Power Weaver

December 2022

The Weaver elite specialization allows for a versatile mobile source of damage, crowd control, and utility in a WvW zerg.

Due to the high number of ranged skills available, you will be the main source of damage from a distance, and often the highest source of damage overall in the squad. Weavers also perform well in melee range, thanks to frequent evades and access to Conjure Fiery Greatsword.

This is perhaps the most challenging DPS spec to play in WvW, however, once mastered you can be sure you will relish its capabilities.

Build Fundamentals

As with other damage classes, you’ll have the best overall damage output by casting your skills as close together as possible, and synchronizing your damage with boon removal and CC from the rest of your squad.

The order of skill priority is Meteor Shower then Lava Font and finally crowd control abilities. Conjure Fiery Greatsword should be used to add even more burst damage to your meteor combo.

Most organized groups will be trying to coordinate on voice via Discord or Teamspeak. A commander may call for skills to be used such as Ghastly Breach, Well of Corruption, Test of Faith, and finally Winds of Disenchantment, make sure to pay attention to these calls and use the necessary skills to line up your damage and crowd control.

Predicting where and when an enemy group will push, and using your skills in response, will allow you to provide constant pressure. Positioning your abilities accordingly is very important for your effectiveness, as this build utilizes a lot of stationary pulsing area attacks.

The range of Elementalist’s high damage skills, in particular Meteor Shower, is invaluable for destroying defensive siege inside of towers and keeps.

In addition to great damage, Weaver has excellent evades in its kit, be sure to familiarize yourself with all of its skills available!

Attunement Management

Attunement priority will always be Fire Attunement due to trait modifiers which enable you to have a massive boost in extra power. When you double attune to fire you will get a further 5% dmg modifier and another power boost thanks to Elements of Rage and Elemental Polyphony.

Paying attention to the cooldown of Lava Font is key to keeping up Persisting Flames, which is a 10% damage modifier with 10 stacks. Due to pulsing damage and reduced cooldown with Pyromancer's Training, Lava Font is your second highest source of damage, make sure you use this skill every 5 seconds and take advantage of it!

Skills

The Fire Attunement skills which should always take priority are Fireball, Lava Font, Burning Retreat, and Meteor Shower. Your offensive utility Firestorm should also be used when in double Fire Attunement to add even more damage to your spike.

Lava Font You may place this twice on occasions before swapping attunement to maximize your damage.

Your auto attack, Fireball is not only 1200 range, but it also explodes on impact hitting up to 3 targets allowing you to hit targets at a slightly bigger range. Remember to fill in gaps in your rotation with this skill, but beware of reflects as this is a projectile.

You can use Burning Retreat for the evade or to gain distance from the enemy before using other damage skills.

Meteor Shower is your number one priority AoE damage skill, any movement will cancel its animation so be sure this doesn’t happen. Swapping attunements or casting other instant abilities however will not interrupt this cast.

It is critical you do not get interrupted when casting Meteor Shower as this will reduce your damage significantly, a great way to do this can be to use Burning Retreat and then cast Meteor Shower right at the end of the animation, this means you will evade gaining distance from the enemy before casting meteor and the actual location of the meteor shower will be even further.

Note: Allow Skill Retargeting setting must be off for this to work if ground targeting is set to Instant cast.

Thanks to Aeromancer's Training you gain extra ferocity and reduced cooldown on all Air Attunement skills, and most of them offer great utility.  You can Blinded and damage 5 enemies with Lightning Surge or Stun up to 10 enemies with the ranged Unblockable field from Static Field.

Windborne Speed is a great tool to cleanse movement-impairing conditions like Immobilize, Crippled, and Chilled from allies, while giving them Swiftness. Using it will also increase your damage with Swift Revenge.

Plasma Blast will launch a slow-moving projectile that explodes on impact, beware of any reflects and projectile blocks. This skill is not a priority but if you can see a window of opportunity use it.

Conjure Fiery Greatsword

Your elite will give you a new weapon bundle instead of your current weapon when cast, when used properly these skills provide movement utility and great damage.

Firestorm  This skill is the reason you take FGS as an elite, adding this skill into your damage burst to spike harder, you can drop FGS once used and go back to the normal rotation.

Two movement skills in the Conjure Fiery Greatsword bundle are Fiery Rush (which is a good movement skill leaving a fiery line behind you) and Fiery Whirl which is an evade that also does great damage while spinning and slashing foes.

Sustain

Staying outside of melee clashes is usually your best bet to stay alive since you are squishy and don’t really need to be in melee anyways, but if you find yourself in trouble, you have a few utilities that can help you survive.

For example Twist of Fate is a stance ammo skill that Stun Breaks, evades, and gives you Superspeed, and Lightning Flash is a 900-range teleport (Note that you may use this skill to teleport whilst being stunned, but it will not break the stun).

And if you need another dodge, swap attunements to activate Superior Sigil of Energy

Alternatives

Gear

Depending on situation you might want to consider sigils like Superior Sigil of Impact, Superior Sigil of Force, Superior Sigil of the Night, or Superior Sigil of Frenzy.

Food

Spiced Peppercorn Cheesecake can be used if you are not getting enough Might from your party, this will also boost your defenses with a  permanent -10% incoming dmg buff.

Skills

Glyph of Elemental Harmony can be used if you prefer a bursty heal with the addition of extra Might at the expense of losing some condition cleanse.