Guild Wars 2

So, staff was not only buffed last patch, it was also made smoother. Comboing eruption with other fields, or sweeping through skills, as never been as fun. It was already a good weapon for wvw, and I do feel it should be strong enough for pve and for pvp premades now.

I’ve decided to start testing it for pvp, and as a solo-queue player, I’ve immediatly detected the big problem with staff there: sticking together with team mates is a completely unreliable strategy.

What I mean is, there are many times where I find myself alone, either because there’s a point left uncapped and either I go there or no one else does; or because someone dies or runs away; or because my team spreads to every corner of the map; or because I know I should go to a specific place, even if no one else is there. Etc.

And as we all know, staff is meant to be a support weapon, great with team mates, less than great when alone or in duels. That’s all fine, when you can make sure you have a team or a partner alongside you; but as a solo-queue pvper, you won’t always have that luxury, and the game mode (conquest) itself and the lack of a healer (lack of trinity roles) doesn’t helps. This makes staff conditionally great; i.e. great at some situations, and free points to the other team at others. I mentioned the lack of a healer role also because even while in teams, if you get bursted down by a specialized burst player, you’ll die pretty quickly and end up not contributing much to your team: it’s not fair, because it means you will automatically “suck” against any smart team who knows they should target you first.

I don’t think that a staff-wielder should be strong enough to win 1v1, of course; but I do think it should be strong enough to survive 1v1 a little bit longer than it does. Certainly, if a ranged player comes in, I can always use magnetic aura alongside my fields, and watch them burst themselves with their own damage and plenty of conditions. I feel that versus the ranged department, this weapon is fine. But against a melee-burst, there’s little I can do outside of gusting them away or burning retreat. Certainly, crippling and chilling them down should be enough, but not when they can kill you faster than you can escape. Air #2 is inneffective at helping us in this situation. The earth #1 is slow, and you’re not doing anything else in the meantime, while still taking damage.

1. I think staff could have an extra or an improved self-defense skill out there. Maybe Air#2 could give us some sort of boon while channeling?
2. Alternatively, I think staff could punish our opponents harder by trying to kill us. For example, having burning retreat create an explosion on the place where it is cast, similar to burning speed. This wouldn’t make us able to directly/ reliable burst any opponents, but it would allow us to deal better with specialized builds that want to specifically burst us down.
3. If conjures were ever viable, I could see the potential of using them for duels. If…
4. Because I’ve used an offensive staff build; I’m sure a bunker staff could probably work well enough, but I haven’t tested it.
5. I don’t have as much experience in playing staff as I do with s/d or d/d. Feel free to correct me or teach me. :P

Discuss.

DiogoSilva.7089:

So, staff was not only buffed last patch, it was also made smoother. Comboing eruption with other fields, or sweeping through skills, as never been as fun. It was already a good weapon for wvw, and I do feel it should be strong enough for pve and for pvp premades now.

I’ve decided to start testing it for pvp, and as a solo-queue player, I’ve immediatly detected the big problem with staff there: sticking together with team mates is a completely unreliable strategy.

What I mean is, there are many times where I find myself alone, either because there’s a point left uncapped and either I go there or no one else does; or because someone dies or runs away; or because my team spreads to every corner of the map; or because I know I should go to a specific place, even if no one else is there. Etc.

And as we all know, staff is meant to be a support weapon, great with team mates, less than great when alone or in duels. That’s all fine, when you can make sure you have a team or a partner alongside you; but as a solo-queue pvper, you won’t always have that luxury, and the game mode (conquest) itself and the lack of a healer (lack of trinity roles) doesn’t helps. This makes staff conditionally great; i.e. great at some situations, and free points to the other team at others. I mentioned the lack of a healer role also because even while in teams, if you get bursted down by a specialized burst player, you’ll die pretty quickly and end up not contributing much to your team: it’s not fair, because it means you will automatically “suck” against any smart team who knows they should target you first.

I don’t think that a staff-wielder should be strong enough to win 1v1, of course; but I do think it should be strong enough to survive 1v1 a little bit longer than it does. Certainly, if a ranged player comes in, I can always use magnetic aura alongside my fields, and watch them burst themselves with their own damage and plenty of conditions. I feel that versus the ranged department, this weapon is fine. But against a melee-burst, there’s little I can do outside of gusting them away or burning retreat. Certainly, crippling and chilling them down should be enough, but not when they can kill you faster than you can escape. Air #2 is inneffective at helping us in this situation. The earth #1 is slow, and you’re not doing anything else in the meantime, while still taking damage.

1. I think staff could have an extra or an improved self-defense skill out there. Maybe Air#2 could give us some sort of boon while channeling?
2. Alternatively, I think staff could punish our opponents harder by trying to kill us. For example, having burning retreat create an explosion on the place where it is cast, similar to burning speed. This wouldn’t make us able to directly/ reliable burst any opponents, but it would allow us to deal better with specialized builds that want to specifically burst us down.
3. If conjures were ever viable, I could see the potential of using them for duels. If…
4. Because I’ve used an offensive staff build; I’m sure a bunker staff could probably work well enough, but I haven’t tested it.
5. I don’t have as much experience in playing staff as I do with s/d or d/d. Feel free to correct me or teach me. :P

Discuss.

The main problem is buffing the staff for competitve 1v1 will break it for large scale pvp. Making the ele get more survivability or putting knockbacks/stuns on more skills will allow this weapon to decimate groups in WvW. Balancing a weapon made for 5v5 to 20v20+ fights for 1v1 is definitely a hard task in itself

Demon.5082:

The main problem is buffing the staff for competitve 1v1 will break it for large scale pvp. Making the ele get more survivability or putting knockbacks/stuns on more skills will allow this weapon to decimate groups in WvW. Balancing a weapon made for 5v5 to 20v20+ fights for 1v1 is definitely a hard task in itself

I would have to agree with demon. Even though for what you want staff to do in a 1v1 is survive. Which it can but you just have to survive by running away. Dropping your skills like air#5(pop air#4 for speed boost), earth#3, water#4, turn around quick and fire#4. Those are great escaping skills in any combination. Or can be used offensively to create distance in a fight so you can use your range to an advantage.

Staff ele dominates hotjoin spvp (or should). But as you say, it is still difficult for a staff user to win 1v1 against decent player. But with practice I think a staff ele can fare well in any 1v1 except maybe against the really ridiculous spike attacks (even then you may be able to avoid/mitigate those if you are experienced enough).

One thing that helps 1v1 with staff is to think ahead of them, make them dodge into your kill zone, it only takes 1 mistake against a staff ele to get yourself killed. And in Team Fights is where staff shines, you can decimate an entire team just as fast as you can one person, and with your allies there to protect you, you should have no issues.

For me, I actually pair up with our Necro at mid ( rest of my friends are extremely mobile) and are normally able to 2v5 either successfully or long enough for support to show up and turn it into an Ace.

1v1s are certainly a weak point for the weapon, but that doesn’t mean it’s -bad- at them, just requires a different strategy.

Agreed, you do need to put alot of thought into all of your moves when using staff (though Ive played 1000-1500+ matches with staff so its mostly reflexes for me now…). Remember, none of your attacks are really guaranteed to hit. All of the projectiles are pretty slow, and the aoe can often be avoided. So the staff ele needs to have good field vision and good timing.

But it is alot of fun and rewarding to play (especially if you like having a supportive/hybrid style).

It’s simple: we kill the Batman
Give us a new low tier trait (arcane 10 or something like that) that severly reduces staff aoe attacks – or even makes them targeted singletarget spells alltogether – and buffs those attacks to be viable for single target damage.

Celtus.8456:

Agreed, you do need to put alot of thought into all of your moves when using staff (though Ive played 1000-1500+ matches with staff so its mostly reflexes for me now…). Remember, none of your attacks are really guaranteed to hit. All of the projectiles are pretty slow, and the aoe can often be avoided. So the staff ele needs to have good field vision and good timing.

But it is alot of fun and rewarding to play (especially if you like having a supportive/hybrid style).

This, and the water auto is actually pretty fast, but then again, it’s the water auto xD, the air one is pretty easy to land too and is actually pretty freaking devestating if there’s 2 enemies in the combat, or they’re a ranger.

Why shouldn’t Staff Ele be strong enough to win 1vs1? I agree that as a tradeoff for the support role they should have a tougher challenge 1vs1, but they shouldn’t be handicapped any where near as severely as they are.

When a balanced stat Staff Ele does half the single target damage of a healway, defensively geared Guardian, then something isn’t right.

There is too much mobility/condition removal/stun break in this game for a ranged build to rely on CC to kite as a means of overcoming lower single target DPS. Staff Ele shouldn’t be one of the better 1v1 builds, but it shouldn’t be as horrible as it currently is.

I’d be inclined to agree that staff could use a small buff geared toward making us better in 1v1 duels.

We’re amazing at support, be it with boons and heals or conditions and death, and we can quickly change the course of a team battle with our presence. That is the feel I wanted when rolling an elementalist, and I am content with it. However no matter how great we are at group fights there will always be that time where we’re alone for whatever reason. Maybe we’re in spvp and need to get back to our allies as soon as possible, but someone catches us between the respawn point and our team. Maybe we’re in WvWvW and on our way to our designated zerg a roamer catches us. 1v1 DOES happen, and there is no way to completely avoid it.

What makes this an elementalist issue specifically is we only have one weapon set. And if that weapon is a staff we’re automatically handicapped in the duel, and unless we severely outplay the opponent we will die and our presence as team support is completely negated. If we could weapon swap this wouldn’t be a problem, but we’d also be fantastically overpowered. So giving staff a few small 1v1 tools would be the best way to address the problem. Nothing major, we don’t need to replace daggers or scepter as the best roamer weapon, not even close. But we do need a little more in the way of 1v1 reliability so we can survive 1v1 encounters.

What I do if I’m every going into a 1v1 situation is I pop my Fiery Greatsword, because if you’re good at it, is actually a really strong elite. And I also carry Lightning Hammer in case Greatsword is down, because there’s no use having cantrips that don’t even stun break anyway. So that’s one option, just use Lightning Hammer and Fiery Greatsword to burst them down.

Nighthawk.7946:

What I do if I’m every going into a 1v1 situation is I pop my Fiery Greatsword, because if you’re good at it, is actually a really strong elite. And I also carry Lightning Hammer in case Greatsword is down, because there’s no use having cantrips that don’t even stun break anyway. So that’s one option, just use Lightning Hammer and Fiery Greatsword to burst them down.

Those 2 things are ridiculously strong in 1v1s and really do eliminate the downside to staff, not going to lie lol. Fire Axe is also a good option.

And staff does good in 1v1s just not AS good, you need to be a few steps ahead of your enemy in order to pull it off, or you can bring a conjured weapon or 2 and cause destruction.

I don’t think that the damage should be changed to make it more viable in PvP. Lightning Surge cast time and Unsteady Ground effects could be tampered with a bit, without creating chaos, but otherwise the rest appears to be good enough.

The real problem is the lack of mobility, as I see it. Surely there can be added a skill to staff that wouldn’t make it too strong in WvW. Swapping Unsteady Ground with an underground movement skill would be nice to see. Tunneling trough the ground, giving you the means of keeping distance to your opponent, sort of like Devourer Retreat, although the distance should be longer than 200. Perhaps 900 or 1200?

That would take care of Unsteady Ground, which many seem to dislike for obvious reasons, and the devs don’t need to create something entirely new, as the skill exists in the game already. It would also fit earth attunement greatly. Just my 29½ cents..

TL;DR: Swap Unsteady Ground for a skill similar to Devourer Retreat (tunneling underground), perhaps lower the cast time of Lightning Surge (to 3/4 or 1 sec), and the staff should have the right tools for solo-queue and other formats, without breaking balance.

STL;DR: Stuff..

P.S. STL;DR = Still too long, didn’t read.