Guild Wars 2

Anet – when are you going to acknowledge that the staff Elementalist is subpar in every role category in comparison to other classes and fix it?

Seriously. Do you even play the game?

Oznug.4290:

Anet – when are you going to acknowledge that the staff Elementalist is subpar in every role category in comparison to other classes and fix it?

Seriously. Do you even play the game?

Uhh…what? What “role categories” are you even talking about? PvE? PvP?

You sure do make an interesting claim backing it up with a heap of evidence here.

It is easily the best wvwvw weapon.

Oznug.4290:

Anet – when are you going to acknowledge that the staff Elementalist is subpar in every role category in comparison to other classes and fix it?

Seriously. Do you even play the game?

no. staff is only terrible in terms of single target damage output and in specific situations, survivability.

switch to dual dagger/scepter dagger in that situation, and your problem is averted.

meteor shower is god at killing buildings (20k damage easily, even without a damage build), and a staff elementalist is fantastic at controlling a WvW battlefield… we’ve got a massive amount of combo fields, support options, and AOE damage options.

And in PvE I never had any problems. My friends are even complaining that the staff elementalist is way overpowered. Events are easy, veterans are easy, personal story was easy. I only need ONE other good guy to take on champions. With two other guys I can complete group events easily. Even the explorable modes are very well doable for me, with a staff.

For example, you can create three area heal combos in three seconds, all by yourself. Cast eruption, place a gyser on it, dodge in it with evasive arcana trait and use arcane wave. You just healed yourself and your allies for more health than your skill six gives you. The same can be done for area might, area frost armor and area swiftness.

I’m not much off a SPvP player, but even there the staff is good when capturing or defending a node. A meteorshower above a node is a strong defense/offense. And in SPvP I try to run alongside an other player, since staff is always AoE.

So please, detail your problem and we can probably help you with it. But keep in mind that the staff is an AoE weapon, not a single target weapon. So you can’t expect it to do the same damage as a single target weapon.

Areann.1304:

And in PvE I never had any problems. My friends are even complaining that the staff elementalist is way overpowered. Events are easy, veterans are easy, personal story was easy. I only need ONE other good guy to take on champions. With two other guys I can complete group events easily. Even the explorable modes are very well doable for me, with a staff.

For example, you can create three area heal combos in three seconds, all by yourself. Cast eruption, place a gyser on it, dodge in it with evasive arcana trait and use arcane wave. You just healed yourself and your allies for more health than your skill six gives you. The same can be done for area might, area frost armor and area swiftness.

I’m not much off a SPvP player, but even there the staff is good when capturing or defending a node. A meteorshower above a node is a strong defense/offense. And in SPvP I try to run alongside an other player, since staff is always AoE.

So please, detail your problem and we can probably help you with it. But keep in mind that the staff is an AoE weapon, not a single target weapon. So you can’t expect it to do the same damage as a single target weapon.

so… do you perhaps have any evidence of what you’re saying is true? i, and probably 90% of your readers highly doubt this.

@ Wertyuio
what is there to doubt?

@Areann
I agree I can do a lot with staff, I have found myself taking on champions solo and nearly succeeding by myself in Or however I tend to die because of the respawns on other mobs but when I have one other player with me champions drop pretty easy.
I used to use descriptor/dagger for solo but now a days you will just see me run around with staff so no need to switch I am ready for what ever is in my path.

Areann.1304:

I’m not much off a SPvP player,

Yup. Don’t think I need to read anymore of what you got to say after seeing that statement.

Would not say staff ele sucks but I will say it isn’t all that good when compared to other classes who put in 3/4 effort for 2x the reward.

Spvp bunker ele says hi… one of the most op builds in the game atm.

I play both, i ahve to say switching to staff makes me cringe

when im in staff, its great when theres a wall in the way, but as soon as something gets in your face your so vulnerable and lackluster. Staff for bunkering, Daggers for anything else.

I would suggest buffing certain spells in staff build,

Air 2 needs its cast time removed,
Air 3 add small aoe cone and knockdown to anyone who is hit by the target.
Air 5 reduce cooldown.

Water 3 needs to be changed, its radius is so small and its too similar to 5, so i would change it to summon a water spirit that flys and follows people in the area for 5 seconds or something.

Earth 1 should have a bleed effect added to it
Earth 2 should have cripple effect around it.
Earth 3 should apply extra toughness or aegis on activation. or apply to nearby friendlies
Earth 4 change it so it has a much larger field. or replace it with something new, like a 1 second cast time, pull giant boulder out of the ground infront of you and send it rolling towards your target which knockdowns anyone in its path until it reaches the target or hits it max range.

@ fixit

because spvp is onlything that matters….right

@Avatara.1042

in what situation? the few times you can show your face standing on walls without getting sniped by rangers and dotted by necros? then putting out a meteor shower that doesnt kill anyone.

or putting gtaoe cc that everyone runs around or ignores with cc immunity skills, then beeing completly unable to defend yourself becouse your cc is on cooldown and your sprint abilities only work in air and out of combat

Just fix it Anet.
Just fix it.

wertyuio.8630:

Areann.1304:

And in PvE I never had any problems. “…”. So you can’t expect it to do the same damage as a single target weapon.

so… do you perhaps have any evidence of what you’re saying is true? i, and probably 90% of your readers highly doubt this.

I don’t find this unbelievable, I run tPvP with my s/d s/f support ele and my friends Staff support ele. I have been thinking of changing to using staff, the 3 heals mentioned above are ridiculously good, he uses healing rain over geyser though as the field is bigger lasts longer and he can dodge a second time with in it for another blast finisher.

Ele’s in general are broken, its got nothing to do with the weapons as such, more the skills they offer and the traits. Staff = mostly aoe (aoe has low damage cause it hits 5 people), dagger = mostly single target melee dps, scepter = mostly single target ranged dps.

If they fixed the bugs the class would be a lot better. At the moment there is more work for the same or less payoff as other classes. That will always be the case as we have 20 skills per weapon, they have 5 skills per weapon with weapon swap (10 in total). Therefore our work should be twice as much (skills 2x less effective as the same kind in a different class). So thieves (single target high damage class) will hit like a truck and we will hit like a car.

For other classes to do damage/support they need to have those weapons, for e.g. warrior can do damage with greatsword then change to mace sword for a little support. Most of their support skills are in their utilities. We can do single target damage (air, currently laughable unless fully specced for it) then switch to aoe damage (fire) then switch to defense (earth) then throw in some support (water) without changing weapons or using any utilities. If our skills were as strong as the other classes were then we would effectively be using 4 weapons at the same time to full power and effectiveness