Aigleborgne.2981

I must admit it looks great but loosing toolbet skills kills it in the first place. Sure you can go for all mecha skills and be fine, but if you use any other skills, you will miss toolbet hard. Several skills are taken just for their toolbet. Not even mention tools traitline...

You don't have time to mouse over to look for time left. Yes, you have visuals when it will end. But I fully agree with this request. Berserk is the most important state when you attack, knowing exactly how much time you have is critical. When necro enters shroud, he knows exactly when it could end. Same for holosmith even if mechanics are different. When I play my berserker, I often loose count of berserk time. Having a visual timer would be awesome!

While soul barbs is definitly a good choice. I would still choose fear of death because of its synergy with dread. I find RS3 invaluable as a defensive tool, as well as offensive one thanks to 15% LF each cast. RS3 stability overcome one of reaper main issues : vulnerable to chain CC.

Waiting some minutes to get a group to solo one champion is a long time. And if it doesn't provide a chest, it is most likely that nobody comes at all because it is a waste of time. Let's say you follow my suggestion, yes you will do less damage than zerk, maybe 20% less. But against veterans or less, that difference won't be really noticed in time to kill. Berserker and minions can work, for sure. Just I hate those minions and never use them. Gw1 necro minions were something but here they are just damage sponge with terrible AI.

Blind only work vs trash mobs. This is a major issue when facing blind immune foes like champions. On my experience, vitality along with good LF regeneration work better. I would pick marauder or valkyrie along with decimate defense.

Obviously, trailblazer is easier sustain than any power combinations. You are certainly better than me then because even in Orr, there are many champions that give me troubles, capable of putting down my squishy ele in 1 or 2 hits. You have far less margin of error than trailblazer. There are also several veterans that are quite strong, almost champion level. Either you play with a defensive build with power gear, and then you don't need preparation. Either you play a full dps build with very little defense, but in this case, you can't handle all situations, especially champions.

From my point of view, it is clearly a hardcore profession assuming you don't spec for those cheesy tank condi builds. You need to put a lot of efforts to survive. When my reaper can run in a big pack of mobs in Orr and kill everything in a few seconds. My power weaver will need to prepare and play relatively hard to achieve the same results. But I will also enjoy a lot more my weaver for that. You need to prepare, anticipate, and react quiclky. it is closer to mmo I played 20 years ago.

All elites are power creep from core. It's not new! Tempest didn't change from core ele where as weaver introduced a new gameplay for ele. First time I tried tempest, I thought those overloads were nice. But using them and having a 20s CD is against ele principles. So I quickly returned to core. Fun part for many ele is attunement switch, which is further emphasis with weaver. Weaver also brings very good synergy with all traits related to attunement switch. Something that tempest never came close to, mainly because auras are not good to start with.

OP question is too vague. "Better" means nothing.Berserker is the most DPS but is it necessarily better? If you struggle to survive or like to solo champions, it is definitely not the best option.I play my reaper minionless and I can say it is difficult to solo strong champions with full DPS stats no matter what traitlines I am using. Most people are referring trash mobs, but are we playing the same game? Those mobs die almost as quickly whereas you use assasin, berserker, or marauder. What matters (to me) is staying alive when things become tough (chain cc foes, champions...). It is indeed a matter of preference anyway.

If I remember, enhanced signets were permanent when it was grandmaster trait. They restrict to shroud only when put on master.

Especially according the fact that there are a lot more people on pve than pvp and wvw combined. I can understand that competition is more important. However, pve patches weren't frequent enough to start with (medium size patchs every 3 months), so now we truly feel abandoned.

Suggestion, if I may: I set my keybinds as 1-5 for 1-5, shift+1-5 for 6-10, and alt+1-5 for F1-5. Helps loads. Seems weird to use shift or alt + keys. I personally use DRFG to move and all keys around. T, E, Z, A, 4 as F1-F5 keys (order depending on each character). H, Y, B, S, Q as weapon skills... Mouse for utility and elite.It takes some time to get use to, but then my hand barely moves, everything is close enough.

My new ele is thematically based on regen and mist form. I slot water most of the time instead of earth: fire water weaver.I'm using armor of earth or stone resonance, twist of fate, and mist form. I'm very new to weaver but I haven't die yet. I have been very low on health at times, but water helps a lot here. I did all orr skill points plus a few temples, it was challenging but I survived where my older eles would have died.Sometimes, I switch water for earth and I really like protection on aura. I feel it might be as good if not better. However, I can easily recover when I screw up with water while earth is better at preventing damage.I have healing power (Apothecary on a few slots) and I feel water is necessary while I am learning weaver and gearing my character. Riptide with water traitline and healing power is just too good.

I prefer weaver over tempest. And yes, I struggle vs strong champions especially with power builds.Read again OP last post. He want something able to solo most things easily.

I would say, use only Viper and replace it with some Trailblazer pieces if you need more defense. For shorter solo-fights in PvE, solo play in OpenWorld maps etc., I would not recommend a condition build. Because the fight is already finished before you have ramped up all your conditions and then you waste damage and it usually takes longer compared to a DPS build (berserker mixed with marauder for example, maybe also soldier) to kill things. The shorter the fight, the better the survivability, usually. :) EDIT: For PvE-solo-play and also WvW-roaming I think a fresh air tempest build with marauder gear is still a good and valid option that can have good survivability and is not overly complicated. You haven't read what he wrote. He likes long lasting boss battles. He meant champions or legendary on which power builds will have a hard time. Not even mentioning hot or pof, just fight some champions in orr.I would not even bother about builds for anything else in open world because it will be easy no matter the build you will use.Now, you can still play power if you are not alone and trust others to rally you (not guaranteed from my experience since others tend to go down almost in the same timeline).