Detailed Weaver - Staff Feedback

Detailed Weaver - Staff Feedback

in Elementalist

Posted by: Swiftwynd.1685

Swiftwynd.1685

Hello,

I played a combined total of about 16 hours of Staff Weaver during the preview, specifically in PvP.

In working with the skill set, I wanted to provide some specific feedback of what is “working well” and what could perhaps need some modest tweaks, and in the case of most of the Water/X combinations, need some very significant value adjustments or additional functionality to be useful for damage or support builds.

If needed, these could be PVP/PVE split, but I feel like the suggested numbers are very “fair” and are compromises between existing skills, such as comparing healing numbers to Geyser or Water Globe for similar skills. I hope some of the more “conceptual” changes are liked for the additional utility and functionality.

Each additional utility/suggestion is designed to provide better combo potential and “flow” of the play style. Other suggestions are to add Fields or Finishers where appropriately needed, which often also synergize with build options.

For example “What would benefit Fire/Air and Air/Fire kits if we werent to add something to Plasma Blast?”

Answer: adding a short area “Pull” to Plasma Blast after it explodes, allowing it to collapse enemies inward to either Lava Font / Static Filed combo them, or to Lightning Surge + Meteor Shower them. Also, its totally in need of a Blast finisher to combo with Lava Font and Static Field.


Unlike the other weapon sets I tried, Staff felt the most “fluid” with the new Weaver Attunement swapping. That said, I spent the vast majority of my time using Arcane and Air Specialization, which greatly helped reduce the deadspace between ability use.

Staff has a lot of situations in which the deadspace between swapping can easily be filled, either with functional auto attacks (Fire, somewehat Air and Earth) or long cast times to follow up after a swap (Air 2, Earth 2, and Earth/Air 3, Meteor Shower).

I agree with the majority of the feedback on the forum and Reddit that it would be nice for the global recharge to be reduced to a baseline of 3 seconds. Arcane would then further help reduce the dead space, allowing for vastly improved fluidity, especially for the other weapon options.

Now, on to specific skills and combinations that were extremely fun and rewarding:

The Really Good! No changes needed.


Pile Driver is a fantastically designed ability and feels extremely rewarding to set up, and uses both Air/Earth and Earth/Air skill sets extremely well. The immobilize from Earth 5 and the impassible knockback from Earth 4 work well enough to set up the hit for Pile Driver, but also Air 5 (and Air 4 for easy Swiftness for the traited damage boost) is exceptionally good for helping to land Pile Driver.

When using Air/Arcane build and taking Lightning Rod and Tempest Defense, and swapping during the cast time of Pile Driver, you get an exceptionally potent burst combination, especially when paired with Arcane Blast and Arcane Bolt. Addtionally, it triggers the Air minor lightning strike, and any hits after Pile Driver gain the bonus 20% damage from Tempest’s Defense. This makes a Earth/Air to Air/Earth focused play style synergy that feels unique, fresh, and very fun, and exactly what I felt like playing Weaver should feel like!

Detailed Weaver - Staff Feedback

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Posted by: Swiftwynd.1685

Swiftwynd.1685

Good, Modest Improvements would be nice


Suggestion changes for Plasma Blast:

  • Increased cast time from 1/4 to 1/2 second.
  • Increased projectile speed by 50%.
  • Increased recharge from 12 seconds to 15 seconds (standardizing dual attacks)
  • Add: Blast Finisher on explosion.
  • Add: Secondary attack if explosion hits additional foes, creating an imploding gust of air:
  • 300 range Pull to Center if multiple targets are hit as the heated air collapses back inward.
  • Damage of ring: 134 base, 0.33 Power Scaling.

Plasma Blast is almost in a good place for the synergy it could offer with the abilities found in Air/Fire and Fire/Air. It is a skill shot that travels along the ground, but the projectile speed is a bit low and the pay off for landing it is not great, but with its low recharge of 12 seconds and fast cast time prevents it from being a higher pay off skill.

As such, I’d recommend increasing its projectile speed, cast time, and recharge time to make it more satisfying to land, and give it additional utility and damage in the form of an “imploding” gust of air to fill the vacuum of the super heated plasma explosion that would Pull enemies in from a modest radius (much less than mesmer focus).

This collapsing gust of air can reuse the Firebrands’s Heated Rebuke animation with a white overtones for the air, and the additional damage added from it would improve the base damage and scaling damage to more reasonable levels for a skill shot nuke.

This would be absolutely fantastic for the flow of Air/Fire and Fire/Air rotations, as it would benefit from Air 5’s Stun, could be used to Blast Swiftness with it, or to Blast a fire field for more might, and can pull enemies into Air 5 or Lava Font or Meteor Shower. This would totally transform the skill from a “fast cast, decent damage, low recharge, hard to land” skill to a “good damage, medium recharge and cast, medium to difficulty land, but awesome utility” skill to set up all of your other area effect abilities.


Suggestion changes for Pyroclastic Blast:

  • Increase Cast Time from 3/4th to 1 second.
  • Increase Projectile Speed by 100% (or more!)
  • Add: Blast Finisher on Impact

The projectile speed on Pyroclastic Blast needs to be doubled, as it is the most televised, slowest projectile skill in the game to my knowledge. It really is that slow! You can simply walk out of the area of the targeted effect without swiftness and with in-combat movement speed. Even if this requires a modest cast time increase to 1 second from 3/4ths, I think this is really needed to make it usable for 1,200 range.

Obligatory “its called blast, it makes a huge impact, please just add the blast finisher!” This will really seal the deal on the blast + fire field synergy, and makes some great staff Weaver build options using Persisting Flames. A easy combination of Lava Font > Pyroclastic Blast > Earth Attune > Eruption, then back from Eruption > Lava Font > Pyroclastic Blast. This gives multiple fun ways of using Pyroclastic to trigger blasts or create fields for blast, making a full build option for the earlier Fire + Arcane might stack staff builds.

Its total damage per use is actually quite good if, and only if, you can land all of the hits, but this is fine considering earth has immobilize and the wall. Persisting Flames should increase its total damage output even further, so for a hybrid power/condi damage skill, it is in a perfect place damage wise for highly stationary foes.

Mediocre – Needs Improvement


Suggestion changes for Lahar:

  • Reduce Recharge from 20s to 15s (standardized)
  • Add an effect similar to Plague Lands, with increasingly strong conditions added each time it strikes a foe repeatedly, with each Pulse only firing the specific condition listed on consecutive hits on the same individual:
  • Pulse 1: Cripple (4s)
  • Pulse 2: Weakness (4s)
  • Pulse 3: Immobilize (2s)
  • Pulse 4: Slow (4s)
  • Pulse 5: Stun (1s)
  • Add: Combo Field: Earth
  • Earth Fields provide:
  • Blast: Area Magnetic Aura (3s)
  • Projectile: Bleed (4s)
  • Leap: Magnetic Aura (5s)
  • Whirl: Bleed (4s)

Earth + Water Lahar is not very well tuned at the moment. As an offensive skill, its damage is extremely under performing, and as a control skill, it is not effective at all with only having Cripple. I’ve found no situation in which I would ever wish to intentionally swap into Water to gain this skill from Earth.

There are several ways to address this skill, but I think a neat progression would be to apply increasingly debilitating movement and combat reducing conditions with each new pulse on a per target basis.

This would then become an extremely potent control / defensive skill if you can keep an opponent in the field. This would work very well with water 4’s ice field or earth’s immobilize + Unsteady Ground, or with comboing Earth attuned Arcane skills for additional immobilize.

The above change, with a reduction in its recharge time to the standardized 15 seconds, would make this ability very welcome in both damage and support builds, giving each a reason to use it, and with the addition of “Earth Combo Fields” for all “mud” based abilities, this would have a lot of synergy for using Ice Spike and Eruption, as well as some condi damage applications using Stoning through the field.

(edited by Swiftwynd.1685)

Detailed Weaver - Staff Feedback

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Posted by: Swiftwynd.1685

Swiftwynd.1685

Abysmal, Absolutely Needs Improvements


Suggestion changes for Pressure Blast:

  • Add: Blast Finisher.
  • Reduce Cast time from 1 second to 1/2 second.
  • Base damage increased by 30% (from 404 to 525) (lower than plasma blast)
  • Power Scaling increased by 50% (from 1 to 1.5) (lower than plasma blast)
  • Healing base increased by 100% (from 650 to 1300) (compared to Geyser’s 2,760)
  • Healing Scaling increased by 400% (from .25 to 1) (compared to Geyser’s 2.0)
  • Optional Additional Utility: 250 Knockback Distance from point of explosion

Pressure Blast has a low damage base and coefficient, a low healing base and coefficient, has a delay and a long cast time, and the only nice thing it has is the blind. If we standardize its recharge, raise its base and scaling values to more appropriate levels, and lower its cast time slightly so it can be more reactive in its use (which is important for healing abilities and Blind abilities). This would also allow for neat combinations, such as going from Water/Water, casting Ice Spike + Geyser > swap Fire/Water > Cast Pressure Blast to quickly double blast the water field from Geyser, giving Support builds, and even damage builds, some much needed burst healing options to help their allies. If we really want this ability to gain more utility, a small knock back effect could be an interesting addition, but with the above changes, it wouldn’t be necessary.

While the above suggested values may seem drastic, it just goes to show how abysmally low balled the original values are. With my adjustments, for both Power and Support builds, the above increases would make it “half” as good at healing as Geyser, just a bit more upfront, and for the damage portion, it would still function as a “decent to low” damage ability to toss in while gaining some modest recovery for Power builds. This would function wonderful in a Mender’s build set up.

If the knock back component is added, this would further add synergy for Lightning Rod builds or for support builds looking to interrupt a stomp or push a melee foe off of an injured ally. The lack of a blast finisher seems like an unintentional oversight, given it “explodes” quite literally and has Blast in the name!


Suggestion changes for Monsoon:

  • Reduce Recharge from 20s to 15s (standardized)
  • Add: Healing component 150 base, (.10 scaling), hitting every 1/4th second to allies in area along its path.
  • Increase Damage base from 101 to 150.
  • Add: Vulnerability x2 (10s) per hit.
  • Add: Foes hit with over 20 Vulnerability and Chill will be afflicted with Freeze (2 second).

Currently the worst Dual Attack skill in the game, the added changes give it use in both a support and damage build, and rewards the Weaver for stacking up sufficient vulnerability via Air and Water abilities and traits to land a strong Freeze stun effect. This would then provide excellent synergies for a lot of various Dual Attack skills, such as setting up a swap from Air/Water into Fire/Air to land an easy Plasma Blast and Lava Font on a Frozen foe.

For support builds, this would now be fantastic to launch through allies and enemies, allowing allies to receive modest healing, vulnerability and chill on their foes, and if traited, remove some conditions from the regeneration application. The stun component would allow even a Magi’s build to still offer their allies some offensive disruption, allowing the Weaver to set up some Vulnerability and with Ice Spike or Chill with Frozen Ground and then launch out the Monsoon to Stun foes. This could be very nice for preventing stomps or revives on support builds.

Detailed Weaver - Staff Feedback

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Posted by: Swiftwynd.1685

Swiftwynd.1685

Anyone else have any success with the staff during the preview weekend?

Detailed Weaver - Staff Feedback

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Posted by: MyPuppy.8970

MyPuppy.8970

I’d increase plasma blast projectile speed by 200%. It’s a plasma blast, after all! It would take more ressources and energy to slow it like it is now.

Also Pile driver is good, but shouldn’t root you. If damage were to be increased 3 times maybe but not with current damage.

When I see Moonsoon I can’t help but thinking of Janna’s active Howling Gale, with a range/damage/knockup duration increased by the time spent charging it. (I wish we could float eerily instead of walk)

Pressure Blast I can’t remember it doing anything. But the name suggests an aoe knockback. Even wih minimal damage it would be great.

Lahar being an earth field would be great. I always wondered why we never had one. Also make it exclusive to eles. Otherwise, a poison field would be great too.

Pyroclastic blast could be GW1’s version of meteor.

Lily Bertine [NG]/[GiRL]
Nerfentalist of Augury Rock

Detailed Weaver - Staff Feedback

in Elementalist

Posted by: Krysard.1364

Krysard.1364

I missed this post, these changes are rly good for the most part and would rly help make staff viable on a pvp environtment, which Ive been looking for so much

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