Air Scepter burst ele/weaver: too much damage in a too short amount of time

[Mr Godlike.6098]

@"Nath Forge Tempete.1645" said:dragon tooth isn't part of the burst ... unless the enemy is already down or ppl rezzing

It's almost only "swap air" twice + 1-2-3 in air (plus several skills as opener depending on the attunement you're in first)

Nope

It's new 3 air/fire -> plasma beam. This skill alone on something naked deals 9k + air 2 + air swap procs... swaping mambo jambo and you can get over 16k dps...everything that won't dodge, ignore s/f waver and 100% don't have auto damage immunity will die. It will melt. I +1 some spellbreakers in 1v1s and I have seen tears in their eye's. Just check what Frostball does to people on this build on streams. It' amazing...but as almost everybody mentioned before...It's inferior in everything else as +1 build.

It goes insane with ele mechanics and fresh air...surprising this have advantage with weaver internal cooldown... but you must crit stuff to get fast access to focus 4,5 on demand. Stuff you must do under pressure is ISANE. Core s/f is easy bunker build in comparison to this...but God D**** I have fun with this in wvw.

[Dawdler.8521]

@Mr Godlike.6098 said:

@"Nath Forge Tempete.1645" said:dragon tooth isn't part of the burst ... unless the enemy is already down or ppl rezzing

It's almost only "swap air" twice + 1-2-3 in air (plus several skills as opener depending on the attunement you're in first)

Nope

It's new 3 air/fire -> plasma beam. This skill alone on something naked deals 9k + air 2 + air swap procs... swaping mambo jambo and you can get over 16k dps...everything that won't dodge, ignore s/f waver and 100% don't have auto damage immunity will die. It will melt. I +1 some spellbreakers in 1v1s and I have seen tears in their eye's. Just check what Frostball does to people on this build on streams. It' amazing...but as almost everybody mentioned before...It's inferior in everything else as +1 build.

It goes insane with ele mechanics and fresh air...surprising this have advantage with weaver internal cooldown... but you must crit stuff to get fast access to focus 4,5 on demand. Stuff you must do under pressure is ISANE. Core s/f is easy bunker build in comparison to this...but God D**** I have fun with this in wvw.Haha I met one yesterday.

I was like... What. The. Actual. Kitten!

Well, he didnt kill me and it was the second time I met him as I had killed him trying to cap a camp just before, but still the damage output was absolutely insane. I attacked him, we scuffled a bit, he looks to be fleeing inside a tower then he turn around and boom. He brought me down from 18k hp to 1k hp in about a second, at range. Plasma crap and lightning attacks filled the log. I have never seen anything quite like it outside of zerker thieves or macro mesmers. Also note I had 1700 toughness, which is the sole reason I didnt die and could scamper away (he was already low hp too so didnt pursue).

Luckily such eles normally explode when you sneeze at them so I dont really consider them all that op or flexible enough to be a general nuisence, but it will be interesting to see if more comes crawling out the woodworks.

[DeceiverX.8361]

It's honestly more terrifying when they run beam on more "durable" builds. It does such massive damage that full glass isn't necessary and it still pretty easily insta-downs most people playing power.

I just met run running Stone Heart among other semi-defensive options, and it simply can't be killed by power builds.

[Wolfric.9380]

They die to a decent mesmer so easy, and they are killed by +1 even faster than annything else. You need to be good and lighning falsh away at the right moment or pooof.I main ele (with low HP hybrid build) and i rarely die to them but of course i did, like against thiefs that get me in a bad moment. I don´t feel much diffrence, actually it´s easier to kill the ele then a good thief that will just stealth/run away.

[Henry.5713]

The game would be fine if all of the "burst builds" worked like this one does, basically if all of them were high risk / high reward.

[Kako.1930]

It's about the same as other glassy builds, only the ele has even less survivability.

[Xanctus The Dragonslayer.2]

while technically, the equivelant of an true high risk and high reward build looking at it''s sustain, the playstyle is unhealthy with these numbers. powercreep is still powercreep even with builds that are not meta, the massive thing here is the untelegraphed lightning strike bursts and incredibly fucking short cast times. as opposed to mesmer and thief bursts. infact u can evade some thief bursts from stealth if, for example u get blinded wich means the thief is shadowshotting u and there is a small delay between the blind and thief arriving allowing u to dodge, if the weaver had stealth, u wouldn't be able to react unless u pre-dodged, in the end it's still powercreep and or unhealthy gameplay. If core fresh air actually got the same powerlevel as fresh weaver but with the same sustain it'd be absolutely broken to use. it sucks that this is the equivelant of high risk, high reward in the meta. this is the closest u get to to what holo mains and deadeye mains are claiming is squishy.

I'd like to see this nerfed not because it's op, but because it's unhealthy. However core ele should not be touched, adjust scepter dual skills. and rework weaver so that it has an proper way to deal damage in a healthy fashsion and not be it solely reliable on sword.

[Kako.1930]

Fresh weaver has less survivability than core fresh air ele because it has less access to other attunements besides air and has to sacrifice one defensive traitline to use weaver. The dual skills are either channel skills, have long cast times or are slow, so they can easily be interrupted, dodged or avoided. Most fresh Weaver's have no stability and hardly any Condi clear, so cc is extra effective against them.

This is also why they are so heavily outnumbered by their more powerful sword/dagger counterpart.

[Xanctus The Dragonslayer.2]

@Kako.1930 said:Fresh weaver has less survivability than core fresh air ele because it has less access to other attunements besides air and has to sacrifice one defensive traitline to use weaver. The dual skills are either channel skills, have long cast times or are slow, so they can easily be interrupted, dodged or avoided. Most fresh Weaver's have no stability and hardly any Condi clear, so cc is extra effective against them.

This is also why they are so heavily outnumbered by their more powerful sword/dagger counterpart.

lets not go overboard with long cast times, generally most skills hover between 3/4 of a second and 1 sec cast time. to be more precise

1 fiery frost is 0.75 s2 plasma beam is 1.25 s3 fracturing strike is 1 sec4 glacial drift is 0.75 sec5 stone tide is 075 sec6 earthen syngery is 0.75 sec

the thing is the unhealty part with these numbers is the attunment swapping espically double air attunment swapping. combined with lightning strike plasma beam arcane blast combo into lighting strike. not to mention the ferocity

what saves the class is it bieng squishy and not direct on demand access to damage migitation like obsidian flesh and swirling winds increases weaver adds. wich affects skills that are not dual skills such as lightning strike magnetive wave, phoenix which has a 0.25 sec cast time. lets not forgeet arcane blast. u can practically use 3 skills at the same time. fresh air weaver has a problem with telegraphs and would nowhere be as easy avoidable as thief stealth attack. what justifies it is the actual sustain that is low. and not some fake bullshit like the supposedly squishy holo and deatheye.

so it's not really that easy as just dodge, there are quite some skills with a lack of telegraph. and i want to stress this build is not op. but definately adds an unhealthy playstyle.

[steki.1478]

@"Xanctus The Dragonslayer.2318" said:fresh air weaver has a problem with telegraphs and would nowhere be as easy avoidable as thief stealth attack.

All dual skills on scepter have telegraphs though. Only instant skills are lightning strike (air 2) and electric discharge (air swap) which have nothing to do with weaver.

[Xanctus The Dragonslayer.2]

@steki.1478 said:

@"Xanctus The Dragonslayer.2318" said:fresh air weaver has a problem with telegraphs and would nowhere be as easy avoidable as thief stealth attack.

All dual skills on scepter have telegraphs though. Only instant skills are lightning strike (air 2) and electric discharge (air swap) which have nothing to do with weaver.

I know that, the problem however is that all those skills are intertwined with fresh weaver. fresh air core and weaver are unfortunately linked together infact i also said that core fresh air is passable ''ish since it's damage isn't as high as fresh weaver. the thing is core fresh air at it's core has telegraphs problem but what happend is that these problems are not solved with fresh weaver and now allows for as i mentioned to simul cast skills during plasma beam. it's core fresh air on steriods. the same lack of telegraph with huge damage numbers.

[steki.1478]

@"Xanctus The Dragonslayer.2318" said:

I know that, the problem however is that all those skills are intertwined with fresh weaver. fresh air core and weaver are unfortunately linked together infact i also said that core fresh air is passable ''ish since it's damage isn't as high as fresh weaver. the thing is core fresh air at it's core has telegraphs problem but what happend is that these problems are not solved with fresh weaver and now allows for as i mentioned to simul cast skills during plasma beam. it's core fresh air on steriods. the same lack of telegraph with huge damage numbers.

Half of weaver traits are affecting damage done, so I think it's pretty indented for weaver to be ele on steroids. Just like necro can corrupt a lot more on scourge, mesmer can inflict more conditions while evading with mirage, guardian can heal much more with firebrand etc. It's the whole point of elite spec. It's not like it's the only build that requires multiple chained skills (in short time) in order to do strong damage.

[Eddbopkins.2630]

This has to be a joke.....if u cant dodge the incomming attck you need more practice. 1 dodge or 1 invul or 1 block will stop any 1 shotting from happening to you. (Ele has no access to stealth so if u don't see the ele comming ur way then you need better self awareness). Then zed ele needs to wait at least 15 seconds to do 1/2 of the pheniox lighting burst again....i say 1/2 because lightning flash is a 30 sec cd. So for the 2nd assault you wont see lightning flash.....In this reality thf and mesmer one shotting is way worse since they can do it all from stealth and b.c of the ping and such most of the time the stealth wont wear off till ur down.

[Kiroshima.8497]

Personally, I only really have a problem with Fresh Weaver, as Fresh Air Core/Tempest don't output as much damage as they cannot easily perform a double lightning strike (they have to swap out of air first before the second lightning strike).

On one hand, it's basically an all in, on the other hand, it has huge untelegraphed burst potential like thief and mesmer, just without the stealth. Which is bad of course, but thief and mesmer are worse.

Like, Fresh Weaver just has so much Ferocity it's hilarious. Not to mention that Scepter Air/Fire has a huge damage coefficient, and it isn't interrupted by Scepter 2 Air, nor lightning strike from the Air Traitline.

For Science: Full Marauder's Fresh Weaver hits about 1710 ferocity (pop traited arcane, trigger fresh air 1 time). Those are 263% damage crits, with little to no telegraph.Also For Science: Full Valkyrie Fresh Weaver can hit 2100 ferocity (290% crit damage). Needs to use Arcane's for critical hits though.

No class can come close to that much ferocity.

Like, if we nerf Thief and Mesmer, it'll just be Fresh Weaver 1 shotting people in wvw instead.

[steki.1478]

@Kiroshima.8497 said:

For Science: Full Marauder's Fresh Weaver hits about 1710 ferocity (pop traited arcane, trigger fresh air 1 time). Those are 263% damage crits, with little to no telegraph.Also For Science: Full Valkyrie Fresh Weaver can hit 2100 ferocity (290% crit damage). Needs to use Arcane's for critical hits though.

No class can come close to that much ferocity.

Like, if we nerf Thief and Mesmer, it'll just be Fresh Weaver 1 shotting people in wvw instead.

It does have high ferocity, but the tool tip on skills doesnt show as high damage as on mesmer for example (F1 shatter shows like 2600 damage, while most of ele skills are below 2000), so there's not much of a difference. But yeah, if thief and mesmer get nerfed, ele will be the next best one-shot class, but it's still somewhat justified considering how many skills you need to chain (excluding air procs or lightning strikes, which still requires fast combo, but kinda broken considering it's instant cast) and how low sustain is, making it pretty much dead if it fails to kill.

[Kiroshima.8497]

It helps to go with damage coefficients, since that is what is actually applied.

A 4x shatter (3 illusions + melee range) puts a total of 3.22 damage coefficient, usually comboed with 2 hits of GS 2 (.7 * 2 = 1.4) and all of GS4 is another .92

That totals to like 5.54 or so. If you use mantra of pain you can add another 1.33 (WOW that's high) and F2 is .38. So we'll call it 7.25 total coefficient.

Plasma beam is 2.75 (full channel), but you don't really need the full thing. You just need a few pulses of it to trigger FA twice. Start in Fire Earth, start combat with Arcane Wave (instant cast, 1.4 ratio).

You have now started your damage, next is a swap to Air Fire, getting you Lightning Strike (1.2) and Electric Discharge (.7), for 1.9. You also start Plasma Beam here, hopefully getting a crit on Electric Discharge or Lightning Strike so you can swap to air again. It has probably been about 1 second (so you've only done 2.2 out of 2.75 for Plasma Beam), but you can swap to Air the second time getting you another Electric Discharge AND another Arcane Wave (1 second between uses). If you're feeling REALLY gutsy, you can Lightning Flash (1.5) while using Arcane Brilliance (.5) to add more (channel brilliance and lightning flash mid cast onto the enemy, use arcane wave since it also doesn't interrupt).

So after 1 second, you get 1.4 + 1.2 + .7 + 2.2 + .7 + 1.4 = 7.6 without being super bravery. That's just a bit higher than the Mesmer shatter combo.

Naturally, this wombo combo is probably the hardest thing in the game to execute, as a lot of buttons go into it, but the thing is, NONE of the skills interrupt Plasma Beam. You don't need any other weapon skill to do all of that burst. In 1 second. With the largest Ferocity bonus in the game. Just mash 2 and F3 to swap to air, and mash Arcanes.

It isn't instant kill backstab or mesmer bogus, but that's a lotta damage. The only saving grace is you have to all in, and 0 cast times for the most part, you can just bait out defenses with the rest of scepter's kit (which hits really hard if you're just using other stuff + FA).

The upside is you've used all utilities you have to do that. So you're probably going to die to Trailblazer Scourge, or Trailblazer Mesmer (the evilest thing in tyria). Any non-Thief (he stealthed before hand) or non-Mesmer (he stealthed or negated with blurred frenzy or distortion rip) power build is basically deleted if they don't have an auto Endure Pain type of skill.

Pros: Highest Burst Potential thanks to highest ferocity in game + good coefficients. No telegraphs.Cons: No stealth, uses all utilities, no defenses after Focus 5 is up. No Condi clears. Low Mobility.

Definitely a strong (but not thief/mesmer broken) burst class.Note that only Weaver can do this, Core/Tempest loses a huge amount of ferocity and cannot double air attune.

[steki.1478]

@Kiroshima.8497 said:Quick maffs

Pros: Highest Burst Potential thanks to highest ferocity in game + good coefficients. No telegraphs.Cons: No stealth, uses all utilities, no defenses after Focus 5 is up. No Condi clears. Low Mobility.

It's still a lot more skills casted than mesmer or thief. You didnt even count GS 3 on mesmer, and even without it, damage coefficient is very close to weaver. Even though mesmer has low base ferocity, it has traits which improve crit damage, as well as shatter damage, which you cant find in skill tooltip. And while ele can barely apply 3 stacks of vuln on target during burst combo, mesmer can apply at least 10 (not sure about thief) which, again, is improved by traits. Mantras and starting shatter are also instant casts (so is backstab) the only telegraph there are illusions, but they stay there for like half second. Both mesmer and thief can engage from very high range (stealth+blinks/gapclosers) while ele is on around 1k.

Ele still has no stealth when starting combo, while thief and mesmer can use it both offensively and defensively - it's enough of a telegraph. There's literally no reason why 6+ chained skills shouldnt do high damage unlike rev hammer 2, thief backstab, or even mesmer shatter or warr eviscerate (who are all only 1 button press) under certain, easily accessible situations - stealth/three clones/adrenaline. Not to mention that all those skills have less than 10 seconds cooldown (shatter is 12, but with chrono alacrity, it can get lower). All of them (not sure about thief actually) have an easy way of getting lots of might too, which is free damage, ele gets like 5-6 stacks on average. On top of that, scepter on ele is almost exclusively a single target weapon.

It's somewhat similar to rifle deadeye. Both require certain type of preparation (DE needs malice buffs, weaver requires lots of skills and crit procs), both are very vulnerable if their 1-shot fails, and you can escape from both using any build with more than 1 gap closer, which is pretty much every popular build nowadays. But then you still have factor of stealth which ele doesnt have.

[Kiroshima.8497]

I will point out that the Crit Damage boosts on Mesmer do not even come close to narrowing the gap between Weaver and Mesmer, as it adds at most 25% (which is 375 ferocity effectively, lets you hit about 1k ferocity).

The shatter skill boost however does hit 30% which is quite significant.

This increases the 3.22 to 4.18 (increase of .96), and Frustration goes from .38 to .494 (increase of .114). The only other straight damage modifier from traits will be Phantasmal Berserker which goes up to 1.01 instead of .92 (none the other skills are Illusions). This results in 8.114, which is still total bogus, but easy to calculate.

So yeah, Mesmer is stupid.

Revenant Hammer 2 is almost a non-existent problem in terms of roaming since basically all roaming classes have ample reaction time to negate or dodge the hit, then close the gap and instantly delete the Revenant (hammer rev in roaming rip), as it takes 3/4 of a second to do a 2.25 ratio at max range only. Obviously, the larger the zergs, the more impossible it is to see, so it only really becomes a problem then. Could have an easy adjustment by reducing the damage of successive Hammer 2 hits (similar to how Mesmer shatter does less per additional illusion).

Thief Backstab is dumb, since you will never know when it's going to hit. The thief controls the pacing of the fight, your only choice is to run. Thief also has far superior damage modifiers (Trickery, Malice, Bounding Dodger). It is still tough to instant kill without signet of power or being in Critical Arts, but it comes with really inexpensive inititation thanks to steal, and stops boons from applying (stealing aegis lets you run if your backstab fails). A Mug Backstab combo from stealth is a 4.0 power ratio from invisibility, so there's no way to avoid it without reading the thief's mind.

Something important is that Ele doesn't use 6 chained skills, there's no order or purpose, because Ele is abusing a Refresh Mechanic and Ammo Mechanic. You literally just dump all your buttons, not carefully plan out 1 second of skills to be used carefully. Your damage is available at any range within 900 thanks to scepter range and Lightning Flash. Sure, you can SEE the Ele, but you don't control when his burst will arrive, so any On Reaction defenses are automatically useless. You only can use auto invulns/endure pains/whatever.

All of these burst damage roles (minus roaming Rev) are completely bonkers and cut out any semblance of counterplay. It just so happens that one (Fresh Weaver) actually makes to die if you fail, while the other 2 let you run away.

[DeceiverX.8361]

For someone saying that thief is broken and doing out math by coefficients, the thief's burst comes out at 2.4 for D/P via backstab or 3.65 for CnD + Backstab D/D, lol.

Outplaying a thief is really easy once you're familiar with the class. Even on my reaper, which struggles against pretty much everything in the game, I can crush 95% of thieves out there in a 1v1, and it honestly used to be easier before they changed reaper these past two "balance" patches despite massively buffing its damage. It only starts becoming difficult with particularly skilled Daredevils building offtank or condi faceroll with Dire/TB gear because you can't counterburst them. Generally, though, thieves are extremely easy to out-play once you know how to handle the class.

There's so much more that goes into defining a class being a strong duelist than just numbers. What makes FA good isn't the raw damage.

[Kiroshima.8497]

Outplaying bad/casual roamer thieves is easy on anything. The problem comes from high level thieves where you have 0 control over the fight.

Additionally, Thief has great follow up from auto attacks, as they have .8 and .85 coefficients (on dagger) with very little execution time, as well as Mug for an extra 1.5. Presuming that 1 second is the general allowed burst time, the thief can easily fit in Mug, Backstab (start first, then steal mid cast), and 2 parts of the auto chain. This puts them up to 2.4+1.5+1.65 = 5.55, which is quite high for 0 resources used. It also appears from literally no where thus granting it the strongest battlefield control. Using Cloak and Dagger is basically a damage loss compared to 2 parts of the auto chain (1.65, 0 initiative cost).

And all you have used is some initiative (stack stealth for a bit) and Steal.

Mesmer is the most egregious in terms of burst potential, but it does need to use blink and mantra of pain to optimize damage, leaving no room for defensive utilities. Of course, mesmer has Sword 2 and Distortion making it busted (even before mirage is applied).

Ele has to commit literally everything to do hit that burst.

So yeah, there's definitely more than just the damage.

How easily is it applied, what risks do you take to apply it, how long does your opponent get (equal skill) to react to your burst, how many resources do you commit to apply the burst, etc.

But in the end, Fresh Weaver, Backstab Thief, and Power Mesmer all have overwhelming damage output relative to what they spend and how much counterplay the opponent receives. Naturally, Fresh Weaver is the WEAKEST of these groups, having 0 battlefield control and can only all in the opponent. Thief has the lowest raw output, but commits pretty much nothing, and can strike from any time. Mesmer has the most cards, having access to extremely high damage ratios, Distortion, multiple interrupts, stealth, and mobility options.

So yeah, I hate all of these but I hate Mesmer the most xD.

[Wolfric.9380]

ähm. I regualry avoid and dodge or outmanever weavers with my tempest using marshall (so low HP). FA with low defence then dies and others are endless stalling .... So unless i am shot in the back i won´t die. It´s nearly the same as mesmer or thiefs. Nearly because they have stealth and better disengage ... Needless to say i also don´t die to power mesmer easily. I mostly die to confusion spam or ridicoulous boon corrupt ... A condi bomb can kill me faster then a power burst even with cleanses. The by far strongest class is mesmer with all his tools here....The key is battle awareness and protection ... Some time ago i dueld a FA weaver for testing. He barely landed his plasma beam. When talking he said he could hardly attack due to the counter preassure i put on him and i dodged out his beams.

[cgMatt.5162]

You do all that damage but also risk taking that much damage on a much lower health pool.

[Relic.3847]

Im just so happy that the main oppinion about this build that it’s not comparable to the meta pvp builds, because it means that the developers won’t nerf it :D

The thing is: Im main Ele and Ele only since HOT release, this is the class I started the game with and the only one I can play (still could be much better tho) and I love this build and have little to 0 issue with it in spvp. Yes the stealth power shatter mesmer fck me up because all my burst goes to the clones with the auto-re-target bullsht, but with every other class I can play nice 1v1s most of the time.

I think this build relies on how You make Your enemy panic at the first burst or how You wait the perfect time to scratch a dodgy, invuln target while You have nearly infinite evade and many panic buttons + mobility. If You can’t kite or You find it noobish bad for You and play guardian.

If Your enemy knows this build very well it’s impossible to make them belive that You are a facetanking beast even after the first wave of your invuln and dodge goes off while you pressuring the target so heavily. If they manage to keep calm without using every panic skill they have, it can hurt. But even then, You can kite and do the mini burst every 3 second and keep up the pressure and CC till the perfect moment to release Your phoenix+blink combo offguard.

Love it, but it’s true that this is the one and only playable Elementalist build in Pvp, all the other combinations are just a fading shadow of the old ele builds.

[Mr Godlike.6098]

@Relic.3847 said:Im just so happy that the main oppinion about this build that it’s not comparable to the meta pvp builds, because it means that the developers won’t nerf it :D

The thing is: Im main Ele and Ele only since HOT release, this is the class I started the game with and the only one I can play (still could be much better tho) and I love this build and have little to 0 issue with it in spvp. Yes the stealth power shatter mesmer kitten me up because all my burst goes to the clones with the auto-re-target bullsht, but with every other class I can play nice 1v1s most of the time.

I think this build relies on how You make Your enemy panic at the first burst or how You wait the perfect time to scratch a dodgy, invuln target while You have nearly infinite evade and many panic buttons + mobility. If You can’t kite or You find it noobish bad for You and play guardian.

If Your enemy knows this build very well it’s impossible to make them belive that You are a facetanking beast even after the first wave of your invuln and dodge goes off while you pressuring the target so heavily. If they manage to keep calm without using every panic skill they have, it can hurt. But even then, You can kite and do the mini burst every 3 second and keep up the pressure and CC till the perfect moment to release Your phoenix+blink combo offguard.

Love it, but it’s true that this is the one and only playable Elementalist build in Pvp, all the other combinations are just a fading shadow of the old ele builds.

Ehem in next ballance patch is confirmed that core FA is Dead and fresh weaver will be...questionable.

[ScottBroChill.3254]

ive never used the one shot build, i think ive had it used against me. nerf that shit, we don't need it and I would gladly trade it for some versatility in terms of condi cleanse, defense, or just having a larger variety of cover condis to apply or whatever.