Guild Wars 2

SkyShroud.2865:

They should reduce range to 150 and add destroy projectile effect.

I will flip a kittening table if they add anymore projectile hate into this game.
Its already got way more of that than any other game I can recall playing.

~ Kovu

300 range is mid range interm of melee attacks.

Not really, considering melee attacks are already 130 range. 300 range is still more or less point blank.

Kovu.7560:

SkyShroud.2865:

They should reduce range to 150 and add destroy projectile effect.

I will flip a kittening table if they add anymore projectile hate into this game.
Its already got way more of that than any other game I can recall playing.

~ Kovu

Something like that. It’s one of the reasons big fights have degenerated into a blob where backline and gank have blurred into a blob. Not that it wasn’t already.

balance reasons. guardains are core to wvw. our guards run commanders/pvt gear and yet they are nearly top dps vs power reapers and beserker warriors. for it not cele revs or reapers.(a freind had dps app thing and guards were nealy always top dps)

They need to revert this change immediately. Terrible decision, makes staff completely worthless.

Please, please, please Anet… We all want our staff back. We don’t have a ranged weapon for WvW now :’(

Serenity.6135:

zealex.9410:

Serenity.6135:

zealex.9410:

What good is a control support weapon when you pick it only for the aa? You are going to be in their face anyways when you charge in and start aa, having even more healing and condi dmg reduction isnt half bad.

It was not used solely for the auto attack, that’s what people did in pve. In wvw guard staff actually had a purpose and was a real support weapon aside from the auto attack. Empower was great when traited with altruistic healing, orb of light for some healing, symbol of swiftness for light field/aoe damage/ and swiftness stacking, and line of warding for cc’s. The problem is the baffling nerf to the range, not the other changes.

They litterally buffed the reason you tell me here it was good and used for in wvw. And they toned down ots aa range while increasing the arc that it hits.

They made it a better support weapon. I cant see whats the issue here.

Ruining the auto attack and buffing the other skills does not make a weapon better. Do you not understand this? I was trying to explain that staff is not simply a lootstick, it actually has a purpose in wvw. What is the point now when the auto attack is ruined? It makes the rest unimportant.

Lmao. “The weapons is not a loot stick” Aa nerfed, supportive capabilities of the weapon buffed, “The weapon is useless now”

On the guardian, Reducing the range of the Staff from 600 to 300 Makes the Staff Worthless as a ranged weapon for a guardian. In WvW the staff is the only Method for a guardian to gain speed and thus is usually the only Ranged weapon they use. By reducing the range to 300, it makes it worthless as a ranged weapon for them as at 300, they at better off wielding a melee weapon.
In addition, with only a 300 range, they have no real ability to engage and kill enemies, or in Large moving melees. Thus we are left with the Following choices- Waste a weapon slot on an almost useless Staff to gain speed, use a scepter for ranged attacks but then are highly susceptible to sneak and gank attacks due to being far behind everyone else, or no ranged at all. Please, return the range to Guardians and give us a viable ranged weapon. At the current 300 range, you are already at melee range. its worthless.
With this change, I am better off playing a warrior or one of the light classes then a guardian. this way I either get the full benefit of melee or the full benefit of ranged attacks. as the Staff 1 attack was the only viable attack. the number 2 is still worthless, and the others attacks are negligible in terms of ranged attacks.

I dunno guys, i dont use staff as a ranged weapon. I use it for power up buff’s – line – and blasting orb.

If the reason was attacking through doors, then maybe they should fix that over boonsmiting the weapon in every game mode?

zealex.9410:

Meanwhile everyone completely ignores that every other skill on the stuff got a buff…

The symbol didn’t, but that’s a nitpick.

You only get two weapon slots, which means that each weapon has to pull its weight. Staff pulled its weight because of the combination of support and being a decent ranged pressure weapon in WvW circumstances. You had the wave at medium range, and could poke with undetonated Orbs of Light and Symbol of Swiftness at 1200 range if need be. So you had two legs justifying its use – support, and ranged attack capability.

Now, the support has been buffed, but only slightly. The healing from Empower is more responsive now rather than all coming at the end, which is good, but it’s still a fairly weak heal – those initial pulses might save somebody, but it’s unlikely, and the overall heal hasn’t changed (it wasn’t unsplit). Line of Warding was always niche to pull off – a reduction recharge is nice, but nothing to scream home about. Same for the recharge reduction on detonating Orb of Light, really.

So you’ve had some fairly minor boosts to support. Meanwhile, the ranged attack capability is all but gone. 300 range is equivalent to an Elementalist’s lightning whip, and that covers a larger area, does more damage, and I’d argue that a dagger auramancer offers as much or more support than a staff guardian. You’ve still got Orb of Light and the symbol for ‘poking’, but if that’s what you’re relying on to have any offensive capability outside of range 300, you’re probably not using either for its support effects. The decreased recharge on Orb of Light doesn’t matter if you can’t afford to detonate it because it’s effectively your autoattack now.

So, to refer to that analogy of the staff having two legs justifying its use in one of your two valuable weaponsets: the changes have propped up one leg a little. While cutting off the other at the knee with an axe.

And for those people disliking projectile hate: I daresay that this will increase the amount of projectile hate into WvW. Because, on the one hand, one of the professions that previously had a ranged attack that avoided projectile hate is now gone. And on the other, once staff gets dropped like a hot potato, shield offhands might start to look rather tempting…

Fat Disgrace.4275:

our guards run commanders/pvt gear and yet they are nearly top dps

lol
that’s a problem

The changes are fine…
The staff was never meant to do dmg, and it still does what it is supposed to do.
Taking the other changes into account staff’s honestly overall better…

Well gonna answer the obvious answers just to slap the pretenders crying that they lost theyr might unskilled lootstick.
600 range aoe non reflectable spammable auto
Problems:
It triggered and still triggers burning
It was abused by blobs along with gens to make sure nothing would hinder the ktrain as far gates concerned.
Could also hit people repairing walls.
It was and still is the most unskilled auto for bags during large conflicts,and people are beeing rewarded for beeing unskilled.
Now 300 range means the greedy guardian has to actually walk into threat range,thus giving the other side more room to move.

Please just change it back and forget about that it ever happened.

It is a good balance change by pll actually using orbs and another weapon.

angbl.2806:

If staff 1 skill went through walls the answer is not to limit the range of staff but to fix the code that makes walls transparent.

or increase walls :} …larger so they can actually be used by defenders and not a place for offense aoe bag farm.

Positive change. So most guardians will finally discover there are skills other than staff 1.

Quite happy with this change. I never understood why guards were given a spam aoe that could tag everything in sight and counted as a tag in one hit. Shorter range means less tag, less loot if you just carry on spamming one and don’t use your other skills or (OMG) swap weapons during combat.

Now you need to be where you should have been to start with, next to the comm pushing through (still plenty of tagging) rather than hanging back waving your stick and being useless to the core.

Baldrick.8967:

Quite happy with this change. I never understood why guards were given a spam aoe that could tag everything in sight and counted as a tag in one hit. Shorter range means less tag, less loot if you just carry on spamming one and don’t use your other skills or (OMG) swap weapons during combat.

Now you need to be where you should have been to start with, next to the comm pushing through (still plenty of tagging) rather than hanging back waving your stick and being useless to the core.

no you just switch to ele or necro now and spam the aoe there, also you can still aoe spam siege as ele which guard could never do, where is the 300 range on staff ele change?

it’s an extremely lazy change if the reason was hitting through walls, making it worthless in all game modes (ok, in pvp it was worthless before that already)

same when they “fixed” teleports and made them shadowsteps, when they “fixed” superspeed dashes and made all dashes clunky because of that

it’s always lazy

LAZY

never change something fundamental, like making stuff auto a projectile, just break something into pieces until you have something new you can pretend to work on

Oh no. Guardians won’t be able to tag everything with their staff now. Poor Guardians, Kappa. (Lol)

My guess is that the change in range was long due. They must have analysed loot split over classes and guards propably dominated. Another guess is that they may want reduce server load and thus skill lag generated by staff 1 spam hitting 80 players all the time.

I feel like most of the people applauding this change must play Ranger, Engineer, Mesmer, or Thief. They are just happy to see one of the core zerging professions get nerfed regardless of whether or not the change is good.

I main Thief and quit bringing it to zerg fights a long time ago. Get out there and try out some other professions instead of posting guardian hate. I’ve played all of them and each has there strengths and weaknesses.

If you favorite profession isn’t great in WvW it isn’t the fault of other players/professions, the developers should be creating more competitive elite specs.

Good changes. Those who complain should now start learning how to tag and actually play WvW instead of just brainless WSAD+1111111111111111111111

Sovereign.1093:

It is a good balance change by pll actually using orbs and another weapon.

Orb skill and detonation was always the guardian auto atack xD

It is amazing how lazy players get when they are comfortable with an easy style of play and that style of play is finally tuned up to require a little (and yes I do mean little) bit of work. As I mentioned on another fellow’s post, I am sorry if I sound a tad salty but I just can’t believe what I read anymore.

I can believe that this type of atmosphere is why ArenaNet is losing competitive PvP players.

trailofsalt.6571:

It is amazing how lazy players get when they are comfortable with an easy style of play and that style of play is finally tuned up to require a little (and yes I do mean little) bit of work. As I mentioned on another fellow’s post, I am sorry if I sound a tad salty but I just can’t believe what I read anymore.

I can believe that this type of atmosphere is why ArenaNet is losing competitive PvP players.

ANet lost competitive pvp when they launched GW2, gw2 pvp was always who plays better the cheapest build..
Even listening the commentors was like it that a big hit , oh the damage, he went down fast, he is down now the other guys is down to, as much the commentors were actually decent players with a extremelly good knowledge of the game, the fast pacing gw2 gimmicks had/HAS was always a issue… to be called competitive, and classes were mostly designed to aoe spam pve as well…

That and how spvp ladders works….
Gw1 > gw2
(was simple,required individual and colective players side skills, its old but still good)

Dagger.2035:

I feel like most of the people applauding this change must play Ranger, Engineer, Mesmer, or Thief. They are just happy to see one of the core zerging professions get nerfed regardless of whether or not the change is good.

I main Thief and quit bringing it to zerg fights a long time ago. Get out there and try out some other professions instead of posting guardian hate. I’ve played all of them and each has there strengths and weaknesses.

If you favorite profession isn’t great in WvW it isn’t the fault of other players/professions, the developers should be creating more competitive elite specs.

at the moment being I do not feel like having a proper “main” but I could poitn out top 3 character classes by playtime for me:
Ranger/Druid, Guardian, Warrior

and as someone who did managed to hammer out zerg build for all 3(4?) of them at some point I do not think that the nerf to a range of support weapon as all that bad nerf.

but then also I had a staff build taht in zerg fights was proccing AoE fires on enemy zergs every second – considering it was in times when power was the meta and no one was really expecting condi guardian people were dying hilariously fast….

i agree with the nerf is required, because 600 is too strong. there is a reason why it was trademark as “the lootstick” of gw2. but it should be set to 380. at 300 it doesn’t connect with the surrounding, despite anet claim of an arc boost, i do not see any arc improvement while testing it against npc. unless anet widen the arc further it isn’t reliable, u can hit 4 target in a second and zero target in the next second just because u are slightly turn to the left or right. :P

The great loot-stick nerfed?? One less reason to come back which I’ve been debating recently.

It made the basic attack of the weapon practically useless.
Who will use the staff at mellee range,and why wouldn’t they be using a proper mellee weapon instead?
I’m not surprised really,imo the choices this balance team makes defy logic.
They could at least make it 425 range like the far..sorry I meant flamethrower.
It can shoot through gates and walls too.

DeceiverX.8361:

Stand The Wall.6987:

guard staff is a horrible weapon that is terribly outdated. I don’t know why ppl still run this.

Literally just for lootstick in WvW because it’s free ranged cleave for more bags.

Maybe people will actually dive with the tag, now, instead of just spamming 1 on heavies in the backline while dealing no damage.

What you people don’t really understand is that staff 1 wasn’t the easiest way to farm bags and stay back. DH Burn guard running scepter / ??? and longbow can do it even easier and a lot more safely from the backline.

I’m still not playing the way you think I should and if anything this nerf made it worse once more people realize how much easier burn guardian is to play :>

Aenaos.8160:

It made the basic attack of the weapon practically useless.
Who will use the staff at mellee range,and why wouldn’t they be using a proper mellee weapon instead?
I’m not surprised really,imo the choices this balance team makes defy logic.
They could at least make it 425 range like the far..sorry I meant flamethrower.
It can shoot through gates and walls too.

That’s been pretty much my thought. If this change was justified at all – and I haven’t seen anything that convinces me that it was, the ‘shoot through walls’ aspect would be better fixed by making it so the attack couldn’t shoot through walls - then reducing it to the 400 or so range of other attacks with a similar theme like Flame Jet, Drake’s Breath, and so on would at least make sense. Ideally with some buff to compensate (and no, a slight increase and firing angle doesn’t count).

300 range is ridiculous.

Vavume.8065:

Offair.2563:

Poor zerglings.

This ^ boohoo no more no brainless press 1 for EZ loot, now they will have to actually press some other buttons.

You are assuming there is little enough lag for those buttons to work.

Mew.7386:

Good changes. Those who complain should now start learning how to tag and actually play WvW instead of just brainless WSAD+1111111111111111111111

So if they press 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 they cease being brainless?

The other skills on the loot stick are situational skills, you don’t stop in the middle of a push to use Empower, you use Line of Warding behind them, you use SoSwiftness to tag and buff your allies, orb whenever etc. You don’t just spam them all off CD. If you are playing staff well, you are using AA most of the time.

if the staff is gonna stay at 300 range the damage should have at least been buffed to match other auto attacks and plus what about the compensation from all the dps that is gonna be lost due to the range drop anet?

The change on empower and orb is good tbh but the angle on which staff 1 hits does not compensate for the range drop and from 600 straight to 300 not even 450 is just silly especially for the people who main guard

good change! now people will have to actually learn how to play the class

morrolan.9608:

Syktek.7912:

Because ‘you can hit through walls and gates’.

Why is this an issue now? After 5 years. All aoes can hit through gaates anyway, why is it an issue for guardians?

Exactly what I was wondering, condi engineers with flame throwers are much more effective and can hit through gates too, does this mean the flame thrower is going to be a melee weapon too?

Serious.6940:

morrolan.9608:

Syktek.7912:

Because ‘you can hit through walls and gates’.

Why is this an issue now? After 5 years. All aoes can hit through gaates anyway, why is it an issue for guardians?

Exactly what I was wondering, condi engineers with flame throwers are much more effective and can hit through gates too, does this mean the flame thrower is going to be a melee weapon too?

except guardy’s staff is not melee wepon due to still having over a twice as much range as actuall melees [300 vs 130]

and guardian with this nerfed staff can still quite effortlessly outtag any melee class.

Lord Trejgon.2809:

Serious.6940:

morrolan.9608:

Syktek.7912:

Because ‘you can hit through walls and gates’.

Why is this an issue now? After 5 years. All aoes can hit through gaates anyway, why is it an issue for guardians?

Exactly what I was wondering, condi engineers with flame throwers are much more effective and can hit through gates too, does this mean the flame thrower is going to be a melee weapon too?

except guardy’s staff is not melee wepon due to still having over a twice as much range as actuall melees [300 vs 130]

and guardian with this nerfed staff can still quite effortlessly outtag any melee class.

300 is essentially ‘melee with reach’ range. Elementalist dagger has 300 on its shortest-ranged autoattack, and people don’t pretend that’s a ranged weapon. Sure, it means that if you’re good at kiting you can theoretically sit just outside of melee range and hit them while they can’t hit you back – however, most ‘melee’ characters will either be able to hit you anyway or quickly close the distance at that range (often both).

For most intents and purposes, 300 is melee. Melee with a polearm* rather than melee with a sword, perhaps, but melee nonetheless.

• Yes, I know GW2 doesn’t have polearms, but the analogy gets the point across.

draxynnic.3719:

Lord Trejgon.2809:

Serious.6940:

morrolan.9608:

Syktek.7912:

Because ‘you can hit through walls and gates’.

Why is this an issue now? After 5 years. All aoes can hit through gaates anyway, why is it an issue for guardians?

Exactly what I was wondering, condi engineers with flame throwers are much more effective and can hit through gates too, does this mean the flame thrower is going to be a melee weapon too?

except guardy’s staff is not melee wepon due to still having over a twice as much range as actuall melees [300 vs 130]

and guardian with this nerfed staff can still quite effortlessly outtag any melee class.

300 is essentially ‘melee with reach’ range. Elementalist dagger has 300 on its shortest-ranged autoattack, and people don’t pretend that’s a ranged weapon. Sure, it means that if you’re good at kiting you can theoretically sit just outside of melee range and hit them while they can’t hit you back – however, most ‘melee’ characters will either be able to hit you anyway or quickly close the distance at that range (often both).

For most intents and purposes, 300 is melee. Melee with a polearm* rather than melee with a sword, perhaps, but melee nonetheless.

• Yes, I know GW2 doesn’t have polearms, but the analogy gets the point across.

except no one I’d know ever claiemd dual daggers on ele as “melee” – all of people I know that are talkign about it are refering to it as “short range weapon” – which is not the same.

and actually it is not much easier to close the difference between 300 and 600 if the outranging guy knows his things

300 vs 1200? yeah there is some difference here – but then again most of skills to open the distance already works on the ranges of 600(+) and quite afwully lot of usable close-ins too.

bonus points for the place where guardian stuff is mostly used [and where it’s advantage over factuall melee weapons stil l shows up most] – zerg fights – there isn’t actually much telling about closing or opening distances anyway – you stick to your tag – if you have range on enemies you are supposed to attack – good for you – you don’t? well sucks to be you

Lord Trejgon.2809:

except no one I’d know ever claiemd dual daggers on ele as “melee” – all of people I know that are talkign about it are refering to it as “short range weapon” – which is not the same.

I’m not sure any of this is relevant, staff is not and has never been a melee weapon.. What this change has done is render it completely ineffective as a weapon at all which means guards who have to run it are gimping themselves.

As a dedicated wvw Guard I like being support. Empower, Line of Ward, Stabs, healing as I can is the thing many Guards like. Staff is the weapon that gets that job done nerfing it was unnecessary. If anything I wished they let Guardian live up to its name and be more support oriented. Staff hit like a wet noodle compared to Hammer/GS. When in a serious fight I switch as do most guards. Staff is a shepherd’s tool for their flock. Guards help tend their parties (eg their flock). Many of us like that role and staff was part of it.

Loot? What loot? People talking like tagging and bagging 50 or 100 heavy loot bags is some sort of big deal. Wow I can get more value in pve in brainless mode. Tequatl will be a better use of time if I want “loot.” Thieves ganking everyone seems a big part of their color and I get that why is being a support Guard such a crime?

morrolan.9608:

Lord Trejgon.2809:

except no one I’d know ever claiemd dual daggers on ele as “melee” – all of people I know that are talkign about it are refering to it as “short range weapon” – which is not the same.

I’m not sure any of this is relevant, staff is not and has never been a melee weapon.. What this change has done is render it completely ineffective as a weapon at all which means guards who have to run it are gimping themselves.

guy above claimed it to be melee so I answered that.

and then I frankly still disagree about staff getting “completely inneffective as a weapon at all” – it is no longer ultimate lootstick but that would be it – in zerg fights you will still be tagging most of guys, easier than any melee guy for as long as you do not get caught into situation when the dps goes from “range only” – but in those cases even with 600 range you would not be able to reach assumed targets with staff AA.

and then again – even in zerg or maybe especially in organised zerg you are not supposed to fill all the possible roles at once with one class – support specced guardians are not supposed to effortlessly outdps, dps oriented frontliners just by the merit of having so much range advantage over melees.

[especially when commanders does not distinguish guads from other heavies – in all organised groups I have seen the only command directed to specifically giardians would be “stability 1”, “stability 2” and “purge on me” [last one can be also directed to more classes as I am not exacly sure atm how much AoE purges are there in those setups… revies perhaps?] in all other cases – especially in regard to movements it’s just overal “heavies” – so “in theory” guardians are supposed to stick in same group as melee warriors and revies in which case even if the staff was actually reduced to melee range on AA they would not be loosing alot in comparision to other classes in “the bracket”

Thelgar.7214:

Positive change. It isn’t 2013. Move your guardian up on tag where you can more effectively provide support, mitigate AOE damage and screen the tag.

Don’t want to offer any support to anyone now from midrange cuz, um, I cant kill from there so why would I want to support from there?

Why would I play front line and move around a whole bunch, change up my build, trash my Bifrost or keep it and only heal/defend/support with a non-melee weapon? Too much work for no loot.

Nah me and my friends just gonna switch to loot necros, loot bows, loot flame throwers, etc. Lootstick? lololololol bye bye support – its already happening as we speak!

Mew.7386:

Good changes. Those who complain should now start learning how to tag and actually play WvW instead of just brainless WSAD+1111111111111111111111

But what if they just go bye bye from game? Or quit guard and u get zero support? Will u cry then – no stab (etc support), I want my stab, I want my stab now! Wah

No loot, no support.

I play guard quite a lot, both WvW and PvE and I think this change was just completely not needed.

I tried the changed staff and basically the buffs it got to its healing / utility side are negligible from practical wide application point of view. They do next to nothing and make no difference, while the range reduction does make a huge difference to this weapon. If A-Net wanted to go this far then they should have compensated the other skills much better, instead now the utility is not worth keeping it equipped over the loss on the AA.

So we’ll end up with yet another useless or rarely used weapon on yet another class affecting quite a lot of builds.

Overall this was a bad change.

Was a really bad Nerf, I hope they undo it.

I play guard on crystal desert and i am happy with the staff change

Commanders use staff for empower speed and walls.

I use 2 handed war hammer and mace shield with either celestial armor or sentinel armor

I work for my bags by charging in with my commander melee cleaving and proving stab / aegis

I know staff was a loot stick but i dont need loot i buy gems and gold and i play to win.

Glad staff was nerfed. If you need a range weapon you can be a dragon hunter and use bow while still providing buffs

So people who use staff loot stick dont really contribute to the zergs. I rather have a necro condi bomb or ele healer than a useless guard.

Meh,

Guard staff was OP AF for the longest time. The nerf was coming someday, just pick yourselves up and move on.

Guardians are stronger than ever right now if you know where to look and not just worrying about “Tagging Mechanics”.

I’m still waiting for people to man up and say they want their easy tags back.
They buffed the support on a support weapon and lowered the range of the AA.

It’s a support weapon that was mostly used for tagging and moving.
Make an ele and spam staff AA if this change is to much for you.

Build diversity.