Weaver - D/F Lightning Rod
The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good
Focused on: Strike damage and Control
Designed for: PvP Conquest
Difficulty:
Hard
This build was last updated on January 14, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.
Overview
A Power Weaver build for PvP which uses the trait Weakness LR applies. Here the best defense is a good offense. While the low sustain coupled with the reliance on melee range makes this build rather unforgiving to play, it's very satisfying to pull off.
to add extra damage to its many CC skills while also mitigating direct damage through the
Skill Bar
Dagger/Focus
Utility
Slot Changes
Utility
Viable choices for the optional slot include:
- - several strong defensive skills and even some CC all rolled into one conjure.
- - great defensive skill in general, works against any form of pressure.
- - stun break + an evade frame right after. Could also replace , it's a matter of preference.
- - resets the CD on attunements and allows for double attuning immediately for its duration. This is great for accessing your defensive weapon skills on Earth and Air in case of an emergency, or proccing .
- Stability and general sustain. -
- - decent damage boost when used on Air, but it's a very greedy option on an already low-sustain build.
Elite
- - slightly lower CD than Tornado and has LR synergy. Good for setting up kills, could also be used defensively on Earth for damage mitigation. Tornado however offers more mobility and CC.
Template Code
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Specializations
Variants
- If you feel like you're getting a sufficient amount of Vigor from then could be taken for more healing.
Variants
- - more sustain.
- - more burst.
Equipment
Dagger
Focus
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
Amulet
Relic
Equipment Variants
Amulet
- - more experienced players could go for Berserker too, giving up survivability for higher damage. Take to compensate for some of the lost HP.
Usage
Elite specialization basics
- Weaver allows the Elementalist to attune to 2 elements at the same time, and skills 1-5 are decided based on both. Let's call them primary and secondary attunements.
- If you swap to then Fire becomes your primary attunement and weapon skills 1-2 will be fire skills. Afterwards if you switch to for example then Water is now your primary attunement and Fire's moved to secondary - now skills 1-2 are Water and 4-5 are Fire. Skill 3 is a dual skill created by a combination of your active attunements - Fire + Water for example is .
- The order of the attunements doesn't matter here, Water primary with Fire secondary has the same dual attack as Fire primary and Water secondary. Attuning to the same element twice gives you access to the "core" skill of the weapon, the skill you'd have if you weren't a Weaver.
General
- Unless you either have a high amount of Confusion on you, or you're already at maximum health, you should always be casting something (autoattacks will do too). This is to get the most out of this signet's passive.
should seldom be touched, as the passive is extremely valuable. Note that several trait procs also count as skill activations and will benefit from the passive of this signet.
- Cycle fire ⇒ air ⇒ fire ⇒ air to maintain Swiftness while roaming between capture points.
- If taken can be cancelled by stowing your weapon in rare cases when the full evasion isn't needed (let's say you have to cleave a downed target and must keep the pressure up, but had to break stun).
Damage
- is the bread and butter of this build, causing every CC effect in the build to add to your damage. The general playstyle revolves around weaving together hard hitting skills such as with CC for burst damage.
- Your most dangerous skills tend to be dual skills, especially those related to
- on Air + Fire (this is the most damage you can do with 1 skill).
- on Air + Earth (damage over time, adds to other burst attempts).
- Air + Water (raw damage AND LR synergy, one of your best skills).
- on Earth + Water (Lightning Rod synergy).
- on Fire + Earth (raw damage).
:
- has a delay, you could combo this with other high damage skills like or for a quick burst.
- If taken Attuning to the same element twice grants , which is a decent damage increase. makes obtaining this buff easier. Best attunements to double attune to are Air and Fire.
- When cleaving a downed target going from Air/Earth to Air/Air should be considered too, you get to maintain the pressure with Lightning Whip while gaining access to Stun that could halt the rez attempt of the enemy team. and its transmute skill for an AoE
is the most important one in the build and should be attuned to often, both for damage and sustain. alone could provide a ~50% AoE Weakness uptime and it does really good damage, while is the go-to cleave skill in the build when you're out of CDs. Air/Earth is especially good at cleaving downed targets because not only can you add and to your autoattack spam but also instantly proc with , boosting the damage of the whole sequence.
- Stability or a Guardian is casting Tornado could launch the downed enemy into the distance to deny it.
- Tornado's also quite good at quickly neutralizing enemy capture points.
is good at finishing off low HP targets, making sure they don't get to heal up while also damaging them with procs. This works on downed targets too so you could use it to disrupt rez attempts. Even if enemy players have
Burst combo examples
Water primary, Earth secondary
- Swap to Air
- Swap to Fire
Air primary, Earth secondary
- Swap to Fire
Air primary, Fire secondary (ranged burst)
- Precast
- to your target's location in the middle of casting Plasma burst
Sustain
- plays a major part here as well, constantly mitigating damage trough Weakness spam.
- Sustain's low in general, especially when it comes to handling conditions. Cleansing is limited to your sigil, dodging on
- Earth #4-5 in general are some of your strongest defensive tools. Due to their placement on the skill bar however, as a Weaver you may not gain access to these skills immediately when swapping to . This can be solved by using in case of emergency. Unravel's also great for grabbing on .
, and . Perhaps your best tool against conditions is , which makes you immune to incoming conditions and causes you not to take damage from the ones already on you for its duration.
- Swapping to Earth is an instant source of Protection, you can do this even while stunned.
- If you're on Air then double attuning to Air isn't a bad idea either. You gain access to Weakness via LR synergy. which is an instant CC. Not only is that capable of stopping burst attempts, it also applies
- lets you kite melee opponents should you need some breathing room.
- (Fire/Water) creates a Water field with a very short duration, but it's just enough to blast for a bit of extra healing if you swap to Air right after with either or .
- Some of the dual skills have baked in defenses, like damage reduction on , Blind on or evasion on .
- If you're on Water primary and Earth secondary you could use , swap to Fire, and follow up with to build distance while evading attacks.
- Earth and Air have some great skills for fighting ranged projectile users: on Air secondary, on Earth primary, and on Earth secondary.
- is an excellent panic button. With this (and good reaction times) you can teleport out of harm's way all the way to the highground or leave fights altogether.
- could be used to disengage from fights. Skill #5 is a great mobility skill that also does AoE CC, and using the elite procs which can block a couple of attacks.
Top Streamers
- Twitch: Grimjack
- Twitch: Phantaram
- Twitch: Blamthrax
- Twitch: Boyce
Related Builds
- LR Roamer - WvW roaming version.
Ratings
Still one of my favorite Power Weaver builds. Requires a lot of finesse in timing skills and you can't just blow all your buttons into something. Decent dueling potential, decent condition cleanse if you go Relic of Mosyn or Woven Stride. Personally play pure-glass with Zerker/Deadeye, but I can't recommend it unless you know your risks.
Another decent weaver build, but not sure if I'd recommend it for beginners. The damage and CC is amazing once you get used to it, but sustain's on the low end and therefore it requires good situational awareness / understanding of CDs.
Annual update: still works, remains one of the harder ele builds to play
I sort of agree with the previous commenter but with the decline of support guard's popularity there's much less stability in teamfights so I think right now the build's performing a bit better. You definitely need practice with this, if the enemy team identifies you as the weak link you can easily throw with this, but a good LR ele can still decide fights with all the CC and damage it has.
Like all LR builds its very matchup dependent. If the enemy has stability you lose a significant portion of your damage, making it weak in teamfights and in many matchups vs bunkers or other duelists. The weaver variant is also quite weak to condi pressure. Its strengths are its numerous defences with earth shield, evades, self healing, and its burst damage when you are able to chain cc targets.
Solid build, finding myself liking the rotation the more I play with it. Going too defensive on this build counters the whole point of it, your a CC machine that acts like a thief but can survive 3 out of 4 1-1’s. Gotta know which fights to take and which ones to leave. Holosmiths and burn guardians are to two scariest ones, else, I can stick it out in most fights and have good disengages with teleport or even tornado.
I have climbed to first and second tier platinum with this and had a lot of fun doing so.
Updated review: I was a little unkind in my first review due in part to my usual playstyle. 4 stars is now about right
Pros: great utility in teamfights, 2v2s, +1 situations with CC and weakness and Tornado is kind of OP. Dramatically amplifies the true output of your teammates by locking down opponents. Huge burst potential. One with air gives fantastic movement across the map and in combat.
Cons: awful dueling build. Doesn't have the damage sustainability to win against tankier specs 1v1. Struggles massively against condi builds, especially condi+toughness builds. If your team is very bad, this build really struggles to pick up the slack. If your team is equal to the opposing team, this build is excellent.
Summary: you're a thief with much better teamfight utility but worse at everything else.
The only decently playable weaver now. If this gets nerfed. Weavers must be a "PvE" only class.
It's a strooong side noder but very weak to condis. Since it's Condi meta now, you have to pick your fights very carefully. Follow grimmjack for more guidance
A decent build, offers lots of CC/weakness spam and sustain options.
Another variant I really liked... recommend trying Avatar amulet for a more duelist approach as well as a tankier version (barriers and heals scale up, Mender's is overkill). I also take Conjure Earth Shield for ranged CC and invuln, and magnetic aura. For heavy condi (as 2v2's suggest as of late) Rune of Orr or even Svanir coupled with a passive Water Signet will significantly help alleviate pressure.
Posted a comment about this below - Forgot to rate it. Not a bad build. If you want a bit of a challenge with Ele, this is your boy. See my comment below for full review! :)
I actually really enjoy this build! It feels like I'm running a fresh air sword build but the dps feels viable in pvp due to the dagger's many dashes, extra range, and extra sustainability against the current meta. On top of that, focus has always been a really good pick for spvp because of its utilities as an offhand. I did end up swapping the sigils for more condi cleanse and also swapped elements of rage for invigorating strikes for a little extra sustain, but overall the idea of this build is great!
Comments
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