Guild Wars 2

Once upon a time the staff was a great defensive and offensive tool of the mesmer. Chaos armor allways granted protection upon activation and the chaos storm granted aegis at the first and last tic, wich resulted into well timed aoe blocks. Since those things have been “fixed” the staff feels overall too weak in PvE.

1
Staff 1 is a weak direct damage wich a low hitting condition aswell combined with slow attack speed. The boons it grants are semigood. I recommend to give it an additional bounce in order to increase it’s dps and boon sharing. Clones shall not be affected by this (However make the trait for additional bounce work for them already, trident works too so it’s obviously a bug).

2
Nothing to do here, awesome skill. Great escape and defensive tool.

3
Almost awesome. The only huuuuuge negative point is: It misses … it misses so often. If an enemy stops walking, starts walking, turns around or simply does something else than when the iWarlock starts to cast – it misses. It requires a homing projectile so bad, it’s more a bugfix in my eyes. It’s also terrible annoying when it tries to shoot over a cliff and the iWarlock projectile simple falls down and vanishes …

4
Grants you a shield of useless-ness Just created that word so don’t correct me! >:( btt: You gain buffs if you get hit, like protection to prevent the next damage you gain … like from the just blinded enemy … if it attacks fast enough … wich never happens in pve tbh.
Upon activation it should grant Aegis. I mean it has a 30sec (~) cd my god. After activation the other boons should randomly pop up like standing in a chaos storm. The 2nd (not aegis!) should also happen on chaos armors granted by combo finishers since they are useless aswell. A etheral field normally annoys the fire and water spammers. Lets change that.

5
Long cd, about 5k critted damage, random buffs, terrible conditions (especially durations). The only amazing thing about this is its animation and sound <3. Bring back the old days! I understand 2 stacks aegis was too hard, but it should grant aegis as first tic allways, so you can time it for protecting the team. Then just let the random boons work as they do now.
As for conditions, chill and poison are great, but not if they just last 1 sec. In PvE enemies just laught about those condition with such a duration. The daze is ok, since it interrupts and scales well with dominion 5 and 15. I recommend to increase the durations of poison and chill effect to at least 4 sec.
Also maybe even the damage should be increased. It hits for very low damage. It’s obviously ok to deal low damage cuz of the buffs but 500-1000tic x5? It has a 35 sec cd, so I really think a few more % damage wouldn’t hurt. But that would be luxus. I would already be happy with just the aegis as fist tic again.

So my dear friends – what do you mean? Is it really just me or is the staff currently buffed or weak? Thx for reading.

- greez

Fire phantasm, forget about it, that’s its role.

Great insights here.

I think you’re right with almost every point.
Personally i play a Shatter Mesmer in PvE (Typical 20/20/0/0/30) and staff works not very good with this build but i use it in some bossfights (like Grawl Fractal) as my “i need to escape” Weapon. But the only thing i do if i ever switch to the staff is 2 – 4 – 5 switchback. 3 Doesnt hit anyway and 1 is just yeah lets not talk about it.

My improvments:
Make the iWarlock hit, and maybe think about the conditions (from skill 1) maybe Vulnerability isnt the best option and maybe replace bleed with Torment (maybe a bit op) but there are way to many classes that stack bleed so easy something should change there (Only my personal opinion)

I agree. Staff needs some PvE work.

I believe that as soon as zerker/condition meta is changed (aka condition damage sees more play in PvE), staff will become viable once again due to more conditions on bosses and thus higher consistent iWarlock dps.
Its obvious downside is that it’s a utility weapon with dps based on phantasms, thus it’s weak and silly to choose for a shatter build. Phantasm builds, on the other hand, need to have many different conditions kept up on the target for iWarlock to maximise its damage, but once that is met, 3x iWarlock is a really destructive setup.
The problem, as far as dungeons go, is twofold – (1) don’t run staff in shatter builds but in phantasm ones, (2) more conditions need to see actual play from whole teams so that the phantasm mesmer can throw iWarlocks and contribute with dps.

In open PvE, it still is a good weapon to tag stuff, as far as mesmer goes.

Well the iWarlock hits if you can keep an enemy moving straight or staying still. He’s the highest dps phantasm we have. But if he misses it hurts so bad >_> … Still worth summoning tough.

Even if zerker/condition meta is changed: iWarlock is full zerker phantasm, aswell chaos storm. Just the basics are kinda 50:50. I guess it would make almost 0 changes. Most condtitions are applied without focusing on them, like vulnerability, bleeding, and at least 2 random condis. And to tag the GS in open world is far better – hits 3 enemies, instant.

The staff is too weak and without direct skill buffs it will stay as specific as the scepter. Rarely used but when you find a place to use it, it’s “ok”.

btw: vulnerability on 1 is pretty good imo. deals more damage then bleeding so …

The’s a big problem I see with the staff, the RNG aspect of the weapon. Skills 1, 4 and 5 focuses on giving things randomly, plus the iWarlock damage is always determinated by the amount of conditions.

For me, it should have to be a cleverer weapon. Wind of Chaos should only bring one boon and inflict only one condition (Might and Burning). Chaos Armor should give straight defense (protection and aegis) and 2 debuff conditions (weakness and poison). And finally, Chaos Storm should be a powerful aoe lockdown, with dazes and chills, while granting mobility (swiftness and stability) to the allies.

Both chaos skills should work as now, granting one of the boons/conditions every stuck/pulse.

PD: About the pve rework, I don’t think they will tone down direct damage, or that zerker/assassin gear will not be the best. This change will only buff the conditions to satisfy the condi necros/engis/thiefs, but for the rest of professions, direct damage will still be the best way.

I love mesmer staff. One of my favorite weapons in the game.

Staff isn’t just damage, it’s also support… granting might, fury, damage conds, and vuln.

The auto attack with the extra bounce trait it deals damage on par with a gs in a power build (111×2 + cond damage) and adds the boons on top of that.

In a condition build the clones plus the mesmer are applying a lot of short conditions (harder to wipe/good cover conditions).

Phase retreat is OP. Crazy good defensive skill that doubles as quick clone production/mobility.

Iwarlock hits like a truck and stays at range. If it homed in as well it would be too strong.

Chaos armor was buffed overall… higher overall protection uptime than before the change. It just doesn’t help you personally if you’re glassy and then I would understand if you preferred the old buff on demand version. I see it more as a gap closer for the times you couldn’t have chaos armor up from fields (which is a lot of the time if you build for it).

Chaos storm is simply amazing. A field that can daze and apply a lot of conditions mesmer otherwise would lack (chill/pois/weakness)? Yus plz k thx.

IMO it’s a very versatile weapon and is in a good place. I wouldn’t want them to touch it.

@ “silly to use in a shatter build”… you might want to check out some of Osicat’s builds/vids and see how useful it can be in one.

You sound like you are talking about PvP / WvW? This thread is for PvE only and there a 1 sec chill/pois/weakness sux terrible aswell the whole chaos armor. Also who the hell has points to trait the bounce in PvE? Still traited it deals 2x the damage, in a good case even 3 times, in a bad one just once. The GS also is able to hit up to 3 targets, just with much mroe damage.

You are talking about the too weak minor good sides of the staff but ignoring the huge tradeoff of dps. The support is also just weak, except for 2 (wich isn’t op, just balanced …). It’s in a terrible place if you look at it in PvE.

A bit of both tbh lol

Ik this is a PvE thread, but since the dev’s don’t really balance like that I try to consider everything.

The increase in party DPS from aa is more than just from the damage itself… might/fury/vuln can add quite a bit for a party. Sure it doesn’t pierce, but it’ll bounce off and buff the mele that cleave.

A lot of times it takes amazing positioning to keep the gs hitting 3 targets constantly. I wouldn’t just put up 3x the base damage and call it a day in reality. Most of the time when it matters you’ll just be hitting one boss with it.

Iwarlock damage makes up for a LOT of the other DPS shortcomings in PvE as well. It’s not just your own conditions that beef up the damage. Hopefully with the upcoming changes we’ll see more viable cond builds which will make Iwarlock even stronger.

I do run staff in PvE as well as pvp/wvw, but mostly for the phant/support/defensive abilities in PvE.

Just replace OP with “is really frekkin’ strong defensively” if it makes you feel better about it You can kite for days with it (especially on certain terrains where it’ll sort of blink you up a cliff you would otherwise need to go around) .