Weaver seems too strong.

[Yasi.9065]

VG -> Weaver top dps, but squishyGorse -> Weaver top dps, but needs insta ccSab -> Weaver good dps, but looses a lot when doing cannonsSloth -> Weaver top dps, finally a boss without a "but"Trio -> Weaver top dps, not that it mattersMatt -> Weaver no-no bossEscort -> Weaver top dps, but not on tower duty (most pugs havent realized that yet btw)KC -> Weaver top dps, thanks to one traitXera -> Weaver good dps, but needs chronos to pull and really only can shine when you skip lasersCairn -> Weaver good dps, but squishyMO -> Weaver good dps and brings cleaveSamarog -> Weaver top dps, too bad the squad will have to compensate the lack of ccDeimos -> Weaver good dps, but on cm tactic you have to move too much and on ranged tactic you loose dps overall because of lacking buffsDesmina -> Weaver bad dps and too much cleave, for me also a weaver no-no bossRiver -> Weaver too squishyStatues -> Weaver good dps, but then out of 3 statues, you dont care too much about dps on 2 of thoseDhuum -> Weaver good dps, but squishy

On every boss that I put down as weaver having good dps but at the same time being squishy, I only want good weaver players. And thats the crux. Yes, weaver can be played on nearly every boss, and a good player will be top dps with that, especially when he/she gets the group support they need.

However. Mirage, Holosmith, Dragonhunter/Firebrand, Renegade, Daredevil, Soulbeast... they arent too far behind, and they are way easier to incorporate into lfg groups. Be it because of the utility they can bring, or because they simply dont get downed as fast when someone fails something.

Except on 1-2 bosses, as long as the weaver isnt really good, that benchmark dps gap translates into max. 1-2k more boss dps. Most of the time though, its actually less dps because meteor get interrupted or fields/conjured weapons mis-placed.

[Linken.6345]

Id you portal 8 people up into the tower there is no tower duty other then the chronos

[BrokenGlass.9356]

@"Azantius.2976" said:The reason people think you just discovered the golem is you didn't bother to take your newly found amazing weaver into a raid. If you had you would have discovered you will do more damage on mirage at the very least on vg, sab (no cannons), sloth, matt, xera, cairn, sh, dhumm (meaning every hard fight where dps matters). The reason weaver is top on most charts is for reasons most people here will not be able to replicate.

Didn't know you have been watching my playing habits.

I have been raiding with my Weaver. This is part of my argument.

Maybe I'm just better at Weaver than others... But I didn't want to assume that.

As of a last night on escort, cairn, and vg I topped dps, while intoxicated and tired.

So....

I get the argument "Weaver is squishy and other classes bring more than dps, Weaver's damage should be high." and I agree. Maybe even highest. But the margin between it and the next closest is still too high.

I don't know if Weaver needs to come down... Or other need to go up. But Weaver is OP cheese atm. In this current meta.

[Feanor.2358]

If you were top dps on Cairn with a Weaver, then probably your other damage dealers weren't very good. Mirage easily bests Weaver there, and it's brain-dead easy to play.

[BrokenGlass.9356]

@Feanor.2358 said:If you were top dps on Cairn with a Weaver, then probably your other damage dealers weren't very good. Mirage easily bests Weaver there, and it's brain-dead easy to play.

See... I've played mesmer sense launch. And mirage is pretty awesome. I wouldn't call it brain-dead easy... The rotation isn't complex, but it is about focused attention and timing.

As for other dps being sub-par, that's possible but the other top players were close to my numbers.

My issue here, is that the players I was beating in dps, are good players. And I'm half assed at Weaver.

Like... If Weaver actually were as hard as everyone says it is, I'd concede the point. But it just isn't. It's just spamming a pattern as fast as possible. (unlike mirage which has no pattern, just pure reaction to your levels of endurance and weapons swaps.)

Secondly, the difficulty of play shouldn't be a balancing metric. Let alone an argument inside the balance discussion.

Balance in a raid setting, only, matters at a high level of play. So we should assume a perfect rotation at that level...

And considering my sloppy wrong stat Weaver rotation outdoes my fully ascended practiced rotation on other classes...

I could understand if it matched thier dps. But it shouldn't beat it. Where's the point in getting ascended when you top dps wearing vanilla stat crafted exotics?

That's pretty bad.

All. I'm saying is, if Weaver must be top dps, then in half gear, it shouldn't perform like a fully ascended dps toon of another class. I should have to fully ascend for it to pull ahead.

Also, MUCH less investment into the gear costs suggests that Weaver is also too easy to gear. Which can explain how many bad weavers there are. Not so many bad mirage after making a full set of ascended vipers.

[Feanor.2358]

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:If you were top dps on Cairn with a Weaver, then probably your other damage dealers weren't very good. Mirage easily bests Weaver there, and it's brain-dead easy to play.

See... I've played mesmer sense launch. And mirage is pretty awesome. I wouldn't call it brain-dead easy... The rotation isn't complex, but it is about focused attention and timing.

As for other dps being sub-par, that's possible but the other top players were close to my numbers.

My issue here, is that the player I was beating in dps, are good players. And I'm half assed at Weaver.

Like... If Weaver actually were as hard as everyone says it is, I'd concede the point. But it just isn't. It's just spamming a pattern as fast as possible. (unlike mirage which has no pattern, just pure reaction to your levels of endurance and weapons swaps.)

Actually just like Mirage, there are nuances to Weaver and adjusting your rotation to the specific needs. For instance, you don't want to Meteor Shower over a boss right before he goes invuln.

But more to the point, you can only follow your rotation if you're getting the proper support. No mechanics failed, excellent healing, proper aegis sharing, etc. You'll know how good a Weaver you are not when everything is smooth, you'll know it when everything is falling apart. And you'll understand why it is difficult. It's not the apm or the mechanical execution. It's maintaining that performance under pressure.

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:Secondly, the difficulty of play shouldn't be a balancing metric. Let along an argument inside the balance discussion.I strongly disagree. It has to be balancing metric, and an important one at that.

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:Balance in a raid setting, only, matters at a high level of play. So we should assume a perfect rotation at that level...Yea, no. You can only assume that if you're in a high-end raid guild. If you're in a more casual one, or pugging, such an assumption is highly unrealistic.

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:And considering my sloppy wrong stat Weaver rotation outdoes my fully ascended practiced rotation on other classes...

See above. You're judging by performance in what I can only assume were pretty good conditions, on an easy boss. That's not the full picture.

[Vulf.3098]

Ele gets nerfed pretty much every major balance patch for a reason.

[BrokenGlass.9356]

Well, in all fairness... I shouldn't have expected people to agree that anything is too strong.

I kicked the sacred cow of the meta.

I'm not calling for "nerf this skill, or buff that skill"

I'm just saying they need to either (or/both) bring ele down a peg, or everyone else up a peg.

I'm not saying everyone needs be even. Far from it. All I'm saying is, when the gold medalist makes the silver medalist look like he got his medal from the special Olympics.... It's time to give silver a hand, or bust gold for cheating.

We expect Michael Phelps to win. We don't expect him to completely obliterate and be drying off before everyone else's splash has fallen.

[dontlook.1823]

The whole complex rotation, only going to see those numbers if your good thing is another argument that is redundant and untrue. People have to realize how expensive it is to Min/Max a particular toon these days. Getting those +5Power infusions, which translate to three might stacks, is a pretty penny. Even the WvW one takes time and effort.

Most Elementalists who main the class will take the time to acquire all the odds and end to reach this damage potential but the majority of people are not. And further, a lot of people run Marauder trinkets to make up for the low health-pool as the OP stated.

What's more? The ElE can literally stand still for a 3rd of their rotation and still top out the DPS charts. Try it. Oh, and somehow DPS arguments always come down to raids and Kitty Golem benchmarks being unreliable. First, there are more game modes than raids. Fractals, Dungeons, OW... Here, you'll see how much more their power creep is in its current state. Second and last, DPS report, DPS report, DPS report, ElEs top out on nearly all of them.

No, No, NO... HOW DARE YOU OFFEND THAT KITTY. HE TAKES A BEATING.

yawn

[Mini Crinny.6190]

if Weaver was somewhat only just top or 2nd or third, there is no point in bringing weaver since all it brings is Dps.

[Nephalem.8921]

@dontlook.1823 said:The whole complex rotation, only going to see those numbers if your good thing is another argument that is redundant and untrue. People have to realize how expensive it is to Min/Max a particular toon these days. Getting those +5Power infusions, which translate to three might stacks, is a pretty penny. Even the WvW one takes time and effort.

Most Elementalists who main the class will take the time to acquire all the odds and end to reach this damage potential but the majority of people are not. And further, a lot of people run Marauder trinkets to make up for the low health-pool as the OP stated.

What's more? The ElE can literally stand still for a 3rd of their rotation and still top out the DPS charts. Try it. Oh, and somehow DPS arguments always come down to raids and Kitty Golem benchmarks being unreliable. First, there are more game modes than raids. Fractals, Dungeons, OW... Here, you'll see how much more their power creep is in its current state. Second and last, DPS report, DPS report, DPS report, ElEs top out on nearly all of them.

No, No, NO... HOW DARE YOU OFFEND THAT KITTY. HE TAKES A BEATING.

yawn

Ele is top only on big hitbox raid bosses.Nobody cares about dungeons anymore. Fractals just do so much things that benefit weaver dps.-> Weaver has a lot of damage on high cooldowns. Doesnt matter because gg resets them for the next fight.Almost all bosses have breakbars. They just die during one. Tempest defense, glyph of empowerment + weaver burst skyrockets dps numbers.

If they want to nerf weaver they should start with tempest defense. Or they could do anet things and do the same thing they did to scrapper.People would just run DHs and Holos in fractals. Actually that isn't even that much slower but way safer.

[Azantius.2976]

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:

@Azantius.2976 said:

As of a last night on escort, cairn, and vg I topped dps, while intoxicated and tired.

At this point, I'm almost convinced this is a troll post, but I will give it one more shot.Fresh air staff tempest is top dps on escort on trash (probably pretty close to necro). Should we use that as a benchmark that we need to nerf FA staff and necros again? Yes builds with lots of AOE and get big numbers on trash.

For cairn, if you had higher dps than any mirages, they were very bad mirages. A mirage has better survivability and significantly more damage on Cairn than weaver. I am really surprised as a mirage main you would use this as an example as this fight just says we should nerf mirages and condi thieves.

For VG, I can see getting highest dps, weaver is reasonably safe there but VG takes extra damage from power so you are only really competing with dh, holo, and mirage (due to confusion/torment).

If you really feel weaver is so good someone with minimal practice can be top dps, throw up some logs of the same fight on mirage (that you are an expert on) and weaver for some of the harder bosses like:Sab, Sloth, Matt, Xera, SH, Dhuum

[Subli.8217]

@Vulf.3098 said:Ele gets nerfed pretty much every major balance patch for a reason.

can we speed it up a little

[Zlater.6789]

Theres actually a lot of good and also passionate posts in this thread. There are a few things I'd like to throw into the mix though.

1. I think that weaver should be one of the highest dps, however I don't think anyone can justify a 40k+ benchmark.
2. Holosmith does and will comfortably out dps weaver on almost every encounter, while also bringing good cc and superior cleave. The trade off is that really Holosmith is undoubtedly MORE squishy that weaver, as unlike weaver it does not get more toughness, gains less barrier, has less group healing and will commit suicide every 90s if it has no inc healing.
3. The argument that mirage or thief is more defensive is fair, I would even support it and say they are stronger with bad alacrity because a lot of their dps is not alacrity or quickness dependant. But there is also the flip side that mirage and thief also have far worse recovery. Because they use their defensive resources for dps (heal, initiative and endurance) usually they can't do more than a single dodge when things go south.

Overall I would advocate lower dps, but as long as it is easier and can be executed more reliably during boss encounters, or if weaver is given more cc to compensate.

[ADTempys.6382]

Weaver is totally broken in fractals but in raids there are many boss where you don't want them,VG, Sabetha, Matthias, Cairn, Mursaat, SH.

What people don't realise is that weaver is fairly selfish while Holo will bring Pinpoint, vuln, CC, Renegade brings AP and is great to maintain vuln/alacrity on split phases.

Most of the times you take weavers in raids but you almost never fill all the DPS spots with them.

[AnariiUK.7409]

I feel as though Weaver could use a slight shave to its damage, most notably through tempest defence since that contributes to it being absolutely broken in fractals and at KC. Compared to other power classes (Holo/DH) it's only marginally ahead at most fights but lacks the CC/buffing capabilities of those classes. I don't agree that staff Weaver has a particularly difficult rotation; once you get used to it, it's arguably easier than most other classes just due to being a simple fixed rotation through fire-fire and earth-fire with the odd air thrown in every now and then. Ideally they should buff the weaker power classes (Necro, Soulbeast) up a little while nerfing Weaver/Holo/DH accordingly.

Mirage on the other hand isn't overpowered with the exception of Cairn and perhaps Matthias, however my biggest gripe with it is just the sheer volume of evades available. If anything I'd like to see it (and condi DD) nerfed with respect to the other condition builds that don't bring nearly as much survivability to the table. Either that or address the endurance regen food + energy sigil combo that gives Mirage such insane evasion uptime, while buffing its damage elsewhere. I should not be able to stand in well of profanes/storm clouds at Matthias and just evade through all of the damage while dealing 30k DPS.

[Faaris.8013]

@"Zlater.6789" said:

3. The argument that mirage or thief is more defensive is fair, I would even support it and say they are stronger with bad alacrity because a lot of their dps is not alacrity or quickness dependant. But there is also the flip side that mirage and thief also have far worse recovery. Because they use their defensive resources for dps (heal, initiative and endurance) usually they can't do more than a single dodge when things go south.

You are definitely not playing thief. Thief's damage greatly relies on quickness, since basically all damage comes from the weapon and not from skills. Also, a thief never runs out of dodges. If he does, a quick sigil of agility activation is enough to fill up endurance again, and if you really dodge around all the time (breaking your auto-attack constantly), you can always use staff #5 to keep dodging without endurance.

In my book, that doesn't make thief a defensive class. I would consider guardian much more defensive, because it really has skills that defend from taking damage. Thief either avoids damage by stepping aside or eats it.

[Indecision.4513]

Run a full clear on weaver, on all bosses, and come back with logs. If it’s as op as you say you should be top dps on all fights, right?

/s mode off

[Nephalem.8921]

@Raguel.9402 said:Run a full clear on weaver, on all bosses, and come back with logs. If it’s as op as you say you should be top dps on all fights, right?

/s mode off

That wouldn't be that hard actually if you pug raids. I was top dps at vg with condi renegade more than once.If they just nerf the modfiers outside of tempest defense nobody would ever want a weaver on a small hitbox.

[Vinceman.4572]

@Nephalem.8921 said:

@Raguel.9402 said:Run a full clear on weaver, on all bosses, and come back with logs. If it’s as op as you say you should be top dps on all fights, right?

/s mode off

That wouldn't be that hard actually if you pug raids. I was top dps at vg with condi renegade more than once.If they just nerf the modfiers outside of tempest defense nobody would ever want a weaver on a small hitbox.

It would be. In most of the pug raids ppl have problem with tempest/weaver if there are decent damage auras like on VG or Matthias. Even on Deimos I've seen so many elementalists player going down because they can't stand it. If you can handle that you're above the average raider in terms of skill level.

[CptAurellian.9537]

@Zlater.6789 said:Theres actually a lot of good and also passionate posts in this thread. There are a few things I'd like to throw into the mix though.

1. I think that weaver should be one of the highest dps, however I don't think anyone can justify a 40k+ benchmark.[...]Overall I would advocate lower dps, but as long as it is easier and can be executed more reliably during boss encounters, or if weaver is given more cc to compensate.

I agree with quite a lot here. The 45k, or imho rather the entire big hitbox thing, need to go. The same applies to Tempest Defense. In exchange, some CC and/or a simplified rotation that's easier to execute in situ would certainly be reasonable buffs. But the current concept of stellar damage (23% more damage on big hitboxes compared to the next contender), even combined with a rather high skill ceiling, is not healthy for the game.

[Daedraz.1650]

I don’t think weaver right now needs a nerf. I think they're in a perfect spot right now. Back when weavers were doing 60K dps benchmarks after PoF release... Yea that definitely needed to be nerfed to oblivion. Right now, in an actual raid scenario, weaver never outdpses its peers by a margin that is that significant (with the exception of KC because tempest defense is stupid). Not only is weaver the hardest class to play/master, it requires support carry to do good dps. Out of all the classes, weavers without a doubt suffer the most from having their rotations interrupted, which necessitates a good chrono that can distort/aegis share absolutely everything that can interrupt your rotation with distortion and SoI procs. I am a ranger main, but play my weaver from time to time. And I can definitely notice my dps suffering when I have a chrono who doesn't distort/aegis share stuff and I have to actually dodge things. If you look at raidar global stats for raid bosses, you don’t see that much of a dps gap on bosses with the exception of KC. In terms of the 99th/90th percentile logs, here are a few global boss dps breakdown for classes.

• VG: holo (19.9K/17.6K), weaver (19.4K/17.7K), mirage (18.5K/15.7K), dragon hunter (18K/16K), daredevil (17.7K/15.6K)
• Gors: weaver (22K/19K), mirage (20.1k/17.5K), daredevil (19K/17.4K), holo (18K/17K)
• Sabetha: mirage (24K/20.7K), scourge (22K/18K), holo (21.9K/19.3K), renegade (21.6K/19K), weaver (20.7K/19.1K)
• Cairn: mirage (32.2K/28.1K), daredevil (29.4K/25K), weaver (29.6K/23.3K)
• Mursaat Overseer: Daredevil (32.3K/28.6K), weaver (31.8K/28.7K), holosmith (30.8K/27.9K), mirage (30K/28.1K), renegade (28.7K/26.7K), soulbeast (27.6K/25.5K)
• Xera: renegade (17K/14K), holosmith (15.7K/14K), mirage (15.7K, 13.6K), weaver (14.2K/12.4K),

Even on bosses where Weaver excels at, the dps gap is usually not of significant proportions (except KC. Gap on samarog is large, but nowhere near as bad as KC).

• Slothasor: weaver (20.8K/17.4K), mirage (18.8K/16.5K), firebrand (17.8K/13.4K), holosmith (17.2K/14.6K), dragon hunter (16.9K/13.5K), renegade (16.6K/14.2K)
• Samarog: weaver (18K/15.4K), dragon hunter (13.5K/11,8K), mirage (13K/1.8K)
• Deimos: weaver (24K/18.5K), holo (21K/16.1K), scourge (19K/15.5K), mirage (18.6K, 15.2K)

[MagicMan.4586]

They deserve that DPS considering that they offer no support, no cc, low mobility, low sustain/survivability... basically, low in everything except on DPS (apparently that's your definition of "too strong"). So what's your point, nerf Staff Weaver DPS so it has nothing to offer anymore? I may be biased because I am a Weaver, but not bias enough cos I main sword and only switch to Staff (even tho I don't like it) under limited scenarios. Your opinion is invalid.

[FrostDraco.8306]

@Faaris.8013 said:

@"Zlater.6789" said:

3. The argument that mirage or thief is more defensive is fair, I would even support it and say they are stronger with bad alacrity because a lot of their dps is not alacrity or quickness dependant. But there is also the flip side that mirage and thief also have far worse recovery. Because they use their defensive resources for dps (heal, initiative and endurance) usually they can't do more than a single dodge when things go south.

You are definitely not playing thief. Thief's damage greatly relies on quickness, since basically all damage comes from the weapon and not from skills. Also, a thief never runs out of dodges. If he does, a quick sigil of agility activation is enough to fill up endurance again, and if you really dodge around all the time (breaking your auto-attack constantly), you can always use staff #5 to keep dodging without endurance.

The person was talking about condi theif, with doesnt use signet of agility.

In my book, that doesn't make thief a defensive class. I would consider guardian much more defensive, because it really has skills that defend from taking damage. Thief either avoids damage by stepping aside or eats it.

He never said that makes theif a defensive class, he said that makes theif BUILDS more defensive, as they combine an offensive tool with dodging, and have high endurance gain/usage or regen. If you need to side step to avoid damage as condi theif you are playing it wrong.

[ReaverKane.7598]

@Blood.5607 said:Weaver (tempest) have always been one of the strongest power DPS in the meta. For a class that has a high-skill cap in rotation deserves that spot in significant damage if executed, it also has one of the lowest HP pools to make up for it. Some classes are just meta, others arent exactly. Also Weaver just has a ton of pulsing AoE power damage.

Well, HP pools really should be revised imo, especially with specializations.Also Guardian and Thief suffer from the same HP problems (have the same base health as Ele) and don't do nearly as much DPS.I'm not saying it's OP as in nerf it, but surely its about time that someone can match Ele's dps.