Guild Wars 2

I really want to play sword, but it really is so unrewarding for the moment

Edit: in PvP perspective. It should be fine in PvE, though still lacking compared to dagger or scepter.

I fell to mid gold 3, trying build variations & stuff, but I quickly got back 150 mmr by just winning 3 matches and log off for the past few days. I think I’m not made to push my luck too much. Now I just do 3 matches/3 wins/day.

Watching you play made me smile I believe PvP would be much more popular if people could loosen their ***es a bit.

I run hybrid power/condi Fire/Air/Tempest for PvE content.

Can’t survive without water in PvP. Water traitline could be baseline at this point.

Salty people are just being childish. There’s no need to mind the kids. Just let them drown in their own tears and suffocate in their screamings. Next match please.

Problem with ele is you rely on boon application to remove condi (regen if traited), or being struck (diamond skin). First is counterable with boon conversion while the other only works for the few first hits.
That’s why i think condi removal on superspeed is a great idea since it can’t be stolen/converted/removed. I wonder why so many traits to remove movement impairing conditions. At least make torment a movement impairing condition. And all the others since you can’t run at full speed when you have a condition on you.

It’s a pity to play weaver without a sword… Aside from dual attuning, that’s the charm of the spec.

Knockback on eruption makes sense too. That will never happen, but one can dream. I like the weakness/finisher on earth AA though, it’s good against condi builds with cleansing water and guard light fields.

Also, no protection in weapon skills/utilities/traits. So you’d still have to run defensive lines to make the squishiest low dmg melee class work. Again, sacrifice dps for survivability.
Maybe add a trait that increases barrier effectiveness? Twice duration/hp ? Not even sure that would be enough.
Should be fine as is in pve though.

Air AA could just stack up if you have only one target. Or at least bounce back at you before going back to target. Maybe could add an effect when bouncing back at you, like making the second projectile hits twice faster…

It’s kinda sad staff dps only works on stationnary large hitboxes and packed mob crowds. Sure it can do some damage in pvp, but it is too spread out to be really menacing. What staff lacks is single target reliable damage. Maybe other weapons too. The good thing is most people don’t really bother dodging staff skills, which helps you do some damage here and there.

I hope sword will get auto dps increased and cast time/animations decreased, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Working as intended.

Because staff 20 skills are all AoE/multihit (except stoning, but it’s a finisher) so they balanced damage accordingly. They forgot ennemies in pvp dont sit on them.
More skills + More AoE => Less Damage + Longer CDs/animations/aftercasts + More pianoing (balance team logic)

Still, it is the best support weapon when your teammates don’t run away from your AoEs.

The only thing Arcane is lacking is condi removal. I’d like something like “Arcane Dispell” that would remove specific conditions when attuning to a specific element. It could replace Arcane precision, or renewing stamina or even Bountiful Power:
Fire: removes chill and bleeding (idea of cauterizing)
Water: removes burning and poison
Air: removes all movement imparing condition (chill, crippled, immob) and slow
Earth: removes confusion, torment, fear, vulnerability, weakness (idea of strenght of mind and body here)

Don’t know where to put blind, maybe in water.
Make the trait selfish.
Maybe 1s icd for each condition removed.

Other opinions would be welcome. But yeah, I’d go for the fastest way. If 2 people don’t have enough dgm output to down a druid, and far would take too long, if mid can hold a bit more (they were going down slowly meaning they did pretty well) you’d have better chance to burst the druid at home. Ennemy far would probably rotate mid to 4v4, and you would have a small window to decap far before Druid respawns to secure their home. Your team mates at home would have rotated mid even before the druid goes down, when the kill is almost secured. But if you can’t bring down a druid 3v1 in less than 5s with a thief, something is wrong with your team.

I’d +1 to kill the bunker at home, and let the two tryhard go 4v3 mid.

I guess we all need more cleanses. But then condi builds won’t be as effective so they’ll have to add more condies and covers. Rinse and repeat.

Remark: there is much more runes/sigils/traits/skills applying/enhencing condies than there is for cleansing. Fortunately we have Superior Rune of Water which has 25% chance removing a condi when hit every 30s. That’s the way it is, you’re supposed to die to condies. All comes to which side can time and cleanse the most efficiently while pressuring. The only issue is inbuilt defensive mechanism which also applies several condies at once, when the pressure is one-sided. But then, you should avoid 1v1 those kinds of builds if you can’t handle it.

Overall, it’s a team effort. Guard light fields are useful, yet so few people blast through it. Everyone should run a way to group cleanse. Even a thief can support by blasting some fields. But in soloq I find people don’t use teammates ‘skills enough. Best matches are when your team pays as much attention at teammates doings as ennemy team. That’s what I’m trying to do anyway. Learning to better sync with the team. It’s still hard in the heat of action and aoe spam, but it’s what differenciates a pro player from the everyday average player I suppose.

sephiroth.4217:

Opc.4718:

@sephiroth, why not just play ele then? For the same support role, you’d bring a LOT more to the table with an ele than a funky necro build that doesn’t do anything well. The necro’s one and only role is to boon corrupt and spam condis and it does it VERY well. For that reason alone, you see it used in most coordinated teams.

That build IS boon corruption.

I don’t play for higher leaderboards positions, I just play for fun. Challenges to me are fun, so using builds that require you to be skillful rather than the build carrying me is a lot more fun. It feels good when your team is alive because you played a menders necro well, or when you nuke a point continuously with marauder fire/air/temp ele (switch the roles up a bit, pic at bottom) The saves you can do with transfusion too are tide turning, teleporting downs off point and behind walls for easy rez.

I’m only gold but my rank builds that have me here are:
Menders Transfusion Necro
Marauder fire/air lightning rod Staff Ele
Diviner Shout Guard
Diviner Spirit Ranger
Wanderers/Sage trap/bleed stacking shortbow druid.
Menders I don’t know what build (bow of truth, protective shelter and healing ult signet——-somehow it works)
Sage burn/bleed D/D Ele
Menders Lightning Rod staff Ele if I lose 2 games in a row to get my 2 wins back.

Probably all considered useless but all fun to me in the end and with PoF coming, I’m sure none of this will matter anymore with all the new builds about to come out.

I really like your mentality, people forget to play for fun. I understand performance and wins are what is fun for some people, but trash talking and being toxic towards others who don’t run copy/paste meta builds even before the match starts is what ruins most games in my opinion. People are so sure they’ll lose they tend to make it happen to justify their ranting, even unconsciously. And you have to work twice harder to prove them wrong. Even if you carry/win, no words of apology whatsoever. No one dies at the end of the game, people should really chill out a bit. And stop being spoiled kids.

Also, I’d love to see skirts for men and pants for light class women. There is already too much gender conforming outfits/armors. And maybe prints. I’d love to have check prints garments. Or camo. Isn’t gw2 all about style&fashion? If we ever go back to Cantha, I’d love to see some Kendo pants or stuff like that <3

I’d increase plasma blast projectile speed by 200%. It’s a plasma blast, after all! It would take more ressources and energy to slow it like it is now.

Also Pile driver is good, but shouldn’t root you. If damage were to be increased 3 times maybe but not with current damage.

When I see Moonsoon I can’t help but thinking of Janna’s active Howling Gale, with a range/damage/knockup duration increased by the time spent charging it. (I wish we could float eerily instead of walk)

Pressure Blast I can’t remember it doing anything. But the name suggests an aoe knockback. Even wih minimal damage it would be great.

Lahar being an earth field would be great. I always wondered why we never had one. Also make it exclusive to eles. Otherwise, a poison field would be great too.

Pyroclastic blast could be GW1’s version of meteor.

Yup, did that a couple times in spvp too, when making ennemy team chase me to spawn gate ^^’

Power burst can be mitigated through armor, protection, blind, weakness, all of which bypassed by condi ticks. You can negate condi dmg by cleansing, but you’ll never have enough cleanse. Condi dmg can be mitigated through resistance, but all class do not have access to it, and it can be stolen/corrupted.

I think the best way to balance things out is to introduce a condi restistance stat. At 1000 you’d have maybe 33% dmg reduction. That would be an investment and you’d have to sacrifice something else for it.

Focus :
+ survivability
- mobility
- damage

Dagger
+ mobility
+ damage
- survivability

Considering the lack of mobility and gap closer for sword, i prefer dagger. Focus is good but you can’t catch anyone with it, rendering your sword useless. Focus is better with MH dagger or scepter.

But mist form → portal is nice

Jski.6180:

This from MyPuppy.8970 (i am so bad at quoiting)

Weaver-> Cleanse on superspeed (when fixed)
Water-> Cleanse on regeneration
Earth-> Cleanse when hit above 75% hp
Air-> Cleanse on interrupt?
Fire-> Cleanse on burn application?

Though i think clear on hitting some one who is burning is better.

I thought about that too. I also like Solori’s suggestion buffing underused utilities, avoiding builds stacking condiclears. I think it’s better balance wise. But i do hope they fix unravel hexes.

Jski.6180:

Sunshine.5014:

Xunleashed.5271:

Jski.6180:

Added though:
Stone Resonance should clear one condi ever Pulses. This will fill the lack of any real condi clear on the weave elite spec.

This will be nice to have but will not fill the requirement, not even close. The frequent condition application and the condition bursts in PvP/WvW require fast and frequent removals. A long cd skill with slow cleansing ticks doesn’t fix it.

I think you’re asking for too much. I think a cleanse per pulse is balanced. Not too weak and not too strong.

Your right. The problem is that we have to much on one line right now water line making it a must have line. If the condi clear was more spread out on the other lines water would not be a must have line as much. Clear on reg is ok for water line but it tends to be support only. Weaver should have a few clears on its line and skills to be viable with out water BUT lighting line fire line even earn and arcain line need a few more clears too. They can be done in different ways too. Earth right now is about taking hits for clears we can spread this out to the other lines such as giving air line a clear on crit fire would be an on burn or self burning effect for condi clear (when your on fire condis do not work on you other then burning lol) for weaver it could be clear on barrior application (that maybe to strong.)

My point is you should not get all your clear dmg etc.. from just one line or we will just have a new water line that all eles core tempest even weaver must run.

Weaver→ Cleanse on superspeed (when fixed)
Water→ Cleanse on regeneration
Earth→ Cleanse when hit above 75% hp
Air→ Cleanse on interrupt?
Fire→ Cleanse on burn application?

Has Lingering elements ever totaly worked?

Xunleashed.5271:

Kyon.9735:

The best solution they can do for Sword Weaver is to balance out the risk-reward playstyle of a pure melee spec which has been asked countless times.

They need to do 4 things:

1. Increase Sword DPS by a huge margin.
2. Increase barrier HP and improve decay timers.
3. Improve gap closer skills.
4. Improve condition cleanses on weaver trait line.

I see a lot of people complaining about the Weaver attunement CDs and not being able to use offhand skills on demand. However, that is the general design of a Weaver and should not be touched. The problem is that the current risks are far greater than the rewards.

DPS and Attunement CD: To simply put it, Elementalists have 20 weapon skills which dealt small~medium damage because these skills should be chained together by dancing through attunements. However, with the current Weaver design you are not able to reliably chain weapon skills due to attunement CD and each specific skill is abysmally weak as well. To justify the Attunement CDs and to compensate the loss of reliable skill chaining, skills should deal more damage than they currently do.

Barrier, Gap Closers, and Condition Cleanse: Sword Weaver is a pure melee spec. As it stands, it’s currently impossible to go toe to toe against condi Necros without going to a bunker build. I think I don’t need to explain further why improving these 3 are essential for build diversity.

Another point I’d like to make is that the Barrier design is absolutely terrible for Weaver. The current formula as per wiki is (Coefficient * Healing Power) + Base Value and it is also capped to 50% of the target’s max HP Link. If weaver is the “DPS spec” for Elementalists, it makes no sense that the formula would include Healing Power and be capped at 50% of maximum HP. This kind of mechanic just pushes weaver into another bunker spec which Elementalists already have through Tempest. I think the current formula is only good for Scourge.

My opinion: I love the general idea for the Weaver design but it is clearly lacking to be a real “DPS” spec. I’m very happy that they put several skills with evade frames. I hope they improve the spec by the time of the expansion’s release.

^this

Agreed, too.

Staff fire aa is around 1s cast time + ~1.5s travel time 1200 range hits 3 targets in 180 radius if i’m correct.
That’s 2.5s to hit, that’s already quite long.

Sword fire aa chain is 1/2+3/4+3/4= 2s at 130 range on 3 targets… 2 full seconds at close range, and self interruptable when you have to switch attunement (for preparing a burst/ for defence/ for combo / whatever your reason). I think the aa chain on all elements should be 1/4+1/2+1/2 at most. 1s the full chain would be ideal (1/4-1/4-1/2)

Buffing the sword skills and dual skills would be a good start. If the design is intended to sacrifice full attunement for powerful abilities, they need to be powerful. Or at least useful. Otherwise, the mechanics becomes a liability, and everyone screams for a F5 unravel which turns your weaver into a classic ele. What’s the point then?

So no, there is still work to do on weaver, but I don’t want a F5.

Glenstorm.4059:

I played mostly Sword/Dagger and Sword/Focus Weaver this weekend. Here are my impressions:

General

-Weaver as it stands is definitely not a pure Power spec. It does decent condi pressure though. I found Sage amulet to work best for myself, though I hope others can find more viable options. I know Phantaram tried a Mender’s build with some success. Deadshot looks like it has some potential, but I couldn’t make it work.

-The overall animations and look of the spec are great. The Sword, Dual Attack and Utilities are flashy and look powerful. The Elite skill looks good too.

-The biggest issue for me is the inability to have instant access to powerful defensive abilities like Swirling Winds and Obsidian Flesh. THAT SAID, I will for now chalk it up to a L2P issue on my part, since Weaver does provide evades on both Sword and Utilities (Twist of Fate.)

-Survivability needs help. Weaver cannot reliably survive condi bombs. Barrier in particular is lackluster. It requires speccing into Vitality and Healing Power (already limiting build diversity) and decays too early to be useful.

-Another problem I see with the Weaver is that one Utility skill (Primordial Stance) seems to do the bulk of its damage. PS itself is bugged (pulses 3 burn/sec when attuned to Fire and Earth, instead of 1 burn/sec.) It’s going to be weak when fixed, which is going to exacerbate the problem that our weapon skills don’t do all that much damage for a melee spec.

-I also fear that Weaver is still too reliant on Water/Arcane, hamstringing its build diversity. Especially with the crazy condis flying around now, Water is needed more than ever. And Arcane is indispensable for the Attunement swap cool down reduction and Evasive Arcana. I was hoping for more active defense to be added to Sword to help us justify specccing into Fire/Air/Earth, and the evades are a good start, but there simply isn’t enough condi removal to justify abandoning Water, and the class feels too clunky without Arcane.

Sword

-Sword auto-attacks are not good. They don’t do much damage and feel clunky. I think they should just have their cast times reduced/animations sped up. Another problem is that if you swap Attunements mid-AA chain, you reset the chain to the first attack. It’s clunky and annoying.

-Besides the auto-attacks, the Sword feels great to use. A lot of potential here. Needs more damage though!

-Dual attacks for the most part are great (though Staff and Scepter seem to have a few underwhelming Dual Attacks.) However, none of the Dual Attacks benefit from cooldown reduction traits. This needs to be rectified. Some skills like Flame Eruption and Gale Strike could be faster too. Lava Skin should really be instant-cast.

-I love the gap-closers, CC and evades on Sword! Been looking forward to this for ages. I so badly want to spec into Air for Lightning Rod, but am too scared to give up Water/Arcane

Utility Skills

-Primordial Stance is great! However, it’s going to be weak when its bug is fixed

-Twist of Fate is a good skill, and will be on my bar with Lightning Flash and PS.

-Unravel is just a waste of a Utility skill IMO. Once you get the hang of how Attunement swapping works with Weaver, you will almost never need to take this skill. I’d much rather see it reworked. Maybe condition removal or more CC?

Healing Skill

-No real opinion on this; I mainly used Signet of Restoration.

Elite Skill

-Should definitely be usable while moving. Stopping to cast this just cuts your momentum dead.

Traits

-Grandmaster tier needs work. IMO, there is only one good GM trait, Invigorating Strikes. Elements of Rage runs counter to the Weaver mechanic! It should reward dual-attuning; it feels more like a Tempest trait at the moment. Unravel Hexes is so pointless. It’s essentially another Lucid Singularity, which no one takes. It should remove all conditions (one condition per half second) when under the effects of Superspeed.

Overall, I love the Weaver, a lot more than I liked Tempest initially. I hope the issues get fixed; I really want it to be viable as a damage-dealing spec in PVP. It needs to be able to survive on the frontlines and/or have the capacity to do enough damage if people are going to play it.

I couldn’t agree more.

GCD is’nt really an issue from what i’ve played. It’s a tradeoff, i’m ok with that. We still can make nice combos, and with time and experience it will become more natural. I’m getting more comfortable with it anyway.

Sword:
My only concern is the aa damage and speed, lack of condi removal, and dual skill with too high cd for what they do. Only lava skin is fine, but should be instant cast. Rest is meh. An evade in fire2 would be great, or maybe just increase the leap distance to 600. Air2 is great. My favorite, I absolutely love it. Increase 450 to 600 would be perfect. Sword also lacks spike damage and burst, nothing really hard hitting, but I understand it was designed that way because of hybrid damage. The range of aa is also a concern because lack of gap closer, and since we don’t have weapon swap for kiting, it is sometimes hard to survive. Overall, it is really fun to play, but very difficult to “weave in and out” of the fights.

Focus offhand:
Offers superior survivability but feels clunky as most have already mentionned, because important skills are not accessible by the time you need them. No mobility skills, I find it annoying.

Dagger offhand:
Better dps, much better mobility, but lower survivability. So much more fun than focus.

Staff Offhand:
Please make it true!

Staff:
Dual skills are too slow and lack the condi damage needed for the spec. The skinny barrier brings nothing. Piledriver is fun but shouldn’t root you. In fact no skill should root you.

Overall, there is some improvement to make in dual attacks to make them somewhat threatening. Right now weavers are more or less free kills. In a DPS build anyway. We can output some nice damage, but that requires more risk & effort for lower results, and nothing to the party.

After playing it a while, I think If unravel hexes worked as stated –
meaning condiclear every 0.5s in superspeed, it would already be a lot more enjoyable. 600 leap on sword fire/air 2 and reduced cast times. We already have to deal with global cd, the skills should be near instant considering the risk involved.

But maybe it is that way because core trait lines are going to be buffed somehow?

My weaver would gladly trade barrier for some blocks.

No damage
No gap closer
No mobility
No sustain
No disengage
No support
No cleanse
No reactivity
No range
No projectile hate

High clunkiness
High squishiness
High efficiency against golems

My excitement about the spec vanished as fast as barrier.

Sword is awesome, aesthetically speaking. Rest is as other said. Low Damage, Low mobility, Low damage mitigation, Low condi mitigation. May work in PvE. Ate like 4.5k crits froms holosmith AA. I think ranger pets do more damage. But it’s maybe too early, somehow someone can make it work but i feel it would require 10 times more efforts and pianoing than any other spec. At least it’s fun to play.

Same feeling so far

Wulf.5431:

Can anyone finally show what earth 3 for sword does?

It’s a multi hit, high damage, and something like 16 bleed stacks from what i’ve seen.

I have anticipated the spec, and bought Jormag’s breath some years ago. Of course I have crafted my appearance accordingly over the years to perfectly match it.

Lore wise, Elementalists were the only class to get their powers from all of the five gods. We were blessed and loved by all of them. We are their true heralds.

I really like Stab on earth swap, i hope it won’t be replaced by barrier. Core ele has already so few stab options. But if it’s a bonus i’m all in. Balance wise, i think they’re going to buff earthen blast. Maybe remove the negligible damage from swapping to earth to get a barrier instead.

I don’t mind conditions, since I always spec to have good cleansing uptime, but I agree condifarter builds are somewhat annoying when you eat every condis of the world with 2 attacks. Most annoying though is poison spam + condi covers + high direct damage, gotta get rid of it first before healing. That kind of build doesn’t even have to spec condi damage, and I can’t think of a way to remove poison specifically.

Every build has its drawbacks and counterplays, but what feels imbalanced is that not every class can afford the luxury to equip a dps amulet.

I have the feeling it’s gonna be “grants a barrier when you get an aura” sort of stuff on Earth trait line. Sounds uninspired, but wouldn’t be that bad.

I wish we had a halo above our head. That would fit my skin so well.

Hybrid dps staff. Just switching between Fire/Earth should deal lots of raw aoe damage+ neverending burning/bleeding with perma 25 might stacks +fury and damage modifiers on burning/bleeding targets.

I can’t wait to nuke Elona.

I haven’t read it on the patch note, but tooltip states regen only removes condi on allies. Any thoughts?

Could we use those bots for training mode, whenever you’re new to pvp, or wanna test a whimsical build?

I sometimes read in team chat: “ele how can you lose 1v1 against a necro?” Are we supposed to win everytime against a nec? Or is it just ignorance speaking?

Otherwise, condifarter builds war/rev/chrono can be a pain if i can’t kite properly.

No lag for me but connexion crashed once yesterday and once today during ranked. Just login back to apologize before leaving the match. Never had that issue before.