Guild Wars 2

Especially one for damage. One that isn’t bunker.
I play 20/30/0/0/20 in full (pvt back, 1 knight’s trinket still).
I have under 12k hp at the start of a WvW week.
I use heal on crit + prec food, and power sharpening stones.

What do I want to see that I don’t already know?

I want to see what people use to min-max their glass burst in fire mostly.
My current staff has accuracy on it, but I feel that bloodlust would have a higher burst potential. I want the absolute highest possible damage so none of those downed players get up. This is what I love about staff. You are like a toned down glass thief that can aoe kill instead of single target. When you get downed, you rally almost always.

I was thinking I could do 30 fire instead and get might on cantrips and spam all three cantrips at the start (no mist form, obviously. I don’t use it anyway). I did this with a sceptre/dagger build before and was downing veteran sentries in under 10s.

I toyed with glyph of storms, but the 900 range is meh, especially when you think of other useful things you can put in that utility slot. I run Arm of Earth, Signet of Air, and LF. Sometimes swapping SoA for Arcane Blast (mostly as a heal). I don’t find it worthwhile to use AB as a means to stack might or apply swiftness and have cds being down as a result. But if I was using cantrips and AB standing over a lava font, that might be the best move pre-meteor pwnage.

So, glassies, what are your secrets? Message me if you don’t want everyone else to know. bahahah

Runes: 6x eagle.
Sigil: Perception.

I just bought one 10% crit damage food to test it out. (they are 8s+ each).

In case you don’t know what I’m talking about here, and think glass cannon staff is a terrible idea, I’m talking about people who don’t know how much a meteor shower can do.

I play every weapon set every week. I usually max out around a 3200 crit, unless I put in work every time and get those 5k-12k crits. They still exist, and not just with s/d in spvp. You have more survivability with staff than any other weapon set because it’s played at the back/middle line. You get 3 dodges. With certain specs and skills you can get 3 different condition clears, and 4 separate heals.

D/D is boring. The damage is horrible for the amount of work involved. It’s bad in pve and pve. If you’ve never played it and wonder why you die all the time, then D/D seems like a godsend. If you’ve played it to death, and know about the other weapon capabilities we have, you shun it away.

Why don’t you write it since you know everything..

I posted this in the well balanced staff build topic. I am currently playing this build which I feel can be an alternate to yours. You can switch out the sigil fire trait for 10% more damage in fire to get juicier meteor showers. I don’t take blasting staff b/c I don’t find it to be that much more effective. You can also play with the jewels for more crit % dmg if you want (I looked at knights with beryl jewels). I think that I may get magi’s earrings/rings with sapphire jewels for more healing power/support.

Here’s a staff build that I theory crafted and have played with occasionally.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEQQFAWhEmYbyx5gjEAkCoEZYwBTGhshogFA-jkyAYLAiAQ2TRN/BkDzYxrIasqaANEmGdR1eEGtahAUMBA-w
The premise is to always have burning up on your target. The traits/runes I picked allow:
10% dmg with full endurance
10% dmg with health above 90%
15% dmg to burning foes
20% dmg to foes with health under 33%.
That’s a 55% bonus to direct damage when your health is full and theirs is below 33%. The trick is to manage staying above 90% health.
Interested in anyone’s comments on this one.

Wenrolio.8063:

I posted this in the well balanced staff build topic. I am currently playing this build which I feel can be an alternate to yours. You can switch out the sigil fire trait for 10% more damage in fire to get juicier meteor showers. I don’t take blasting staff b/c I don’t find it to be that much more effective. You can also play with the jewels for more crit % dmg if you want (I looked at knights with beryl jewels). I think that I may get magi’s earrings/rings with sapphire jewels for more healing power/support.

Here’s a staff build that I theory crafted and have played with occasionally.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEQQFAWhEmYbyx5gjEAkCoEZYwBTGhshogFA-jkyAYLAiAQ2TRN/BkDzYxrIasqaANEmGdR1eEGtahAUMBA-w
The premise is to always have burning up on your target. The traits/runes I picked allow:
10% dmg with full endurance
10% dmg with health above 90%
15% dmg to burning foes
20% dmg to foes with health under 33%.
That’s a 55% bonus to direct damage when your health is full and theirs is below 33%. The trick is to manage staying above 90% health.
Interested in anyone’s comments on this one.

Played around with a similar build, only I did 25/10/0/20/15. The premise was an attempt at stacking at least 1 stack of Vuln on people as well as Burning, then swapping to Water and dropping an Ice Spike. Because of 15 Arcane you can be in both Fire and Water at the same time at the moment that the Ice Spike hits.

+10% from Fire Attunement
+20% from Water Attunement if Vuln is present
+15% from Burning (used the same runes you’re using)
+20% if they’re under 2/3 health

It was loads of fun at keeping keep walls squeaky clean, and I got good at timing the Flame Burst, swap, Arcane Blast, Ice Spike. I liked the build, especially because it allowed me to keep 15 Water for a bit of extra healing. Your build looks like it’d be easier to actually land your damage, whereas what I was using was very decent damage but so easy to avoid. Think I ran Arcane Blast, Arcane Power, and Arcane Shield at the time. One problem spot was if you didn’t line up all your combos and attunements, or if Sigil of Intelligence didn’t proc, you definitely noticed the missing burst.

@ PinCushion: I can definitely say that in the heat of a fight I’m switching attunements as soon as they are up and wouldn’t be able to keep up with a full combo like that while predicting where the enemy will be. It also looks like you didn’t take credit for the at least 5% dmg you’d get for a burning foe with fire 25. I’m sure dropping that ice spike felt really good when it hit.

I did make my build to suit my style of play which typically revolves around keeping it simple. I tried to pick traits that would work with every attunement. Having 0 in arcana, I also find that I need to save my water swap for when I, or my group, really needs the geyser and healing rain.

Last thing, I put mist form in my second utility on that link, but I actually run with signet of air to get from place to place.

Wenrolio.8063:

@ PinCushion: I can definitely say that in the heat of a fight I’m switching attunements as soon as they are up and wouldn’t be able to keep up with a full combo like that while predicting where the enemy will be. It also looks like you didn’t take credit for the at least 5% dmg you’d get for a burning foe with fire 25. I’m sure dropping that ice spike felt really good when it hit.

I did make my build to suit my style of play which typically revolves around keeping it simple. I tried to pick traits that would work with every attunement. Having 0 in arcana, I also find that I need to save my water swap for when I, or my group, really needs the geyser and healing rain.

Last thing, I put mist form in my second utility on that link, but I actually run with signet of air to get from place to place.

You raise some good points. First, I ditched the build because it never actually connected. I’d often hit people with various components of that burst. But it was incredibly rare to hit someone with all of them at once. When it all connected they’d die. But they’d have to be AFK, lagged to oblivion, or in the middle chatting for it all to land on one person. Second, I missed being tanky/supporty. Using a staff made me a little too vulnerable to burst, and I got tired of dying every time a Thief got close. So I swapped to full Cleric’s and just spam green numbers on everyone.

I wonder would the new signet of earth have helped your build significantly? The extra toughness is pretty nice. Can’t go wrong with the clerics support though.

Getting back to the OP; I hope you find something that is comfortable for you. That is what I think matters most. Find a balance of survivability and damage that suits your play style and fits in with your team/guild/whatever.

Edit: I realize you asked for full glass, but what gave me my best results for damage was also somewhat survivable. I have hit bigcrits on fire auto with the build and think that if you change the jewels to zerkers you’ll get close to the max damage a staff would put out while being somewhat reliably alive.

Wenrolio.8063:

I wonder would the new signet of earth have helped your build significantly? The extra toughness is pretty nice. Can’t go wrong with the clerics support though.

Getting back to the OP; I hope you find something that is comfortable for you. That is what I think matters most. Find a balance of survivability and damage that suits your play style and fits in with your team/guild/whatever.

Edit: I realize you asked for full glass, but what gave me my best results for damage was also somewhat survivable. I have hit bigcrits on fire auto with the build and think that if you change the jewels to zerkers you’ll get close to the max damage a staff would put out while being somewhat reliably alive.

I’m thinking it’d be somewhat workable if I could line up Shockwave to hit several enemies, and time it like…

Shockwave → Eruption → Ice Spike → Flame Burst/Arcane Blast → Arcane Power

If I could get the timing right Ice Spike and Eruption would hit at the exact same time, I’d still be in both Fire and Water attune, and Arcane Power would effect them both. Then it’d just be a matter of mopping up with a Static Field, and Fiery Greatsword dropped on their face.

That’s a lot of uninterrupted chain-casting, though. Not sure how realistic it is. And it’d depend on getting enough Condi-Duration to land that Ice Spike + Eruption before the immob wore off.

I may tinker with it some more, since I need a new build to work on.

PinCushion.7390:

…

If I could get the timing right Ice Spike and Eruption would hit at the exact same time, I’d still be in both Fire and Water attune, and Arcane Power would effect them both. Then it’d just be a matter of mopping up with a Static Field, and Fiery Greatsword dropped on their face.

That’s a lot of uninterrupted chain-casting, though. Not sure how realistic it is. And it’d depend on getting enough Condi-Duration to land that Ice Spike + Eruption before the immob wore off.

…

There is no such thing as two attunuments at the same time for % bonuses. Guess you are referring to Lingering Elements, that’s not how it works.
Also you would need I think 150%+ condition duration for shockwave to immobilize target for full Eruption → Ice Spike → Lava Font combo. Which is the standard high burst opener.

Also standard -/-/-/30/30 is FAR more useful for wvwvw than any other spec, unless you absolute need to go 100% dps. Then there is no question about the gear and spec, it’s berserker 30/30/…

You just simply use the standard build with berserker gear. It’s just silly using worse traits from fire, air or earth and then gearing for defence. No trait comes close to EA. Cleansing Wave synergy with 10 target regen Elemental Attunument and Healing Rain. And ofc attunument cooldown for more frequent burst combos and support.
Properly played staffie drives the fight who 100% DPS for three 4ths of the fight and every 10 seconds goes full on support mindset to get everything out of the water attunument. And ofc drops that juicy Static field just at the right time, winning the fight with one move, just like guardians can with a juicy Ring of warding.
Meteor Storm + Tornado combo when it’s guaranteed to land for those 10k+ crits, think 13k was my best so far.

Strongest build, gear for playstyle.

I main Elem Staff forWvW and PvE and i Play:

30Fire
10Air
10Water
20 Arcana

Main focus is to get might as long as you atack with Fire. I know this isnt the best build out there but its one i really have fun playing with. Later i can explain in detail my build when i log in. Have fun