Open World Domination: Fire Weaver

[MarzAttakz.9608]

@Dognuts.4051 said:

@"AliamRationem.5172" said:I've been hearing from a lot of new/returning players who feel that weaver is too complicated and unforgiving to play. Well, I don't have a build that's going to make weaver less complicated. However, I do have a build that will let you conquer open world/story content with your weaver, using about the cheapest possible gear (dire exotic works great!), and with barely any knowledge or skill required!

First, the build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAw2lZwmYXMJmJOKXdvaA-zRRYcRDHHZQjlROJQmFgDzSVSbA-e

Now a video of the build in action against one of the more difficult HoT champions, Avatar of Balthazar. I manage to solo the boss in 50 seconds at 15.8k DPS, while never using an active heal, never rotating into water, and never dipping below 66% health!

Okay, that's great! It really shows the potential for this build in solo open world play! But maybe you aren't trying to bang out Chopin's etude op. 10 no. 4 every time you play your weaver? I get it. But it's okay! You can afford to take a lot of punishment with this build and you can deal a lot of damage without even using a rotation. Here's proof! I just pop all of my utilities and drop pyrovortex on this group of mordrem, then stand back and let them beat on me. Not even close!

If you love elementalist, but have struggled with weaver, you might give this build a try! And please feel free to offer up alternative builds, video, and discussion. There are many ways to play this class!

I apologize if I've missed the obvious, but does gw2skills.net not have template copying available?

There's a very little toggle at the left of the link field, bottom one looks like an Anet logo, if you click that it will give you the template code to copy, just look to the far left of the big orange "get quicklink" button.

[mizaru.1385]

@MarzAttakz.9608 said:I'm gonna say I've been skeptical of what you've been selling, but in all honesty that video above is impressive. I haven't gotten round to building a condi set for my light armor classes yet but it sure as hell is going to move up the priority list.

I tried his build as a new Weaver not knowing what my skills does and I was able to solo some Champs. And the good thing about his is the Dire set is very accessible and u just have to buy off a full exotic set of it and ur good to go.

[AliamRationem.5172]

@mizaru.1385 said:

@MarzAttakz.9608 said:I'm gonna say I've been skeptical of what you've been selling, but in all honesty that video above is impressive. I haven't gotten round to building a condi set for my light armor classes yet but it sure as hell is going to move up the priority list.

I tried his build as a new Weaver not knowing what my skills does and I was able to solo some Champs. And the good thing about his is the Dire set is very accessible and u just have to buy off a full exotic set of it and ur good to go.

Awesome! I'm glad it's working out for you even when you're new to it. Most recommended ele builds are so glassy you really have to know what you're doing to survive, but this build has excellent passive defense as well as active. Just the thing to learn a class as complex as weaver!

I also wanted to add for anyone else who might try this build, if you do find you need more sustain you can take stone resonance and the stance trait for a ton of barrier and some extra stability. You can see in my video of the VB boss trio meta solo I've dropped fire signet and glyph of elemental power in favor of stone resonance and twist of fate, giving me a ton of CC defense and barrier to survive taking on 3 champions at once!

[AshenOwl.2485]

I literally activated my forum account just to say, thank you for posting this! I'm a new player who was instantly drawn to Elementalist and Weaver, but as soon as I got into HoT content I started struggling and had difficulty finding a build that didn't get me killed. When I stumbled upon your build I thought it was too good to be true, but it's helped me get through content I was previously struggling with much easier! So, thanks a lot! :)

[AliamRationem.5172]

@tesnow.4721 said:I literally activated my forum account just to say, thank you for posting this! I'm a new player who was instantly drawn to Elementalist and Weaver, but as soon as I got into HoT content I started struggling and had difficulty finding a build that didn't get me killed. When I stumbled upon your build I thought it was too good to be true, but it's helped me get through content I was previously struggling with much easier! So, thanks a lot! :)

Wow! Fantastic! Really guys, I am so glad you're finding this helpful!

[Phoenix the One.4071]

I kust wanted to say thanks you :) I did not have all the stuff needed, but tried t out and I am bery happy with the results :)

[Einlanzer.1627]

So I'm trying out this build and I still find it significantly worse than even mediocre builds on literally every other class. I die constantly to small packs of regular mobs, two veterans, random adds, etc. And this doesn't happen to me even on on random classes I rarely play with crap gear and builds that i haven't looked at in two years.

Their attrition is absolutely atrocious. Elementalists are built like glass cannons when only the tempest is somewhat effective as a cannon.

Eles in general have the worst health, the worst armor, bad mitigation, average mobility, and roughly the same damage output as other classes distributed among far too many skills. I mean wtf is that? To make matters worse, you're expected to dance between affinities when each affinity has a particular specialization and 3/4 of them you won't be specc'd into, making them terrible. I.e. water over-emphasizing healing and therefore being useless for regular play.

To add insult to injury, the Weaver is designed as if it's supposed to function as a front line fighter without any notable method of doing so effectively unless they're being protected by other classes in a group. Which means it's the single most ineffective and frustrating class to play in solo PvE, which is a shame because it's one of the most thematically interesting.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

Weaver/ele can have the best mitigation in the entire game. Weaveself, protection (40% with tempest), earth lane, frost aura, Grinding stones, ... or even barriers, Stone resonance, lava skin, bolstered elements, runes of weaver ...You actually need to build for it, to anticipate, and press skills, it's not easy, it's not viable everywhere, but that's how you make the difference between young elementalists pressing skills randomly like they do with necro/reaper, but die by 2hko, and others elementalists who cram the class.Plus, if you die with a trailblazer/dire gear ... I don't know ...

[AliamRationem.5172]

@Einlanzer.1627 said:So I'm trying out this build and I still find it significantly worse than even mediocre builds on literally every other class. I die constantly to small packs of regular mobs, two veterans, random adds, etc. And this doesn't happen to me even on on random classes I rarely play with kitten gear and builds that i haven't looked at in two years.

Their attrition is absolutely atrocious. Elementalists are built like glass cannons when only the tempest is somewhat effective as a cannon.

Eles in general have the worst health, the worst armor, bad mitigation, average mobility, and roughly the same damage output as other classes distributed among far too many skills. I mean kitten is that? To make matters worse, you're expected to dance between affinities when each affinity has a particular specialization and 3/4 of them you won't be specc'd into, making them terrible. I.e. water over-emphasizing healing and therefore being useless for regular play.

To add insult to injury, the Weaver is designed as if it's supposed to function as a front line fighter without any notable method of doing so effectively unless they're being protected by other classes in a group. Which means it's the single most ineffective and frustrating class to play in solo PvE, which is a shame because it's one of the most thematically interesting.

Don't take this the wrong way, but you did watch the videos, right? Maybe any class can do this and 10x better/easier, but I have yet to find anything else like my balth or boss trio solos. Have you?

[Antony.5927]

It's pretty much the same build. Here are more or less the variants I am using at the moment.

PvE: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAw2lZwmYXMJmJOKXdvaA-zRRYcRDHHZQjlROJQmFgDzSVSbA-e

Hi, thank you for sharing your build and for your amazing videos. Now my Elementalist is about level 80 and I plan to taste your weaver build. I have a question. In Build Editor you have boots with +47 Condition Damage. I tried to find boots with +47 Condition Damage on Trading Post, but there are only +45 CD boots so where (how) can I get boots with +47 Condition Damage?

[AliamRationem.5172]

@"Antony.5927" said:

It's pretty much the same build. Here are more or less the variants I am using at the moment.

PvE:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAw2lZwmYXMJmJOKXdvaA-zRRYcRDHHZQjlROJQmFgDzSVSbA-e

Hi, thank you for sharing your build and for your amazing videos. Now my Elementalist is about level 80 and I plan to taste your weaver build. I have a question. In Build Editor you have boots with +47 Condition Damage. I tried to find boots with +47 Condition Damage on Trading Post, but there are only +45 CD boots so where (how) can I get boots with +47 Condition Damage?

I've selected ascended gear in the build editor, which has about 5% higher stats than the exotic gear available on the TP. But don't worry! The difference is negligible. It is much more important to practice until you get the flow and timing down. Once you feel comfortable with it, you could slap on blues and greens and still solo champions (although that would make a noticeable difference in damage output!).

Good luck! I hope the build is what you're looking for and do let us know how it's coming along.

Edit: Also, don't get too caught up in the specifics. For instance, if you find you need more sustain, swap out fire signet and/or glyph of elemental power for skills like Twist of Fate or Stone Resonance. You can see I've done this myself on particularly difficult encounters like my VB boss trio solo. You can also take traits like Bolstered Elements or Smothering Auras. The kit is there to defend against just about anything! It's just a matter of how much damage you want to give up for it.

So make sure to try different things. There is a ton of room with this build for experimentation and tweaking it to taste!

[DeanBB.4268]

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:So I'm trying out this build and I still find it significantly worse than even mediocre builds on literally every other class. I die constantly to small packs of regular mobs, two veterans, random adds, etc. And this doesn't happen to me even on on random classes I rarely play with kitten gear and builds that i haven't looked at in two years.

Their attrition is absolutely atrocious. Elementalists are built like glass cannons when only the tempest is somewhat effective as a cannon.

Eles in general have the worst health, the worst armor, bad mitigation, average mobility, and roughly the same damage output as other classes distributed among far too many skills. I mean kitten is that? To make matters worse, you're expected to dance between affinities when each affinity has a particular specialization and 3/4 of them you won't be specc'd into, making them terrible. I.e. water over-emphasizing healing and therefore being useless for regular play.

To add insult to injury, the Weaver is designed as if it's supposed to function as a front line fighter without any notable method of doing so effectively unless they're being protected by other classes in a group. Which means it's the single most ineffective and frustrating class to play in solo PvE, which is a shame because it's one of the most thematically interesting.

Don't take this the wrong way, but you did watch the videos, right? Maybe any class can do this and 10x better/easier, but I have yet to find anything else like my balth or boss trio solos. Have you?

Yeah, I'm doing fine with the build and haven't really played an elementalist for years and certainly haven't figured out the right way to play this. I haven't even finished unlocking the right Weaver traits. It is so different than anything else I play, and I'm finding it quite a refreshing change. Thanks for sharing it, AR!

[AliamRationem.5172]

@DeanBB.4268 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:So I'm trying out this build and I still find it significantly worse than even mediocre builds on literally every other class. I die constantly to small packs of regular mobs, two veterans, random adds, etc. And this doesn't happen to me even on on random classes I rarely play with kitten gear and builds that i haven't looked at in two years.

Their attrition is absolutely atrocious. Elementalists are built like glass cannons when only the tempest is somewhat effective as a cannon.

Eles in general have the worst health, the worst armor, bad mitigation, average mobility, and roughly the same damage output as other classes distributed among far too many skills. I mean kitten is that? To make matters worse, you're expected to dance between affinities when each affinity has a particular specialization and 3/4 of them you won't be specc'd into, making them terrible. I.e. water over-emphasizing healing and therefore being useless for regular play.

To add insult to injury, the Weaver is designed as if it's supposed to function as a front line fighter without any notable method of doing so effectively unless they're being protected by other classes in a group. Which means it's the single most ineffective and frustrating class to play in solo PvE, which is a shame because it's one of the most thematically interesting.

Don't take this the wrong way, but you did watch the videos, right? Maybe any class can do this and 10x better/easier, but I have yet to find anything else like my balth or boss trio solos. Have you?

Yeah, I'm doing fine with the build and haven't really played an elementalist for years and certainly haven't figured out the right way to play this. I haven't even finished unlocking the right Weaver traits. It is so different than anything else I play, and I'm finding it quite a refreshing change. Thanks for sharing it, AR!

Weaver is perhaps the most difficult class to get the hang of simply due to how unlike any other class it plays (even compared to ele/tempest!) and its massive skill set.

My build has a ton of passive defense, but if you're still struggling with sustain you should try the advice from my previous post regarding swapping out fire signet and/or glyph of elemental power for skills like twist of fate and stone resonance.

That's how I was able to handle 3 champions at once with a melee build in that boss trio video. Having 2 active and 1 passive stunbreak plus tons of barrier and stability makes it much easier to survive.

[AliamRationem.5172]

Fractals are not something I participate in much, being mostly a solo player. But I wanted to share this clip because I'm using my open world build here in an otherwise meta T4 fractal group and I'm able to perform adequately to bypass the mechanics of the fight.

There's often a lot of debate about the requirements for high end PvE content, with many players getting the impression that it's "Go meta or go home!" As this clip demonstrates, that is not the case. And in fact, if I shared the video of the rest of this embarrassment of a run (I did mention I am a bit of a fractal noob, right??) you'd see very clearly how much more important it is to know the mechanics and how to coordinate with your group than it is to run a meta build!

Not that I'm advising anyone to do this. Naturally, I would have done more damage if I had at least slapped on some damage gear! But it does show that you can manage just fine using this open world condi tank build even in T4 fractals running with meta comp and bypassing mechanics on boss fights with burst damage! I hit 40k pure condi DPS by the 4 second mark, averaging 32.5k DPS for the fight with a peak burn tick of nearly 38k! Not too shabby!

[Antony.5927]

Good luck! I hope the build is what you're looking for and do let us know how it's coming along.

I was 60-70 level when I have been read about this build. Then I boosted my Elementalist to 80 and get Dire gears. In WvW I got all hero points needed to train Weaver, so I unlock all traits. Now I do my last part of the story in central Tyria and it's going pretty easy. I like this build with its powerful condition damage. Sometimes in WvW I won duels :) It's a very interesting build. But I need more practice to play successfully and I like the process of learning this build.

[Katelynn.6593]

I want to try out weaver, but I've become very used to tempest and not wanting to fight in melee range. I like to play a profession/e-spec before I judge, but I'm not sure what the best approach will be that won't scare me away or give me a false impression of the spec. Your builds appear to be designed for people who chose weaver before tempest in their trait lines, so they at least have some passing familiarity as they prioritized learning weaver first. Is there a bridging build of sorts?

[steki.1478]

@Katelynn.6593 said:I want to try out weaver, but I've become very used to tempest and not wanting to fight in melee range. I like to play a profession/e-spec before I judge, but I'm not sure what the best approach will be that won't scare me away or give me a false impression of the spec. Your builds appear to be designed for people who chose weaver before tempest in their trait lines, so they at least have some passing familiarity as they prioritized learning weaver first. Is there a bridging build of sorts?

You can use literally the same build, but with tempest instead of weaver. In that case you'd mostly camp fire to do damage since attunning to anything else is a big dps loss.

[AliamRationem.5172]

@Katelynn.6593 said:I want to try out weaver, but I've become very used to tempest and not wanting to fight in melee range. I like to play a profession/e-spec before I judge, but I'm not sure what the best approach will be that won't scare me away or give me a false impression of the spec. Your builds appear to be designed for people who chose weaver before tempest in their trait lines, so they at least have some passing familiarity as they prioritized learning weaver first. Is there a bridging build of sorts?

It's not so much my build as it is the design of the specialization. I would say that weaver is one of the few elite specs that actually does what elite specs are supposed to do. It has a significant trade-off that alters the play style of the core spec to the point where it doesn't really feel like playing the same class at all. Compare to tempest, which feels just like playing core with some extra perks.

As steki.1478 notes, you can play condi tempest builds. Obviously, they won't have access to sword, but the bigger issue is like he says the inability to dual attune means your burn damage comes strictly from fire attunement. This results in a play style which is essentially the opposite of the fast-swapping of weaver. Where weaver has you rotating quickly through fire/x x/fire attunements to apply burning, tempest deals its damage in fire and does better if you stay there (or air, if you're power-based). It doesn't feel the same at all to me.

[Antony.5927]

AliamRationem.5172 can you explain your Control Options? In your videos, I can see that you use Q W and R for profession skills? But what do you use for moving forward? And what does mean S+Q on Earth Skill?

[AliamRationem.5172]

@Antony.5927 said:AliamRationem.5172 can you explain your Control Options? In your videos, I can see that you use Q W and R for profession skills? But what do you use for moving forward? And what does mean S+Q on Earth Skill?

ESDF rather than WASD for movement. S+Q = Shift+Q. The basic idea is having my keybinds close to my movement keys (i.e. not on the 6-0 side of the keyboard).

[AliamRationem.5172]

There was some recent discussion regarding the difficulties many players have with this story boss and I recorded this demo to show the easiest way to handle the fight. As is the case with many bosses, the breakbar is the critical mechanic and more damage means fewer breakbars. Break & Burn!

[AliamRationem.5172]

A little fun on my favorite map!

[Virtuality.8351]

just coming here to say that the videos are quite a joy to watch. please keep on updating <3

[AliamRationem.5172]

@Virtuality.8351 said:just coming here to say that the videos are quite a joy to watch. please keep on updating <3

Thanks much! I will keep it coming!

[AliamRationem.5172]

I've recently become interested in recording demonstrations of story bosses which give a lot of players trouble. I recently did the Eater of Souls and this time I'm sharing a video of Confessor Caudecus. I think this fight mostly gives players trouble because of the tight space and lots of visual and auditory noise. But there is a bit of a DPS requirement as well.

I've generated enough damage with my build here to avoid a second shield phase, but if you take too long that will happen. The real danger, however, is that if you take even longer a jade construct will spawn in the room with you! These guys love to CC and on top of all those explosive circles, this can make the fight a lot more dangerous! Be sure to bring enough damage to take this guy down before that happens!