Build:Weaver - Staff Weaver

The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good

Focused on: Strike damage

Designed for: Open World and Open World General

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Easy

This build was last updated on August 11, 2025 and is up to date for the August 19, 2025 patch.

Overview

A long-ranged staff build for Weaver for open world. This build will mostly spam Lava Font and is easy to play.

Unfortunately, staff is not a high damage weapon, but it offers some nice healing and utility to compensate, and is fully ranged.

This build will work good enough for average open world and story content, but if you need to tackle harder challenges, consider other of our elementalist open world builds. Most of the damage of this build comes from AoE pulsing ground attacks, so this build can struggle against very mobile targets, and it lacks boon generation.

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Skill Bar

Staff

Utility

Skill Variants

Healing

We default to Glyph of Elemental Harmony as it provides strong burst healing and a boon based on attunement. Other alternatives are:

• Arcane Brilliance - weak heal by default, but is greatly increased if it strikes nearby enemies. Performs a blast finisher, and heals for more when doing so. Excellent synergy with water combo fields. (See: Guide:What are Combo Fields).
• Ether Renewal - very high healing and condition removal throughout its long channelling time. Great option for raw healing if you can afford the cast time.

Utility Skills

We default to:
Glyph of Storms provides ranged AoE damage, use it on Fire for consistent damage, or on Air for burst damage but a longer cooldown. Can be replaced.
Arcane Blast provides ranged burst damage. Can be replaced.
Arcane Shield is a stun break and blocks 3 attacks. Can be replaced.
We have chosen utility skills that compliment staff's ranged AoE damage, but feel free to replace them. Here are some alternatives:

• Arcane Wave - AoE damage and mobility.
• Arcane Echo - lets you cast Meteor Shower or any other weapon skill twice in a row, improving burst damage.
• Primordial Stance - great AoE damage but in melee range.
• Lightning Flash - mobility.
• Armor of Earth - stunbreak with Stability.
• Twist of Fate - stunbreak and dodge, and has two charges.
• Cleansing Fire - condition cleanse and stun break.
• Stone Resonance - stability and barrier with two charges.

Elite Skills

We default to Glyph of Elementals. Cast it on Fire for damage, on Water for support, healing and Knockback, on Air for a Stun, or on Earth for defense. If you don't like having a pet and/or would like more burst damage, replace it with Fiery Greatsword.

• Conjure Fiery Greatsword - provides high damage with skills 4 and 5, and mobility with skill 3.

Specializations

Trait Variants

• Power Overwhelming - when playing in groups that provide Might.
• Ferocious Winds + Stormsoul - when playing in groups that provide Fury.

Specialization variants

Arcane

Arcane can replace Air. This adds defense and utility at the cost of damage. Final Shielding has excellent synergy with the active skill of your elemental from Glyph of Elementals.

• Arcane Resurrection - Improves revive power in groups.
• Bountiful Power - Use this when playing in groups that give lots of boons.

Equipment

This build uses the same gear as Build:Weaver - Power DPS, making it a good option for general PVE.

• Ascended gear is not required for open world, exotic works fine.
• Note the second staff is for stacking sigil purposes and is not required.

Head
Berserker

Shoulders
Berserker

Chest
Berserker

Hands
Berserker

Legs
Berserker

Feet
Berserker

Backpiece
Berserker

Accessory
Berserker

Accessory
Berserker

Amulet
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Staff
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

staff
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Relic

If you are gearing this character from zero, start with exotic quality gear. Search the trading post for "Zhed" armor and "Deathwish" staff. Upgrade to ascended gear as you progress. See also: Guide:How to Gear a Character.

• Other relic options include Relic of the Afflicted, Relic of the Cavalier, Relic of Zakiros.
• This setup provides 100% critical chance with Fury thanks to Zephyr's Speed (elementalist), Elements of Rage, and Superior Elements.
  • Dual Attacks are key to help maintain Weakness for the bonus of Superior Elements. Your Earth autottacks Stoning will also help.
  • When solo, your sources of Fury are Zephyr's Boon and Raging Storm. You will trigger Zephyr's Boon with Sunspot. When playing in groups that provide Fury, change your traits to Ferocious Winds and Stormsoul.

Consumables

Budget consumables are acceptable for use in open world.

DPS

• Prioritize Steak Ascended food.
• /
• /

Consumables

Budget consumables are acceptable for use in open world.

DPS

• Prioritize Steak Ascended food.
• /
• /

Farming

• Prioritize Steak Ascended food.
• /
• (and variants)

Usage

Damage

• Your damage skills are Lava Font, Flame Burst, Pyroclastic Blast, Eruption, Lightning Surge, Plasma Blast, Shock Wave, and Ice Spike. Fill in the gaps with auto attacks.
• Lava Font is your main source of damage, make sure to spam it. When attuning to other elements, go back to Fire Attunement as soon as possible.
• Generally speaking, you want to rotate through Fire, Air, and Earth, and only double attune to Fire Attunement, unless you really need the healing of Geyser, the crowd control of Gust, or (in extremely rare occasions) the Magnetic Aura of Magnetic Aura.
• Use Firestorm (Glyph of Storms) and Meteor Shower on groups of enemies.
• When solo, your sourcess of Fury are Zephyr's Boon and Raging Storm. You will trigger Zephyr's Boon with Sunspot by attuning to Fire periodically. When playing in groups that provide Fury, change your traits to Ferocious Winds and Stormsoul.

Opener

For burst damage, start combat attuned to Earth Attunement + Fire Attunement and do the following:

1. Eruption and attune to Fire Attunement+Earth Attunement
2. Lava Font
3. Pyroclastic Blast
4. Shock Wave and attune to Fire Attunement+Fire Attunement
5. Flame Burst
6. Firestorm (Glyph of Storms)
7. Lava Font
8. Meteor Shower and attune to Air Attunement+Fire Attunement
9. Lightning Surge
10. Plasma Blast and attune to Fire Attunement+Air Attunement
11. Lava Font

Fill the gaps in cooldowns with auto attacks.

Defense & Support

• The best defense is to dodge attacks or get out of the way. Your Dual Attacks provide Swiftness thanks to Swift Revenge to help run out of attacks.
• Burning Retreat is a powerful defensive evade and movement skill, and it can be used in any direction by rotating your character (or your camera, if using action camera).
• Sandstorm inflicts Blinded in a large AoE, which is useful against groups of trash mobs.
• As a weaver, you can attune to water and then to another element to access Healing Rain to remove conditions, provide Regeneration, and a water field. In desperate situations, you can double attune to Water to use Geyser for healing and a water field.
• Ice Spike, Eruption and Transmute Earth can be used on water fields for additional area healing or on fire fields for extra might. (See: Guide:What are Combo Fields).
• Magnetic Aura provides Magnetic Aura for projectile reflection, but this is quite niche as it requires you to double attune to Earth.
• If you need more defense, you can slot and use Stone Resonance.
• Lahar provides 1 stack of personal Stability.
• Arcane Shield can be used to block dangerous attacks.

Glyph of Elementals

Elementals from Glyph of Elementals can be commanded to do an additional skill.

• The Fire Elemental can be commanded to deal damage and Burning in an AoE. Use this one for damage.
• The Ice Elemental can be commanded to deal damage in an AoE, while healing nearby allies by 6401, knocking back enemies, and removing 1 condition. Use this one for support.
• The Air Elemental can be commanded to Stun for 1.5 seconds. Use this one for on-demand crowd control.
• The Earth Elemental can be commanded to inflict nearby enemies with 1 second of Immobilize and 5 seconds of Cripple, while providing 3 seconds of Protection to nearby allies. Use this one for tanking.

Crowd Control

• Gust - Knockback
• Pile Driver - Daze
• Static Field and Unsteady Ground - Stun and Knockback, respectively. When used against enemies with a defiance bar, they instantly deal defiance damage. Against enemies without a defiance bar, these skills only work if the enemy attempts to walk over the skill.
• Frozen Ground and Shock Wave - Soft CC options.
• Crashing Waves - From Ice Elemental.
• Shocking Bolt - From Air Elemental.
• If you need a lot of crowd control you can use Conjure Frost Bow so that you and an ally can use Deep Freeze.