Guild Wars 2

Hello, and we’re back with another Staff Elementalist Dueling Video.

Summary

So here it is! Enjoy:
The Featured Video

I am Azilyi, and I’ve created a number of Staff video tutorials and dueling videos in the past which are posted on this forum as ‘Scrap/Burn the Zeitgeist’.

This time there are no WvW duels included here. The reason for that is because the server I am stuck on (DB) has no dueling community in the OS. And due to my recent hiatus, I have no money to buy any updated gear to reflect the build I’ve designed in sPvP.

That being said, this entire video’s footage was captured over only 2 days in the sPvP dueling arenas and solo queue live matches. I tried to make sure to only include the duels with opponents that had viable builds. The only class I didn’t get a video of was Ranger… for some reason they were completely MIA from these dueling areas.

Build Comments

The Build

At first glance, this build looks like a complete mess with 1 cantrip, 2 arcanes and a sigil. But there’s a lot more synergy in this build than first appears. The whole build is constructed around Blinding Ashes.

Sigil of Earth is entirely too strong to pass up, especially for staff. Having another CC which is only 25s cooldown is incredible, and cannot be afforded to pass up.

Arcane Brilliance and Arcane Shield are just nice. I can see someone wanting to take Blasting Staff, and taking away Arcane Mastery in the build which would work just fine. But I like the 20s blast-finish heal, so I keep them in.

Cleansing Fire (from VIII in fire and the utility) are great ways to cause burning when not attuned to Fire, and great for blinding downed opponents before a stomp.

But the most important trait for that by far is Burning Precision which causes burning on critical hits. This gives you burning in every element to apply Blinding Ashes as frequently as possible.

And the last, most important comment is condi duration. This gives your spammable (Earth 1) attack, a 4s weakness to deal with those power builds. Sigil of Doom is up almost 100% of the time unless they clear it. At 80% condition duration, burns are up constantly and provide a nice boost to your dps.

Considerations

It took me a long time to get this video out because Anet had decided to nerf staff elementalists which really got me upset. Taking away Meteor + Tornado combo was a huge part of the reason for my staff’s viability in spvp.

In return they gave us Blinding Ashes which will apply to players when using AoE abilities which is better, but not what we asked for. This ability’s ICD should be triggered independently for each player… but I dont’ think Anet’s code will allow this to take place.

Sigil of Earth was a strong buff. Too strong, in fact. I suspect an impending nerf.

The class which gives me the most trouble is definitely Mesmer. I don’t understand their class well enough to predict their movement, which makes my CC all but useless.

Earlier Videos

Staff Elementalist Tutorial Video ‘Scrap the Zeitgeist’

Staff Elementalist 1v1 Duels from a Previous patch

I always enjoy watching these pvp videos from KrazyFlyinChicken. No doubt he is the best staff ele!

LightningBlaze.4913:

I always enjoy watching these pvp videos from KrazyFlyinChicken. No doubt he is the best staff ele!

lol, I wouldn’t go that far. But thank you for the ego boost

I love this build and what you do for Staff Eles everywhere. I’m really interested in try out this build, but I do have one question.

You chose Soothing Wave over something else like Shard of Ice, or even Vital Striking. Do you feel like the importance of the regen to survivability is more important than the damage we get from Vital Striking?

Your enemies seems to use weird tactics.

InfernoCrossing.8063:

I love this build and what you do for Staff Eles everywhere. I’m really interested in try out this build, but I do have one question.

You chose Soothing Wave over something else like Shard of Ice, or even Vital Striking. Do you feel like the importance of the regen to survivability is more important than the damage we get from Vital Striking?

Vital Striking isn’t as strong with this build. I have been told (but not verified) that direct increases to damage (+10% more damage when over 90% health) does not affect condition damage.

I would say 75% of this build’s damage comes from conditions, so I feel that the regen is a wiser choice. Although I have taken Cantrip Mastery at times instead (to reduce the CD of Cleansing Fire (x2 from Fire VIII)

That aside, I strongly feel that regen is a huge contributor to an ele’s survivability. Elemental Attunement isn’t quite enough, and Healing Rain’s cast time/CD is a little too long in both cases to be enough.

Thank you for watching

Junkpile.7439:

Your enemies seems to use weird tactics.

Unfortunately, I don’t think any dueling video (from anyone) can be put up without this argument being valid. There will always be a better opponent out there, and even they can make mistakes.

And capitalizing on those mistakes is 50% of dueling

Thanks for watching!

Being used to 00266 Staff, and too afraid to do 66002 because I don’t want to be looking at the downstate most of the time in a match (l2p issue tots), this just seems to be a great, flexible middle ground to advance my magecraft…
Azilyi, any advice against D/P and S/D thieves in general? I can hold them off for a while, but I would like to be more offensive against them.

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

Hello, and we’re back with another Staff Elementalist Dueling Video.

Summary

So here it is! Enjoy:
The Featured Video

I am Azilyi, and I’ve created a number of Staff video tutorials and dueling videos in the past which are posted on this forum as ‘Scrap/Burn the Zeitgeist’.

This time there are no WvW duels included here. The reason for that is because the server I am stuck on (DB) has no dueling community in the OS. And due to my recent hiatus, I have no money to buy any updated gear to reflect the build I’ve designed in sPvP.

That being said, this entire video’s footage was captured over only 2 days in the sPvP dueling arenas and solo queue live matches. I tried to make sure to only include the duels with opponents that had viable builds. The only class I didn’t get a video of was Ranger… for some reason they were completely MIA from these dueling areas.

Build Comments

The Build

At first glance, this build looks like a complete mess with 1 cantrip, 2 arcanes and a sigil. But there’s a lot more synergy in this build than first appears. The whole build is constructed around Blinding Ashes.

Sigil of Earth is entirely too strong to pass up, especially for staff. Having another CC which is only 25s cooldown is incredible, and cannot be afforded to pass up.

Arcane Brilliance and Arcane Shield are just nice. I can see someone wanting to take Blasting Staff, and taking away Arcane Mastery in the build which would work just fine. But I like the 20s blast-finish heal, so I keep them in.

Cleansing Fire (from VIII in fire and the utility) are great ways to cause burning when not attuned to Fire, and great for blinding downed opponents before a stomp.

But the most important trait for that by far is Burning Precision which causes burning on critical hits. This gives you burning in every element to apply Blinding Ashes as frequently as possible.

And the last, most important comment is condi duration. This gives your spammable (Earth 1) attack, a 4s weakness to deal with those power builds. Sigil of Doom is up almost 100% of the time unless they clear it. At 80% condition duration, burns are up constantly and provide a nice boost to your dps.

Considerations

It took me a long time to get this video out because Anet had decided to nerf staff elementalists which really got me upset. Taking away Meteor + Tornado combo was a huge part of the reason for my staff’s viability in spvp.

In return they gave us Blinding Ashes which will apply to players when using AoE abilities which is better, but not what we asked for. This ability’s ICD should be triggered independently for each player… but I dont’ think Anet’s code will allow this to take place.

Sigil of Earth was a strong buff. Too strong, in fact. I suspect an impending nerf.

The class which gives me the most trouble is definitely Mesmer. I don’t understand their class well enough to predict their movement, which makes my CC all but useless.

Earlier Videos

Staff Elementalist Tutorial Video ‘Scrap the Zeitgeist’

Staff Elementalist 1v1 Duels from a Previous patch

Great vid! It’s nice to see other staff ele doing so well. I’m just wondering if arcane brilliance is the best choice in a duel context where you can only hit 1 target. But then again, I use Scholar runes in a context where staying above 90% isn’t very ez :P.

As opposed to the build I came to adopt (http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWhUM6cW4wxBr0AhAB5tmrRBlrLXB-TJRGwAAuAAD3fwwDAAaZAA), yours is more condition oriented. I might give another chance to blinding ashes since they did updated it since I last tried it seriously. I’m always seeking excuses to go to 6 in fire anyway. It’s just that so far A-NET has not given me much incentive to do so when compared to how I could perform by going 00266 with full zerker suit.

Ralkuth.1456:

Being used to 00266 Staff, and too afraid to do 66002 because I don’t want to be looking at the downstate most of the time in a match (l2p issue tots), this just seems to be a great, flexible middle ground to advance my magecraft…
Azilyi, any advice against D/P and S/D thieves in general? I can hold them off for a while, but I would like to be more offensive against them.

My best advice for fighting thieves is Elemental Attunement. Be careful with your Earth Attunement for protection and Magnetic Aura.

Make sure to become familiar using your combos without relying on Earth. When your opponent goes into stealth, have your finger hovering over your earth attunement. The moment he strikes, switch in. Give yourself protection. If he’s trying to stack bleed from range, use magnetic aura.

DO NOT linger in earth. The moment he breaks off, get out of Earth and into something else to allow it to come back up.

Duel lots of thieves and you’ll notice they tend to follow the same kind of pattern (Range damage, stealth, close-combat, stealth, rinse and repeat). Once you catch on to their rotation it’s really just a matter of managing your earth attunement and mag auras and wait till they make a mistake coming out of stealth so you can kill them.

Reading a thief becomes easier when you understand the lengths of time they have in stealth. Dropping a static field on yourself half a second before they pop out can be devastating to them and mess up their whole rotation.

Good luck, and thanks for watching!

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

…

I have a really hard time not using AB now. You’re right, just hitting one person isn’t how it was meant to be played… but it’s also a blast finisher so you’ll get the bonus healing from blasting a water field when you use it. So running a quick test in spvp…

From Arcane Brilliance:

3752 from Arcane Brilliance (0 targets hit)
1448 from blast combo.
5200 Total Heal

4502 From AB (1 target hit)
1448 from blast combo
5950 Total Heal
(Deals 445 Damage)

Glyph of Elemental Harmony:

5373 Total Heal + 1 Boon

Ether Renewal:
721*8 = 5760 Total Heal

The kicker here is that i’m also using Arcane Mastery which makes AB a 20s cooldown instead of 25s. You might be able to devise a build to reduce the glyph cooldown, but that would require 2 pts into air which could work… but would require some tinkering.

Ether Renewal is great… but my build doesn’t have a great deal of stab to make it viable, and enough condi clear already.

Last note, is that the above is only 1 target hit. This thing can go up to 5 targets hit…. which is basically a full-heal in a fight against a mesmer or turret engi.

On the note of your build: I really like the 0/0/2/6/6 build myself… but it’s too bunkery for me. I found it very limiting in actual 1v1 or duels which is what I’m really most interested in. With zerker amulet, it might be more feasible… but then you’re shoe-horned into cantrips which (great as they are) are too defensive for my liking. But I’m glad to see others are still out there rockin’ that staff

Thanks for watching, and great question!

The build is fleeting imo. While it’s viable, it won’t hold up to the meta 00266 build or other blinding ashes builds (like signets). I recommend the 6/2/6/0/0 build for dueling with staff, especially since you’re able to function without blasting staff. I found I was able to tackle everything with the exception of a -skilled- condi spam engi.

Eventually I got bored with that though and am back to the standard. You have the skills, but from what I can tell you’re not quite to the point of setting up killzones with your CC’s yet. You make yourself an easy open field target all the time. I never saw you use a wall to your advantage (to increase the chance of them being forced to run into a CC for example). I’d also recommend kiting less in a circle and more in straight lines. Fooling them into thinking you’re easy to predict allows you to make their “prediction” backfire by letting you counter play with stationary fields. While I won’t point to any specific thing, I would encourage you to be more aggressive with your CC’s. Force them to hit them instead of using them as a trap when you’re pressuring. It’s possible to hit them both with wall and static field when they’re not moving.

I know I’m just some random Jack to you, but after 5k hours with staff ele in all areas of gameplay, you can consider my feedback constructive. Keep it up! I often wonder if the amount of skilled staff ele’s is in the single digits.

I ran this last night for 2-3 hours of dueling with a friend who plays every class and another ele friend. It’s been a long while since I did staff dueling (been playing a lot of s/f lately) so took me a bit but this build really has a lot of 1v1 potential and was quite fun. I struggled more with a medi guard than mes actually, since so much of the damage in this build is condi and I just couldn’t dish out enough before all the teleport burst destroyed me – occasionally I’d be able to catch them with a static but I probably just don’t know them well enough to catch the tells. With mesmer, I think my main issue was that I’m used to running a sigil of energy and/or Renewing Stamina, so I was struggling to not waste dodges before their shatter spikes.

The signet of earth, which I hadn’t tried post-patch, is absolutely incredible for setting up bursts and the bleeding is a nice chunk of damage. The short CD as well as all the other cc available to staff eles got pretty ridiculous the longer the fights went on. While I don’t think I’ll be running it in pvp, for dueling I really enjoyed it! Been a fan of your builds since that first staff 1v1 video you posted so I was thrilled to see this new one and hope to see you keep making these.

Bluefox.9580:

The build is fleeting imo. While it’s viable, it won’t hold up to the meta 00266 build or other blinding ashes builds (like signets). I recommend the 6/2/6/0/0 build for dueling with staff, especially since you’re able to function without blasting staff. I found I was able to tackle everything with the exception of a -skilled- condi spam engi.

Eventually I got bored with that though and am back to the standard. You have the skills, but from what I can tell you’re not quite to the point of setting up killzones with your CC’s yet. You make yourself an easy open field target all the time. I never saw you use a wall to your advantage (to increase the chance of them being forced to run into a CC for example). I’d also recommend kiting less in a circle and more in straight lines. Fooling them into thinking you’re easy to predict allows you to make their “prediction” backfire by letting you counter play with stationary fields. While I won’t point to any specific thing, I would encourage you to be more aggressive with your CC’s. Force them to hit them instead of using them as a trap when you’re pressuring. It’s possible to hit them both with wall and static field when they’re not moving.

I know I’m just some random Jack to you, but after 5k hours with staff ele in all areas of gameplay, you can consider my feedback constructive. Keep it up! I often wonder if the amount of skilled staff ele’s is in the single digits.

Interesting build. I am tempted to try it, although I worry at the lack of condi clear. My other complaint is that only a few signets are strong and the others you have to take just because.

I am not a huge fan of Signet of Air or Signet of Water and you have to take both to make a signet build (condi clear and a stun breaker). Which means your last one is probably going to be Signet of Earth. I think I would like water more if it cleared condis on use instead of chilling. But this is all just my personal preference. I love that the Signet of Air is on a 20s CD though…. so much stunbreak

And I agree about that straight line thing. You’re right—I could definitely try being more predictable. I’ve also noticed myself utilizing shorter combos which isn’t good, either. Great comment!

Thanks for watching!

amaranthined.5167:

I ran this last night for 2-3 hours of dueling with a friend who plays every class and another ele friend. It’s been a long while since I did staff dueling (been playing a lot of s/f lately) so took me a bit but this build really has a lot of 1v1 potential and was quite fun. I struggled more with a medi guard than mes actually, since so much of the damage in this build is condi and I just couldn’t dish out enough before all the teleport burst destroyed me – occasionally I’d be able to catch them with a static but I probably just don’t know them well enough to catch the tells. With mesmer, I think my main issue was that I’m used to running a sigil of energy and/or Renewing Stamina, so I was struggling to not waste dodges before their shatter spikes.

The signet of earth, which I hadn’t tried post-patch, is absolutely incredible for setting up bursts and the bleeding is a nice chunk of damage. The short CD as well as all the other cc available to staff eles got pretty ridiculous the longer the fights went on. While I don’t think I’ll be running it in pvp, for dueling I really enjoyed it! Been a fan of your builds since that first staff 1v1 video you posted so I was thrilled to see this new one and hope to see you keep making these.

Hey, I’m glad you gave it a shot! It is very different from the older staff builds, but I think it’s stronger in 1v1 and 2v1 scenarios than previous. But thanks to that stupid Tornado/Meteor nerf, I feel like condi is the better alternative now

Mesmers definitely give me trouble, as well. But Guardians are really fun to fight with this build once you get a good idea of how they set up their burst.

It’s really telegraphed. Once you see that shield pop up, you know they’re coming at you. Try to dodge it. Usually they’ll immobilize you right before so here’s some fun stuff to do if that happens.

1. Burning Retreat while immobilized. Someone mentioned this on a previous video. It’s a good 2-second dodge that works even while immobilized. You won’t go anywhere, but you’ll dodge their whole burst while standing on the spot.

2. Cleansing fire the immobilize, Dodge.

3. Arcane Shield, block it!

4. Nothing else? Switch to earth for protection!

Dodging that first burst is usually easy. After that, you have to be careful about saving one of your ‘outs’ for the next one

Thanks for watching! I’ll try to keep posting

Bump for interesting mindset, playstyle, and build.
Nobody wants to 1v1 on a Staff Ele?! Pretty much nobody has you figured out yet…

Ralkuth.1456:

Bump for interesting mindset, playstyle, and build.
Nobody wants to 1v1 on a Staff Ele?! Pretty much nobody has you figured out yet…

I’ve been playing around with a bunker staff build that is working pretty well. I can pretty much hold a point against even zerkers for a fairly long time although the might stacking with staff is a bit restricted compared to daggers and I had to switch Battle sigils out for energy.

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

…

I have a really hard time not using AB now. You’re right, just hitting one person isn’t how it was meant to be played… but it’s also a blast finisher so you’ll get the bonus healing from blasting a water field when you use it. So running a quick test in spvp…

From Arcane Brilliance:

3752 from Arcane Brilliance (0 targets hit)
1448 from blast combo.
5200 Total Heal

4502 From AB (1 target hit)
1448 from blast combo
5950 Total Heal
(Deals 445 Damage)

Glyph of Elemental Harmony:

5373 Total Heal + 1 Boon

Ether Renewal:
721*8 = 5760 Total Heal

The kicker here is that i’m also using Arcane Mastery which makes AB a 20s cooldown instead of 25s. You might be able to devise a build to reduce the glyph cooldown, but that would require 2 pts into air which could work… but would require some tinkering.

Ether Renewal is great… but my build doesn’t have a great deal of stab to make it viable, and enough condi clear already.

Last note, is that the above is only 1 target hit. This thing can go up to 5 targets hit…. which is basically a full-heal in a fight against a mesmer or turret engi.

On the note of your build: I really like the 0/0/2/6/6 build myself… but it’s too bunkery for me. I found it very limiting in actual 1v1 or duels which is what I’m really most interested in. With zerker amulet, it might be more feasible… but then you’re shoe-horned into cantrips which (great as they are) are too defensive for my liking. But I’m glad to see others are still out there rockin’ that staff

Thanks for watching, and great question!

Thanks for the heal stats! I rarely experiment with precise numbers so I’m glad some take the time to do so.

As for my build being too bunkery, it’s pretty hard to feel like a bunker when you are entirely zerker. With 1026 of thoughness, pretty much any strike leave a good mark. The traits are what makes it viable.

That being said, I’m playing a lot more in a WvW roaming context than duel settings so I guess my build could be more agressive if in another context. At least for my skill level that is. Maybe some staff ele play pure zerker wih 6 in fre and air but I never had much fun doing it and I did tried it a lot. I’m just not good enough for it.

Ralkuth.1456:

Bump for interesting mindset, playstyle, and build.
Nobody wants to 1v1 on a Staff Ele?! Pretty much nobody has you figured out yet…

This is a huge part of why I love staff so much.

I spent a lot of time dueling a guildy thief who tells me a huge problem for him is Burning Ashes… Having those blinds come in at inopportune times can kill a thief when they’re trying to cloak and dagger.

Loads of fun when they don’t know what to expect from you.

Necrotize.2974:

Ralkuth.1456:

Bump for interesting mindset, playstyle, and build.
Nobody wants to 1v1 on a Staff Ele?! Pretty much nobody has you figured out yet…

I’ve been playing around with a bunker staff build that is working pretty well. I can pretty much hold a point against even zerkers for a fairly long time although the might stacking with staff is a bit restricted compared to daggers and I had to switch Battle sigils out for energy.

I also have problems might-stacking in staff. Lots of blasts, but not nearly as many as dagger/Evasive arcana build. I try to shy away from the strength runes now for that reason

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

…

6/6/0/0/2 is pretty fun. A little less fun, now that they nerfed Tornado/meteor but still fun

I really don’t like the full-glass builds. They’re fun for a laugh, but once the enemy thief picks up your build, you’re just boned. Everywhere you go, a target reticle over your head is sure to follow.

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

…

6/6/0/0/2 is pretty fun. A little less fun, now that they nerfed Tornado/meteor but still fun

I really don’t like the full-glass builds. They’re fun for a laugh, but once the enemy thief picks up your build, you’re just boned. Everywhere you go, a target reticle over your head is sure to follow.

Yeah, I definitely relate to the thief example where you suddenly loose 90% of your life before even knowing WTF happened. lol.

Were you all zerker with your 6/6/0/0/2 trait line?

I recently swtiched to a staff elementalist from my thief in sPvP. I played the standard 0/0/2/6/6 build, but I found it quite boring. A week ago I saw this post and tried the build.

It is awesome!

Thank you very much for your effort you put in this build. I really like it and I try to tweak it around a little bit, just for my preferences.