Guild Wars 2

I didn’t roll and elementalist to play the dagger/dagger assassin that the class has rapidly become. I had this apparently misplaced mental image of wizardy types being mostly ranged spellcasters, you know, lobbing fireballs and all that but being quite limited when it came to the rough stuff up close.

I certainly got the “limited up close” part, but the ranged part….well that seems to have not been included.

I`ve soldiered on in WvW with an AOE build for the longest time. Despite the AOE limit being a ridiculous 5 people. Seeing how big a zerg actually is now that culling has gone has only emphasised just how pathetic that limitation really is. A drop in an ocean of red.

So many regard the staff ele as a free kill and rightly so. I last a lot longer than many and I can often hold my own one on one, but my most valuable skill is knowing when to run away and I use that gut feeling constantly. If I so much as see a thief or dagger ele I know they are going to come right for me as the target of choice and I take to my heels. I`ve seen them be so rabid in trying to down me that they completely lose sight of their own ability to get away afterwards, its like they enter some sort of frenzy in their pursuit of the tempting target.

To make matters worse, the weakness of the staff isn’t even up for debate, as everyone agrees on the fact that ele’s need some other functional spec alternatives and weapon choices. Arenanet is quite aware that ele’s are becoming thief type assassins and they don’t like it….but constantly they refuse to give us any alternative that isn’t a joke. Even just buffing our number one auto attacks would be a start, but as it is the staff is limited to a support role that guardians do so much better.

Staff ele is the poor man’s guardian and I see no justification for having the lowest hit points and armour of all the classes.

For Tyria’s sake, I am one of the few staff ele’s left, so please give us something or Gandalf will be getting out his daggers and putting on a ninja costume.

After 1500 hours on my staff ele, I changed mains. Like you, I refused settle
on d/d. I think its absurd that a “mage-like” class has its most effective build
be melee. IMO not much thought was put into it. Most of the abilities we should
have been using were given to the Mesmer (cloning, portaling, etc).

> being mostly ranged spellcasters,

play mesmer for ranged dps

>you know, lobbing fireballs

fotunatelly elem is not all about spamming fireballs

>Despite the AOE limit being a ridiculous 5 people.

yep it is a bit strange. This limit favorize primitive wvw zerg balss over strategy, formation, unit, wing, flank etc. I would like to use more military teminology/strategy in wvw but for now it is just zerg oriented “fun”.

>If I so much as see a thief or dagger ele…

yes, single staff ele (unless full bunker) is free badge, but it is your own fault – wrong weapon for soloing.
You have some skills on the staff that can extend your life but the result is obvious and its only matter of time.

>I`ve seen them be so rabid in trying to down me that they completely
> lose sight of their own ability to get away afterwards, its like they
> enter some sort of frenzy in their pursuit of the tempting target.

In typical wvw 3v3 or 5v5 I usually leave them as last, cuz they are not so dangerous and in many cases thay are the smalest thread, I will kill them anyway but for now I have to take care of more important issues :> Only if staff ele is 100% gc and ultra skilled and the remaning enemies are tanks I will go for him as first.

>Arenanet is quite aware that ele’s are becoming thief type assassin

pvt/watter dd ele is nowhere close to burst thieves. I play both, there is realy a huge gap between those two.

>but constantly they refuse to give us any alternative that isn’t a joke.

staff can be good, but for other scenarios than soloing and/or spamming autoatacks
An example of skilled staff player
http://youtu.be/-919RMwyfnk
Spamming one or 2 skills should be condemned, unfrtunately for some build/proffesions it is the best way to go :/
En example:
Thief soloes lipi using 1 skill and auto attack:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye85Ad4LJqY
Other one where thief makes an toutorial of how to play fractals – and is using sb autos mostly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDdkXoIhU_s&feature=share&list=PLiTqiazs9dJaoqSbZ9Bjeqrggdcw7sShR
On my thief I also found optimal pve spammable 2 skill build being a lot more effective than when I try to use all the skills thief has. Its serious desing error. You dont want to play any proffesion this way for more than 50 hours.
Ele favorizes the oposite – all skills usage in the correct timing/situation.

>Even just buffing our number one auto attacks would be a start,

it would be a beggining of a disaster – ranged autos are boring/easy/lame and fortunatelly almost useless on ele so you have to PLAY this class, not spam autos.

>Staff ele is the poor man’s guardian

all professions are poor compared to guardian, especially in pve fractals 30+

I played a staff ele. And it is not easy. I refused to go D/D because I like ranged magician class. But, since arenanet hates ranged and only want people to go face to face and then flip flops on face to face combat, I don’t know what to think anymore. Maybe I will be just a statue in Lion’s Arch as the last few remaining Ele using a staff……. sad …..

>arenanet hates ranged and only want people to go face to face

for harder content like fractals 30+ bosses ranged is usually the only option parties chose.
Try fight Legendary Archdiviner, Mossman, Legendary Dredge Powersuit, Captain Ashym, Legendary Grawl Shaman as close and then switch to ranged and see what a faceroll it is if you can range/kite/dps compared to close.
It is just so much easier on ranged I would like Anet to fix it by addig some projectilie reflection mechanism on those bosses.

WvW Staff ele here. This may be a dumb question, but have you tried casting your AOEs on yourself?

i run a 30water/30 arcana bunker build with PVT gear, so i am fairly tanky. I have had a lot of success vs melee by dodging/tanking them, while spamming AOEs on myself. The Thiefs and Wars i fight tend to get tunnel vision trying to down me and don’t realize they’ve been getting pounded by AOEs til it’s too late. That, or they retreat.

I’ve been playing with 20 fire 30 water 20 arcana and I found its an exceptional group build. If you are trying to play staff ele alone or just as a random pug in pug balls, then I imagine it would be pretty miserable. But if you use it as part of a organized group (even small “havoc” groups) you’ll find that you are immensely potent. You can also just roll the classic 10/30/30 build and switch to DD for solo and staff for group with little to no triat changes. Its worth mentioning that each individual ball on meteor shower counts as an aoe (with a really small radius, like 90 or something I think). So you can actually do damage to more than five targets with one cast if they are clumped up. Aoeing yourself is also very awesome as Scrambles said.

Scrambles.2604:

WvW Staff ele here. This may be a dumb question, but have you tried casting your AOEs on yourself?

i run a 30water/30 arcana bunker build with PVT gear, so i am fairly tanky. I have had a lot of success vs melee by dodging/tanking them, while spamming AOEs on myself. The Thiefs and Wars i fight tend to get tunnel vision trying to down me and don’t realize they’ve been getting pounded by AOEs til it’s too late. That, or they retreat.

Yes indeed. I would say that any of the few staff ele’s who remain have become masters at making best of their situation. I`m a WvW commander and I am usually in the thick of combat. Even so, being good at a bad weapon doesn’t redeem it, it just means that the alternative, ie going dagger dagger, is so abhorrent to my playstyle as to be the lesser option.

I, like the other staff ele’s, am here because we have nowhere else to go except to reroll and as a commander, I am also chained to my character by the vast cost I paid for my commander badge. Now I am further chained by the fact that WvW experience is gained not by account but by character.

I just cannot understand how there is no change to the situation in patches. I have waited a long time and all around me, the ele class is becoming something it should not be. Arenanet and I both know this and yet nothing is done and the only patch notes I see are nerfs to bizarre things like tornado, again that everyone agrees is suicide to even use.

As an mmo veteran I am used to the flow of nerf and buff and routinely had two or three classes on the go at the same time, moving between them when a nasty bug or balance issue made playing them unpleasant. I cannot do this here.

But even I am reaching the limits of my endurance and I can only hope that someone hears this and that there action taken and not just more “we are aware of…” which I have grown deaf to hearing.

Heh, I came into this game thinking that scepter/dagger would be ranged with a bit of melee. Turns out I might as well use daggers, ’cause all the good stuff only hits in melee range, or not at all.

Almost every post I’ve made on the forums has been a cry for an effective ranged weapon for solo play.

I’ve been running staff since beta. I play around with D/D and S/D for a change of pace every once in a while, but I always come back to staff. If you want to burst down other professions with your leet deeps, don’t go staff… But if you want to have the best healing, control, and overall situation versatility of any profession in the game, I say L2Staff. Not only do I feel more than powerful enough solo… I am ESSENTIAL in group play. Yep, I get my kitten kicked by bursters… but my opinion is that shining in 90% of the game beats the tunnel vision of 1v1 scenarios that do nobody any good.

I tried staff ele at the beginning and didnt like it, because my preferred element, air, has horrible staff skills. I tried the dagger/dagger flavor of the month, and I didnt like being up front in melee range with light armor and low HP. So now I run scepter/dagger and I absolutely love it. I switch between fire, air, and earth, and use water for healing.

Actually, one of the best solution for balancing the ele is the one nobody wants to look into, and the more I think about the more I think it’s the right one:

Allowing elementists to swap weapons during battle.
This would certainly buff us slightly without having to rebalance the entire skills list we have.

I have just tried the scepter in WvW for the first time. I had never realized how useless that weapon is until now. Seriously, arc lightning? delivers about 2000 dmg over a period of 4 seconds, a thief will have done 30000 dmg over the same lapse of time.

The ele is a total nerfed class and I’m going to drop it soon if they don’t buff it. I’m getting sick of being useful only if people are protecting me.

I find the staff range is fine (1200). The problem is that the staff has no gap creators outside of the mandatory cantrips that give you a few seconds of breathing room. Even if you have inhuman reflexes and react instantly, the staff is so slow that your opponent is already all over you with multiple gap closers in their weapon sets and/or utilities.

The supposed single target/line cc skills, air3 and earth5 won’t do you any good unless you magically predicted their leap. Pray they don’t strafe 1 inch to the side either. Water4 offers very potent cc but that also comes with a massive cooldown and the attunement itself is often reserved for healing. Air5 can be nice but again the staff is so slow that you might have gotten off a single auto attack with the stun duration. Teleports and shadow steps are a different story; you can’t react to those at all.

Once you’re in a fight, you’re committed to it since you can’t run away due to the disparity between gap closers and creators. Also, you’re also forced to a melee fight since you can’t create any distance, which is why casting AoE at your feet while running around like a headless chicken is effective with a more tanky build. Auto attacks often won’t even cast. If anyone says otherwise, I’d love to hear about it (and don’t just say you use staff while hiding behind a wall of guardians).

Consider this:

Necro’s have instant AOE with marks, and the proof of that is the crazy
amount of badges they can attain.

Thiefs have an instant cast AOE, specfically Choking Gas and Cluster Bomb
at melee range.

I dont know much about the other classes so I dont have anything to say. With
that said, anyone who has spent the last week in WvW has seen the 50+ zerg
trains steamrolling the map. The battles are constantly in motion. The above
classes have the luxury of instant tagging groups at a time. Staff Ele’s have long
casting times or delays, and when over half of the spells finally do go off, they
zerg is already past it.

Yes, Staff is good for assaulting or defening a keep, but it should be much more
useful in moving fights.

Wow… maybe I am just old school, but I enjoy staff ele, especially in big fights in wvw. The number of times I have aided the groups I run with split enemy groups, hold choke points, wreck sieges, and keep us alive (working together with a team of people who know what to do in a water field helps) are hard to count. I started as a staff ele and switched to D/D. D/D is a fine play style, but I am more of a ranged chaos causer. I also carry two sets of gear… if I am running in a very small group, I usually switch into a Scepter Dagger or Scepter Focus build for fun. The new patch has even livened that up a bit. So if you see a little assuran charging through your zerg like a maniac, it might be me… haha… I some times forget I’m not a D/D ele ;P Thank goodness we have some many escapes… Of course… I might just be causing chaos :P

if ur server got some well organized groups, a staff ele on either dmg build or a bunker build is a god send. a well organized zerg finishes the battle in like 1min. either ur wiped, or the enemy is wiped. they stack up, they push, smashing into and through each other. personally, even as a glass cannon, i am almost always in the front line, right behind or close to our commander leading . as u run through, u drop ur aoe in the back line of the enemy. some aoes like eruption or ice spike can interrupt the cast time by dodge rolling foward to keep mobile. glyph of the storm can be casted on the go. magnetic aura can take care of any range atks as u charge forward. its a… risky style as a glass cannon, but when the fight is over in about 1min-2min, it really doesnt matter much once u finish ur cycle.

i started wvw as a staff ele glass cannon, i am sticking to it unless some major changes get applied to staff.

chronometria.3708:

For Tyria’s sake, I am one of the few staff ele’s left, so please give us something or Gandalf will be getting out his daggers and putting on a ninja costume.

Gandalf also has a sword. I wants a sword. Dual sword and staff of great justice.

You can keep your staff. I do. It’s just in my bag most of the time.

I think it’s best to carry all the weapons and switch depending on your situation. Still, staff is pretty great in situations daggers aren’t

Still if you want long range caster, mesmer might be your thing. I rolled an ele because I wanted to be a melee mage :p

SuiRyuJin.4615:

if ur server got some well organized groups, a staff ele on either dmg build or a bunker build is a god send. a well organized zerg finishes the battle in like 1min. either ur wiped, or the enemy is wiped. they stack up, they push, smashing into and through each other. personally, even as a glass cannon, i am almost always in the front line, right behind or close to our commander leading . as u run through, u drop ur aoe in the back line of the enemy. some aoes like eruption or ice spike can interrupt the cast time by dodge rolling foward to keep mobile. glyph of the storm can be casted on the go. magnetic aura can take care of any range atks as u charge forward. its a… risky style as a glass cannon, but when the fight is over in about 1min-2min, it really doesnt matter much once u finish ur cycle.

i started wvw as a staff ele glass cannon, i am sticking to it unless some major changes get applied to staff.

So let me get this straight. You are a glass cannon ele, that stays in the front
and “runs through” their zerg while dropping AOE? If that is even remotely
true the only thing saving you is complete and total lag in large zergs, preventing
the enemy from attacking. That or they are complete newbies.

After 1500 hours in staff ele WvW at tier 1, I can assure you that that doesnt work.
You are the first target they look for.

Thunderbrew.7034:

SuiRyuJin.4615:

if ur server got some well organized groups, a staff ele on either dmg build or a bunker build is a god send. a well organized zerg finishes the battle in like 1min. either ur wiped, or the enemy is wiped. they stack up, they push, smashing into and through each other. personally, even as a glass cannon, i am almost always in the front line, right behind or close to our commander leading . as u run through, u drop ur aoe in the back line of the enemy. some aoes like eruption or ice spike can interrupt the cast time by dodge rolling foward to keep mobile. glyph of the storm can be casted on the go. magnetic aura can take care of any range atks as u charge forward. its a… risky style as a glass cannon, but when the fight is over in about 1min-2min, it really doesnt matter much once u finish ur cycle.

i started wvw as a staff ele glass cannon, i am sticking to it unless some major changes get applied to staff.

So let me get this straight. You are a glass cannon ele, that stays in the front
and “runs through” their zerg while dropping AOE? If that is even remotely
true the only thing saving you is complete and total lag in large zergs, preventing
the enemy from attacking. That or they are complete newbies.

After 1500 hours in staff ele WvW at tier 1, I can assure you that that doesnt work.
You are the first target they look for.

Pfft, assuming they can catch you through all your cantrips and ride the lightning -.-

Rizzy.8293:

Thunderbrew.7034:

SuiRyuJin.4615:

if ur server got some well organized groups, a staff ele on either dmg build or a bunker build is a god send. a well organized zerg finishes the battle in like 1min. either ur wiped, or the enemy is wiped. they stack up, they push, smashing into and through each other. personally, even as a glass cannon, i am almost always in the front line, right behind or close to our commander leading . as u run through, u drop ur aoe in the back line of the enemy. some aoes like eruption or ice spike can interrupt the cast time by dodge rolling foward to keep mobile. glyph of the storm can be casted on the go. magnetic aura can take care of any range atks as u charge forward. its a… risky style as a glass cannon, but when the fight is over in about 1min-2min, it really doesnt matter much once u finish ur cycle.

i started wvw as a staff ele glass cannon, i am sticking to it unless some major changes get applied to staff.

So let me get this straight. You are a glass cannon ele, that stays in the front
and “runs through” their zerg while dropping AOE? If that is even remotely
true the only thing saving you is complete and total lag in large zergs, preventing
the enemy from attacking. That or they are complete newbies.

After 1500 hours in staff ele WvW at tier 1, I can assure you that that doesnt work.
You are the first target they look for.

Pfft, assuming they can catch you through all your cantrips and ride the lightning -.-

Because we can equip a dagger offhand here right

Adastra.9821:

Rizzy.8293:

Thunderbrew.7034:

SuiRyuJin.4615:

if ur server got some well organized groups, a staff ele on either dmg build or a bunker build is a god send. a well organized zerg finishes the battle in like 1min. either ur wiped, or the enemy is wiped. they stack up, they push, smashing into and through each other. personally, even as a glass cannon, i am almost always in the front line, right behind or close to our commander leading . as u run through, u drop ur aoe in the back line of the enemy. some aoes like eruption or ice spike can interrupt the cast time by dodge rolling foward to keep mobile. glyph of the storm can be casted on the go. magnetic aura can take care of any range atks as u charge forward. its a… risky style as a glass cannon, but when the fight is over in about 1min-2min, it really doesnt matter much once u finish ur cycle.

i started wvw as a staff ele glass cannon, i am sticking to it unless some major changes get applied to staff.

So let me get this straight. You are a glass cannon ele, that stays in the front
and “runs through” their zerg while dropping AOE? If that is even remotely
true the only thing saving you is complete and total lag in large zergs, preventing
the enemy from attacking. That or they are complete newbies.

After 1500 hours in staff ele WvW at tier 1, I can assure you that that doesnt work.
You are the first target they look for.

Pfft, assuming they can catch you through all your cantrips and ride the lightning -.-

Because we can equip a dagger offhand here right

Im talking about D off hand.

Rizzy.8293:

Adastra.9821:

Rizzy.8293:

Thunderbrew.7034:

SuiRyuJin.4615:

if ur server got some well organized groups, a staff ele on either dmg build or a bunker build is a god send. a well organized zerg finishes the battle in like 1min. either ur wiped, or the enemy is wiped. they stack up, they push, smashing into and through each other. personally, even as a glass cannon, i am almost always in the front line, right behind or close to our commander leading . as u run through, u drop ur aoe in the back line of the enemy. some aoes like eruption or ice spike can interrupt the cast time by dodge rolling foward to keep mobile. glyph of the storm can be casted on the go. magnetic aura can take care of any range atks as u charge forward. its a… risky style as a glass cannon, but when the fight is over in about 1min-2min, it really doesnt matter much once u finish ur cycle.

i started wvw as a staff ele glass cannon, i am sticking to it unless some major changes get applied to staff.

So let me get this straight. You are a glass cannon ele, that stays in the front
and “runs through” their zerg while dropping AOE? If that is even remotely
true the only thing saving you is complete and total lag in large zergs, preventing
the enemy from attacking. That or they are complete newbies.

After 1500 hours in staff ele WvW at tier 1, I can assure you that that doesnt work.
You are the first target they look for.

Pfft, assuming they can catch you through all your cantrips and ride the lightning -.-

Because we can equip a dagger offhand here right

Im talking about D off hand.

Umm the whole point was staff. Hence no dagger in off hand..

Why would you pigeon hole yourself into one weapon? Run scepter/dagger and switch to staff in certain situations. Elementalist is one of the best in wvwvw. Grass isn’t that much greener on the other classes lol.

Kromsin.6359:

Why would you pigeon hole yourself into one weapon? Run scepter/dagger and switch to staff in certain situations. Elementalist is one of the best in wvwvw. Grass isn’t that much greener on the other classes lol.

“yah, i can see that thief running at me, here, let me open my bag, look for the dagger….where did I put it?! AHH, i remembered, i conveniently put it on the bottom left, here let me equip it before this giant screen overpowers my entire view (which already does) and finally be able to take on this thief 1v1 since no matter what in small plays they ALWAYS get to the back line…

OH OOPS, cant change weapons mid fight, like every class, because each class is different and we have access to 4 sets instead of 2, bummer, well, at least 1 out of 4 should be good enough to defend myself in a 1v1 situation, I mean, thats the whole point of versatility, right? Nope, im wearing a staff, one gap closer ends the fight agaisnt me so might as well just bend over or blow all 3 cantrips for 5 seconds added survavility until their next gap closer refreshes in 2 seconds while my cantrips go into 90secs."

Face it, all other classes have the option to go full support or part support and part “oh kitten” weapon when omeone jumps on them, WE LACK THAT. Anyone can change weapon out of combat, and every ele does that already, so dont feel so smart about it. All Im asking is to either make staff truly versatile as in able to take ANY situation or give me a weapon that allows me to switch weapons (like a macro) out of combat, that way if i manage to create enough distance in a fight and get myself through skills out of combat to switch to the weapons of my convinience without having a giant UI blocking my entire view while trying to find the weapons i need. Get real.

My guess is that since there are 2 devs working on skill balance (I don’t remember the Anet post that said this), the more immediate issues caused by other builds will get looked at first. While I wouldn’t mind a large growth in the skill balance division, I guess time will tell if more skill balance/systems designers step up to the plate.

Fortus.6175:

Kromsin.6359:

Why would you pigeon hole yourself into one weapon? Run scepter/dagger and switch to staff in certain situations. Elementalist is one of the best in wvwvw. Grass isn’t that much greener on the other classes lol.

“yah, i can see that thief running at me, here, let me open my bag, look for the dagger….where did I put it?! AHH, i remembered, i conveniently put it on the bottom left, here let me equip it before this giant screen overpowers my entire view (which already does) and finally be able to take on this thief 1v1 since no matter what in small plays they ALWAYS get to the back line…

OH OOPS, cant change weapons mid fight, like every class, because each class is different and we have access to 4 sets instead of 2, bummer, well, at least 1 out of 4 should be good enough to defend myself in a 1v1 situation, I mean, thats the whole point of versatility, right? Nope, im wearing a staff, one gap closer ends the fight agaisnt me so might as well just bend over or blow all 3 cantrips for 5 seconds added survavility until their next gap closer refreshes in 2 seconds while my cantrips go into 90secs."

Face it, all other classes have the option to go full support or part support and part “oh kitten” weapon when omeone jumps on them, WE LACK THAT. Anyone can change weapon out of combat, and every ele does that already, so dont feel so smart about it. All Im asking is to either make staff truly versatile as in able to take ANY situation or give me a weapon that allows me to switch weapons (like a macro) out of combat, that way if i manage to create enough distance in a fight and get myself through skills out of combat to switch to the weapons of my convinience without having a giant UI blocking my entire view while trying to find the weapons i need. Get real.

It is really simple.. If you are moving from point a to point be you should have dagger in offhand anyway. So you now have d or s in main. Either of those will be viable 1v1 against anyone.

You only swap to your staff in a pre-set group or taking/defending areas. There is plenty of time in those situations to swap when out of combat.

If we had weapon swapping it would be op’ed (in combat swapping I am saying).

Thunderbrew.7034:

SuiRyuJin.4615:

if ur server got some well organized groups, a staff ele on either dmg build or a bunker build is a god send. a well organized zerg finishes the battle in like 1min. either ur wiped, or the enemy is wiped. they stack up, they push, smashing into and through each other. personally, even as a glass cannon, i am almost always in the front line, right behind or close to our commander leading . as u run through, u drop ur aoe in the back line of the enemy. some aoes like eruption or ice spike can interrupt the cast time by dodge rolling foward to keep mobile. glyph of the storm can be casted on the go. magnetic aura can take care of any range atks as u charge forward. its a… risky style as a glass cannon, but when the fight is over in about 1min-2min, it really doesnt matter much once u finish ur cycle.

i started wvw as a staff ele glass cannon, i am sticking to it unless some major changes get applied to staff.

So let me get this straight. You are a glass cannon ele, that stays in the front
and “runs through” their zerg while dropping AOE? If that is even remotely
true the only thing saving you is complete and total lag in large zergs, preventing
the enemy from attacking. That or they are complete newbies.

After 1500 hours in staff ele WvW at tier 1, I can assure you that that doesnt work.
You are the first target they look for.

there are things called vails, refuge, mass invis, and just shear body count. they cant target what they cant see. there are plenty of little things u do to avoid dmg.
1st is u dont run first, but u definitely dont run last, somewhere a few body behind the lead is best.
2nd thing people dont look behind them, once ur charge goes through the enemy front line, very few enemy will hit u from the back if any
3rd theres a target limit of 5, so combine that with magnetic aura ull be set for survive from any range sniping for a while
4th most melee target should be downed on ur 1st charge, arcane shield can take the few hit u need
5th, water field for organized zerg combo can bring u from 1 hp back to max in an instant.
6th, after the initial charge, step to the side, enemy focus the center once ur through the line dont stay in the center
7th heal on kill food can provide healing thousands of hp in healing for the course of the 2min fight.

obviously most of this dont work with general pug zerg with bad organization and slow communication. its best for a decent sized organized guild. and personally if ur a dedicated wvw player u should be in an organized wvw guild of decent size, otherwise is a massive waste of talent. plenty of things that dont work for pug zerg works in guild zerg/squads

though even in general zerg fight, staying in the front line is just fine, if u go down vapor back to the backline so they can res u. people dislike changing target most of the time so dont be 1st one up, and go up just to cycle ur aoe before u either roll all the way back or vapor back.

^^ Sorry, but defending a strategy based on “mainly works in large zergs,” is
not relevant. In a large enough zerg, based on that premise, I could run naked
and in theory live because I had the power of a 100 man zerg surrounding me.

Offhand dagger for movement is a staple, I agree. This post is about Staff though.
If you prefer running offhand D during zerg fights, on top of movement, no
problem there. All that is saying is that the Staff comes out while hiding behind
keep walls, or attacking them.

Bottom line is, staff could use some more attention in open zerg battles. For the
past week, every zerg fight is the same “run through the other players and get
to the back.” Cast staff AOE all you want, but watch how much actually misses
the targets because they are already past the point you cast.

Staff ele is super useful in organized WvW. Play in any high-end WvW guilds and you’ll see that mostly run staff eles, guardians and mesmers.
D/D is better for solo roaming/un-organized play, but the staff ele’s access to multiple combo fields is indespensible in organized WvW.

My only tweak to staff would be to give it RTL.

That’d be good times.

I think staff needs better single target damage – lava font should go back to doing damage on its first tick, and flame burst should have a small amount of direct damage added. Lightning surge should be instant cast as well, at 1.5s cast-time it’s useless.

I’ve been playing staff lately.

As long as you don’t tunnel vision an attunement and make sure you’re in situations where ranged AOE is useful in some way, it’s really an excellent weapon.

Yes, you don’t have the 1v1 capability of D/D or S/D. Yes, you don’t have the escapes and mobility.

What staff ele does is provide the highest level of both survivability and damage support of any class, and used properly tools like static field, frozen/unsteady ground can make a big difference.

The key is to not focus on one thing. As an ele, use a combination of every attunement, all the time.

xiv.7136:

The key is to not focus on one thing. As an ele, use a combination of every attunement, all the time.

Agreed.

As long as you don’t tunnel vision an attunement

That’s only true as support. For damage the best option is to sit in fire or earth – depending on burst or condition – and spam ~3 skills. Switching the attunment instantly kills your damage.

Also the offensive support is limited. Since combos use the stats of the finisher, conditions arn’t really strong and vulnerability could simply be maxed by spaming water 2.

Sadly we don’t have any form of dmg meter, but I guess the support is too bad to compensate for a s/d mightbot.

D/D ele won’t get me kills in wvw. Only in sieges do you find alot of enemies and that is when the staff shines with all the aoe spells you can cast on the wall. I only just started doing wvw seriously though.

Seriously, all counterarguments I see are “dont play sPvP” , “play x/D then” or “staff is fine, you just need a group”

No, thats just wrong, for a class who is NOT given the liberty to pick their fights and weapons we should at least have the “versatility” to adapt to the situation with ONLY one weapon set….. and right now, who ever doesnt admit staff ele is a joke in 1v1, 2v2 and 3v3 is either a liar, a thief, a D/D, a new ele who plays only PvE or a troll, period.

Staff needs help no matter how you look at it, right now they are free kills, even experienced people like me have hard time with staff ele, I do WAY better with the same work with my mesmer or guardian and get better results out of the skill used.

Right now it takes a god playing staff ele to do decent, when it takes smashing keys to make other classes do the same. This isnt really about “skills” , when two equally skilled players meet and only wins 99% of the time (and its not the staff ele),then something tells you that staff is in a bad place.

Yea i feel as this elemental class is more of a battlemage class because the staff just sucks and its the only class that gives you that ranged “Mage” class. I use the Scepter/dagger and even then I do feel like a rouge because im just constantly flying towards my enemy and then doing all this flips and stuff, Mages aren’t supposed to be able to do that, that is why in all movies you see the wizards as some old dude who can barely walk.
D/D Close ninja range S/D Ninja far/close range S/F Sucks Staff Far sucky damage

its unfair, staff is supposed to THE mage weapon, I have yet to see Gandalf running around Rohan with to dagger….

I play all weapons for variety. Also have you tried getting new gear? I have a pure soldier/ doyak bunker set and a glass cannon set. it is nice. Different gear plays differently.

ITT: People who don’t carry multiple weapon sets

I’m glad I came across this thread. I have always had a staff on my Elementalist. It just seemed right that a caster would use a staff. I’ve been having a terrible time whenever I solo in PvE. With a group I seem to do just fine.

Thanks for the comments everyone. It feels good to know that it may not be entirely my fault that my staff Ele. is so weak.

I’ll be waypointing my poor dead Ele. back to life and getting her some daggers but I suspect it just won’t feel quite right. It’s sad to say but she just may end up being a mule.