Guild Wars 2

Anet think this is a huge boost to staff ele:

Ice Spike: The cooldown of this skill has been increased from 4 seconds to 6 seconds and now causes a blast finisher when the spike lands.
The staff has numerous combo fields but has limited ability to utilize them. Adding a blast finisher to Ice Spike gives another opportunity for staff players to set up their own combos. We have slightly increased the cooldown to compensate for the strength of a blast finisher.

Slightly increased cooldown? That’s 50%!!!!

The only real damage skill on the water bar gets a 50% nerf bat and Anet thinks this is a huge boost….I mean, making it a blast finisher is nice and could be useful but 50% more cooldown on a toon already lacking in any sort of decent auto attack speed skill, not good.

Static field got shrunk so now can be even more easily avoided…

Geyser only got a boost in spvp, not wvw…

It’s quite clear Anet don’t balance for wvw, and we’ll continue to see less and less staff eles in wvw as it’s damage has been nerfed so much (walk through a meteor shower, you might get hit once, and that skill has to be channelled whilst you stand still..).

Zerk up and learn how to play, staff ele is fine.

You aren’t wrong that its 50% increased cooldown, but its also only 2 seconds. You can live with 2 more seconds….

As for static field, I guess ANet wants you to use it like a prison, to trap a person inside more than keep them out. And in that light, shrinking the radius is a good move.

Water 2 having a blast is amazing if you already are dropping a water field on a push. You should be cycling out of it right after you cast anyways to start laying damage.

Static being smaller just means you got to get good. You can still stun or split a zerg if you position properly. It being smaller also means people can’t chill inside as easily. The best use of a static is in the middle of the zerg to catch those without stab and separate the tail

Well, a blast finisher is good and the ice spike CD is sorta annoying, but doesn’t really affect matters in the long run.

You can get more frost aura!

As for static field, that’s why you cast it on them, so they don’t get to react to it. You can only hit 10 anyways. I think it’s kind of a dumb nerf, especially when they wrote that they were trying to increase the effectiveness of it.

ArchonWing.9480:

You can get more frost aura!

This, exactly!

Static field being small is actually a good thing, all you have to do is place it better and the enemy doesnt have alot of time to react.

I run a staff support ele in WvW and the overall changes make me happy in the long run. Ice Spike having a blast finisher is fantastic! There is a lot more heal/support potential with that change. I would love to see the Geyser change make it into PvE/WvW.

I’d like a lot of the changes made to PvP to come across to WvW, especially Geyser … obvs.

Mini Crinny.6190:

Static field being small is actually a good thing, all you have to do is place it better and the enemy doesnt have alot of time to react.

TFW “lockdown” Scrapper’s Thunderclap remains radius 240. :feelsbadman:

Chaba.5410:

Mini Crinny.6190:

Static field being small is actually a good thing, all you have to do is place it better and the enemy doesnt have alot of time to react.

TFW “lockdown” Scrapper’s Thunderclap remains radius 240. :feelsbadman:

Still 5 targets vs 10 smaller tends to be better for locking down groups of ppl vs just the one hit stun. All meaningless when there endless stab but every bit helps!

Now if they would remove the icd on static field so ppl could run though it 2 times being smaller becomes much stronger for stab striping (not tested it so i do not know if the icd is still there or not).

I think making it a blast finished outweighs the 2 sec CD increase. Also I can’t understand why they buffed its healing for pvp but not for wvw… thier “reasoning” is valid in wvw even more than pvp.

On the other hand.. nerfing static again is just stupid. And whats worse is they try to make it sound like a buff “against people trapped inside” I mean come on….

Also air3 change seems good (though I haven’t seen how it works yet) but why was this change made air3 but not to earth5 ???? They basically the same skill but one is a knockback and the other is an immob…

2 second increase to be able to blast finish your own water or ice fields?
I wish my ranger had a blast finisher on their weapon bar (or at all) on a 6s c/d. Instead we got some mediocre changes to a garbage weapon option, half of it only in pvp.

Staff ele just got better. Be happy.

~ Kovu

Kovu.7560:

2 second increase to be able to blast finish your own water or ice fields?
I wish my ranger had a blast finisher on their weapon bar (or at all) on a 6s c/d. Instead we got some mediocre changes to a garbage weapon option, half of it only in pvp.

Staff ele just got better. Be happy.

~ Kovu

Umm what?

Lahmia.2193:

Kovu.7560:

2 second increase to be able to blast finish your own water or ice fields?
I wish my ranger had a blast finisher on their weapon bar (or at all) on a 6s c/d. Instead we got some mediocre changes to a garbage weapon option, half of it only in pvp.

Staff ele just got better. Be happy.

~ Kovu

Umm what?

Bolded for clarification.

~ Kovu

I think it’s a buff, and a good one, could be very useful.
As for the damage in water attunement comments… that was never a DPS mode.

The only part I can agree with OP that WvW needs balanced around 20 or larger groups, though the sPvP balance (that’s around teams of 5) it’s still better than the PvE version we (still) have on many things. Balancing skills specifically for WvW mode would be most welcome (and badly needed in many cases)
But again, this is a good change.

Ice spike blast is nice, rarely stay in water to wait for the cooldown anyway.

Static being tiny is trash, although static was already pretty worthless against anything but the most unorganized pug zergs.

Static Field change was not a nerf, it is a buff acutally. I can understand how you do not feel like it but making it smaller results in more stuns, not less. Big radius was only letting players to hang out inside calmly. Now it either stuns or people commence into a frenzy to get out.

Ice spike buff is godly btw. But still staff ele will never be powerful as it was. There are better options (except for siege mushing).

Kovu.7560:

Lahmia.2193:

Kovu.7560:

2 second increase to be able to blast finish your own water or ice fields?
I wish my ranger had a blast finisher on their weapon bar (or at all) on a 6s c/d. Instead we got some mediocre changes to a garbage weapon option, half of it only in pvp.

Staff ele just got better. Be happy.

~ Kovu

Umm what?

Bolded for clarification.

~ Kovu

Ahhhh. My mistake. Carry on good sir.

I do not think any of these changes are big enough to be a concern. Statics smaller but better? Hmm zero sum game, sometimes it can be even better.

Ice spike was bad to begin with, its single hit skills with very long cast time (aka the time between you press the key vs when the attack is delivered), so it rarely does anything in the fight anyway, you have to switch out of water to do dmg anyway. It can blast now so hmm, perhaps it has more utility now, cause as dmg skill it was pathetic anyway.

The core issue of ELE for me remains how extremely slow it is to cast anything with the staff. Everything is so slow and sluggish that actually hitting a target with it thats not brain dead AI is a problem.

My 2c:

I’m fine with the changes. I might even say I like them. I enjoy running staff cele ele in a zerg. It has that feeling of being versatile which I used to associate with ele. No matter if the call is for ccs, bombs or sustain I can answer. The latest changes only make this better. Sure, there are classes that can damage better or cc better, but this level of versatility? That’s quite unique to ele, I think. And it’s something you can only really experience in WvW.

Blast is awesome. I can cast the spike, drop the water/chill field on it, and switch back to dmg or CC mode. Ice spike was never a significant part of my damage. Mostly casted on downs to keep them from an easy Rez.

The blast opens more opportunities to use. And really… 2 seconds is nothing. I can cast it, cast the water and chil , dodge the thief, and cast it again. Very little delay.

I prefer staff eles over the crap most run today. But it needs to be zerk or close to it. Most seem to just not know how to not die.

It is a blast skill! It is a faster blast than the other staff skill so is good.

Beyond what I said above, I agree that currently you have to be a very, very good player to be able to fill that sometimes vital role of giving what your team needs most at that given time; versatility means just mediocrity if isn’t timed close to perfection.
That is if playing a versatile role. Otherwise it’s just warmly recommended to stick to a heal & support role (re. staff ele in WvW group context)

I still wouldn’t advocate/lobby for a one-sided buffing of staff ele, but for a wide set of re-balancing or countermeasures “against” what HoT did: that is allowed for most classes to be both more tanky or sustain than previously, while also allowed an increased damage output – both of these simultaneously. This is a problem affecting most classes now, and should be balanced together. The game was more fun and meaningful before, when you had to give up something in order to gain an edge in the other direction.