Grieving Build

[ChampionMasquerade.5283]

Is the Grieving prefix good for an Elementalist? Or would something like Spearmarshal’s or Marauder’s be better?

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

It will never be better than Berserker or Vipere but it works okai for OW but also fractal (Worked ? They have nerfed burning from traits and skills, I haven't tried since years)

 

For fractals :

You need a mix, because you also want the max precision to benefit from ferocity / air.

I don't remember with accuracy but something like that (you earn 10~12% precision with agony resistance and potions in fractals)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAwilJwkYUsLmJOqKrvKA-zRZYmBhyGurioBCjqCoLBcWmUE-e

Edit* I forgot the sigil in the stat, so you need more marauder actually for 100% precision

Weaver prowess gives +20% condition duration. So builds with sigil of smoldering are a bit of mistake, as they lose 10% and may be more again with the expertise food etc. So I think the best is some vipere + sigil of bursting.

The food 15% burning duration could be an option too.

 

Between runes of Balthazar or runes of the Flame legion ... it's near the same actually. It also depends of the crystal/sharpen stone

Mine is Bhaltazar because it's stronger for OW.

 

[Auburner.6945]

DPS-wise, regardless the game mode, pZerk and cViper's would always be the best options.

 

Sustainability then; comes at the cost of DPS thru increasing active or passive defense, however, this limits the game modes you can join. For example, Trailblazer's/Dire cWeaver is super powerful for open world/dungeons but it's not ever a pick for raids, and is not a recommendation for fractals. Same goes for Marshal's but it's sustain comes in more active defense than the aforementioned stats.

 

To answer the question, Grieving requires rune/sigils modification to achieve certain condition durations and is still not enough. Since condi-wise, weaver doesn't only focus on Burning, but also Bleeding; which contributes to a rough 25-30% of the total condition damage output. Power-wise, it would lack the precision for enough crit hits, which would also require build modifications leading to further DPS loss.

 

Regarding the burst potential, pZerk > Grieving hybrid (cuz of power stats) > cViper's. Viability then pivots around which game-mode you'll be picking Grieving stats for.

 

Grieving stats were supposed to be smth that fits Weaver, but it never really worked how ANet intended it.

[Noodle Ant.1605]

This is from pre-patch and is outdated, but how I like to describe it:

- Take a condi (viper) weaver build: 60% burning, 20% bleed, 20% power (just super rough figures)

- Hybrid (grieving) does *almost* the same dps as condi but replaces bleeding with power dmg. Has less condi dmg which is compensated a bit by extra power dmg, so you get a nice 50/50 split between burning and power

 

So (at pre-patch) you had hybrid > power and roughly the same as condi (benchwise). However, *in practice,* hybrid appears to inherit *a lot of the negative attributes* from both:

- Hybrid attempts to use a Weave Self opener, meaning it has a condi ramp-up. It turns out its burst is actually worse than condi (which in turn is worse than power)

- Hybrid uses Fresh Air in conjunction with Weave Self, which creates an incredibly awkward opening rotation that probably beats condi in terms of ‘the hardest rotation’

- Hybrid doesn’t take Earth (and doesn’t normally rotate into it outside of Weave Self) unlike condi, leaving it to be extremely group reliant for survivability, same as power

- 50/50 split means that hybrid is lackluster on any pure power/condi fight, no point when you can easily switch to the corresponding build

- Zerker/viper stats are much more interchangeable across other classes; the only other spec that uses grieving is condi/hybrid FB (i.e. waste of an investment)

 

With an inferior burst and nothing special to hold over the condi build, hybrid is only sought out by special snowflakes or masochists and therefore rarely recommended. With the most recent changes, I doubt its position vs power/condi has gotten any better.

 

**tl;dr: grieving is basically the ‘in between’ of zerker/viper, but it practically holds no advantage over either option.**

[ChampionMasquerade.5283]

> @"Noodle Ant.1605" said:

> This is from pre-patch and is outdated, but how I like to describe it:

> - Take a condi (viper) weaver build: 60% burning, 20% bleed, 20% power (just super rough figures)

> - Hybrid (grieving) does *almost* the same dps as condi but replaces bleeding with power dmg. Has less condi dmg which is compensated a bit by extra power dmg, so you get a nice 50/50 split between burning and power

>

> So (at pre-patch) you had hybrid > power and roughly the same as condi (benchwise). However, *in practice,* hybrid appears to inherit *a lot of the negative attributes* from both:

> - Hybrid attempts to use a Weave Self opener, meaning it has a condi ramp-up. It turns out its burst is actually worse than condi (which in turn is worse than power)

> - Hybrid uses Fresh Air in conjunction with Weave Self, which creates an incredibly awkward opening rotation that probably beats condi in terms of ‘the hardest rotation’

> - Hybrid doesn’t take Earth (and doesn’t normally rotate into it outside of Weave Self) unlike condi, leaving it to be extremely group reliant for survivability, same as power

> - 50/50 split means that hybrid is lackluster on any pure power/condi fight, no point when you can easily switch to the corresponding build

> - Zerker/viper stats are much more interchangeable across other classes; the only other spec that uses grieving is condi/hybrid FB (i.e. waste of an investment)

>

> With an inferior burst and nothing special to hold over the condi build, hybrid is only sought out by special snowflakes or masochists and therefore rarely recommended. With the most recent changes, I doubt its position vs power/condi has gotten any better.

>

> **tl;dr: grieving is basically the ‘in between’ of zerker/viper, but it practically holds no advantage over either option.**

 

Do Beserker and Viper still work for an Tempest who has issues staying alive (I either don’t get knocked down or I get knocked down really fast)

[Noodle Ant.1605]

> @"ChampionMasquerade.5283" said:

> > @"Noodle Ant.1605" said:

> > This is from pre-patch and is outdated, but how I like to describe it:

> > - Take a condi (viper) weaver build: 60% burning, 20% bleed, 20% power (just super rough figures)

> > - Hybrid (grieving) does *almost* the same dps as condi but replaces bleeding with power dmg. Has less condi dmg which is compensated a bit by extra power dmg, so you get a nice 50/50 split between burning and power

> >

> > So (at pre-patch) you had hybrid > power and roughly the same as condi (benchwise). However, *in practice,* hybrid appears to inherit *a lot of the negative attributes* from both:

> > - Hybrid attempts to use a Weave Self opener, meaning it has a condi ramp-up. It turns out its burst is actually worse than condi (which in turn is worse than power)

> > - Hybrid uses Fresh Air in conjunction with Weave Self, which creates an incredibly awkward opening rotation that probably beats condi in terms of ‘the hardest rotation’

> > - Hybrid doesn’t take Earth (and doesn’t normally rotate into it outside of Weave Self) unlike condi, leaving it to be extremely group reliant for survivability, same as power

> > - 50/50 split means that hybrid is lackluster on any pure power/condi fight, no point when you can easily switch to the corresponding build

> > - Zerker/viper stats are much more interchangeable across other classes; the only other spec that uses grieving is condi/hybrid FB (i.e. waste of an investment)

> >

> > With an inferior burst and nothing special to hold over the condi build, hybrid is only sought out by special snowflakes or masochists and therefore rarely recommended. With the most recent changes, I doubt its position vs power/condi has gotten any better.

> >

> > **tl;dr: grieving is basically the ‘in between’ of zerker/viper, but it practically holds no advantage over either option.**

>

> Do Beserker and Viper still work for an Tempest who has issues staying alive (I either don’t get knocked down or I get knocked down really fast)

 

Zerk/viper (and in special circumstances grieving/sinister/rampager) are all ‘glass’ gear. They do not actually increase survivability at all; instead, it is used to kill enemies before they do too much harm to the user.

 

That being said, tempest has valid builds for both zerk and viper. Power (zerk) tempest is a popular choice for its ability to deal dmg outside of melee range, and bursty skills that effectively delete mobs without the need to press 5 different buttons. Condi (viper) tempest is more melee-oriented and less bursty, but is innately tankier than power, having access to more active mitigation skills and can self-generate a lot of useful boons (namely 25 might and protection).

Most players prefer power, but specifically for elementalist, I find myself playing condi more often.

 

‘Less glassy’ gear alternatives are marauders for power (extra hp safety net), and trailblazers for condi (turns you into a tank). Other, less effective but functional (and possibly strange) options also exist, such as carrion/rabid/dire/marshals, or even celestial.

 

P.S. In GW2, a significant portion of survivabilty comes a lot from knowing each of the encounters.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

Grieving Weaver has always been one of those mysteries. I've never actually seen anyone do a DPS test for one, so its PVE performance is an unknown. I'm not even sure if it should be built as a berserker with extra condi damage, or viper with extra power damage.

 

I'm assuming it was meant to be a WvW set. With Master's Fortitude, a Grieving build would get an additional 2960 health, which is more than any other combination of stats. The weapon skills for the ele are hybrid in nature, which generally means that either playstyle had to designate 2 weapon skills as no-goes because they wouldn't do the right type of damage. Grieving would essentially free up an elementalist to use whatever tactic or skill they wanted, because all of them would do good damage. Constantly applying both high condi pressure and high power pressure would exploit the holes in player's defenses, as well as their expectations. But again, information is scarce.

 

Personally I own three sets on my elementalist. Berserkers for PVE, Harriers for heals/buffing, and Marshalls for WvW. Though for a time, I had a Marauder set for WvW. As fun as experiments in Grievers would be, chances are it won't amount to much, and it would cost a lot of time and resources. I can only recommend it if you have money to blow.

[AliamRationem.5172]

> @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:

> Grieving Weaver has always been one of those mysteries. I've never actually seen anyone do a DPS test for one, so its PVE performance is an unknown. I'm not even sure if it should be built as a berserker with extra condi damage, or viper with extra power damage.

>

> I'm assuming it was meant to be a WvW set. With Master's Fortitude, a Grieving build would get an additional 2960 health, which is more than any other combination of stats. The weapon skills for the ele are hybrid in nature, which generally means that either playstyle had to designate 2 weapon skills as no-goes because they wouldn't do the right type of damage. Grieving would essentially free up an elementalist to use whatever tactic or skill they wanted, because all of them would do good damage. Constantly applying both high condi pressure and high power pressure would exploit the holes in player's defenses, as well as their expectations. But again, information is scarce.

>

> Personally I own three sets on my elementalist. Berserkers for PVE, Harriers for heals/buffing, and Marshalls for WvW. Though for a time, I had a Marauder set for WvW. As fun as experiments in Grievers would be, chances are it won't amount to much, and it would cost a lot of time and resources. I can only recommend it if you have money to blow.

 

Here's a sample video of grieving sword weaver using PvP rules. Check 0:56 for a good look at the burst capability. I do a brief rundown of the skills used and quick and dirty damage breakdown in the comments plus build link.

 

 

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

The issue with grieving set is the low precision (there is like +15% precision difference with sinister/berserker) who actually gives poor power damage despite the "high" power and ferocity, for PvE.

When you can raise +10% or more precision with your specs, signets etc, and you have fury, it's okaiish (reaper, ranger, guard, revenant) but for weaver it's meh.

You have a vitality conversion, and+10% against weakness, but this is gimmick, you've even lost the perma fury from fire. Plus they have nerfed all burning duration everywhere.

 

Grieving could be better for weaver if the 4 stats were at the same threshold so a slight precision increase or may be (max)power/precision (min)condi/ferocity

 

A hybrid weaver was playable in fractals, precisely with the precision bonus but you needed marauder to max. The burst was really good but dps went done slowly, it was okai for fractals and short fights/phases.

I'm not sure it's still current with all the nerf of burning and the slight power buff.

 

But if you want a Hybrid/condi that work everywhere (OW, Raids/fractals, pvp etc) you can also play condi FB and it's 10 times stronger and easier, you don't need someone to loop fury, weaknes etc for you. In fractals actually condi FB often surpass power dps in PUG because of the bosses' toughness with just a small delay in the burst. And it's broken for siren's reef, Deepstone, shattered observatory ...

[fuzzyp.6295]

Grieving is one of those PvP-oriented stat spreads. There are better options for PvE if thats what you're asking for. I run an aggressive grieving sword/dagger build in WvW and its pretty great at 1v1 and 1vXing as long as they aren't too crazily condi heavy or one shot builds. As long as you take Masters Fortitude you can usually get anywhere between 15-18k HP running grieving. The trick is finding out good defensive options to off set the squishiness. I think its a great stat for Weaver in WvW.