Guild Wars 2

LordByron.8369:

Ralathar.7236:

Staff can do both damage and utility equally well. .

Attack speed makes impossible to hit thieves and mesmers (but aslo any strafing profession you can just sidestep Attacks….or slowly walk out of aoes….even standing in some without taking any damage):
Aoe are so slow that never hit anything

DPS is utterly bad unless you use conjured weapons that are a bad versions of other professions weapons (just roll other professions if you like them).

So no in real game staff and scepter can t hit things THUS cannot dps.
They can support and CC (CC almost completely negated in PvE) but NOT deal damage…as every ele weapon.

As a staff ele you are not aiming to kill thieves or mesmers in zerg vs zerg. Waste of your time that could be more effectively spent elsewhere. Instead you slaughter everyone else. Thieves and mesmers won’t do kitten without their front liners. Backliners are tasty tasty food for your AOE prowess.

Used effectively your AOE’s provide 3 functions:

1. Anyone that stays in them or is forced to stay in them dies horrible deaths very quickly. Your CC combined with your allies CC forces them very often with coordinated groups.

2. Area denial. Placed properly coordinating with your side the enemy team cannot properly and effectively engage or retaliate without eating horrific damage.

3. If properly placed AOE’s will divide and scatter an enemy zerg.

I don’t know where you get this “no damage” myth from. Meteor Shower itself of course does large damage but combining flame burst, glyph of storms, ice bow, eruption, and Ice spike results in massive damage either concentrated or spread out. Glyph is normally doing 600+ per hit and is just got majorly buffed, flame burst is doing similar in smaller burst radius. Eruption does 1,000 + around 3,500 bleed, Ice spike has been known to hit for 2-3k. Ice bow SHREDS.

I’ve never had any combat where I laid 2-3 AOEs in the same area and enemies in that area didn’t go down if they did not immediately leave it. People are pretty good at running from meteor shower but they normally don’t notice they have been herded or cut off with eruption/ice spike, typically ignore the glyph of storms, and are too slow to avoid most of the damage from ice bow.

Ralathar.7236:

Again, this is not from Idle speculation. I’ve been there on my auramancer in fights exceeding 20 members from both sides. PVE of course you can kite melee like a boss and avoid ranged damage just as well.

If you’re in a fight with 19 other people on your side, how exactly are you “staff tanking?” This situation is basically safety in numbers.

The devs already mentioned in the SotG that Staff is powerful in WvW, how about discussing it’s usefulness anywhere else for a change? Where even mobs in PVE won’t stay in AoE for more than one tick, try to use your amazing Staff Aoe on the Dredge Miningsuit or the Archdiviner, that would be so awesome.

maddoctor.2738:

The devs already mentioned in the SotG that Staff is powerful in WvW, how about discussing it’s usefulness anywhere else for a change? Where even mobs in PVE won’t stay in AoE for more than one tick, try to use your amazing Staff Aoe on the Dredge Miningsuit or the Archdiviner, that would be so awesome.

The staff is quite useful on normal mobs and vets in dungeons and general dungeon running. It just isn’t good for bosses unless they have alot of adds that need to be killed. In those cases I switch to my Scepter/Dagger. Specific example would be wiping the waves of dredge super quick with staff then switching to scepter/dagger for ice elemental/mining suit.

While it’s true we do not have the weapon swap of many other classes, nevertheless it’s rather easy to make sure you are using the appropriate weapons for a boss fight. I’d wager alot of classes that have weapon swap similarly switch weapons for boss fights. Even though some melee weapons allow you to deal with both single target and multiple targets thanks to cleave, there are also enemies in this game you do not want to melee.

Kaleban.9834:

Ralathar.7236:

Again, this is not from Idle speculation. I’ve been there on my auramancer in fights exceeding 20 members from both sides. PVE of course you can kite melee like a boss and avoid ranged damage just as well.

If you’re in a fight with 19 other people on your side, how exactly are you “staff tanking?” This situation is basically safety in numbers.

If you don’t understand that then you don’t understand group composition in WvW. If you are not a WvW player that is fine. If you are however you should go hug your all your bunkers because obviously you don’t realize how much they do to keep you alive.

Ralathar.7236:

If you don’t understand that then you don’t understand group composition in WvW. If you are not a WvW player that is fine. If you are however you should go hug your all your bunkers because obviously you don’t realize how much they do to keep you alive.

You claimed you tanked zergs on your Staff Ele. You implied 1vX on a Staff build. Then you claim its all done from within a zerg of your own, or at least fighting with said team “on the front line.”

Do you understand how making sensational claims, then backing up and trying to pin the blame for your disinformation on others makes your argument look?

Kaleban.9834:

Ralathar.7236:

If you don’t understand that then you don’t understand group composition in WvW. If you are not a WvW player that is fine. If you are however you should go hug your all your bunkers because obviously you don’t realize how much they do to keep you alive.

You claimed you tanked zergs on your Staff Ele. You implied 1vX on a Staff build. Then you claim its all done from within a zerg of your own, or at least fighting with said team “on the front line.”

Do you understand how making sensational claims, then backing up and trying to pin the blame for your disinformation on others makes your argument look?

Actually that quote is entirely accurate on a hills keep defense. I was quite literally the only person far forwards and the combination of my DPS (put the in combat), CC skills (keep them slowed and immob’d), sheer damage absorption , reflection, and avoidance held the doorway for 30 minutes. Other people stopped trying to hold my position because they got vaped or pulled and then vaped. Eventually they did manage to kill me when i got a little too ballsy and misplayed. Hills was lost within 3 minutes after that.

Nonetheless I was not speaking of that because that’s not how WvW works. I didn’t think anyone in here would be kitten enough to think that I literally fully tanked full zergs by myself in a 20 vs 20 confrontation. You proved me wrong with your eagerness to spin what I said at the cost of your own credibility lol.

Note Tanking implies team mates in and of itself. You do not TANK for yourself. You tank for team mates. You can BE a tank solo. But you cannot tank for yourself.

Ralathar.7236:

Raestloz.7134:

It depends entirely on:
1) Definition of tankiness
2) Relative distance to enemies
3) How much damage we’re talking about
4) Whether you confused “tankability” and “survivability” or not.

Staff eles do not wield the same mobility melee eles have. Staff eles do, in fact, have great survivability, they have quite a lot of mobility hampering skills, but they cannot “tank”, they simply avoid being wounded in the first place, which is mainly thanks to the fact they’re not at the front lines relative to melee units. A staff using ele facing a “zerg” (as in, more than 5, which is a raid party) will either:

a) Fought back for some time and die a moment later
b) Escape from the very beginning and survive

Unfortunately, there is no c) Fought back and escaped, unless you’re in front of your tower

I’ve actually done this on my auramancer when the situation called for staff or when unexpected combat happened while I was using staff for a specific purpose. I speak from experience when I say built tanky as an auramancer I can hang with the front line, staff or no, with no real issues. Magnetic aura being shared with the front line heavies is actually an unexpectedly nasty twist.

I wouldn’t call it ideal, I still think D/D and /F can tank better in close range situations., but staff can definitely get the job done without any real difficulties and does have it’s own specific large advantages.

Again, this is not from Idle speculation. I’ve been there on my auramancer in fights exceeding 20 members from both sides. PVE of course you can kite melee like a boss and avoid ranged damage just as well.

All ele weapons are mobile and the vast vast amount of bunker ele survivability is from the stats, boons, and mobility, not the weapon sets specifically. Perhaps with the exception of /F being exceptional in defense.

Like I said:
1) Definition of tankiness
2) Relative distance to enemies
3) How much damage we’re talking about
4) Whether you confused “tankability” and “survivability” or not.

I have initiated the “push forward” movement (I go forward and start chasing before my allies do) quite a few times, and survived, it is entirely possible for staff eles to survive while hanging out at the front lines. However, there is clear difference between “tanking” and “surviving”. The amount of health ele has simply isn’t enough to actually “tank” (as in, stand your ground and receive a helluva lot of damage to keep the enemies at bay), although it is enough to survive the battle, though heavily scathed (depending on your enemies and the availability of escape skills).

However, during a zerg vs zerg, survivability is less because of staff ele is good and more because of there are a lot more targets for enemies to attack, especially the melee guys.

Raestloz.7134:

Like I said:
1) Definition of tankiness
2) Relative distance to enemies
3) How much damage we’re talking about
4) Whether you confused “tankability” and “survivability” or not.

I have initiated the “push forward” movement (I go forward and start chasing before my allies do) quite a few times, and survived, it is entirely possible for staff eles to survive while hanging out at the front lines. However, there is clear difference between “tanking” and “surviving”. The amount of health ele has simply isn’t enough to actually “tank” (as in, stand your ground and receive a helluva lot of damage to keep the enemies at bay), although it is enough to survive the battle, though heavily scathed (depending on your enemies and the availability of escape skills).

However, during a zerg vs zerg, survivability is less because of staff ele is good and more because of there are a lot more targets for enemies to attack, especially the melee guys.

Raestloz used semantics! It’s super effective! Ralathar got bored and left the bridge guarding creature alone.

Ralathar.7236:

Raestloz.7134:

Like I said:
1) Definition of tankiness
2) Relative distance to enemies
3) How much damage we’re talking about
4) Whether you confused “tankability” and “survivability” or not.

I have initiated the “push forward” movement (I go forward and start chasing before my allies do) quite a few times, and survived, it is entirely possible for staff eles to survive while hanging out at the front lines. However, there is clear difference between “tanking” and “surviving”. The amount of health ele has simply isn’t enough to actually “tank” (as in, stand your ground and receive a helluva lot of damage to keep the enemies at bay), although it is enough to survive the battle, though heavily scathed (depending on your enemies and the availability of escape skills).

However, during a zerg vs zerg, survivability is less because of staff ele is good and more because of there are a lot more targets for enemies to attack, especially the melee guys.

Raestloz used semantics! It’s super effective! Ralathar got bored and left the bridge guarding creature alone.

It’s nice to see someone who spread misinformation about “tankability” and run away with a smilie as if he’s actually right

Sort of like that guy who claimed he’s poor while earning $5 million a day and live in a penthouse in Dubai, then when pointed out, just laugh it off and blame others for “misinterpreting instead”

If this continues, I expect some new players reading this forum, see a “seasoned” player talking about “tankability” and assume ele can tank like Guardian

Raestloz.7134:

It’s nice to see someone who spread misinformation about “tankability” and run away with a smilie as if he’s actually right

Sort of like that guy who claimed he’s poor while earning $5 million a day and live in a penthouse in Dubai, then when pointed out, just laugh it off and blame others for “misinterpreting instead”

If this continues, I expect some new players reading this forum, see a “seasoned” player talking about “tankability” and assume ele can tank like Guardian

So If I were to counter-troll would it be considered bad or good and how easy or hard would it be?