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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 January 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

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Specializations

Variants

  • Bolstered Elements - more sustain.
  • Elements of Rage - more burst.


Equipment

Dagger
Focus
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
Amulet


Equipment Variants

Amulet

  • Template:Amulet/Berserker 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.
  • Template:Amulet/Avatar Amulet - 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 Template:Gw2skill 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 Template:Gw2skill 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.


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Retrieved from "https://metabattle.com/wiki/index.php?title=Build:Weaver_-_D/F_Lightning_Rod&oldid=246"


Ratings

This build has a rating of 4 stars based on 11 votes.
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4 stars
Vinny gave this build 4 stars • October 2024
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.
4 stars
Hanz gave this build 4 stars • June 2024
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
4 stars
Glasstone gave this build 4 stars • May 2024
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.
3 stars
BlobTheBob gave this build 3 stars • March 2024
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.
5 stars
Eemortal gave this build 5 stars • September 2020
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.
5 stars
Diegolg20 gave this build 5 stars • May 2020
U need avatar build i give 4.5
4 stars
Soggystocking gave this build 4 stars • April 2020
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.
4 stars
Aditya Cyfer gave this build 4 stars • April 2020
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
4 stars
Utrex gave this build 4 stars • March 2020
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.
4 stars
Christeroph gave this build 4 stars • November 2019
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! :)
4 stars
Sezic gave this build 4 stars • October 2019
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!

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