What changed to make bolt to the heart and fresh air equal?

[Axl.8924]

Anyone? i was asking in map chat and couldn't get a definite answer.

So now bow are equally acceptable choices? anyone know when this happened?

[Mini Crinny.6190]

They changed when Anet made the big trait shakeup just before HoT putting Bolt to the heart from a minor trait to a grandmaster but buffed it to by doing 20% damage when foe is below 50% rather than below 20%

[Axl.8924]

But how does that change fresh air being better now? I was told fresh air and bolt to the heart are equally good.

[Nutshel.7264]

fresh air burst more often, doing more consistent dps, bolt burts harder - easier to finish enemy. I would say fa is better due to amount of bullshit 30% hp auto safe traits

[Axl.8924]

So fresh air better for pve and bolt better for pvp then? sounds good .

[Arkaile.5604]

@Axl.8924

@Nutshel.7264 said:fresh air burst more often, doing more consistent dps, bolt burts harder - easier to finish enemy. I would say fa is better due to amount of kitten 30% hp auto safe traits

Nutshel is saying FA is better overall, regardless if you're in PvE or PvP. With regard to PvP (WvW small scale and solo stuff in my case), FA is nice because it's essentially another ranged attack at your disposal and it allows you to do more careful bursts, playing around anything with passive invulnerabilities such as warriors and engineers.

Something else to note about FA is that it allows a weaver to switch attunements more quickly. For instance, if you have to go into another attunement for an extra cc or an evade, you can then quickly switch back into air to return to dealing damage whereas a weaver using Bolt would have to wait another 4 seconds or so.

[steki.1478]

FA is good everywhere, bolt is only good on staff builds (any mode) or sword weaver in pve. Since FA offers higher burst, it's usually better than bolt in pve, but the difference is pretty small if target is tanky.