Problems with Weaver

[TwilightSoul.9048]

Obviously not all problems can be considered facts, most things someone perceives as a problem is more opinion based so I'll try to split between the two.

(I've been playing around a lot with Staff Weaver in WvW and I tried some Scepter/Focus in PvE since Scepter/x FA Builds have been my favorite in PvE since FA was a thing. I haven't tried sword too much since I didn't like how it feels which is why I'll refrain from stating a opinion about it, I'm sure others will talk about it :) )

 

Actual Problems:

* **Autocast causes Problems with Dual Attunement** - I have Autocast on Air #4. When I'm attuned to Earth/Air I won't Autocast #4 Air Skill because I do not have Autocast on #4 Earth. But when I'm in Fire/Fire and switch to Air/Fire I will suddenly Auto Cast my Fire #4 (since I have Autocast on Air #4) And when I'm in Earth/Fire and switch to Air/Earth (remember I have Autocast on Air #4) I will suddenly cast Fire #4 even though I just switched to Air/Earth! Please fix auto cast keybinds to stick to their Elements no matter if they're on left or right hand!

* **Global Cooldown** - Like many others mentioned already, having so much cooldown on switching attunements is defying the purpose of the weaver. I think 4s to get to a different Attunement is okay (not perfect but I can live with that) But it should be shorter for any Attunements you're currently in. For example if I was in Fire/Fire and switch to Air/Fire the Cooldown on Earth & Water can be 4s but Fire & Air should have somewhere around 0.5s-1.5s CD but no more, switching Hands for example should be less effort then Attuning to a new Element (from Water/Earth to Earth/Water < Water/earth to Fire/Water)

* **Dual Attunement = Dual Traits** - The fact that beeing in x/Air doesn't grant any Air traits (No movement speed, no precision, why design a spec around the ability to wield two attunements if you only gain the benefit of one?) This is very counter intuitive, I was 100% certain that, when I'm in Earth/Air with Air traitline equipped I should have the Movement Speed passive, but I don't. Second Hand attunements could have their boni halved but having no effect at all is boring.

* **Less direct Damage** - Weaver traitlines are very very boring, we have 3 Traits that directly increase damage so there really aren't any interesting build decisions to be made in a PvE context and in WvW Tempest is almost always better unless you're roaming, then you could make an argument for Weaver. In Fractals/Raids, Staff Weaver is incredibly strong, that could be fixed by switching the flat damage traits to work only with Sword and add more interesting options for non-sword-users other then "do more damage and win the game". I like having to think about my build instead of just picking whatever increases damage. (Not a PvP Player here but I'm aware it's not like that in all game modes)

 

(I know people probably have different opinions about the aforementioned points but I tried to keep them as free as possible from my opinion and have incorporated things I've read in the forum from others)

 

Now for the more opinion based problems:

* **Dual Skill Cooldown** - The Cooldown of the Dual Skills should be slightly lower overall or probably better, be affected by traits that reduce cooldown for skills of a specific element, that CD reduction should not stack though or maybe if I'm in Fire/Water and have both CD reducing traits it should be 30% (20% + 10%) less CD for the Dual skill instead of 20% or 20% + 20%

* **More range for Piledriver** - (Air+Earth Dualskill) should have higher range, somewhere around 1600. I love the skill but it's really disappointing to watch your cannonball fly and just vanish right in front of your enemies face. It has a very long cast time but isn't really any more rewarding then a simple Fire Staff #2

* Not sure about this last point, maybe I just had some weird laggs but sometimes after the improved swiftness (40% movement speed instead of 33%) expired I would be a lot slower then normal speed until I buff swiftness again. As in, I'm not in combat, buff swiftness, am super fast, swiftness expires and I'm moving at in-combat-speed although I'm not in combat. I buff swiftness again, everything normal, after swiftness expires as well. Couldn't reproduce this though but it happened once or twice. As I said I'm not sure if this is a bug or just a well timed weird lagg on my side.

 

Feel free to add Problems you've experienced and discuss on how things could be handled better! :)

[Feanor.2358]

> @TwilightSoul.9048 said:> * **Less direct Damage** - Weaver traitlines are very very boring, we have 3 Traits that directly increase damage so there really aren't any interesting build decisions to be made in a PvE context and in WvW Tempest is almost always better unless you're roaming, then you could make an argument for Weaver. In Fractals/Raids, Staff Weaver is incredibly strong, that could be fixed by switching the flat damage traits to work only with Sword and add more interesting options for non-sword-users other then "do more damage and win the game". I like having to think about my build instead of just picking whatever increases damage. (Not a PvP Player here but I'm aware it's not like that in all game modes)

 

Limiting the damage traits to a non-damage weapon sure sounds like a brilliant idea. They are bland and boring, that much is true. But then, in the context of PvE, none of their alternatives is *any* good. Some extra hp which you don't need, some fancy cleanse you don't need either, it's all a bunch of pvp/duelling stuff. It will make Weaver a pvp and roaming-only class. It will be better to bring these traits more in line with general performance of the other classes, but I'd like to see the "support" Firebrand brought down in line first.

[Aether McLoud.1975]

> @TwilightSoul.9048 said:

> * **Global Cooldown** - Like many others mentioned already, having so much cooldown on switching attunements is defying the purpose of the weaver. I think 4s to get to a different Attunement is okay (not perfect but I can live with that) But it should be shorter for any Attunements you're currently in. For example if I was in Fire/Fire and switch to Air/Fire the Cooldown on Earth & Water can be 4s but Fire & Air should have somewhere around 0.5s-1.5s CD but no more, switching Hands for example should be less effort then Attuning to a new Element (from Water/Earth to Earth/Water < Water/earth to Fire/Water)

 

I can understand the need for a global cooldown as a kind of tradeoff for more attumnement dancing, but 4 seconds (3.5 with arcane) is a bit too long IMHO. I think 3 seconds without arcane, and 2 with arcane would be fine. I'd be okay with just the attunement you just attuned to having a lower cooldown (maybe 1.5 - 2 seconds) and global cd staying at 4 seconds, so you can fully attune a bit faster without Unravel (which IMHO is by far the worst GW skill ever designed, but that's another story). The only time when the 4 second cd is really a problem is when you want an offhand skill from another attunement, and being able to fully attune a bit faster would really help with that.

 

> * **Dual Attunement = Dual Traits** - The fact that beeing in x/Air doesn't grant any Air traits (No movement speed, no precision, why design a spec around the ability to wield two attunements if you only gain the benefit of one?) This is very counter intuitive, I was 100% certain that, when I'm in Earth/Air with Air traitline equipped I should have the Movement Speed passive, but I don't. Second Hand attunements could have their boni halved but having no effect at all is boring.

 

Yes it would be awesome if it worked like that but it would also be an absolute balance nightmare since suddenly when you have weaver equipped, half of the old traitline traits give double their bonuses. Which would inevitably lead to core ele traitlines being nerfed for weaver (and core ele already needs buffs, not nerfs). It's good (even if counter-intuitive) that they went this way IMHO.

[Azel.4786]

I will never tire of saying how bad the traits on the Weaver are - they need major changes.

 

Do not take for granted that: Elemental Pursuit, Master's Fortitude (seriously only gives you enough HP to take 1 extra Auto Attack), Bolstered Elements and Invigorating Strikes are simply useless and need major changes.

 

Woven Stride is also a subpar trait with its condi clear mechanic - not Grandmaster worthy - and is the only choice you might take if you are WvW roaming or PvPing. simply because of the abudance of condi

 

Elemental Refreshment (barrier application is terrible) and Elemental Polyphony (uninteresting and stats that are not enough to matter) are also very weak traits.

 

Traits need a serious rework, they follow the general Elementalist trait style of - no actual choice, you have 3 that are actually useful and the rest is only filler.

 

Other things that bother me on specific:

- Pyromancer's Puissance: Only works with Sword Auto third attack (you get nothing on the first 2 of the combo);

- Pile Driver is very unreliable to hit when you are in hill terrains (it disappears in the hill and doesn't do anything);

- Plasma Blast: Same thing as Pile Driver, plus it moves extremely slow and the guided direction is not very good (should just shot at the direction of a target).

- Gale Strike: Worse than Fire Grab to hit your enemy, you are stuck in animation to hit a target 130 in front of you and the slightest move to the side makes the attack miss. I don't think the cast time is unwarranted (it is a good burst set up skill), but it needs more reliability to hit (would suggest increase in the arc that the skill hits in front of you so that the enemy has to actually dodge and not just slightly side step it).

[TwilightSoul.9048]

> > * **Dual Attunement = Dual Traits** - The fact that beeing in x/Air doesn't grant any Air traits (No movement speed, no precision, why design a spec around the ability to wield two attunements if you only gain the benefit of one?) This is very counter intuitive, I was 100% certain that, when I'm in Earth/Air with Air traitline equipped I should have the Movement Speed passive, but I don't. Second Hand attunements could have their boni halved but having no effect at all is boring.

>

> Yes it would be awesome if it worked like that but it would also be an absolute balance nightmare since suddenly when you have weaver equipped, half of the old traitline traits give double their bonuses. Which would inevitably lead to core ele traitlines being nerfed for weaver (and core ele already needs buffs, not nerfs). It's good (even if counter-intuitive) that they went this way IMHO.

 

Well, they could reduce the values for the traits of the offhand element by 50%-75% so we still gain benefits of both elements but aren't entirely overpowered, right now the only benefit of dual attunements is the dual skill, nothing else. That can't possibly be how weaver is supposed to be..

[Feanor.2358]

Why not? Core skills are part of core ele, they were designed to work in a single element. See the summons for instance. Should they suddenly start summoning two weaker elementals? What happens with the active skill you get on the summon? What happens with it when one of the elementals die? It's not necessary. It doesn't change the gameplay of the class, it only adds minor flavor and it sounds like a lot of extra work. Not to mention in some cases it will end up being simply bad, as you'd need to juggle two elements to get the desired effect out of a glyph. Suppose you want to Sandstorm a group of mobs. To get the full effect you'd need to fully attune to Earth, meaning you need 4 extra seconds. Not only that, you'd need to get used to this new behavior, and get used to switching back and forth between the two if you happen to also play Tempest or core ele. No. It's way better to leave the core skills do what they've always done.

[TwilightSoul.9048]

We where talking about the traits, not the skills, Skills should stick to the Main Hand Elements for the exact reasons you mentioned. But traits are a different story imo

[Aether McLoud.1975]

Even if the offhand attunement would offer 25% of the trait bonus, that would still make core traits better with weaver than everything else - i.e. a balance nightmare. And do you *really* want for Anet to have *even worse* balancing?

 

Also there's stuff like Stoneheart. How should that work with double-attune? Only half crit immune if it's your offhand attunement? What's half crit immune?

 

No, the way they went with only mainhand attunement counting is probably the best compromise. In a perfect (gaming) world we'd get all the benefits of both attunements, and all traitlines would be perfectly balanced against that, but we're a *very far way* from that world, so the compromise works for me.

[TwilightSoul.9048]

As it stands Weaver is already a balancing nightmare. As for Stoneheart, it could reduce damage taken from critical hits by xx% (25% or probably better 10-15%)

My main Problem with Weaver is, that he is supposed to be flexible and adaptable but he feels more limiting then anything else and isn't really fun to play even though I love the core idea of weaver.

Of course it's hard to balance, it's an entirely new trait line with an entirely new mechanic. But to start the release of a new mechanic with a comrpomise sounds wrong to me.

[TwilightSoul.9048]

As it stands Weaver is already a balancing nightmare. As for Stoneheart, it could reduce damage taken from critical hits by xx% (25% or probably better 10-15%)

My main Problem with Weaver is, that he is supposed to be flexible and adaptable but he feels more limiting then anything else and isn't really fun to play even though I love the core idea of weaver.

Of course it's hard to balance, it's an entirely new trait line with an entirely new mechanic. But to start the release of a new mechanic with a comrpomise sounds wrong to me.

 

EDIT: Sorry for the double post, no idea how that happened...

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

No, this would be stupid and unnecessary for Weaver to have all of that, even if they got 50% effectiveness of the likes of Stoneheart and such. The Weaver traits are in need of rework on several, the GMs are ALL very poor and need to be changed and the Sword needs buffs and adjustments, barrier is meant to be our defense, well it needs to actually be a defense.

 

 

[juno.1840]

I've been playing the PoF story on both Weaver and Firebrand. On weaver, I ultimately settled on power-staff build since hybrid sword was not worth the effort it took to stay alive in melee range. Power staff should crank out the DPS but I noticed that the story fights take 2x as long compared to firebrand (1700 power, 700 condi dmg build).

 

I'm a bit disappointed that weaver is so difficult to use. I have to change attunements every 3-4 seconds to realize the various weaver benefits. Trying to get dual on skill 3 vs. pure attunement on skill 3 can be a chore. The reward to rapid switching is low. Honestly, my best rotation is to go from one full attunement to another full attunement, hitting the dual skill in the 4s window where I'm dual-attuned. With this approach, the dual skills are just fluff (cast in passing), instead of meaningful.

 

For WvW backline power staff, Weaver is definitely better than Tempest (since you're never really in range to benefit from overloads). However it's not really ground-breaking in any way and mostly feels like I'm working harder than I need to.

[Razor.6392]

The traits are quite bad and not creative at all.

 

Agreed with most points OP. Weaver could really benefit from 3sec cd between cooldowns and dual attunement bonus gaining, even if whatever effect is gained from the secondary element is half its duration.

 

Also air + earth dual skill on staff... why does that root you?

[Razor.6392]

> @"Aether McLoud.1975" said:

> Even if the offhand attunement would offer 25% of the trait bonus, that would still make core traits better with weaver than everything else - i.e. a balance nightmare. And do you *really* want for Anet to have *even worse* balancing?

>

> Also there's stuff like Stoneheart. How should that work with double-attune? Only half crit immune if it's your offhand attunement? What's half crit immune?

>

> No, the way they went with only mainhand attunement counting is probably the best compromise. In a perfect (gaming) world we'd get all the benefits of both attunements, and all traitlines would be perfectly balanced against that, but we're a *very far way* from that world, so the compromise works for me.

 

That's easy, make it so only minor traits work. That way elemental attunement, healing ripple, vuln and crit on more will work.

[lLobo.7960]

> @Razor.6392 said:

> > @"Aether McLoud.1975" said:

> > Even if the offhand attunement would offer 25% of the trait bonus, that would still make core traits better with weaver than everything else - i.e. a balance nightmare. And do you *really* want for Anet to have *even worse* balancing?

> >

> > Also there's stuff like Stoneheart. How should that work with double-attune? Only half crit immune if it's your offhand attunement? What's half crit immune?

> >

> > No, the way they went with only mainhand attunement counting is probably the best compromise. In a perfect (gaming) world we'd get all the benefits of both attunements, and all traitlines would be perfectly balanced against that, but we're a *very far way* from that world, so the compromise works for me.

>

> That's easy, make it so only minor traits work. That way elemental attunement, healing ripple, vuln and crit on more will work.

 

Those already work every time you go into the attunment, including double attune.

So if you are in X/X and go into air, then air again for air/air, you get 2 triggers of the discharge (air minor) and 2 swiftness (elemental attunement)

[stone cold.8609]

The dual attunement is a great concept, but in it's current form feels clunky in PvE. Making the global cool down reduced to 3 sec if attuning to different elements and reduced to 0 if you are attuning to the same element would go a long way to smoothing this out. This change, combined with an increase to the amount of the barrier, would go a long way to improving this spec.

[Razor.6392]

> @"stone cold.8609" said:

> The dual attunement is a great concept, but in it's current form feels clunky in PvE. Making the global cool down reduced to 3 sec if attuning to different elements and reduced to 0 if you are attuning to the same element would go a long way to smoothing this out. This change, combined with an increase to the amount of the barrier, would go a long way to improving this spec.

 

Not 0. Something from 0.5 to 1 (or whatever amount it is that we have on normal ele)

[Conqueror.3682]

We should make some feedback thread about weaver problems.

 

After finishing the story i noticed many thing that can be improved, specially sword skills (because i REALLY want to use sword)

 

So i will tell them in order.

* Autoattack chains are only powerfull if you finish them, but also are slow to complete them, also, i feel the need of quickness in this part because my chain can be interrupted by doging an attack or making another rotation.

* Water sword skills are bad, i dont see reason to use water autoattack ever, heal is too low and damage is too low, the unique situation were i attune into water is to complete weave self and use riptide, but then, im stuck in 4 or 2 seconds by using a bad autoattack.

* Gale strike is a good skill except for 1 problem, its melee range make it dificult to use when you want to land a CC in someone, i would give this skill more range to make it effective in what is supossed to do.

* Rust frenzy is an exceptional skill, good bleedings, good damage, there is one single problem, it gets interrupted if i move, it feels clunky to use with al the weaver movement mechanics and swordancing.

* Acuatic stance needs to be instant cast, casting time interrupts all the rotation to get a heal, also, this kind of heal is bigger than the rest of our heal skills but it heals over time while we are fighting.

* Unravel needs to be as a F5 key, but in the future it will not be used in PvE because there will be a well done rotation that will do high dps.

 

In general autoattacks are good only if you finish the chain, but also sword attacks are slow and make you vulnerable, really these chains dont combine well with weaver. But sword skills make good combos with primordial stance, like this has been my main source of damage, this and weave self with the 20% extra condition damage.

 

At least this i can adress but im sure that there can be some improvements in the specialization talents too.