Guild Wars 2

Though the latest changes to staff are a good start and are very welcomed, we still have some of the old issues that didnt get fixed.

1. We lack damage; For someone who wants to forsake most of the support we could bring, staff offers little to almost no rewards for people going for DPS. Meteor shower (though better now) still is an unreliable and dangerous skill to use in a 2v2 or 1v1 match, which are predominant in 5v5s. Leaving us with a ground casted skill that does -meh- damage at best IF the target is dumb enough to stand still for the entire duration. Once out of fire we have very little options for damage, and most of them are near imposible to land but on golems.

1. Our support still subpar; Long CDs, TOO long. water #4 and air #5 are our best CC and except for frozen field, everything else is very conditional and requires the enemy being a new [bad] player, it does not reward skills, only enemy mistakes. Earth #4 is still a joke, a bad joke. Healing is subpar; ranger and engis dont even have to try and they have better heals on lower CD, while still being straight up damage, same for guardians who give all kinds of boons and heals while retaining their functionality and damage, no sacrifices. Even mesmers can provide bunch of boons without even trying with staff.

1. we fill no niche roll None at all, AoE is great for WvW, but it has no point in sPvP, and a weapon which has 18/20 AoE skills. Even if you were to go with AoE cap points the damage is really bad unless 30/20/0/0/20, and then all it LITERALLY takes is a thief or GS guardian to jump on you, backstab HS (another if he dodge the first one) and you are dead. Single target is non-existent. Healing is bad; ground based, small and long CDs. CC has long CD and requires enemy being new, bad and without absolutely any knowledge of other classes. We cant tank, all we are good for is running, and even then we have a hard time.

1. Lowest stats in the game, nothing to make it up with; either you go 10k hp with Valkyrie, conditions eat you alive no kidding. 13k hp beserker, everyone, even bunkers can kill you with you having no chance to even take 60% hp. or 17k hp soldier; absolutely no damage, no supporting, no tanking, not even a way to keep range and make use of that 1200 range.

1. Traits cut into our builds. Arcane VIII Blasting staff should be integrated into staff already! Also this is about eles in general, switching eles is still too long, 15 baseline and 9 lowest?! It should be 12 max and 8 lowest. Also conjured weapons are bad, for all weapon choices.

My suggestion is simple; increase damage across all elements equally, make fire more rewarding to land, specially fire #2. Decrease casting times of skills such as air #2, autoattack skills(!!!!!!!!). Reduce CDs! Unnecesarily long CDs, they have to go!

I believe we have to make a special treatment for eles because unlike other classes we have very few weapon choices; most people dont even know what the focus does, scepter now took over the D/D, yet staff has a bunch of die-hards fans (like me, I have ONLY played staff ele since beta) and we would like making the emblematic weapon of a mage viable.

We made necros viable, can we do the same with staff eles please?

thoughts on this and how we could improve staff ele?

Fortus.6175:

thoughts on this and how we could improve staff ele?

Add condition damage to staff skill.
Add cc to Air.
Oh wait. Reroll necromancer.

But seriously. It would be better to add a teleport(15 sec cd) into the air staff. This completely changes everything.

Marduh.4603:

Fortus.6175:

thoughts on this and how we could improve staff ele?

Add condition damage to staff skill.
Add cc to Air.
Oh wait. Reroll necromancer.

But seriously. It would be better to add a teleport(15 sec cd) into the air staff. This completely changes everything.

problem is; air staff have some pretty good skills already, i wouldnt want to lose any, though I tend to use #3 less even though it breaks roots and slows, more often than not people are not close enough to benefice from this since Im trying to stay at range with staff but everything in its skill force me to be close to melee with mates AND enemies alike, kind of contradictory that to take full benefice of something i have to go against its design.

The thing is they don’t really have any traits for staff. Everything is geared towards s/d or d/d. Blasting Staff is alright but It needs to have some kind of another reason to take it over renewing stamina.

A few traits in fire magic could be re-worked to help out staff seeing as the attacks hit so often they don’t really need a high crit chance to be effective. An instant or near instant blast finisher would go along way to help the staff also.

sirnibb.4709:

The thing is they don’t really have any traits for staff. Everything is geared towards s/d or d/d. Blasting Staff is alright but It needs to have some kind of another reason to take it over renewing stamina.

A few traits in fire magic could be re-worked to help out staff seeing as the attacks hit so often they don’t really need a high crit chance to be effective. An instant or near instant blast finisher would go along way to help the staff also.

exactly, i dont mind going 20 into arcane that much, it is just that i would rather have renewing stamina and arcane V for boons on switching, but i have to pick either or, when staff is definitely not meant for the small AoE without Basting Staff VIII