Guild Wars 2

The topic title is self-explanatory.

As it stands now, the Staff Ele isn’t bad in WvW and PvE. I dare say it is the least played Ele weapon in sPvP however.

For the most part, D/D and S/D rule the game… I see so few Staff Eles and I often hear them referred to as “free kills”. While I don’t necessarily agree with the latter, it would be nice to see a bit more dynamicism added to the profession/weapon combo so that a Staff Ele can be seen as viable in any facet of the game. After watching yesterday’s SOTG, it would appear that Anet is trying to make more builds/combos viable, especially in regards to PvP.

The argument can be made that you can switch out to a different weapon depending on what you are doing, but most times that also requires a respec of traits/gear to be most effective. Also, it should be noted that Elementalists are unable to swap weapons, so by the very nature of their design it would seem that whatever weapon the Ele prefers SHOULD have viability in all facets of the game.

So let’s hear some thoughts!

My first idea would be something similar to what the devs are considering with scepter’s lightning arc in that certain auto-attacks with staff could hit multiple enemies.
Another would be the addition of more combo finishers integrated into our abilities, something similar (though not as OP) as when Evasive Arcana would proc a blast finish regardless of attunement.

Focus is probably played less than Staff. Staff used to be king when EA provided more blast finishers for more healing.

In hotjoin, Staff doesn’t have enough escapes to evade all of the FotM thief burst but can be pretty powerful when hiding at the back of a zerg.

I can’t speak much to Staff in tPvP, but with fights typically being 1v1 and at most 3v3, it can be hard to get people to stay in AoEs. Staff already has enough AoE and enough finishers. Perhaps slight minor reductions in some of its CC cooldowns and and extra duration on Unsteady Ground’s cripple would fix this.

All of the damage really comes from fire.
All of the damage is ground targetted AE.
Escape options are limited forcing you into cantrips as if you weren’t already.

The first thing that always comes to mind for me with this class is how much better off it would be if ride the lightning was a skill as opposed to being attached to a weapon. RTL alone is strong enough to remove the need for mistform and blink from my bar on a ranged build.

But anyway, the one thing this class is missing the most is on-demand, single target burst. Arcane Blast is nice and all, but one spell on a 20 second cooldown isn’t enough.

Why not merge lava font and flame burst and give the class a single target high damage burst?
Why not merge Ice Spike and Frozen ground and give Water some burst?
Why not merge unsteady ground and eruption and give earth some burst?

Why can’t this class play like the stereotypical mage for once!

Some more escape options would also be nice. Speeding up shockwave so it could actually hit something. Changing gust to instant cast. Hell, merge gust and blind and put blink on a weapon, make RTL a skill, and give Dagger 4 a quickness buff.

Staff air definitely needs some help.

Air attunement is described as having “heavy damage and control abilities”. This is true for D/D, and it’s true for Scepter (focus lacks on the damage part, however).

I think staff air needs to stay a little more true to the description. Maybe a damage over time effect on static field (forcing opponents to eat the damage or risk being stunned would be neat); gust could definitely potentially deal damage, or be merged with Windborne Speed (AoE knockback when casting it) and give us a new skill in air for staff.

Similarly at least one more skill should deal damage in water. Probably frozen ground to match staff having a focus on AoE damage. Ice Spike should land faster (as should Dragon Tooth on Scepter…)

Earth’s mostly fine, though I’d be ok with Eruption working like churning earth (cripple enemies while the animation before the attack plays)

Fire’s definitely fine, although I feel that for a few occasions in PvE, Flame Burst is useless – it does next to no direct damage, as most of it’s payload is the Burning condition. Any player attacking the same target that actively works towards conditions as a build invalidates the skill, as does those few enemies immune to burning. I’d take a trade-off of some of the burning duration for higher raw damage on the skill.

Dingle.2743:

Staff air definitely needs some help.

Air attunement is described as having “heavy damage and control abilities”. This is true for D/D, and it’s true for Scepter (focus lacks on the damage part, however).

I concur. IMO, the rest of the weapons skills on staff are great except for Air skills 2,3 and 4. They really need to rework then to be in line with what Lightning Attunement is supposed to be. I hardly use skills 2 and 3 since they are both difficult to land and not worth using, at all.

As for staff auto-attacks, Water 1 is in dire need of halp too.

I really don’t like how skills are attached to weapons, and most of the skills from the original Guild Wars 1 were my favourites – like ‘ray of judgment’ on the monk, and ‘sandstorm’ on the earth elementalist. Honestly, I think GW1 had better skills and choice than GW2 :-/ though I do give credit to GW2 for having more variety in dyes (although dye unlocks should be account-wide I reckon, and it’s extremely sad that we can’t dye weapons >.<)

I myself love using staves. I simply cannot see myself using a scepter/focus/dagger etc. and it’s frustrating to see how elementalists are almost forced to take the dagger road if they really want to do nice damage in PvE. I refuse to use daggers. I’m a rebel!

Seeing as how the staff is very appealing to me, I’m gonna stick with what I’ve said in other threads: the trick to staff is to not approach is as if it were a D/D ele.

There are 2 skill types that synergize well with the staff: arcane skills and glyphs.

When picking arcane skills, you get extra blast finishers for your fields. Combined with Elemental Surge, you can really put on the conditions on your target. Wheter it’s the immobilize in earth, the chill in water or the 15 blinds Chain Lightning/Arcane Power combo, you’ll get some major CC our of it. Be sure to test Arcane Power in the Mists though, so you’ll know which skills to combine it with for maximum efficiency.

The other path, glyphs, essentially revolves around Glyph of Elemental Power. When cast in Earth or Water, all your skills will get a chance to snare your target. The lesser earth elemental, besides being hard to kill, also causes crippling and weakness. Combined with the greater earth elemental (or if you prefer, air or water), you will not only have a lot more dps (because of the added auto attacks) but also plenty of ways to stay away from your opponent, while they have a much harder time avoiding all your spells. Which in turn, add more snaring…etc.

That’s my approach to it anyway. I’m still no D/D, but I can hold my own a lot better in 1v1 duels. Just takes a different mindset.

^I used to run something very similar to that glyph build early on, but I could never really get the hang of 1v1ing on staff. Could you give me some more specific 1v1 tips? I’m getting pretty bored of d/d tbh, and new characters take a while to get to max lvl in this game, so I might try going staff again.

Navzar.2938:

^I used to run something very similar to that glyph build early on, but I could never really get the hang of 1v1ing on staff. Could you give me some more specific 1v1 tips? I’m getting pretty bored of d/d tbh, and new characters take a while to get to max lvl in this game, so I might try going staff again.

Well, I think we can alle agree that the staff will probably never do as well in 1v1 as dagger/dagger. Having said that though, the evasive arcane/earth blast finisher into fields playstyle, combined with what I wrote in my previous post, should allow you to at least hold your own. Once your GoEP is active, you should aim to try and hit your target as often as you can until they are snared. If you’re fighting a ranged profession, pick chill. If fighting purely or mostly melee, pick cripple because it will be applied more often and lasts longer. It will be a long fight, so try to make sure you survive. Plan your fields so you can combo with them for extra effect (stoning+frozen ground works great). When it comes to elementals, I prefer earth elementals because they cause crippling and last a while. However, under certain circumstances you may wish to pick air or water instead, or maybe a mix. Fire in general, is the least effective because they only deal damage, and even then their major attack is easier to dodge than even your own spells. Finally, you should omit Glyph of Storms when duelling. Armor of Earth, combined with the trait that gives you an emergency Armor of Earth, should give you all the defense you need.

The trick is to outlast your opponent. And the staff ele/glyph build has all the tools it needs to do just that.

I don’t know… I mean we have a set each for their own specific situation uses.

1v1 > Daggers or scepter
group play > staff

I wouldn’t go around using a staff in pvp unless I’m going with another teammate which I have full communication with. Probably chuck out some ccs which doing damage from behind. I mean, if it were good for 1v1s as well, I don’t see the point using daggers or scepter.

I don’t do much PvP (except in WvW, still learning the in and outs there) but I play only staff. I do a lot of dungeon runs with my guild and I solo a lot in Orr. I run with a signet build to help more when soloing. This seems to really help keep my alive with the blinding and chill. Just requires a lot of moving and dodging on the tougher enemies. I also use the great elemental as my elite and normally send out the Earth to tank for me or use the fire elemental for higher DPS on mobs that aren’t as tough.

I think using staff just has a higher learning curve to figure out what you can do and do well.

The staff’s main WvW tradeoff is that it’s fairly useless is open spaces, but absolutely amazing in favored terrain (walls, cliffs) or when supported by teammate CC. In a 1v1, it suffers the same issues as the S/D combo; the whole “don’t stand in the red circle” causes your Dragon’s Tooth, Lava Front, Eruption and Shatterstone to consistently do absolutely nothing as long as the enemy is paying any degree of attention to what they’re doing. D/D’s PBAoE skills don’t suffer the same issue (outside of Churning Earth, which has some degree of LF mobility) at the cost of more melee-oriented risks, but unless you get lucky on your Shockwave & Static Field, none of your heavy-hitting skills will actually hit. Meanwhile you’re getting pelted to death as your opponent is laughing and wondering why they haven’t taken any damage yet (okay, maybe you managed to set them on fire, but that alone has never won an encounter).

This is offset by being able to overwhelm large numbers of unaware players with ridiculously high area stopping power, massive bleeds and field control. Staff is -meant- for group and zerg play and will probably never be a viable roaming option without support from other players, but you can’t really force it into a role that it’s inherently not designed to fill without having the other weapon sets overshadow it in both utility and effectiveness. The staff absolutely needs to have both its 1200 range and either good CC or good field placement involved to reach its full potential, which you simply can’t consistently enforce in a 1v1.

TL;DR: D/D for Roaming, Staff for groups. Both do what they’re supposed to do given the right environment. You can try to fit the round peg in the square hole but it’s not going to be a pretty process.

Really? I’m in Dragonbrand and mostly every ele is staff, especially in orr cause you can farm like a boss with aoes. Staff is all I use on my Elementalist, there not as fun as dual daggers and they may not have my Favorite skill in the game (obsidian Flesh<3) but they have so much defense, burst, control, and combos.

HOWEVER there are tridents that look way better then the staffs we are offered. Staffs need more particle effects.