Guild Wars 2

Hello I am Mojja and I made a very successful engineer build topic.
Besides doing engineer stuff I love to hop on my elementalist alt.

I’ve played some d/d, d/f and s/f builds. While they are interesting in their own way I really enjoy the support/ aoe damage from Staff.

Before the trait change patch I had a pretty decent staff build and people had a hard time cleaving me down. After the trait change I ran some zerker staff builds which was all about burst or get bursted.

There has to be more people out there like me who enjoy the aestetics of staff and the fun playstyle, so I thought we could all share ideas and builds. Maybe talk abit about the process behind it, what your purpose is and what professions you find the hardest to deal with.

Thanks to all who contribute.

- Mojja

I mainly play d/d mainly because I very high, like 34k is my current highest. I’m still working with my runes, using flame legion. But I’very gone into fire, water, and arcane, and run with a staff with bloodlust, and force. I would say that that u do some nice dmg I think i’be gotten 9k. As 4 utility skills I go with Arcane Power, the red sigil (forgot the name of it), and Arcane Shield(mainly to mitighten the cast time on Meteor Storm), Arcane Brilliance for the heal, and FGS (I does do decent dmg) or something with range. But our elites are not great, but i’very found FGS the best 1 for dmg, agro I go with Taking Root.

Since the June update I typically use this in sPvP:

+Celestial amulet
+Strength runes
+Sigils of Battle/Doom

Heal: Ether Renewal
Utilities: Armor of Earth, Lightning Flash, Any conjure weapon (usually ice bow)
Elite: FGS, sometimes Tornado or Glyph

Traits:

Arcana: Middle, Middle, Top
Water: Top, Top, Top
Earth: Top, Bottom, Top ~or~ Fire: Bottom, Top, Top

My experience: Over 8,000 PvP matches played on staff ele, reached r1 solo arena/r8 team arena on old NA leaderboard.

Purpose: Team support, winning fights, being a powerful and majestic wizard.

Strengths: Survival, AoE damage, healing/support, CC, range, on point fighting.

Weaknesses: Off-point fighting, larger capture areas, boon rips, being focused hard, enemies with smart positioning, allies with bad positioning, having slow attacks/delays on spell effects, etc.

Not sure what else to say, have fun.

Celestial Staff ele is viable as a support spec in spvp, but it is pretty much outclassed by support guard. Meaning that its usually better to go blinding ashes D/D to have much much much higher damage, and a similar level of support thorugh group protection, cleanses, healing.

Staff ele’s main advantage over D/D is better AoE CC due to unsteady ground and static field. With stone heart and mercy runes (what high level staff eles have run in tourneys usually) you become a really good rezzbot.

Still D/D ele is overall a more optimal choice, but staff is still totally viable

Hello and thank you all for the replies so far. First off both me and probably Celtus know that staff is not in the meta and that d/d is a better option, but I really enjoy ele staff builds because it gives a different playstyle all together.

The current build I run, and that Ive had huuuge success with is:
Fire: Down, Up, Down
Water: Up, Up, Up
Arcane: Mid, Mid, Up

Staff : Geomancy/ Battle sigil Hoelbrak Runes, Marauder Amulet
Heal skill: Ether renewal
Utility: Lightning flash, Armor earth and Glyph Storm. I change these from time to time
Elite: Elemental or fiery Greatsword

With this build I have great offense and some defence. If I get focused I will die fairly fast. I also cant deal very well with mesmers and gs/hammer warriors.
Rest is doable

But, in teamfights it is amazing. Being able to drop down aoe dmg that crits for 4k a hit is insanely fun. Sometimes I run frostbow just for the extra pewpew, but thats up to you guys.

Hi! I’m new to the staff and i am wondering why all of you put traits in Arcana? For my playstyle it is useles. It only provides some small buffs. I go Fire, Watter and Earth or Air. Stuck crit to get Burning procs and blind my opponents on crits (33% chance). Have more survivability than D/D cause i don’t need to sit in melee range 80% of the time.

Traits:
Fire: Up Up Down (is medium bugged? doesn’t give me 10% more dmg in Fire or this is just a tooltip eror?)
Water: Up Up Down or Up
Earth : Up Up Down or sometimes Air: Down Down Up

I just can’t find Arcana of any use, but i’m quite new to this game and need to learn a lot :P

Sifu.9745

“Hi! I’m new to the staff and i am wondering why all of you put traits in Arcana? For my playstyle it is useles. It only provides some small buffs.”

Arcana is incredibly useful for things such as the attunement recharge reduction (from 10 to 8 seconds), a damage modifier based on boons (2% more damage for each boon), protection when attuning to earth, free arcane shield for a lot of survivability, fury whenever you switch attunements and with the dodge-roll grandmaster you can get in a free burn, blind, heal or blast finisher (Everyone likes blast finishers!).

-

I use strength runes, energy and air/battle sigils and zerk/soldier gear for most things.

Utilities: Flash, Cleansing Fire, Armour of Earth.
Healing: Ether Renewal
Elite: TORNADO!

Fire: down, up, up
Air: middle, middle, down
water: up, up, up

My playstyle revolves mostly around CC so I can make good use of lightning rod (I like seeing lots of lightning bolts). And then of course, I use those opportunities for lava font and meteor shower like any good little staffer. I like using shock wave > unsteady ground behind them> gust in to the wall > flash on top of them > cleansing fire > tornado. It makes a nice change from the steady, slower-pace lava font spam.

If my opponent is a bit lacking in stunbreaks and good mobility skills, tornado can absolutely wreck them but that’s pretty uncommon.

I find a lot of Mesmers impossible with their massive range, low cooldown, teleport, stunbreak (I hate you). I always find myself being shattered and then left with no CC once they teleport away and become invisible, having avoided all of my traps.

Sifu.9745:

Hi! I’m new to the staff and i am wondering why all of you put traits in Arcana? For my playstyle it is useles. It only provides some small buffs. I go Fire, Watter and Earth or Air. Stuck crit to get Burning procs and blind my opponents on crits (33% chance). Have more survivability than D/D cause i don’t need to sit in melee range 80% of the time.

Traits:
Fire: Up Up Down (is medium bugged? doesn’t give me 10% more dmg in Fire or this is just a tooltip eror?)
Water: Up Up Down or Up
Earth : Up Up Down or sometimes Air: Down Down Up

I just can’t find Arcana of any use, but i’m quite new to this game and need to learn a lot :P

I would say, why people trait into arcane is for survivability. I trait mainly for the late buff I get with bountiful boons, but people mainly go for Evasive Arcana. AND as for lines we don’t have much 2 go for, I run a variable weapon build for damage that go into fire wate and arcana, do mainly dagger, but today I did hit 12k with staff so, still hit harder with daggers, but can’t run the going against CoJ, and this was without bloodlust witch I do have on my staff with force. But the main line that people go into are fire, air, water, and arcane, earth is the odd 1 out more for bulky builds or protential aura builds with tempest.

The best thing about staff ele is aoe damage, CC and healing. I enjoy playing staff ele for roleplay reasons (mage using daggers seems off to me

When I’m fighting 1v1 on point I can easily kill pretty much any class, I guess it all comes down on your experience with skills and rotations.

Celestial amulet, pirate runes & Bloodlust/strength sigils. Traits are standard – water, earth, arcana, cantrip build. When you stack up your bloodlust in those initial fights you transform into godmode- amazing dps with lots of survivability. The downside is, that smart players will spot your bloodlust and focus on you

I love my current staff ele build for wvw. You realty cant solo with it though you do not need a full organized group to make it work.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWhMMowhdOwyBsSMQAYRBIAsAmdwLoIKTyJwQE-TFyHABK/AA0Y/BmUC2jyMfUasn6PepDAgLAApAGYrF-w

You jump into earth when your getting hit hard by gank or bombs fire is the main dmg but you can land a lot of hard cc vs zergs that can hit very hard. Even nado with 1 skill up hits ppl a lot harder then you would think.

You lose earth for arcain if you want to go all in dmg more about having at least one passive stun brake so AoE or arcain shielding.