How staff should be
Did Anet really say they have no intention of balancing staff for pvp or pve? If so… They need to seriously reconsider. Staff is the iconic weapon of the elementalist profession. There will always be those who want to use it as their lead weapon. And elementalists have the fewest number of available weapons short of engineer and no weapon swap. It’s many times more important that we can find value in each weapon available, as we simply don’t have options.
I like the idea of giving Flame Burst a base damage to it. Mainly because having a skill dedicated 100% to conditions is pretty lackluster for non-condition builds, and with only two reliable, damaging conditions elementalists will never be a heavy condition profession. Give us Torment, Poison, or Confusion and we can talk. I’ve always felt the Burning and Bleeds should be additional damage to keep up pressure, but not the front of a staff ele’s damage.
Burning Retreat having a burst at the starting location is something a lot of people have been asking for. Very valuable as it’s another burst we can deliver in close range, provides a free dodge, and then a combo field. Though it might need a longer cooldown if this was added, I would still find it better than the skill as is. Our fire needs more upfront damage.
Geyser giving vigor is great. We need more boons for our support weapon anyway.
There are many ways to improve lightning damage. From making it instant cast blind applier or giving it a higher burst at the end of the channel. Gust being an AoE Knock-back would be a huge help in keeping melee off our grill. Something the current Gust really doesn’t do at all.
I actually feel Earth is pretty solid. If Unsteady Ground had a few more seconds of Cripple on walking over it, it’d be a perfectly fine skill.
Also, more traits that synergize with the staff. Daggers are our best heavy damage, sustained set with decent support and defensive tricks. Scepter is our best burst set. Staff is our ranged AoE nuke stick with a focus on support. Some more traits that buff our fields would do wonders to make staff more powerful. Maybe something in Fire that applies Might when our field gets blasted that’d let us maintain our Might stacks even as we go through a chain heal in an emergency or when our team is blasting Static Field for Swiftness. Or a trait in the Earth line called “Dirty Water” Where blasting our water fields while in Earth attunement spreads poison to nearby enemies. Persistent Flames was a step in the right direction, we just need to keep going.
The staff is actually in a pretty good place right now (yes, even for PvP). The main issue is that most people don’t use it to its fullest and then complain that it’s too weak.
Some things to keep in mind:
-The staff is not a support weapon, and not a damage weapon: it’s a mix of both.
-The staff is not a ranged weapon: like the engineer’s rifle, it has multiple roles at multiple ranges.
-Combo’s are not optional, but essential.
The key is to properly support the weapon’s skills with your traits and utility skills. Skills like Glyph of Elemental Power help make sure you actually hit stuff, while skills like Arcane Blast greatly enhance the effects of your healing skills.
But the most important thing to remember is that due to the nature of combo fields, the staff cannot be perfectly balanced for 1v1 duels. Because they become exponentially more powerful as fights get larger, the skills have to be made relatively weaker for 1v1 to make them balanced.
If you can read this then it is proof that ArenaNet’s moderators just, kind and fair.
The staff is actually in a pretty good place right now (yes, even for PvP). The main issue is that most people don’t use it to its fullest and then complain that it’s too weak.
Some things to keep in mind:
-The staff is not a support weapon, and not a damage weapon: it’s a mix of both.
-The staff is not a ranged weapon: like the engineer’s rifle, it has multiple roles at multiple ranges.
-Combo’s are not optional, but essential.The key is to properly support the weapon’s skills with your traits and utility skills. Skills like Glyph of Elemental Power help make sure you actually hit stuff, while skills like Arcane Blast greatly enhance the effects of your healing skills.
But the most important thing to remember is that due to the nature of combo fields, the staff cannot be perfectly balanced for 1v1 duels. Because they become exponentially more powerful as fights get larger, the skills have to be made relatively weaker for 1v1 to make them balanced.
Nice attempt..now I know that you never played ele
The staff is actually in a pretty good place right now (yes, even for PvP). The main issue is that most people don’t use it to its fullest and then complain that it’s too weak…
Nice attempt..now I know that you never played ele
Actually, he’s been supporting/discussing staff for a while. I know because I post threads on staff and he usually provides input. If you want to rally players to your cause, which is the only way you’ll ever get ANet to notice you, don’t insult their experience without addressing your difference in opinion.
I don’t think staff is good enough in 1v1. In my opinion, faster casting/projectile speed of our auto attacks would be a fantastic place for them to start.
Staff actually doesn’t need major changes. Rather some little improvements on a few skills and better traits. Traits are the main problem for every elementalist build, arcane and water are too mandatory, rest is too weak, without having 15 points in an attunement tree the attunements don’t fulfill their purpose – earth doesn’t protect, water doesn’t really heal.
I’d only change these little things on staff:
Fireball – Increasing the AoE a little bit, increasing dmg by ~10 percent or increasing the missile speed a little bit.
Water Blast – larger Aoe, stronger heal, little bit more dmg
Ice Spike – becomes a blast finisher
Chain Lightning – The first hit deals 50% more dmg than it does currently, the second hit does deal 100% of the current dmg, the third hit deals 50% less dmg (this way you would encourage staff users to use air rather for singletarget dmg, while fire is for AoE).
Lightning Surge – Reduced cast time to 1 second and inflicting additionally weakness.
Static Field – Dealing (mediocre-low) dmg every second to foes inside the circle. Currently the skill is ok or mediocre for pvp and wvw, but very bad for pve. With some little dmg it would be pretty good for PvE and in PvP/WvW you would force foes to decide, if they either want to get damaged or stunned or that they have to waste a teleport/invulnerability/etc.
Earth is fine.
Add 10% damage to AoE while wielding a staff via the Blasting Staff trait, shorten the cast time on Lightning Surge, larger knockback on Gust. Done IMO.
(edited by Kahzi.5467)
The current patch is an attempt to do small “shavings” to bring the class into line with these goals, in the same way we tried to “shave” the Ele numerous times, rather than “nerfing it from orbit”. Are all Ele specs equally viable in all game types? No. Is this ok? Yes. Staff can see play in one game type while D/D or S/D see play in others. As we’ve said, we’ll split skills/weapons more and more in the variuos game types, but each time we split a skill, it gives us more update work down the road. We have to be very prudent when we split skills.
@Jonathan Sharp
For those who think staff is viable in PvP…
Nice attempt..now I know that you never played ele
Actually, he’s been supporting/discussing staff for a while. I know because I post threads on staff and he usually provides input. If you want to rally players to your cause, which is the only way you’ll ever get ANet to notice you, don’t insult their experience without addressing your difference in opinion.
I don’t think staff is good enough in 1v1. In my opinion, faster casting/projectile speed of our auto attacks would be a fantastic place for them to start.
Thanks for that Xbaunx. I appreciate it.
However, I do understand where Arheundel is coming from because I’ve been there too. In the first few months, I was an avid supporter for staff buffs. Everything was too weak, it should be single element, etc. I got furious whenever someone else suggested I was just playing it wrong. And then I learned how to combo, how to swap, dodge and how to gear. And suddenly all pieces fell into place and it all made sense.
It’s virtually impossible to have this discussion without the ‘you suck I rule’. And it’s true the staff could probably do with a few more tweaks. But when you balance it, you have to balance it based on how it works in this game, not how it works in other games. Take into account the combo fields, the AoE and the range, and then make your suggestions. But don’t call it out as being worthless just because you can’t duel with it as well as D/D. It was never designed for that.
So do I feel staff is optimal for 1v1? No, the other sets are better for duelling. Do I think staff eles can put up a decent fight in 1v1? Yes, they can but it takes a lot of practice.
If you can read this then it is proof that ArenaNet’s moderators just, kind and fair.
After an extended break i came back to play staff again, and my main gripes are: mandatory blasting staff, which prevents me from taking renewing stamina, so either change blasting or implement Arheundel’s vigor idea;
obviously would love to have Flamestrike deal non trivial damage to single target while applying the AOE burn as usual;
Gust is underwhelming, either increase the usability like suggested above or at least give it a knockdown to reward the player for actually landing it;
the kitten ed GCD on attunement swap, with 30 arcana it’s 1 whole freaking second so when i’m playing aggressively often i get stuck in my previous attunement without even noticing and casting absolutely useless skills, it should be 0.5 s just to prevent macros;
and finally i noticed Gust and Shockwave do not autoface and goes on interrupt cooldown if i’m not facing the opponent, i never understood why the kitten they would go on cooldown for no reason, if this applies for every class fine by me, but if not we are again being punished for being an ele.
(edited by DrTenma.7249)
I’m going to repost some staff suggestions that while I wouldn’t say would be essential to the weapon’s success, could provide some food for thought. Please note that I don’t necessarily think these should all be implemented together.
Most of them have little to do with damage and more do with the actual process of using the skill. Animation times I would tweak on the premise of encouraging people to actually be rewarded for paying attention to telegraphing instead of accidentally dodging skills.
Fire -
1 – Reduce cast time by x% and flight time by x%. It is a decent damage dealer but its rubbish stats in both of these mechanics make it less than ideal.
2 – Initial casting should cause damage and every damage packet should apply burning for x second(s). Possibly a small radius boost?
3 – Is actually not a terrible skill but suffers greatly if you are not running a condi spec. I would opt only to increase the initial damage slightly.
4 – Make it the reverse of Burning Speed. A burst of damage upon activation will give this skill dual purpose and not require you to switch to Earth to get any decent use out of it. Make that thief/warrior think twice before rushing you if you have berserker stats.
5 – This skill should be more of a game changer than it currently is. The recent buffs helped a tad with actually hitting people in the radius, but the cast time is still awkward in faster paced combat (SPvP, TPvP). Change root on cast to be in line with Water 5. Change function so that if it is interrupted the skill goes on interrupt cd and you don’t waste it for 3 pathetic damage packets.
Air -
1 – Reduce cast time by x%. Possibly add ability to bounce to allies and apply one second of swiftness or vigor at random with a priority to bounce between foes.
2 – Reduce cast time to 1 second. That’s all I think this skill needs.
3 – Add a slight homing factor that allows the gust to change direction slowly as its target moves, allowing it to be dodged if the person is paying attention but not if they just randomly side step without even watching you.
4 – Pretty solid to me.
5 – Make it punish people for walking through the field multiple times to keep it on par with other professions who have line fields that trigger utility effects, or increase the damage x amount.
Water -
1 – Increase damage/blast radius for heal, either or both.
2 – Decrease animation time by x%. This skill has solid damage and the vuln stacks are a nice bonus, and it can even be cast while moving, but its ability to hit somebody when they are not in Air 5 or immobilized is just pathetic.
3 – Increase radius slightly.
4 – Seems alright to me. Its combo ability and fast cast+immediate chill application are very useful.
5 – The changes made so that you aren’t rooted are definitely feeling good with this skill.
Earth -
1 – Increase flight speed by x% and reduce flight arc. This skill has great utility but you want to be able to use it to stop fleeing foes as well when you know that they need dodges to escape.
2 – Casting time buff was nice, but the skill still takes too long to go off, an inherent weakness running rampant across the staff. Reduce animation time by x%. This will also enable more flexible attunement swapping for people who enjoy buffing on-the-fly.
3 – Fantastic skill.
4 – Make it an actual AoE effect like the Ranger’s Muddy Terrain and I will be happy. I hate these line-based AoEs that lack any real punishing effect when crossed. A touch more damage couldn’t hurt either
5 – Increase initial damage, bleed, or both.
I still want to see pretty much all of these:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/staff-fixes-improvements/first
Problem with staff is if you want the cool traits they will lower your dps. In fire grab 5% damage to burning and 10% while in fire and for final 20% cool down in fire traits and watch your lava font cool down become near equal it’s duration and creating a permanent fire field. It then ticks at the same instant as your auto attack. Even scaled down in cof being scaled down we can hit for 5700 each once from auto once from lava font each second that’s 11.4k dps and probably sustained infinite 10k plus on a stationary mob.
It just sucks might on fire spell cast sounds cooler as well as fury on ff blast. But those won’t increase your dps nearly as we’ll as fire spell cool down reduction.
I love your idea for changing the earth skills. Unsteady ground as it is now is horribad, and landing bleeds with eruption alone is tough.