Guild Wars 2

In a pvp sense, everybody knows that staff eles lack a little bit of everything compared to other eles such as D/D or S/F. I believe making Ice Spike a blast finisher will help the class fill those missing spot that it’s been lacking.

For example, Eruption + Ice Spike can be used to gain more might or more heals or more of whatever field it’s going to land on. Every other weapon set of Eles besides Staff has more than one blast finisher. It seems a bit off that staff eles only have one blast finisher yet they can make the most fields.

I don’t think this would change the power of this class drastically as you would have to time everything quickly if you wanted to do a Eruption+Ice Spike + (some field) combo. You would also have to be close to the blast and that already gives staff eles disadvantages in combat. It would still help the class and be more versatile.

Plus, it looks like a blast finisher anyway… :P

It would be the ultimate pointholder.

Imagine a D/D Celestial Elementalist.
Now give him 1200 range, massive AoE pressure, and more healing.

It’d be insane.

I’m all for it.

Frenk.5917:

It would be the ultimate pointholder.

Imagine a D/D Celestial Elementalist.
Now give him 1200 range, massive AoE pressure, and more healing.

It’d be insane.

I’m all for it.

Honestly man I think staff needs to have telegraphs drastically reduced on Earth 2, Water 2, and Air 2.

It’s like.. 1.5s, 1s, and 1.25s cast times respectively, and the Water 2 and Earth 2 have massive charge up times once the spell it cast. Who the eff needs 3 seconds to dodge a relatively medium-high damage attack? It’s madness, lol.

100% In agreement with buffing the pathetic accuracy of these attacks.

Chaith.8256:

Frenk.5917:

It would be the ultimate pointholder.

Imagine a D/D Celestial Elementalist.
Now give him 1200 range, massive AoE pressure, and more healing.

It’d be insane.

I’m all for it.

Honestly man I think staff needs to have telegraphs drastically reduced on Earth 2, Water 2, and Air 2.

I do agree, but keep in mind that (speaking about SPVP), giving Water #2 a blast finisher may cause huge problems, given the amount of fire/water fields an ele can provide.

Frenk.5917:

Chaith.8256:

Frenk.5917:

It would be the ultimate pointholder.

Imagine a D/D Celestial Elementalist.
Now give him 1200 range, massive AoE pressure, and more healing.

It’d be insane.

I’m all for it.

Honestly man I think staff needs to have telegraphs drastically reduced on Earth 2, Water 2, and Air 2.

I do agree, but keep in mind that (speaking about SPVP), giving Water #2 a blast finisher may cause huge problems, given the amount of fire/water fields an ele can provide.

^True but it’s still not going to be equal as D/D or S/D in terms of heals or might. They both have super quick ways to gain massive amounts of heals and might with their blast finishers. Their skills barely have any cast time and the effect is instant. Staff eles still have to wait 1 second to cast Earth 2 (+ 3 more seconds to take into effect), 1 second to cast Water 2 (+ 3 more seconds), and finally some field. You really have to time everything perfectly to get two effects of blast in water fields or fire fields.

Frenk.5917:

Chaith.8256:

Frenk.5917:

It would be the ultimate pointholder.

Imagine a D/D Celestial Elementalist.
Now give him 1200 range, massive AoE pressure, and more healing.

It’d be insane.

I’m all for it.

Honestly man I think staff needs to have telegraphs drastically reduced on Earth 2, Water 2, and Air 2.

I do agree, but keep in mind that (speaking about SPVP), giving Water #2 a blast finisher may cause huge problems, given the amount of fire/water fields an ele can provide.

They just thoughtlessly put a blast on Frozen Burst on the D/D Set for crying out loud.

But yeah, if Ice Spike did a blast, bump the cooldown up by 2-4 seconds, so there’s no incentive to stay extended periods in Water Attunement.

Peureki.3647:

You really have to time everything perfectly to get two effects of blast in water fields or fire fields.

Not really. Water #2, Fire #2, dodge roll into the firefield while in earth. There’s even time for Fire #3 to maximize DPS.

Also, the simple fact that you can Water #2 —→ Water #3 without needing to switch to other attunements would be extremely powerful. You could potentially blast three times into Water #5.

To be clear: I’d like for this to happen, but I believe we have to think about the consequences.

Frenk.5917:

Peureki.3647:

You really have to time everything perfectly to get two effects of blast in water fields or fire fields.

Not really. Water #2, Fire #2, dodge roll into the firefield while in earth. There’s even time for Fire #3 to maximize DPS.

Also, the simple fact that you can Water #2 —-> Water #3 without needing to switch to other attunements would be extremely powerful. You could potentially blast three times into Water #5.

To be clear: I’d like for this to happen, but I believe we have to think about the consequences.

Hmm I think Peureki was talking about the second blast being Eruption, not evasive Arcana.

I think that the world is ready for Eles that can blast things 2+ times, at this point, guys.

Despite Staff having an abundance of fields, it’s pretty light on blasts… Eruption is the only blast finisher. D/D, D/F, S/D, and S/F, they have 3, 3, 4, and 4, on 1-5 abilities, respectively.

Other blasts through utilities and traits will probably remain a constant.

Frenk.5917:

Peureki.3647:

You really have to time everything perfectly to get two effects of blast in water fields or fire fields.

Not really. Water #2, Fire #2, dodge roll into the firefield while in earth. There’s even time for Fire #3 to maximize DPS.

Also, the simple fact that you can Water #2 —-> Water #3 without needing to switch to other attunements would be extremely powerful. You could potentially blast three times into Water #5.

To be clear: I’d like for this to happen, but I believe we have to think about the consequences.

Mmmm very true. But that still has to be timed right unless you have 6 traits in fire for XI and 6 traits in Arcana for XI. Then it becomes relatively easy to combo with but that’s a lot of traits to use.

I get what you’re saying and I agree it’s powerful. For example a staff ele can easily get some major heals if they use Earth 2 + Water 2 + Water 3 + Arcane Wave. Or some major might Earth 2 + Water 2 + Fire 2 + Arcane Wave.

Another OP example can be getting Frost Armor with at least 2 traits in Earth for V. Same combo but replace the field with Water 4. 43% less damage for a long period of time. These cases and the one you’ve shown above are the best case scenarios.

A blast finisher every 4s in a weapon set that already has 3 fields would be awesome but way too much. If it did get one the cd would have to be at least 10s, just so people dont just camp water chain blasting their own fields, but id be against that too. Too much synergy between blasts/fields in the same attunement would reduce the incentive to swap attunements correctly to pull off combos which really dumbs down the class imo (fire camping eles in pve are boring enough).

Id love another blast finisher on staff more than anything, but not sure how it could fit in, maybe one in air, or maybe an instant one in earth so you can put down a fire/water field and swap to earth to blast without waiting for eruption to finally finish. It is odd that staff is the support weapon but has only 1 blast while d/d and s/f have 3 or 4.

If anything the idea of a staff ele being a master of combo fields/blasts is weak not only because of a lack of blasts but also from fields being mediocre. Whens the last time someone won a team fight in a pvp match because of a perfectly timed water field coordinated with allies blasting it? (i’m sure this happens, but it cant be that common). This is more of a general rant than just for staff eles, but i always found it odd that this game has the whole complex combo field mechanic and its barely a factor in pvp other than people blasting their own fields (usually eles/wars blasting fire fields or healing turret)

I think this would actually have the potential to be really broken:

Ice spike—>big water—>eruption—>earth dodge for 3x blast without having to take any util slots would make staff bunker ele OP.

The ONLY thing I would change about staff is just a tweak to air 2.

You can’t really make eruption any shorter, b/c that increases the sustain by making it able to finish in pre-cast fire/lightning/ice/water fields. Currently, only water 5 lasts long enough to cast eruption in AFTER casting it, and you gotta be quick with it. A shorter eruption makes it possible to blast water-3 by both eruption and EA dodge. That would be OPAF.

Staff is in a good place, imo. It has a ton of fields, but not as many blasts by design so that it doesn’t get too much. Other ele weapon-sets have tons of finishers, but only fire fields. If you gave staff all the blasts of a d/d ele, the game would break.

@Sizer, watch a stream of actual top teams where you can hear their team comms, and they absolutely coordinate to blast each-others fields, especially the water field on crate, to keep each-other up. Watching zoose play, he regularly is cognizant of this, even blasting chaos fields to support his team-mates with chaos armor when supcutie drops one. When Phanta used to play s/d, he would regularly tell how he was just blasting his fire-field on the outskirts of a team-fight to might-up his team.

I’m with BlackBeard here - while I’d *love* to have easier access to blast finishers, rather than need to tie up both heal and a utility slot in almost every build I run, it’d be far too powerful to have the blast on Ice Spike.

It might be possible to do if the skill was given a 20s cooldown, or something - making Staff Water an attunement just to pop into to lay down a field/finisher and immediately switch out of - but even then, the burst combo potential from just weapon skills (and maybe traits) may well turn out to be too strong.

Currently, only water 5 lasts long enough to cast eruption in AFTER casting it, and you gotta be quick with it.

Oi! Persisting Flames!
Though why you’d want to switch out of your DPS attunement to sit in Earth... I’m not entirely sure.

BlackBeard.2873:

@Sizer, watch a stream of actual top teams where you can hear their team comms,

I laughed. You know Sizer is competing in the WTS 50k tournament, representing Europe, this is in less than 2 weeks.

It does sound like it’d be overpowered, but as a player who runs Staff Ele exclusively, I’d be hopping around in glee if Ice Spike became a blast finisher.

Yea, it would be way too much. Ice spike has a low cooldown and it would be in a same element as 2 water fields and an ice field. And like Blackbeard said its good this way when Staff has a lot of different fields and not that many blasts while daggers have a lot of blasts but only fire field.

Not that I would mind casting Ice Spike → Geyser → Ice Spike → Frozen ground → Ice Spike → Healing rain.

If they needed to do something about Ice Spike is that they could decrease the time the huge ice spike floats in the air.

Chaith.8256:

BlackBeard.2873:

@Sizer, watch a stream of actual top teams where you can hear their team comms,

I laughed. You know Sizer is competing in the WTS 50k tournament, representing Europe, this is in less than 2 weeks.

That Sizer is not this Sizer. I believe they are two different players but with the same name. Unless Sizer switched to NA and rerolled Ele and Engi, or unless he just wants to troll an entire community (wait, that might actually be true :P ).

As much as i like the idea of another blast on ele. Ele already has way too many blasts. Found it quite funny when they kept adding new blasts with every balance patch.

Paavotar.3971:

Yea, it would be way too much. Ice spike has a low cooldown and it would be in a same element as 2 water fields and an ice field. And like Blackbeard said its good this way when Staff has a lot of different fields and not that many blasts while daggers have a lot of blasts but only fire field.

Ice Spike may have a low cooldown but it acts the same way as Eruption, it takes 3 more seconds to actually do what it’s suppose to do. An ele could do Water 2 → Water 3 and Water 2 → Water 4 but it would take up massive amount of time. Especially with this meta, it’s not worth it for a Staff ele to sit in water just for the blasts because conditions and burst will knock them straight down by the time you can cast everything.

Also I’m not sure about Water 2 → Water 5. Either you have to time it SUPER perfectly or ice spike falls down right before Water 5 is done casting. Water 5 has a longish cast time.

Chaith.8256:

BlackBeard.2873:

@Sizer, watch a stream of actual top teams where you can hear their team comms,

I laughed. You know Sizer is competing in the WTS 50k tournament, representing Europe, this is in less than 2 weeks.

Yea, wasn’t trying to burn Sizer, but I don’t think this one is the one on TCG, given his signature and how he talks. Also, I think the TCG Sizer rarely posts on the forums, and certainly wouldn’t give half a crap about staff ele.

Still, its kinda funny if you think I was just being really BM.

Whilst Ice Spike could in principle become a Blast Finisher; the cooldown would have to be addressed should it become part of the Staff’s toolkit. At 4 seconds, the potential for camping Water, dropping Ice Spike, then blasting Geyser, Frozen Field and Healing Rain each in turn is pretty high. CD would have to be upped to 10 or more seconds in that case, which would be a pretty fundamental change to how Staff plays with Ice Spike +/- Frozen Field as area denial.

I think it might be better to instead make Flame Burst (Staff Fire 3) a Blast Finisher and GTAoE. Requiring a cross-attunement combo precludes the possibility of camping Water; in addition, simply blasting Lava Font then precludes its offensive use; so there’s some cerebral play required here rather than dropping fields and Blasts.

The counterargument to that would be that it would make Fire Attunement pretty clunky; with Flame Burst working at cross-purposes regarding self-comboing. I still think it might be a more elegant and less potentially unbalancing choice to make Flame Burst a Blast.

In summary; consider Flame Burst instead. I’m not against Ice Spike Blasting, but its cooldown would have to be upped to 10 or more seconds, which is a big loss to Water’s counterpressure for some defensive utility.

The 2 problems I have with staff, are one from a pvp perspective and the other from pve. For pvp all of the 2 skills are way to slow to hit and easy to avoid, this leaves no reliable sources of damage aside fireball and where players are forced to stand on points, this allows the weapon to simply abuse the game mode.

The other problem is in pve, the interaction between lava font and persisting flames is completely brokenly overpowered. With persisting flames, and pyromancers alacrity lava font can stay up pretty much permanently ticking from 3-5k every second. No one in their right mind would stand in this for so long, but npc’s do and get annihilated. I would love to see the damage overall nerfed but more front loaded, so that lava font can be used for more than area denial in a pvp setting.