Weaver - Condi DPS

The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Condition damage

Designed for: Raids

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on July 16, 2023 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A condition DPS build for Weaver. This build has a complex rotation, but deals strong sustained damage through Burning and Bleeding, and has good access to CC and various utility skills.

Skill Bar

Scepter/Focus

Utility

Weapon Variants

• Mainhand Dagger can also be taken, though it is lower damage and the rotation involves standing inside the boss' hitbox, which may not be practical.
• Staff is also an option, though it needs larger hitboxes to be competitive.

Skill Variants

• Signet of Earth is similar DPS to Glyph of Lesser Elementals if you are unable to start the fight with some elementals active. It could also be taken if you don't want to deal with the elemental AI, or if you want the damage reduction.
  • Starting with no elementals, it takes ~3 minutes for Glyph of Lesser Elementals to overtake Signet of Earth in damage.
  • Glyph of Lesser Elementals will be better if you can start with three elementals.
• Aquatic Stance provides more group healing at the expense of personal healing.
• Glyph of Elemental Harmony for more burst healing at the expense of sustained healing.

Template Code

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Equipment

Head
Viper

Shoulders
Viper

Chest
Viper

Hands
Viper

Legs
Viper

Feet
Viper

Backpiece
Viper

Accessory
Viper

Accessory
Viper

Amulet
Viper

Ring
Viper

Ring
Viper

Scepter
Viper

Focus
Viper

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x10

Infusion
x8

Equipment Variants

Running Rune of Superior Rune of the Elementalist with 15 Malign and 3 Spiteful infusions would be a minor DPS loss, but would allow you to use ascended food such as for their bonus effects.

Consumables

Food

Utility

• • or for a cheaper alternative

Usage

If using Glyph of Lesser Elementals (fire), precast as many elementals as possible before the fight. Cast the skill in Fire Attunement for fire elementals which apply tons of Burning.

Rotations for all versions involve frequent attunement swapping to maximize the usage of high-damage, low cooldown skills particularly whilst Weave Self is active. While it is ideal to follow the rotations in these examples, encounter mechanics may force you to adapt your rotation around them.

Video example rotation for Dagger/Focus by Ryan

Video example rotation for Scepter/Focus by Ryan

Video example rotations for Staff by Fennec

Scepter Rotation

While the core loop is very simple, maximising damage depends on optimal use of Weave Self - you want to start with an attunement to fire to get the 20% condition damage boost, then during the 20 second duration work in the other attunements without losing too much damage. Attuning to the final element (water) just as it will expire will grant Perfect Weave for a further 10 seconds and allow you extend the bonus to almost 30 seconds in total.

To keep the rotation more legible, autoattacks will not be included in general.

Transmute Fire is the flip skill of Fire Shield. The latter will regularly activate during your rotation but the timing can vary. Whenever Transmute Fire is used in the rotation be aware you may need to first activate Fire Shield (Fire Shield is instance cast so just double tap it).

Weave Self
The majority of the Weave Self section is very similar to the basic loop, but the basic loop takes slightly too long and so using it here would result in losing the buff just before attuning to Water. Hence some skills are skipped to make the first two loops faster. If in doubt, just attunement swap as soon as you can.

Precast Rock Barrier and start in Air/Fire

1. Weave Self
2. Signet of Fire
3. Flamewall
   
   Fast Loop 1
4. Fire Attunement during the cast of Flamewall
5. Dragon's Tooth
6. Primordial Stance
7. Fire Attunement as soon as it's available
8. Phoenix
9. Transmute Fire
10. Earth Attunement as soon as it's available
11. Hurl
12. Fracturing Strike
    
    Fast Loop 2
13. Fire Attunement
14. Magnetic Wave
15. Dragon's Tooth
16. Fire Attunement as soon as it's available
17. Flamestrike until Phoenix is available
18. Phoenix
19. Earth Attunement
20. Signet of Fire
21. Primordial Stance
22. Rock Barrier ⇒ Hurl
23. Transmute Fire
    
    Normal Loop
24. Fire Attunement
25. Dragon's Tooth
26. Fire Attunement as soon as it's available
27. Flamewall
28. Flamestrike until Phoenix is available
29. Phoenix
30. Dragon's Tooth
31. Earth Attunement
32. Rock Barrier ⇒ Hurl
33. Fracturing Strike
    
    Exit
34. Water Attunement
35. Shatterstone
36. Stone Tide
37. Signet of Fire

Basic Loop

1. Fire Attunement
2. Flamestrike and Dragon's Tooth until Fire Attunement is available
3. Fire Attunement
4. Phoenix
5. Transmute Fire
6. Flamestrike until Dragon's Tooth is available
7. Dragon's Tooth
8. Earth Attunement
9. Rock Barrier ⇒ Hurl
10. Fracturing Strike
11. Return to start of loop

This boils down to rotating through Fire Attunement ⇒ Earth Attunement ⇒ Fire Attunement and using other skills off cooldown (see general tips below). You can delay the swap into Fire/Earth slightly if Flamewall is about to come off cooldown.

The second time you reach Weave Self you have to do the lead-in slightly differently. At step 7 in the basic loop, go to Air Attunement instead, then:

1. Lightning Strike
2. Plasma Beam
3. Flamewall - if this isn't available here, just skip and use it whenever it is available
4. Arc Lightning - this is just to fill time so that you can immediately swap away from Air Attunement after casting Weave Self
5. Repeat Weave Self opener

As you won't have pre-cast Rock Barrier this time, you'll need to use Rock Barrier ⇒ Hurl instead at step 11 of the Weave Self opener.

Dagger Rotation

Click to view

Opener

The opener for Condi Weaver relies on maximising the effectiveness of Weave Self. Swapping to Fire Attunement provides 20% condi damage (Woven Fire) for the duration of Weave Self. Attuning to all four elements clears these effects and gives Perfect Weave for a further 10 seconds - providing all the buffs. Therefore, it is valuable to only attune to the final element at the last possible moment in order to gain nearly 30 seconds of the Woven Fire. If you have doubts about your speed or Alacrity/Quickness, then you can attune to Fire Attunement instead of Air Attunement at step 30 and then skip ahead to step 37 once Drake's Breath is available (not all skills will be available so it is important to cover as much of your time in Water Attunement as possible with the cast time of Drake's Breath).

Begin in Air/Earth

1. Weave Self
2. Signet of Fire
3. Grinding Stones
4. Magnetic Wave
5. Fire Attunement into Fire/Air
6. Plasma Burst
7. Drake's Breath
8. Fire Attunement into Fire/Fire during Drake's Breath
9. Primordial Stance
10. Transmute Fire
11. Burning Speed
12. Earth Attunement into Earth/Fire
13. Ring of Earth
14. Flamewall
15. Ashen Blast
16. Earth Attunement into Earth/Earth
17. Earthen Rush
18. Primordial Stance
19. Impale (elementalist) until Ring of Earth is available
20. Ring of Earth
21. Fire Attunement into Fire/Earth
22. Signet of Fire
23. Drake's Breath
24. Fire Attunement into Fire/Fire during Drake's Breath
25. Transmute Fire
26. Burning Speed
27. Earth Attunement into Earth/Fire
28. Impale (elementalist) until Ring of Earth is available
29. Ring of Earth
30. Air Attunement into Air/Earth
31. Grinding Stones
32. Magnetic Wave
33. Convergence
34. Fire Attunement into Fire/Air
35. Plasma Burst
36. Drake's Breath
37. Water Attunement into Water/Fire during Drake's Breath to trigger Perfect Weave
38. Transmute Fire
39. Flamewall
40. Signet of Fire
41. Earth Attunement into Earth/Water
42. Ring of Earth
43. Impale (elementalist) until you can swap into Earth/Earth

Loop

Compared to the Weave Self section, the central loop is very simple. You bounce between Earth and Fire, bookending earth sections with Ring of Earth and fire sections with Drake's Breath.

1. Earth Attunement into Earth/Earth
2. Earthen Rush
3. Impale (elementalist) until Ring of Earth is available
4. Ring of Earth
5. Fire Attunement into Fire/Earth
6. Drake's Breath
7. Ashen Blast
8. Fire Attunement into Fire/Fire
9. Transmute Fire
10. Flamewall
11. Burning Speed
12. Drake's Breath
13. Earth Attunement into Earth/Fire during Drake's Breath
14. Ring of Earth
15. Impale (elementalist) until Transmute Fire is available
16. Transmute Fire
17. Return to start of loop

Weave Self

Performed perfectly with perfect boons, Weave Self will come off cooldown again in Earth/Earth and can immediately be used again. Below is an example Weave Self loop based on these assumptions. In practice, you may need to improvise somewhat but bear the following in mind:

• You should either be in mainhand Fire Attunement, or immediately switch to Fire Attunement so that you gain Woven Fire.
• As the Weave Self buffs last for approximately 30s, you may not wish to use it if the boss will phase before they expire.
  • If this is the case, you can start the next phase with the Opener.
• If you have doubts about your speed or boons, you can delay using Weave Self until just before step 7.
• Loop through Air early on so that, if you see the the Weave Self buff begin to flash, you can quickly attune to water to get Perfect Weave.

From Earth/Earth

1. Weave Self
2. Signet of Fire
3. Fire Attunement into Fire/Earth
4. Ashen Blast
5. Drake's Breath
6. Fire Attunement into Fire/Fire during Drake's Breath
7. Burning Speed
8. Air Attunement into Air/Fire
9. Flamewall
10. Transmute Fire
11. Plasma Burst
12. Convergence
13. Earth Attunement into Earth/Air
14. Ring of Earth
15. Grinding Stones
16. Earth Attunement into Earth/Earth
17. Primordial Stance
18. Impale (elementalist) until Earthen Rush is available
19. Earthen Rush
20. Fire Attunement into Fire/Earth
21. Drake's Breath
22. Fire Attunement into Fire/Fire during Drake's Breath
23. Transmute Fire
24. Signet of Fire
25. Burning Speed
26. Earth Attunement into Earth/Fire
27. Impale (elementalist) until Ring of Earth is available
28. Ring of Earth
29. Fire Attunement into Fire/Earth
30. Ashen Blast
31. Magnetic Wave
32. Drake's Breath
33. Fire Attunement into Fire/Fire during Drake's Breath
34. Dragon's Claw until Flamewall is available
35. Flamewall
36. Water Attunement into Water/Fire during Drake's Breath to trigger Perfect Weave
37. Transmute Fire
38. Steam Surge
39. Cone of Cold
40. Fire Attunement into Fire/Water during Cone of Cold
41. Drake's Breath
42. Signet of Fire
43. Burning Speed
44. Fire Attunement into Fire/Fire
45. Primordial Stance
46. Dragon's Claw until Drake's Breath is available
47. Transmute Fire
48. Drake's Breath
49. Earth Attunement into Earth/Fire during Drake's Breath
50. Ring of Earth
51. Ashen Blast
52. Impale (elementalist) until you can swap into Earth/Earth
53. Return to the Loop

General tips

• Use Primordial Stance off cooldown while in Fire/Fire, Earth/Fire, or Earth/Earth.
• Use Glyph of Lesser Elementals (fire) off cooldown when in mainhand Fire.
• Use Signet of Fire, Flamewall and Magnetic Wave off cooldown.

Breakbars

This build has access to CC options that are easier to use than Staff Weaver, however it still faces the problem of having to wait for two attunement swap cooldowns before gaining access to most of its CC skills.

• Comet inflicts 200 breakbar damage.
• Gale inflicts 400 breakbar damage and is your strongest CC skill.

For the Dagger build:

• Katabatic Wind inflicts 150 breakbar damage but requires the awkward attunement combination of Air and Water. This should be saved for a last-resort option.