Guild Wars 2

Hello there. People have been asking me for some time if there’s a good Staff Ele build out there for dungeons.

To be quite honest, I don’t think there is. I don’t think this build is good, and I believe that there are many other better builds out there, both for the Ele and for other classes. However, I believe that this is the best Staff Elementalist build for dungeons, if you are so inclined to use Staff in dungeons.

Here is the build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhImKbnRywjEAkCoEeQADJMK0hQhFQA-jgxAYrgQRCSyrIasF3ioxqrxUuER1CBMaBA-e

The general idea is this. Spam Fire. Seriously. 1-2-3 and 5 if it’s against a big target. Use Arcane Skills for burst, and use Shield to protect yourself.

Here is a DPS test:

http://youtu.be/FGALdnDgUE0

Attacks start at 0:8 and end at 0:20. For the test, I took Persisting Flames instead of Pyromancer’s Puissance for Fury, and also took Sigil of Undead Slaying and Potion of Undead Slaying for extra DPS.

You can swap to Water to help put a Chill Field, and remember that Ice Spike does good damage as well. Earth Attunement is good for Eruption as a Blast Finisher. If Fire is on cooldown, swap to Air, as its Autoattack is your second best source of damage until Fire comes back up.

i was playing with similar traits yesterday
went 15,25,10,10,10 though with arcane power and II in water
forget what i used in fire, i was just goofing off though
it wasn’t all out and my health pool wasn’t 12k low

Please refer to:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Staff-and-its-greatly-underestimated-damage/first#content

for a detailed argument for staff viability in PvE.

Unfortunately the thread turned into another WvW debate, which was not my intention.

An updated version of the build can be found here,

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhEmKbsRywjDAkCoEeQADJIeYBESA-jgxAYrgQ+DSyrIasF3ioxqrxUuER1SBMxEA-e

I know staff better than anything in the game, having played it entirely without waver for 10 months from release. Essentially it is the best option for safe ranged sustained high DPS. This makes it excellent for stationary targets and group settings. The primary advantage for staff is it’s safety. Your approach is trying to use it like daggers, this will not work. Yes, you get a nice shield, but the 4th attack that hits you may very well end you.

If you choose to go staff and be a damage dealer you MUST utilize the ranged advantage it is designed for. You must also be able to utilize every tool at your disposal to survive, this means above average to excellent awareness of your surroundings and timings. #4 fire is one of the best skills available to eles.

Demonstration:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlqjucmBbzk&feature=youtu.be

Undead slaying was not used, and my normal sigil of night was equipped (likely not in effect during the video).

I’ll leave you all with your own opinions, but it’s a simple fact that staff is an extremely different play style than what most ele’s are used to these days, as they like to follow the d/d meta. The damage may seem underwhelming, but keep in mind that your primary DPS output is an AOE that can be sustained without effort, anywhere you want, at 1200 range, while being supplemented by the fireball projectile.

On average I hit dungeon mobs for 5-7k with both lava font and fireball due to a partial stack of vulnerability and the food I eat, as well as self sustained might.

Screen 1
Screen 2
Screen 3

Granted there’s a lot of warriors in these screenshots, but the damage can’t be denied, and isn’t rare. I’ll also grant that Berserkers tend to get hit harder than most because of frenzy? I think. The highest numbers I’ve seen on that stairwell was a 16k meteor shower hit and a 12.5k fireball hit.

TLDR: Staff is for safe playing damage dealers who know their role in PvE. It is difficult for ele but extremely effective if it caters to your play style.

@Bluefox

100% truth.
Aslo even as pure dps staff ele you can provide nice support.
Watter 4 + blast can give up to 10+s chill
Watter 3/5 + blasts is always good
Air 2 – good timed blind do wonders
Air 3 to place boss against the wall
Air 4/5+ blasts is 1+ min swiftness for party
earth 1 can be perm weakness

In your build I would only change arcane blast to glyph of storms and use it in earth to get quite long aoe blind or damage in other attunemets that will always suprass the arcane blast damage – even used vs single target and especialy agains big targets/boss.

In TA playing v. similar build as bluefox but with IceBow nad Lightingflash+FGS bug I do more than ~40% of the total party damage given to the final tree bosses in both paths.
Big stationary targets, as the tree boss are perfect for staff because all aoe damage is applied to one enemy. For example at level 80 MS is 24×3-4k damage and that gives 70k for one skill – it is still not as sick as guard/mess reflect against some bosses but MS is still one of the top damge direct (not reflected) skills in the game. Only on warrior I do more damge in less time when applying 40k+ 100b against 3 targets which gives 120k and I can do it every 6s, not 30s as MS.

Bluefox.9580:

Please refer to:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Staff-and-its-greatly-underestimated-damage/first#content

for a detailed argument for staff viability in PvE.

Unfortunately the thread turned into another WvW debate, which was not my intention.

An updated version of the build can be found here,

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhEmKbsRywjDAkCoEeQADJIeYBESA-jgxAYrgQ+DSyrIasF3ioxqrxUuER1SBMxEA-e

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEEQFAWlMGqM2bQyAg9AARRLmIKcRRRM7A-e
Thats what I’ve been using pretty much since start. Almost the same as BlueFox’s. I’m pretty sure I used all 70 trait point, but I can’t remember off the top of my head what the last two traits I use are. Still haven’t opened up the grandmaster ones on my ele, partially cause I haven’t needed to and I don’t think there were any grandmasters that really stuck out.
I’ve been meaning to try a new staff build, but can’t search the forum for them (since search is still broken) and haven’t seen any threads that would seem to have one.