yourself?  No problem!  Until they decided every class should be able to play support and almost every single spec except weaver now has quickness or alacrity along with other boons.  It just doesn't make sense anymore.

Yeah, but every time someone asks for higher dps on a selfish dps, there are always people screaming "you cant dps more than x/y/z, because its unfair etc". Thats why i just want a comfortable experience while solo playing in OW or have an option to take less of a hit when quickness provider in group fails their job and/or there are a lot of spread phases where it cant keep up the boons effectively. I believe the comparison to reaper that i made was pretty accurate (which is also a selfish dps).
 

6 hours ago, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

You forget the insane 250 barrier for 5 players on dual attacks, best support trait of GW2.

 To be fair it has its uses, but it is underwhelming for sure. 

[zeyeti.8347]

42 minutes ago, soulknight.9620 said:

To be fair it has its uses, but it is underwhelming for sure. 

No no no , c'mon , let's be fair , you don't believe yourself 😂.

why take a dps who perfrom as bad (or good) instead of any dps who can cover some boons at the same time with the same result , efficiency wise.

Don't worry ele is saved tempest can give fury based now 😁

Concept of weaver is good , but hell ingame this class is the bottom feeder.

[Atoclone.4810]

i wouldn't use qcata as an example of what the other especs are capable of as qcata isn't capable of being a qcata

[soulknight.9620]

1 hour ago, Atoclone.4810 said:

i wouldn't use qcata as an example of what the other especs are capable of as qcata isn't capable of being a qcata

Why not? I play qCata on a regular basis. It requires some practice to get used to 2x2 sphere rotation. I even use it in OW with cele gear. Sure its not perfect, and you have too many hoops to jump to get the same result as any other spec. But atleast it has uses. 

1 hour ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

No no no , c'mon , let's be fair , you don't believe yourself 😂.

why take a dps who perfrom as bad (or good) instead of any dps who can cover some boons at the same time with the same result , efficiency wise.

Don't worry ele is saved tempest can give fury based now 😁

Concept of weaver is good , but hell ingame this class is the bottom feeder.

Im not saying weaver is good atm (thats why i created this topic after all), but i can see having 250 barrier every 3 secs as not completely useless. Ofc that would be a lot better if it was 600-800 barrier a tick. 

[Jski.6180]

Weaver realty needs self quickness and alacrity.

[scerevisiae.1972]

i think the core issue of weaver is that both enter-attunement and leave-attunement CD is base 4sec, whereas other ele specs/core ele have a enter-attunement CD of zero (you can enter another attunement immediately after you enter a new element if that element is off CD) and a leave-attunement CD of base 10sec.

 

This feels bad as a 4sec CD greatly limits access to situational skills, making fresh air almost a requirement for weaver specs unless the spec is built to be tanky enough to deal with the 4sec CD, e.g. sword cele weaver (which still takes arcane to reduce CD to 3.2sec) .

 

Weaver could be changed to have a shorter enter-attunement CD (e.g. 2sec) while leaving the leave-attunement CD the same, described in this thread: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/142463-split-weaver-attunement-cds-enter-4sec-2sec-keep-leave-cd-at-4sec/

 

[Sweetbread.3678]

Yup. At the very least they need self-Alac, because that base 4 sec cd is really awkward to play around even with Arcane traited. Giving Weaver something like 3-5 seconds of self-Alacrity on dual skills and 3-5 seconds of self-Quickness on fully attuned 3s (nerfed for pvp/wvw as necessary) would actually give them a decent overworld experience without breaking their dps in organized content.  Having some niche in endgame pve where their boon uptime isn't entirely dependent on boon supports would also be nice way to reward their complexity without just having their throughput boosted through the roof or something.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I'm going to delve into mind-reading a bit, but my current assumption is that Weaver is the PVP/WvW based spec for Ele at the moment, similar to Mirage for mesmers.  Very similar, in that Weaver's main advantages are things that aren't generally useful outside of PVP: Self-barrier and vigor generation, weakness, mobility, random bits of group heals/barrier, and evade skills on sword/stances, etc.  I've tried using Catalyst and Tempest in WvW myself, and aside from the brief period where Celerity was used to spam Obsidian Flesh, I found Weaver to be the superior option for most cases.

Weaver isn't without use in PVE.  The main standouts there are

• Superior Elements for AoE weakness application
• Elemental Refreshment for waves of 523 barrier
• A 3.2k group heal on Aquatic Stance every 20 seconds (2 count)
• Some really powerful CC chains with Weave Self and/or Fresh Air

One of the big reasons why i play it so much is that it lacks the weaknesses of the other specs.  Tempests can get locked into an overload, which will kill their performance or just outright kill them if they find themselves in danger.  Or, on the flip side of that coin, Tempests can get locked out of an attunement when it might be needed.  Catalysts need to build momentum with their empowerment/aura traits/energy and can lose out quite a bit during mobile fights.  Also, I find Cata to be far more taxing on my hands.  Weaver, however, has but a single, simple demand: learn that you are half-attuning.  Once that note is wrote, the spec rarely gets more complicated than "press a button, do a thing."  

That all said, I'm not against buffs for Ele in general.  I know the devs are trying to normalize the golem benchmarks to focus more on PHIW style of balancing, but I am still of the mind that complexity and difficulty deserve some kind of compensation.  We aren't getting it mechanically, and the combo system (formerly our specialization) has long been power crept, so there's good reason to crank our damage or buff numbers up as compensation.  

[rotten.9753]

1 hour ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

I'm going to delve into mind-reading a bit, but my current assumption is that Weaver is the PVP/WvW based spec for Ele at the moment, similar to Mirage for mesmers.  Very similar, in that Weaver's main advantages are things that aren't generally useful outside of PVP: Self-barrier and vigor generation, weakness, mobility, random bits of group heals/barrier, and evade skills on sword/stances, etc.  I've tried using Catalyst and Tempest in WvW myself, and aside from the brief period where Celerity was used to spam Obsidian Flesh, I found Weaver to be the superior option for most cases.

Weaver isn't without use in PVE.  The main standouts there are

• Superior Elements for AoE weakness application
• Elemental Refreshment for waves of 523 barrier
• A 3.2k group heal on Aquatic Stance every 20 seconds (2 count)
• Some really powerful CC chains with Weave Self and/or Fresh Air

One of the big reasons why i play it so much is that it lacks the weaknesses of the other specs.  Tempests can get locked into an overload, which will kill their performance or just outright kill them if they find themselves in danger.  Or, on the flip side of that coin, Tempests can get locked out of an attunement when it might be needed.  Catalysts need to build momentum with their empowerment/aura traits/energy and can lose out quite a bit during mobile fights.  Also, I find Cata to be far more taxing on my hands.  Weaver, however, has but a single, simple demand: learn that you are half-attuning.  Once that note is wrote, the spec rarely gets more complicated than "press a button, do a thing."  

That all said, I'm not against buffs for Ele in general.  I know the devs are trying to normalize the golem benchmarks to focus more on PHIW style of balancing, but I am still of the mind that complexity and difficulty deserve some kind of compensation.  We aren't getting it mechanically, and the combo system (formerly our specialization) has long been power crept, so there's good reason to crank our damage or buff numbers up as compensation.  

That's funny because Catalyst is also PvP spec 🙂. According to the previous Skills&Balance Lead, both Catalyst and Untamed were designed by the same person (the current Lead) strictly for PvP and things like quickness with sphere was added on top of it later based on the internal feedback.

Maybe that's the problem with Ele in PvE, it's designed for PvP. Take a look at core, Weavers' and Catalyst's utilities, almost none of them are support oriented. If you want to make Heal Cata a thing, there's like a single utility (Signet of Water) that has some support, everything else is just selfish.

[zeyeti.8347]

22 hours ago, Atoclone.4810 said:

i wouldn't use qcata as an example of what the other especs are capable of as qcata isn't capable of being a qcata

indeed , i should have pointed out in theory , but he still get some quickness uptime , worst quickness of the game but better than weaver with 0.

 

4 hours ago, rotten.9753 said:

Maybe that's the problem with Ele in PvE, it's designed for PvP. Take a look at core, Weavers' and Catalyst's utilities, almost none of them are support oriented. If you want to make Heal Cata a thing, there's like a single utility (Signet of Water) that has some support, everything else is just selfish.

Well cannot agree more.

either anet choose to make ele less complicated or keep it like that , but then it needs to be THE damage bumper of the game, i am not playing a squishy , no cc class who performs as good as a freaking tank with tons of cc . Or it will stay in this rotten state , at least htemp is gonna be less worse after the patch 

[draxynnic.3719]

6 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

That all said, I'm not against buffs for Ele in general.  I know the devs are trying to normalize the golem benchmarks to focus more on PHIW style of balancing, but I am still of the mind that complexity and difficulty deserve some kind of compensation.  We aren't getting it mechanically, and the combo system (formerly our specialization) has long been power crept, so there's good reason to crank our damage or buff numbers up as compensation.  

Yeah, the problem with the current style is that it overcompensates the other way - it becomes the simpler-to-run builds that people feel forced to play, since that gives them more bandwidth to focus on mechanics and there's no benefit to running the more complex builds.

[zeyeti.8347]

4 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Yeah, the problem with the current style is that it overcompensates the other way - it becomes the simpler-to-run builds that people feel forced to play, since that gives them more bandwidth to focus on mechanics and there's no benefit to running the more complex builds.

virtuoso mainly 😁. Anet need to understand the concept of a glass canon and stop referring to a golem benchmarks , they need to see the data of % played and act on this instead of one guys doing 45k on a golem with a rotation that could use a 3rd hand... not every class can be meta , but i think that a least one good , accessible , advanatged dps option should eb available in every class (not e-spec , class).

I feel they do balance like league of legends does (based on pros), but this ain't a pvp game mostly and it is splitted anyway , so i don't see why it troubles them to have an ele doing 50k while belching blood on your keyboard due to the insane rotation, what troubled me were classes with 0 input able to do 32k almost afk , pew pew mech was the standart and reached 40% playrate , stayed like that for months before being gutted to a normal dps compared to the input needed, still does 23 k afk ...

[WindBlade.8749]

I played weaver for 90% of my playtime on gw2 in raids and openworld.

Now ? i just play condi pistol/warhorn tempest for openworld.

What the point of playing weaver anyway, tempest/catalyst do the same dmg (some build even more), but are easier and have utiltiy, i have breakstun on my tempest overload and i generate self might for myself + ton of utility from some traits/skils.

At this point the dps is so big in the game that my raid lead considere the meta dps to be dps with utility. what the point of my weaver that have 0 cc/0utility/0 self sustain that die from one missed mechanic when virtu provide way more to the raids, bladesworn can just ignore mechanics with their 20k hp and heavy armor and do bigger burst and same dmg.

At least i can pretend to be usful with my rebound on sabir for the few people that don't distort the shockwave.

Edited May 30 by WindBlade.8749

[Mevelios.4809]

16 hours ago, rotten.9753 said:

If you want to make Heal Cata a thing, there's like a single utility (Signet of Water) that has some support, everything else is just selfish.

It already is, for the most. Instead of resorting to ordinary instant direct boons in a 600 radius or healing in varying radii, Qheal cata provides a bunch of combo fields to detonate with blast finishers & karakosa relic. Aegis is built into a tool available more often than Aftershock, while Rebound having (to my experience) no use apart cheesing some mechs, I use the superior elementals every time. Even ordinary boons like might or fury are easier to provide because of key overloads having poor range. Only Eye of the storm is something I envy; cata has no access whatsoever apart from the earth trait in 240 radius, otherwise from using the staff that's poor at boons and disastrous to build energy.

It's definitely harder to manage Qheal cata rather than Aheal tempest, but dagger+warhorn make it a far more consistent boon provider with an excellent energy output. Whenever you have to switch to staff though...

[rotten.9753]

7 hours ago, Mevelios.4809 said:

It already is, for the most. Instead of resorting to ordinary instant direct boons in a 600 radius or healing in varying radii, Qheal cata provides a bunch of combo fields to detonate with blast finishers & karakosa relic. Aegis is built into a tool available more often than Aftershock, while Rebound having (to my experience) no use apart cheesing some mechs, I use the superior elementals every time. Even ordinary boons like might or fury are easier to provide because of key overloads having poor range. Only Eye of the storm is something I envy; cata has no access whatsoever apart from the earth trait in 240 radius, otherwise from using the staff that's poor at boons and disastrous to build energy.

It's definitely harder to manage Qheal cata rather than Aheal tempest, but dagger+warhorn make it a far more consistent boon provider with an excellent energy output. Whenever you have to switch to staff though...

By Rebound you probably meant Elemental Celerity? The HealCata is atm a meme build, no one uses it seriously. It's pretty much a core ele with quickness, you have 0 catalyst utilities because it's not been designed for support and for PvE where it actually matters. Staff has stability but it's super slow to get energy so you need to use IceBow to compensate. On the other hand you may use D/Wh or even S/Wh which both have superior energy generation but then you lose your stability. You can get it from RockSolid but you have to lose Arcane. It's way too limiting compared to other classes.

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

Quickness on Cata was a mistake, and I’m an advocate for it should have been given to Weaver when using Dual Attacks. It would have solved everything.

[rotten.9753]

1 hour ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

Quickness on Cata was a mistake, and I’m an advocate for it should have been given to Weaver when using Dual Attacks. It would have solved everything.

It wouldn't solve everything because you still wouldn't be able to have a healer weaver. Neither Weaver nor Cata were designed as support-ish classes but Cata at least pumps up boons, Weaver is absolutely a selfish class.

[draxynnic.3719]

The real problem was Cata basically being Weaver 2.0 with a bit of Tempest stuff instead of dual attunements rather than its own thing...

19 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

virtuoso mainly 😁. Anet need to understand the concept of a glass canon and stop referring to a golem benchmarks , they need to see the data of % played and act on this instead of one guys doing 45k on a golem with a rotation that could use a 3rd hand... not every class can be meta , but i think that a least one good , accessible , advanatged dps option should eb available in every class (not e-spec , class).

I feel they do balance like league of legends does (based on pros), but this ain't a pvp game mostly and it is splitted anyway , so i don't see why it troubles them to have an ele doing 50k while belching blood on your keyboard due to the insane rotation, what troubled me were classes with 0 input able to do 32k almost afk , pew pew mech was the standart and reached 40% playrate , stayed like that for months before being gutted to a normal dps compared to the input needed, still does 23 k afk ...

Pretty much. Nobody really cares if speedrunners can shave ten percent off their kill time by playing a specific profession. Nerfing a build because it has a high benchmark in ideal circumstances really should be mediated by checking if the playrate is also going up. If the playrate is well above its fair share, there probably is something off. If the play rate for an entire profession is somewhere around 4%... it probably doesn't need nerfing.

[zeyeti.8347]

2 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

The real problem was Cata basically being Weaver 2.0 with a bit of Tempest stuff instead of dual attunements rather than its own thing...

Pretty much. Nobody really cares if speedrunners can shave ten percent off their kill time by playing a specific profession. Nerfing a build because it has a high benchmark in ideal circumstances really should be mediated by checking if the playrate is also going up. If the playrate is well above its fair share, there probably is something off. If the play rate for an entire profession is somewhere around 4%... it probably doesn't need nerfing.

whole ele is less played than some unique other class e-spec , couldn't agree more, why nerfing something nobody is playing , should it not be te contrary ?

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

Issues of weaver :

No offensive boons, need BD + sigils/relic + fire or arcane specific traits in all game modes.
Exaggeratedly complicated low modifiers in traits  (you may need CD for weakness > which is why everybody play celestial ow/wvw) + elite skill weave-self too OP in comparison, and unnecessarily buffed to compensate traits and swords etc, but it only lasts max 30sec for 75sec cd.
Unused barrier mechanic, low barriers (omfg 260 barrier on dual attacks?????) > low sustain.
They nerfed woven stride, because you know, synergy with water to cleanse 1 condition too OP.

 

Edit; and like other elem's e-specs, they can't stop adding "celestial" or "half condi/half strike" modifiers and skills, then they complain everybody play celestial or burning/Fire etc. How are you supposed to do otherwise ?

Edited May 31 by Zhaid Zhem.6508