Build:Weaver - Fire Weaver (2025)

This build was last updated on January 17, 2025 and is up to date for the February 11, 2025 patch.

Overview

A condition damage-based Weaver build for PvP with high sustained damage and survivability but weak mobility. Primarily serves as a duelist.

Skill Bar

Slot Changes

Utility

• Armor of Earth over Signet of Air - Armor is a better defensive skill in general but it's on a longer CD. It's up to you to decide what's more important - a stronger defensive skill, or more frequent access to a stun break. Could also replace Lightning Flash for a more tanky but much less mobile build.

• Twist of Fate over Signet of Air - slightly longer CD for a stronger defensive skill, but still lower recharge time than that of Armor of Earth.

• Stone Resonance over Lightning Flash - great defensive tool if you're fine with sacrificing some mobility. While Stone Resonance could help you stay in the fight longer, ultimately Lightning Flash's versatility and ability to disengage if you're in serious trouble makes LF the more popular utility. Can't replace the signet as it doesn't break stun.

• Conjure Earth Shield over Lightning Flash - a versatile conjure with CC, barrier, blocking and even an invulnerability. Could serve as a time out button while under pressure and waiting for CDs to come back up. Consider taking Conjurer on Fire for improved condi cleanse via trait synergy.

Template Code

Specializations

Variants

• Burning Fire is also a viable option in case you'd need more condition removal.

Variants

• Arcane Restoration offers higher healing. Consider picking up Relic of Evasion to compensate for the loss of Vigor from the other trait, but you should still have decent uptime on this boon even with other relics.

Equipment

Equipment Variants

Sigils

• Sigil of Smoldering or Sigil of Doom over Sigil of Cleansing - if you can afford to give up condition removal for more damage.

Relics

• Relic of Nayos - extra healing.

• Relic of the Mirage - improves your condi variety.

• Relic of Isgarren - higher damage.

Runes

The current rune gives you a bit higher uptime on important boons such as Alacrity from Relic of Waters, but there are several other viable options if you want to prioritize damage or sustain:

• Rune of Orr - good damage while also offering extra survivability in condition matchups.

• Rune of Engineer - similar to Orr, but trades defense against conditions for higher toughness against power builds.

• Rune of Balthazar - higher damage, lower sustain.

• Rune of Dolyak - most tanky option.

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 Twin Strike.

• 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.

• Dual attuning (having the same primary and secondary element) in general isn't recommended, but there are a few niche uses for it. One example would be attuning to Fire twice in order to squeeze more condition cleansing out of it in a limited time frame.

• Might stacking happens passively through Pyromancer's Puissance. It's yet another reason for spamming autoattacks as much as possible when in combat (and attuned to Fire) even if you're not in range.

Damage

• This build is all about stacking Burning.

• Primordial Stance can instantly add burst to any attack sequence:
  • Fire Attunement has the highest raw damage output.
  • Air Attunement is also a good choice because of the Vulnerability stacking, but this condition's effectivenes severely depends on how pressured your target already is. If the target doesn't have any damaging conditions and isn't being focused by your team, Vulnerability doesn't do much, in that case Earth is superior.
  • Water Attunement does not directly help with damage, but the snare and CD increase can still be valuable - especially in mirror matchups, as Chill is one of Elementalist's greatest weaknesses.

• As for weapon skills, your heavy hitters are Flame Uprising, Lava Skin, and Pyro Vortex. The latter two also pulse damage each second for a period of time, making them synergize well with Primordial Stance.

• Flamewall doesn't do much in duels because it's so easy to avoid just by not stepping on it, but it's a rather decent skill for downed cleave if dropped directly below the target. It also has inherent value as a Fire field, more about that later.

Burst combo examples

Fire Attunement primary, Earth Attunement secondary

1. Primordial Stance
2. Lava Skin
3. Flame Uprising
4. Swap to Air Attunement
5. Pyro Vortex

Air Attunement primary, Earth Attunement secondary

1. Primordial Stance
2. Gale Strike
3. Swap to Fire Attunement
4. Pyro Vortex
5. Flame Uprising

Sustain and how to dealing with conditions

• The trait Smothering Auras provides a steady stream of cleansing:
  • Swapping to Fire Attunement applies Fire Aura thanks to Sunspot, cleansing one condition. Swapping to another attunement from Fire gives you access to another one from skill #5 Fire Shield which you can then follow up with Transmute Fire for another 3 cleanses in total.
  • Fire Aura can also be created by combos by using a leap finisher inside a fire field, like Polaric Leap or Flame Uprising in a Flamewall.

• Fire is the only attunement you should consider double-attuning to (going Fire twice in a row) because doing so will give you a Fire Aura on your 2nd attune too, which you can immediately transmute with skill #5 and then apply a second Fire Aura with the same skill and transmute that too for a grand total of 6 condition removals.

• When auras no longer suffice Magnetic Wave is what you should use. This is the best anti-condition skill in the build, instantly removing 3 conditions upon being used.

• The trait Invigorating Strikes passively grants barrier throughout a fight. Dodging on Water and Earth attunements has even more defensive benefits thanks to Evasive Arcana - the first dodge after attuning to Water acts as an AoE heal / cleanse while the first dodge on Earth is a blast finisher which can be combo'd into the field left behind by Riptide.

• Most of the sustain comes from combining Water Attunement with Earth Attunement:
  • The order doesn't always matter. Going from Earth to Water lets you blast Riptide immediately with Magnetic Wave for extra healing whilst cleansing conditions and reflecting projectiles. Going from Water to Earth allows for blasting Riptide's water field through an Evasive Arcana empowered dodge + Earthen Vortex.
  • Skill #2 of both attunements has an evade frame in case you'd want to avoid incoming damage.
  • Attuning to Earth serves as an instant source of AoE Protection application which is quite handy especially if you're CC'd and can't cast anything else.

• Obsidian Flesh is the best defensive skill in the build, making you immortal for its duration (except for fall damage).

Basic healing combo

1. Dodge in Water Attunement to proc the relevant effect of Evasive Arcana.
2. Use Riptide.
3. Swap to Earth Attunement for Earthen Vortex or use Magnetic Wave if you were in Earth prior to switching to Water. Use them in the field created by Riptide. You could also go Earth ⇒ Water ⇒ Earth and do both by using Magnetic Wave during Riptide's animation, then following up with an Earth swap into Earthen Vortex once the field's been created.
4. Swap to Fire Attunement for the Smothering Auras + Sunspot combo.
5. Lava Skin for the barrier.
6. Optional: when you swap out of Fire, use Fire Shield ⇒ Transmute Fire if cleansing is needed. If you double-attuned to Fire instead of going into another attunement then you can transmute twice because of the Sunspot proc.

Top Streamers

• Twitch: Blamthrax

• Twitch: Grimjack

Related Builds

• Starfire Roamer - WvW roaming version.