Weaver - D/F Lightning Rod

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

Focused on: Direct damage and Control

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Difficulty:

TBD

This build was last updated on February 19, 2022 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A Weaver build for PvP which uses the trait Lightning Rod to turn CC into burst, while also mitigating direct damage through the Weakness it applies.

Skill Bar

Dagger/Focus

Utility

Slot Changes

Utility

Viable choices for the optional slot include:

• Conjure Earth Shield - several strong defensive skills and even some CC all rolled into one conjure.

• Twist of Fate - stun break + evade frame right after. Long CD but it's an ammo skill which means it has multiple charges. Could also replace Signet of Air.

• Unravel - 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 Elements of Rage.

• Stone Resonance - stability and general sustain.

• Primordial Stance - decent damage boost when used on Air.

Template Code

[&DQYpOiUaODl0AHQA9RUAAJAAAAA1FwAAlgAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]

Copy Template Code

Specializations

Variants

• Bolstered Elements - more sustain.

• Elements of Rage - more burst.

Equipment

Dagger

Focus

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Equipment Variants

Amulet

• - if you can afford to trade a significant chunk of your HP for more damage. A high risk, high reward option for more experienced players.

• - a more defensive and beginner friendly choice. Consider taking Arcane Restoration on Arcane and definitely pick Invigorating Strikes on Weaver.

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 Fire Attunement then fire becomes your primary attunement and weapon skills 1-2 will be fire skills. Afterwards if you switch to Water Attunement 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 influenced by both active attunements ⇒ fire + water for example is Steam Surge.

• 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 has its own dual skill.

General

• Signet of Restoration 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.
  • 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.

• Cycle fire ⇒ air ⇒ fire ⇒ air to maintain Swiftness while roaming between capture points.

• If taken Twist of Fate 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

• Lightning Rod 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 Plasma Burst with CC for burst damage.

• If taken Attuning to the same element twice grants Elements of Rage, which is a decent damage increase. Unravel makes obtaining this buff easier. Best attunements to double attune to are Air and Fire.

• Air Attunement is the most important one in the build and should be attuned to often, both for damage and sustain. Convergence alone could provide a ~50% AoE Weakness uptime and it does really good damage, while Lightning Whip is the go-to cleave skill in the build.

Sustain

• Lightning Rod 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 Water Attunement, and Magnetic Wave. Perhaps your best tool against conditions is Obsidian Flesh, which makes you immune to incoming conditions and causes you not to take damage from the ones already on you for its duration.
  • 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 Earth Attunement. This can be solved by using Unravel in case of emergency. Unravel's also great for grabbing Shocking Aura on Air Attunement.

• One with Air lets you kite melee opponents should you need some breathing room.

Top Streamers

• Twitch: Phantaram
• Twitch: Blamthrax
• Twitch: Boyce
• Twitch: Grimjack

Related Builds

• LR Roamer - WvW roaming version.