Guild Wars 2

This post will mainly focus on ele and guardian, but mesmer and necro will be mentioned as well.

Ele
Ele is arguably the primary staff user of any class in GW2. It does a fair amount of damage through its aoe skills while also providing decent heals through its Water 3/5 skills.

The problem I have with staff skills on the elementalist is mainly to do with the autoattack (A/A). While we have a fair balance of skills across our attunements, all our autoattack skills on our staff are hopeless. The only one that is even slightly useful is on the fire attunement, while the other 3 attunements lack both utility and damage. They are slow in casting and hopeless with any form of utility compared to other classes (Warrior sword bleed, Guardian greatsword might stacks, Mesmer staff random boons/condis etc.). Earth attunement’s short amount of the Weaken condition just doesn’t do enough to make it worthwhile to stay in earth attunement.

My suggestion is to make 2 of the 4 attunements (Fire and Earth) forward AoE skills similar to guardian’s (but with less width in AoE and a longer range) and with Water’s A/A buffed for at least double the current damage to make it even half way viable since the heal from that skill is so weak (to put it in perspective, a guardian dodge roll will heal 10x the amount, empower will heal so much more as well). Air attunement’s A/A should bounce up to 5 targets to put it in line with other skills.

What this will do is to give eles a lot more freedom in movement while using staff. Especially in melee range, where eles are currently hopeless at, even with a d/d weapon set, due to previous nerfs. It’ll also put eles in line with other classes in terms of melee/range balance, since we’re currently pigeon holed into being ranged or melee with no chance to switch weapons other than when we’re out of combat.

Guardians
The staff weapon on guardians is currently guardian’s primary support weapon (secondary being the Hammer for CCs). The problem here is the unreliable heal on Staff 2 skill, and empower being a 2.5 second channeling skill, so heals from a guardian’s staff is quite low and could, in my opinion, be higher. Especially with such low DPS.

My thoughts on the matter is to nerf the A/A skill by around 20-25% damage and add a heal effect to 5 allies in the region, with a base 50 heal. This won’t affect PvE much since guardians only use staffs to stack might and for swiftness stacking. This will affect WvW a lot more since many (bad) guardians use staves in zergs, and this will give them a lot more utility with less damage, forcing them to either swap weapons for DPS, or stay in staff in a supportive role.

Guardian’s “Orb of Light” skill is currently also not a reliable skill for healing allies. My suggestion would be to make it a ground casting AoE light field healing any allies standing in the area for a base 100 heal/pulse as well as damaging any enemies in the area for a base 200 damage/pulse. Considering how rare it is outside of WvW for people to combo finish water fields for healing, this will allow for parties with no water fields to continue to heal themselves. I feel it also synergises with the theme of guardian’s staff skills around support and AoE damage.

Mesmer
I haven’t really played much mesmer, but in keeping with the general theme of staff skills, I feel that mesmer’s staff weapons should have more AoE casting. Mesmer currently lacks a lot of AoE damage compared to other classes so despite its huge supportive capabilities, it lacks the ability to contribute damage in the way of large mob fights in PvE (like in certain temple events or boss encounters such as marionette) and lacks the ability to gain loot in WvW due to lack of tagging.

Again, due to the fact that I haven’t played much mesmer, I wouldn’t really know the best way to bring this about. Perhaps someone with more experience with mesmers can give their insight.

Necromancer
Necromancer staff skills are at a really weird spot right now. They are “on trigger”, mainly condition damage, meaning that they’re basically useless in PvE. In PvP and WvW, unless specced for condi, also does little damage compared to their other AoE skills with their scepter and off-hand dagger. This is with the exception of “Putrid Mark” that does a decent amount of damage.

The current use for marks is to drop them on a stack of mobs/players, so their “on trigger” mechanic is often not used at all since if you dodge roll over them, it both triggers it, and removes it, basically nullifying your skill. My suggestion is to have them active as soon as they are placed and pulse for a certain amount of time. This brings it more in line with other AoE skills.

I also feel that necro’s staff A/A could be a little easier to use if it bounced off targets. I feel the damage is in a good place, but rarely is there a good opportunity outside PvE to actually use the A/A.

Thoughts and criticisms appreciated.

Memser staff auto already bounces – traited with extra bounce you can deal with multiple targets. #4 is defence against (and triggering conditions on) multiple targets, and #5 is ground targeted AoE anyway. 2 is simply utility (well… complex utility, with many and varied applications).

If anything, the iwarlock could be changed to the sort of AoE attack you might want, although I feel the staff feature set is fine as it is. I don’t see how anything else could be changed for more AoE.

In fact, OH focus has more AoE application than the staff, and if there were a MH focus with similar AoE abilities, that would fill that void nicely.

Reverence.6915:

Ele
Ele is arguably the primary staff user of any class in GW2. It does a fair amount of damage through its aoe skills while also providing decent heals through its Water 3/5 skills.

The problem I have with staff skills on the elementalist is mainly to do with the autoattack (A/A). While we have a fair balance of skills across our attunements, all our autoattack skills on our staff are hopeless. The only one that is even slightly useful is on the fire attunement, while the other 3 attunements lack both utility and damage. They are slow in casting and hopeless with any form of utility compared to other classes (Warrior sword bleed, Guardian greatsword might stacks, Mesmer staff random boons/condis etc.). Earth attunement’s short amount of the Weaken condition just doesn’t do enough to make it worthwhile to stay in earth attunement.

Guardians
The staff weapon on guardians is currently guardian’s primary support weapon (secondary being the Hammer for CCs). The problem here is the unreliable heal on Staff 2 skill, and empower being a 2.5 second channeling skill, so heals from a guardian’s staff is quite low and could, in my opinion, be higher. Especially with such low DPS.

My thoughts on the matter is to nerf the A/A skill by around 20-25% damage and add a heal effect to 5 allies in the region, with a base 50 heal. This won’t affect PvE much since guardians only use staffs to stack might and for swiftness stacking. This will affect WvW a lot more since many (bad) guardians use staves in zergs, and this will give them a lot more utility with less damage, forcing them to either swap weapons for DPS, or stay in staff in a supportive role.

Mesmer
I haven’t really played much mesmer, but in keeping with the general theme of staff skills, I feel that mesmer’s staff weapons should have more AoE casting. Mesmer currently lacks a lot of AoE damage compared to other classes so despite its huge supportive capabilities, it lacks the ability to contribute damage in the way of large mob fights in PvE (like in certain temple events or boss encounters such as marionette) and lacks the ability to gain loot in WvW due to lack of tagging.

Again, due to the fact that I haven’t played much mesmer, I wouldn’t really know the best way to bring this about. Perhaps someone with more experience with mesmers can give their insight.

Necromancer
Necromancer staff skills are at a really weird spot right now. They are “on trigger”, mainly condition damage, meaning that they’re basically useless in PvE. In PvP and WvW, unless specced for condi, also does little damage compared to their other AoE skills with their scepter and off-hand dagger. This is with the exception of “Putrid Mark” that does a decent amount of damage.

The current use for marks is to drop them on a stack of mobs/players, so their “on trigger” mechanic is often not used at all since if you dodge roll over them, it both triggers it, and removes it, basically nullifying your skill. My suggestion is to have them active as soon as they are placed and pulse for a certain amount of time. This brings it more in line with other AoE skills.

I also feel that necro’s staff A/A could be a little easier to use if it bounced off targets. I feel the damage is in a good place, but rarely is there a good opportunity outside PvE to actually use the A/A.

Thoughts and criticisms appreciated.

I agree and disagree with you on a lot of points. I play Guard, necro, mesmer quite a bit. Also Play a staff ele but a bit less so. My changes would be as follows:

Guardian – staff is one of my favorite weapons both for WvW and for PvE. I love it the way it is, except #2, the orb. It needs to either do significantly more damage, or needs to do far more healing via detonate. That is the only change I would make to it. I love the way auto attack works on guard staff. Don’t mess with it.

Elementalist – Definitely add more dmg to Auto Attack on earth, water and air attunements, reduce the “Detonation” CD on Eruption (earth #2).

Necro – love my necro staff as it is. Only thing I wish is that staff #2 added more stacks of bleeds. And for some reason, my marks were still blocked in WvW even when they were specifically traited to be unblockable. This really needs to be looked at by A-Net.

Mesmer – Needs either a damage boost or CD reduction on auto attack. Also, if I remember correctly the orb is supposed to bounce 3 times, I think it is bugged because I rarely or never see it bouncing for multiple targets when In WvW.

Something to keep in mind on Ele Earth A/A is that it is the only A/A skill which is a 100% projectile combo finisher. I can’t say that it justifies the current state of the skill, but it is something to bear in mind when asking for buffs. Also, I can’t say that I’d want the detonation CD on Eruption lowered too much, as I love dropping it and then slapping combo fields on top of it. Lower it by more than a second and you’d ruin that XD

Mesmer here! In my magical fantasy world, Staff’s Phantasm (does more damage per condition on enemy. single target) replaces the Torch’s phantasm. The staff would get a new, AoE ranged phantasm.

Additionally, I’d let the “bouncing attacks bounce one additional time” trait in Illusions affect the staff clones.

That would beef up Torch, give mesmers some reliable AoE, and make the bouncing trait more appealing.

I think the stave skills for each class are fine the way they are, except that necro mark of blood base power damage should be doubled.

Curunen.8729:

Memser staff auto already bounces – traited with extra bounce you can deal with multiple targets. #4 is defence against (and triggering conditions on) multiple targets, and #5 is ground targeted AoE anyway. 2 is simply utility (well… complex utility, with many and varied applications).

If anything, the iwarlock could be changed to the sort of AoE attack you might want, although I feel the staff feature set is fine as it is. I don’t see how anything else could be changed for more AoE.

In fact, OH focus has more AoE application than the staff, and if there were a MH focus with similar AoE abilities, that would fill that void nicely.

iwarlock is potentially the hardest hitting phant right now. I really wouldn’t want to see it changed at all personally.

I wish necromancer marks where on shorter cooldowns, a 40 second cooldown on a skill is ridiculous and you have to spend 20 trait points to drop it to 32. They need to make the auto attack more hybrid (I’d like to see it similar to the mesmer auto), and reduce the cooldowns (this would of course be accompanied by a reduction to their effects. This mainly needs to happen on putrid and reaper’s marks as they prevent the staff from working well on it’s own. With a better auto this weapon would be incredible.

Reverence.6915:

They are “on trigger”, mainly condition damage, meaning that they’re basically useless in PvE.

Never once used it?
Those skills go off instantly if you place them underneath enemies.

Tongku.5326:

-snip-

I never said change guardian staff A/A, just a slight nerf on damage and introduce some healing effect to it. It’s used only to tag players/mobs right now as it is, why not bring some more support utility to it?

lunacrous.6751:

-snip-

This is true, however, it still doesn’t make it a decent autoattack, especially when projectile finishers are so rarely used. In conjunction with fire or water field, they’re basically useless compared to their blast/leap counterparts.

Kelthien.8593:

-snip-

How would this affect mesmer dps? I’ve tried in general to not mess with dps in my suggestions, so if this raised a mesmer’s dps even more than it is currently, it wouldn’t be very desirable.

zapv.8051:

-snip-

Agreed. Currently, in WvW, a decent necro will lay down marks and switch to their other weapon set (whatever it may be, I use scepter/dagger personally). The long cooldowns and poor A/A make it not a good weapon of choice for most of the time. Having a better A/A will go a long way to making this a better weapon choice for the necro.

Carighan.6758:

-snip-

Learn to read.

My opinion:

Staff eles:
A bag who wants to be a sheep very badly.

Staff guardian: Good support, useful on most builds.

Staff necro: Very strong condi pressure, mainly a defensive weapon with 3-5, 2 for extra bleed pressure, 1 for LF if you happen to find someone afk.

Staff mesmer: 6 second backwards blink. Can do pretty great damage in condi specs with high clone production for death traits, staff clones applying condis.

:( Some classes don’t even get a staff…

Msmer Staff is fine the way it is, i love the Mesmer staff. Ele Staff i find rather poor and the Necro AoE marks are VERY boring and require no skill what so ever and the fact they are all condition based doesnt help.

As a staff ele i wish that the first auto attack would hit reilably. The aiming is so bad that the first projectile usually goes somewhere but not on target… This would do much toward the weapon being less annoying to play.

Necro staff AA is just bad.
it needs a faster projectile or do more dmg on hit for it to be on par with other staff AA

Comparing classes straight across? Do i really need to explain why this is so incredibly flawed way to view things?

Comparing classes straight across is not only incredibly unbalanced way to view things it’s also entirely illogical.

Maybe we should just get rid of all classes and just have a single class with identical abilities?

As a note I have all of the staff bearing characters at 80 and play them quite frequently.

My only comment here (since I think a lot of the suggestion the OP has are pretty flawed and will never actually happen, no offense but you are asking for way too much here) is to have the staff 2 detonate orb on guard be a blast finisher. At that point I think the guard staff would be fine. It isn’t meant as a dps (or an ally healing) weapon. (If you think the main benefit of empower is to heal allies you are sorely mistaken/don’t play guard much).

As for your changes, you are asking for them to be buffed too much and in ways that a lot of people won’t want.

Godmoney.2048:

Comparing classes straight across? Do i really need to explain why this is so incredibly flawed way to view things?

Comparing classes straight across is not only incredibly unbalanced way to view things it’s also entirely illogical.

Maybe we should just get rid of all classes and just have a single class with identical abilities?

If you actually read the post, you’d know your statement is completely false. Nearly the entire post was about autoattacks on the staff weapon.

eleshazar.6902:

As a note I have all of the staff bearing characters at 80 and play them quite frequently.

My only comment here (since I think a lot of the suggestion the OP has are pretty flawed and will never actually happen, no offense but you are asking for way too much here) is to have the staff 2 detonate orb on guard be a blast finisher. At that point I think the guard staff would be fine. It isn’t meant as a dps (or an ally healing) weapon. (If you think the main benefit of empower is to heal allies you are sorely mistaken/don’t play guard much).

As for your changes, you are asking for them to be buffed too much and in ways that a lot of people won’t want.

Nothing will change about terrible AAs on staves unless we ask for it. Necro, mesmer and ele A/As on the staff are just terrible as they are slow attacking and rarely even hit their intended target. Guardian A/A damage is really weak as it is since it’s a support weapon (if you read my post more clearly, I did refer to guardian staff specifically as a support weapon – Skill 2 heals, Skill 3 stacks swiftness (and light field to boot), Skill 4 buffs for 12 stacks of might, Skill 5 is a CC), so why not drop the DPS a bit further to bring more support to it?

The only time I asked for a buff is on the ele A/A, where they are just plain awful. In fact, for most of the time, they’re unusable.

Seems to me like all the autos need to be faster, besides guard. Hitting reliably without a target would be amazing too.

Tongku.5326:

Reverence.6915:

<OP>

Elementalist – Definitely add more dmg to Auto Attack on earth, water and air attunements, reduce the “Detonation” CD on Eruption (earth #2).

I’d rather like staff ele AAs improved slightly, with faster projectile travel for fire, maybe a bit of damage on earth, and (a suggestion I’ve seen a few times) redistributing the air AA damage so that the first hit is stronger and the last two are weaker.

As for Eruption’s finisher time: no thanks. Right now it’s useless to cast a field then cast eruption, yes – but we can blast on the way out of earth attunement instead, by placing the field over the eruption. There’s even time to cast another spell in-between, if not chaining into Healing Rain.

lunacrous.6751:

Something to keep in mind on Ele Earth A/A is that it is the only A/A skill which is a 100% projectile combo finisher. I can’t say that it justifies the current state of the skill, but it is something to bear in mind when asking for buffs. Also, I can’t say that I’d want the detonation CD on Eruption lowered too much, as I love dropping it and then slapping combo fields on top of it. Lower it by more than a second and you’d ruin that XD

No. There are several reasons I would like it lowered.

1. In scenario you described you lay down Eruption then insta field of your own over it. I would like it to be the other way around, to lay down a field then erupt it before the field expires which is currently not the case vast majority of the time especially when trying to blast other team mates fields. Lowering the CD would give us the option of having more control over the blast finisher timing.

2. I would like it to be more effective in base combat. Currently most of the time my opponents don’t even have to waste a dodge to get out of it and avoid being hit, they just simply walk out of the radius before it detonates unless immobilized inside it or well timed for a gap closer on me. Unfortunately even with best timing etc. it is too easy to avoid it entirely, again, due to that delay which I would like to be brought down or eliminated entirely.

Tongku.5326:

1. In scenario you described you lay down Eruption then insta field of your own over it. I would like it to be the other way around, to lay down a field then erupt it before the field expires which is currently not the case vast majority of the time *especially* when trying to blast other team mates fields. Lowering the CD would give us the option of having more control over the blast finisher timing.

This way round is much better, in my opinion - you can start in Earth, lay down your Eruption, then change to Fire and set the field before using Meteor Shower. If you have to change out of your other attunements - mainly the offensive Fire and the defensive Water - to get at a blast finisher, you’re then locked out of your strongest damaging or supportive spells for 10s or so.

If you really want to blast your fields after laying them - or more reliably blast in anyone else’s - you can take Evasive Arcana-Earth, Arcane Brilliance, or Arcane Wave. Eruption is there to let you get at related spells after your combo has gone off.

2. I would like it to be more effective in base combat. Currently most of the time my opponents don’t even have to waste a dodge to get out of it and avoid being hit, they just simply walk out of the radius before it detonates unless immobilized inside it or well timed for a gap closer on me. Unfortunately even with best timing etc. it is too easy to avoid it entirely, again, due to that delay which I would like to be brought down or eliminated entirely.

Oh, yes, it’s really quite hard to land - as are most of the AoEs from the staff. It’s a powerful area-control weapon, and (especially with Blasting Staff) you can frequently force opponents to choose between contesting your point and taking significant damage, or staying out of it and taking almost none. We’ll always be weak to ranged attackers who kite, but a lot stronger when nuking a desirable area.

I would be sufficiently happy if projectile speeds on ele were doubled or tripled. The current speeds are so low, my character is poor from having to pay for postage on each projectile :/

ATMAvatar.5749:

I would be sufficiently happy if projectile speeds on ele were doubled or tripled. The current speeds are so low, my character is poor from having to pay for postage on each projectile :/

Give it to the necro and mesmer too and I’m game.

Seems like there’s a general consensus that the staff A/As are really poor except for the Guardian’s. Hopefully ANet can take a look at this issue. As it is right now, AAs on the staff are a placeholder skill while we wait for our cooldowns.

What I would really wish for is for one of Ele’s staff A/As to be melee. That would go such a long way to fixing Ele’s weaknesses in my opinion. I honestly have no problem with the attack speed per sey. The problem is more in the fact that their targeting is really really bad and rarely hits their intended target. I get so many “Out of range” or “Obstructed” when they’re clearly not out of range or obstructed…

Also, Air attunement A/A and Mesmer staff A/A I believe should hit 5 targets. Regular melee cleaves hit up to 5 targets, why can we only hit 3? Makes sense much?

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Msmer Staff is fine the way it is, i love the Mesmer staff. Ele Staff i find rather poor and the Necro AoE marks are VERY boring and require no skill what so ever and the fact they are all condition based doesnt help.

Staff is a bit under whelming for Mesmers. The 4 and 5 abilities are pretty weak and the auto attack is lack luster. Lowering the Cooldowns on 4 and 5, while allowing the AA an additional bounce would make it much more viable.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Msmer Staff is fine the way it is, i love the Mesmer staff. Ele Staff i find rather poor and the Necro AoE marks are VERY boring and require no skill what so ever and the fact they are all condition based doesnt help.

“All” as in 75%?

Xae.7204:

Staff is a bit under whelming for Mesmers. The 4 and 5 abilities are pretty weak and the auto attack is lack luster. Lowering the Cooldowns on 4 and 5, while allowing the AA an additional bounce would make it much more viable.

Meh, then we’d just get the defence or the buffs nerfed in return. And I like the Staff as a defensive support weapon. It does what it says in the tooltips, it’s not good for direct offence but amazing for everything else.

Kelthien.8593:

Mesmer here! In my magical fantasy world, Staff’s Phantasm (does more damage per condition on enemy. single target) replaces the Torch’s phantasm. The staff would get a new, AoE ranged phantasm.

Additionally, I’d let the “bouncing attacks bounce one additional time” trait in Illusions affect the staff clones.

That would beef up Torch, give mesmers some reliable AoE, and make the bouncing trait more appealing.

i like this…..but would have to be careful not to make the new staff phant too strong. Its already a pretty great weapon.
also wouldn’t mind a slightly faster AutoAttack.

moving staff phant to torch could be fantastic….better for a power/hybrid spec and would still fit well with a condi-spec due to nature of its damage multiplier.

for Guardian Staff…..i mostly like it how it is……….but wouldn’t mind sacrificing a bit of dmg on the auto-attack, for improved healing on the the 2skill (or better yet, stronger heal on Empower). as might as we dislike light fields, at least it makes sense on staff.

the auto is only good for tagging mobs anyway (and it does that amazingly well regardless of damage)….so lowering that damage to up some of the healing would be pretty nice….and a positive step toward making a healing/support playstyle more viable (even if its only in one class).

Only thing the Mesmer staff need is a slight buff on the auto-attack and projectiles with a faster flying speed.